Where do you buy your PC components from?

DaSilva

Im a bit stumped, I know of a lot of people who go on about how cheap they buy parts from! Ive asked around and people have said www.overclockers.co.uk are cheap!

Ive done a little price comparison:

Please note all prices are in Sterling

Overclockers Price's for stuff I wanna buy

Asus V8200 GeForce3 Deluxe (AGP) - Retail
£267.70
Abit KG7-RAID (Socket A - AMD Thunderbird/Duron)
£122.95
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz "AYHJA" 266MHz FSB (Socket A)
£87.52
System Exhaust Blower
£8.54
OcUK Super ThermalRight SK6 (Socket A/FC-PGA)
£33.00
Coolermaster ATCS-200 (No PSU)
£173.75
Enermax EG365P-VE 350W ATX Power Supply
£45.60
Corsair 256MB DDR PC2400 CAS-2 2 (x2)
£138.00
Creative Soundblaster Live! Platinum 5.1
£129.00

Subtotal: £1,006.06
VAT: £176.08

Total: £1,182.14

MT-Electronics Price's for stuff I wanna buy

Asus V8200 GeForce3 Deluxe (AGP) - Retail
£267.70
Abit KG7-RAID (Socket A - AMD Thunderbird/Duron)
£122.50
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz 266MHz FSB (Socket A)
£84.15
System Exhaust Blower
£6.20
OcUK Super ThermalRight SK6 (Socket A/FC-PGA)
£27.90
Coolermaster ATCS-200 (No PSU)
£173.75
350watt PSU (not P4 compliant)
£23.50
DDR 512MB PC2100 VM
£66.00
Creative Soundblaster Live! Platinum 5.1
£109.00

Subtotal: £880.70
Vat at 20% £176.14

Total: £1056.84

Okay so MT-Electronics are cheaper but its still not that cheap so I was wondering do you know of any cheaper places??

And how does this compare to your prices?

Irk

Try Scan

Or go straight to their Today Only Page (loads of deals)

jbkenn

Afraid you need to do your sums again

Subtotal: £880.70

you better add 17% VAT and 26% Currency variation

phaxx

Don't buy anything from scan, they're a load of wasters. A friend ordered something likle £4,000 worth of kit and had horrible problems trying to get it from them.

I've ordered from dabs.com once, and I intend to order from them again - even with the exchange rate, (they're english) and the shipping, it's cheap.
Little story about dabs.com - I got an email one morning saying that my order has left their warehouse, and should arrive within 48 hours. Grand, no problem. Six hours later, it arrives. That's from their warehouse in london, to my house, Co. Wicklow. I was amazed by that, considering the order was three big boxes, one of which was a monitor!
I doubt that will ever happen again, seems like a big once-off thing to me.

Shipping from dabs.com is £20 sterling (25 irish) no matter whether you're ordering a case fan or a truckload of monitors

Oh and dabs show all prices including and excluding vat, something I find very useful.

DaSilva

WOW i was half way through my shoping and it was alreay pretty expensive here is half my shopping:

Stuff and Prices from Dabs

Asustek GeForce 3 64MB DDR AGP RP VIVO
£291.00
Kingston ValueRAM 512MB 184DIMM PC2100 NP CL2.5
£156.00
Abit KG7-RAID motherboard
£135.00
Creative SB Surround 5.1 PCI Retail
£109.00
AMD Athlon 1.4GHz Socket A 266FSB
£91.00

Sub Total £782
VAT £136.84

TOTAL £918.84

JustHalf

Mmh. Last time I checked MT Electronics was trade only. Did they open up recently?

bkehoe

Dabs is probably the cheapest for most things, but overclockers.co.uk tend to have processors cheaper.

BTW, phaxx, the shipping didn't take 6hrs. For around 2 months their auto email system has been playing up. Personally, I think it's delibertly set for a 2 day delay so the customer will think wow, super fast shipping. It usually takes 2 business days from the day of shipping for parcels to arrive. Watch the order status page the next time you order, and it'll show when it's really after shipping.

Brendan

R. Daneel Olivaw

For RAM anyway, try IT Boutique (£33 punts for a 256MB DIMM SDRAM can't be a bad start, eh?) http://www.itbdirect.com. They've just got a dinky new wesbite as well. (ie., you obviosuly know what specific RAM you want, but for the £138 sterling (£174 punts) you could get 1GB from ITB and change)

As for other components, right now with the Irish pound being worth US$1.16, and the Irish pound being effectively worthless against the Sterling pound (worth only 79p sterling today), ordering from the US is probably cheaper.

Also, watch out on the SB!Live! card, because Creative are about to bitchslap it back into the netherworld with the new Audigy line which is replacing it. Tom's Hardware has a review of it today. Same options like the Live Drive or Breakout box, etc., but new EAX and stuff. Unless of course you know this (the SBLive Platinum will prob drop in price a lot then, like the AWE64 did back in the old days (and like the AdLib did as well! Awwwww)).

