Spec me a...er...shop! Bitches!

Post by **Joose** » February 5th, 2007, 8:22

Right, slightly unusual request here. I dont specifically want you to spec me a new machine. I want you to suggest a shop to get it from.

Now im getting a regular paycheck, im looking at upgrading the bag of bolts im currently running. My workmate has expressed interest in buying said bag of bolts. So im basically looking for a totally new machine, rather than upgrades. The only components from it that im keeping are the soundcard (as its easily good enough for my needs) and the DVD writer (as my dad got carried away when he bought it for me, and basically, they dont come much better anyway). Oh, and im keeping my monitors, just cos monitors are expensive and these are fine, really. Finally, im not sure I can be arsed with a DIY job, as I can never get it put together right (and even when I do, im sure theres something I could have done differently to make it better).

So what I want from you guys is suggestions for a place to buy a machine from. Its going to take a couple of months to scrape funds together, so im not really looking at specific machines yet, but an idea of the best place to start looking at would be nice. I need:

1)somewhere that does things cheap, but well. Im not to bothered with it looking stylish or anything, as long as it has good components put together well for relatively small coin.
2)Somewhere that caters for the cheaper end of the market. Im probably looking at somewhere around the £600-700 mark max, once I have sold mine.
3)Somewhere that is fairly flexible with their builds, as I want a good machine, but without soundcard, dvd-drive or monitor.

Go! Find shops!

ps: I will *consider* building my own, but only if it works out considerably cheaper, like £50 or more.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » February 5th, 2007, 8:59

there's probably useful info in here.

as far as a DIY goes, you'll get a fair bit of machine for your money now, and you're only down the road if you need help throwing it together.

edit: as far as not getting a dvd drive on a prebuild, you might do best just to get a machine specced with a cd or dvd reader, then again, a nice fast dvd burner won't run £25 nowdays. soundcards shouldn't be an issue as most places will try to tell you onboard is fine.

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » February 5th, 2007, 9:01

Off the top of my head

http://www.scan.co.uk/
http://www.meshcomputers.com/

The PC's from these sites usually get good reviews in magazines, I'm sure they have quite a wide range

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » February 5th, 2007, 9:03

Aria is one of the better stores out there at the moment for that sort fo thing.

Recently recommended a PC from them for somebody, and the take up was so high they couldn't meet the demands and had to give him his money back as they had sold out.

This is a pain, but it gives you a good impression of how cheap and in demand there deals are.

Have a look around at their prices for base PC's, then have a look round different sites to see if you can get a better price for similar spec machine.

Not sure who else to suggest narf without the price going sky high for top end gaming PC's

Post by **fabyak** » February 5th, 2007, 10:19

mrbobbins wrote:Off the top of my head

http://www.scan.co.uk/
http://www.meshcomputers.com/

The PC's from these sites usually get good reviews in magazines, I'm sure they have quite a wide range

Scan have turned into prize cunts lately, their stock system is bollocks, saying that things are in stock when they arn't, and if something is not in stock you will only get notification about it on the evening before your stuff is due to be delivered. Their people couldn't appear to give less of a shit and apparently I managed to bend 3 pins on a CPU socket so they wouldn't change it. The pins were in seperate places and towards the middle so how i'm meant to have done that, fuck only knows.

Avoid like an AIDS wridden whore sporting a whopping great adams apple

It's a shame as they used to be fantastic and I have spent a lot of money with them over the past few years but I guess they have got too big for themselves

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » February 5th, 2007, 11:48

fabyak wrote:Scan have turned into prize cunts lately

I can second this. Scan treated a couple of my mates like prize idiots just before christmas. Got all fussy about stuff not being broken what it had been independantly verified that it was.

As for custom built machines. I tend to do msot of my shopping at http://www.overclock.co.uk. They do a nice option of building your machine for you with the exact parts you want.

Post by **Grimmie** » February 5th, 2007, 12:05

I happen to know Bobbins builds good computers from scratch, and accepts payment in fish finger sandwiches.

