Purchasing computer hardware - best oz websites?

[url]www.umart.com.au[/url]
[url]www.gamedude.com.au[/url]

a coupla decent brisbane based places

www.thedishop.com.au isn't bad either.

Gamedude and Umart are pretty cheap, but they suck with customer service ;)

Edit: I have never bought a laptop of these guys though. I would go as far as to say go with Dell or Toshiba if you want to get a laptop (all flames welcome ;))

www.cws.net.au

I have been using CWS for a long time now. Good prices and reliable.

I found hardware in Oz to be roughly 2x the price as in the US. After the exchange rate I would be paying 3/2x the amount as here. So, if I was you, I'd just compair prices with the oz sites and your local sites as it might be cheaper to pick something up before you go to Oz. (I just picked up a SFF system :) I can fit it on as my carryon luggage!!!

http://www.centrecom.com.au

thats the cheapest and best place i know. An example i can offer is that you can get radeon9800XT Saphires for $588.50 and those cards usually retail at around $660. Ive been to them a few times for various things and ive never had a problem. They deliver via online orders or they have stores located in Melbourne and surrouding Victoria areas (hit site for addresses)

CenterCom are sometimes cheaper, sometimes more expensive, same with most "cheap" stores really. They do seem to have a fairly extensive range of laptops though.
I just bought a couple things from centrecom in elsternwick last week, and they were very helpful, the opened up a few different keyboard boxes so i could have a look/feel of them to make sure i got one that was comfortable etc.
CYer, Blitz

hey thats my local centrecom store, i was there today (my sisters overheated her computer somehow and we cant figure out what but the whole thing smells like burning metal n plastic :P ).

[url]www.computeralliance.com.au[/url]
[url]www.surpass.com.au[/url]

These two Brisbane stores are good as well. Surpass's customer service sucks really bad but computer alliance isn't too bad.

I've heard dodgy things about gamedude, btw.

Hi guys, thanks for all the feedback. From the look of these websites it looks like I am going to be better off getting my laptop in the USA or Europe before I come. These ozzie sites all feel a bit 'retro' to me! I'm surprised to find they havent got an Amazon.com.au yet?!

I've bought desktop systems (in pieces and whole) from:

www.auspcmarket.com.au
www.cpl.net.au

Both seem pretty competent, when I was last shopping (July last year), CPL did seem to have better prices than the other on-line mobs.

I have also bought hardware from www.cworld.com.au, but after getting a P2 350 system from them I wouldn't go with them again (no major problems, just "philosophical differences" :)

The others in my list of places (have not verified these URLs recently)

http://www.ht.com.au
http://www.eyo.com.au
http://www.techwarehouse.com.au/
http://www.scorptec.com.au/
http://www.cougar.com.au/

YMMV,

Mark

computer world are in lamens terms, morons. They advertise things on their websites they dont have and havent even heard of when you talk to a person in store. Infact, its not even on their list of things they can order from other stores and such. This has been my experience

CPL have good prices, and are generally good about having things in stock, or letting you know. They have no online ordering system though, they only sell direct from the store.
I just bought (almost) all the parts for my new system there, and everything seems to eb fine, except the power supply they sold me was quite underpowered for an athlon64 system, and they said it would be fine, thats my only real gripe. They are very very busy both times i went down there, so i would say that perhaps they don't always have the highest level of expertise on the desk selling you stuff, particularly when it comes to newer gear (like athlon64 etc.) some of the sales people may not be the best people to ask "is this compatible with this" etc. :)
They were quite reasonable when i returned the power supply, since there was nothing actually wrong with it (it just didn't supply enough amps to power a decent athlon64 system), and gave me store credit without giving me much trouble.
CYer, Blitz

Blitz, Just out of interest, are you seeing much of a performance difference for compiles with the Athlon64? :) I imagine VC++ is IO-bound, but just wondered :)

MoonUnit, yeah actually now that you mention it, I do remember buying a switch at computer world, rang up, checked the model number with them, going all the way down there and then finding that they didn't have that model. But they were quite flexible in being willing to deliver my beloved 21" trinitron :) Or maybe it was the weight of the beast that made them flexible... hmm not sure [;)]

Haven't even got a compiler installed yet!
I don't imagine there would be mountains of difference over the equivalent athlon 32-bit if thats what you're wondering (other than the 64's have double the cache i think, which may help...)
Unfortunately i don't have an athlon 32 3200+ to compare against, so the best benchmark you could get out of me is cfomparing it to an athlon 600 (i think the 64 might be a wee bit faster!).
I'd also suggest that the compiler may not be that I/O bound (unless you're working with a MAMMOTH project). Once the files are loaded once, they'd pretty much stay in memory (as long as they don't get paged out). Depending on memory size, theres probably a good chance the linker might take an i/o hit from the compiled .obj files...
Probably gonna come down to how much RAM you have. A mid-large project can use upwards of 256 meg of memory to compile...
CYer, Blitz

www.razorprices.com

its an aussie website and it lets you compare prices of stuff. you just search for it and it will give you the shop with the best price.

www.ausprices.com is similar, unfortunately neither of these sites cover most of the stores in australia.
This thread on whirlpool contains pretty much any decent pc shop in australia with a (even minimal) web presence.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=131657
CYer, Blitz