What's your most recent or next upgrade & where have you seen it cheapest?

Ed-Chigliak

Born out of much frustration shopping in the UK and because I havn't found a decent price comparison web site yet I figure if people list what they are thinking of buying next and where they have seen it cheapest it would be useful. Also one can see at a glance what upgrades are popular and get an good idea what's hot and what's not.

Recently I bought LCD screen 18" with 25ms response analogue & digital inputs with good policy incase of dead pixels. It's got bells and whistles too (speakers & mic)

Model is Viewsonic VX800 from ebuyer for £396+VAT. If you list the 18"+ sceens in price order it's on the first ie cheapest page with all the slow 50ms response poor policy analogue only screens. Same screen @ dabs £682.00+VAT

Next I want Radeon 9700 (non pro) - I saw 3dconnect brand £150 from savastore which was a saving of £15 compared with just about every other retailer. Checked it out now and it's no longer listed... Missed it Doh!

You get the idea... post your bargain as you spot them.

Ed^

Enverex

I didnt realise how cheaply I could build the base of a computer, £150 for my new server setup, which was -

AXP 2000+ TBred
Asus A7N266-VM SE nForce Mobo
512MB DDR Crucial RAM
and a variable speed Coolermaster HSF unit

Including next working day shipping (from EBuyer) so I was pleased with that.

Another place you may want to try is RedStore.com they usally have REALLY cheap software, like Nero for 50p and cheap copies of Windows.

Whatever you do, dont go to Kelkoo or Koko.com or whatever, they are commercialised, advertfilled crap sites that claim to be price comparison sites. Utter crap.

NS

dydx

Pentium 3M 1.2GHz with 512k cache

£20 on eBay.

Beats the hell out of the celeron 933 i had before.

Enverex

I used to use e-bay but the prices just seem to be getting useless now, the only stuff I seem to be able to find cheap is crap no-one else wants, and even half the time, THAT is still expensive. When did you buy that dydx?

NS

dydx

NS:

About a month ago.

Admitedly, eBay is filling with jokers, but if you look hard enough, for some of the less popular items, you will get good deals.

As soon as you start to go mainstream, looking for items such as AMD CPUs and whatnot, eBay ceases to be cheap, and id rather pay £5 more for the speed an convenience of an online store.


mD

danball1976

My most recent upgrade was to my hard drive used as storage. I bought a Maxtor 120GB ATA133, 8MB Cache, 7200RPM to replace my Western Digital 20GB ATA66, 5400RPM drive.

The maxtor cost me $118

CCW

The Epox 8RDA is now going for £63 at Komplett which is an aweseome price. I might buy a second board.

Craig

Enverex

Ed, another place you may want to try are the Excaibur computer fairs, I didnt realise how cheap they are, most things are Internet price, or sometimes cheaper, plus you get it there and then, they are all over the country and are usually people there representing bigger places, so its not cowboy jobs.

NS

Ed-Chigliak

Cheers me dears... already proving useful bookmarked a couple of sites now.

I use cclcomputers.co.uk all the time because they are up the road so returns are no problem. Actually come to think about it they are pretty keen prices too so maybe worth your while to check 'em out.

I like also overclockers.co.uk (esnet) obviously run by enthusiasts and service has always been great. Prices a little higher than elsewhere but atleast they make the effort to link to reviews and stuff.

I bought some second hand kit off a place called fuse computers A0 large format plotter anyway this place buys pallette loads from auctions places and makes money 'box' shifting. I think the guy who runs it wanders around with a list of kit people are after and sometimes he comes up trumps. He knows I want a faster A0 plotter and an A0 scanner so I'm just waiting.

Only other thing I can think of is print-rite ink I pay like £1-45 for black ink. Infact when I buy printers these days I choose the print-rite cartridge I want to run and then go find a printer to fit round it. Obviously I don't have the latest printer model but I don't care about that. I have to pay a little more for quality paper because the ink bleeds more but other than that I have no problems.

Ed^

dydx

Local shops round here have very competitive prices.

I used to go computer fairs but I cant anymore because i work mornings on Sunday.

mD

Enverex

In worcester we have 2 shops. A Medium sized PC world that is 90% floorspace and 5% shelves that just have the same thing on.

The other place is a tiny 2 man shop that arnt very exerienced and charge extorionate prices (and I swear they just buy it all in bulk from eBuyer).

NS

dydx

Theres one good shop in Cardiff that sells very cheap components and no crap.

Theres a shop up the road that still has a P2 retail boxed in the window


mD

Enverex

Excalibur computer fairs here start at 11am SATURDAY morning, as I thought most EXCL fairs did.

I refuse to use OCUK after dealing with some of their forum staff, some of the most obnoxious, self richeious whores on the face of the planet, have a look at Hexus.net and have a talk round there to get the general oppinion of them.

Agreed with the Printer ink though, I thought it was just me, doesnt help that the parents keep buying crap 10dpm paper >.<


Some places you may want to look at:

EBuyer
Dabs
The Overclocking Store
TekHeads
Red Store
Empire Direct
Komplett
MicroDirect
Scan

NS

CCW

www.over-clock.co.uk they are in Yorkshire, UK

overclock.co.uk are good, ive used em quite a bit

dydx

ICT Promotions run the computer fairs round here.

Agreed on overclockers.co.uk

I know several people who have had a negative experience with them. Not returning emails when trying to return faulty goods etc.

For all the case related stuff, I cant fault the guys over at http://www.kustom.co.uk

mD

Ed-Chigliak

Originally posted by dydx
Theres one good shop in Cardiff that sells very cheap components and no crap.

What's the shop called? Were abouts?

I have friends in Swansea so a trip to Cardiff wouldn't be out of the question.

OCUK have been OK but then again I have never had to return anything I bought from them - touch wood. I don't doubt what you say and now I have more alternatives I will look elsewhere. I always thought the prices a little over the odds but its mainly cases I've had from them and the odd heat sink. Boxes and chunks of metal don't seem to break down often if at all. I like the cases I got there although slightly on the butt ugly side they have been good to work on I got black cases that they were selling cheap. I don't mind beige drives in a black case. I though it would look crap but actually they look strangely OK.

I'm looking for a differnet case for my next build something with USB2, sound jacks and possible firewire on the front. I don't want to pay alot for the case and PSU but I don't want rubish.

dydx

Opal computers on City Road.

mD

Enverex

The case I am using is -
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=42057

Which, if you notice looks alot like alot of other peoples cases atm.

2 USB, Mic and Headphones on the front VIA a flipdown panel, and also a hole with IE1394 written on it but no plug, so you could probably add a firewire yourself.

NS

Ladypcer

I just added this to my tower today.

Ed-Chigliak

How about this case by Antec only I don't know if it's a true power 400w PSU included. What do you think?

I don't know why but I find the case and PSU the most difficult to choose followed closely by heatsinks and fans as I like a quiet PC. Motherboards HDDs graphics card no problems. Do you have any recommendations.