Are PC Manufacturers Ripping You Off? - $1500 Gaming PC Secret Shopper Part 1
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
3,646 words · ~18 min read
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while many of you build your own pcs we've shown before that buying from a
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system builder can be a good way to save yourself some hassle get extra warranty
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support on your machine and thanks to the economies of scale even save a
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bucket too but who exactly should you buy from
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well to answer this question properly we couldn't rely on cherry picked samples
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where the system builder knows who they're shipping to you know some extra
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cable management here a touch of extra overclocking there
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so as we learned over the last couple of scrapyard wars you look like someone i
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know ash that means that i couldn't be involved
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in the process at all not even to get on the phone
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so we devised a plan we recruited agent janus from accounting
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equipped her with 1500 us dollars per system and gave her
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a simple mission as someone who doesn't know that much
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about gaming computers buy the best gaming pc you can following the advice
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of the pc advisors on the other end of the line and i think the results here
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are going to shock you they're certainly going to shock me because i haven't heard any of this yet
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ivan you got the donuts and coffee
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because i think it's time for me to have a good old-fashioned
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steak out let's do it
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team group's t-force delta RGB SSD features a large luminous RGB body with
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read write speeds up to 560 megabytes a second check it out at their thank miss
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sale in the link below
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all right so we decided to go with the three different
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types of system integrators so a big well-known manufacturer so obviously
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and packard okay in hp sure yep then uh
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i'm envious already i see what you did there uh
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so then we went with the two high volume
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manufacturers sure such as eibach power and cyber power sure okay and then
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finally we went antique yeah two boutiques so we went with the
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origin and we went with main gear okay yeah
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i have a feeling we're not going to be making any friends over the next uh half
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an hour or so here hold your judgment
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welcome canada
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hi i'm looking to purchase a pc
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all right we're not gaming computers gaming
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gaming it's like these people have never heard of a computer before
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it's a gaming type of a computer you heard it here first
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okay so uh
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no just the box laptop right what what no
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second time a desktop please okay that's something that's a tower
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right yeah yeah for those who didn't know
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so let's just go ahead and check one good laptop for your brother what is it
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three times did he just try did you just try and sell her a laptop
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again no uh sorry the laptop
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yeah i'm looking to spend around 2 000.
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so that's canadian dollars is he just like looking up gaming computers on
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dell.com he's been gone for 30 seconds
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yeah with no elevator and he's back
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he's not even like hold on a second
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seven to nine years where is he pulling these numbers from
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like that there is no way that that isn't out of
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the script
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zero
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you heard that here first it's like ten times faster than the
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other one like ten times faster the other way great deals
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wait what he's passing her off to someone okay yep
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okay my apology i made a mistake here one moment let me just update it again
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it does not have to oh because the k doesn't come with a box
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heatsink but she doesn't need liquid cooling and that also isn't a power
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supply like what is he even talking about he's like oh you also need liquid
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her computer didn't have a cooler that was his job to tell her and he didn't
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until she called him out on the price discrepancy
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thank you so much yeah he should say thanks for your time because she gave him an awful lot of it okay
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i think that's not bad a minute to reach a person all right
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and how much you're willing to spend your computer
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i'm looking for around 2 000 okay so location purpose budget
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original price for this is 1 999
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but you can get 200 off as of the day
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so from one 1999 you can get it for 17.99 so if it
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tells you right away there was a discount but we don't even know what the spec is like we don't even know if
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that's a good deal that sounds great um
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yeah and then so if i had like about two
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hundred dollars to to spend are there any upgrades or
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things i could do to make it like even better for gaming and that kind of
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thing closely you already have a monitor
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you'll be using for this yeah he has all the like monitor mounts
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and keyboards that's a pretty good question like what monitors resolution yes oh but then he didn't follow up and
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like what's the resolution okay missed opportunity since your
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brother will be using this for uh gaming uh actually here in hb we
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offer hp care pack here comes through
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here comes the warranty
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meanwhile he has no idea how hard she's laughing right now
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your brother will be using this for gaming so that would be like he will be
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using it overnight so he'll
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um your brother can always call our
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technical support and ask for assistance
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all right let's see how many times to try again so let's go ahead and complete
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this purchase that was it wait what
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they're clearly doing it wrong what
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um we still don't know what the specs of the system are
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they just sent us a link and they said this is good for gaming
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didn't specify there's a list did he send her a link
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like is she looking at the system or no he's getting her email now
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so we still don't know what system we're buying but he already found her a solution that says it has the best specs
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for gaming and has a deal on it and will fit within 2 grand
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let's see what he sounds so that's a gamble because if he gets it
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wrong he looks like an idiot and if he gets it right then we just had a really
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streamlined experience that's what it comes down to for this
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one all right who's up next
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hi there um i'm wondering if you can help me
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with wow live person just picks up the phone i'm looking for one for my brother
