Who would you buy a new desktop pc from?
 

Hi all,

Looking to buy a new desktop pc upto about £1000, need a reasonable graphics card for a bit of gaming but otherwise not looking for anything too fancy, just looking for advice on where you would buy from.

Thanks

Wigglyamps

Dell sold me a PC with Windows 10 on it but without enough RAM to run Windows 10 (as I found out when I finally go to speak to somebody in Support...)

Yes, buyer beware, but I'll be giving them a miss in future

There are plenty of small specialists who will build one to suit your requirements.

The last “main brand name” desktop computer I bought was in the mid nineties and it said Atari on the box….

I've had machines built buy Chillblast (who I believe are Bournemouth way) for my work machine at home - some serious number crunching and graphics required

They mainly do gaming machines but there is a really good choice of options and the website allows you to spec things out

Very reliable and very good value

Not Currys PC World.

A friend bought a laptop for some work. Display failed after about 2 weeks. "Certainly madam, just leave it with us and we will get it back to you in 6 weeks." This was no use since PC was needed. She bought another one and ended up with two. I was present during the attempt to return faulty thing and it really happened this way. I was not intervening though since then everything would have been my fault.

Their solution is that you need to buy an extra warranty if you want to avoid that scenario.

Bought a HP from curry’s pc world with a European guarantee..after 6 weeks I discovered from HP in South Africa that all of their equipment is sold without a guarantee to pc world who take the guarantee on. As I had been messed about by PCW for over 4 weeks I couldn’t return it and it had to be sent to the UK for repair. Subsequently my neighbour who had worked for HP stated that they do not test the products and have an average failure rate of 18%..it was cheaper to repair those that were returned than test them off the production line.
Best of luck..I buy locally now if I can except for France.

I've also built my own.... not too difficult, tbh. But a decent specialist shop will give a warranty so these days I leave them to it.

This present desktop had an issue after the parts warranty had expired in the first lockdown (not the shop's fault) and the chap who owned the business collected it from the house, repaired it and delivered it back here. He charged me trade prices for a next motherboard and a nominal fee for labour.

Many stores/online stores where you can order parts offer to build it up for your and do a burn in test while taking on the warranty. Usually for a small fee of course.

That said, with current prices you will be hard pressed to get any decent graphics card for STG 1000, not to mention the rest of the PC.

Stop!!
 

Build your own. I did it with no knowledge. Plenty is sites guide you through it, I bought a computer mag for £5.99 plus postage to Paphos!. Use tomshardware, and if really nervous buy a motherboard with chip and RAM already installed. You will get a machine either 50% cheaper, or 50% more capable.
admittedly, now you’re out the EU it’s expensive to export abroad, but if you are in the U.K., Amazon et Al are cheap as chips!

I bought a Dell Alienware for Flight Sim gaming and it is brilliant. 16GB RAM and an 8GB or higher graphics card (2070 or better) and it works perfectly. It might be a tad more than £1000 but well worth spending a bit extra.

Bought an HP Omen from Currys. Ryzen 7, RX5700 graphics, 16GB. Has performed flawlessly, and was as price competitive as I could find. Running W11 now too.

I bought mine from Scan about 2 1/2 years ago. Faultless and the cable tidying is very good. It also was cheaper than buying the bits. Nowadays building your own is very expensive compared to looking around for one that is built. but a good deal. Depends also on what you want one for. If it's for gaming my advice definitely stands as the graphics cards are very expensive, but for a machine to surf and do some simple office stuff it MAY be cheaper to build your own. I've been building my own for 30 years, it isn't really worthwhile these days.

Scan are a very good outfit and charge very little to build and test the components you choose from somewhere like the TomsHardware site.

However, their real hidden secret is just how good their prices are for stills and video cameras...

Rob

I agree with Scan, they also have a presence on Ebay, I have two of their 3xs models, one not used anymore, cannot fault them, Overclockers is another site, the other is CCL.. I used to buy Dell but stopped because they often used their own boards that made them incompatable with other upgrades.

