Can you get a GOOD gaming PC at Best Buy?

[nicklmg]

Amazon: http://geni.us/3zl1

 

Can you get a GOOD gaming PC at your local Best Buy or other big box store nowadays? The answer may surprise you...

 

[That_Random_Guy]

all my local bestbuys have seriously jacked up prices. yes you can get a decent pc but your gonna pay out the ass for it, least in my town that is

[bobhays]

After watching this video I realized how terrible the CAD dollar is.

 

Also LINUSSSSS what are you doing? You literally just showed the 370 in the "equivalent" build cost $250, but in your "custom" one you showed the 380 cost 250 also.

I understand that you were making a point about buying equivalent parts (there was also a cheap 370 by 30, but in the end it was still more than the pre-built), but I think it would've been a great point that having NCIX build the pc would cost 125 more, but you'd also get better performance, and not 10% better.

[Guest]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($183.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H DDR3 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($81.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($37.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($150.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate  2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive  ($94.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 380 4GB Video Card  ($238.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($76.82 @ Amazon)
Total: $925.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-25 02:48 EST-0500

 

Windows8.1 can be purchased for $30 from G2A.com

Ubuntu 14.04 can be downloaded for free from http://lug.mtu.edu/ubuntu-iso/14.04.3/ (Spins are available from the respective spins website).

[bobhays]

snip

its US pricing, they were using CA pricing.

[Arwanell]

for 250$ you can get a non-reference R9 290

so yea...

but I guess used parts aren't an option here

[gonvres]

Not bad, but those retail cases are terrible, even adding another hard drive would be a huge pain, and you're still paying for a lot of stuff most people don't need, mouse and keyboard, CD drive, wireless card, who on this planet doesn't already have those?

[Guest]

its US pricing, they were using CA pricing.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($184.99 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($71.97 @ Newegg)

Memory: Mushkin ECO2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($29.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Seagate  2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive  ($94.95 @ Amazon)

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 380 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card  ($193.98 @ Newegg)

Case: Deepcool TESSERACT SW ATX Mid Tower Case  ($47.98 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: EVGA 400W ATX Power Supply  ($27.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $636.85

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-25 02:59 EST-0500

 

I know I went over budget by 16 USD.

[bobhays]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($184.99 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H-A Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($71.97 @ Newegg)

Memory: Mushkin ECO2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($29.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Seagate  2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive  ($94.95 @ Amazon)

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 380 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card  ($193.98 @ Newegg)

Case: Deepcool TESSERACT SW ATX Mid Tower Case  ($47.98 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: EVGA 400W ATX Power Supply  ($27.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $636.85

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-25 02:59 EST-0500

 

I know I went over budget by 16 USD.

He also included, wifi, keyboard, mouse, and OS which would come out to more than 900 CAD

[Lewellyn]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-desktop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-2tb-hard-drive-black-red/4494400.p?id=1219754435687&skuId=4494400

 

versus my build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/xM2z4D  (minus ~200+ dollars on optional peripherals)

 

It seems the prices are more palatable than I last remember, I guess? The main part is that I would find it very strange that someone would walk into a Best Buy and pay $1000 or more on a pre-built in the first place. That's what bugs me the most, that those people don't bother to understand what they are going to spend a bunch of money on before they buy it.

[RobotTodd]

The Amazon link is no good as this is an exclusive to Best Buy Canada only, it would seem. I am sure plenty of people will make part comparisons as Linus did to prove that it is not that bad of a deal but I feel there is more to than just the simple package deal. This system deal has a 1 year parts and labor warranty. If, for example, I buy the R9 270 from newegg.com it comes with a 2 year parts/labor warranty. I've never had to cash in on a lifetime warranty for a set of ram but if the stick in the BB system dies would I be able to? Probably not.

When you pick your own parts you end up with something that not only can give years of value (i.e. a case, mouse, and keyboard worth keeping around for many years and used in new builds) but you also learn quite a bit from the building process too.

The only value here is in the gifting category where grandma buys this for her grandson/granddaughter and in this situation a sales rep would need to know their stuff. We all know how unlikely that is.


 

[Waqas409]

Nope, local buyers are way more expensive and they troll so much specially when you go with your dad/uncle( who knows nothing about Computer and techs ).

Happened to me 5 years ago when i went with my uncle to buy a PC ( quad core ) there they were out of 1 gb NVIDIA GPUs so they said to my uncle this 512MB Nvidia GPU will performance way much more good than the 1gb one so you should take this one and my uncle was like yea alright you know well what you are doing well.

So yea i wont go with local stores better to build my own.

[stconquest]

I would rather get this and play BIOS all day long :lol:

 

No rebates:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($264.00 @ Vuugo)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-E34 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($76.25 @ Vuugo)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($53.50 @ Vuugo)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($64.19 @ Vuugo)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 380 4GB Video Card  ($285.53 @ DirectCanada)
Case: Xion XON-310_BK MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($25.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Power Supply: Antec Green 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($94.94 @ shopRBC)
Total: $864.40
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-25 06:24 EST-0500

[fueg]

Like RobotTodd said, you get better warranty (2 to 5 years instead of 1) when you build it yourself (for reasons that I don't understand since you have more chance to mess it up!) and you don't risk voiding your warranty if you want to upgrade! 

