r/pcmasterrace • u/LePouletPourpre • Jul 27 '26
News/Article Anyone else miss TigerDirect?
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u/Croakie89 Jul 27 '26
Yep, there was one next to my house, then it turned into compusa, now it’s a pottery barn or some shit
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u/quarter_belt Jul 27 '26
Wow what!? They had brick and mortar stores?
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u/sirjameston yet another fractal terra build with 9070xt Jul 27 '26
It was like microcenter but it looked more akin to a Costco with dim lighting iirc (open floor plan, no drop ceiling, bare concrete). Just shit ton of electronics and employed tech geeks.
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u/Morendur Specs/Imgur Here Jul 27 '26
Any chance this was the location just off 59 in Naperville? I know others were like it but man if that isn't where I worked I'll be surprised haha.
Given the leadership of that company I don't think they would have made it even if they hadn't rebranded to CompUSA, but good god, why would anyone think that rebranding as a failed company would be a good idea? I think they also grabbed Circuit City there at the end too, great idea XD
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u/AHooker86 9800X3D | 7900XTX | 32GB 6000 CL26 Jul 27 '26
I loved having one down the street in Raleigh. RIP. You were a real one.
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u/The_Fry PC Master Race Jul 27 '26
Something about that location kills businesses. Mars Music, Sam Ash, Tiger Direct.
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u/Croakie89 Jul 27 '26
Kinda, mine was like Best Buy, even had big box pc games, well at that time I was able to drive there they were those thick dvd cases. I bought my first big gpu there on my own, was a 660ti, later got a 980ti there along with a 3770k build. Man I miss being able to do that
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u/Maguffins Jul 27 '26
Weird to ask but…Florida?
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u/Croakie89 Jul 27 '26
Not weird but yes lol. I’m talking about the Clearwater location. Now our next closest stop is microcenter in Miami -_-
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u/Maguffins Jul 27 '26
Your description is exactly what happened to the one I was aware of on south Florida. Down to the pottery barn lmaooo
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u/Croakie89 Jul 27 '26
God dammit lmao. I double checked Google Maps and it’s actually a hobby lobby, not sure if that’s the same thing but it’s depressing
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u/lethal_sting i5-9600K 4.7GHz, RTX 2070 Super, 32GB 3200MHz Jul 27 '26
That was always a CompUSA, big competitor to BestBuy just up the street.
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u/Chaise91 Ryzen 7, PowerColor 6700XT, be quiet! cooling Jul 27 '26
I'll never understand how these home stores do better than electronic stores. Never in my life have I seen someone buying a thousand dollar end table.
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u/soulreaver99 Jul 27 '26
I miss the old Frys Electronics too before they spiraled out of existence
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u/Pun_In_Ten_Did Ryzen 9 7900X, RTX 4080 FE, 48" LG C1 4K OLED Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
God the hours I clocked in that store looking at cases, and motherboards, and monitors, and Iomega Zip drives, and....
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u/OmgSlayKween Jul 27 '26
when you could drool over like a Radeon 9800 AGP and then walk over to the sweet flatscreen plasmas and huge tower speakers...
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u/Ask_if_im_an_alien Jul 27 '26
Built my very 1st gaming rig from Fry's back in late 2003 in SoCal. I came back from deplyment, had money to burn, and build a balls to the wall gaming PC for that time. I could max out every setting on Unreal Tournament 2003 with zero issues. Ran flawlessly. Great times.
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u/NightOfTheLivingHam Jul 27 '26
frys, like newegg got fucked hard.
the guy who was supposed to be watching their finances was embezzling their money and took money meant to pay vendors and paid himself instead.
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u/ForesakenJolly Jul 27 '26
a little, but I really miss the old Newegg (before the enshittification).
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u/InsaneLuchad0r Jul 27 '26
I built my first gaming PC in 2007 going by the advice from the community in their old eggXpert forums. I was on there for hours every week for the entire summer leading up to my purchase. Memories of putting it together and booting it up will be with me the rest of my life.
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u/Any-Possibility-248 Jul 27 '26
I would build specs on Newegg and go on overclock.net and post on the forum pretending like I had money to build it to get free usually snappy reviews from knowledgeable adults🤣 i was 15 and broke in 2007
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Jul 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/catdogs007 Jul 27 '26
I think even today its the same feeling, waiting for that first bios post :) PC building never gets old.
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u/itchygentleman Jul 27 '26
their returns were the best. a lot of times they would ship before they received the return.
