Question Anyone with experiences with prebuilt PC companies (cyberpoower, ibuypower, etc)? i would like to hear them

have had lots of experience dealing with people who purchased them and then had nightmares with failed hardware and spent weeks or months dealing with support and RMAs.
each time waiting for weeks at a time for components or full systems to be shipped back and forth.
depending on the warranty provided or extra coverage purchased;
also sometimes dishing out extra dollars in shipping fees.

a lot of the companies offering pre-built systems will focus their ads or product descriptions on a couple main components like "ASUS RTX 3080 graphics card" or "AMD 5950x CPU".
then the rest of the components like cooling, memory, disks, motherboard, power supply, etc will be the lowest of the low budget which can lead to less than expected performance or problems with failed components.

if you can find a local shop that provides custom or prebuilt systems it can be an easier experience since all transactions and support can be in person.
 

punkncat

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Most of them have had very bad reputation, and in particular on the back end support.

To be fair one and or both of the main ones you mention now allow you to pick your own components, or at least a good portion of them. IIRC it's the CyberPower (same one as sold at Best Buy) one that rather impressed me with it's build. It was in a rebranded Phanteks P400A case, had some decent mid level components everywhere except the PSU which was a bit dodgy, but working.
A friend of mine and then his friend after bought the same machine, 10th gen i7 and 3070 from Zotac. BOTH of them had issue and had to RMA the first GPU. Resolution for both were within 10-15 days and have decent working systems. I have ZERO idea what they paid.
 
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Fatblabs

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have had lots of experience dealing with people who purchased them and then had nightmares with failed hardware and spent weeks or months dealing with support and RMAs.
each time waiting for weeks at a time for components or full systems to be shipped back and forth.
depending on the warranty provided or extra coverage purchased;
also sometimes dishing out extra dollars in shipping fees.

a lot of the companies offering pre-built systems will focus their ads or product descriptions on a couple main components like "ASUS RTX 3080 graphics card" or "AMD 5950x CPU".
then the rest of the components like cooling, memory, disks, motherboard, power supply, etc will be the lowest of the low budget which can lead to less than expected performance or problems with failed components.

if you can find a local shop that provides custom or prebuilt systems it can be an easier experience since all transactions and support can be in person.
Talking about people who actually bought them not the one who‘s dealing with them
 

Fatblabs

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Most of them have had very bad reputation, and in particular on the back end support.

To be fair one and or both of the main ones you mention now allow you to pick your own components, or at least a good portion of them. IIRC it's the CyberPower (same one as sold at Best Buy) one that rather impressed me with it's build. It was in a rebranded Phanteks P400A case, had some decent mid level components everywhere except the PSU which was a bit dodgy, but working.
A friend of mine and then his friend after bought the same machine, 10th gen i7 and 3070 from Zotac. BOTH of them had issue and had to RMA the first GPU. Resolution for both were within 10-15 days and have decent working systems. I have ZERO idea what they paid.
Yeah I noticed it seems like cyber power is stating More specific components as their options except for the graphics card and the psu
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
For CyberPower and iBuyPower, the moderation team here has a whole thread specifically for those.
The reports here are numerous.

Poor assembly
Crappy parts
Abysmal after sales support

Buy at your own risk. I certainly wouldn't. And I'd not allow any of my family members to do so.
 

Fatblabs

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For CyberPower and iBuyPower, the moderation team here has a whole thread specifically for those.
The reports here are numerous.

Poor assembly
Crappy parts
Abysmal after sales support

Buy at your own risk. I certainly wouldn't. And I'd not allow any of my family members to do so.
Wait so have you bought one before?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Wait so have you bought one before?
I've not, no.
Its just that we see here many many questions and problems with them.
So many, that we discuss those two specifically.

DVD drive not connected
System fails to boot out of the box
High end and hot CPU, paired with a cheesy 120mm "liquid cooler". "But hey, RGB and liquid, so it must be good, right?"
PSU not suitable for a boat anchor
1 year warranty, you pay shipping both ways

etc etc etc
 

Fatblabs

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I've not, no.
Its just that we see here many many questions and problems with them.
So many, that we discuss those two specifically.