The other thing wih Scan is mine came with all the software on a usb stick velcroed inside to allow me to reboot it back to factory if I had problems.


https://www.scan.co.uk

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_n...puters&_sop=12

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/


https://www.cclonline.com/?gclid=EAI...SAAEgKigvD_BwE

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...puters&_sop=12


I would add if you have a good case and power supply etc already, they all do bundles that are tested for you to fit. as an example but you would need a HD and graphics

https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-z690-oc10

As said graphics cards are though the roof with chip shortages. I was lucky I bought my Asus RTX 3080TI first day and waited 4 months for delivery, but it cost me £650 ish but are now selling between £1500 to £1800 ish

but you do not need that

I am sure the recommendations here are good, particularly if you want a specialist or custom built machine - and I will certainly have a look at Scan. But for a standard product, I prefer to buy from a company with a physical shop that I can walk into and speak with actual human beings - and the manager if need be. I am not interested in spending hours in a telephone queue to speak to an adviser or to have to engage in a lengthy email discourse.

I want good customer service from intelligent and engaged staff, and easy resolution if there are any problems. So John Lewis or Apple for me. Currys have poor after-sales service in my experience, don't know about PC World.

John Lewis products will price match anything that is on genuine retail, plus you get good service, both before and after sale.

(I don't work for John Lewis or Apple).

Maybe not the ultimate gaming machine and not a "PC" but the Mac mini is some pretty decent little computer that doesn't need a lot of attention and servicing. Its top model is said to get updated very soon.

https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/mac-mini/

Very pleased with the service I got from Novatech, mine was a high end gaming machine but they do all sorts for different budgets.

I have had very good results with Dell over 15 odd years. Two desktops and two laptops, all high spec. Good reliability, quality and very good customisation options.

S02

I've had good support from Dell & HP over the years as well

I've been happy with my Dell machines - two desktops, two laptops, two monitors.

Talking face to face with the chap who does nothing but build and fix computers (and will build yours) simply won't happen if you go to any of those places; more likely that their sales staff will be trying to sell you what the manager tells them to shift this month! Aren't Currys and PC World the same company?

This is why I recommended finding a small specialist outlet.

Pc world and Curry’s are one and the same, I also found them expensive and aftercare poor, John Lewis had bad experiences with them so won’t. Touch them with a barge pole.

Dells I had were built with Dell motherboards that meant the PC wasn’t updatable as the boards were mounted differently to every other manufacturers, and the power supply was different connector wise. they also bought out Alienware and in my opinion ruined the product. Look good on paper and externally, but internally and performance wise not so good.

Scan are I believe suppliers to the Crown
https://www.scan.co.uk/info/presszon...rcial-services

I would also recommend ChillBlast.

Mine is getting on a bit now, but when I replace it I will use them again.

No hard sales from them, and their Help people know what they are doing.

I would also recommend finding a local one man/woman band who can "fix" stuff. I have never had a problem with the Chillblast machine, but having someone who knows how to fix stuff is better than speaking to a sales person at Dixons!

I would agree but I have been unlucky with two "specialist computer expert" corner shops. The first could not revive a laptop after I had stupidly accidentally deleted the HDD driver, (yes, I know). I simply down-loaded a generic HDD driver onto a floppy and got the machine going again.

The second guy claimed he was a software expert and had worked on Government computer systems, but he could not revive another machine that had also lost contact with its HDD, (yes, really, I know). He kept my machine for literally months, but could not fix it and was no use at all. But luckily the good folk on the Pprune computer forum helped me there. (And it was a very very simple fix as it happened, involving only about four clicks of the mouse, so very surprised that the computer "expert" could not suss it).

These guys were brilliant. Despite the Apple adverts, it's aeons of PC expertise inside and no one can beat that name or street address.:}

https://www.thecomputershopsurrey.co.uk/ Website is half-baked, that does not mean a thing. I learned the hard way (auto, wash machines, iPad screens) that businesses with a flashy and honestly good online presence can easily survive while providing poor results priced triple above what's the normal value. Guess it's the influx of new visitors who bring the cash.

Sloppy web can be a sign they have enough returning customers to take care of if it's a long-running establishment. Like the above, no-fix-no-pay ain't a shortcut to the client's wallet.

ChillBlast - for the same reasons as AO in #23 above.

IN my working days I built all the desktops and bought Dell servers. The reason for building the desktops was so that I knew exactly what bits were inside so that in the event if a problem I knew what to chuck in the rucksack.
Dell servers can be specified to be very good although by the time you've specced what you want, they're not cheap.
These days I tend to buy the odd thing that I buy now from Novetech. When you call them you get to speak to someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
If you're calling from your normal number whoever answers can see exactly what you've bought of them before.
Good firm to deal with.

So what did you decide to do?