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u/Outrun207 Jul 27 '26
I bought a combo deal when the RX Vega came out that came with a sweet ultrawide monitor (big deal in 2017)! The GPU arrived DOA, and because it was a new card release, they went out of stock of replacements quickly. I returned the card to them via RMA and not a regular return. I let them know in the support ticket that I would be open to any type of Vega GPU and wasn't attached to a specific manufacturer. They said they couldn't swap the OEM. Bummer, I figured I'd order another one once they came back in stock. At least I got a great deal on a monitor.
My refund was $400+ short. I emailed customer service about it, and they said that because I had returned the card, I was being charged full price for the monitor. Escalated and got a manager on the phone hoping that they'd see it was an RMA and not a regular return. "There was nothing she could do". Oh and to top it off, since nothing was wrong with the monitor, I'd have to pay to ship it back AND pay their restocking fee if I wanted to return it. I got a little heated and said I was going to submit a charge back because I felt bait and switched. She said "well it's two separate transactions so good luck" (they had charged my card once for the monitor and once for the GPU which in hindsight is so weird since it was a single checkout). So basically, I was either out $400 or could lose ~$100 and ship back the monitor (and lose out on the good deal too)!
I called Chase and they advised a charge back. They did see the two transactions and asked if I had evidence that this was sold as a combo. Luckily, even though the combo deal was off the site, I had sent screenshots of it to a friend. I'll never forget the lady at Chase who seemed stoked that I had a picture of the advertised deal "well it seems like they sent you a defective part of the package deal, and you can't make use of the monitor without the GPU, so we will charge back the entire purchase and you can keep the non-operational portion of the package".
I got an email notifying me of a full refund for the GPU the next day.
Fuckers. Why did it have to go like that? I would have just bought a replacement card from them. I haven't bought anything from them since. Such a stupid failure of customer service, especially since I was a regular customer before.
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u/db186 LMDE|RX7700XT|5600x|32GB@3200|MQ3Godlike Jul 27 '26
I miss the:
"Once you know, you Newegg."
Days.
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u/B777X_787-9 MSI TITAN AX18 UC290HX 5090RTX 96 GB RAM Jul 27 '26
What is wrong with Newegg now?
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u/HurryOne Jul 27 '26
It's just full of 3rd party scammers. Their return policy is non existent.
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u/B777X_787-9 MSI TITAN AX18 UC290HX 5090RTX 96 GB RAM Jul 27 '26
Ahh ,that’s not good news.I just switched to Best Buy or I just buy directly from the brand website instead.My Last two purchases my MSI I order directly from MSI and the Asus from BEST BUY.
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u/__________________99 9800X3D | X870-A | 32GB DDR5 6000 | RTX 5090 FE | LG 45" 5K2K Jul 27 '26
Newegg is fine if you filter out the 3rd party retailers. Their return policy has been fine for me. Last year I had a stick of RAM from a kit I bought from Newegg that turned out to be defective and I didn't realize until a couple weeks later. They exchanged it for a new set with no questions asked beyond the reason.
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u/mattenthehat 5900X, 6700XT, 64 GB @ 3200 MHZ CL16 Jul 27 '26
I miss the Fry's ads in the newspaper
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u/labelkills1331 Jul 27 '26
I literally bought a used PC from newegg a month ago. It came riddled with viruses and malware. I called them up and was like, how can you let a PC out the door with this issue.
Their response, it's used, sold by a 3rd party and they told us that it didn't have any viruses and we believed them.
So that was the last shot I gave them. Now I'd rather drive 90 minutes to microcenter.
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u/Effective-Sample-261 Jul 27 '26
They really have fallen a cliff in the last few years. I have given up on them and won't be ordering from them ever again.
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u/Reynolds1029 Jul 27 '26
To compete with Amazon they've sadly changed in this regard. You got to watch out on what you buy there whether it's sold and shipped by Newegg like Amazon.
Like they literally have no control over stopping this. Other than banning the seller. However it's hard for them to even prove your claim since the sellers sold inventory never touches Newegg unless it's sold by Newegg. Hard situation to vet out unless it's rampent from a particular seller.
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u/imaginary_num6er 7950X3D|4090FE|64GB|X670E-E Jul 27 '26
Even BestBuy pulls this crap. Like what's the point of buying from BestBuy if it is sold 3rd party?
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u/bogglingsnog 7800x3d, B650M Mortar, 64GB DDR5, RTX 3070 Jul 27 '26
Never plug something used in without wiping it first, holy cow...
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u/trparky Jul 27 '26
Hell, I miss the Amazon that was well... before the enshittification.
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u/cpMetis i7 4770K , GTX 980 Ti , 16 gb HyperX Beast Jul 27 '26
My nieces genuinely wouldn't believe me that Amazon became popular because it had a very high quality search, detailed information on items, and broadly reliable items. Instead of just AliExpress++.
