How good is mindfactory.de?

majinem

Hello, I'm interested in building a gaming PC for around €700, originally I was going to mostly order off amazon.co.uk but I was informed that German sites can be cheaper. Right now mindfactory.de has the Ryzen 5 3600 at €169, an absolute steal for me personally. There is a used Amazon seller, selling it for €163, but I'm slightly unsure on their legitimacy. But anyways, I've heard mixed things about mindfactory, I know you need to use mailboxde nowadays in order to get their packages to Ireland, which isn't too much of a bother. But are they good? Do they provide warranty, are they good about returns? So on and so forth. I plan to order the parts around next week if possible.

Oh yeah, anyone know how much a PC Repair shop would usually charge to have it all assembled? I'd much prefer to build it myself but my family aren't confident enough in my ability and would rather a professional do it. I've tried to make them see otherwise but they won't budge so I'll have to see. I've heard anything from €40 to €100 so far.

K.O.Kiki

Mindfactory are great, they just stopped shipping outside of Germany a few years ago.

Aodhan5000

Mindfactory were fantastic when they did ship outside Germany. I think they only ship to companies outside of Germany and consumers in Germany now.

Coyler

Anyone ever used https://www.mailboxde.com/?

Aodhan5000

No but I'd suspect by the time you'd have all delivery and the like paid for it'd be as cheap to go with UK sites

JoyPad

Aodhan5000 wrote: »

No but I'd suspect by the time you'd have all delivery and the like paid for it'd be as cheap to go with UK sites

Until Brexit. And then import duties will send us back to Germany

TheFullDuck

long time creeper here but something I can actually advise on!

I ordered a full set of components from mindfactory in late July as I was saving close to €150 at the time, vs using separate merchants from pcpartpicker. Mindfactory were also running the AMD free game offer which amazon were not.

I also got it forwarded from mailbox.de.

In terms of mindfactory I cant fault them, I ordered early on the 29th and everything was dispatched later that day via DHL Germany, one thing to note for later is the case was shipped separately to everything else, they came from separate fulfilment centres as far as I'm aware.

It all arrived to mailbox.de the next morning and I actually got the email notification from them quicker then I got the delivery notification from DHL. There was a few costs associated with this which to be fair to mailbox.de they are all stated on the website. https://www.mailboxde.com/pricelist.html

as mentioned earlier my shipment came in two boxes - i was given the option of shipping each individually via UPS for approx €30 per box or to consolidate them into one single shipment. this resulted in a 'annual consolidation fee' of €13.50 as well as the fee to consolidate which was €4. I preferred to receive everything as one shipment so I chose the consolidation which was done same day. my shipment options were then updated and due to the weight of the combined box.. it was now €80 to send via UPS with GLS instead being the cheapest option at €30.

I went with GLS thinking it would surely be quick being a German based shipping company...

In total it took 11 days from Germany to Ireland, while I've had items from the Ukraine delivered in 3. The GLS tracking is also horrendous for updating.

so to summarise I cant fault mindfactory or mailbox.de, my issue was how slow GLS were, so if you're inpatient like me I would advise for the ~€20 extra just ship individually with UPS if the consolidation is relevant to you. Total cost with mailbox.de was about €45, if I had to use them again though I wouldn't have to pay to consolidation fee.


I haven't compared prices lately as I don't want to torture myself but I don't think the savings would be as substantial now, with prices seeming to have stabilised a bit more now.
But at the time I saved €100 and also got the 2 games from AMD. amazon were the cheapest retailer for the 5700XT red devil at the time and weren't doing the offer.

and I suppose for balance it's worth mentioning that I spoke to ED E via PM and he did have trouble with GLS and mailbox.de earlier in the year.

hope that is some help

majinem

Ah, that's definitely some help. I'm still considering going with that amazon.de used deal, the seller says the 3600 was only used for about 36 hours with no OC, nor was the fan used. They have a lot of good reviews but I am worried because Amazon do have a fake reviews problem. But it'd save me a lot of money, €169 is the price including postage and that's mindfactory's base price, not counting mailbox.de fees. I dunno what to do anymore. I was gonna go with Czech Post if I did go the mindfactory + mailbox route but considering they're even cheaper than GLS it could be a nightmare, and I don't really have the money to go for UPS, hmmm...

