PCSpecialist

I took delivery of a PC Specialist build about a week ago. Happy with the service, got here in time for Christmas, despite the volume of orders and custom delays with FedEx. PC was well built, cable management was neat and well secured. For the spec I ordered, it seemed good value, better than anything in Ireland that I could find.

It's worth looking at their forums, and when you've decided on a spec, post it for feedback from other users. I got some good advice about some of my components.

PCSpecialist are the experts and a very well known. I bought from them a new PC last year, took a bit, also got a faulty GPU (1 fan didn't spin), but it was sorted quickly. Cable management is perfect. Their forum is extremely helpful too. They are registered Vat in Ireland so no worries with customs either. Not sure how customer service is now but last year was very busy so had to wait for an email response somewhere between 2 to 7 working days. From what I can see in their forum, they hired more people and now quicker to respond.

I've ordered a PC from here as did a friend of mine. I used them simply to spread the cost using finance rather than leaving the bank acc empty.

My own was ordered on the 13th November and dispatched on the 12th of December. As of today it still hasn't arrived and have no date as to when it will with Fedex blaming a back log in the local depot. Both my own and my friends were well before the cut off date to be delivered before Christmas yet missed this obviously.

My friend wanted to get into PC gaming and seeing how I ordered mine he wanted the same. So I spec'd up a pc to his needs/wants/budget.

He ordered on the 25th of November and dispatched on the 13th of December. His PC arrived on the 28th of December.

As for his PC itself it's pretty well built. Cable management is decent and no damage. XMP was enabled in the BIOS aswell.

I ordered it without Windows installed ( it comes with a build on it unactivated so they can stress test) so can't comment on if any bloatware is installed.

The only issues with his were he ordered two 27" MSI monitors, both came with HDMI cables only. The GPU ordered only has 1 HDMI port and 1 DP port so I needed to get a cable for him to use both after they arrived. And the rear leags of the case were uninstalled for some reason, it wasnt a fitment issue so I dont know why this was.

The PCS staff ,if you ring at least, are very good and seem to go the extra mile to help with what they can.

If your ordering I would advise

Remove windows installation from the order, it can be bought cheaper elsewhere and save you a significant amount,just install when it arrives.

Make sure what you order is in stock, until its in the build stage your hardware is not allocated however.

Expect 1month plus from start to finish.

Look for discount codes for a few euro off, a few twitch streamers like Stodeh and TheRunningManz have these.

Price wise they were very competitive with retail costs

Another note, the forum is ran by community members and are not PCS staff ( aside from the admins) so temper your expectations there and ring PCS if you have any legitimate concerns. There are alot of unwritten rules of the forum that will only be explained if they are broken ( no promo codes,your pc must be pcs to get any advice and a few more) .

While the mods and some more active posters are not staff they do not take kindly to any venting, this quote by a mod was from what seemed like a legitimate complaint "Just a warning, you're fine to vent frustrations but it's against forum rules to bad mouth PCS."

There are some knowledgeable users on there willing to help out , however there is also some suspect and outright useless advice in the middle of it coming from more respected members. None of the bad advice is dangerous to the system, just either unnessecary or irrelevant and unlikely to help the issue.

My experience obviously isn't great with them but I've tried to be as impartial as I can.

Thinking of getting a gaming laptop from these guys, seem really competitive.