About us

My name is Alex, I am the owner and founder of TheGeekyHippo, and computer hardware enthusiast. I started the business as I recognized the need of great performing, well rounded PCs at reasonable price points.
Located in northern Oakland County (South East Michigan, USA) we serve the local area in person. We also serve the rest of the country and even abroad through our web presence, mainly our Square online store. We also sell through other channels, like facebook and ebay, but we are focusing more on direct sales. 

If you are in the Detroit or Flint metro areas, you can meet us in person when picking your new PC! Very likely you have seen the ads for our PCs though websites and marketplaces like craigslist, or Facebook marketplace. Even if you live a little farther than Detroit or Flint, the drive is worth it. We have had customers who drove all the way from mid Ohio, northern Indiana , west Michigan and even Chicago to pick their PC in person. 

Credentials.

While putting together a PC is not that hard, choosing the optimal design decisions requires a little more than just watching a youtube video or building a PC for a friend. Furthermore, can the youtube warrior prove that the design decision was in fact right? 

Well, I can!
In addition to over 30 years experience working with computers, I also possess formal higher education in electronics engineering, I spent 8 years studying them after high school. So, there is formal higher education on our side.
While some others can just tell you "I think it works that way" I can demonstrate the equations that explain why "it works that way"

Furthermore, in addition to the formal education, I try to stay abreast on new trends, and have always enjoying working with computer hardware. While the official education and training is a selling point, in the end, it is the true understanding of the concepts and rules what defines real expertise.
I pride myself on always going deep and getting to understand the "why", not just the "how".

Combine the formal education with the hunger to understand the "why", and you have a potent combination.
Our design decisions are guided by the deeper understanding of physics and computer science. When we pick a case, we don't pick one that just looks nice, we pick them based on how they will perform. Strong knowledge of fluid dynamics, power electronics, microprocessor design and several others allows to us to balance the computers. Those Youtube videos will not explain boundary conditions using partial differential equations...

Balanced System Approach.

So, now that you know about us, let's talk PCs again. If you have been looking for a custom built PCs and you were ready to throw a shoe at the monitor, don't worry. We understand there so many choices, so different, some less expensive, some more expensive; yet invariably, all of them are advertised as the perfect PC. Yes, you landed into another website that offers custom built PC, but we won't tell you that we offer the best PC. You will realize we do after talking to us. 

Our PCs  were conceived to offer the most system performance at that targeted price points, understanding that as a whole, it is a system, that is our better system approach. All the components play a role, so the system has to be well rounded. Light gaming on older DX9 or DX11 titles? Hardcore gaming on newer DX12 titles? OpenCL accelerated video encoding? Photo edition of JPEG or RAW files? We have it!