VG31

TheFullDuck wrote: »

so to summarise I cant fault mindfactory or mailbox.de, my issue was how slow GLS were, so if you're inpatient like me I would advise for the ~€20 extra just ship individually with UPS if the consolidation is relevant to you. Total cost with mailbox.de was about €45, if I had to use them again though I wouldn't have to pay to consolidation fee.

I sell things on eBay occasionally and usually use UPS for larger items. I find them excellent value for money and have never had any issues. They're much cheaper than the other "premium" couriers like DHL and FedEx. The tracking is very detailed so you know exactly where your parcel is.

DPD are good as well but the tracking can be a bit sketchy.

majinem

Oh, actually. If anyone is curious, here's the build I'm going for right now.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (€169.90 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: MSI B450-A PRO MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard (€83.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€51.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB Phoenix OC Video Card (€221.97 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Corsair 275R Airflow ATX Mid Tower Case (€71.64 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 500 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (€72.12 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Custom: Previous HDD from current PC (1TB) (Purchased)
Custom: 2x8GB DDR4 3000+ (From Friend)
Total: €671.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-09 18:32 CEST+0200

(can't post the PCPP url itself because I'm still new here, ouch.)

I don't know what the tax percentage in Germany is but I was told to do the total amount x 1.06 if ordering from there so right now it's about €710, a tenner over budget. Hence why I'm trying to scrounge on shipping. I was going to get a cheaper case but that one went out of stock so. PSU is quite overkill but it's to provide room for upgrading later down the line, but I might be able to save on it considering I don't exactly know how much wattage say a 3060 for example would draw.

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor (£179.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£99.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Patriot Burst 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£45.37 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB GAMING OC Video Card (£221.32 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Antec GX202 ATX Mid Tower Case (£48.94 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Cooler Master MWE Bronze V2 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£52.62 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £647.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-09 18:53 BST+0100

Can save more by downgrading to Gigabyte B550M DS3H but you're so close to budget, why bother?

K.O.Kiki

Alternatively:
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-mb520-argb-ryzen-7-2700x-nvidia-gtx-1660-super-16gb-ram-desktop-gaming-pc.html

Upgrade CPU to Ryzen 3600, case to Phanteks P400A (black or white), PSU to Cooler Master CWE Bronze.
Then choose if you want to upgrade motherboard (e.g. MSI B550M Bazooka) or SSD size.

majinem

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

CPU: (£179.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: (£99.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: (£45.37 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: (£221.32 @ CCL Computers)
Case: (£48.94 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: (£52.62 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £647.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by 2020-10-09 18:53 BST+0100



The main thing with that is that the 3600 isn't on Amazon for that price, PCPP says it is but the cheapest is £190 on amazon at least. Unsure about the other costs though. Plus, I'm pretty sure there's a tax rate for buying from them too. Base cost x 1.033. So when converted to euro it's around €730 not to mention CCL having a £9.95 shipping fee whenever you wanna ship to Ireland.

That pre-built looks very interesting, but it seems way too good to be true, surely there must be some downside?

K.O.Kiki

Check this thread: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058117032&page=7

majinem

Huh, interesting. Though it seems upgrading to an actually good PSU. (According to the LTTForums PSU Tier List the MWE Bronze is really only good for cheaper relatively low end systems.) And a good SSD is €730, €30 overbudget. Hm... It'd be a good compromise option in case though.

pawrick

Coyler wrote: »

Anyone ever used https://www.mailboxde.com/?

Used them for my last build in December, everything went well and turnaround was quick. Cant fault them tbh.

jr1942

pawrick wrote: »

Used them for my last build in December, everything went well and turnaround was quick. Cant fault them tbh.

Are they shipping to Ireland now or not?
I've seen something they only do it if you are a business?
Or if someone has an alternative website to recommend?
Opened mindfactory de but they don't see to have an icon on the website to switch to english

Cuddlesworth

jr1942 wrote: »

Are they shipping to Ireland now or not?
I've seen something they only do it if you are a business?
Or if someone has an alternative website to recommend?
Opened mindfactory de but they don't see to have an icon on the website to switch to english

If you can provide a VAT number, they will ship to Ireland.

jr1942

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

If you can provide a VAT number, they will ship to Ireland.

I can yeah, any extra charges in that case

PS can take a VAT from a friend and deliver to home address or should put it on his address too?

Citrus_8

jr1942 wrote: »

I can yeah, any extra charges in that case

PS can take a VAT from a friend and deliver to home address or should put it on his address too?

Normally products, bought using a company's VAT should be shipped to the address a company is registered and a purchase can be only used for that business purposes.

