KitGuru visit the Overclockers UK Store

If you happen to live in the Newcastle-under-Lyme area, you may have had the chance to visit the Overclockers UK store.  Many of us would love to have such a store in our own local area but often we just have to accept that ordering online is the only option.

Last week, Overclockers UK kindly invited us to visit their headquarters which includes their impressive new retail store, warehouse and offices.  Even from the outside, the size of their facility is impressive.  In fact, it is over three times larger than their previous premises which they moved from a short while ago.

When entering the Overclockers store for the first time, we were overwhelmed by the array of mouth watering equipment on display; Alongside a myriad of top-end components, Overclockers have a number of mid to high-end systems on display, which are all set up and ready for you to try out.

Perhaps the most exciting piece of equipment on display was Asus' latest and greatest monitor, the PQ321QE 4K Super-High resolution monitor.  This is one of the first commercially available 4K displays in the UK.

The £3000 asking price will make it viable for only those who want the latest and greatest tech and don't mind paying through the nose for it.  It's currently available on preorder from the OCUK online store here.

Since they were taken over by CaseKing, Overclockers have vastly expanded their range of chassis and now offer the largest range of cases in the UK.  This includes all of the big brands such as Lian Li, NZXT and Corsair, as well as some lesser known models like the UK hand-made range from Parvum Systems (available here).

There are a number of other interesting areas in the shop, including  a few stands dedicated to high-end gaming peripherals.  They have a number of different models on display which allow you to try them out before you buy.  This is great for those who are undecided between different gaming mice or keyboards.

Another area of interest to us was the display dedicated to OCUK's Tech Labs range.  In case you're not already aware, Overclockers have compiled a range of water cooling kits which contain components that have been chosen to be fully compatible with each other, to save you the hassle of working it out (or getting it wrong!) for yourself.  They also include detailed instructions to guide you through the process of installing the water cooling kits.

The counter takes centre stage in the OCUK shop and is lathered in Kingston branding to promote their high-end SSDs and memory.

OCUK's system building department can be found directly behind the retail shop.  It is currently undergoing a major refurbishment, so we have decided to update this article with some pictures in a month or so when completed.  At present, it's in a state of transition so there isn't much point of including any.  Just outside the system building department, we found a long line of component bundles ready for assembly.  Can you see your system here?

One aspect of their systems which Overclockers is currently pushing hard is colour co-ordination.  They have been working hard with some of their close motherboard, memory and cooling partners to develop a series of colour co-ordinated component selections to improve the aesthetics of their products.  As you will no doubt have gathered from our previous reviews, we love colour co-ordinated systems and components that are easy to colour co-ordinate with.

Moving further into the depths of the building, we reached OCUKs offices – where the magic happens.  We saw a number of different projects that are currently in the pipeline – some of which we cannot yet speak about.  However we also saw some exciting systems in development, for example one based in the Corsair Air 540 case, which has only just been released (pictured).

At the end of our tour, we ended up in 8 packs office.  For those of you who aren't aware, 8 pack is an overclocking legend who now spends his days tweaking OCUK's systems to get the best possible performance out of them.  His work is one of the key reasons that they are able to ship out systems with such high overclocks.  Looking round his office, there was a plethora of components strewn about the place – not dissimilar from KitGuru's offices!

We would like to thank Scott and Mark for taking time out of their day to show us around!

KitGuru says: The OCUK store is an exciting day out for any enthusiast, especially if you're lucky enough to catch one of their special weekend promotional events.  If you can't make it up to Newcastle-under-Lyme, OCUK will be exhibiting at Multiplay's i49 this summer!

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