Not sure if this is the right place to ask this or not but I will give it a go.
Ill be leaving 3rd world Africa for 3 weeks and going to England for a bit of a break, Ill be staying in London specifically either in Finchley or Sunbury On Thames.
After much googling and head scratching I have failed to find any serious enthusiast computer parts shops in the areas or even in greater London for that matter as it seems alot of the parts stores have closed their doors in favor of e-tailers which is an issue for me since I dont have a credit card and only have cold hard cash to spend!
Ill be looking for a decent case with some water cooling support ideally id love an NZXT h440 or a define r4 windowed but will be flexible if I can find a selection of other cases, I also want to get a decent AIO water cooler like the Corsair h100i or similar and will also be in the market for a Corsair AX760 platinum PSU.
Can anyone who knows that area or even surrounding areas help me out by pointing me in the right direction?
Yeah that is an option I have considered but there really is nothing like walking into a store an physically seeing what I'm buying like NCIX for example, but if push comes to shove I'll just pass the cash on to someone who has a credit card and get them to make the order for me, but I'd really like to avoid doing that if I can.
With The tube and all that in London there is always the possibility that I will be able to go further afield that the immediate vicinity of Finchley or Sunbury On Thames depending on the cost of Tube tickets lol.
Get an oyster card, or an all day travel ticket. Only cost about £7 for an all day ticket, and you can go anywhere on the transport network; bus, train, or tube.
Something I meant to ask, here we have a few places that will take cash and then order stuff from Amazon, Ebay and so on on our behalf, I can only assume there must be places like that in the UK... any ideas?
So I have been struggling with my budget for parts when I go to the UK, and basically I have only got about 500 pounds to spend, I looked at basically putting together a current gen PC with z97 mobo and 4690K and high speed memory plus cooler, case, psu, and ssd but that blew my budget out of the water and then some totalling at around 800 pounds which is a deal killer as after that I would be begging on the side of a street in London for food and drink.
So I have looked at another option, my current rig is the one here --> http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/FmggFT
and I have it in my budget to get a new case (Corsair vengeance C70 in Black), a new cooler (Corsair H100i), a new psu (Coolermaster Vanguard v1000) and a second GFX card (EVGA GTX760 sc acx) and that concludes the list of upgrades.
Id like to get some opinions from this great community as to whether these upgrades are worth it for gaming with next gen tittles and a little productivity for another couple of years or whether I'm just being foolish and wasting my cash,
The build will be for a little bit of bling and also to help showcase what me and my small IT company can build for clients should they choose to get a high power pc.
I used to live in Finchley and I'm sorry to say that London is short on decent PC parts shops. There are a couple of small PC stores in Finchley itself, but they both order from online wholesalers and mark-up the goods. You may be able to view a few cases there, depending on what they have in stock, but the best places are up where I live now in the North West of England, with the best usually being Scan Computers in Bolton.
The closest thing to what you want is Cubs - http://cubsuk.com/index.php?category=COMPUTER%20CASES&sub=Full%20ATX&fkey=caseFATX
If you need anyone to sort something out with Scan or Aria (the big online places in the UK) then you can let me know, as they're both very close to me. Otherwise, good luck in your search.
Thanks Azreal, the info is much appreciated, I have sort of given up on the idea of being able to walk in and view the type of parts I want in store as it seems they have almost all gone the way of e-tailing, all the parts I am looking at will most likely be coming from amazon.co.uk as It looks like I will be purchasing a cash card for while Im there and that should let me buy on Amazon (can anyone verify this as there is info on the Amazon site but its not very detailed).
Any thoughts on my rig and my chosen components upgrades?
On the rig, I'm wondering why you've decided to go for the H100i. Is it just to show people back home what the kits look like, or is it for the cooling? If the latter, then I'd probably go with a solid air cooler like the Noctua and save yourself a bit of money. I use the H100, but I am on AMD processors and have had very impressive results - but with an Intel, which runs less hot, I'm not sure you need it.
The PSU is a good one, but I'd say there are as good units for a bit less (EVGA or Corsair). If you saved say £40 on the H100i and the PSU then you'd have a bit more room to pick up something else, or just save the money.
The rig you are in looks decent ... I would get a 1000w PSU and throw a pair of r9 290s at it and it would be savage. Plus you can pick it all up at SCAN if there is one near you.
These are the parts you wanted ... with the exception of the CM Vangaurd 1000w PSU ... I substituted EVGA 1000w G2 Gold Certified PSU. they can all be picked up at SCAN. Total ...... £494.28 you could get better prices if you were able to shop online...
Scan are actually very good. Their pick-up price is the same as their online price, which is usually the cheapest in the UK over most products outside sales and offers. I live about 10 minutes drive from them, so I'm lucky in that regard.
Like I said to the OP, decent PC shops in London are non-existent. Most sales these days are online, and so it's just not cost-efficient to pay London property prices to operate from. There are some stores near Finchley, where the OP will be staying, but they will not offer the range or value he needs.