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Introduction

Doing research is not fun and you might try and argue that you'd rather pay a couple extra dollars than find the best computer for you.

This is a bad idea, because you're not only saving money now but your saving time later when you have a stable computer that will last you a long time.

Follow the suggestions and links below and you'll find the best deals, and make the right choices when buying a computer

Index

Review Sites

Forums

Search

Price Comparison and Price Hunting

About Me

How to buy a Desktop Computer


Review Sites

There are a large number of websites that review the latest consumer electronics. Many of these do comparisons of the latest components to give you the differences in performance between of the components.

Important - These sites really know their business and provide very technical insights. Unfortunately most of it will scare off the average user, so skip to the end of the product reviews, usually a page called something like "our thoughts", "final thoughts" or "results". This last page usually will show you an overall chart and the reviewers opinions of the best hardware.

Resources

Forums
If you can't find what you're looking for at a review site, then ask around in a forum about the particular piece of hardware. Forum users will be happy to help as long as you use good English, are courteous, and specify your problem well.

Tip : Forums are a great place to double check compatibility issues you might not be sure of.

Important : Always search a forum first before asking a question. Forums have thousands of users and thousands of posts, it's likely someone might have already had the same problem as you.


Resources

Search
Google does a pretty good job of targeting your search strings. You can use it to find information about the product, often though, you will get a large number of results and the majority may not be very useful. I would start with a review site that i trust before browsing Google results.

When searching start with the full name of the component, example..

OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

If no results come up for this then narrow it down part by part, the stuff in the parentheses is extra information so lets remove it.

OCZ Platinum 6GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

If you still don't get results then search for the base model

OCZ Platinum 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM

Price Comparison and Price Hunting
After you've figured out what parts you need for your computer, or computer upgrade it's time to find the best price. This section will also work for people who are trying to find a prebuilt computer to suit their needs. Sometimes you can find a good deal even if it's not exactly what you want (when configuring at a place like dell) because retailers are driving to move older stock.

The first thing I do is go to newegg.com and search for whatever component I am looking for. I like newegg for a number of reasons, price, customer service, community and return policy. I will search newegg for any component as a baseline price. Once I find the product I will read the reviews, which for the most popular of products can count into the hundreds. Newegg will also offer recommendations for compatible items, ex. if you're buying RAM or a CPU it will suggest a motherboard.

Even though I live in California and am taxed when I make a purchase there, I still find the prices more than reasonable compared to other electronic retailers found online. This doesn't mean I don't double check. After I find the item I am looking for, I make a note of the price. I then go to tigerdirect which also has great prices, and is out of state so no Tax. My final comparison will be ebay where I will search for used models. When looking on ebay, look for people selling the product who claim to have upgraded their computer and don't need the component anymore. If you're buying from a business make sure they have a return policy. Read the reviews of the person before you make a purchase, especially any that are negative.

Pricewatch.com is sometimes worth using, though from previous experience I have seen it come up with outdated and unrelated results.

99% of the time I end up amking my purchase on newegg.com and have never recieved a product that i've been unsatisfied with or had to return.

Recap



Note : These tips are what I do when I search for the best prices. These do not necessarily represent the best prices, but what I think is a good balance of time spent search for price of product paid. For example to get the best price you might want to go to bensbargains.net to look through the forum for coupons, rebates, and deals but you're really going to have to try and get lucky to find anything very fast. Most of the time you won't.

Note : I don't go to places that track general prices, or compile lists of a large number of electronics sites. I might do that as a final step for a particularly expensive computer component, but for the most part I find a large number of those sites misleading, outdated and overall a waste of time. Maybe someone can recommend a few in the comments.
About Me
Who am I to be telling you what to buy with your hard earned money? Check out the about page to decide for yourself.

Bottom Line - Check it out; I even talk about my own computer buying experience!
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