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Home-Built vs. Store-Bought PCs
Greg Searle asks: "I'm going to be in the market for another PC soon, and have been watching the prices drop and the power go up over the years. There are a lot of 'bargains' out there, but then I heard that the best and least expensive PC's are 'white box' systems that are custom build by small, local companies. This got me thinking, I know how to put together a PC from scratch, why don't I just do it? This should save me quite a few bucks, and I get the exact system I want. My question to you: Where is the best place to order the parts (case, MB, drives, etc.) over the web? I am familiar with sites that sell typical consumer products, but have no idea where to start to get raw parts. I'd prefer one site that sells everything, but wouldn't be surprised if there are some specialty sites that provide the most bang for the buck for a particular piece. What do you think?"
http://www.newegg.com
I start looking at pricewatch.com. They are a lister, they list prices of components.
Keep in mind shipping: its usually cheaper to order a proc & mobo & ram from one place, just to save on shipping.... (otherwise you pay $15 extra per component)...
I've done business with many companies listed there, and been happy every time.
Check out Newegg for a pretty good selection of stuff. They don't have the best return policies, but they are a pretty good place. I also suggest looking at Anandtech for the motherboard/memory/video roundups which give the best prices for certain components. The places he references are usually higher quality than the lowball offerings given on Pricewatch.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
If you are in Canada (which i assume you are not) You should order from http://www.ncix.com They are out of Vancouver and have great prices / 2 day shipping. Hard to find good stuff online without paying duty from the US.
Jeremy
www.pricewatch.com will get you the best price. www.resellerratings.com will help you figure out whether you're about to buy from a crooked company or an honest one.
I have been using www.mwave.com for over 3 years! They have Pricewatch based pricing! they are a great company! They have a nice site that is easy to navigate and use. And they have all the major parts both oem and retail!
keanmarine.com
I have built 3 computers. All three I have bought parts from different places. It all boils down to finding the best deals.
shopper.com has price comparisons from many places, and that can be useful. COMPONENT PRICES CAN VARY WILDLY FROM DIFFERENT VENDORS!
You should check out buy.com, as they have a components section, and are usually reasonable on prices. If you want to buy everything from the same place without a lot of hassle, they might be your best bet.
There is no sinlge best "place," but a good start is of course, pricewatch, which compares a large number of online retailers.
Computer shows in your area are also a good bet, as small outfits will put together a barebones for less than even pricewatch can most of the time.
Finally, try "hot deals" forums like anandtech and fatwallet. They have decent coupon/rebate deals you can use locally or online to snag some great cheap accesories.
Hope that helps!
wherever you buy, check them out here first.
...needless to say, i learned the hard way
Pricewatch is useful, but before you take the lowest price, check them out at Reseller Ratings. Sometimes it's better to spend the extra $10 and avoid the rip-off artists.
Advice: Don't unless you enjoy it and can accept a high-level of frustration. That said, two places to go for some good information about parts, prices and how-to.
- Anandtech
- Tom's Hardware
In my experience the following online vendors are good for parts because of their service and prices:Generally speaking I try to buy the majority, if not all my parts from one or two vendors, because shipping can really make or break a deal.
I build a lot of custom systems for people because I promise high quality parts at a competitive costs to computer vendors.
What I basically find is you have two typical users. The Power Users and the Economy Users.
Your Power Users usually tend to want the latest and greatest parts with the top of the line hardware, all name brand, and want to be able to boast the parts they have in there (ie: VisionTek GeForce4, Asus Motherboard.. things of that nature). Custom machines fit this bill perfectly.
Economy Users are the people who just see the computer as a tool and plan on using it to prepair their taxes and reports for the next five years. Their main concern ? Warranty, Part Replacement and Technical Support. For people like this, you pretty much have no choice but to turn to companies like Dell, Gateway or even Compaq to have their major brand names behind the systems. I'm a big fan of Dell and their Warranty/Support.
This is of course if you don't wish to hand out your cell phone number or if you loath nagging for RMA's as much as I do.
If you're looking for a good site for computer part prices your #1 choice should be PriceWatch. This site is a database of the lowest hardware prices on the Internet.
Hope this Helped!
