Background
For the last 10 years, I’ve bought pre-built PCs rather than building my own. This began in 2013, when I was traveling internationally and needed something robust yet portable. I didn’t want to lug around desktops, so I bought a pair of iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17s, one for me and one for my wife:
They served us well for about 4 years, and while I considered replacing the internal GPUs with GTX 980s, upgrading to desktops made more sense since we were now homebodies.
Once again, we bought iBUYPOWER systems, and like their mobile workstation counterparts, they are still running strong today. My intent at the time was to get at least 3-4 years out of them, and so far, we’ve managed over 5.
Could I squeeze another 2-3s out of them? Probably, but not at a level of performance I’d be happy with. I considered the upgrade path, but in order to get into a 30-series video card, I’d need to replace the following:
- The motherboard: the ASUS Prime Z270-K uses a PCIe 3.0 card slot (RTX 30 and 40 series cards utilize PCIe 4.0*)
- The CPU: Core i7 7700K processors use an LGA 1151 socket; new motherboards use the LGA 1700 socket.
- The power supply: 650Ws isn’t enough for a 3080, I’d need at least 750W (although 850W would be better)
I could potentially keep the RAM (32GB DDR4 3200), case, and possibly the drives, but not the CPU AIO (it wouldn’t be powerful enough, even with an LGA 1700 socket adapter, assuming I could even find one)…in short, ~$1,840 worth of upgrades. In other words, I may as well buy a completely new system…
*Both 30 series and 40 series Nvidia GPUs can be used in PCIe 3.0 slots, albeit at reduced performance.
The New Rigs
Once again, I went back to iBUYPOWER, and for about $2,167/system, I would get:
- Intel Core i7 12700K @ 5 GHz (Turbo)
- ASRock Z690 PG Riptide motherboard
- 32GB DDR4 @ 3200MHz
- NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti 12GB of VRAM
- 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Primary Drive
- Corsair RM850 850W – 80 PLUS Gold, Fully Modular power supply
I placed my orders on the morning of October 19th, 2022. A sales associate confirmed the orders later that day, and my card was charged. A couple of days later, the order went into the parts-gathering phase, where it says for days, then weeks…
Missed Deadlines
The scheduled ship date of November 2, 2022, came and went without a peep from iBUYPOWER. When I contacted them for an update, I was told that there would be a delay because the case model I selected was out of stock. They’d known this since October 21st, but rather than notify me and offer alternative options (e.g., a substitute model), they sat on it until I contacted them for an update.
I was told that they expected a shipment of new cases on Monday, November 8th, and that my build could continue once they were unloaded and scanned into inventory. When I didn’t hear anything at the end of the week, I checked back (again). This time, I received a canned answer citing organization-wide COVID-related delays, issues with the RTX 4090 power connectors, and so on. I asked if I could get a revised scheduled ship date and was told frankly that they couldn’t say when they’d ship but not to expect anything sooner than 7-10 business days (i.e., I would receive it sometime after November 24th, over three weeks later than the originally scheduled ship date…).
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
“Should I stay or should I go?”
– The Clash
I happily paid them over $4,334 of my hard-earned cash, with the good-faith expectation of receiving my merchandise the second week of November. Had I known that the true ship date would be closer to December 2nd, I would NOT have placed the order.
While I had no doubt that I’d eventually receive my order, I was not confident in what I would actually get… if they’re as busy as they claim to be, how do I know my systems will be built, tested, and packaged properly to ensure that I get what I paid for? What if a part is DOA? Am I to wait ANOTHER 5-6 weeks to get a replacement, with the Christmas rush around the corner?
###
As painful as it was, I decided to cancel the order and buy from someone else. After looking at a few other custom builders, I decided to take a chance with Alexander PCs, a boutique PC builder. I learned about them through a YouTube channel specializing in custom PC content.
I intended to purchase a read-to-ship system, but they didn’t have any on hand that supported an RTX 3080. Due to a misunderstanding (mine, not theirs), I purchased two systems that they had the parts for but were not yet assembled, and here’s what I ended up with:
- Intel Core i7 12700K
- ASUS TUF Gaming Z690-PLUS WIFI D4
- Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB DDR4 @ 3600MHz
- MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio 10GB LHR
- 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Primary Drive
- Corsair iCUE 4000D case
- Corsair RM850 850W
The RAM is slightly better, the video card is slightly worse, but it’s a big step up from my aging GTX 1080. I had to drop down to a Core i5 12600K processor and an RTX 3070 graphics card on my wife’s PC, but for the games she was playing, that was more than enough.
We placed the orders on November 10th and finally received them on December 7, just under 4 weeks later. All in all, I was happy enough with the purchase, but not something I’m looking forward to doing again.