DVD drive not connected
System fails to boot out of the box
High end and hot CPU, paired with a cheesy 120mm "liquid cooler". "But hey, RGB and liquid, so it must be good, right?"
PSU not suitable for a boat anchor
1 year warranty, you pay shipping both ways

etc etc etc
I think they do quality checks so we’ll see how the pc goes when it arrives. I already bought one lol
 

Fatblabs

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I've not, no.
Its just that we see here many many questions and problems with them.
So many, that we discuss those two specifically.

DVD drive not connected
System fails to boot out of the box
High end and hot CPU, paired with a cheesy 120mm "liquid cooler". "But hey, RGB and liquid, so it must be good, right?"
PSU not suitable for a boat anchor
1 year warranty, you pay shipping both ways

etc etc etc
Also they specify more components specifically so i don’t think it will be cheesy
 
I have owned a Cyberpower. It was honestly fine. It was put together fine with component choices that made sense at the time. Decent overall.
It was similar to this.
CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Xtreme VR GXiVR8020A Gaming Desktop - Intel i5-6402P Quad Core 2.8GHz, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB HDD, 24X DVD, AMD RX 480 4GB, WI-Fi USB Adapter, Windows 10 Home - Walmart.com - Walmart.com

Here were the components in mine.
i5 6402P
Simple Cooler Master downdraft cooler
Gigabyte B150m gaming motherboard
16gb Crucial 2400mhz (2x8)
Gigabyte RX480 4gb Gaming
Toshiba 1tb 7200rpm drive
Cooler Master Masterbox 5
Thermaltake Smart 600w 80+
Granted, that was not a machine I bought new, so I never had the displeasure of dealing with customer service or anything. However about 5 years later it was still alive and kicking. I threw in an SSD into the vacant m.2 slot and it was quite a decent machine.

However, getting a good system from most big prebuilt manufacturers seems to be an exception. A lot of the time they have some major flaw if not multiple.

Youtuber Gamers Nexus has done a lot of reviews of prebuilts recently. They have had major issues with them. Anything from insufficient cooling, to insufficient packaging causing damage, to poorly configured systems with poor quality parts. Basically only one didn't have a fatal flaw, and even that one had some less than ideal parts choices as well as supposedly poor support.

If you want, you can also watch Linus Tech Tips "secret shopper" series. They have had mixed luck too.
 
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Fatblabs

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what's the difference?

the hundreds of threads created by users that have bought them and had issue
and the many users that have reached out for 3rd party support locally
do not hold the same relevance as if i had actually bought all of those systems myself and had the issues?
i just want to hear from those who actually had them before which i clearly stated in my question
 

Fatblabs

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what's the difference?

the hundreds of threads created by users that have bought them and had issue
and the many users that have reached out for 3rd party support locally
do not hold the same relevance as if i had actually bought all of those systems myself and had the issues?
also i cant find those threads so can you direct them to me pls
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
also i cant find those threads so can you direct them to me pls
Just a few.....



And not just here at Toms Hardware...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sDRiakWcIM
 
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Fatblabs

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Just a few.....



And not just here at Toms Hardware...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sDRiakWcIM
thonks
 
A few years ago, I used to do pc repair as a side gig. I still work in IT and tinker around on my own stuff. But I remember one particular system from one of the large companies you mentioned. I remember having to replace the power supply in the system, I think at the time the guy also bought a gpu. So those were installed.

Guy gets the computer back, things were ok for about 2 hours. Somehow the system developed a leak in the aio. Took out the motherboard, as well as I think the gpu. Not 100% sure. Luckily everything was purchased with Microcenter which had a good return policy.

Ended up rebuilding the pc with a new cpu, board, gpu, and perhaps different power supply for good measure, and since Microcenter allowed an exchange. As I recall, the new cpu cooler was a hyper 212 evo, so no chance of water damage again.