JustHalf

*sniff* Old school hardware *sniff*

DaSilva

Originally posted by JustHalf
Mmh. Last time I checked MT Electronics was trade only. Did they open up recently?

Actually your right they are only trade however my company can order the stuff! I Think they are pretty cheap do you?

MT-Electronics Site

MT-Electronics Pricelist* in excel format

*remember all prices are in sterling and I dont think they have VAT included on the price!

Gerry

ah, so now you know the difference between trade and retail, hopefully.

DaSilva

Originally posted by Gerry
ah, so now you know the difference between trade and retail, hopefully.

???? ????

BTW: is this Gerry from Leixlip? who came into Café Mila the other day who did work experience there? if it is Hello

Praetorian

I have an "arrangement" with a company in Manchester. They are on average about 5% more expensive and a little slower to stock up than the likes of Scan / Overclockers.co.uk but I get the vat off :cool:

Ahh the almighty benefits of working in a freight company

Overclockers.co.uk wont even reply to my mails basti**

Supercell

Getting an Audigy eX £150 Irish, ahahah, the benifits of knowing employees and their fancy discounts

JustHalf

Originally posted by DaSilva
BTW: is this Gerry from Leixlip? who came into Café Mila the other day who did work experience there? if it is Hello

Ha!

It isn't that Gerry. "Gerry" is a nick for Phil. Phil hasn't worked in Cafe Mila ever.

elexes

ill never order from scan again . i had a order of 3.5k and they fu<ked me around for over 2 months b4 i cancled the order . i couldent believe that . order from dabs there good so far .

seamus

I have *never* bought a PC component in my life, but as I am looking for a cheap build(I'm a student), I found www.itbdirect.com quite useful (I think), and they're Irish, but you can all tell me off if I'm wrong. Here's what I priced up, without Monitor, KB, Mouse, Modem, which I have already:

CPU & Cooler:
amd 900MHZ, Socket A, 266 Bus, 256KB cache
Athlon K7 Cooler

MotherBoard & RAM:
GA7ZX1 VIA KT133 SOCKA 5 PCI Slots (Thunderbird Duron)
256MB PC133 DIMM

Video Card:
AGP 32Mb RIVA TNT2 M64 PRO RETAIL

Case & Drives:
7001/7010 Server Case + 300W Psu
Standard Floppy Drive
Zip 250MB internal ATAPI drive kit
12X10X32 FREECOM IDE RET BURN PROOF
Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM 48X CDROM ATAPI
20 GB FUJITSU 7200 RPM

Network Card:
PCI 10/100 RJ45 Realtek

Total = IE849.48 inc. VAT

It's not a server despite the case, just gonna be used for programming, general fcking about. With 512MB Ram it'd be around IE900, and for a 1.2GHZ CPU, add around $100(Damn crappy badly configured NT machines have no pound sign)

R. Daneel Olivaw

You sure about the TNT2 Pro? A GF2mx is a heck of a lot better and can't be much more than around £70 or so (and that's from retail stores). The TNT2 line is very very very old (heheh, I have one) and really you won't get much goodness from games from 2001 (e.g., Black & White is pretty bland). Also, the m64 is a real piece of cutdown on the real original TNT2's.

Check around for good deals on GF2mx's because they are very good cards for very little money. You would definitely not be saving much with a TNT2/Pro.

Just checking the prices myself using a jedi mind trick:

CPU: For a 900MHz Duron it's $50, or $53 for a 900MHz Tbird (Check http://www.sharkyextreme.com for weekly CPU prices). A cooler is needed if you are going to overclock it, read reviews on decent coolers and what sort power you need and what sort of money (can be very cheap to very expensive).

Motherboard:
Could find the model you mentioned, but there are plenty of good boards for around $110 (checking Tom's Price Grabber)

RAM:
256MB DIMM SDRAM is around £35 from ITB direct. You could order cheaper from Crucial but with packaging and posting it'd be the same (around £23-25 Sterling, max)

Video Card:
http://tomshardware.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=312131&ut=c35c4332c16d34a2
Maybe there is a timeout on the link (check). Anyway, a standard TNT 2 m64 32MB AGP card is $20 from Gigabyte (that is not a misprint).

Case
I have no idea what preferences are in cases, most are around $75 for a decent full tower, with the $120+ cases being the 400W PSU ones, etc., .


DVDROM
http://tomshardware.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=381417&ut=c35c4332c16d34a2 shows it's $58 for the Toshiba (Price Grabber again). You can go to around $160-200 for a combo DVD/CDRW. (I mean, Asus still sell the older 8x one for $42, looking at the prices).

CDRW
Freecom weren't listed. Instead, the Price Grabber stats list most CDRWs that have minimum 12x10x32 for $100+. Plextor have one for $138 which is kick ass.

