Your first time with OCUK..?

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Soldato
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9 Jun 2006
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Whilst looking through the OCUK store last night it occured to me just how mainstream overclocking has become and how many PC parts are available overclocked out of the box.

I'm wondering just how much effect places like Overclockers UK had in pushing the market down this route.

Thinking about it the first time I dabbled with anything other than mainstream PC builds was when I was lured into buying a ABit BP6 motherboard that supported dual Celeron processors. If I remember rightly at a time only certain expensive Intel processors were enabled for multi processor installations but for some reason Intel had forgotten to disable that bit on the Celeron 300.

OCUK were the only place that did the motherboards and processors, dual and quad core is mainstream at home now, but at the time (~2000?) the idea of a home user having dual procs was hugely unusual. That was the first of goodness knows how much cash I've ended up handing over to ocuk over the last few years :D

That motherboard must have been one of the early big sellers for Spie, although perhaps I missed a whole clocking scene before that :) I know OCUK were one of the few places with the expertise to advise and support anything other than standard out of the box type PCs at the time.

I'm not sure any of the software at the time took much advantage of the dual procs but it started me off down the overclocking road.

So, do you think OCUK have been a huge influence to the UK PC market (I do), what was your first real overclock experiment or non mainstream piece of kit and had you already decided to do it and came looking to OCUK, or did reading here persuade you to go down the clocking route?
 
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OcUK satisfy a niche of consumers and as such, whilst undoubtedly they have adapted well to consumer demands, I don't think they have been a huge influence on the UK PC Market. The mass market is moving very much towards ultra mobility (I see OcUK are doing some funky custom laptop stuff), just look at Netbook sales.
 
I've bought parts from Overclockers for about 10 years now and never once even thought about bothering to overclock :o
 
my first time with ocuk was my first ever build, the first time id really looked 'inside' a pc and the first time i think i heard of overclocking - i didnt really get overclockers.co.uk, it actually took me a while to remember the url.

not sure about the pc market as a whole but i'd probably be running an out of the box pc now if i hadnt found this site
 
A couple of years back a mate from work,gave me OcUk addy after listening to him go on and on about his Pc build which cost him the earth that he had built it himself and could play all the latest games on his 28" telly .. convinced me to build my own .. I did .. overclocking came not long after .. its a shame not too yaa hoo :p
 
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my first overclocking experience was back in 2000 with the overclockingstore as they were doing free delivery. although ive been a member here since 2001 i only really started posting on here when ocuk lost their bad image and ocs went into liquidaton. ocuk has since grown pretty big over the years and now offers a much bigger range of products and the forums have grown from 10 to 40k members. i'd say they're influencing the market

MW
 
Lol yea I remember theoverclockingstore, old skool! Been buying from OcUK for years now. I check B-grade pretty much everyday as you get some right bargains in there! Since about 01 Ive had only 1 bad customer service issue but wasnt bad enough to put me off as tbf it was xmas time and the dude probably just wanted to go home. First got into OCing about 2000, think I was 13 or something, and use to read so many forums but didnt think to join here until a few years later. Still cant believe its been 7 years here though. \o/
 
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I randomly bought some specialised fans from them back in 2003 or 2004 or so IIRC (its been awhile) because no one else stocked them - despite them turning up in a split paper bag I gave them another chance because they got the order out promptly next day, when "next day" from most competitors meant sometime in the next 2-4 days. The next order was properly packed and also on time so I've used them for the majority of my PC needs ever since.

Oh the other reason I use them mostly... the store is so dead easy to navigate and find what you want... takes me 1/3rd of the time to do my shopping at OCuk compared to the competitors that I use when OCuk doesn't stock something I want.
 
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Our business model has not changed at all over the years. We continue to drive the U.K component e-tail market many try to copy but always fail. We are totally unique
 
I have to say that over the years that I have been a buyer on OCUK, the service has been consistent throughout.

Even when I worked for a smaller hardware distribution company, we occasionally had to purchase hardware from OCUK and the prices were very competitive.
 
taB said:
I've bought parts from Overclockers for about 10 years now and never once even thought about bothering to overclock :o
Click to expand...

This is true for me as well. It's really easy now and I even think that Asus has a program that allows overclocking in Windows. I should really do it especially since more and more hardware companies allow it within their warrenty.
 
I've bought loads of bits from OcUK over the last 2-3 years really, since I discovered them, and haven't bothered going anywhere else. The prices (especially in the last few months) are really competitive and the weekly offers are great, they should definitely not change them.

I've recommended them loads of times and bought parts for systems i've made for friends and family from here, and they're not going to be overclocked. Though most of the parts have been for my PC's, which sport mild, but stable overclocks as they get a lot of use and upgraded fairly regularly, so stability is crucial.
 
ive had one bad experience and i shop else where now(thats me being a stubborn barsteward).

but on the other hand i must admit that the forums are the best on the web for knowledge and help.

overclockers helped me to overclock and buy good component's and the mm is a superb place to buy high end item's at a good price.
 
I bought some delta fans back in 2001 I think, that was my first.

Generally now I don't have allegiance to any store and just buy from the cheapest (never had a problem with any place), but OCUK are good for getting new things fast, eg the WD RE3s, no one else had them.
 
I was one of the very first customers (maybe the first) through the door of Millennium (OCUK) on the day it opened and I've stayed with them since.
I can remember my very first purchase was a brand new Yamaha 4x SCSI cd writer and SCSI card so you can work out a date from that.
The drive cost £450 and the SCSI card cost £140 :eek:

Processors at that point were being overclocked minutely but it wasn't until the Celeron 300 came out that things took off.
I remember Pete (former owner) and staff testing every Celeron to see what it was capable of and then advertising 3 different speeds.
It was also the only time I have ever had an overclocked processor.

AFAIK that was the real start and the next thing I knew Pete & staff (Spie?) were drawing on processors with pencils to make them go faster by joining 2 pins together (or woteva).

I could be wrong though.
 
I bought my first self-build PC from a then-respected, now-defunct online store in 2002. A more knowledgeable mate advised and helped me, and that set me on the path of buying/upgrading/overclocking my own PCs and ones for friends and family.

Lots of forums helped me along the way, and I generally shopped at one of a handful of e-tailers that I trusted depending on who was cheapest.

OcUK was originally one amongst several I bought from. Having some bad customer service experiences with some, though, narrowed down the field, and now I tend to use OcUK the most frequently. This forum and its buying/overclocking advice, the nice offers that they run from time to time and reliable service swung it for me, I think, even though I was system-building and overclocking before I'd even heard of OcUK in the first place.
 
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