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Why I chose Micro Center PC Builder Service vs The Best Deal on Black Friday
December 3, 2023 at
01:04 PM
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This past Black Friday, my wife approved a PC upgrade, so I went on a super addictive shopping spree. I have a 3090 already and I couldn't really justify a a 4090 with the AI boom increasing its cost to $2000+. I am going to wait for 4080 super or even 5080 before the next GPU upgrade. I just wanted a CPU upgrade for myself and whatever GPU I get will go to her with my 11700 for World of Warcraft and Diablo 4. She doesn't play 3D/VR games in general due to motion sickness.
I actually posted a Cyberpower 7800X3D + 7800XT prebuilt for $1365 on BuildAPCSales and got 300+ likes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc..._ddr
This was without a doubt the best gaming PC deal of Black Friday. Unless you count the $900 12700 and 3080 refurbish Acer Predator Orion from eBay. Refurbish and last generation is hard to quantify so let's compare new vs new only.
In the end however, I went with Micro Center builder and I will explain why Micro Center is still super competitive even vs the best Black Friday deal. I ended up spending a little more money, and got a 7800X3D and 4070 for $1596.
The $231 Difference - What Did I Get?
Net Difference: $50 + $100 + $100 - $50 = $200, so $31 more to support the local business and have much easier service and return vs CyberPower, picked up the PC next day instead of waiting for three weeks, it is no brainer!
What I did miss out on was actually CyberPower's promotion on $20 for brand mechanical keyboard, headset and mouse. These are all extremely high quality and great value if you needed them.
A tip is always start with a Micro Center PC/motherboard/memory bundle, if you add the same exact components from the bundle to their custom AMD or Intel builder, you will get the bundle discount once you add the entire build to the cart.
If you build it yourself you will always save money vs even the best of the best pre-build deals! I paid $150 for assembly and the quality felt very solid. Still matched the best pre-build deal this Black Friday!
7800X3D Impression
A significant upgrade over my 11700. FPS increase is only about 5-10% with VD ultra and 3090, but definitely reduction in stuttering in places like Whiterun exterior. It is not a miracle by any means however, so if you already have a 12700 or 13700, don't bother.
The low temperature and power consumption is definitely a big plus but if I could have done this all over again, I probably take the 13700 bundle for better productivity and peace of mind. The thing about AMD is, whenever you have an issue you always wonder whether it is because of AMD . . .
I actually posted a Cyberpower 7800X3D + 7800XT prebuilt for $1365 on BuildAPCSales and got 300+ likes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc..._ddr
This was without a doubt the best gaming PC deal of Black Friday. Unless you count the $900 12700 and 3080 refurbish Acer Predator Orion from eBay. Refurbish and last generation is hard to quantify so let's compare new vs new only.
In the end however, I went with Micro Center builder and I will explain why Micro Center is still super competitive even vs the best Black Friday deal. I ended up spending a little more money, and got a 7800X3D and 4070 for $1596.
The $231 Difference - What Did I Get?
- 4070 vs 7800XT, benchmarks aside, Nvidia has the leadership on ecosystem whether it is DLSS, VR, games compatibility, driver stability, streaming, encoding, power savings and resale value. The CyberPower sale was only possible with 7800XT, change to 4070 would have costed $125 more on their site which is higher than the actual price difference of the two cards. Let's call this a $50 value which is generally the difference between the two cards in retail, although in reality almost everyone would pay $50 more to go Nvidia when the rasterization difference is tiny: https://www.tomshardwar
e.com/revi...,4388.ht ml - 4TB SSD vs 2TB SSD, I didn't have another spare 2TB NVME SSD and 2TB is way too small for me. Let's call this a $100 value.
- Case, Motherboard and Power Supply quality difference - I went with MSI-B650-P PRO, Lian Li 216 and Corsair RM850x which are all higher quality than CyberPower equivalents for the deal, let's say $100 value there
- AK620 air cooler vs liquid cooling - The liquid cooling is generally worth more but overkill for 7800X3D, but Cyberpower wins by $50 value
- Windows - I had an extra key from my previous PC so I did not need to do anything here
Net Difference: $50 + $100 + $100 - $50 = $200, so $31 more to support the local business and have much easier service and return vs CyberPower, picked up the PC next day instead of waiting for three weeks, it is no brainer!
What I did miss out on was actually CyberPower's promotion on $20 for brand mechanical keyboard, headset and mouse. These are all extremely high quality and great value if you needed them.
A tip is always start with a Micro Center PC/motherboard/memory bundle, if you add the same exact components from the bundle to their custom AMD or Intel builder, you will get the bundle discount once you add the entire build to the cart.
If you build it yourself you will always save money vs even the best of the best pre-build deals! I paid $150 for assembly and the quality felt very solid. Still matched the best pre-build deal this Black Friday!
