Decent online vendors?

I know this is an old subject...

I'm presently looking for an Atlon XP2600+ 266FSB to max out my present motherboard (ECS K7S5A) and hold me for a couple years till the next big upgrade.

Pricewatch gave me three top choices of where to buy the CPU, which I cross-checked with resellerratings.com :

e1 Micro - best price/worst rating

Computer Brain - next-best price/mixed ratings (many unfavorable)

Monarch Computer Systems - 3rd best price/very high ratings (good comments were mostly high praise, bad comments were very troubling)

I was thinking of trying Monarch, as they had about the highest price I wanted to pay for the chip, but would certainly appreciate any opinions the Windrivers group can offer.

I'm hoping to get this chip ordered quick before 266FSB version goes extinct (my mobo doesn't support 333MHz bus, as most of you probably already know).

TIA

I just rec'd a mobo from Monarch last week. Was very impressed with the whole transaction..Only weird thing was they debited my card twice, but sent thru a credit at the same time so somewhere someone noticed so it wasn't like I had a big hassle to get things fixed.

The board shipped on 7/29 and was supposed to be 5-7 day delivery, I had it on 7/31.

I would buy from them again....

I just used newegg for the first time and must say I was very impressed. Fast service and reliable. Prices are usually descent.

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Originally posted by Diver01
I just used newegg for the first time and must say I was very impressed. Fast service and reliable. Prices are usually descent.

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New egg all the way. Very competitive prices. Sure there are always places that might come in a little cheaper, but the service at new egg is exceptional.

I look at the reviews on reseller ratings.com with a grain of salt. A lot of the people complaining are having technical dificulty or did something stupid and are there to whine, I bought this $20 video card and it doesn't play Ubergraphiccardkillingdoomatronframeratemadness and it stinks and they said they wouldn't give my money back... I do look at the overall rating and how the shipping/comunication and other things are when dealing with people from pricewatch. I have ordered from different resellers there and have had no bad experiences but I have ordered from the sellers that didn't soak me for shipping and picked and chose my deals.

For regular ordering go with www.newegg.com without a doubt. They are wonderful and have the best online store I have ever seen.

Googlegear is great, too.

For what it's worth, my feelings about reseller ratings boards are mixed. You have to keep one phrase in mind when checking them out:

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease."

It's kind of like determining if a product is good by reading forums. The complaints will be the loudest. The complainers will overshadow the ones with the compliments.

I'm not saying you should discard what they say, but consider that ones who've never had a problem are usually less inclined to seek out a forum to tell people about it.

In any case, I've bought from some of the vendors you've mentioned. Fortunately, I've not experienced some of the complaints, but it seems to me that MANY of those resellers are very small outfits who can handle 90% of the simple, clean orders the come over their website. Anytime they make a mistake or they get some special order, things go awry and its usually hard for the buyer to get things fixed.

Sometimes it's kind of like when my wife asks for "extra ice" at a Burger King. Many of them can't seem to grasp that there is more room for ice beyond the normal level. If you argue with them about it, they just don't get it.

m

[Edit] although everyone seems to agree that PC Chips is bad, bad, bad. :-) [/edit]

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Originally posted by Diver01
I just used newegg for the first time and must say I was very impressed. Fast service and reliable. Prices are usually descent.

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Yes, newegg is great. They have not let me down yet, and they have very good prices.

I checked into Monarch once, but did not end up buying from them. Their site has FedEx all over it. I do not like FedEx because if I am home, but sleeping, they rarely will leave the package in my breezeway even though I filled out the paper work to allow them to do so. I e-mailed Monarch to see if they would ship via UPS, but they did not respond. I called them, and they were very short with me. Not a big deal, but not a good first impression. If they ignore my e-mail and are short with me prior to the sale, how are they going to be after the sale?

Definitely spend the few extra bucks to go either newegg or googlegear. I've dealt with both and never had a real problem with either. My experiences with "lowest price no matter what" vendors have been much less satisfactory.

another vote for newegg....best place i ever ordered anything from. Never had a problem with anything i ordered. They ship from California, I live in Pennsylvania...I always get the cheapest UPS ground shipping, and it usually arrives on the second or third day. I can't reccomend them enough.

WOW!! Lots of responses (even a couple fellow Michiganders)!

The votes are clear, Newegg is the one to go with. I'm seeing enough of a negative response to Monarch (I'm counting PuterGeekGirl's double-debit experience as a negative) that I'll pass on them this time.

Newegg and Googlegear both only went up to the 2400+, but the price is good and I'm willing to sacrifice 200 "AMD performance points" to get a faster CPU with little or no hassle.

Thanks everyone for your time and helpful advice! :)

Monarch are great, they went the extra mile for me when I was having a compatibility problem with my GeForce 2 GTS (long time ago).

Went so far as to do the research for me and found that it was an incompatibility with the version of the via 4-in-1 drivers I was using.

New egg can suck my ***, they screwed me more than once.

Mwave.com are great, nearly newegg prices and they care about your business

I had problems with Monarch in the past. I ordered an Athlon 2200+ CPU and it took about two weeks to arrive and I only live about 12 hours away. Apparently it was out of stock even though the site said it was in stock. Getting an answer from anyone is almost impossible if you can get past the lady answering the phone. Froget Email because you probably will not get a response. I tend to use Thompson's TCWO.com. They are in Tampa and ground shipping is overnight to Orlando. A little more on the price but good service.

OK, in order -

To Radical Dreamer: I didn't see your post until after the order was made. Like Pinnacle, I have had a lot of trouble with Fedex Ground service. Also, the other messages I have read lead me to believe that Monarch has slipped a little since you last dealt with them.

