I have two questions. With some advice, please!

[steway]

I have used PCSpecialist for over 15 years and would not use anyone else!! I used to follow news on the latest tech and once knew what was what on PC Tech, but since my last build of 2016 with Sli 1080s...S0, question 1) Is Sli with two GPUs no longer needed (maybe "needed" is the wrong word) required for higher frame rates? Or is it now just dead I don't see it mentioned any more! Question 2) Is more on the delivery side. I would like to buy an up-to-date Liquid Series but over the years health issues have come up and having a pallet delivered and left outside my door with no way of getting it inside is quite a huge deal for me, it could mean not buying a PC from here, yes it is that much of a deal breaker....I don't need it set up, I can do that my own way and at my own time, it's just getting it inside the house, I live on my own with no fit and healthy friends and both kids live in Wales now (6 hours drive away) Any help from PCSpecialist in that department? Thanks!!
Steve

 

[steaky360]

Sli is defunct for consumers its no longer even available on almost all cards, I think I've vague memory of it being available on some 'Titan' cards but nothing else. Definitely not required for gaming, infact its not supported by almost all (if not entirely all) newer games.

As for delivery, its something you'd need to discuss with PCS themselves, I'm fairly certain there will be a 'pay more for more service' type option with many delivery companies but I can't speak for DPD (if its even DPD PCS use for the pallet deliveries).

 

[steway]

Hi steaky360, thanks for the Sli info, I guess it's good news with newer cards reaching in access of £1,000 paying for a second card and not getting double the performance would turn out quite pricey (could have been the reason it cooled off!) ...I guess I'll send PCS an email about delivery options, might be away to work something out...Thanks again!!

 

[FigmentOfYourImagination]

Do you need a Liquid Series build? Performance-wise it isn't going to give any more over a non-Liquid build...well, unless you will be running the CPU and GPU at max 24/7 of course. Mostly it's going to be for aesthetics but non-Liquid builds can look good too.

Not trying to say you can't...just that given the issues, whether it would be more practical to go for a non liquid build...granted normal cases can be heavy but not as heavy

 

[steway]

As I said in my first post, I have used PCSpecialist for over 15 years and would not use anyone else!!.... In the early days, I was very impressed with PC Specialist helping me with my PC build, and great customer support, over the years I have spent thousands with them on PC builds my last one in 2017 was just £300 shy of £5,000 but now needs replacing with more modern ....But I guess over the years companies get bigger, and profits need to be made, I understand that!... When I reached out to them to ask for some help as I have gotten older with health issues (no longer able to do the things I did 7 years ago) all I asked for was "I can't deal with a pallet with a heavy PC on it being dumped on my front lawn and left there! I do understand it's not their responsibility to get the PC inside my home, (I was willing to pay them for their help)but as a long-standing and now disabled customer I expected more than "Sorry, we can't help you, get in touch with the couriers"...Where has the customer "support" gone? A little help is all I asked for!!
Anyway, I got the help I asked for from another PC Builder (I won't name them, I'm not dirty like that) that offers FREE UK delivery and is willing to deliver my Gaming PC by hand, with an engineer to set it all up for me.. ALL FOR FREE I may add!! So, my £5,500 PC has gone to someone else who seems to care about their customers who NEED that little extra HELP to carry on gaming....Don't become SO BIG that you lose sight of what's important, without your customers you have nothing!!

 

[SpyderTracks]

As I said in my first post, I have used PCSpecialist for over 15 years and would not use anyone else!!.... In the early days, I was very impressed with PC Specialist helping me with my PC build, and great customer support, over the years I have spent thousands with them on PC builds my last one in 2017 was just £300 shy of £5,000 but now needs replacing with more modern ....But I guess over the years companies get bigger, and profits need to be made, I understand that!... When I reached out to them to ask for some help as I have gotten older with health issues (no longer able to do the things I did 7 years ago) all I asked for was "I can't deal with a pallet with a heavy PC on it being dumped on my front lawn and left there! I do understand it's not their responsibility to get the PC inside my home, (I was willing to pay them for their help)but as a long-standing and now disabled customer I expected more than "Sorry, we can't help you, get in touch with the couriers"...Where has the customer "support" gone? A little help is all I asked for!!
Anyway, I got the help I asked for from another PC Builder (I won't name them, I'm not dirty like that) that offers FREE UK delivery and is willing to deliver my Gaming PC by hand, with an engineer to set it all up for me.. ALL FOR FREE I may add!! So, my £5,500 PC has gone to someone else who seems to care about their customers who NEED that little extra HELP to carry on gaming....Don't become SO BIG that you lose sight of what's important, without your customers you have nothing!!

I appreciate you need to do what's right for you, I'm not in any way dismissing your needs, simply highlighting the realities of business.

PCS offer a service for an engineer to come with the PC and set it up. Yes it's chargeable, but hear me out.

Any company offering that service has 3 potential overheads to consider:

1/. Shipping. Weather this is done by a courier, or by the company itself doesn't matter. Shipping is based on weight and size of the parcel as this affects space required in the Van, Lorry, and petrol consumed.

2/. Secondary to this is Insurance which most people don't consider. In the past I was an on site engineer for a software company, as such I had to occasionally travel with expensive hardware in the car. To do this as a business, you have to - by law - be covered by liability insurance to cover the cost of the goods should any theft occur as well as the loss to the customer you're supplying, or you have an accident damaging the equipment. This insurance is not like your home driving insurance, we're talking several thousands of pounds just for excess goods cover, not connected to the actual vehicle insurance. If you're shipping via a courier, the more expensive the insurance has to cover, the cost of shipping increases exponentially. To ship a general PC would cost around £100 if you were to do it yourself to a friend via any of the normal couriers. The reason companies like PCS can offer that at a reduced rate is as volume contracts, they'll get a far better deal than any of us would.