You're definitely making the right choice. Store-bought PCs aren't all they're cracked up to be. When you build your own box, you get to research all the components and find out, for yourself, what the advantages and disadvantages of each component is. If you're going to run FreeBSD or Linux or whatever, you can select hardware that is supported by your software, so that you don't pay a bunch of money for something prebuilt where half the stuff in the box is unsupported, and is therefore shit produced by shitheads.
(Because only really stupid people make hardware that isn't supported by Linux or FreeBSD.)
If you're building a server class machine, if you want stuff like redundant powersupplies, dual (or more) processors, built in highend SCSI... you're still going to pay a lot.
With a pretty good Dell going for $900, you've got to want to futz around inside the box to make building your own (with no real manufacturer support) worth your while.
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
Another advice is to try to combine 1-2 parts to be bought from the single retailer.
Advice 3: watch bargain web sites, especially http://www.techbargains.com/ and Anandtech Hot Deals forum.
My advice for various retailers:
- http://www.directron.com/
(great source for cases, and various mechanocal necessities and cables)
- Dell Peripherals, if you manage to catch the needed part (drives/etc...) during a good sale.
- Someone already mentioned http://www.newegg.com
- Another site i have found to have great price and service in the past is Z-Buy.com
These sites account for most of the insides and peripherals of my self-built Athlon 1.3G box.Hope this helps,
DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
http://saveie6.com/
check http://resellerratings.com to see other customers opinions about the shop. Pricewatch may find you the cheapest prices, but bad service will cost you more pain and suffering in the long run than a couple of $$.
I've also had good luck with newegg (which many other people also pointed out) which receives a 9.41 rating!
For components, I usually shop Newegg.com or Mwave.com and I buy everything at the same time from either one.
But for memory I recommend Crucial.Com. Memory is one thing that you definitely do not want to buy the cheapest that you can find. Cheap memory is can be flaky memory which then leads to a flaky system. At Crucial prices are usually competitive, the service is very good, shipping is nearly always free, and they are very good on handling returns. Like others, I recommend getting all of the other components together from one vendor, but I would buy the memory separately from Crucial.Com unless the price difference is substantial.
As far as whether or not you save money by building your own... about the best aspect of it is that you can leave out the parts that you don't want. If you are running Linux, you don't have to buy a copy of Windows that you will never use. If you have pretty good speakers already, you don't have to buy another pair that will end up on the shelf gathering dust. Dell let's you customize a little, but building it yourself you can customize it completely and save money by not buying what you won't use/don't need.
(and no, I don't work for Crucial... I just like the place)
So sure, you can like the other folks have already mentioned, use pricewatch, pricegrabber, even mysimon to find good prices on QUALITY components. But don't buy cheapie stuff--the best part of building your own system is that you can use quality parts and get it done for the same price as a system manufacturer might with cheap stuff!
But then you go to a store with a good reputation, such as Dell, NewEgg, Buy.com, etc. to buy all the stuff at a higher price. The best part is when you whip out the Amex Gold card to pay for it. Then you call American Express up and tell them that you found all these items for cheaper at other websites (referencing your searches above). They kindly cut you a check for the difference.
This way, you get the best price and the best service. Ahh how wonderful.
Details on doing Amex pricematching are here which is a link on www.xpbargains.com. XPBargains is a very cool site by the way.
Check out our infosecurity industry blog: http://securitymusings.com/
Considering the mix-and-match factor of most big-name PC builders (Dell, Compaq, Gateway) is quite low, and the poster mentioned that he wanted to pick his components, a Dell really isn't the way to go.
Not that I mind Dell-- they make great PCs for people that don't really have specific components in mind, and their support is terrific IMO.
This guy is probably best-off going with a local small PC store that will just integrate off-the-shelf hardware. They usually tend to get a better deal (due to volume discounts) on commodity hardware, and he mix and match whatever components he wants.
Besides, once you've built one PC from scratch, its all the same anyway. He could get just as much of a geek 'fix upgrading the PC later.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
I completely agree.
I just put together a PC with parts entirely from them. I could have saved a buck or two on some of the items, but it's nice to get everything in one shipment and newegg was pretty close to the lowest price I found on everything. Plus their interface is pretty intuitive and easy to use.
Everything arrived promptly and well-packed via Fedex. I've heard some unpleasant stories about returns on some of their OEM stuff, but I've never had to return any of it, so I can't say first-hand. Also, I didn't see it mentioned any place on the website until the check-out process, but CA residents will have to pay tax on everything they sell.