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that's pretty good and i don't really know that much about the different
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components and things um um we don't make recommendations on
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what parts you need to get or you do not need to get but if any questions i will
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try my best to answer for you
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hold on did they just hear it right what the sales people do not do
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recommendations okay um
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what pc would you recommend for around fifteen hundred dollars for a gamer
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yeah we don't make recommendations the best um for gaming system there are two
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things you really need to look for one will be the speed of the CPU
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two will be the speed of video card um
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for gaming wise for Intel the best CPU
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once you cook it to any of those packages you can pretty much pick and
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choose whatever you want totally understands that 390 chipset
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intricacy right now yeah obviously
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which to be clear is not us ripping on janus that's just like
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you can't expect normal people to know what that is the best way will be for
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you to chat with the game maker for the games that he wants for quite the most
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to find out exactly what parts they recommend again to run their games
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at the okay so i'll call up chris roberts from
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uh star citizen right yeah chrissy yeah you know like a game that you haven't
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finished yet oh well it's only been eight years graphics card so
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wait so that was it that's the end of the call yeah
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it's just like he can't even what even happened there
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so what did i get did we just not buy a system like did cyberpower just lose an
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actual sale because just to be very clear to the viewer right now we are
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spending our actual money to buy these systems they actually get our money
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and cyber power just didn't get our money because they couldn't pass the
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most basic hurdle in the sales process i
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have money i need system you would say i
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money give easy peasy profit holy
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yeah now agent janice did
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try and follow what the guy just told her she just sorted systems by price
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another site their site is
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oh yeah it's like looks like a freaking walmart
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flyer or something you know like imagine somebody with like 1500
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hard earned cash just being subjected to this like oh no just google it basically
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yeah basically
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hi there um i'm calling because i'm looking into getting a computer from my
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brother i'm sorry ma'am your your phone's crying
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out and i also sound very distant oh sorry
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um is it any better now okay well that's pretty good go straight to a live person
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pretty much yeah 10 seconds is like barely a weight yeah that's great okay um yes i can um
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the phone is cutting out quite a bit what i can do is i can email ability
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that would suit um super neat can you tell me what games he plays
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yeah uh he plays oh wow i can't believe it took this long we are
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four sis in and this is the first time we've been asked what games he plays
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oh yeah okay and then he also he also like records
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and puts them on youtube and stuff did you say record stuff on youtube or
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uh records his games and then
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um okay okay perfect so then um i probably
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get a system um budget around 1500. does
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he um the last question is what kind of monitors are are you are you aware of
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like does he have like a really high inexpensive monitor or does he have that
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kind of psycho you know a monitor that you can get at any local retailer all
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right are you aware of that or are you also aware he's gonna get a new monitor
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like a 4k monitor or anything like that uh the one he has right now
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uh i don't know it seems kind of average i don't know i don't think he's
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necessarily looking to upgrade or get one very soon yeah
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um okay i'm sorry um i'm cutting out i just need let me get your email address
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and i'll email you this bill within a few minutes
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uh i have reports that uh that yourself that the rep forgot to send it out
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initially i have confirmation that he's sitting here right now actually my apologies for that man okay no i just
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want to make sure it wasn't misspelled or something okay so
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it's a good thing it doesn't take a long time to get a human because you got to call them back when they don't send your
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uh your quote yep yes
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uh yeah he just said he's sending it right now
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so expect emails in the next five minutes no quote again
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so that's pretty good it only takes a minute to get into talking to someone
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again at least they yeah well the previous session was like more busy i guess so they actually were put in the
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queue and offered over option to call back and then it was only a few minutes
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yeah not too bad not too bad
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someone was going to send me an email with the build information
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i didn't receive the email so i'm just wanting to double check if it was
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misspelled or something
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um 20 minutes 15 minutes the first call was
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so good but this whole process is getting really dragged out
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why don't they just give her their email address and then stay on the phone
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to make sure they get it so they can reply to it
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like if you're ever not sure that's like 101 level stuff so she did get the quote
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she did get a list okay and they actually sent her
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um a link to their configurator with pre-selected parts okay yeah and what
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was interesting is 9 000 series part was listed in it
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really even though that's the quote he sent us so
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so they're pre-selling it yeah so pre-ordering essentially but within a
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full system interesting all right i mean they were
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announced right but these guys had for sale with pricing i mean it's system
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integrator pricing but nevertheless you got it
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okay all right so we're just gonna not modify
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anything just click as is this is what the guy told us okay hits fits the
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budget let's go okay done next next system
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that's pretty quick 10 seconds from the auto router to the live person okay we
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can definitely help um do you know if you're looking for a desktop or a laptop
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yeah a desktop okay so then that will take you to kind
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of like the custom design section um this is just a
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set of choices so i would skip those for now you can always go back and if you
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have any other specific colors isn't it brand you can choose that later okay
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okay he's not trying to sell the paint job too hard
