Introduction

The Usual

If you're a regular FiringSquad reader, you've probably noticed that most of our articles are product reviews. Each month, we strive to offer you a glimpse of the latest and greatest hardware and games (sometimes the latest and not so great). What we haven't done is inform you on how to get these shiny new pieces of silicon. At the rate the computer industry moves, what's new is old by the time you've properly installed it. Spending $300 each month to keep up is probably pretty low on your list of fun things to do. Price matters a lot to a great many people: It deems whether you buy the GeForce2 GTS or those designer clothes you've been contemplating. It deems whether you buy the 19" monitor, instead of squinting at the 14" monitor you've had since you bought your first computer. So what happens when you can't cough It up?

Being the frugal gamers that we are, we decided to share our wealth of knowledge on this topic. This little guide will help you find the best deals for computer parts and much, much more. It is by no means comprehensive; this article is merely what we have come across. Some of you might be keen to everything we have to say, but there is always some poor soul who has been buying all his computer parts at CompUSA. Hopefully we'll help a few of you out; and who knows, maybe you too will end up with a system that is the envy of your friends, neighbors, and concubines.

So where can all these deals be had then? Well I'll tell you right now, it isn't easy. You'll have to put in a decent amount of time and effort to get in on a lot of the money saving madness. For the most part, the great deals are through online vendors.

Ph3Ar!

For those of you that shy away from online shopping - good luck. Occasionally a few good deals are spotted at brick and mortar stores like Staples and Office Depot.

Most of these deals are found at a few key sites, consisting mainly of a combination of coupons and low initial pricing. Every now and then some pricing errors are heavily exploited, most of the time those don't really pan out. In the following pages we will cover the sites that have deals, for sale/trade boards, and even the auction sites. In the end, we will even make a nice big circle of life for you, hoping to show you how to maintain a state of the art computer and keep it that way with minimal investment.