Aside from that, I'm one happy customer.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Roughly, when I built my home PC, I started here:
http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html
They regularly update their 3 machine specifications: God Box, Hot Rod Box, and Budget Box, inorder or price and goodies, of course. But what they mostly include is advice on buying what parts, why to buy them, what to look for if you're not buying that exact part, and how to buy the parts you need for the best price. The last part is most important. You can buy the same piece of hardware you need at many places on the net. The key is getting it the cheapest. The price comparison places I've been using are:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/
http://www.mysimon.com/
http://www.pricescan.com/
http://www.dealtime.com/
Some other people said getting your cpu, mem, and mobo from one place. I'd like to say almost that. CPU and mobo, for sure. But I always buy my memory from
http://www.crucial.com
It's just not worth risking on something so cheap.
Th
1) Offer no support
2) Send you broken items and charge a 25% "restocking" to return them
3) Not send anything at all and claim loss in shipping
4) Any number of other sleazy tactics
I suggest that you filter anyone you choose to buy from through Reseller Ratings. I rarely have problems when dealing with people high on their list.
As surprising as it might seem, letting that local shop order components for you and assemble it may actually be cheaper than buying the components yourself. The days of 50% markup over cost on PCs are long gone, now it's more like 2-5%. The shops can buy in volume and get better deals than you can. Come up with a spec on your PC and ask some of the local shops for a quote before buying the components yourself.
Also excellent are
http://www.mwave.com
... and, for more esoteric case-related parts,
http://www.directron.com
There's no point in dealing with the hassles that other online retailers will subject you to.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
I reckon that between my own orders and those from companies I've worked and ordered for, I've placed about £13,000 of orders, of various sizes. Out of all that, everything has been perfect apart from one dead power supply which was replaced next day without returning the defective one, and they've even been happy to take back stuff that we ordered and then didn't want. I can really recommend them.
Another good place that's worth a look is overclockers.co.uk, though the bias is very much on what's en vogue in the gaming market. But they often have good prices on things, although you need quite a large order to offset post and packaging.
But often, I think you'll find that you'll end up spending more in the long run building a PC yourself, as you won't get a cheap OEM deal on Windows (assuming you don't want Linux), and when you realise how crap most of the components are in a pre-build "cheap" box, you'll want to buy higher quality bits for your own box.
Good luck!
Ralf
Today's processors smoke themselves pretty fast if you run them without the heatsink/fan attached properly. (I forget how long the Athlon is supposed to take to burn up, but IIRC it's something like 10 or 15 seconds.)
To cope with that, there are some PC shops who will install the processor in the motherboard, power it up to test it, and them ship the assembled unit, often with some memory. You'll often see this advertised as a "bundle". Perhaps the best-known (though not always cheap) vendor is JNCS.
This is the approach one of my moderately-technical classmates took-- she was quite up for installing the OS, PCI cards, and drivers, but didn't trust herself to diagnose a machine that, say, wouldn't power-up initially.
As I recall, the reseller installed the mobo and CPU in a case, and she took it from there. That way she was able to spec out her own spiffy video-editing system without coping with the nail-biting parts. Not necessarily a bad approach for the first-time PC builder.
> The only thing to consider is where to get the monitor from,
> since it is so heavy, so shipping costs are high.
Yeah, I was thinking of going with a local vendor myself when I built my PC year before last. But I scoured eBay and found several places who specialize in monitors who list them there, and who have very high feedback ratings in the thousands. I looked around for a good buy and good return terms in case the monitor had defects after shipping, and ended up bidding on a big beautiful used 20-inch Apple ColorSync, an oldie but goodie from the days before candy-colored plastic that I remembered liking a lot back in college when we had one connected to a 7200 in the computer lab. They use those Mac connectors but come with VGA adapters. And of course hey have a Sony Trinitron tube instead of a shadow mask--don't buy cheap shadow mask CRTs, especially used...
So, I lay in wait and slipped in a bid of $251.55 right at the last minute, which is a good thing because a bid sniper tried to take it but his max bid was $250. Added $40 dollars shipping which was advertised by the vendor, and I got a nice pretty 20-incher for just under $300. Not bad considering how hard it is to find a real 20-incher even today compared to all the 19-inchers out there. And yes, you can see and enjoy the difference...
