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.
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.
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.
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.
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