Bits The bit-tech and Custom PC Awards 2009

[EDIT] CPU=PSU

 

I voted for Sapphire, great reliability and excellent Vapor X cooling system.

But then it is all about personal opinions in votes like this

 

sorry guys but best manufacturer dell !! you have to be kidding there is so much wrong about this company in relation to consumers they would not even be on my list !!

 

Fair point, but its not about the best product overall, its about a lot of things such as the price: performance:warranty:customer service ultra ratio. If that was the case then the car of the year awards would always go to the super cars (or high end enthusiast products) not the ford focus and renault megane etc.

Also if it was about real overclocks, then one of the many water cooling companies would have won.

 

Can I remind everyone, that every company (Scan included) drop the ball from time to time. Larger companies, that process more orders, will crop up more than Joe Bloggs Computer Supplies. But lets be fair, Scan have continuously made strives to improve. The staff have never been rude to me and on the odd occasions they have made mistakes (stock being in stock but no where to be found) - I have had an apology, free postage. Yes, it was frustrating, but life is life - and apologies are few and far between.

Just my two penneth. BTW - I would also say Overclockers have improved IMO and Novatech (many years ago) sold me the wrong ram for a PC, I took the PC down there, they fitted the correct ram, when I got it home, the NOOB had not refitted a hard drive cable correctly (he mentioned to me that he had had to disconnect and reconnect them) and I had a dead Hard Disc...... no - Im not bitter or twisted! he he

 

Last time I ordered from Scan (just over a year now I think) got a whole new PC put it together, but failed to run, now I couldn't diagnose the problem as I knew no one with a PC that came anywhere near having same kit as my new one. I called Scan the same day they arranged courier pick up for the whole lot for the next day. Tested all the pieces even the ones that weren't broke (I know a few who would charge for this) and sent all my stuff back including new bits that worked all turned around in 4 days. Now I pretty much won't use anyone else.

 

Only bought once from scan when building my mates PC. Bought from ebuyer and overclockers too. Didn't think much of ebuyer apart from over all better prices than the rest. Unfortunatly I come from NI so I have to pay for delivery reguardless from ebuyer. The first time the mixed components took about a week to come from all sources, yet a couple of days ago I ordered a new monitor and it arrived the next day from ebuyer. I thought that was pretty impressive considering most things comming from the uk somehow enter a black hole for a few days. Id definatly have to say +1 to ebuyer after that for both price and service.

 

I (politely) demand more comedic pictures of the subject Harry Butler.

 

+1

 

hmmmm sapphire sponsored the awards and also got an award, hmmmmm coincidence i think not!!! nah only joking it wouldn't bother me anyway, got to pay the elite CPC and Bit-Tech staff somehow.

 

The sponsorship was for the awards evening, and it was sold before the results were known - I'd hope we've done enough over the years to prove we deserve trusting, but if you feel differently, so be it.

Kustom PCs did get quite a few votes, just not enough to put them into the top 5 - I guess because San, Ebuyer etc are selling to more people, so more people have experience of them.

 

It was a most enjoyable evening.

 

I find it surprising that people are accusing CPC and Bit-tech of "corruption" with regards to the awards...the only reason I brought scan up was due to the rather large complaints list I have seen on here before, but as I mentioned, and as was pointed out Combatus, you rarely see people saying "Company X is brilliant".

And sapphire? My past 4 graphics cards have been sapphire. Bar needing slightly different water blocks for them sometimes, I've had zero issue with them. Stable as anything, even when overclocked.

 

"Nowai! You would be hard pressed to find something that cools as well as a freezer 7 pro for as cheap and as quietly with such a long warranty."
Yep, for 5 more I could get something that cools 2-3x as good(which unlike the freezer 7 pro isn't just barely better than AMD stock)

For the others, I'm suprised Enermax, Silverstone, Antec etc. wasn't for best PSU maker because they have _THE BEST_ power supplies.

Such a ridiculous outcome that a generic brand like corsair won.

As for memory, Corsair has done almost nill for the overclocking community, whereas G. Skill has still the best kits on the market.

I'm ashamed at this article.

 

I ten d to agree with this comment

 

Maybe I'm a pillock then, there seem to be a lot of us in this thread... I've just worked in a very similar situation where definite preference has been given to those who advertise with a publication - I worked on the advertiser side.

As far as personal stories of scan goes, I worked in a team where about 10 people ordered from them after recommendations from 1 person, and of course their very low prices at the time. About half of the people who ordered had something wrong including me (I think they must've been having a particularly bad few months!). Scan kept my money for nearly 2 months before refunding my purchase. I am willing to accept they may have changed, but the stories that so often crop up do nothing to help their reputation.

Scan may not have always won, but they do seem to feature exceedingly often for such a maligned company - maybe it is just coincidence, maybe readers see the adverts, use the company and the majority have no troubles so they vote for them... I personally didn't like the potential conflict so much that I cancelled my cpc subscription for this very reason.

 

You're allowing paranoia to triumph over logic. Firstly, complaints will always be more visible than praise on a forum because people complaining have a much stronger motive than those who simply got their goods on time. If you order a graphics card, for a good price, and it arrives quickly, and works, you're hardly going to log on to bit-tech and start a thread. You're going to install it in your PC, play some games and get on with your life. If that card is DOA, if it takes a week to arrive instead of two days, then you've got a strong motive to complain.

Secondly, Scan is a large company when it comes to PC enthusiasts. It fulfills thousands and thousands of orders per month, and as such, it's a company familiar to lots of people - so in an open vote on an enthusiast website such as bit-tech, a high proportion of those readers are going to have dealt with Scan and be likely to vote for it.

As you mention, advertising has an affect too. We all like to imagine ourselves as being independent minded and able to make our own decisions and never influenced by advertising, but the reality is that advertising helps companies get noticed - that's why they spend so much money on it.

Obviously it's difficult for you to accept Scan winning because it doesn't fit with your personal experience, and those of the 10 people you mention, but in the overall scale of things - the 4,500 people who voted - this is a statistically tiny sample. Personally, I was surprised to see one OCUK in the top 5, as they're the only company we often receive complaining emails about but the numbers from the survey are what they are (and yes, before anyone asks, we do our best to stop voter fraud).

Had we - the editorial team - simply decided all the awards ourselves and given Scan an award, then perhaps you might be right to be suspicious, and this is one of the reasons we've gone for a democratic approach. But that's the thing with democracy - you get a say, but you don't always get your choice.

 

I'm not sure who you are aiming this at. Apart from one category it was entirely user voted. People like you decided who won. The voting form was on site for weeks and you could have voted or gathered others to vote in what you wanted to win.

I'm sure many-a-Corsair fan will disagree with your statement because it does a lot for the enthusiast community. Go read its forum.

Cannot highlight this enough! When we got to see the results the day of the awards, there are certainly some I would not have chosen, but I accept others might favour.

 

Whys there so much bit-tech article hate these days? come on guys, we all need to be lovers!!