It’s been awhile since I looked into building a PC, so I’m not sure what some of the better stores may be, or which may have swapped hands/changed approaches and aren’t as reliable as they once were.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/advice!

44 points

Try using pcpartpicker.com. You can do your build on the site and it will list the best deals for the components you choose. As a bonus it will check to see if there are some glaring incompatibilities at the same time.

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5 points

I love this site so much. As someone who’s not got much of a tech backgroung, it’s been massively helpful in building and upgrading my PCs.

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2 points

As a bonus it will check to see if there are some glaring incompatibilities at the same time.

I’d heard of the site but for some reason I’d forgotten this part. I’ll definitely use it for that at a minimum (and maybe for sourcing parts as well depending!), as I have a habit of missing some tiny detail that happens to relate to compatibility.

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28 points

Watching this thread. I’ve been LOST ever since Fry’s fell apart. :(

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26 points

Microcenter is great, especially for nerds. Sucks if one isn’t close, but they ship.

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12 points

They don’t ship anything that matters. Key parts like CPU’s, GPU’s, mobos, hard nope.

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3 points
*

Yup. 30 something processors in the website, 3 available in store. I love that microcenter has replaced Fry’s (smaller stores that i don’t get an anxiety attack going to) but the shipping is crap and you have to wait for parts to come back in stock.

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8 points

I really wish that there wasn’t just the one in Tustin for the entire state of California. The Bay Area would seem like a no-brainer for a Micro Center but no such luck.

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3 points

that sucks. there is one 20 min from me, the the second is roughly 45 min. east coast baby!

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5 points

My best buys were always at fry’s.

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4 points

And if you wanted delicious fries, your best buy was not at Best Buy but rather Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

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20 points
*

The last computer I built (not for me) was a mix of Amazon, Memory Express and Canada Computers (got the list from PC PartPicker).

Amazon had the memory and CPU I wanted; MemEx had the mobo, PSU and case; and CC had the monitor. I tried to get everything from MemEx though, but they just didn’t have everything I needed.

May be worth mentioning that NewEgg is now hellah anti-consumer. I would avoid them at all costs.

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6 points

Pre-2014 or so I was 85% Newegg or more.

Post, I’ve been 85%+ Amazon. I buy from B&H when I can, but honestly Amazon tends to dominate the PC partlicker list.

To clarify - I removed Newegg from the vendor list. Won’t even look at them.

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4 points

I haven’t been able to leave them entirely, but I try to avoid B&H as much as I can. They were sued by the federal government twice over civil rights violations, particularly for their treatment of Hispanic employees. It wasn’t just stuff like not promoting employees and paying them less, but Jim Crow-era stuff like not allowing them to use certain bathrooms, as recently as the past decade. Once I could’ve written off as some bad manager, but the Feds sued them again a decade later and it was basically all the same stuff, so to me that’s a cultural problem.

I also worked at a manufacturer where they were by far our biggest reseller, larger than everyone else combined including our own direct sales. They were a giant pain to work with; every interaction felt like they were flipping us a giant middle finger. Our accounting team especially hated dealing with them; we got some new people in who figured out they were always trying to claim discounts and refunds they weren’t entitled to. If our people pushed back and could show they weren’t allowed they would cave, but it took a lot of their time every month. I try now to buy from their smaller rivals like Adorama or AbelCine even if it might cost a little more; most of them were so much nicer to work with.

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2 points
*

Oh jeez! Good to know.

Amazon is no saint either, obviously; it’s getting hard to buy from anyone if you learn too much about them!

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14 points

I’m trying to hold off as a new microcenter will open this year in town

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3 points

Charlotte gang

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11 points

Newegg, Amazon, BestBuy. Every so often one or the other will come out with a great price on a component. I keep my ear to the ground on Slickdeals and /r/buildapcsales and cherry pick anything that sounds good.

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5 points

Can I have some of those negative downvotes?

spoiler

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2 points

This took me a minute to see what was wrong here, but that’s really strange, isn’t it?

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1 point

Bizarre.

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