BPC Tech Review - Frustrations & Successes

cc23 on 07/09/2023 - 15:13
Last edited 07/09/2023 - 15:58 by 1 other user

Ok, decided I might share this if it is of interest to people.

BPC Tech along with Enigma PC (the new kid on the block) and TechFast, seem to make up about 90% of the 'Gaming PC' deals we have here on OzBargain. I just wanted to share my experience ordering with them both the positive and negative.

Positive:

• Price was competitive, I looked up similar parts and it would have cost almost the same to make it myself, but that would have been much more hassle.
• Went to collect PC from them in person, very friendly people.
• New site was amazing, super clean, modern, incredibly impressive, would absolutely recommend picking up if you can.
• Unlike the last PC I purchased from them, all parts were as promised, correct make on all parts, no switching out for lesser models.
• PC runs well at home, after some hiccups, with much better build quality than in the past (again last time Graphics Card was not fitted well and bent out of shape, cable management was poor)
• Let them know I was coming to collect and they had it ready to go.

Negative

• Email communication - I asked for a 4080 upgrade (from the 4070ti) and to pay the uplift, was told they had 'no idea' when they were coming back in stock, and then came back into stock on their website 2 days after my collection. Emailed them about this, no response. And I have chased up again to ask for assistance, again, no response at all.
• Hesistant to allow changes - this I do somewhat understand, they want you to stick to the build on their site, however, I asked for a case change in multiple emails, and they just flat didn't respond, quick cut off and then sent an invoice before locking in my build.
• Images online showed the case as RGB and having 4 RGB fans installed, none on the case, and seemed like they never would have been. Asked for explanation, none given.
• Asked for all boxes with the build, was not provided boxes for multiple parts, literally no CPU, RAM, cooler, SSD and more with no explanation given. Even though I drove to collect to ensure I got all the boxes.

Overall I think it's hard to run a PC business, make sure you are making money and fighting with good prices while still ensuring you make sufficient profit to grow and I think this lot have kind of nailed it. I think they are a company I 100% recommend if you want the PC as is from the website, as that part is very smooth, build quality is great and part quality at least for me, was excellent.

However, if you want changes, the boxes for your parts, or assistance before and after sales, I'd be prepared to face a couple of issues.

Related Stores

BPC Technology

• 

  bdl on 07/09/2023 - 15:42

  +2

  Pros seem to outweigh Cons

  • 

    cc23 on 07/09/2023 - 15:55

    I agree tbh.

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  mskeggs on 07/09/2023 - 17:24

  +3

  I think there is a bit of wanting your cake and eating it too, with the idea they will post a particular special on a specific configuration, that you then seek to modify and have individual service, but still aiming for the mass pricing.

  I am sure part of the reason they can offer cheap specials is they are able to pick up a bunch of generic parts, RAM for example, in a non-retail box. So they can’t give you the pretty retail pack. And a price break from a supplier if they commit to, e.g. 200 of one model of graphic card, then you want a different one.
  I’d say it was not great service if you asked for a custom build, with specified parts, and retaining all the boxes, and they agreed and priced accordingly.
  But I am a bit more realistic when it is a special price and requesting modifications.

  • 

    cc23 on 07/09/2023 - 17:56

    +1

    Yeah 100%, I am openly expecting a lot and did detail essentially that I’m awkward. But to confirm, the only ‘change’ I requested beyond what they offer in their drop-down boxes, was a case change and they refused and that’s fair. What I don’t follow is they declined to change to a 4080 even though that was a specified option by them.

    • 

      mskeggs on 07/09/2023 - 21:52

      +1

      Fair enough. I don't think you were over the top in your requests, and I assume most customers didn't ask the same, so it probably wasn't a huge deal. I do think if you had just taken the offered build, with no departures, you would have a result with good outcomes - the places they seem to have struggled were in your extra requests. And I think you have probably concluded it wasn't perfect, but reasonably good for the price.
      So maybe the feedback should be fairly, they did what they offered but didn't handle departures well - which is a fair criticism.

      I will complement you that you didn't title this "SCAM supplier" which seems to be the go to way to describe any departure from perfect on these forums.

