I have had a good enough experience with companies I have bought with (Umart, Pccasegear, mwave, centercom). However, I know some people have had disaster stories and for one mwave is having issues currently. Can anyone with extensive knowledge rank the popular stores, at least top three?
Best PC Parts Stores Currently
Chaubie on 06/07/2025 - 22:12
Last edited 07/07/2025 - 18:37 by 2 other users
Last edited 07/07/2025 - 18:37 by 2 other users
Comments
PC parts
I like Aldi. Good prices on their grocery items and you can find some interesting stuff in the middle aisles sometimes.
Imagine an Aldi PC… Would probably run WebOS Desktop edition
hey, i was a uni student and i purchased a $499 Aldi Medion PC in 2010 that was able to play at a graphic setting better than Xbox 360!
don't you diss my Medion PC!
Harvey Norman, Good Guys, Dell.com.au, Amazon, Ali Express, Apple, …
"Best", lol. Every PC store is selling the same items made in Taiwan or China.
What you're essentially asking for is which store to buy from in case the cheap shit you bought somehow fails, in which case the answer is Amazon or Officeworks since they'll mostly refund you by default unless you've made a bunch of claims in the last few months.
But otherwise, get the cheapest item and bank the savings against the fact that something is going to fail at some stage and you're going to have to write the cost off to experience.
TLDR. If you want cheap and a good warranty go to anyone with a no-fault refund policy.
Not sure why you got a downvote, this is precisely the issue.
It's not likely you'll get shafted on the front end from any of these known stores. It's whether you can get a refund/exchage/repair when something goes wrong.
If you're asking this question, if want customer service/loyalty, maybe you'll be better off with some kind of prebuilt
Depends what you mean by "best", I'll say this much:
1) MSY was my favourite - great efficiency, prices, and always lots of cheap goodies, but ever since the ACCC went after them, and Umart bought them out, they've been absolute trash. Avoid.
2) Umart is bad, it's annoying that they don't really have much of a storefront and their locations are basically just click-and-collect outlets.
3) Centrecom is good, I used to find them expensive (particularly compared to MSY), but they've become more competitive on price, and I find that their range is good, they have good stores that are quite fun to browse (lots of stuff on display), decent pre-sales and after-sales support in my experience - they're quite decent all up, pretty much the "Kmart of computer parts" these days
4) Scorptec and PLE tend to be expensive, but always super nice people there and they seem to carry some pretty niche parts (e.g. custom water cooling). I personally rarely buy core components from them, but they usually have niche products that I like and will go out of my way to go there for.
5) Mwave is NSW based, and I've never found any reason to prefer them to my locally (VIC) based stores
6) PCCG used to be very good, but I find them boring now. They no longer carry some of the more niche interesting stuff, and they're always more expensive than other options. They also have no store-front, shipping is always expensive. They do (IMHO) have the best website, and I often browse their website before purchasing somewhere else.
7) Some random local stores tend to have good deals on things - CPL, PC Byte come to mind, but there are others. The issue with some of these smaller retailers is that they just don't get consistent stock, and they don't tend to respond quickly to price changes. Given that PC parts are generally on the down-trend at the moment given relatively sluggish sales, these smaller stores tend not to be the leader on price cuts and lag behind, so it's hard to purchase with them.
FWIW, there are some good retailers on eBay (Futu, smarthomestore, Harris Technology…etc.) who have ridiculous prices, but with the 22% (or whatever) discount, they can be quite competitive.
MSY/UMART at Ultimo has been awesome for me, haven't been there in just over a year tho.
Scorptec is more preferred store and I'm happy to pay a little more for their customer service.
Centrecom isn't too bad but looks like some stores are franchised?
CPL is competitive and has a wide range but everytime I go there to pick up an order I think to myself 'the savings isn't worth the time taken to wait in line'.
I want to replace SSD in my laptop. Have never bought any internal computer parts. Though I can change the SSD myself watching some YT videos, do any of them do it free if I buy from them?
Not for free. They charge you extra.