 

It's a thing I noticed too in the last couple of years, the prebuil pcs tend to have great value...

[stconquest]

Like RobotTodd said, you get better warranty (2 to 5 years instead of 1) when you build it yourself (for reasons that I don't understand since you have more chance to mess it up!) and you don't risk voiding your warranty if you want to upgrade! 

 

It's a thing I noticed too in the last couple of years, the prebuil pcs tend to have great value...

 

What are you talking about?  Ram warranty is lifetime(limited), good PSUs are 5+ years, GPUs are more than a year easily, CPUs 3+ years.  What core components have a one year warranty?, show me one. 

 

Edit, nm.  I read it wrong.

[pk-man]

watching this video makes me sad how terrible our CAD is.....

 

Thanks Harper!

[soup]

 wireless card, who on this planet doesn't already have those?

 

Me (well a very restricted use one only).  Most MoBos I have had WiFi built in, the only wireless card I have is for a PCI slot where do you suggest I put that (now now keep it clean), in a board with only PCI-E slots?

  Oh and fro cd readers mice keyboards stuff does wear out become so old used and dirty people no longer want to use them.

 

  Most of these pre-built systems are not aimed at techys who would feel comfortable putting their own cards in.

Remember a lot of the people these systems are aimed at would not be entirely comfortable changing it to their favourite mouse (if the amount of "can I plug that in there" questions are anything to go by).

[d3sl91]

The Amazon link is no good as this is an exclusive to Best Buy Canada only, it would seem. I am sure plenty of people will make part comparisons as Linus did to prove that it is not that bad of a deal but I feel there is more to than just the simple package deal. This system deal has a 1 year parts and labor warranty. If, for example, I buy the R9 270 from newegg.com it comes with a 2 year parts/labor warranty. I've never had to cash in on a lifetime warranty for a set of ram but if the stick in the BB system dies would I be able to? Probably not.

When you pick your own parts you end up with something that not only can give years of value (i.e. a case, mouse, and keyboard worth keeping around for many years and used in new builds) but you also learn quite a bit from the building process too.

 

This is a good point. When I was working at a local small shop, it was difficult to sell our own built systems to folks when they could point to the $300 dell desktop on the BestBuy shelf that has a 2TB "memory drive". Where ours would have, 500GB, 1TB. (We put more money into the amount of ram, CPU speed, etc than giving grandma a 2TB 5400RPM HDD for her 10 photos and outlook emails). So, warranty was one selling point for them. "X part has X warranty" and we listed the parts. If we built the system, we would take care of any warranty needs for them for the lifetime of the system. 

 

However, in general we have to remember that the average consumer (75% or more of the market I'd guess, including many gamers):

 

1. Doesn't care about price:performance ratios. Mostly just price. 

2. Want all the bundled crap. 

3. Doesn't want to worry about choosing parts. 

4. Doesn't want to worry about pulling and replacing warrantied parts in 4 years. They will just bring it in to geek squad anyway. So they are more likely to purchase extended warranty plans purely because it's the simpler and (in their mind) the only option. 

[SolarNova]

While I agree its much better than back in years past, you can still build better for the same cost or less.

 

1st of, who does not shop around. You went to NCIS only. You can get rebates, special deals, hell if u order all/most ur parts form 1 place and just ask them for a deal you may well get some money knocked of. I know when I spent about ~£1100 at one place for a bunch of PC parts, I got ~£100 knocked of ,down to £999.99, just by asking.

 

Also , as some have mentioned, warranty. its better on a per part basis than the shorter warranty u get for a store bought prebuild.

 

Then u got better aesthetics (usually), possible better build quality, no adware on the OS.

 

As for OS price, that's kinda irrelevant, u can get it cheap / free anyway.

 

And of course , this is always depending on where u live.

 

So yea, its better than it used to be for sure, but still not great.

[overclocked]

Im not convinced.

My reasons is as follows

1. Quality of the components. You can't have a valueGPU or CPU but that ram, heatsink, PSU, HDD is nothing to be desired. Quite often those components don't last as long as you buying Kingston RAM and a PSU that is at least 80+ Bronze rated

2. That case. I smell the thermal throttles from here. 

3. Windows licenses and bloatware. While advantages/disadvantages of buying OEM vs full are minor it's the other garbage you need to uninstall that comes with those pc's. 

4. I don't care about wifi in a tower. If i ever need it a pci wifi card from TPLINK is under 50$. 

In the end sure you get good fps for your money...but how long will that rig last? In my experience and opinion buying components and putting it yourself together gets you better quality components which translates to better life for your gear. Also warranties. Individual parts have 1-5 year warranties depending on what the components are. Bestbuy towers...1 year unless you fall for the extended nonsense. 