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so this is a guide smarter way to do it just have her look at it at the same
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time yeah he's guiding her to the site
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my only recommendation would be to upgrade to an i5 um
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so then upgrading the processor what does that do
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the process is just basically like the brain of the computer so
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having a better one i would have it
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um
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i mean that's a good recommendation to upgrade but like did he say 8600k
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as an upgrade what does she do what is it 8400 what is she doing buying a z390
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motherboard for an 80 for a core i3 because 90 is bigger than 70 okay
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better for gaming maybe they just brought them in
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right these guys were doing pretty well until this
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oh yeah so the graphics is going to be on the system on the default one that we
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have the attention ti however if he is going to be playing
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like the latest games and the most demanding games in terms of graphics you
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might want to upgrade that i know he plays
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like grand theft auto and like assassin's creed and
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tomb raider would that be
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good for
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and then our default option is 120 gigabytes that's the one selected by
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default but you can upgrade that based on
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on your preferences a hundred and
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twenty gigabytes
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whoa that's it there is no storage in her
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system at all it's 120 gigas is d if i heard it right
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now oh yeah other than that we have our warranty options um we have lifetime 24
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7 usb support so if you have any problems with the system you can always
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call it and we will have a representative guide using the process or if you would
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need to
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i mean i will say this i can understand based on how much more
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like even though he doesn't sound enthusiastic he does at least sound knowledgeable his explanation of the
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importance of the CPU and like what it's for and all that stuff that's the brain
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of the computer he knows how to explain it it's like fine yeah so i can see why
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people might buy from a boutique rather than from
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a tier one and certainly better than i buy power or
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cyborg it's certainly better than cyber power but then again eibach power guy
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did know oh yeah i buy power what was that he knew what's up okay
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okay so main gear like 15 seconds from
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operator to live person that's not bad uh so if you know what to touch the game
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it's a good question types of games
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that's pretty i didn't know main gear had systems that like 800 bucks
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i mean i'm pretty sure it has i3 and 1050 90i yeah but that's with 800 bucks
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once you upgrade it it should be decent so if you want to you would want to keep
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it you know below 1500 wow
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she just got recommended an AMD system wow for 1500 bucks with that said at
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1500 you could really go either AMD or Intel
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but the fact that he brings it up at all
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RGB if you want an RGB RGB for gaming
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if it bothers you after a while you can turn it off
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he said the f word but i think he said it in a pretty appropriate future proof
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is a fallacy now keep in mind like this conversation is happening
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after hours their office is officially closed for business really yeah oh
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wow actually trying to save her money black friday wow
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tries to save her
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not have a money it doesn't come with flawless but if
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you're gonna i'm guessing he's gonna be plugged in uh he's in a cable so he
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probably won't really care about that uh you can always buy one down the road
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you can find one on amazon for about like two
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damn he just recommended go get a cheap wi-fi adapter on amazon i like this guy
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yeah i would definitely tell you to go with the uh warranty
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oh here comes the warranty pitch well he saved it for the last you know
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oh man
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all right that's basically it the rest of the free maker apparel you can choose
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the server side oh you get a free shirt all right
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debs and that gives you a configuration code
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to our website uh
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that's like the only anyone who mentioned that you can save
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your confidence on our site yeah in case you don't need some time to think about
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it so i wouldn't have expected one of our
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boutique sis to be the most low pressure
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straight talk sales experiences
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so bottom line here is main gear
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absolutely ran away with the pre-sales
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experience i concur i mean that was that was
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awesome um non-condescending straight to the point
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no i like it i'd say origin was really good as well
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if we're ignoring the config after that boy it gets tougher like hp
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was an okay buying experience i guess minus the part
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where like she was not told what she's buying like ever yeah
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she got invoice yeah and then i mean bye bye power if that if that had a bad
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connection i mean they were probably fine yes and
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you know benefit of the doubt no they just maybe misspelled the letter the
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ones that really lost here though alienware and cyberpower
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those guys need to do better straight up the new force be live 5 earphones
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leverage their new battery design that brings the earphones closer to your ears
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providing better weight balance for secure fit and even better sound they
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feature eight millimeter dynamic drivers that deliver clear sound with steady
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bass and the magnetic clasp helps keep the earphones around your neck when
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you're not using them they've got comply soft foam ear tips to maximize comfort
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also included in the package along with other interchangeable ear tips and wings
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to personalize your fit they feature bluetooth wireless connectivity up to
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eight hours of battery life an inline remote and microphone that's compatible
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with siri and the google assistant and you can check them out at the link in
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the video description so thanks for watching guys if you
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disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it and you want to see more secret shopper
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hit that like button get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy
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the stuff we featured at the link in the video description but you should probably wait until we get to the part
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where how good they are for gaming and all that also linked in the video description is our merch storms has cool
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shirts like the ones that are probably under the attire we have on over top and
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our community forum which you should totally join