@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

Do you know anyone that actually loves Best Buy nowadays?

"Loves" I would define as shops there regularly. And yes, tons of people I know shop there all of the time. Because there are lots of alternative, some really awesome ones like Amazon, that they choose BB over regularly.

My guess is that they're either uninformed consumers, not that invested in making the best purchasing decisions, or just want instant gratification. In the 40 or more products I've purchased from Best Buy, just about every single one of which I've price checked against Amazon, I've almost never ( maybe there was one or two times ) seen Best Buy beat Amazon's price without the consumer being savvy enough to acquire and use a coupon.

I guess we'll see what happens. I'd heard they closed a crap ton of stores as they were plummeting towards bankruptcy but never bothered to fact check it. Maybe it'll get better.

I did just spend 20 minutes on the phone w/ Best Buy trying to get the correct laptop sent out and after that much of an investment my answer was "this was a special order fulfillment, and we can't help you, you're going to have to go into a Best Buy store and try to get them to return the item and then order you the correct one. We're showing that we shipped you the 32GB versions so everything on our end is ok." So, f[moderated] Best Buy.

@johnhooks said:

I needed to get some RAM in a pinch. I looked online and they had some for like $50. I went to the store to pick it up and it was $65 in the store. So I just did an online order while standing in the store and only paid $50.

Doesn't really have anything to do with your situation there. I just found it amusing.

Nice. Yeah, that's happened to me plenty of times. This is another glaring example of a poorly-run company. Their online prices very often don't match their in-store ones, but here's the kicker, they'll price match their web site but... wait for it... it's a completely loose, at-the-discretion-of-the-employee policy. Which means that you can flash something on your phone ( which I did accidentally a few weeks ago ), and have it not even be the same product, and have them price match it to literally whatever you say sometimes. They didn't have the graphics card I went to purchase in-store, but had one whose box looked similar and was about $100 more expensive, and price matched it to the lower card because it rang up way more expensive. I didn't realize until I got home that I'd gotten the much better card for the cheaper card's sale price, which of course made me feel guilty and terrible so I returned it haha. But the point is: shitshow.

@scottalanmiller said:

Wouldn't both of those things constitute really liking the store, though? At want point does it beat out lots of alternatives and you still hate it?

I'm not sure what you mean. It doesn't beat out anything. I'm saying someone like me would make an occasional exception to their normal buying habits ( Amazon ) and purchase through, say Best Buy, for those specific reasons. You can still have a terrible experience trying to do so ( which I have, so regularly it's ridiculous with Best Buy ), and can still hate the company ( Best Buy's online-to-in-person back end is so pathetic that one time I ordered an item they had in store online and did in-store pick up, and doing so had locked the inventory such that when I got to the store they said they could'nt complete the order yet because it was locked in processing, and weren't able to cancel the order, and because they only had one in-store they couldn't release the locked one so I could just buy it in person and I had to wait 45 minutes while they made various phone calls to try to get the "order released", I mean it's just incredibly poorly run if you ask me. ).

Which I think a lot of people do. Do you know anyone that actually loves Best Buy nowadays?

@MattSpeller said:

Tiger Direct is a popular brick and mortar electronics store up here that went from online to first person retail. They usually don't suck. Ditto NCIX, a darling of the Vancouver tech sales scene.

That's funny. I had no idea they had in-person stores. I actually bought my first electronics device ever from them, it was a Toshiba pocket PC. All I remember about Tiger Direct is that they require rebates on most items I've ever shopped for to even get close on competitive prices and that their return policy was scary. It's interesting that they branched out to in-person. Where are you again?

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

People don't like what they offer, it's just the only game in town for a lot of things. Where I live you can maybe find an absolutely bargain basement shitty laptop at Walmart or Target, but other than that there are pretty much no other options than Best Buy,

NewEgg, Amazon, direct from the vendor... I would never consider BB, Walmart or Target for buying electronics at all. Where are you that those are the places you would go?

I may not have followed the question. Seemed like you listed online options and then asked why someone would buy in-person if there are online options? Usually you wouldn't unless

1. You're an instant gratification-er and want to pick something up today instead of wait a few days
   or
2. Somehow one of these in-person retailers offers compounding discounts and incentives to make its price substantially lower than online-only options ( like the laptop that started this discussion ).

