I both buy my Macs and build my own Linux machines.
As a Mac user, they’re worth exactly the price that I’m willing to pay. To be honest, I wouldn’t purchase a Mac Mini (well, maybe as an HTPC front-end; I still use Xboxes), because it’s way underpowered. For only a little more, I could have a low-end iMac (granted, “little more” to me may be different than it is to you).
When it comes to (re-)building my Linux boxes (and it was similar when I bothered with Windows, which I just use on the Macs now), I typically spent more than a pre-made box, if only to get better quality, interchangeable hardware without proprietary integration issues (which, admittedly, some Macs have as well). In many respects, I over-pay for my generic hardware, too.
I guess I’m lucky to have expendable income and not have to labor over every, little, nitpicking detail in order to save $5 or put Mac users or Windows users down.
It bears repeating that for mundane tasks like web surfing, e-mail, etc, a powerful machine is a waste of money. It won’t make your computing experience easier, you’ll still be running the same Windows that everyone else does.
The biggest thing you can do to keep your computing experience positive is keep viruses and malware off the computer. That means run anti-virus software and keep it updated, don’t use Internet Explorer, especially older versions, and don’t download things like mouse cursors, screensavers, etc. They very often come with a payload of spyware. The flashier and more compelling the gadget is, the more you should be wary.
Well, I think I will have a hard time beating $439 at newegg, although the question here is what OS does that come with? Probably a flaming POS like Vista Basic If it’s XP-able (doubtful) or gets you a good deal on Windows 7 then it might be a good buy for simple web-browsing, emails, documents, pictures and the like.
I just built a computer about a month ago with an E7600 3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, 2 1TB HDDs, Shuttle minicase w/G31 mobo chipset, and a 7.1 surround card. Only weak spot for me is the onboard graphics card, which takes about 500MB from the system, but I am using XP so 4GB is a bit overkill anyways.
Anyhow, my cost out the door (including shipping) was $574, including 9.75% CA sales tax :eek:
Dell said that it included vista upgradeable to windows 7. I really didn’t look at those terms to hard. I mostly did it as an exercise to see what the mac tax was. I tried to choose a form factor that was small although it was not as small and cute as the mini.
The two big hard drives down to a 500 gig drive then add the tax which is not included in the 439 you are a lot closer than I would have thought. Did you buy XP for the $574 or move the license from an old machine?
Thank you, Iamametalrobot, for the tip on the E8400.
For those who are asking, I already have a 5-year old PC for web browsing. It is getting too slow for the latest games, and processing large video files can take several days to finish. I also plan on running heavy duty software IDEs, possibly more than one at a time. And it has to act as a web app server under load.
Pricewatch has an E8400 system at $386 and an E7500 at $320. The way I see it, I just need to decide if I want to pay more for the latest chip, motherboard, and ram to get slightly better performance. So, I am leaning towards the Core 2 Duo as the sweet spot.
Open up that case and see if the motherboard even has a brand name on it…
Also most decent components these days have 3-5 year warranties on them, ram is often lifetime…
Part of why mass produced machines are cheaper is also that they buy parts without manufacturer RMA support.
a seagate hard drive in a dell machine only has a 1 year warranty unless you pay extra, the same drive from a shop/many online vendors has a 5 year warranty from seagate.
Seems to me the build v buy arguments come down to customization and not cost. If you build your own and you get it right, you will end up with exactly what you want. For some folks that’s a huge satisfier. I don’t think it’s cheaper.
I think a commercially available machine is almost always cheaper than the (street price) cumulative cost of parts. And of course build-time is never considered into the cost.
A pre-built machine has the additional advantage of being returnable if it is not working right.
I agree that the bloatware is very annoying, and I always suggest removing it right up front. Currently in the windows world most commercial machines come with Vista and a free upgrade to the 7 equivalent of that Vista. I’m not sure if you get that if you just buy Vista off the shelf to put on a new machine. I took a lazy way out with one of the computers I bought a couple weeks ago; I simply loaded Windows 7 RC on it to get rid of all the bloatware. Unfortunately the timeline for that has passed.
