OC Pricing

Associate
Joined
26 Nov 2007
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68
Hi,

Firstly to say this is not intended to be inflammatory or designed to turn people away from OC UK, which is one reason why I'm not naming the 3rd party vendor.

However, recently I've noticed that OC UK appears to be becoming expensive. I'm not sure why this whether, OC have taken their eyes off the ball or if they've just made a conscious decision not to compete.

Checking out 4 products tonight vs another well known specialist vendor, (not Amazon or an Auction Site), reveals the other vendor is £60 cheaper over just 4 items. That's a large difference and over the full component list of a full build, which in my list is 13 items, is likely to increase substantially further to £100-200.

So as to not be completely nontransparent, the products compared were:

1. An Air Cooler, I'm not naming this one as it's currently out of stock here.

2. Ryzen 3700x

3. ROG Crosshair VIII Hero MB

4. AORUS 1TB NVME PCIE GEN4 M.2 SOLID STATE DRIVE

Most of those are quite mainstream products. I just wondered whether OC could shed any light on why the difference has arisen and whether they intend to be competitive going forward or if there is a decision to tread their own path.
 
Associate
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I’ve noticed that for a while, I used to buy everything pretty much stock dependant from oc but they started slipping.
I don’t see your post be open for long mine was shut down in like 4 comments they really don’t like negative comments ha
 
Man of Honour
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weird how many people cling on to the nonsensical notion of "brand loyalty" when the brands themselves don't show any of this so-called "loyalty" to the paying consumer.
the only loyalty they have are, to themselves and their shareholders...and will look for any opportunity to screw everyone else over.

tl;dr - just buy from the cheapest/best value lol
 
Soldato
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Overclockers often have some pretty decent deals and are the cheapest anywhere in certain products. But on the whole they often are a little more expensive. Although that is quite often offset by the free next day delivery for forum members.

Plus their support is fantastic.
 
Soldato
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Outside your house
And yet i just picked up a Mortar Max cheaper here than anywhere else.

It's always the same, some stores have some things cheaper and other stores have different things cheaper.
 
Associate
OP
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Overclockers often have some pretty decent deals and are the cheapest anywhere in certain products. But on the whole they often are a little more expensive. Although that is quite often offset by the free next day delivery for forum members.

Plus their support is fantastic.

OC UK used to be the cheapest when they first opened. Then they became about on par with everywhere else as their popularity grew @2013. I've stuck with OC despite an unfortunate customer service issue a good number of years back. In the last few years though I've noticed they seem to be becoming ever more expensive than the competition. Great service is one thing, but pricing is another and if someone else is offering both from a well known specialist PC component company that also offers free postage and those difference are almost across the board on all products, then there are decisions from a consumer standpoint of where to head.

Like I say this is not intended to be inflammatory, which is why I've not named the other company. Just trying to find out how OC are intending to position themselves going forward so as to make an informed decision on purchasing now and in the future.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2015
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18,514
Hi,

Firstly to say this is not intended to be inflammatory or designed to turn people away from OC UK, which is one reason why I'm not naming the 3rd party vendor.

However, recently I've noticed that OC UK appears to be becoming expensive. I'm not sure why this whether, OC have taken their eyes off the ball or if they've just made a conscious decision not to compete.

Checking out 4 products tonight vs another well known specialist vendor, (not Amazon or an Auction Site), reveals the other vendor is £60 cheaper over just 4 items. That's a large difference and over the full component list of a full build, which in my list is 13 items, is likely to increase substantially further to £100-200.

So as to not be completely nontransparent, the products compared were:

1. An Air Cooler, I'm not naming this one as it's currently out of stock here.

2. Ryzen 3700x

3. ROG Crosshair VIII Hero MB

4. AORUS 1TB NVME PCIE GEN4 M.2 SOLID STATE DRIVE

Most of those are quite mainstream products. I just wondered whether OC could shed any light on why the difference has arisen and whether they intend to be competitive going forward or if there is a decision to tread their own path.

get the better board - might be cheaper still and £30 steam voucher with review

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £830.08 (includes shipping: £11.10)


though personally for 3700x - would look at cheaper X570 entry boards or B450​
 
Man of Honour
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@Alsone don't have to worry about that lol...

He must laugh himself to sleep at night at some of the epic mugs on this forum, an army of thick-as-pudding sycophants who will swallow anything he tells them and are happy to get reamed for new toys and then they converse with him like they're mates!

Fair play to him, he's cultivated a following of rubes and has milked them dry.

:D
 
Soldato
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1. An Air Cooler, I'm not naming this one as it's currently out of stock here.

2. Ryzen 3700x

3. ROG Crosshair VIII Hero MB

4. AORUS 1TB NVME PCIE GEN4 M.2 SOLID STATE DRIVE

Most of those are quite mainstream products.
Here's step behind the best level cooler for awfully expensive £43:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scythe-scmg-5100-mugen-5-rev.b-cpu-cooler-hs-046-sy.html
RGB gimmicks £7 more.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scyt...-cpu-cooler-with-pwm-fan-120mm-hs-04c-sy.html


Nothing mainstream in that mobo and NVMe drive, except in amount of marketing hype, snake oil and excess.
When looking such super bad bang per buck products, you shouldn't be complaining about price differences between shops.