When I opened that huge box--those old 20-inch trinitrons have HUGE and heavy tubes--I carefully perched it onto my sturdy desk, hooked it up, and turned it on. There was a little red discoloration in one bottom corner--not good, so I e-mailed them and they said that monitors sometimes need a few days after being shipped to get back into perfect shape, since they've been jostled a bit; but there was a 30-day period in which I could send it back. I waited a week and the reddish area just went away, and for nearly 2 years this monitor has been running perfectly and impressing all my friends with their puny 19-inchers and 17-inchers.
So, I say at least look on eBay for some monitors you might want because of special features and such. If you can find a good price once the shipping is factored in on a monitor you can't get locally so cheaply, and the vendor has good return policies and a lot of positive feedback, it's worth a try.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
- Purchase extra sensitive components such as motherboards and RAM from a mom&pop store. I've seen motherboards shipped in tiny cardboard boxes with no padding whatsoever. I've also seen motherboards shipped in gigantic boxes with only one or two of those air pillows for padding.
- Other things such as hard drives and video cards are typically padded well, so they're pretty safe for shipping.
- Unless you're buying in bulk or a number of things from one supplier, buy the cheap things like floppy drives and keyboards locally. The shipping charges frequently aren't worth it.
- Even if you're not going to buy from the local stores, talk with the builders there. Ask them their opinion on various hardware; pros and cons, issues to watch out for, that sort of thing. Get several viewpoints if you can. While they'll try to pump their products, the people who work there are less corporate drones than the Best Buy type people, so they'll be more willing to let you know of caveats, and they'll probably be more knowledgable.
- Don't skimp on the power supply, no matter how tempting the price difference between, say, a 250W and 350W PS. You'd be amazed the kind of difference in stability you can see between even a 250W and a 300W, in certain situations.
- Always check out the return policy and RMA procedures. Local shops will often have decent warranties on their stock, even if they don't build your system for you. Also, some manufacturers have excellent return policies. Western Digital typically has a 3yr warranty, All Components has a lifetime warranty on their RAM, and it's ridiculously easy to get a defective 3Com card replaced. I've replaced stuff free and clear from each of those three vendors after a poor PS blew a computer. Few questions asked.
- Last, don't skimp on the case. There are a lot of $7 cases out there, but do you really want to coat the inside of yours with your blood after cutting an artery on a sharp edge? Once you build a machine yourself, you'd be surprised how often you end up going back inside that case... just to look around, or to add stuff.
- If you're looking to mod your box, you'll probably have to purchase online. I haven't seen a lot of local shops supplying light and window kits. That could just be my area, though.
- Finally, though it goes without saying I'm going to say it, be very conscientious about whether or not you're really getting a good deal by buying online as opposed to locally. If you can get that pimpin' mobo for $3 online, it's still not worth it if it arrives damaged with no return policy after paying $25 shipping and handling.
- Speaking of which, you might want to check out various resources like Tom's Hardware Guide to see the reliability of the products you want to purchase. Several years ago I purchased an ABit IT5H motherboard and had to send it back twice. I found out much later that this board in particular had a 50% dead on arrival rate! Had I known that at the outset, I would've selected a different one, or purchased from a local shop so I could get an immediate return.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope this helps.- Jonathan
Since everyone else is listing favorite vendors, I had good results with The Chip Merchant (an Ars favorite) and Sunset Marketing. No connection to either other than satisfaction.
There was also a Kuro5hin story on this a few weeks ago. Too lazy to link it...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
You might also look at CCL, who I found very good. I bought a monitor through them when my old one died suddenly a few weeks ago. They have a plain but efficient web site, which appears to contain accurate current prices on their whole range. Those prices are pretty good, and they are often listed as the supplier in hardware tests by PC Pro magazine. You can order online (which got a 5% discount at the time I was ordering, but check that), or over the phone. When I did call to check a couple of details, there was no long wait to speak to someone and their staff were helpful and efficient. I value companies that give good service, so I offer this recommendation to others.