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Raphael AM5 4.2GHz 8-Core Boxed Processor $246.25
- MSI B650-P PRO WiFi AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard $154.79
- G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-6000 PC5-48000 $68.95
- Zotac NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Twin Edge Dual Fan 12GB GDDR6X $534.99
- Crucial P3 4TB 3D NAND Flash PCIe Gen 3x4 NVMe M.2 Internal SSD $159.99
- Lian Li Lancool 216 Tempered Glass ATX Mid-Tower Computer Case - Black $99.99
- Corsair RMx Series RM850x 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power $129.99
- DeepCool AK620 CPU Air Cooler $51.99
- Custom PC Building Service - Tier 1 $149.99
7800X3D Impression
A significant upgrade over my 11700. FPS increase is only about 5-10% with VD ultra and 3090, but definitely reduction in stuttering in places like Whiterun exterior. It is not a miracle by any means however, so if you already have a 12700 or 13700, don't bother.
The low temperature and power consumption is definitely a big plus but if I could have done this all over again, I probably take the 13700 bundle for better productivity and peace of mind. The thing about AMD is, whenever you have an issue you always wonder whether it is because of AMD . . .
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Objectively untrue, you should know better than to speak in absolutes.
I think you noticed it too, but the key to getting a deal on components is bundles. I don't live near a Microcenter, but Newegg had a (seemingly very limited) deal on a CPU/mobo/RAM bundle. I also used the Affirm 15% off code on the GPU.
I ended up with this system for $1300 (currently price at $1527.78 on PCPartPicker):
PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.co
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 4.7 GHz 12-Core Processor ($388.05 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($35.90 @ Amazon)
Thermal Compound: ARCTIC MX-6 4 g Thermal Paste ($7.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650M D3HP Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory ($96.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Nextorage G-Series 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($114.99)
Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card ($549.99 @ B&H)
Case: be quiet! Pure Base 500 FX ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.90 @ Newegg Sellers)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus 750 Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Wireless Network Adapter: EDUP EP-9651 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax PCIe x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($28.99 @ Amazon)
I would have preferred more/better RAM and the 7800x3d, but I can make use of more cores.
Since you picked out all the parts already, you should have just built it yourself and save the $150.
I bought a Dell DT in 2018. Price was great. But only long after the purchase did I realize they cheaped out badly on the motherboard, severely limiting the PCI bandwidth. You could not overclock via BIOS. Turned out they even cheaped out on the video card, as unknown to any of the buyers, there were different possible specs for the GPU! Only found out far too late. And yes folks were livid about all of this, but too late to get our money back. Dell's reply was that all items were within limits of specs. Yes, the lowest possible, but unimaginable specs.
Recently bought an ASUS G16H with the 13700F CPU and 4070 GPU. Both were great, really just looking for the 4070. 13700 was a bit of overkill for my needs. Good wifi and PSU. But everything else was lower quality than hoped for, DDR4 MB, DDR4 high CL memory, and case is poorly ventilated. I can get additional fans for maybe $60.00 The DDR4 won't kill me. So why buy it? It was a returned item with a 30 day trial with seller paying shipping if it was a dud and a huge discount. Pre Black Friday it was the best deal for a 4070 or AMD equivalent GPU and with no great deals available to me for the other parts. There were better deals to follow, though actually not by much for DDR5, liquid cooled, and better case fans. I took the gamble, and I am ok with what I bought so far. If I lived near a Micro Center, would have done a combo from them for CPU, MB and memory, plus other parts from where ever. Would also have been a great parent kid project.
Just my 2 cents.
I bought a Dell DT in 2018. Price was great. But only long after the purchase did I realize they cheaped out badly on the motherboard, severely limiting the PCI bandwidth. You could not overclock via BIOS. Turned out they even cheaped out on the video card, as unknown to any of the buyers, there were different possible specs for the GPU! Only found out far too late. And yes folks were livid about all of this, but too late to get our money back. Dell's reply was that all items were within limits of specs. Yes, the lowest possible, but unimaginable specs.
Recently bought an ASUS G16H with the 13700F CPU and 4070 GPU. Both were great, really just looking for the 4070. 13700 was a bit of overkill for my needs. Good wifi and PSU. But everything else was lower quality than hoped for, DDR4 MB, DDR4 high CL memory, and case is poorly ventilated. I can get additional fans for maybe $60.00 The DDR4 won't kill me. So why buy it? It was a returned item with a 30 day trial with seller paying shipping if it was a dud and a huge discount. Pre Black Friday it was the best deal for a 4070 or AMD equivalent GPU and with no great deals available to me for the other parts. There were better deals to follow, though actually not by much for DDR5, liquid cooled, and better case fans. I took the gamble, and I am ok with what I bought so far. If I lived near a Micro Center, would have done a combo from them for CPU, MB and memory, plus other parts from where ever. Would also have been a great parent kid project.
Just my 2 cents.
I wouldn't bother with liquid cooling unless the radiator is larger than 240mm, and your case has a good place/space to put it wrt airflow. I guess there's an aesthetic element if you're just paying for looks - not just noise, cooling, value, and reliability.