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.
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.
In their defense, I believe a lot of their shipping rules changed during the crypto/covid/AI shortages of the past few years to prevent scalpers from vacuuming up their supply. They limited a lot of the big ticket items to in-store only specifically so you couldn’t order them from Timbuktu and resell them.
Which, props to them, respect. But holy crap does it make them useless as a retailer unless you’re one of the lucky fucks who lives within a 2 hour drive of one.
Yeah that’s fair and they aren’t my first choice but I trust them to be reliable. If they have what I need then I know I can buy the product and receive it.
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.
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.
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.
If one wants an occasional old gizmo that’s no longer made, eBay can be helpful.
Specifically for cables – which aren’t that pricy relative to other items people buy, and are often marked up a lot by retailers – I’ve gone to Monoprice for quite some years. Useful if getting a bunch of cables.
I got an old gaming laptop on eBay for like $300 that I take with me on work trips. The person just upgraded or something and wanted to get rid of it.
I know people sometimes have bad experiences on ebay, but I feel like if you message the seller and feel out the situation in advance, you can avoid a lot of the problems. I always try to buy from individuals vs. from someone whose entire business is selling on ebay, and I’ve never been burned.
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.
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.
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.
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
Add comment