Hardware & Technical UK: Overclockers or PCspecialists - Pre builds

CMDR Von Abrahart

CMDR Von Abrahart
Ok - which company would you recommend for a pre-built in UK. I’m looking at Overclockers or PC Specialists. I’m not familiar with any other UK companies. I’ve decided to move on from Bootcamp and dive into a gaming rig. Also AMD or Intel. Nvid or AMD for graphics cards.

Need help guys - I’ve spent too much time on my Mac.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Although it was ages ago (as in over 10 years) I bought a bleeding edge PC from PC specialist and it came with broken RAM, half set up and it was a right mess.
 

Ydiss

Ydiss
www.box.uk did good by me. I particularly liked their start from scratch builder option:


Honestly, so super useful to literally build your pc from scratch this way (if you know what you're doing; they do prevent some incompatability issues but it's still important you know what to pick otherwise you may be wasting money). I did this and it was so effortless to tune the build exactly to what I wanted. Fair price and good warranty (I got an RTX 2070 super that started artefacting after 30 days, so it fell under warranty - I got a RTX 3060ti replacement due to no 2070 stock! They just sent it to me first, I slotted it in, then sent them back the faulty card - easy).

I saved money by installing my own copy of W10 (so if you know how to do that, it'll save you a good £100 or so). Final build has decent cable management, is tidy and professionally done so far as I could see.
 

willisit

willisit
I tend to spec with Scan (3XS); though I built myself in the end as I could never quite get the spec right.
 

FX2K

FX2K
I'm not a fan of Overclockers, especially since recent events where they showed their true colours (in regards to GPU sales).
Ever increasing prices to scalper levels, cancelling products and orders for them to be put back on listings at higher prices, taking ongoing orders, creating huge queues without any information given to customers, basically trying to "lock in" saless, when there are no products to sell.
Every other retailer marked them as unavailable, coming soon or clearly listed what was going on.. etc etc etc

Scan.co.uk have always done me proud in the past (overclockers used to). Just my 2p.
In fact, scan is where I got my 3090, because Nvidia chose them as the retailer, not overclockers, who also lied and said they have priority in getting GPU's because of their relationship. I would still be waiting with OCUK because they only got batches of 2-3 and had thousands upon thousands of pre-orders, they couldn't fulfil.

/salt.
 

Ydiss

Ydiss
FX2K said:
I'm not a fan of Overclockers, especially since recent events where they showed their true colours (in regards to GPU sales).
Ever increasing prices to scalper levels, cancelling products and orders for them to be put back on listings at higher prices, taking ongoing orders, creating huge queues without any information given to customers, when every other retailer marked them as unavailable or clearly listed what was going on.. etc etc etc

Scan.co.uk have always done me proud in the past (overclockers used to). Just my 2p.
Click to expand...
I never had issues with scan years and years ago and do often check their stock for stuff if buying parts. I only chose box this time because their build from scratch configurator isn't something I've seen elsewhere very much (most sites require that you build from a prebuilt base PC and then limit the parts due to that - box just lets you literally start with a case and begin to fill it logically with parts that are limited only by the options you choose in logical order).
 

FX2K

FX2K
At the moment, with everything going on with shortages of items, a prebuilt is probably the best choice anyway, imo.
 

ubermick

ubermick
Fishman said:
Ok - which company would you recommend for a pre-built in UK. I’m looking at Overclockers or PC Specialists. I’m not familiar with any other UK companies. I’ve decided to move on from Bootcamp and dive into a gaming rig. Also AMD or Intel. Nvid or AMD for graphics cards.

Need help guys - I’ve spent too much time on my Mac.
Click to expand...
Fair disclaimer: I'm over in America with no experience of the prebuild market over there, so take the following as it comes...

I am a lifelong Mac user (well, in my adult years... before that it was Amigas!) and currently tapping this out on a giant shiny Mac Pro. PCs are... well, alien to me, and I'm not a Windows fan to say the least. So I can sort of say I was in your shoes up until a little while back starting to look for a PC. After doing a fair whack of legwork in forums and whatnot trying to decide on what computer to buy, the answer I arrived at was... none of the above.

Build yer own.

That way, if (for example) you get dodgy RAM then you get that replaced and off you go again. With a prebuilt, often times the whole thing has to go back and you're in limbo for who knows how long. You also get to choose exactly (EXACTLY!) what goes in to it. Don't fear the building, it's honestly simple, and the only actual difficult bit I found was setting up and configuring it software-wise. (I will never understand my computer's BIOS, and the constant need to install this and that in Windows to get things to work drives me mental.) You can also make it "themed" if you're into that sort of thing.