      • 

        cc23 on 13/09/2023 - 11:06

        I'm actually overall happy with the build and price. I just wanted to give a balanced review as for me personally it was a vast improvement on my experience with them 2 years ago.

• 

  rumblytangara on 07/09/2023 - 18:46

  +1

  Decent review, imo.

  As someone who many, many years ago used to assemble PCs I would say that the expectations around boxes is highly unrealistic. Inventory management, and management of the workspace, is a huge deal. And faffing about with boxes makes everything slower when you're just trying to put as many machines together as quickly and neatly as possible. Tracking one machine build and its associated boxes, for any customer that requests it, is too much of a PITA. It also sends the signal that you're likely to be a bit of a hassle to deal with- I just wouldn't want much to do with someone who is precious about cardboard product boxes. If you asked, IMO they should have been upfront with a "no". But I can personally understand if they just ignored the request.

  Though on the other hand, last couple of places I've had machine builds at, they've been able to give me boxes if I wanted them, but that's because they are so insanely high throughput that you can watch the guy build it within half an hour and it probably does them a favour to take the rubbish offsite. I've just told them to toss them all, and keep the motherboard box to stash cables and manuals into.

  • 

    cc23 on 07/09/2023 - 20:31

    That’s really interesting information on the boxes. I think I, as a common retail buyer, really don’t understand the intricacies of building on this scale, but that makes sense completely.

• 

  Clear on 07/09/2023 - 21:21

  I ordered a 5600X + RTX 3080 build back in 2021 and whoever was responsible for builds back then was a lot worse than they are now. The included case had a USB-C port on the front, but the motherboard supplied had no USB-C header. When questioned they assured it would…. and it wasn't. The next issue was that all fans on the build were set to exhaust with no intake. I was lucky enough to actually receive exhaust fans in my build, as most others only had the fans on the cooler.

  After noise BPC offered a USB hub as compensation and went silent when I took them up on the offer. So after further noise in deals they sent me a proper motherboard with a USB-C header.

  Things certainly seemed to have improved. Like Techfast they tend to take on way too many orders and suffer delays. Techfast support themselves have said that they advertised quick build times on OzBargain to get purchases and the actual build time is completely irrelevant. That's pretty shoddy.

• 

  Danstar on 08/09/2023 - 09:34

  +1

  Similar sentiments to you. The price was good, the communication was good enough in the beginning as I just wanted an ETA as it was close to Xmas and wanted this before then.

  I did pick up and wanted the boxes also, I got all the boxes except the GPU box, which I didn't ask about as they were quite busy when I went to pick up.

  On the actual build. When starting up the PC, noticed the CPU temp was 50 + degrees after a few minutes, then going up to 99 after 10 minutes. Luckily I have built PCs in the past and noticed the CPU fan was not clicked onto the actual CPU. The paste had all but dried up and one of the clips were slightly broken. I'm guessing who ever installed it thought the click noise was the fan clicking on, but was actually the clip breaking. The GPU was also running very hot and the fans would only start working sporadically.

  After fixing that issue and testing a few games. the GPU would freeze up after a few minutes and PC would either reset or just stay dark. After a few back and forth emails and testing the card in another PC, was determined the card was faulty. This is 1 reason why I wanted toe GPU box. I have the feeling the card installed was not a brand new card and was a returned card and they hoped the issue with the previous buyer wouldn't happen again. This is an assumption, but the card didn't look "Brand New" upon further inspection.

  Had to drive out to get a new card, I opted for a different manufacturer of the same card, which costed $30. I also purchased a new cpu cooler was cost $70. The day after I bought the PC, they had a 10% site wide offer, which I asked what they could do about that for me, as in theory I could've just cancelled my order and re-ordered with the discount. The offered me a $70 store credit, which was about 5% of my order, but I just took it as I needed my order before Xmas, I didn't want to delay my order any further.

  • 

    cc23 on 08/09/2023 - 09:39

    Yeah this was more like my order with them back in 2021. I had issues with the graphics card and cooler and fixed them myself in the end, also had switched out parts etc.

    This time was much improved.

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  MustardKetchup on 13/09/2023 - 08:49

  Should've went with NebulaPC!

  • 

    cc23 on 13/09/2023 - 11:05

    I found them friendly, but found for me personally the BPC parts to be of higher quality for the same price.