Citrus_8

jr1942 wrote: »

Opened mindfactory de but they don't see to have an icon on the website to switch to english

Just use google translate plugin to translate the whole website. Even without a translation it's pretty easy to understand German since English is one of the West Germanic languages.

jr1942

Citrus_8 wrote: »

Just use google translate plugin to translate the whole website. Even without a translation it's pretty easy to understand German since English is one of the West Germanic languages.

It is up to a point where you need to read some terms of service and delivery:rolleyes:
But google translate does the job there yup, thought they still use that old method of translation which messes up the url of the page you are on and the keys etc.
Anyhow, I enterred VAT details, went for approval, which is taking a while now.
Trying to get some alternative there.

https://imgur.com/a/QE01nI0

I was looking at this build for a recording studio PC. Hence the AMD CPU with integrated graphics + no graphics card, and the be quiet case and PSU. Anybody see an issue with the parts? I can't be sure if I'll need a MOBO bios update to support the CPU - I would rather avoid that if possible. I'm almost certain I used this exact board for a build last year with no BIOS flash required, but that was a Ryzen 5 3600.

The build comes to 574.42. I guess I am looking at an extra 50 or so between mindfactory and mailboxde shipping costs? Is there a better way to source the parts?

Feck this Brexit lark.

buzzerxx

jr1942 wrote: »

It is up to a point where you need to read some terms of service and delivery:rolleyes:
But google translate does the job there yup, thought they still use that old method of translation which messes up the url of the page you are on and the keys etc.
Anyhow, I enterred VAT details, went for approval, which is taking a while now.
Trying to get some alternative there.

I sent them my vat number on tuesday morning and wednesday morning i got an email from them that my account has been updated.
I dont think i will be using them too soon as their prices seem to be considerably higher than amazon.de

jr1942

buzzerxx wrote: »

I sent them my vat number on tuesday morning and wednesday morning i got an email from them that my account has been updated.
I dont think i will be using them too soon as their prices seem to be considerably higher than amazon.de

I did the same.
When I went to buy the items it asked me for a document confirming VAT as well.

jr1942

Deleted User wrote: »

https://imgur.com/a/QE01nI0

I was looking at this build for a recording studio PC. Hence the AMD CPU with integrated graphics + no graphics card, and the be quiet case and PSU. Anybody see an issue with the parts? I can't be sure if I'll need a MOBO bios update to support the CPU - I would rather avoid that if possible. I'm almost certain I used this exact board for a build last year with no BIOS flash required, but that was a Ryzen 5 3600.

The build comes to 574.42. I guess I am looking at an extra 50 or so between mindfactory and mailboxde shipping costs? Is there a better way to source the parts?

Feck this Brexit lark.

As far as i know that MBO won't support it anyways?
Not 100% though.
But you can get the B550 and be certain it will work.
Yeah the brexit thing is annoying.
I am thinking delivering to Belfas and having a friend put it on the bus.

minitrue

The motherboard supports it and I'm pretty sure it has from release. It has bios flashback also anyway.

The price of the R5 3400G there seems insane, if the onboard graphics from an Intel cpu be enough for this then that's one way to save a bundle which could go into a cooler, psu with fan-stop, M.2 pci-e ssd etc

jr1942

A bit off topic on mindfactory delivery...

How does buying from Amazon.co.uk work now? We get charged the VAT on top of the price, items get stuck at customs?

When I see this below the item

'Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.'

If ordering a few pc items there, all get dispatched from a different warehouse, or it would be the same if says that?

minitrue

minitrue wrote: »

The motherboard supports it and I'm pretty sure it has from release. It has bios flashback also anyway.

The price of the R5 3400G there seems insane, if the onboard graphics from an Intel cpu be enough for this then that's one way to save a bundle which could go into a cooler, psu with fan-stop, M.2 pci-e ssd etc

I dunno why I'm alergic to intel CPUs lately, but you make a good point. I was kinda taken aback by the cost of the 3400G. Intel it is. Back to the drawing board

Boo_hoo

Ordered a Seagate Exos X X16 16TB Hard-drive from them today for €338.33. Delivering to mailboxde. Will let you know how it goes.

Tony

Are their CPU prices ok ? I'm looking at a AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16x 3.50GHz for 679 euro . Would it be worth waiting for a 5 series 16 core ?

https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/AMD-Ryzen-9-3950X-16x-3-50GHz-So-AM4-WOF_1329862.html