if you can name a better place to get hardware, i'd love to hear it.

tigerdirect.ca + me = <3 4 ever

(no i don't work for them.)

newegg normally beats their price in my experience, and newegg has the BEST RMA service.. although tiger direct's is great too.

I have a TD outlet 5 minutes from my house, so sometimes i think its worth the convenience, to pay the higher price sometimes.

Most will say newegg.com.

newegg all the way, sooo reliable too

Newegg unless I need it right now - then I drive up to the TD near my house.

Newegg is cheaper but I like TD's site much better. When I built my last PC I got the best deal by using both stores. It was almost a 50/50 buy.

Wow - that's odd - I absolutely abhor TD's site. Feels like a giant advertisement to me. First time I've ever heard anyone say they liked TD's site. TD has bigger problems though - like in store customer service. It's probably some of the worst I've seen. Good thing I always know what I want when I walk in.

Maybe I have just spent more time on TD but I feel like I can find what I am looking for much quicker..who knows. I have been lucky and have not had any problems with anything I have ever bought from TD. Im sure the day will come when I have to see what they are like behind the scenes. Lets hope not any time soon!

You can buy Gateway Desktop AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core 2.2GHz 3GB DDR2 500GB SATA2 DVDRW-Labelflash ATI Radeon HD 2400XT WinVista Home Premium for $399.99 at TigerDirect.com You can Save $500.

Razer Deathadder is more expensive there than PCV online.
But i still love TD also

Newegg is usually cheaper especially since they charge less for shipping. Occasionally you will see things cheaper with TD but again the shipping will get you every time.

yeah but who wants that?

I like both TD and Newegg.com, I usually shop both for the cheapest price. But TD's shipping blows newegg out of the water! Order one day, here the next with TD. Takes a whole week when ordered from newegg.

buy.com has never had a higher price than newegg on computer components for me and I've always received free shipping for all 20+ purchases from there

Tiger Direct and Directron have long been my favorites. Once you buy the components and assemble your own computer, you never want to go back to buying a computer that already comes assembled.

But for those that do, the Gateway listed above seems like a nice deal. Years ago, I owned a Gateway with Windows Millennia for about five years. That may sound like the combination from hell, but I had a lot of fun with it.

I've had good luck with NCIX, been meaning to try newegg.ca. What not too impressed with Directcanada and TDdirect. Tigerdirect is always good especially their outlet stores.

Ya know.....

The Online guys
I like newegg's site better than all of 'em. I especially like how you can find specs on "deactivated" items. Which is usually what my broken booty can afford!

And I think the customer reviews can be quite helpful. Which are also up in the old item descriptions.That's pretty dang handy! Granted, some reviewers seem a tad overconfident with their appraisals AND experience levels(I've noticed). But nevertheless, they do help shape what I will eventually wind-up spending my hard-earned(read: limited) cash on.

But to be earnest, newegg does NOT always have the lowest prices. Yes usually, but not ALL the time. And their "mail-in rebates" can be slightly misleading sometimes. But that's not really "them", is it?

And I just don't "get" directron's site, man. Seems almost random! And when they DO offer ways to screen the various products in a given category, it's by almost nonsensical differences. Like browsing RAM by color! I'm exaggerating of course, but not by much. Like browsing for pc cases is almost dizzying. Particularly for somebody like me, trying to keep older hardware still kickin' for just a lil' bit longer.
And as to TigerDirect....well, I just don't have ANY experience with them. Good or bad. People do sure seem to like 'em though. But they seem pretty expensive to me.

B&M's
There's a CompUSA about 20 mins. from my house, which is nice if ya wanna see hardware in it's natural environment. lol And I've received VERY good advice, from other customers just walking around the store! Their employees aren't quite the sharpest knives in the drawer, but still leaps and bounds above the Box Buy maroons. And IMO "nicer" to deal with in general.

Circuit City had a strong presence around here,but their prices were HORRIFIC! I often wondered, long before their ultimate demise, how they could possibly compete with any of the online retailers. It's as if their business model heavily relied on customers that didn't know ANYTHING about how to comparison shop. Literally charging DOUBLE what the online retailers were charging for the SAME EXACT products. But sometimes I'd just go in to get my hands on stuff, to get a "feel" for what I was going to order from newegg. lol



Ok, 9pm on a saturday night, and I'm waxing profound on the virtues of hardware retailers?

Damn.

I quit drinking, and THIS is what's become of me! Well, that's enough TMI rambling.......

I'm completely baffled as to why someone would think that Tiger Direct's site is easier or better than Newegg's. But I suppose it's all in what you're used to. Newegg probably has 5 times as much stuff as TD also. Zip Zoom Fly has a good reputation also, although I've never dealt with them personally.

I love to shop for tech stuff, and I try to integrate my tech interests around suppliers I have had good relations with. So, I'm into home theater, photography, and computers. None of these things are mutually exclusive, in either using the technology, or shopping for it.

I'll state some obvious things, who knows, maybe I'll make one of the morning shows as an expert one day. Right!

Make bookmark folders for your interests. Go through these bookmarks frequently, looking for that sale price. I guess you could put the things you want on "price alert", but that seems too close to a salesman asking "shall I write that up for you", so I prefer to let MY fingers do the walking, as it were.

Shop the same item at all your trusted suppliers.

Be patient, (if possible) Have a plan of attack, know where you are (tech stuff wise) and where you want to be. This will help to prevent having to buy the same basic thing twice.

Continually run through your bookmarks, and buy what you need, or think you're going to need ahead of time, when it's at it's lowest price.

The truth here is, you're probably going to use you're credit card, hence you're going to pickup interest charges. So then, if you want a fifty dollar item, that they normally charge 8 bucks to ship, when you see it with free shipping, grab it then and there, 'cause the free shipping will ultimately cover the interest charges.

Amazon has very high volume of sales across the board. So, use their customer reviews for items that do not have the volume of sales at your normal shopping sites.

I live in Philly, and the corridor from New York City and North Jersey, is overnight delivery via UPS >Ground<! Wow, am I lucky, really lucky.
Newegg has a warehouse in North Jersey!

For other things such as electronics and camera equipment, I use three suppliers in NYC 1. For cameras only Adorama Camera
http://www.adorama.com/
2. For cameras and some electronics "B & H Photo Video"
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
3. For Electronics only "J & R Electronics"
http://www.jr.com/category/audio/
These three are probably the best and most reliable in the country.

The real beauty of these three suppliers is in the fact that they all have toll free numbers. You can pick up your phone and tell another human being what you want, and they'll get it to you, fast! Sure it's retro, and may test your social skills but, I think it's worth it!

Captain Cranky, I always enjoy your posts. They have a lot of substance and you always inject your own style of cranky humor into them. The idea that you may be on a talk show someday may not be that far-fetched! I'll remember the Adorama retailer.

Phone conversations do challenge my social skills, immensely at that. Online social interaction often confounds me and I do a fine job of frustrating other people without knowing how I did it.

Moose is right about Directron, but I still like them a lot. I wouldn't rely on them for product evaluation, I get those elsewhere, then come to Directron for the lowest prices. Tiger has darned low prices, but maybe that's for the low to low-mid range items I always seem to be attracted to. But I think I have taste. I'll take ASUS over PCChips. Hehhehheh.

IF I would buy, It would be newegg.