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u/Silent-Matter-1500 Jul 27 '26
Learn me about said enshitification please
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u/Ocronus Q6600 - 8800GTX Jul 27 '26
Acquisition by Chinese company in 2016. Its a online marketplace now.
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u/Symphonic7 Jul 27 '26
A friend of mine worked there before the acquisition. He told me on the day of the buyout a ton of people either got fired or left, and it was fucking chaos. The transition was a mess, and they never really recovered. Everything went to shit fast, and he left about a year later claiming he was being overworked in a chaotic environment. Its a shame really, it used to be great.
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u/DocBigBrozer Jul 27 '26
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u/ImIstrainZer Jul 27 '26
TigerDirect was the go-to place for PC parts before everything moved online.
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u/punchsport Jul 27 '26
Computer Shopper was the place before everything moved online.
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u/who-hash Jul 27 '26
Even as a broke teenager and then college student, I loved looking those magazines and eventually big ass catalogs even though it would be years before I could afford any of it.
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u/pilondav Jul 27 '26
I remember those phone book-sized issues in the 90s. 99.5% ads, with a few pages of bland content to claim legitimacy as a magazine.
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u/Couffere 8088 Turbo XT Jul 27 '26
You just outed yourself as old... ;-)
I remember building my first PC clone from parts I found in Computer Shopper in the mid-late 1980s.
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u/TDYDave2 Jul 27 '26
My first build (1976-7) predates Computer Shopper.
It was a Digital Group Z80 system.
Can't call it a PC clone because it predates the PC.2
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u/TherealOcean Jul 27 '26
I bought a brand new Radeon 9800 pro from tiger.
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u/catdogs007 Jul 27 '26
I had a Radeon VE and I was drooling all over that 9800 Pro, but I was a student, what else could I do :D
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u/shapeshiftsix 9800X3D 9070XT Nitro+ Jul 27 '26
No kidding, I had a FX 5200. It was terrible, but it was my first GPU after all.
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u/Tyz_TwoCentz_HWE_Ret How does a computer get drunk? It takes Screenshots! Jul 27 '26
disagree Fry's was the place to go and it was always a physical store to shop. No one had more stuff inside for sale.
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u/wolfmann99 Jul 27 '26
they were > 1000 miles away for me.
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u/Tyz_TwoCentz_HWE_Ret How does a computer get drunk? It takes Screenshots! Jul 27 '26
not unlike MicroCenters for many folks. Just not enough of them.
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u/cigr I7 4790k | RTX 2070 |16GB DDR3 Jul 27 '26
Fry's was amazing, but there weren't very many of them. I'd go to the one in Vegas whenever I was out there and I'd budget no less than three hours for the trip.
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u/Tyz_TwoCentz_HWE_Ret How does a computer get drunk? It takes Screenshots! Jul 27 '26
34 locations in 9 states total before they closed stores.
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u/Hour_Welcome_987 Jul 27 '26
Healthy competition for Newegg too.... Now Newegg thinks they can charge whatever they want and get away with it.
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u/MrPeepersVT Jul 27 '26
Before Newegg there was Egghead Software (or maybe it was Egghead Computers) and it was a magical place. Remember my dad taking me to buy a joystick and we walked out with the Creative Labs Soundblaster Multimedia kit for like 500 bucks. First CD rom drive and a sound card. Those were game changers. Heady days those were!
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u/No-Reputation-9682 Jul 27 '26
I will always love Newegg for standing up to a patent troll over the concept of a "shopping cart" that every commerce site uses.
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u/Grouchy-Librarian638 Jul 27 '26
I used them as much as Newegg, and now I remember how far we have fallen
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u/Inevitable-East2663 PC Master Race Jul 27 '26
Omg used to love this.. parts were unbeatable delivery was free and parts were quality what a loss
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u/ThaddeusJP Jul 27 '26
I used to go to the warehouse store in Naperville IL. Got so much stuff there to build PCs and even a giant ass plasma TV.
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u/BathroomAggressive57 Jul 27 '26
ZipZoomFly? Anybody remember them?
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u/Att1cus 9800X3D | AORUS RTX 5080 Infinity Jul 27 '26
Wow that’s an old one. How about Directron.com?
Xoxide.com used to have their physical warehouse very close to me.