Unless doing some exotic cooling overclocking, motherboard half the price would do perfectly as well.
Trying to crank all core clocks high enough to match automatic core boost clocks in gaming isn't even sensible with Ryzen.
You can't even use super expensive mobo for decade without CPU becoming outdated.
And no one in their right mind would pay any extra from it over that normally good mobo after five years of use.
So there's no lasting value in it.
Unless including how long bean counters and marketroids of Asus will keep laughing their asses off when thinking people buying it.

Already cheapest X570 Asus (Prime X570-P) would handle any foreseeable AM4 CPU easily at stock.
And pretty much same thing for say Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite.
Both of which even have two USB3 front panel headers, unlike that super expensive Crosshair!
Something like 3700X they handle with one hand tied behind back.


And unless playing endless copying of drive's content until drive is full to format it and start again, PCIe v4 NVMe is waste of money for marketing hype.
In real world game loading times there's very little difference between even NVMe and SATA SSDs:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nvme+ssd+hdd

Games (or Windows) simply won't load continuous GBs of data.
Even IOPS/random access performance is pretty much moot point.
Even in synthetic bechmarks all that super high NVMe speed disappears, when testing with settings more relevant for home use and gaming:
https://youtu.be/GlGjd1GZWdo?t=17m10s

So there's no sense to pay super high GB prices.
Though OcUK's choise in NVMes is really short.
Kinda guessing they bought such stocks of brand overhyped Samsungs and don't want to stock competing better bang per buck products until those are sold.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Mar 2006
Posts
4,051
I'll buy from Clockers if they are the cheapest price for a given item. If they are not they simply don't get my money. Lots of places to buy stuff online. Loyalty is nothing thesedays unless its a shop ran by your aging Uncle.
 
Associate
OP
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Thanks for the recommendations on the boards but there are specific reasons for looking at the board I mentioned - the quality power stage. See here for VRM testing:

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...d-tests-of-vrm-stages.18864784/#post-33006591

On the basis of the testing, it appears the ones to have, assuming you can't spend £700 on a Godlike etc motherboard :eek:, are the Hero VII x570 in the mid range and the Ausus Tuf x570 in the £200 lower range.

Whilst I take your point on potential lifespan, I believe AMD have announced an intention to stick to AM4 long term, so a board with good caps and a 10yr guarantee, hopefully might be of use still for a good proportion of that. My current rig, I built in 2013, so that's 6 years old. If anything is going to fail on a board it's usually power caps, not to mention the lifespan and increased windows stability of top quality Japs caps used for only a fraction of their rated output.

As for m2 drives, nothing too extreme there. Yes still very pricey in themselves, but if you buy an X570, it would be a waste not to use pcie 4.0. For me loading times of Window, programs and games are all very important and hence why I want drives that can truly attain speeds others can't come close to. As for cheaper options, my 2nd and 3rd drives would be a Samsung M2, much cheaper but slower for data, and an old fashioned (now) SSD 3d nand drive for long term storage of video projects etc. A blended approach until pci gen 4,0 drives at high speed become more affordable.
 
Associate
OP
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I'll buy from Clockers if they are the cheapest price for a given item. If they are not they simply don't get my money. Lots of places to buy stuff online. Loyalty is nothing thesedays unless its a shop ran by your aging Uncle.

Yep, I think that's pretty much the way things are now. Consumers have lots of choice and any company that ignores that may find customer retention issues in the long run.
 
Associate
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Gloucester
I buy the majority of my stuff here.
I will buy from competitors if they have a good deal running. But customer service is a big selling point for me and OCUK have always been first class.
 
Associate
OP
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Customer service is good in a lot of places. You can't rely on that alone in business anymore my opinion. That's why shops such as Waitrose, Sainsbury's and John Lewis, are struggling against the discounters. Their service is outstanding, but unfortunately now so is the service at shops selling cheaper. To bring this back to the original topic, do you think I should spend over £200 more on my parts (full list) at OC just in case I need customer services when that ignores the fact others will offer the same level of service but at lower prices.

I just did a full comparison, excluding memory, it works out £222 all from the 1 vendor. That's a lot of money and the difference between a £2300 and a £2500 system.

I've ignored the memory because it wasn't like for like. However, cheapest OC UK 3600 DDR4 32GB Kit £329. This vendor, Corsair DDR4 Vengence Kit 32GB £176. Another £153 on 1 component making it almost £400 cheaper over the build These aren't small amounts.

That's why ask what OC's policy is going forwards, being competitive or being our prices.
 
Soldato
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@Alsone don't have to worry about that lol...

Oof that's a dig.

But that's just capitalism 101. How do people think companies like Apple have got so filthy rich, because everyone feels the need to buy an almost identical phone every year they increment the digit on the device.

Everyone seems to be against capitalism etc, but frankly i have zero sympathy for consumers. If you can't be arsed to do price comparing, or even apply a bit of common sense when purchasing upgrades etc, then you deserve to get mugged off.

That's why ask what OC's policy is going forwards, being competitive or being our prices.

You've already got your answer!

OCUK will only start to be competitive if they start to see their sales flop.

Think about it, if you were running a business and people were still purchasing your stock despite being more expensive than the competition, why on earth would you lower your prices?
 
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