Folks in North America, where do you like to get PC parts online these days?
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.
For cheaper items, I unfortunately use Amazon. I try to do my research and avoid scams. For more expensive items, I’ve used a variety of methods such as eBay, my friend, and a stranger posting on (also unfortunately) Facebook Marketplace.
Usually Newegg and Amazon, sometimes NextWarehouse for things I’m not in a rush for (they do a lot of drop shipping from the distributors/manufactures themselves so it’s sometimes cheaper but also slower). B&H is also worth a look, sometimes they do price drops on things & end up being cheaper than the other places.
There’s a local Best Buy near me that’s in a special tax district (lower sales tax) so I could try checking them out but usually the prices there are marked up so much that it’s not worth it IMO.
There aren’t any Micro Centers near me, it’d take a fair amount of travel to get to one.
I usually buy used refurbished components from reputable stores. Likely eBay too. Being in the tech industry I realized how mind bogglingly cheap even slightly “old” hardware is. If you want an entry level/mid tier you can buy a used office PC with an i7 8700k or something (make sure that specific model has GPU power overhead) and buy a refurbished gtx 1080 ti. Make sure to add an SSD if it doesn’t have one already. In fact skip the HDD and buy a high capacity SSD, they are cheap nowadays.
I die a little inside whenever I see someone clueless buy a 1000$ computer with an HDD, and expect it to be way faster. And I die a little more inside when my work’s laptop, selling for 120$, with SSD and upgraded ram remain unsold for months.
I’m from the UK and ordered a GPU from B&H as they had a sale on and as a result it was a bunch cheaper - there was a some confusion on the billing address (mine doesn’t fit nicely in a US format & so got messed up when they tried to store it or something along those lines) but they were great to deal with about it so I’d definitely recommend them also
Probably not for everyone, but Facebook marketplace with local pickup is really good for some parts. YMMV
I was planning on buying an RX 6700XT from Newegg for $450ish, but instead managed to get a 6600 (non XT) for $80. I then found a 6700XT a month later for $300, bought it, and gave the 6600 to my cousin’s kid.
I also bought a shitbox I turned into a Plex server for $75.
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.
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.
Most of the parts for my last 2 builds have been from Micro Center, but if I’m just buying one or two components I hit up my local Best Buy first, and then Newegg if Best Buy doesn’t have what I want.
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