Bought a custom gaming pc

Hardware Build a PC
1

I bought a custom gaming pc from a small company in my town for $1,300, I asked for a gaming pc that would be able to stream and record video as well as play games. What I got is not able to play most of the games that I listed to the guy, (Minecraft, Feed the Beast, Warframe, Spore, Left 4 Dead 2, Starbound, and some others were on my list) The guy said he could build me a pc that could do all I asked for so I went to the shop and sat with him to figure out what parts I could get. I thought he'd show me a list of parts he didn't I told him I wanted 8 gb of ram and a quad core cpu, I tried asking him what parts he was picking out of a site he was looking at on his laptop but he said he couldn't show me the site cause it was his suppliers site.

When I asked what parts he was going to use he didn't tell me the parts just that he was picking an amd quad core cpu, amd gpu, 8 gb ram, so I asked to which gpu, at the time, I thought he said an amd 7750 gpu, I said ok, and then asked which cpu, again at the time, I thought he said amd Phenom II 955 black edition,

I was ready to just leave but my mom was there and wasn't going to let me build my own pc, mind you it doesn't help that the one place I thought would have the parts I wanted (our local Best Buy) no longer has cpus or much in the way of parts any more.

Anyway I listen to my mom and buy the pc (which comes with a 3 year warranty) two days later I pick the pc up these are the parts from what I can tell without opening the case, http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Eid1 the psu is a 500 watt psu I have no idea what the cpu cooler is, there is one extra fan (didn't come with the case) with red led lighting but again no idea what it is exactly.

When I finally downloaded some of my games (Minecraft, Feed the Beast, Warframe, Starbound and Spore) I tried to play them, Minecraft ran fine high settings very little fps drop stayed around 30 - 40 fps, Feed the Beast Horizons stayed around 20-30 fps,

Warframe was 24 fps on the main menu but felt really sluggish moving around the main menu so I didn't try playing, I turned down the graphics settings to low, but no fps change on the main menu, my mom's laptop with an amd a10-4600m gets better fps on the main menu of Warframe 50-60 fps for her laptop, and around 30-40 fps in actual play the only time it ever dropped lower the 26 fps was when the Cicero Injector was activated, so you can see why I didn't even try running a mission. When I turned off DirectX 11 and some other options in the Warframe launcher it got stuck "Verifying Download Cashe" for about an hour before I finally ended task manually, now the game won't launch and continues to get stuck "Verifying Download Cashe",

I moved on to try to play Spore and found that to run around 20-25 fps with lowered graphics settings.

I finally tried Starbound and found the it was running around 25-30 fps with lowered graphics and some fps drops when on the planets and lots of trees and monsters around. 

I'm disappointed in this pc, and in myself for listening to my parents about building my own pc myself. But they had a point I've never built a pc before and if I did screw something up I would have been out of luck. My question is this should I try to return the pc and maybe get my money back despite the guy's "All sales are Final" policy or should I spend more money to get a better psu, gpu, and maybe a cpu cooler that doesn't sound like a jet engine taking off at the nearby airport? 

 

UPDATE: I called the guy yesterday evening and told him what problems I was having he says if I bring in the pc tomorrow he will have a look at it and replace the graphics card and psu if needed. So tomorrow afternoon I'll be taking the pc in and we'll see what happens from there.

 

UPDATE 2: I've had the pc back a few days now and I'm happier now about it. It now has a ASUS NVIDIA GTX 650 TI graphics card in it and my games are running smoothly, it's not as loud as it was and seems to be running great. So YAY! XD

2

I would absolutely try to get your money back.

3

+1.  You just got ripped off real bad.

Tell your parents this:

Building a computer is educational.  You learn the in and outs of how a computer works, and you get a satisfaction of building a system that you use daily.  No, it's not super hard.  I build my first pc when I was 16, and I'm 17 now with my second PC after selling my first.  Building a PC is a great experience, and you understand technology.  Stuff like this wouldn't happen if you knew more about computers.

If a 16 year old (and plenty of younger people that have come across this forum) can build a computer, you should be able to!