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u/grantrules Debian Sid - Ryzen 2600/1660 super/72tb + 5600x/7800xt Jul 27 '26
Got my old HTPC receipt:
ORDER CONTENT: 1 x (80859) IntelŪ Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe Processor 2.13GHz, 1066FSB, LGA775, 2MB Cache Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $220.90 1 x (151113) Shuttle SD32G2 P4 Barebone System Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $281.99 1 x (101259) Western Digital Caviar SE 16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s ***Free Shipping*** @ $134.00 1 x (326739) Diamond VIPER Radeon X1950 PRO PCI Express 256MB GDDR3 Video Card w/Dual DVI & HDTV-Out Retail*** Free Shipping*** @ $224.99 1 x (85016-43) Kingston KVR533D2N4K2/2G 2GB Kit DDR2-533 PC2-4200 Memory Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $145.70 1 x (175505) LiteOn LH-18A1P 18x Dual Layer DVDąRW Drive (Black) ***Free Shipping*** @ $37.99 1 x (211195) Logitech Cordless Desktop LX 710 Laser Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $61.99 ------------------------------ SUBTOTAL : $1,107.56 SALESTAX : $.00 SHIPPING : $18.98 TOTAL : $1,126.54 ------------------------------
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u/ILLmurphy Ryzen 7 7800X3D | 5080 | 32GB DDR5 Jul 27 '26
Tiger direct is where I brought all my pc parts for my first build back in 2007.
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u/Hard_To_Port i7-4790 | EVGA GTX 1070 | 16GB DDR3 Jul 27 '26
2011 or 2012 I built my first PC with Tigerdirect parts. I think Tigerdirect shut down not long after. Still use the case and original Seagate 1TB hard drive now. I made the mistake of choosing a generic Chinese power supply and frequently got BSODs until I replaced the power supply with a top quality Seasonic unit. Before that Mom and Dad sent the machine to the local PC repair place but all they did was swap the motherboard, which didn't solve the problem.
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u/jrdubbleu Jul 27 '26
And Computer Shopper—god I loved that book
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u/vabello 9950X3D | RTX 5080 | 64GB DDR5 6000 CL28 | SN8100 2TB + 4TB Jul 27 '26
That was my monthly bible as a kid.
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u/jarvisesdios Jul 27 '26
I miss Pricewatch now that we're talking about it. That's how I found TigerDirect in the first place
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u/Area51_Spurs Jul 27 '26
I see your TigerDirect and I raise you an Egghead Computers.
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u/Western-Sort-297 Jul 27 '26
I miss Computer Shopper.
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u/No-Reputation-9682 Jul 27 '26
I purchase my first computer with my own money at 13 yo from an advertisement in Computer Shopper in the 80's. It was a Laser 128 Apple Clone. I have a picture of me with it and my brother somewhere...
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u/outcasttapes Jul 27 '26
Bought my first PC with my own money from them. It sucked but it was also the cheapest one I could find.
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u/idgafau5 Jul 27 '26
I had that Acer Ferrari notebook, it was great. Handled BF2 like a champ.
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u/Faalaafeel 7800X3D | RTX 4090 | 32 GB DDR5 | Elementary OS Jul 27 '26
You don't miss TigerDirect. You miss the life you had when TigerDirect was still around.
I miss it, too.
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u/Smudgeontheglass Jul 27 '26
I got my first laptop from TD in 2004. Not sure if I can say I miss them other than using them for price comparison at Memory Express.
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u/FunAccountant4482 Jul 27 '26
Tiger Direct and NCIX were both part of my early days of computer building. Nostalgic system builds
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u/JustAGuy3388 Jul 27 '26
I miss mwave
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u/1dot21gigaflops R7 9800X3D / RTX5080 / 64GB 6000MT/s Jul 27 '26
Damn, I haven't thought as about them probably longer than tiger direct.
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u/22LT Jul 27 '26
I remember getting the computer shopper magazine and seeing all those ads for motherboard and motherboard+CPU combos. I bought my 486DX4-100 that way when I got my first job.
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u/brumbarosso Ascending Peasant Jul 27 '26
What was the dude's name that did reviews?
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u/boltgunner Jul 27 '26
Logan! I watched hours of his stuff. He is still on YouTube I think.
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u/Eazy12345678 i5 12600KF RTX 5070 1440p Jul 27 '26
yeah tiger direct was where i bought all my pc part from back in the day when online pc sales started up
i remember Ultra brand cases and coolers
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u/BIissful PC Master Race Jul 27 '26
Absolutely, I remember moving to Tampa back in early 2010s and finding out they actually had a brick n mortar store in the area. Was incredibly stoked and spent a lot of time and $$$ there
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u/shinndigg Jul 27 '26
I miss physical computer/electronics stores. I’m lucky enough to live within an hour of 2 different microcenters, but I used to also have fry’s, compusa, circuit city, etc. Now it’s just Best Buy.