Those of you who are expert builders will not be satisfied with a commercial machine. Those of you who are tinkerers and hobbyists will have fun building your own computer. Those of you who are cheapskates and just want a serviceble machine will save money buying it off the shelf. And you will have a company to return it to if you don’t like it.
I do understand the theoretical notion of “cheap parts” in commercial computers, but in my experience most components last just fine if they make it a month or two.
FWIW, and that’s not much, I’ll be replacing my main desktop soon because I will be doing some video editing for Hi Def. If I had to buy today, I’d get something like the Gateway FX6801-03 http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668284.php which is $1200 delivered to my door from Newegg, I think. You can look at the chassis and component profile and decide what it would cost to build that.
The gap is far less than it used to be - you can get a functional prebuilt system for not much more than building it yourself. There is an issue of quality - computer buyers look for numbers like speed of the CPU or size of the hard drives, but most will be content with when it comes with “mid-size case with power supply” and “socket 775 motherboard” - there’s a chance you’ll get a power supply and case and other small parts that are so crappy that you couldn’t put them in a self-built system because they’re not even good enough to sell on their own, only to be stuffed into prebuilt systems.
Still, for most people, they’ll be adequate. I would never recommend to anyone looking for a quality, performance system to buy a prebuilt - you either compromise on quality or it’s way overpriced - but if you’re an average user with average needs, you can get something decent for cheap.
We’ve bought plenty of cheap off-the-shelf PCs (eMachines) at work, and they are fine for the most part. The power supplies do have a habit of dying after a year or two, but that’s only about $40 to replace.
Right. Electronics suffers from infant mortality. If something survives its burn-in peroid then chances are it will last quite a while longer.
As far as cheap parts goes, well, a lot of component manufacturers do nothing but buy the chip package from another vendor, solder it to a pci card, put their logo everywhere, and market it to gamers and enthusiasts. Dell or whomever gets the same chip package and they just mount it to the motherboard, thus cutting out the middle man.
I think a lot of the enthusiast market is stuff like this, which is not any different than what the OEMs are doing. Building your own just gives you flexibility. You get to pick whatever sound chipset you want and what video card you want. Generally, I have more problems with self-built machines than I do with OEM machines. The only exception I can think of is power supplies, but thats only because most enthusiasts go overboard and buy a better quality and higher capacity ps than they really need.
As I mentioned in a previous thread on building your own PCs, my experience is that you can’t find a bargain on power supplies. I spent years trying to get the cheapest power supply I could for the wattage, and time and again, the problem with the computer turned out to be the power supply. I may have squeeked by slightly cheaper by buying and replacing the garbage, but it wasn’t worth the hassle. It burns me a bit, since the power supply is in one sense the most primitive piece of hardware in the machine, but it’s worth treating it as an investment.
Build time is certainly an issue. It is going to take the better part of a weekend to get everything working correctly and even more if a part is bad. I have built my own computers before and I can put one together hardware wise in about 4 hours but software takes time and there is no way around that. You don’t have to sit there the entire time while Windows is being installed for example but you do need to be around. Likewise for antivirus software, Microsoft office and lots of other applications. If you don’t have much time to dedicate to it and assign a dollar amount to your time, a pre-built is easily cheaper except for maybe at the very high end of computers. You just have to want to do it.
When building my own, I usually start with the guides at Ars Technica.
They pick out a good set of components for a budget box, hot rod and god box. I don’t always follow them exactly, but they do a good survey of what’s out there. It is released periodically, and things do get out of date, but it is a good start.
Wha? It takes me like 30 minutes to put a computer together. A whole weekend between hardware and software… no effin way. Maybe an afternoon at most. 3-4 hours should be plenty to track down new drivers, download them over DSL or cable, and install various applications.
I am an IT professional and I would love to see the trick to put a computer a computer together in 30 minutes. I have no doubt it can be done as part of a race as long as everything works perfectly the first time. Most people can’t do that however. Keep in mind the time to pick out the parts and purchase them in the first place which is considerable. Software takes lots of time no matter what you do if you have as much software as I have unless you have some type of ghosted image. I am talking about fully functional and customized with every single thing up and running. It takes a long time.
