Which Vendors Do You Trust For PC Parts?

CaryTheSane writes "After six years, it's finally time for my old Pentium 4 to retire to web browsing duties, and I want a new gaming PC. I'd like to build my own this time, and I've scoped out most of the parts I want for a moderately high-end system. Which online vendors have you used before that you trust for parts? I've dealt with NewEgg, and I like them, but I live in Tennessee, a state in which they have a presence. Unfortunately, this means they have to hit me up for 9.5% sales tax. That really eats into my system build budget, so I'm looking for alternatives. I'd like to use the fewest number of vendors (preferably only one), so that all the parts arrive at the same time and I don't have one part's 30-day return policy run out while I'm waiting for parts from another vendor to show up. So, which reliable and economical parts vendors do you recommend?" Conversely, are there any you'd recommend avoiding?

Comments

Tigerdirect - avoid

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Stay away from Tigerdirect. If they don't screw up your order, then they are as good as any other merchant who does not screw up your order. But, if anything goes wrong, they suck to deal with.

Furthermore, a couple of years ago they engaged in a ridiculously blatant 'carpet-bombing' of reseller-ratings - a site where they had an appropriate bad rating over a number of years of being rated. In like 6 months, the number of people who rated Tigerdirect increased more than 10x of all the previous years of rating, and all of these new 'people' gave the company uncharacteristically high marks.

Re:Tigerdirect - avoid

[ShaunC]

I respect your opinion and your experience, but I've been a TigerDirect customer for years, and I've never been disappointed. My last 3 personal computers have all been Systemax PCs that I've ordered from Tiger.

I often hear awful tales about rebate issues regarding Tiger. I avoid refurb and rebate items for that reason - you never know what you're going to get. So I can't say whether or not they honor their rebates, or whether their refurb items suck ass. If you buy a refurb PC you might get a piece of shit, I don't know.

I have no affiliation with Tiger other than I'm a satisfied customer and I've been ordering everything from PCs to monitors to KVMs to storage, and I've never had a problem. As far as their PC offerings go, I can't speak to anything other than the Systemax line, but they've always been solid for me.

Looking for the right parts is important

[Monkey-some]

Looking for the best parts is not something futile, some may tell you "hey just go to Monkey-puters.com they sell everything packed you won't have any problem with winwisbutu 12.x" but it's not the case here.

The reality is that you are going to pay more for a low end system than if you buy OEM, but I suspect that you really don't care about that difference. You first have to check out thoroughly the different components, I myself have a system that is running since...well it's a PIV still running an AGP video card (was a good NVIDIA card so it's still useful for some casual gaming).

So check out the components, it's more important to put more in the Motherboard, less in the video card as you are going to change it in a one year time, so don't buy high end. CPU's are important too, check out the announces from the vendors (Intel, Amd) as usually new lines of processors send the prices down on existing CPU's.

and well otherwise I don't know about online vendors because I always went in a shop...when you custom build you always run into the risk of having components who are instable when packed together. It's a marginal risk nowadays but still...and it's easier to just get back in that small'ish shop (semi-pro shops in warehouses are best as they usually have the lowest prices and the highest geek ratio running them for the sake of spreading good systems out there) to get an exchange is easier than with online vendors who have that 30 days return policies/no scratch/...

Re:Another great news item on Slashdot

[ccguy]

Boho, 9.5% sales tax, what to do what to do? Ask millions of people on Slashdot!

Don't bitch, if you had something else to do other than reading this thread you would be doing it :-)

Besides, this kind of 'news' are to slashdot what a bad referee is to football: You hate him, but he gives you a (socially accepted) reason to yell.

Re:Local Store?

[friedman101]

Personally I'm a socialist and support our high taxes in Sweden, but I make sure to never miss out an opportunity to withhold as much taxes I can get away with.. Has more to do with personal greed than with any political ideology

I think this is a pretty good summary of why absolute socialism (not what you have in sweden) doesn't work

Re:Local Store?

[meringuoid]

Personally I'm a socialist and support our high taxes in Sweden, but I make sure to never miss out an opportunity to withhold as much taxes I can get away with.. Has more to do with personal greed than with any political ideology. :)

And here we have the triumph of the capitalists in microcosm. If even those who call themselves Socialists will lie and cheat to avoid contributing to the common good, what hope then for Socialism?

Regarding the definition of 'overseas' for import purposes, by the way: the EU is a single market. Tax is not payable on anything you buy from another EU state, provided it is for your own use rather than for commercial resale. For some reason the British customs think there is still something called a 'personal allowance' which limits how much you can import, but this is not in fact the case; good luck convincing the bloke in Dover that your Transit van full of fags from Calais is entirely for your own use, though.