If it wasn’t for social distancing I might be willing to work out some kind of trade… My risk tolerance doesn’t quite allow for microcenter pickups for internet friends.
the joke though is that’s all Fry’s seems to sell. Rows upon rows of perfume and useless crap, and no PC hardware.
At least you have Fry’s, some people have Best Buy and Walmart for their tech needs…
INTERESTING that you say that.
At present, Best Buy has about 10,000% more computer hardware than both of the fry’s near me combined.
Like, back before covid, I could walk into a Best Buy and come out with enough parts to make a good gaming PC.
Could not do so at either of my local Fry’s locations, unless I wanted a 2200G and a computer case from 1999.
That’s interesting as my local best buy has;
a collection of Corsair keyboards with a number of keys missing
A DDR 3 ram kit for 2018 DDR 4 prices
A thermaltake non-80 PSU from 2010
Collection of linksys ac1200 routers for double their Amazon price
Rows of cell phones and wall to wall cell phone accessories
last time i went to Fry’s (keep in mind 9th gen and ryzen 3000 were already out and established)
Ryzen 3 2200G
Intel Pentium G5400
no motherboards for the intel
only X470 for the Ryzen
a lot of ram, but pointless since the other components made no sense
a bunch of generic coolers and some nzxt aios
computer cases which appeared to be from 1999
and PSU’s from what appeared to be 2005
peripherals from 2010
last time i went to best buy they had i5-9600k, i7-9700k, ryzen 5 3600, 7 3700x, and x470 and z490 motherboards, corsair coolers and PSUs (i think, or evga maybe?) and all the steelseries/razer/corsair stuff you could ask for.
Also, best buy price matches everything sold by amazon. So that’s not an issue.
So just for fun I went and checked the Micro Center website. The one I use is 15 mins away, but there are a total of 5 within a 45-60 minute drive (yeah I did go to one of them once for a part I needed now). But if I told you how much the property taxes are in my neck of the woods, you might not be jealous.
Nassau, Westchester, or Fairfield county?
Our use case is kind of similar. My computer is primarily for work - the only game I play is WoW. I have a 3 monitor setup and many (actually probably too many!) tabs and programs open almost all the time as I’m working on various things throughout the day.
I upgraded (black friday sales last november) to a Ryzen 5 3600 and Nvidia RTX 2070 from MicroCenter and I am very happy with the performance for both work and for WoW.
If you are anywhere near a MicroCenter, have a look at their offerings. Some of them are available for delivery, but the selection isn’t as good.
https://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294967292+4294819035&Ntk=all&sortby=pricelow&myStore=false
Yes! Detective Bugg FTW!
I feel your property tax pain as well
Are you talking about frys as in the grocery store? That sells food?
Also I looked at the computers you posted and both have kinda bad reviews. The closest one near me is in California. Lol I’m not taking a trip to California any time soon. My only real options right now is online or best buy. And with how things are going with usps, I think I’d rather get it in person…if possible.
Eh, prebuilts all kinda suck in their own way.
If you look up reviews on all of them, high profile youtube channels do criticize even the best ones (NZXT BLD for example).
This is why it’s better to just assemble your own. Can you consider doing that?
What tech stores are near you for pickup?
Online is probably your best bet if local solutions aren’t really good.
You can always disinfect deliveries.
Just don’t wash it in the tub (or sink).
For the most part I open up packages outside and put the packing boxes directly into the recycle can. Wipe down stuff that is safe to wipe with lysol wipes/hand sanitizer, and then after handling stuff wash my hands.
My understanding is the vast majority of transmission is via droplets and not surface contacts, so I’m less concerned.
I truly believe if contaminated surfaces were the major vector of transmission, then it would be much worse than it is due to food service.
Experts claim that food preparation isn’t causing spread, but tell me how is it possible to open your McDonald’s food wrapper and not touch your damned face? How do you eat your food without touching your face?
It just isn’t happening. I still don’t eat out, and disinfect all my groceries (I only do curbside pickup and delivery) when bringing them into the house, but even then…what am I supposed to do with fresh produce? Cook it? Okay, that works sometimes, but not all produce is the cooking kind. Vinegar bath? sure, but…eh.
I highly doubt most people are going through these vast measures to sanitize their food, and everyone may not be buying etailer shipped goods every day, but for sure everyone’s eating every day. So if surface transmission was as big as that, it would be way, way bigger than it already is.
And if people would just wear their damned masks they wouldn’t have to worry so much about surface contamination.
/rant
We have a very similar routine, but we bring the boxes inside - we have a particular spot where we keep them. If it is something that isn’t time sensitive, we’ll let the box sit for a while, if it is something we want/need, we will wipe it down with a disinfecting wipe or hand sanitizer.
It is similar with the groceries. Everything gets wiped down and then refrigerated/frozen or left to dry. All the fresh produce goes to the kitchen. If it’s in a factory sealed plastic bag the bag gets wiped down and put away - otherwise it goes into a colander, and gets washed off (bananas, lettuce, whatever, I don’t care, it’s getting washed - oh and things like onions get put in a bowl and left for several days before they’re used and if they’re still around after a week, they go in the drawer where we normally keep them).
I haven’t eaten out since the beginning of March and also have not been in a store - everything gets delivered. If it isn’t worth risking my life or health, I don’t do it - it’s a simple calculation for me.
While my understanding is similar to yours, and the risk of surface contact transmission may be low, it is non-zero, so a few minutes to be safe is worthwhile for me.
If people would wear masks there are a great many things that would be better.
currently on the HP web site for $1,000 - OMEN 30L Desktop GT13-0280z
Ryzen 3600 CPU, 8 GB 3200mhz ram, 256 GB NVMe, AMD 5700XT video card
You can get another 8GB of RAM and a second SSD off newegg, amazon, etc.,