PC Byte
Bought out by Umart (at least) a couple of years ago
I won't buy from any of the super cheap places like uMart or mwave. I stopped buying stuff from MegaBuy when the stopped consolidating courier fees and started adding a random amount per part that usually pushes the price higher than what I could get it elsewhere.
My most recent purchases have been from Computer Alliance, sometimes directly and sometimes via their ebay store (mostly depending on promotions and ebay usually gets free delivery for me), but only after checking Static Ice to get a ballpark idea. Most of the lowest prices on Static Ice are not the price you'll actually pay after fees and postage.
My current computer is moslty from PCCaseGear. Not the cheapest price but their website is the easiest to use in my opinion and if you look for the best price/performance parts you can put together something reasonable.
My last two graphics cards were from random eBay sellers (a 2060 and a 3060) where both were $50-$100 cheaper than the next best offer due to coupon codes/sales. Yes, if you look you can get some good bargains that way but watch out for the old 'jack the price up and then add a discount which brings it back'. I rolled the dice and won both times. I've actually never had a graphics card go bad so I thought the risk was worth it.
I have a internal disk drive from East Digital.
I have a bunch of external hard drive the vast majorit of which are either from Black Friday Amazon sale or general Harvey Norman Sales (they have good deals once in a while, you have to keep a look out because their normal prices are not great).
Mwave Has Been Placed into Administration and Acquired by digiDirect - I am still waiting for parts I ordered a month ago and "stock is coming", but they have no ETA.
TEMU!
PLE as its the closest to me and their prices are fair.
Otherwise I generally grab parts off Amazon for convenience
Centrecom after-sales support is horrible if you have a defective item thats outside of their '30 day DOA window'.
Centrecom after-sales support is horrible
How so?
I've never had to return anything over the years.
Monitor randomly died after 3 months of use. Contacted Centrecom to lodge a warranty claim and they said "tuff luck, we can't help you as you are outside our 30 day DOA window, we will send it to the manufacturer and await their response. Will take 4 weeks."
we will send it to the manufacturer and await their response
That is what they are required to do though, so how is that 'horrible' ?
@jv: They're a computer store with their own technicians. They could've easily assess it themselves and provided a remedy. 4 weeks wait for an obvious defect is horrible cs.
They could've easily assess it themselves and provided a remedy.
They're not required to do that under ACCC laws. They are just the retailer, not the manufacturer.
@jv: I'm just saying its horrible CS compared to others where they offer on the spot assessment and replacement/fast repairs. ie. Microsoft replaced a 4-year-old laptop on the spot. Logitech also replaced my mouse and wheel within a week.
Microsoft replaced a 4-year-old laptop on the spot.
Logitech also replaced my mouse and wheel within a week.Microsoft and Logitech are the retailers and the manufacturers, so they can do that…
Unless someting is DOA, then they retailer usually sends off the to manufacturer for repairs, or you can go through the manufactuer direct. That may be quicker… It's your choice. The manufacturer may have a repairer local to you that you can take it to.
4 weeks wait for an obvious defect is horrible
I had to wait 3 weeks for a printer repair…
Depends how busy they are.
Best PC Stores Currently
Cleanest?
ijk - ijk.com.au
(website old as anything - but they're pretty competitive, within $1-2 difference for most items of the MSY's etc- have been using them on and off for over 20 years)
msy.com.au - i prefer to go in store for them (stock varies at each store)
PLE computers
logitechshop.com.au (dont know if these guys are a bargain anymore)
umart
staticice.com.au for price comparison of PC's parts etc and stock.the above are all pretty old school but do the job.
Scorptec is the best in my opinion. , Cplonline, Centrecom in that order if you must have 2,3….
Mwave are a bunch of scammers that have gone into voluntary administration while most likely trading while insolvent. Many people that have been waiting for their 5090 orders since launch night have millions of dollars in total.
I can highly recommend shopping express, great prices and their support was good to deal with when I had to RMA a motherboard.
Best stores for …….?