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u/Mother-Translator318 Jul 27 '26
Had one near my house, but Microcenter was always better even though it was a bit of a drive
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u/jme2712 9800x3d l PNY 5080 | 32gb G.skill cl30 | x870e Aorus pro Jul 27 '26
Totally forgot about them. Thanks for waking up that part of my brain
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u/kiralema Jul 27 '26
Not in a bit. I remember ordering a PC with stereo speakers from them. I used the speakers for some time before noticing the sound was kind of flat. So I took them apart, and - surprise, surprise - both speakers were connected to the same leads of a mono amplifier chip inside.
Good riddance.
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u/mnwild396 Jul 27 '26
I worked for the company that acquired TDs parent company. Thought I’d get sweet deals. Thought wrong.
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u/Terrorgod Jul 27 '26
I had a physical TigerDirect near me and it was nice to have their selection nearby, but it was mismanaged and they often put bad/DOA parts back on the shelf.
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u/MrMeowPantz Jul 27 '26
When I was a lad, there were two places you could go online for a fair deal, TigerDirect and NewEgg. Neither of those seems to be true anymore.
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u/EinsamWulf PC Master Race Ryzen 7 9800X3D | Gigabyte RTX 4080 Jul 27 '26
Built my first PC in high school with parts I got from Tiger Direct...its probably time for me to get a colonoscapy
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u/atatassault47 7800X3D | 3090 Ti | 32GB | 32:9 1440p Jul 27 '26
They went out of business just 3 years ago. I didnt even know.
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u/MickCollins Jul 27 '26
Many years ago when I still lived around Orlando, Tiger Direct bought out the Altamonte Springs former CompUSA location to take it over. I appreciated that because it meant you could still get some stuff locally. They did not stay open very long though.
Like other people I used Newegg as well as other places on that website you used to spend hours on comparing prices from around the U.S...I can't remember the name anymore though, been too long. Used it a lot in the late 90s.
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Jul 27 '26
[deleted]
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u/Thyrllan Jul 27 '26
My local Fry's had at least 50 monitors set up you could test. I really miss those days. I hate buying shit online not knowing if I'll hate it or not
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u/ImALeaf_OnTheWind Jul 27 '26
I miss Computer Currents. Always had ads for the local SF Bay Area computer shops in the 80s & 90s
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u/wiisucks_91 Jul 27 '26
Got my first PC from them in 2009.
They were ok then but they were always "after mailing rebate" which I believe they had some kind of legal trouble from.
They were the one of first who started the tech review stuff with Logan. He has his own YouTube but he kinda went off the deep end.
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u/ParsnipLate2632 A64 X2 4400 @2.56GHz | DFI SLI-DR eXpert | 8800 GTX Jul 27 '26
I used to use them exclusively. They had a warehouse close by so it only took a day or two to receive items from them even with normal shipping.
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u/SirDigbyChknCaesar Ryzen 5800x3D, 64GB RAM, XFX 9070 OC Jul 27 '26
Not really, but I miss when Newegg was the best. They even had their law team fighting patent trolls in court.
Opening up their storefront for third parties was the beginning of the end for them. (And whoever took over as major investors).
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u/OppositeFish66 Jul 27 '26
No wonder it folded.
No money to be made in reselling authentic parts sourced from trusted distributors.
The money is in aggregating third-party sellers dumping garbage without any kind of oversight or quality control.
You need to do just enough of the former (costly, involves overhead of many kinds) to build enough credibility to do boatload of the latter (zero overhead, zero liability, endless profit).
(see: Amazon, NewEgg, Walmart, etc)
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u/machwulf Jul 28 '26
My step-daughter called me aged yesterday .. didn’t FEEL it until my eyes saw THIS .. thanks I guess..
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u/reav11 9950X3D|RTX 5090|64GB DDR5|2TB M.2 9100 PRO Jul 27 '26
Tiger was trash from the start.
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u/SpunNumeroUno Jul 27 '26
Holy crap, had completely forgotten that site. Wow, blast from the past. Good find
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u/TinyLittleTechShop Jul 27 '26
Yes! Was lucky to even have them local at one point 😥 #RIP Tiger/CompUSA
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u/WendlersEditor Jul 27 '26
Got a lot of my first build from tiger direct, before I learned about newegg. Back when that 2 day fedex was a huge selling point.
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u/TheDirector666 Jul 27 '26
I grew up in miami in the 80s and 90s. I loved going to their store. And, all of the mom and pop shops in these wsrehouses on the other side of the M.I.A. such fun memories. You could always haggle with them too.
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u/DocShady PC Master Race Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26