To Dorsk81: You're confirming my feelings about ordering from Monarch. I've seen TCWO advertised in the back of Computer Shopper magazine, I may try them sometime in the future.

To daffy86: I'm presently running a XP1600+ (1.4GHz), the upgrade to a 2.0GHz processor should be at least noticeable. I just got the system together and running a short time ago and my budget is pretty tight for the forseeable future. By the time I can afford another system upgrade, the technology will be past the 333FSB point (maybe Athlon64). I'll have to make the best of what I have.

Thanks again for everyone's advice. :)

Another vote for NEWEGG. They are in my opinion how all online stores should be.

Check out this SHADY merchant:
acicomputerstore.com
aliases include:

http://www.storepc.com
http://www.bestmicrodelas.com
http://www.pcsupersite.com
http://www.americancomputech.com
http://www.actonlinestore.com
http://www.antaresnow.com
http://www.avapc.com
http://www.costupdate.com
http://www.extremecomputech.com
http://www.mgepc.com
http://www.microvisiononline.com
http://www.networkspecials.com
http://www.newgenpc.com
http://www.pcsourceonline.com
http://www.pronetsale.com
http://www.realmicro.com
http://www.softandmore.com
http://www.softrage.com
http://www.softwarerage.com

They show up in pricewatch all the time. They all have the same phone number and address! They have the worst ratings in the BBB and bizrate-type sites. They also have an Athlon laptop I'm intrested in but I can't bring myself to trust them.

Anybody have any experiences with any of the above?

Be careful who you deal with out there.

Newegg and Googlegear. I once bought a Radeon 8500 for my brother from TCWO and it was in my possession before noon the next day. If I remember right there was only one shipping option at that time, 1 1/2 years ago, but it was the week of Xmas.

At this time, my system consists of:

ECS K7S5A motherboard (SiS735 chipset max 266FSB - max CPU Athlon XP2600+)
AMD Athlon XP1600+ CPU
512MB PC2100(?) DDR RAM (266MHz)
40GB IBM 5400RPM hard drive
Turtle Beach Montega A3DXstream sound card
US Robotics 56K external modem (firmware upgrade to V.92)
16X DVD drive
16/12/40 CDRW drive
GeForce 3 Ti200 video card w/128MB DDR RAM
Envision En770 17" flat CRT monitor
Win XP Pro + SP1

The XP2400+ is already ordered from NewEgg and on its way (so I'm kind of committed to that upgrade).
Maybe down the road I can pick up a better sound card and/or a GeForce FX5200 Ultra (based on the 5900 core) and be set for a couple of years.

I'm actually pretty happy with the system, it should hold me (with occaisional minor upgrading) till the Athlon64 is ready for primetime.
My last system before this was a Socket 7 K62-550 (presently being prepared for Linux experimentation). I tend to make pretty big jumps in technology from system to system.

As I said, I'm sticking with what I've got and making the best of it.

Here's another vote for newegg or googlegear. Here lately I've been leaning more towards googlegear because their shipping prices to Alaska are pretty darn good.

As to your Specs. I built my wife the same PC, but with a XP +2000 CPU. Been rock solid and steady for over a year now. You will see a performance boost with the 2400. Theoretically you could see 33%, but more realistically in the 20%-25% category. Another big improvemnet you could make is upgrading your hard drive to a 7200 RPM model (say a Western Digital or Maxtor). You could slave your current drive and make the new drive the master. This would also improve performance. You would also see a boost in a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 video card, but I'm not sure if it would be enough to warrent the extra bucks.

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I tend to make pretty big jumps in technology from system to system

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Ah, not really... a 1600 to a 2400 is not a large leap in technology.

my jumps:
450p3, 128MB pc100, 8MB Ati Rage Fury Pro vid card, 8 gig hdd, zip100, to a 900 Athlon, Geforce2mx, 10gig hdd, 120gig hdd, 52x burner, 12x dvd-rom, running 384MB pc133

and i'm going to soon get a 2400+ Athlonxp, 512MB ddr (i'm still shopping around for motherboards, and what speed of ddr, ect)

You sir are not making large tech upgrades, no matter what your buddy at Best Buy tells you

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Originally posted by Radical Dreamer

New egg can suck my ***, they screwed me more than once.

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Same here. Took about two weeks one time to get a pair of NICs that were supposed to be in stock and supposed to shipped FedEx blue.

I buy everything from www.essencompu.com now. They run a little more than newegg (P4 3.0/800 is $15 more) but they have free shipping on the new stuff also.

Every order I've ever made has been processed that day and delivered within 2. The few times I've had to RMA something it was cross shipped that day and refunded immediately with no questions. To me, that's worth a couple extra $$.

To Gerf:

The jumps I am referring to are:
386SX/25 => 486DX/133
486DX/133=>K6-2/550
K6-2/550=>XP1600+

I do not have a "buddy" at Best Buy; I have been building my own and repairing/upgrading/refurbishing other people's systems for several years.
Just because I choose not to run myself into deep debt for the sake of having the "gooderest fasterest besterest" system on my block doesn't mean I'm an uninformed game-head computer dork who relies on untrained clerks at chain stores.

Your post, sir, is unwarranted and insulting.

To daffy86:

Let it go!
The hardware I have will do fine until I feel the need to upgrademy system. It's not your system and not your worry. Thanks for your advice but, enough!

To everyone who stayed on topic and provided useful information:

Thanks again, I'm very happy with The purchase I made.



I would like to request that the moderator close this thread, as it has served its purpose.

done