Now, this is weird for me since I would just straight up build a pc for this person, and send it to him; or at least give him a list on what to buy, but my friend lives in a very rural part of Alaska and nowhere near where parts can actually be bought. The closest most reliable place would be Anchorage and even then you only get stores like BestBuy and similar stores. So, still basically pre-built right? lol. Now, the issue I'm having is the shipping. To ship basically anything to Alaska is expensive af unless you go through certain outlets like Amazon Prime. And buying parts on Amazon compared to other places doesn't offset the cost that is required for shipping. So you see my dilemma yet? Now, I have a found a few pc's I'm happy with since he is a first-time gamer and doesn't need anything more than 900$. Such as this CyberPower at Amazon. Now, for your help: Can you help me find anything similar to this? Or at least equal in specs that won't reck him in shipping? I want to get him Ryzen instead of Intel but, well, I'm not going to worry too much as long it's got good specs all around. Remember, 900$ dollars is his limit, but if you could find something worth 1k actually worth it I might be able to talk him into it. Also, try and make sure it ships cheaply. Some places that build your pc tried to charge him 200$ to ship it. I'm kind of burnt out looking for a reputable and decently priced pc for him, so any help is appreciated. The main reason I'm doing this instead of having him buy said PC is because I'm just making sure I explored all available avenues, ya know?
Pretty similar computer on bestbuy for pickup in anchorage? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberp...-1tb-hard-drive-black/6225214.p?skuId=6225214 Oh hang on you mentioned it in post. nm :d Bestbuy literally seems like most reliable place though.
Just a thought, he could try looking on reddits hardware swap and see if anyone in alaska is looking to sell used parts for a decent price.
There should probably be one or two "family owned" computer shops in your nearest city. Try looking for them online and pay them a visit, maybe you'll find some interesting stuff. Probably not, but if it's not very far I'd give it a go.
And it is, lol, that's the other pc I was looking at. But he's 10 hours away and because of his job, it's hard to get time off. But I'm starting to think he might need to since for the price it's pretty damn good.
Mm, only downside is no ssd. 10 hours away eesh. Try this?: https://www.overstock.com/search?keywords=computer&SearchType=Header Their policy on Alaska shipping: https://overstock.force.com/help/s/article/Alaska-and-Hawaii-Shipping So not exactly sure on how much they'd charge but might be plausible.
Im using cyberpower, still working after 5 years, but the specs to price rate is BS. I paid 1400$ for a 8gb ram. Make sure you get atleast 16gb+ with SSD storage.
Why not going with the amazon one btw? Were they charging a lot of postage or just not posting to the area? I changed my postcode to a couple of alaskan ones and it kept saying it was free delivery.
Naw, the Amazon is his fallback in case nothing better shows up. Reason being is because it's a good beginner gamer PC and he has Prime so it's free shipping. I was just making sure I gave him the best I could with his money so I was seeing what others thought. Edit: I mean Amazon isn't that bad surprisingly, especially because of shipping. I found a few on Amazon that wasn't too bad. Such as this Skytech but that's where the dependability comes in. Skytech has been pretty bad apparently in their builds despite the specs.
Ah okay, I see. Yeah, I doubt you'll find better tbh with the free shipping counted in. Think they're the only ones who do it is it'll probably be that or some other Amazon computer. $899 with ryzen and 16gb ram: https://www.amazon.com/iBUYPOWER-Desktop-Graphics-View21-035A/dp/B07D5S3LZM/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1536632085&sr=1-7&keywords=desktop&refinements=p_36:70000-90000,p_76:1249137011 Is monitor and peripherals included in 900? Edit: Regarding the skytech I think the lack of ssd is a pretty big annoyance if spending up to $900 tbh because the boot time will be so much slower. That having been said it's only something you're thankful for after having had one without so... Honestly I don't much fancy any of the builders that sell through amazon but pricewise its gonna be the only way.
Options: If hes into gadgets, he should build one himself, buy the parts for him and walkthrough the pc building process using skype after he watch a pc building youtube video. Send a pc to him, but make sure you pad everything inside especially the video card and cpu. Give him instruction on how to remove the pads. On the firzt option, youre saving your friend 10% on prebuilt pc, with the best components around. Usually prebuilt pc save money on non detectable essentials, such as power supply and cpu fan, sometimes shadily built gpu. These saving features bite you after 3 years. You need stabilizer and clean up the fans regularly, because they can be damaged with dust built up. Oh yeah, they also dont give you dust filters on casing. As for a pc now, I think for new pc buyer i5 8400 asus mb with 1060 3gb gpu 8gb ram with 256 evo ssd and 1 tb hard drive is good enough. Why intel and asus? No compatibility issues. 1060 3b? Best vr entry with the most outstanding buck/value. Ssd? Must in 2018. 8gb? Enough unless hes streaming, and he can upgrade later if you give him single channel. In fact, i3-8100 is enough if hes not streaming or video editing. I did calculations, 800 dollars should be enough with decent casing.
Problem with builds is they can be really frustrating if they go wrong and its not always something that is the fault of the person making them up. And if a part has something wrong with it returns in Alaska could suck timewise. Also atm it's not that much cheaper is it? GPU and ram are still both expensive at the moment. Specs you mentioned sound reasonable though I'd probably go for the better processor regardless.
Ya, I initially had the idea to do this. But just for me to ship a couple of books (manga) to him it cost me 15$ and they weighed just a few pounds. And most parts dealers unless they have a deal with UPS or something it's basically a 10-20% increase in price per item because of the shipping. If you can find a supplier that doesn't charge for shipping and I could get all the parts for the intended price I would do this tho.
I looked the amazon pc, for those specs for that price, nearly everything should be double. Processor speed should be 4.3 Ghz SDD 250mbs Memory 16 Gb Video card 8Gb
He sent me a link saying it was this monitor. His brother bought a PC himself but ended up selling it after a year of use and just left the monitor when he moved out.
Mm, looking on amazon it does look like you can get those parts for about 760 or so and case + psu + fan + usb slots would still be under 900. Not sure how good of a motherboard you'd need though? For a gaming pc 250gb ssd would be much better given that os is about 100gb nowadays. Its just whether they are able/want to I guess. I suppose realistically you're paying about $200 to be sure that the computer works and will work for the next year
Well, thanks for the help guys. @Drunk Moon Resident Scholar @pocketbear @crisapx @Iamhoi32 @justmehere @Simon Not for sure how I'll do it but I still try and find a way for him to buy the parts. As long as I can find the parts for cheap and it equals out with the shipping costs I'll get him to buy the parts and I'll help him through Discord or Skype. If not, I'll probably end up having him either get that CyperPower PC or the one at BestBuy and have him buy an SSD with it. At least for the rest of the year and most of the next he should be good. Much appreciated for the comments.
Whenever i buy something, usually i consider ordering all of them from one place with static shipping cost. Say you buy something from micro center with added price, considering the accumulatio n of the shipping cost, its going to cost you the same yet micro center can give uou better service. Just consider that going forward.