Hard Disk
The one you picked is $89, but again, around $110 will double the capacity.

Zip 250
Almost forgot it: http://tomshardware.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=7096&ut=c35c4332c16d34a2/
Internal Zip250 is $64. It's really pointless unless you need speciifc zip access for another computer. The CDRW is better for backup and media way cheaper. If you should get it, and external one is far more useful.

Floppy Disk
Mitusmi sell one for $5.99


Network
Couldn't find the Realtech ones. Instead the 3Com Etherlink PCI RJ45 basic model seems to be pretty cheap at around $20 http://tomshardware.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=303156&ut=c35c4332c16d34a2. I couldnt' understand half of the prices listsed there, it seems to really be around $39 in most of the online places for a 10Mbps Etherlink III.

OK, adding up time:
Total is $650 or thereabouts, which is £560 Irish pounds. I didn't add RAM into that because you'd be getting it for an extra £35 from ITB Direct (yes they are Irish if that was what you were asking!)

So overall, the basic price for all those components comes in at around £600, excluding delivery and such. And bear in mind that all I was doing was visiting Tom's Hardware Price Grabber. Of course, you woul dhave extra for postage and such, but even still, it's is way WAY cheaper to shop online through US stores. The hardware is better as well - you get choices of all the latest stuff unlike in Ireland where you can get charged £499 for a GeForce 3 in Electronics Boutique (insane).

The reason I did all this is because I am doing the same thing at the moment to kit out my aging P3-500 and do it up a bit. The only thing in Ireland I would get is RAM, because of all the things that can sometimes be finicky, RAM is. So I could just bring it back and get some more.

Final Thought:
So what have we learned here today? That sometimes it pays to think in advance before buying something in Ireland, that sometimes people can be out to get you for all your worth, even though you've done nothing wrong. So take care of yourselves.....aannd each other.

saik

i built my machin epurely in ireland, and i reckon ive been ass raped!

amd 1400 £200 -peats
256 mb cas 2.5 ddr £60 -it direct
geforce 2 mx £90 - game
amd 760 mother board £210 - it direct
40 gig ata 100 7200 rpm £145 - it direct
300w case £45 - peats
logitech kb £20 - *?*
intellimouse £25 - game
fdd £5 - mate
creative fps 1000 speakers £50 - eircom
sb live! £50 - mate
CD burner £50 - mate
DVD £45 - mate

£995 quid, that's not including a monitor
and its got a gf2mx (ick!)

far away hills ARE greener!

seamus

Cheers for putting in all that effort RDO, I really should have included itb's prices for that stuff, but rest assured that pretty much every price you came out with was waaay lower than itb's, so reckon I'll be goin stateside for my stuff. The zip drive is needed though for college, 'cos I spend half my waking hours there, and having a HD space of 1.5MB on college servers is a pain in the arse when you wanna download stuff at high speed(which I don't have at home you see).

R. Daneel Olivaw

Yup, US purchases are a much better deal these days. It usen't be though around 2 years ago, when the punt was much stronger vs. Sterling. Back then Simply Computers and Dabs were great places but it can be pretty expensive to order from them with the punt at the moment.

Use http://www.xe.net for currency exchange rates (every 15 minutes updated I think) (unless you already know of that site). Have a read on Tom's Hardware recent reviews on Slot A mobos because there are a lot better quality models such as the recent 266A chipset which is whupping everything.

Also, if you are planning on overclocking and stuff, look into a decent 400W+ PSU, as you'll need it for the fans, etc., .

yop

Has anyone actually bought HW from the US? any problem with power on the board , what about shipping, time of delivery etc

R. Daneel Olivaw

No problems with pwoer unless you are buying things that need to plug into a wall. All cards, etc., are fine (at least for me). Delivery charges very from cheap around $15 to 48 hour FedEx type stuff which can cost minimum of around £40.

I found this site though in the UK who are pretty good:
http://www.ocprices.com. They have up to date price lists from a whole load of UK suppliers, so I think that might be a better bet than the US at the moment. Still waiting for the KT266A boards to appear...............

Yup, just checked out the 1.4GHz Thunderbird, and they list The CoolingShop with it for £106 inc VAT Sterling (VAT payed in EU country means you don't need to pay again, just exchange rate).

http://www.thecoolingshop.co.uk/tcs/comersus_listcategoriesandproducts.asp?idCategory=19

£140 to Ireland for a 1.4GHz 266MHz FSB TBird is about as good as it gets.

marauder

www.pricewatch.co.uk

SantaHoe

I buy all my bits from Peats of Parnell St....
It's the handiest place when I'm in town, and the staff are so helpful (well some of them).
*Runs away screaming*

phaxx

NOOO! MUPPETS! MUUUPEETTS!!


(peats)

Goink

try this ...............

Its a search engine for pc component prices

http://212.67.203.1/

any feedback on how good it is ?????