@scottalanmiller said:

Best Buy isn't poorly run. The average BB customer doesn't want good advice, they want what BB offers - the social excuses of a bad store. People keep going back because they like what BB offers.

I assure you it's extremely poorly run.

People don't like what they offer, it's just the only game in town for a lot of things. Where I live you can maybe find an absolutely bargain basement shitty laptop at Walmart or Target, but other than that there are pretty much no other options than Best Buy, unless you know you want a mac and are nearer to an Apple Store.

It's why it'll be completely dead in less than 3 years, going the way of Circuit City. Everything from their actual selection of what electronics to carry on a model level down to how they advertise and handle returns and membership incentives, to how they price match, to the lack of training of their employees to answer simple questions ( though, this has definitely degraded in the past 5 years as they've been bleeding money to Amazon, they used to have some pretty knowledgeable people when I was first getting into programming ) to their web site, which is riddled w/ errors, misinformation, and an inability to correctly convey local inventory information, arguably its most-important function ( I've gone to local Best Buys 3 times that said items were in-stock in the store even when I was there asking reps to check the back, and ended up going home without them. I now call ahead choosing not to trust their web site, ever, and beg an employee to physically find the product and verify that it's there ).

But, in the end, I can't argue w/ $600 off

@JaredBusch said:

Why would you ever buy something non-basic form Best Buy? That just amazes me.

In two words: Discounts and flexibility. The laptop I ordered is on sale for $320 dollars off:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-32gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-256gb-solid-state-drive-black/8962308.p?id=1219697995031&skuId=8962308

And on top of that, you can apply a 10% off coupon at checkout, saving you another $220.

On top of that, being an elite member I get another $46-ish back in Best Buy gift certificates a week or two after purchase.

Almost $600 total off. On a laptop this expensive, that's pretty legit. It'll pay for my GTX 970, the motherboard for my Xeon, and the power supply. Not bad.

As far as flexibility, I also have 45 days to return anything I buy at Best Buy with no restocking fees whatsoever for being an elite member.

That's pretty much it.

I'm just super annoyed that I'm going to have to call them tomorrow and have them ship me the replacement.

The good news is, I cracked the thing open and it's actually an M2 SSD, so that's a pretty epic surprise.

The screen is also 75Hz and has GSync. Excited about the laptop itself, just annoyed at the incompetency of such a big company.

My new laptop just came in the mail today. I've been pretty excited. It's a mobile quad w/ 32GB RAM and a 980M. But.... since Best Buy literally struggles with every single thing imaginable... they sent me a laptop w/ 24GB.

Their web site is riddled w/ errors, their employees know less about the simple questions I ask them than I do, and, well, their prices aren't even competitive.

Challenge: Name a worse company than Best Buy.

@MattSpeller said:

@creayt 225w/gtx970 IIRC

You're not going to have much room left over

Edit: independant or SLI, I'd still budget the full dollop of juice for each one, total the system needs and add 30-50%

Good to know. Thanks!

Which would you go with between these three?

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-HX1000i-Performance-Supply-CP-9020074-NA/dp/B00M2UINT6/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439931193&sr=1-8&keywords=corsair+power+supply

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-80PLUS-Gold-Certified-Power-Supply/dp/B00EB7UIXM/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439931193&sr=1-3&keywords=corsair+power+supply

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Professional-Digital-Modular-Platinum/dp/B008Q7HUR0/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1439931193&sr=1-7&keywords=corsair+power+supply

Currently running a Corsair CX750M. Does anyone know how I can tell whether that'll be enough to support two GTX 970's running independently ( non-SLI )? I believe SLI uses less power and two independents would use more, but the power recommendations are for one card only so I'm not sure how to be sure and exchange the CX750M if necessary. Thx.

@Dashrender said:

@creayt said:

@JaredBusch said:

The goal of reviewing choices on occasion is always to ensure that I am getting the best value for my money.

I was not expecting to save much money by switching to T-Mobile. I was surprised to come out a bit higher.

That's surprising. We save over $200 a month on T-Mo versus our AT&T plan. Is it worth it? I guess, but just barely, and mostly only because we don't use our phones much except while traveling.

Wow - how many lines do you have on there? Save $200+ a month, Jared's bill isn't even $200/month.