Given the current market, I’d consider buying from one of those companies, but if you do, use the tools to upgrade the power supply, get to standard air cooling, and pick components you want. If you know how to build, it may not be a bad idea to pop the sides off, give it a once over, make sure the screws, cooler etc is all tight before you run it.
 
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Fatblabs

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A few years ago, I used to do pc repair as a side gig. I still work in IT and tinker around on my own stuff. But I remember one particular system from one of the large companies you mentioned. I remember having to replace the power supply in the system, I think at the time the guy also bought a gpu. So those were installed.

Guy gets the computer back, things were ok for about 2 hours. Somehow the system developed a leak in the aio. Took out the motherboard, as well as I think the gpu. Not 100% sure. Luckily everything was purchased with Microcenter which had a good return policy.

Ended up rebuilding the pc with a new cpu, board, gpu, and perhaps different power supply for good measure, and since Microcenter allowed an exchange. As I recall, the new cpu cooler was a hyper 212 evo, so no chance of water damage again.

Given the current market, I’d consider buying from one of those companies, but if you do, use the tools to upgrade the power supply, get to standard air cooling, and pick components you want. If you know how to build, it may not be a bad idea to pop the sides off, give it a once over, make sure the screws, cooler etc is all tight before you run it.
don't worry, I'm pretty sure the gpu is going to be the EVGA 600gd (according to someone, they had experienced a lot of evga 600gd psu's from cyberpower). If it is, i'm going to keep it since that it's not that bad of a psu. Isn't great either, so I'll probably replace it once the warranty is gone. Thanks for sharing your experience!
 

Fatblabs

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A few years ago, I used to do pc repair as a side gig. I still work in IT and tinker around on my own stuff. But I remember one particular system from one of the large companies you mentioned. I remember having to replace the power supply in the system, I think at the time the guy also bought a gpu. So those were installed.

Guy gets the computer back, things were ok for about 2 hours. Somehow the system developed a leak in the aio. Took out the motherboard, as well as I think the gpu. Not 100% sure. Luckily everything was purchased with Microcenter which had a good return policy.

Ended up rebuilding the pc with a new cpu, board, gpu, and perhaps different power supply for good measure, and since Microcenter allowed an exchange. As I recall, the new cpu cooler was a hyper 212 evo, so no chance of water damage again.

Given the current market, I’d consider buying from one of those companies, but if you do, use the tools to upgrade the power supply, get to standard air cooling, and pick components you want. If you know how to build, it may not be a bad idea to pop the sides off, give it a once over, make sure the screws, cooler etc is all tight before you run it.
Yeah, thanks for reminding! I gotta make sure all the parts are good and intact. Rearrange cables for cable management, check for leaks, especially on my All in one cooler i ordered with my pc from cyberpower (deepcool somethin idk).
 

Pc6777

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A lot of the time the power supply will suck(not always), most people buying prebuilts don't look at psu specs so that's how they bring down cost, a kid of the time more basic motherboards are used, which isnt a bad thing, helps bring down cost. I haven't bought a prebuilt before so I'm not sure which "brand" is best. But one thing you need to avoid is, prebuilts with proprietary parts, if something breaks you won't be able to fix it, plus it could hurt resale value, and future costomazation options.
 
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Fatblabs

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A lot of the time the power supply will suck(not always), most people buying prebuilts don't look at psu specs so that's how they bring down cost, a kid of the time more basic motherboards are used, which isnt a bad thing, helps bring down cost. I haven't bought a prebuilt before so I'm not sure which "brand" is best. But one thing you need to avoid is, prebuilts with proprietary parts, if something breaks you won't be able to fix it, plus it could hurt resale value, and future costomazation options.
dont worry cyberpower is using more specific parts for us to choose from except for the gpu and the psu, and maybe some other components but most of the parts to choose from are more specific.
 

Fatblabs

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Just a few.....



And not just here at Toms Hardware...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sDRiakWcIM
replaced psu with rn750. its amazing