Where to Buy PC Parts

[ascalice]

I am building a gaming PC (find the thread titled "How to Lower Cost on Gaming PC" or something like that.) Now, where is the best, cheapest place to buy parts between Newegg, Amazon, Microcenter, or other. If you pick other, please specify!

 

[piasabird]

The best way to buy parts is to time the purchase with sales. I have been thinking that maybe newegg is not packing things like hard drives well enough. Parts like hard motherboards and optical drives and processors and RAM and computer cases are a lot more tolerant to shipping conditions compared to Hard Drives. I have been thinking Hard Drives if used should be ordered separately, double packed and shipped by air to reduce on damage. Overall I like Newegg, but hard drives are more delicate and seem to be damaged easily.

Amazon seems to have better prices on certain items so it is up to you if you decide to purchase items there.

I purchased a wireless keyboard the other day from OfficeMax for the same exact price as Newegg. It was a Logitech K400 for $39.00. I just wanted it a little faster. So sometimes certain items can be purchased locally. It is the middle of winter and the OfficeMax was right next to Walmart.

There is a Microcenter about a 40 minute drive from my house but I have never been there. I looked at the prices online, but when you add in the gasoline and the time spent and the tax rates it is a few dollars less, but if I have to take something back that is a hassle also. I really don't like driving in any winter conditions.

Sometimes waiting for a sale is a nice idea also. With high dollar items like the i7, sometimes they offer that with a combo for gaming packages, or just the CPU and motherboard or something like that. Just make sure the combo items are what you really want. Timing can be important sometimes for sales. You already missed most of the after Christmas sales. Don't know if they will have a St Patrick's day sale for Computer parts. However, computer parts always seem to be having short sale windows on Newegg. I suggest signing up for the Newegg newsletter. Seems like every week something different is on sale. Timing is everything. If you look at different items like Motherboards and cases things like lower shipping costs is where you can shave money off the total price also.

 

[lakedude]

I bought from Newegg almost exclusively for over a decade. They were great, till they were not. Now I try to avoid Newegg although they still have decent prices and ship fast. Good luck dealing with them if you have a problem...

Amazon's prices are all over the place. Sometimes they are great, often times they are not. They have yet to screw me so I try to buy from them.

Micro Center has by far the best prices on CPU/MB combos. I've not purchased from them because they are too far away but I most certainly would snag a combo if I were closer.

So there is your answer. I liked it best before Newegg screwed me. Now I've got to hunt down several stores and it just isn't as fun anymore.

 

[Charlie98]

If you have a MC nearby, it's a good place to go... for a number of reasons.

If you are looking for a case, they have all their cases out and open so you can paw through them and see how well they might work for your particular application.

There is always the best CPU pricing, most times even after sales tax, and then they have the CPU/mobo combos... better still!

They have decent prices on many things on sale, like SSDs and HDDs, sometimes RAM.

MC is better than some other big box retailer... they have better variety of decent parts and equipment.

Not to say Newegg doesn't have it's place... I can usually get software cheaper from them, and if you are patient and wait for sales... usually with free shipping (and no sales tax here in Texas...) sometimes they are hard to beat (the <$20 Corsair 430w PSU and $79 Windows 7 comes to mind...)