So go demand your money back because your computer you bought is utter shit(I bet the builder had those parts laying around), and build your own pc.

4

For $1300, you can get a real beast of a rig.  If you're in the US, and considering you only need an operating system and the tower hardware:

I went with Intel since most of the games you have will benefit from stronger single cores than slightly weaker multiple cores(basically Intel vs AMD)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2EiXi

Overclockable, Upgradeable, and can handle all the games you have now with ease.

5

Heres pretty much my exact system and its right around $1300 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Ej1O

but hate to say it you got screwed bad

6

 

Wow $1300 for a budget build that's amazing.  any honest company will let you know what parts are going into your computer, may not tell you the manufacturer of some of the parts (don't want you price comparing on internet).  You expect some sort of markup for having somebody build your system but that's outrageous. I'd expect ok $900 in hardware with the extra $400 cover labor.  The  shop may have All sales final policy but do the parts listed on invoice match whats in the system?  

As for convincing your parents to let you build one my advice is actions are louder than words.  What i mean is do your research .  watch youtube vids and post questions in forums, go to your local library they should have maximumpc and/or pcmag read the articles.(if you've already done this your ahead of the game)   Then pick your parts and write down why you chose them so when you go to your parents you can say I want to build a pc with these parts and this is why i chose them.  Also be good to put some of your own money into the build.

 

7

Yeah that's pretty bad, I'm trying to help out a friend at work with the same problem $1200 AUD for a  Intel i5 4430, 8Gb1000Mhz DDR3, a gigabit motherboard I forgot which one, 1 Tb HDD, some generic case and a 1Gb GPU I think it was a GT 610, there's some real dodgy custom pc companies out there.

8

This is a cool site for beginners: http://www.choosemypc.net/#

I would NOT use this as pc buildng guide but more of a tool to give you an idead of what you can get for the money.

9

That build is pathetic for 1300. You should absolutely build your own.

This story made me angry

10

You were heavily ripped off...

11

You got ripped hard man, get a refund.

12

You payed for like $600 in parts, and payed $1300 holy shit some people are assholes with pricing...

13

wow, a last gen apu would absolutely rape that thing, all for less than 1/2 the price

14

You know what, im going to go ahead and say, show your parents a build your own pc video.  I mean actually building.  Like one of Linus videos, or the tek syndicate one.

15

It WILL work.  PC's are just Adult Legos.  Can someone trademark that though? Nevermind, im sure the porn industry already has.

16

Wow that company must be full of assholes, that is probably one of the biggest ripoffs I've heard of in a while.

I'm sorry for your loss and I hope you can get a refund, hopefully they didn't make you sign any kind of weird contract.  Honestly, I'll tell you what, its ok to buy a prebuilt rig.  However, the problem was partly your ignorance of how you can pressure these idiots into caving before you just leave.  I think you just accepted everything too blindly, not to mention your mom helped in making you accept this deal.

When you're buying a prebuilt, go to a well-known site like ibuypower/cyberpower or even go for a boutique one like Alienware.  It's not cheap but at least you're guaranteed to get the parts you want.  If you don't want that, I suggest finding a friend or some sort of acquaintance to help you.

Obviously though the best case scenario is that you research and you buy the parts personally and either build it yourself or have it built for you by a friend.

So not to be harsh or anything, let this be a lesson.  Not just at the OP but for anyone who wants to buy a prebuilt.

17

NCIX I think makes the best custom computers you can get in north america.  They use quality parts and can all be custom ordered.

18

I feel really bad that that happened to you.

19

Wow, please tell me their phone number. Send me a PM or post it on this thread, I cant believe this happened to you, I really hope it was your parents money that was wasted. I can tell you right now that this is a story that very sad. Tell your parents they were obviously retards. And you should also be sure to use a company before buying from them, you shouldn't have felt embarrassed, feel free to question peoples' legitimacy, you have the right to. Don't buy from people that don't give you full information. I think you can bring the seller to court for misleading you. Please PM me the sellers number.

Thanks

20

I have been doing research and watching videos for the last 3 years, I just never had the money to spend on a new pc before.