On the other hand, I wouldn't go anywhere near Jungle.com, who ripped me off completely. They failed to deliver a simple order for toner refills for weeks, completely misinformed me about the progress of the order, told me it was too late to cancel after a couple of days (we're on dubious legal grounds already), but then delivered the goods more than a month later and billed my credit card in spite of my explicit instructions not to do so (very dubious indeed). It then took several weeks of chasing them and Barclaycard to get my money refunded and a measly £5 compensation (which just about covered the interest I'd had on my Barclaycard as a result of not quite clearing it that month as a direct result of the incorrect debit by Jungle.com). I do not value this level of service, even from a web site that so carefully says "value - innovation - trust" in the header (ha!), so I pass on a warning to everyone else. May their pathetic service be the end of them.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
My friends and I use scan.co.uk. They are the cheapest I've found, delivery is fast, and they refund your money with absolutely no quibble if you return it (even if it's not faulty). They also do dozens of special offers every day, at TodayOnly. No connection to them, just my friends and I are satisfied customers. Recommended.
Building your own computer is probably cheaper, but the major benefit is that you can make sure you have an ideal fit for your money of the best component parts. I remember one major UK store headlining the cheapest P4 system available, but independent tests showed a cheap motherboard crippled the speed to well below an equivalent P3 system. Computers these days are so much like lego blocks my friend built his in under 1hr on his first attempt.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Personally, for my uses, I'm use the computer for the latter purpose and have been quite happy running Linux on a cheap Cyrix 300 MHz system. I do lot of surfing, writing, and spreadsheet analysis with StarOffice (actually, I've just upgraded to OpenOffice 1.0). However, I have built a number of systems in the past and have found these links are a must:
Pricegrabber
Pricewatch
CNET's price comparison site
Techbargains (if you are patient enough to wait for that perfect machine to be affordable)
Your time is really worth the money, and when it comes down to it, those cheap systems from Dell, Compgeeks, or Walmart are actually worth the heartache that you may encounter later when you find out that the motherboard you bought has spotty USB support in Windows 98. And if you add up how much you'd spend to make a comparable system, you'll find out that you're only saving a miniscule amount, if that. But again, if you wanted a high-end machine, then building your own will definitely be worth the time and effort to find the right parts and putting them together.
Linux at home
Recently I bought a prebuilt system, to be precise, a eMachines T4155, for $549 at Office Depot (a floor model discount on a clearance item, so at least I knew it was burned in for a considerable time)...
The reasons were simple, my car died on me some months back, so I needed to get something from a local retailer as opposed to running all over the Puget Sound looking for decent bargains, didn't feel like waiting a week for miscellaneous components purchased through PriceWatch, and didn't have a check card/credit card to make the purchase with otherwise... Considering the area the Puget Sound covers, I would have wasted a couple of days running about, which, if you prorated the time spent @around $10 an hour (because that is the minimum you would charge if you were building a system for someone else), then you're talking $160... And now the specs:
FIC VC31 motherboard - Usually around $90 on average...
Pentium 4, 1.5Ghz - Usually another $80-$100, depending on street prices at the time...
Maxtor 60 Gb ATA 100 - About $120 average...
LG CD-R/W, 12x8x32 - Usually about $50-$60...
Samsung 12 DVD ROM - Approximately $40-$50...
256 MB PC133 SDRAM - $30-$40...
Reference Geforce2 MX card - $40...
Micro ATX case/PS - $30 for a good run of the mill case...
Since most who buy their hardware also have to go to several different retailers to pinch every penny, lets assume each one, if you pick the cheapest rates, charges you about $8-$12 for UPS ground, leaving you waiting about a week for you to recieve your components... Total would come to about $30-$50
Total cost (based on average street price): $490, add shipping and you have almost the same price I paid for the prebuilt model, which for all intents and purposes uses the cheapest "passable" hardware...
Sure, some can build for cheaper, with better components, but you probably would wind up spending more (unless you know where I can get a nice Geforce4 card for under $50, which I doubt)...
However, for a starting foundation, it's more than adequate... In either case, it's a tossup, between convenient and quick, and marginal savings VS inconvenient waits...
The bottom line for PC hardware has finally reached bottom, you can't really get it any cheaper, unless the company that made it is going to declare Chapter 13 and vanish off the face of the earth...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I think it was at crucial.com where I saw this explaination. Apparently, when the major brands make RAM, they put it through a lot of stress testing, and ensure that it works well past the required specifications. Supposedly chips that pass this testing have a 99% chance or so of never failing. If the chip doesn't make it through the full testing, then tell sell it off to other companies, who are required to sell it without the brand name on it. That's what generic RAM is. So some generic RAM will work fine, provided you don't try to overclock the hell out of it or anything. Other times you'll get a chip that'll barely work at all. I'm pretty sure they throw out the chips that don't pass the minimum testing, but even so, you're buying parts that won't work if you go a little off spec. So I'd say buying brand name RAM is well worth the added price, as you tend to get better warrenty terms, plus you know it's passed every test they've thrown at it.
