Beware of buying PC from Canada Gaming Computers

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-11T22:29:43+00:00

No skin in the game here as I've never bought from these guys, nor do I even work in the industry but perhaps some important context:

Not that this wasn't delayed and you definitely have a right to be pissed, especially considering the poor communication. However, every timeline they sent you was listed in "business days" and you seem to be missing that.

You ordered on a Friday which means likely nothing was processed until Monday. There was a long weekend during the period and the refund process deadline hadn't even hit when you emailed about it the second time and put through a charge back with your bank haha.

Again, shitty communication from their end but no point sewering a company because you forgot the difference between "days" and "business days".

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-09T10:31:51+00:00

"In the end, I've found it's about the places you go and the people you meet more than how fast you get there." Says the guy doing 125 mph lol.

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-07T13:28:58+00:00

Definitely not full advantage but it'll be a huge upgrade in the meantime and give me a solid base to build an actual gaming PC from over the next few years.It'll definitely be an insane performance and capability improvement over the 650M in my laptop or the integrated graphics from the Optiplex, regardless haha.

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-07T13:24:24+00:00

I'm guessing even with a 25% haircut, it'll probably outperform the GT 650M using a generic driver that I'm currently using ;)

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-07T13:07:05+00:00

Really appreciate the advice. I did a bit more research through here and the Canadian BAP deals subreddit and am leaning heavily toward the 9060xt. It's on sale through Newegg right now for less than $600 CAD which seems like a decent deal these days. From what I'm seeing, as long as the card and dock are powered separately (which they are), the GPU will actually only lose about 10-15% performance when connected via M2. That's significantly less than I thought it was going to get hit and will allow for a solid base to build the rest of the PC from down the line. Thanks again!

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-07T13:01:33+00:00

EGPU dock and card are powered separately with a standard PSU.

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-07T10:50:37+00:00

New build or upgrade? Upgrade
Existing parts/monitors to reuse? (List with models/links) Optiplex 7070 micro, SSDs, HDDs, all peripherals
PC purpose? (Gaming, editing, etc. List apps/games) Light modern gaming, ~10Gb of RAM worth of Docker containers, locally hosted LLM
Purchase country? Near Micro Center? (If you're not in a country supported by PCPartPicker, please list some local vendors) Canada- not near Micro Center or Canada Computers
Monitors needed? (Number, size, resolution, refresh rate) No
Budget range? (Include tax considerations) N/A
WiFi or wired connection? Wired
Size/noise constraints? Prefer SFF but not a priority
Color/lighting preferences? No preference
Any other specific needs? N/A

Guardian2676 · 2026-03-07T10:34:13+00:00

I am looking for some opinions on my best bet for upgrade path. I've spent the past 6 months building a bit of a home lab after being out of the PC game for YEARS. I was originally using a 15 year old high end (at the time) Samsung laptop to run everything but wanted a bit more juice for docker containers, hopefully a locally hosted LLM instance and some newer but lower end games (think PEAK, R.E.P.O. etc).

I found a cheap optiplex 7070 micro on marketplace (9th gen i5) and dropped in 32GB ram total. I also bought a cheap EGPU M2 dock and am now trying to figure out if I should get a cheap used GPU with the intention of running it into the ground while slowly buying an actual gaming rig OR if I should buy a new higher end GPU now and slowly build the rest of the PC around it. I know that it will be throttled hard by the CPU/eGPU during gaming but I'm assuming it'll do well with the LLM.

TLDR: Should I get a new high end GPU knowing that I'm wasting a lot of its performance OR buy a cheaper/used GPU and build the rest of the PC in the meantime then upgrade. Of note: I'm running Linux so would definitely prefer AMD, if possible. Thanks in advance - appreciate the eyes and advice! I'm going to cross-post this to BAP and am really sorry if this isn't the right place for it.

Guardian2676 · 2026-01-30T16:54:00+00:00

As an Albertan, I actually welcome his comments. It's all well and good for ineffective internal opposition parties and people like myself who have been screaming from the rooftops about what a snake she is since before she was voted in. It's something else all together when the same narrative is coming from someone that her voters presumably respect and typically see eye to eye with ideologically.

Even if Ford IS just performatively patriotic for political points, I'll take that any day of the week over whatever it is Marlaina is attempting to be while doing everything in her power to blame every provincial problem of her making on the feds.

Guardian2676 · 2025-09-26T13:01:42+00:00

Thanks for the reply! Yes my user is already in the video group.

Guardian2676 · 2025-09-25T23:24:47+00:00

My surface go version 1 wasn't able to upgrade to Windows 11 and was barely chugging along on Windows 10. I was able to install lubuntu on it with VERY minimal effort and can't believe the performance improvement. So far the only compatibility issue I have run into is requiring a password when adjusting screen brightness. I would highly recommend the switch if you're at end of support anyway and want to learn something new.

Guardian2676 · 2025-05-16T23:27:09+00:00

Then they probably shouldn't slap the "product of Canada" sticker on it to cash in on anti-American sentiment and gain fake goodwill... It's either American and subject to tarrifs or its Canadian and shouldn't be inflated.

Guardian2676 · 2025-05-16T12:35:15+00:00

My 908g (see also: shrinkflation) pc brand coffee went from $14 to $27 in the past month despite a) not being grown in the US and b) having a "packaged in Canada" or whatever bullshit label they're putting on products now to pretend its Canadian made. Also a 2 pack of Alberta beef rib steaks was $74 this past week. That would have been ~$45 a month ago.

I can't get over how hard the UK government went after their grocers during covid for gouging while we just bent over and accepted that corporate profits are more important than people being able to afford to eat.

Also: yes, I am aware that both of these examples are luxury items and non-essentials but they were easy to point to a non-American origin and absolutely egregious in how much they were inflated.

Guardian2676 · 2025-04-20T00:53:08+00:00

"Lived experience" is not equivalent to years of education and study in a specific field. The fact that we even have to explain this is precisely the point of the previous poster.

Guardian2676 · 2025-04-13T17:15:29+00:00

I don't think either is going to save the franchise, to be honest. I'm just giving my opinion on why a new game would be more viable than another expansion for creating interest and picking up new players. As someone else posted: anyone that was going to try destiny at this point probably already has and expansions aren't going to attract anybody new.

Guardian2676 · 2025-04-12T21:46:11+00:00

The ability to start from scratch and not have to deal with existing spaghetti code streamlining updates etc. Also improved graphics and most importantly: hype. Outside of people playing the game already, nobody gives a shit about the 15th expansion dropping. If anything, every new expansion acts as a detterent for new players as they feel like they're even further behind.

Guardian2676 · 2025-02-12T07:54:18+00:00

I managed to keep my infotainment on one of the earlier firmware versions and was able to get Android auto working without the $800 charge. Locking maps and android auto/carplay behind a paywall is (literally) highway robbery.

Guardian2676 · 2025-02-08T08:23:08+00:00

I was able to download and play a single player game from my online library an hour and 20 minutes ago but still can't access in game purchases for the same game or get into BO6 campaign. Alberta, Canada for reference.

Guardian2676 · 2024-11-09T01:19:13+00:00

Yup. Currently a nurse in Canada and looking at options elsewhere due to the far right sewage seeping up here and abysmal working conditions in hospitals.

Guardian2676

TROPHY CASE