Advanced Concepts — Attraction in Redding

I had an unfortunate experience with this place that left me feeling burned today. I’m building my first gaming pc and on a budget, I called ahead before to check and see if they had either of the graphics cards I was interested in. I am on a budget so I’m not able to afford the newest or nicest parts which the guy kept asking me if I really wanted something so old to try and get me to upgrade. Fine I get it, that’s their job but it really started to bothered me after the third time. I’m not super knowledgeable about building pcs or all the ins and outs of everything, so I was really looking for good guidance. He told me I should consider a Rtx 5060 instead of what I was originally looking for and that the 5060 would be in my price range. They would have them marked around 350 to maybe 400. Cool that was my max budget. I get there we go back and fourth making sure it’s going to fit in my case, then I ask hey I know there is less ram in this graphics card than the 12gb one I was looking at online how much will this effect my gameplay? Oh not at all look at what the minimum is for your required games it’s almost never more than 8 and if you have extra ram it won’t get used anyway it’s just a waste(spoiler alert that’s not actually entirely accurate if you look at tested graphics card performances). That sounded a bit fishy to me based off the research I was doing online before hand but I decided against my concern to go ahead and trust him, it is a pc store and my toddler was getting anxious. My fault unfortunately. It ended up being 450 to my surprise which is quite a bit more than online even direct from nvidia, I understand they have to mark things up but between it being more than the initial quote and the customer service I’m really not feeling good about my overall experience. Despite the red flags I was like well I’m supporting local and if it doesn’t work out in my build I can always return it. Haha jokes on me again, before I bought the graphics card I got asked if this was my first time buying from the store I say yes and he goes through all the process of putting me into their system. Perhaps a perfect time to warn me that there are no returns if it doesn’t work out. No surprise, he doesn’t do that, I only make that realization by seeing it printed on my receipt! Learned that lesson the hard way. I won’t be recommending this place to...

It's sad to see a local mom and pop shop join the scalpers, I definitely don't recommend shopping here if you value your time and money. I wanted to see if they could help out with getting my pc running. I am only missing a graphics card (probably like alot of people) becuase i was in high hopes the will come back in stock. They said they didn't have any left and that it will cost 2000$+ for an rtx 3080 and offered me that option. After I kindly declined his over inflated price, he then offered me a pre-built computer which is what brought me to write this review. The pre-built PC would be the following specs amd 5600 graphics card amd ryzen 5 cpu 8 gig ddr4 ram This was the baseline spec and it was offered to me for 2600$.... which is probably close to 2x - 3x the actual price. You can buy a pre-built off of Walmart with better specs at 1/3 of the price.

Before the great gpu shortage of 2020/2021 this may have been a great store and I was happy to support a local mom and pop place even if it was a couple bucks more. But them taking advantage of people during these tough times and joining the scalpers side by charging 2x to 3x msrp makes me sad and ill gladly take my hard earned money and patiently wait for the gpu's to come back in stock.

thankyou for reading my...

Careful, they’re deceptive and refuse to give you information about any piece of hardware you want to buy. If you press them the best you’ll get is the brand name.

The best you’ll get is being told to come into their store if you do want to know exactly what you’re buying for a PC. They operate this way with full PC builds as well. Your receipt will not contain any information identifying the components and hardware of your build. They will rip you off and price gouge to the maximum, from the owner down to the Sales Rep.

This is their way of taking advantage of people who obviously know nothing about computers, or how to build them. 10-20 minute jobs will also take a minimum of a day, but more than likely 2 or 3 days. Another tactic to charge you $150+ dollars in, “service fees.”

The two technicians in back are fantastic, they know a ton and do great work. This review does not include them.

If you don’t know much about computers, try and take someone who does with you if you’re going to buy or build anything from Advanced Concepts.

They provide other services locally as well. Be very careful and do your due diligence before doing business with them.

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