My own PERSONAL choices were AMD over Intel for CPU. Not just by a little, but by a LOT. If you go that route, get an X570 motherboard as opposed to a B one. For graphics cards, NVIDIA over AMD. Although to be fair, the gap between them has narrowed - I just happened to be able to get a 3080 as opposed to... well, anything else. (This is going to be the sticking point, GPUs are really thin on the ground at the minute.)

Bit of patience and willingness to have your wallet explode later...

88c01440-be3b-4e8f-b13e-4b1b25f34911.jpg
 

ethelred

ethelred
I use https://www.logicalincrements.com/ for all my builds.

I'm fortunate that I have most things so usually it's just upgrading the mobo, RAM, CPU & gfx every couple of years or so.

It's a useful site as I honestly CBA wading through tech specs and compatability and as I'm budget led most of the time anyway (e.g I have X to spend on a CPU), so whilst I'm sure there are probably incremental improvements over what they suggest, I'm sure I would never notice the difference.

The most difficult part was applying thermal paste and mounting the heatsink - these days there are a bazillion videos on YT showing you how to do everything, and it's really easy.

Your cash though mate, so buy prebuilt if it's not an issue!
 

Ydiss

Ydiss
ubermick said:
Fair disclaimer: I'm over in America with no experience of the prebuild market over there, so take the following as it comes...

I am a lifelong Mac user (well, in my adult years... before that it was Amigas!) and currently tapping this out on a giant shiny Mac Pro. PCs are... well, alien to me, and I'm not a Windows fan to say the least. So I can sort of say I was in your shoes up until a little while back starting to look for a PC. After doing a fair whack of legwork in forums and whatnot trying to decide on what computer to buy, the answer I arrived at was... none of the above.

Build yer own.

That way, if (for example) you get dodgy RAM then you get that replaced and off you go again. With a prebuilt, often times the whole thing has to go back and you're in limbo for who knows how long. You also get to choose exactly (EXACTLY!) what goes in to it. Don't fear the building, it's honestly simple, and the only actual difficult bit I found was setting up and configuring it software-wise. (I will never understand my computer's BIOS, and the constant need to install this and that in Windows to get things to work drives me mental.) You can also make it "themed" if you're into that sort of thing.

My own PERSONAL choices were AMD over Intel for CPU. Not just by a little, but by a LOT. If you go that route, get an X570 motherboard as opposed to a B one. For graphics cards, NVIDIA over AMD. Although to be fair, the gap between them has narrowed - I just happened to be able to get a 3080 as opposed to... well, anything else. (This is going to be the sticking point, GPUs are really thin on the ground at the minute.)

Bit of patience and willingness to have your wallet explode later...

88c01440-be3b-4e8f-b13e-4b1b25f34911.jpg
Click to expand...
Nice clean setup.

Building your own will potentially save money and it's a lot of fun to do but at the same time it's fine to get someone to do it for you. One of my favourite tech Youtubers (Jayz2cents) is a superb source of information for those who might want to try building their own PC (and it's never been as easy as it is now, barring the obvious issue, which I'll mention below) and even he is a strong advocate for people who choose to simply buy a prebuilt.

I built PCs in the past but this time? Just don't have the time to. And I loved the box.co.uk system where you can literally build it (every single componnent) and they just put it together for you. Best of both worlds for me.

The other issue about building your own is getting a GPU. I'm not saying it's impossible but getting a prebuilt is absolutely going to skip that as an issue altogether.
 

Bennett

Bennett
Fishman said:
Scan looks good
Click to expand...
I got my last 2 rigs from Scan and have a new rig with a 3080Ti hopefully arriving next month.

I would recommend them - bit of a wait on getting a build slot with them at the moment, but I'd guess that's the same at lot of places right now. I ordered the rig with a 3080 back in March, but they gave me the option to upgrade to the 3080Ti when my build slot was scheduled in (without affecting the build date). I've always found them a decent company to deal with.
 

Agema

A
Fishman said:
Ok - which company would you recommend for a pre-built in UK. I’m looking at Overclockers or PC Specialists. I’m not familiar with any other UK companies. I’ve decided to move on from Bootcamp and dive into a gaming rig. Also AMD or Intel. Nvid or AMD for graphics cards.

Need help guys - I’ve spent too much time on my Mac.
Click to expand...
I would rate scan Scan (scan.co.uk) best for individual components, but I tend to use Overclockers for prebuilt. Always been very happy with both. I don't have any experience of other companies for desktops within the last 10 years.
 

Badpun

B
I would personally recommend PCSpecialist, made a great solid build for me in pretty good time & they built a laptop for my niece just as lockdown hit last year, they were remarkably quick given the circumstances and she had great prompt after-sales service from them too (battery replacement).
 
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