4 lines. I had an iPad on the ATT plan too but ditched that as part of the move.

Our new plan is only $125 for unlimited everything though. Pretty ridiculously cheap. If only the service wasn't abysmal.

@scottalanmiller said:

Strange. I know that each of our phones acts very differently but our reliability on TMobile, especially around the city, has been excellent.

Well I'm effing jealous

It's been a nightmare for me.

@scottalanmiller said:

Are you maybe not on iPhones? We've had great luck on iPhones. With Android I've had those issues with every service.

1 iPhone 6 Plus, 2 iPhone 6s, and 1 5S on my plan.

@JaredBusch said:

The goal of reviewing choices on occasion is always to ensure that I am getting the best value for my money.

I was not expecting to save much money by switching to T-Mobile. I was surprised to come out a bit higher.

That's surprising. We save over $200 a month on T-Mo versus our AT&T plan. Is it worth it? I guess, but just barely, and mostly only because we don't use our phones much except while traveling.

@scottalanmiller said:

@creayt said:

Having recently switched from ATT to T-Mobile all I can say is DONNNNNNNNNN'TTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's the worst thing ever. We all ( 4 of us on my family plan ) have iPhone 6 and 6 pluses and get no reception anywhere. Like anywhere. New York, Seattle, everywhere we've been it's an embarrassing, crippling struggle.

That's so weird. NY it had the best reception of anything I tried (AT&T was the worst.) Dallas, it was better than Verizon (didn't test AT&T.) Seattle it worked fine. I use it everywhere without issues. Even the places where @Minion-Queen goes that she has issues, it routinely works for me.

That is crazy. It'd take us 2-3 minutes to load a web page in the area around the Lincoln Center consistently ( was there for a conference in May ). At one point we just stopped using/relying on our phones at all or pursing wifi to plan out our adventures and then transcribing them some other way. It was an absolutely weird experience for 2015. Uber drivers couldn't find us and we ended up having to coordinate a specific intersection to meet them almost every time. I would presume it's my phone but it happens to my gf's and mom's too, hers is actually even worse than mine sometimes.

Having recently switched from ATT to T-Mobile all I can say is DONNNNNNNNNN'TTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's the worst thing ever. We all ( 4 of us on my family plan ) have iPhone 6 and 6 pluses and get no reception anywhere. Like anywhere. New York, Seattle, everywhere we've been it's an embarrassing, crippling struggle.

That said, if your only goal is to save money, and you're fine w/ maps, data, pretty much everything just not working a lot of the time, switch to T-Mobile. It does, techncially, let you successfully make phone calls sometimes. You can also text, though my gf and I will text each other in the same building and sometimes one of us won't get the other's for over an hour, even on our amazing fiber-powered wifi, it's just shocking and absolutely GD MF terrible.

I plan on switching back at some point, or to some other carrier. T-Mobile is just... the absolute worst. It's almost like not having a smartphone.

The end.

@MattSpeller said:

$100, no fan, 1x DVI, HDMI, DP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500356

I actually have that old Radeon 5750 lying around, I suppose I could pop that in and put some of this stuff to the test, though the idea of having all of the NVidiaware installed and all of the AMDware installed makes me

TREMBLE IN FEAR.

@Dashrender said:

@creayt said:

which to me may mean that you can only run 2 identical cards in SLI,

this is my understanding as well - they must be identical.

But if you are using any in SLI, you probably have to use them all in SLI if they are all the same. But, if you wanted to SLI 2 cards (it'd be silly to try to SLI 1 card ) you should be able to install different cards and add more monitors.

Sorry for my poor wording. What I actually meant was:

May mean that if you have 2 identical cards, you can only run them in SLI, instead of independent of each other to operate autonomously so you can use them for different monitors.

@scottalanmiller said:

I believe that SLI must always be identical, yes.

This is true. My conundrum's the opposite. I want to use identical cards NOT in SLI.

@MattSpeller said:

@creayt save some cash and just use a cheap POS now, then get your SLI card later when prices drop (970's are astronomical still, mine was cheaper on launch day than they are today by +10%)

Edit: upon further thought, that might be due to the $CDN falling like a rock vs $USD

Mine was about $329 for the super, superclocked version, not bad at all and comes w/ OC-ability and tooling. How much was yours?