[nivert9]

I'll start with this - I work at best buy, it's nice, I love it, but stores differ greatly. The store I work in doesn't have many gaming rigs (I think we have two), but what we (well, mostly me) like to recommend to people that want something for gaming or just more powerful is a nice 2.2GHz quad core i5 8GB computer, and then we actually sell a lot of graphics cards, power supplies and AIO's so the customer could always get any level of gaming they wanted, not to mention one of our desktops has a motherboard that would support crossfire and SLI. Now of course this isn't exactly what llinus was looking for, and since I don't go to work until 9 today I don't know all the numbers off the top of my head, but I thought it would be a nice discussion. Also, what Linus said about Best Buy is true, sometimes some of the employees don't know a lot about the product, with PC's being the number one culprit. Typically the people that work in the PC department will know all about them because they take many trainings on them, or, in my case, actually know what all the numbers mean; but sometimes it gets busy and people from other departments have to come and help - this isn't to say they don't know anything, they could have been in PCs before. I also work at the best Best Buy in our district and I have a lot of people tell me that they enjoy our service much more than other stores, so when Linus talked about moving from store to store, that's actually a very common occurrence, what isn't common, is for someone to sell a product while a customer is on their way to pick one up. you can always buy a product from one store, pick it up at another, and if you've already but the product, they'll hold it for you. This is my third month at best buy, so I may not be able to answer every question, but if you have one, ask me!

[GeekJump]

snips

 

I worked in BB Mobile at a BB that was rated the best in the state. The people in the PC department knew NOTHING about computers and would usually recommend the strangest options for what the customer wanted. The training they make workers do is BS, they don't cover the detail specs or benchmarks. It's pretty much a wordier version of what the little tabs by the models say (pure fluff to get dumb people to buy it w/o question). The only way someone knows what they're talking about is if they mess with PC's outside of work.

 

The reason I know that is because I was cross-trained and whenever it got busy they would take Mobile dept people and throw them in the PC section (since some of the tablet, 2-in1, etc. overlapped). 

 

Product wise, the few pre-builts they had were hugely overpriced (what they sold for +$2000 I could easily see built for ~$1000-1200. Component wise, they have hardly anything. A few 780s (I worked there in early 2015...) and no name fans. They have a few HDD and SD's but those are pretty much standard everywhere. 

 

While I did get an employee discount on things, my discount price still was more than getting the product from Amazon or online lol. The only time it worked out was my razer mouse that got reduced to $65. Amazon had it for $65 to but I didn't want to wait for shipping.

 

I say BB is only good for emergency buys or low end stuff. Never anything major (new TV, computer, etc.).

[d3sl91]

I'll start with this - I work at best buy, it's nice, I love it, but stores differ greatly. The store I work in doesn't have many gaming rigs (I think we have two), but what we (well, mostly me) like to recommend to people that want something for gaming or just more powerful is a nice 2.2GHz quad core i5 8GB computer, and then we actually sell a lot of graphics cards, power supplies and AIO's so the customer could always get any level of gaming they wanted, not to mention one of our desktops has a motherboard that would support crossfire and SLI. Now of course this isn't exactly what llinus was looking for, and since I don't go to work until 9 today I don't know all the numbers off the top of my head, but I thought it would be a nice discussion. Also, what Linus said about Best Buy is true, sometimes some of the employees don't know a lot about the product, with PC's being the number one culprit. Typically the people that work in the PC department will know all about them because they take many trainings on them, or, in my case, actually know what all the numbers mean; but sometimes it gets busy and people from other departments have to come and help - this isn't to say they don't know anything, they could have been in PCs before. I also work at the best Best Buy in our district and I have a lot of people tell me that they enjoy our service much more than other stores, so when Linus talked about moving from store to store, that's actually a very common occurrence, what isn't common, is for someone to sell a product while a customer is on their way to pick one up. you can always buy a product from one store, pick it up at another, and if you've already but the product, they'll hold it for you. This is my third month at best buy, so I may not be able to answer every question, but if you have one, ask me!

 

I think best buy and most other "big box stores" suffer from the same problem - they are not specialized. It's not that Best Buy is trying to be evil an mislead, they purely are not specialized. It's like going to a FORD dealership and buying one of their trade-in Nissan's. Unless the guy there happens to know alot about nissans...you will get much worse service than if you went to the local nissan dealer. BUT, the ford dealership still needs to make money, so, they will still try to sell any way possible. 

 

So, instead of focusing 100% on PCs, like Puget Systems for example, they are focused on selling many more items and making money. They are not passionate about a particular thing. Same goes for appliances and TV's - you are likely better off going to a specialized AV shop for TV's and sound equipment, and to an appliance store for your appliances. 

 

I may be wrong, but I also have been told by ex-employees that they do not always place folks based on actual experience, but where they need manpower. So, you get a PC noob in there who has had training on how to read numbers and sell - but has no real knowledge or passion for PC's.

[Neutrosider]

How does the PC stack up against a self-build rig in regards to noise?

I like that my PC is barely audible at all, and i can imagine this stock-cpu-cooler to be quite noisy

[vanished]

Be honest - did you guys intend to release this video just now, or did you realize the link had been leaked early and just said "screw it then, here you go!"  ?