Based on my experience building 3 systems in the last 60 days, 30 minutes is fair for the hardware. XP takes about 30 minutes to install. Really don’t know what being an IT professional has to do with this, I am not an IT professional and building a Windows computer is not rocket science nor is it difficult or time consuming.
Mount motherboard (5 mins), install CPU w/thermal paste (3 mins), install heatsink (3 mins), install RAM (1 minute), mount HDD and connect cable (5 mins), plug in video card (1 minute), plug in sound card (1 minute), mount and connect CD rom (5 mins)…
There really isn’t much else left on the hardware side of things except putting the case cover on and plugging it in… a couple minutes to go into BIOS and find that it’s already autodetected everything it needs to… it sure isn’t like the old days daisy chaining drives… and with most motherboards today having onboard video, sound and ethernet and barebones systems coming with the mobo and cables already installed … :dubious:
He’s just saying that he’s not talking out of his ass. I know you’re not either, but your definition of PC building leaves out a lot of things that we are all adding in.
Just to pick one item out of that list (and yes it does sound like you’re at a computer assembling contest):
Did the video card just materialize in your hands? If so, then I agree with the 60-second installation time.
But most people would have to open up a web site or otherwise do some shopping to locate the right one, buy it, open up the package, and so on. The last time I installed RAM in my laptop, it took me one minute to plug it in, but there was maybe 15 minutes of padding on the front side of that, and a few more minutes on the back.
If you’re in a computer parts warehouse with everything at your fingertips, then I agree with the 30 minute estimate. But for normal people, more like a few hours.
And picking out a PC from Dell or HP doesn’t take time? I for one do not generally considering the time spent browsing and comparing as a cost, in fact I find that it generally ends up saving money. Being all that as it may, counting the time procuring individual components as intrinsic to the cost of building a PC is disingenuous. As if one can magically snap their fingers and a PC from Dell or Best Buy just magically appears at one’s feet? :rolleyes:
Laptops have absolutely nothing to do with this topic, I really don’t know why you’d bring it up. I would think that the inherent compact design of a laptop and the necessity of several tens of screws and panels and the like, all of which are not found on a desktop (seriously, cases now have thumbscrews…perhaps 1 small phillips head for each card?), would lead one to believe that perhaps comparing the time it takes to disassemble and reassemble a laptop to building a PC is maybe not the best comparison to be making.
There is no need to roll eyes. Some of us have more experience with this stuff than you do. Just getting a computer to boot is about as big as an accomplishment as getting a car engine to start off of the assembly line. It takes time to make computers actually useful. Shopping for a computer from Dell only takes one step. Buying components for a custom-built PC requires steps for every single component. Retailers like that also have massive buying power that individual shoppers can never hope for. There is nothing wrong with building your own computer but don’t expect to save money except at the very high end.
Oh sure there is, making a silly comparison like that and in the same paragraph trying to espouse some sense of familiarity with the situation is dubious at best. I am not sure what your prior experience has to do with this, either, in fact if it takes you 4 hours to assemble a computer and think it should take a whole weekend to get everything up to speed then I am not convinced that whatever experience you have is relevant.
If you are only shopping at Dell, well, then you really aren’t doing any comparison shopping now, are you? But we are going to ding the component buyers for comparison shopping and insinuate that their time is somehow worth a sum of money while giving the prepackaged-PC buyer a free pass?
Certainly you are not suggesting that Dell has only one desktop computer that they carry with only a single set of options for everyone. ‘Cus when I bought a laptop from them a few years ago it took me a good 30 minutes of browsin’ their offerings and settling on a final configuration.
You must not shop at Fry’s, Newegg, TigerDirect or any other comparable store. These guys buy in volume and pass it along to their customers. I think we can agree that buying components in volume and reselling them individually is not dissimilar to buying components in volume and reselling them as an assembled package, no?
And by very high end you mean computers costing over $500? Only the most basic of computers will be less expensive to buy from a major retailer.
Go find me any PC from Dell or HP in the $900-1200 price range, and I will build you a better system for at least 20% less money from either newegg or tigerdirect or fry’s. OS included. Cite your costs and I’ll cite mine.
If it’s XP-able (doubtful) or gets you a good deal on Windows 7 then it might be a good buy for simple web-browsing, emails, documents, pictures and the like.