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » February 5th, 2007, 13:02

Grimmie wrote:I happen to know Bobbins builds good computers from scratch, and accepts payment in fish finger sandwiches.

That,

Well, the fish fingers bit for sure, 'good' is a matter of opinion... not exploded yet Grimmie?

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » February 5th, 2007, 13:07

Low Budget : http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.as ... KEY=174269

High Budget : http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.as ... KEY=114571

Try hunting around for a better deal on that top end one, as I think it looks like quite a good price, but undobtedly it would be cheaper to buy seperately, allthough the key to making the whole thing cheaper is finding one store that sales parts cheaply otherwise delivery costs make building your own PC very expensive sometimes.

I bet if people worked out there total delivery costs on all the parts they bought when building their own new system they would be suprised how much extra they spent.

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » February 5th, 2007, 13:10

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:I bet if people worked out there total delivery costs on all the parts they bought when building their own new system they would be suprised how much extra they spent.

Yeah but it's not as fun, ask Chicken!

Post by **Dog Pants** » February 5th, 2007, 13:15

Last time I bought a whole PC (1999), I costed a machine I'd custom built vs an off-the-shelf one. The off-the-shelf one came out way cheaper. I bought the cheapest one I could, put in a new video card, replaced the CD drive that died about two months after I bought it (the company had disappeared by then

) and saved a load of cash.

Technically I still have the same machine, but I've upgraded everything. In the same way as Trigger from Only Fools And Horses has had the same brush for years - with 5 new heads and 3 new handles.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » February 5th, 2007, 13:17

Those two specs wey posted are horrible, Not enough ram, too much money put into the cpus over graphics (onboard on the low spec, pretty poor on the high spec) small HDDs, etc. etc.

and I suspect chicken just got unlucky somewhere.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » February 5th, 2007, 13:18

If I didn't have to worry about noise I'd probably go for a pre-built system, but I haven't actually investigated whether a pre-built quiet PC is available, off I go.

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » February 5th, 2007, 13:43

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Those two specs wey posted are horrible, Not enough ram, too much money put into the cpus over graphics (onboard on the low spec, pretty poor on the high spec) small HDDs, etc. etc.

and I suspect chicken just got unlucky somewhere.

Yes 1GB of DDR2 memory on a £349 machine is just awful

I was assuming Joose would source the Graphics cards himself, plus did you even look at the customisation options on those 2 machines?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » February 5th, 2007, 13:49

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:Yes 1GB of DDR2 memory on a £349 machine is just awful

I was assuming Joose would source the Graphics cards himself, plus did you even look at the customisation options on those 2 machines?

1gb on the £700 machine (that is to say, joose's budget) is awful (also the £350 one loses outright due to onboard graphics, and being amd, which £/performance sucks.

and all of the customisation is upgrades only, which pushes the more pricey machine out of budget (and there's *FAR* better deals to be had than the cheaper one.

Chickenz · Post by **Chickenz** » February 5th, 2007, 13:52

I only paid about £10 more by getting the shop to order bits in for me. As i had my debit card removed i can only get bits that way.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » February 5th, 2007, 13:57

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:I bet if people worked out there total delivery costs on all the parts they bought when building their own new system they would be suprised how much extra they spent.

Outright, (ordering from 7 shops in total) shipping on my last machine cost about £50, which isn't too bad, given I got *EXACTLY* what I wanted

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » February 5th, 2007, 14:02

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:
Outright, (ordering from 7 shops in total) shipping on my last machine cost about £50, which isn't too bad, given I got *EXACTLY* what I wanted

What about the cost of your flight?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » February 5th, 2007, 14:05

pfft.

i was counting the delivery on the amercian items, but not the flight etc.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » February 5th, 2007, 14:08

LOL PWNED etc.

I'm bored at work. Incidentally Berk, you weren't on a train from Grantham to Newcastle last night were you? Reading Dune Messiah? I was sat next to someone who looked fairly similar to you.