This is just an example of a provider of that specialist requirement: https://www.innovateinsurance.co.uk/goods-in-transit-courier/?

3/. You also have to factor in the costs of that engineer for that journey, and they'd have to be one licensed for commercial transport, not just anyone out of the factory. They're not going to just be making your trip, they'll pack as many systems into the vehicle to maximise the installations they can do that day which in turn reduces fuel costs and covers that engineers daily salary.

This is the specialist driving license that engineer would need to have: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/goods-vehicle-operator-licensing-guide - for this reason, it's far more likely that any company would just use a courier for the shipping and send the engineer separately for installation.

At the end of the day, they wouldn't offer that service if they weren't turning a profit on it. No business is going to operate at a loss, that's not how businesses work.

You may think they're including shipping for free, and your personal installation, they're just not, that's not at all accurate, what is more to the point is that they are not being transparent in highlighting those costs as part of the configuration.

If the system costs nearly 5k, I would also be thinking they've led you astray with a closed loop system that you're not going to benefit from anyway rather than offering honest advice. Technology has moved along massively in the last 10 years, with how efficient AIOs and CPU's / GPU's are these days (ignoring poor Intel processors), there just is no need for closed loop systems except for very niche use cases where you're stressing CPU and GPU 100% for days on end, and gaming certainly has zero benefit from closed loops these days. Even under capable air cooling you'll have around 30c delta on the CPU and around 25 on the GPU. But even £3.5k is going to get you absolute top tier pc performance for gaming, anything more is either overpriced or for a configuration that isn’t suitable. A closed loop will not improve performance in any way, a likely downside is that it will increase noise as the pumps can be quite loud under load

 

[steway]

Hi, of course, I fully understand what you say, having run my own business for over 30 years, so I'm quite competent in that field.
But that only comes into effect if say 30% of people are in the same boat as I am... I'm guessing there must be thousands of disabled gamers out there and if they all needed a service where two people had to manhandle your PC bring it inside and set it up for you, well, of course, that would impact profits and could not be done without a substantial charge. Most of these disabled gamers would also have access to family and friends to help after delivery and bring them inside and maybe even place the PC where required, unfortunately, I do not come into that category (of my own choosing) When I first reached out to PCS to ask for help I was stunned to learn that my request to bring my PC inside my home place it upon a table that has wheels (I can set up my PC myself) was in fact the first ever request of it's kind and I had to wait for a reply while it was checked out if it could be done (As said, I was willing to pay for this to happen) As you may see that NOW, I was just asking for a little help that could have been done for a loyal customer of 15 years standing, not an unreasonable request really, since it's never been done before and would affect profits maybe as much as 0.00% but a good customer support thing!!
The other PC builder (I also requested the same, also was the first request of it's kind)I didn't need even to wait, said "Of course sir we can do that, we can deliver by hand and set it up for you FREE of charge not a problem!!!! If it had been PCS that had said that I would have been ordering from PCS and been a happy bunny ....How is it a one-off request from a loyal customer of 15 years can be so coldly dismissed as "Sorry, we can't help you, get in touch with the couriers"
As for the new build, could it be overkill? I don't think so, I am very heavily into sim racing and I have just purchased the Samsung Odyssey Neo LS57CG952NUXXU G9 Mini LED and a full racing rig, I race online and about 5 hours daily, I could have waited for the Nvidia 50 series in around two months, but I am the type of guy that wants it now very impatient

 

[SpyderTracks]

I could have waited for the Nvidia 50 series in around two months, but I am the type of guy that wants it now very impatient

It's more like 3 weeks actually. The announcement is on the 6th (confirmed), release will be up to a couple of weeks after

The 4090 will be outperformed by the 5080 for significantly less money (I reckon around £700 cheaper). The 5090 purely based on the known specs so far will be around 160% x the performance of the 4090 for around the same cost (£2k currently which it isn't worth anyway, it retailed for £1600 and is only 2k now because production stopped a few months ago)

Also, the news is that the new gen will have brand new Neural Rendering technology which could greatly improve DLSS performance and is new at a hardware level so won’t be possible on current or previous generations.

Again, it's not about the hardware per se, it's the cooling setup, I'm betting about 1k of the cost of your system is entirely irrelevant for your uses and will offer no benefit. Just money down the drain. Although you will also be missing out on the 9950X3D which would be a far better option for SIM Racing as this gen both CCDs will have 3DVCache so its going to utterly destroy anything that’s come previously on the X3D range for gaming

When I first reached out to PCS to ask for help I was stunned to learn that my request to bring my PC inside my home place it upon a table that has wheels (I can set up my PC myself) was in fact the first ever request of it's kind and I had to wait for a reply while it was checked out if it could be done (As said, I was willing to pay for this to happen) As you may see that NOW, I was just asking for a little help that could have been done for a loyal customer of 15 years standing

Not sure I fully understand this, are you saying PCS refused this request? If you pay for the engineer setup, they’ll put it wherever you want. Are you certain they didn't just misunderstand what you were asking?

If you were asking for PCS to mandate that the delivery company do that for you, that’s not in their power, theyre not connected to DPD in any way, and it’s not a service couriers offer.

I think you’re missing what’s being said. Your new company IS charging you to do that, they’re just making out they’re not because they aren’t listing it on the invoice. If they themselves are doing the delivery, that’s cost will be far higher than PCS using a courier as already explained. But I very much doubt that’s the case anyway, they‘ll be using a courier service. I guarantee no courier company offers that service. If the company doesn’t send their own engineer to bring the parcel in and unwrap it on the table, I guarantee the courier company won’t do it. If it is that they’re sending the engineer then it’s exactly the same service PCS offer and you are being charged.