Well everyone else is suggesting stuff so I figure I will too. I'm looking to buy a PC in the UK sometime soon and for the past couple of months I've kept my eye on the prices. Here's my contribution:
Dabs.com
Tried and trusted. I've bought plenty of stuff from these guys in the past with 100% satisfaction. Their site is a little annoying but they have the widest selection of stock by far. Their prices are very good if not the best. Product information (when available) is not terribly informative so you should know what you're looking for before you arrive.
Aria.co.uk
Only bought a couple of things from these people and had no problems. Less stock than dabs but their prices are good. Specifically, they've got the best prices on Athlon XPs (1800 - 2100). And their CPU coolers & PSUs are cheap too. Product info on this site is poor and the design isn't much better.
Overclockers.co.uk
Bought one thing from here and again no problems. Not a great deal of stock but the stuff they do have is top notch (in most cases). Their prices are slightly off-par, however they've currently got the best price on some CDRWs, HDDs and sound cards. Good product info available. These guys know their stuff. Their site design leaves to be desired.
Overclock.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet. Their product info is good but have pretty limited stock, mainly geared towards.. well.. you guessed it.. overclocking. Some of their prices are good while others are quite off-par. Their site is navigable but heavily image-laden.
Overclockingstore.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet. Their prices are reasonable but I've not found anything I wanted cheaper here. A large selection of overclocking stuff available and a pretty poor selection of regular components. Good looking site.
Tekheads.co.uk
Bought stuff from here without any problems. Their site is good and prices vary. Mostly reasonable and sometimes better than dabs. They've currently got best prices on sound cards. Product info available is ok.
Kustom.co.uk
Nasty site but they have a selection of stuff you'll have a hard time finding elsewhere. Mainly oriented towards cases and accessories. Bought a couple of things from these guys, again, without any problems.
Crucial.com/uk
OK, this isn't a retail site, but Crucial sell their RAM online at price up to £30 cheaper than elsewhere. If you're looking for ECC Registered 512MB PC2100 DDR chips like me, then you'll appreciate the £119.69 price tag.
CCLComputers.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet but I certainly plan to. Simplistic site but very navigable. A good selection of stock and they've got the best prices on some CDRWs, AIW Radeons and the sweet sweet Iiyama Pro 452.
EBuyer.com
Not bought anything from here either. Not too keen on their site but they're one of the few who offer Antec PSUs, with a reasonable price too.
Scan.co.uk
Found this thanks to other posts in this discussion. Have to say I'm very impressed. A tasteful cut-to-the-chase design with decent product information. I was surprised to see just how wide a selection of stock they have. Not as large as dabs but they stock some decent stuff. I was surprised to find the dual Athlon Gigabyte mobo on there. Their selection of hard drives leaves to be desired but the rest is OK. Best prices on Enermax PSUs.
There are other sites out there too, such as Simply.co.uk, Action.com, Globaldirect.co.uk, Dcsplc.co.uk, Stuff-uk.net, Insight.com and Jungle.com but I've yet to be impressed. In particular, Jungle.com is probably worth avoiding. I've heard some horror stories.
So to wrap things up I'd have to say that if you can build your own PC it's definately worth doing so. The pre-built systems you can get may be cheaper and may have an amazing "2GHz P4, 60GB HDD DVD, Scanner etc.. etc..", but on the inside the components will be from Happy Shopper or Value Land and you'll get about as much performance out of your system as a frightened donkey.
However, if you're going to build your own PC you need to know exactly which components you need/want beforehand. These sites will have the stock you want but in most cases won't give you accurate or useful product information. It's a lengthy process but it's worth consulting newsgroups and/or online reviews. Storagereview.com, for example, has a leaderboard where you can get up to date on the decent and not-so-decent hard drives.
There are countless hardware review sites out there. It's worth searching for the product comparisons. Tomshardware.com and Anandtech.com are popular sites worth a look.
Good luck!
My life is one big siesta in which I'm dreaming I wished my life was one big siesta.