Octopus Overlords

Back in the day when I custom built PCs fairly regularly, I bought stuff off of New Egg with no problem. I need a new PC, and my $1500 budget will go farther on New Egg than Dell, so I'm simply wondering if everyone is still having good experiences with them when it comes to PC components and partial or full builds.

I don't see why not. They're not assembling the computers. In addition to their own stock they now act as a clearing house for other vendors which suppresses prices. I have purchased several machines from them and when I've had an issue I've always received satisfaction from the actual seller.

Steve says ok pre builts with zero support from Newegg.

Newegg nowadays are very much like Amazon: they list third-party stuff. As long as you watch out for those you should be fine.

OTOH, my own ibuypower PC I bought off Amazon like 2 years (Feb 2019) ago for $1599+tax, and it was top-spec at the time, i7-9700K, watercooled, RTX2070, 250G SSD and 1TB HD. No monitor.

None of that is very high praise or glowing recommendations. So if I have some things I'd like to pick out and can upgrade some things myself later if the case and crap aren't proprietary, anybody got a better suggestion for a pre or custom-built PC purchase?

Digital Storm.

I just purchased (well purchased first week of July, delivered last day of August) a desktop from Cyberpower. I went with them based on my prior history. It's been running like a champ for a month now, no issues. I don't think I'd buy a Cyberpower off the shelf (like at Best Buy) because I think they use lower-grade parts (like power supplies). I did minor adjustments to a standard model (Gamer Infinity 8000) and believe I could reasonably make adjustments inside the case if I was so inclined (or get someone to do it for me locally) as it was all professionally wired and situated. Plenty of room and packed with care. Lots and lots of customization options and if you're not a tweaker (overclocking), I think you can save a few bucks from their standard loadouts as they all seem to come with liquid cooling and crazy fans as a default option.

I can confirm that if you buy pre-builts they give you the cheapest MB possible, which is their custom mainboard, not a retail mainboard. And they use the cheapest fans they can find. I found out about my IBuyPower PC when I had to replace one of the fans (I think I mentioned it around here) and recently the liquid cooler basically quit on me.

It depends on your level of comfort with troubleshooting and how much of a warranty you want to pay for. Buying from DELL your getting fairly strong support for a couple of years but your going to get less machine for the same cost. There are some reputable boutique vendors with good after-market support like Digital Storm but they tend to be more expensive, although I have not shopped for a PC since 2015. I know some folks have had issues with Cyberpower but I have 3 machines I bought from them that are still running problem free. One is a basic non-gaming PC I bought for my wife around 2010 that my pre-teen nieces use for browsing and simple games, a full-on gaming rig I also bought in 2010 has been used by my other college age niece for mid-tier gaming since I passed it down to her in 2016 and is still going and my current PC is another full-on gaming rig I bought in 2015 and still runs like a champ. I'm running a GTX 1080 Ti and could use a video card upgrade but too expensive right now. Cyberpower I imagine would have better offerings component wise, then New Egg pre-built and I believe would offer a better level of warranty and support, even if just marginally.

gilraen wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:07 pm Digital Storm.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:00 pm I can confirm that if you buy pre-builts they give you the cheapest MB possible, which is their custom mainboard, not a retail mainboard. And they use the cheapest fans they can find. I found out about my IBuyPower PC when I had to replace one of the fans (I think I mentioned it around here) and recently the liquid cooler basically quit on me.

Not all custom PC builders are created equal. In my experience, Digital Storm did not do this at all. In the past, you'd pay a fee and they would provide whatever you requested. And if you contact their sales department, I am quite certain they'd likely still do so (unless the specific motherboard you're after has major quality or compatibility issues).

Cool. I think I'll compare Cyberpower and Digital Storm when I get ready in a couple of weeks and see how they shake out.

Well, I did say prebuilts. If you custom order one off their website it'd obviously have the stuff you ask for. But it won't be as cheap as the prebuilt.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:54 am Well, I did say prebuilts. If you custom order one off their website it'd obviously have the stuff you ask for. But it won't be as cheap as the prebuilt.

Granted, you get what you pay for. And when you pay peanuts, sometimes you get monkeys.