I’m looking to buy a PC
I have a vague idea what I want, but not the time to build. This is not my field so I don’t want to be trouble shooting later
So, who do you recommend and why?
Who have you used?
Budget 2200-3000
Mix of office, gaming, media (non professional)
I didn’t neg you - but that’s a bit over the top
I have more hours than I’d care to admit on bfbc2, bf3, dota 2, l4d2, tomb raider blah blah blah
When you have a good career, 2 kids and a life maybe you just don’t want to be stuffing around with screws, cases, pdfs and drivers. Maybe that’s just me
I've bought a couple of Nebula PCs for home, and one for the office at work. Had to update the BIOS on one as I enabled the XMP Profile for the RAM and it had intermittent crashes. After the BIOS update recommended by Lawrence at Nebula, I haven't had a crash since.
One of the home PCs was being a bit weird and freezing occasionally just after booting up and auto-logging in. After much trial and error, and again consulting Lawrence, he suggested it could be a PCIe WiFi and Bluetooth card I had added to the build after receiving the PC. He said it was not uncommon for some cards to cause compatibility issues and result in such crashes. Happened to have another PC with a slightly different WiFi+BT card in it so I swapped them around and that actually resolved it and we haven't had a recurrence of that issue.
This is all to say… PCs do tend to require a bit of involvement by the end user to keep them running optimally. Perhaps if I was willing to settle for default speed RAM in the first instance, maybe it would never have become unstable. If I hadn't added that WiFi card in the second case, it could have just been totally fine also. So if you're not likely to tinker around for any reason, you'll probably be fine with any of the builders, but what I've always really appreciated with Nebula is the ability to chat directly via OzBargain messaging or email with Lawrence and he'll usually get back to any sales or technical questions super fast. So I do recommend them to everyone.
Weird that Nebula dont update the bios on motherboards, should be the first thing they do.. let alone running the ram on xmp settings
@solidussnake: Yeah it was possibly the only disappointing thing about purchases from them, but they've got to get machines built and shipped fast so I guess they test at defaults for stability and get them out the door? I routinely check these things but yeah, if you don't then you might be missing out on a few RAM megatransfers!
I have more hours than I care to admit in Device Manager, Googling old versions of graphic drivers, and trying to diagnose components.
Definitely useful, but I wouldn't say needed.
Not sure if I saw a link here or not but there's a Youtube video guy that explains how to balance and match the right CPU to perform with the video card you can afford or want to spend. I wouldn't think any PC shop would charge more than $150 to throw it together.
2 year warranty vs 3 years rtb for the major builders
And they can somehow put them together for cheaper than the sum of the parts with referenced pcpartpicker lists to prove it.
What about a local store?
You can pick it up on the day as opposed to having to wait for postage to arrive. You could probably have a chat and swap out components if you want - although there is a good chance you can do that with an online retailer too. Any issues that require it being sent back will not need to be posted.
Sadly the local stores aren’t a viable option. Good thought though- I did look
I had 2 x issues with Aftershock within the 2 year warranty period (1 x PSU and 1 x fans going wack).
Both times they fixed it RTB. The second time the GPU broke during shipping and they replaced on their end with new one - same GPU (I did send them photos pre postage so that they could approve packing).
Can't fault their pre / post purchase support, however, you do pay a big premium for them, I think they might be 3 year warranty now.
Noting that, I will probably give the local ones in Sydney a crack next time like Nebula.
The big names are just as likely to mess up a build as the small ones, and aftersales support sucks across the board. Set an ozbargain alert and wait for the next Techfast deal.
I used Techfast, I am happy with what I paid and what I got
PC gaming may not be for you if you don't like troubleshooting.