OsIriS

So I've decided to build a computer, however, I'm a little reluctant to pull the trigger on buying the components online (I have ordered RAM online before and I didn't have a problem with it, however, for more expensive components like motherboards and processors, I'm a bit nervous). I've been looking at newegg for all my parts and actually have picked out exactly what I want, but I was just wondering if other MSC members out there have any experiences ordering through an online retailer like newegg versus spending a bit more up front at a CompUSA.

One reviewer said 80% of his hard drives shipped through UPS were DOA and to spend the money to have them shipped FedEx (shipping all my parts FedEx might negate the cost savings for buying from newegg to begin with).

Thoughts?

__________________
"Life sucks, and then you die. And then it still sucks." -- Georgia Lass.

Jakeman

I order most of my stuff online. I like this vendor but their order processing has gotten slow as of late:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Home.jsp

You can't go wrong with newegg.

Buying from local vendors is nice for items you think you might need to return.

Lookup online vendors here before buying:

http://www.resellerratings.com/

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my computer:
- mid 2010 unibody mac mini, 8gb ram, 160gb intel ssd
- dell g2410h

OsIriS

thanks for the advice. The only thing I have bought so far was a new monitor. I was going to buy my case yesterday, but they were out of stock.

I'm pretty much set on what mobo and CPU I'm going to buy, but I'm interested on your thoughts on HDD performance, mainly getting 1 large volume HDD versus setting up a RAID using smaller volume disks?

__________________
"Life sucks, and then you die. And then it still sucks." -- Georgia Lass.

Jakeman

Hard drives are super cheap. I personally have 2 raid 1's in my computer, one for storage and one for my system. You can go raid 0 for performance but I value reliability more.

__________________
my computer:
- mid 2010 unibody mac mini, 8gb ram, 160gb intel ssd
- dell g2410h

OsIriS

Thanks for the advice. I'm starting to get excited. The parts are coming in -- got my case and my mother board, monitor should be here today, everything else should be here in a few days. I can't wait to take this thing on a test drive. Right now I'm down to my old PowerBook G4, so a shiny new computer will be nice.

__________________
"Life sucks, and then you die. And then it still sucks." -- Georgia Lass.

OsIriS

Just an update....got all my parts and got a successful POST and into the BIOS. My brother has my Windows CD, so I have to wait until he gets off of work and over here to see if everything is running properly. But so far so good.

Can't wait to see what this i7 can do.

__________________
"Life sucks, and then you die. And then it still sucks." -- Georgia Lass.