Abit, Asus, Msi, Soltek, Tyan, Gigabyte, Ecs, Soyo

[SPRINT]

I just moved out to Bellevue Washington from Montana, i thought i was moving to the tech mecha of the northwest....
Yet every computer shop out here sells the same old CR*p. I mean go to any computer shop here in Bellevue and all you can find is Asus and MSI.
I like these 2 manufacturers but dammit give me some selection. Just when i was at my wits end for getting the new GigaByte GA-8INXP i found a new shop called something like Compu$ave. Dammit if they did not have more selection on MoBo's than any of the other shops put together.. How can a new shop open up and figure out what we have all been aching for, for years get it so damm right.............................. I mean is there a conspiracy going on out here in seattle that says all the shops have to have the same product, just in different locations.

Finally a freaking shop that sells what i freaking want... aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[pillage2001]

Can't you just buy it online??

 

[SPRINT]

Its nice to support your local retailers if at all $ possiable.

Plus these guys have all the local shops beat for selection and price.

Now thats the shiznit.

 

[ProviaFan]

Well, rural southern Indiana isn't exactly the "tech mecca" of the mid-whatever. Locally, I have a few choices about the types of computer places that I can buy from: 1) incompetent, or 2) expensive, or 3) a combination of 1 and 2.

Concerning some things (my aquarium hobby), I do support the local guys who have been around a while, as they deserve support and can offer a person a lot more advice from their lengthy experience in their field than an online retailer could. However, in the very competitive tech industry, the local places tend to be somewhat out of date (even in Bloomington, most of the shops I went in hadn't heard of "nforce2" almost a month after the boards had been available from Newegg. More local to my area, the shops are still dealing with low-end Athlon XPs (at high-end Athlon XP prices), KT266As, and sometimes even Pentium IIIs or AMD K6-2s! These places are definitely not worth "supporting."

It doesn't help that I'm on a jobless highschool student budget, but the local places are going to have to start competing a bit more on price (I can understand that retail will cost more than net-order, but when you charge 3X the price that even the more expensive online shops charge, I won't have any sympathy) before I'll start to consider. Also, in this area at least, the places are all mom & pop type stores, and you never know when a new one will pop up, or when the oldest one in the neighborhood (the one that's been there a whopping six months) will go out of business. This obviously makes warranties very difficult to deal with, and that's another reason why I avoid the local shops like the plague.

In conclusion, I usually buy large stuff, or small stuff that it isn't worth the online price savings because of the shipping at Staples. They tend to have nice rebates at regular intervals, and the people are semi-competent (I do my research before I ever leave the house, so I know what I want, but at least they know how to point me to what I'm looking for, and they don't try to nag me with useless "advice" - unlike the people at Circuit City). The rest of my stuff (motherboards, processors, RAM, disks, etc.) comes from Newegg.

 

[stranger707]

ASUS and MSI are some of the best that you can buy. I don't think that I would describe them as crap.

 

[Schadenfroh]

in mississippi, the only thing our stores carry is geforce4 mxs and radeon 7000s and no motherboards are sold, cept the occasional corner PC store but they have stale technology for pentium 3 level

 

[sandorski]

Fargin Bill Gates!

 

[bgeh]

asus isn't a bad brand...it's only more expensive
msi also isn't so bad....it's only doesn't provide lots of ocing options