If one were buying a new desktop right now, and needed high-end computing ability, which way would one go?
And, if you have time, why?
Dell, absolutely. If you’d asked about laptops, my answer would be Dell: no way.
But I’ve been using Dell desktops for 10 or more years, and they’re great (if quirky – Dell makes their own motherboards, though I guess so does HP). Are you thinking Dell Precision? I have a Precision 690 that’s been great, although it is pretty big even for a tower. Before that, I’ve had a Precision 670, a Precision 530, and earlier Precisions.
Dell easily, they have way better way better tech support then HP There machines are also way better built
Well, I’ve got the time, so let’s move this opinion-seeking question to IMHO.
samclem GQ moderator
You just never know, and that’s the truth. My best friend bought an Alienware computer and it simply would not work; it broke, he had to ship it back (their customer service claims are, for the most part, fiction; they’re very friendly and understanding and make you feel good, but they don’t deliver) it came back, something else broke, they sent a tech, something else broke, he gave up and got a refund. Oh, and they charged him $110 because the first time he sent it back they said he didn’t send all the packing supplies. When he asked if this had resulted it it breaking, they didn’t know. They just knew it was missing a peice of cardboard so they wanted $110.
So he bought a Dell. It worked great, for three weeks. Then it broke. But it only broke once, and he didn’t have to ship it back.
He needed a laptop and also bought a Dell. Contrary to squeegee’s experience, tt’s worked perfectly.
The funny thing is, Alienware is owned by Dell. It’s supposed to be the high end product line, sort of the Lexus to Dell’s Toyota, and yet it was inferior in every way.
I’ve bought Dells that worked perfectly from day one and Dells that were total lemons. I’ve had an HP and it worked perfectly, and another buddy bought one that was about as useful a computer as a Speak 'N Spell. This applies to any computer brand, really.
I’ve learned one thing; you’re almost always better off just buying a rig from a local shop, because you can be there in 10 minutes if it breaks and get in their faces. If you buy from a remote retailer, you can’t, and believe me when I tell you that if you pay for it, the “24-hour-response on-site service” is likely not going to be as rewarding an experience as they would have you believe. They basically just call up a contracted nerd from a local shop who wouldn’t been the sort of guy, if not in fact the very same guy, who would have fixed your computer anyway had you bought it locally, except if you;d bought it locally at least the people who built your computer would be the ones replacing the busted part. And it’d be faster.
I thought about what forum, but seemed like the techey-folks lived in GQ…
Please define what you mean by “high-end computing ability”.
pr0n
I bought an HP desktop 2 years ago and it came with an ASUS motherboard, so I don’t think HP makes their own parts.
Indeed no, PC assemblers like Dell and HP don’t actually make the parts. They might specify non-standard layout or dimensions for the motherboards, but the design and manufacturing is done by the same, generally Taiwanese, companies that everybody else uses.
dell.
both the divemaster and i have them and he also owns a spiffy new laptop as well.
everyone else i know owns a dell and hasn’t had a whisker of trouble with them.
AMEN! I always buy from reputable local shops. I’ll never understand people who insist on buying brand name computers from big box stores or internet companies. In my experience, you’re paying a markup for the brand name, for shipping costs (and risking potential associated damage), and lower quality proprietary components. And God forbid if you have to ship something back for repair or replacement.
When I deal locally, I can specify exactly which components I want, with or without a monitor, OS, keyboard and/or mouse, and pick up my order in a couple of days. A place by my house will actually boot it up in front of me (or just get it to POST if I didn’t order an OS), to verify that everything has been installed properly. If I have a problem, I can just haul it over there and walk through it with the tech and, most likely, walk out the same day with a fixed computer.
I’ll admit that my experience has been tainted by fighting for years with my brother’s POS Dell that never worked properly in the first place. He finally replaced it a couple of years ago with a generic custom-made box and we’ve both been much happier ever since.
Fine, nitpick me on my word choice lof “makes” vs “designs” their own motherboards. The point being that Dell’s mobo’s have nonstandard connections and such, which bugs some PC buyers (but it doesn’t matter to me).
Unlike Dell desktops (and I’ve bought quite a few, and they were all great), the Dell laptops seem to be all over the place on quality – I’ve owned two good ones, but my nephew bought one and it was not a good experience for him – the laptop was in the shop 3 times in 3 months (bad network connector, defective hard drive, and something else). Of course, he’s using it in a college dorm, so god only knows what kind of physical stress its been under.
I didn’t nitpick. Dell neither designs nor makes the motherboards. I was backing up another poster’s relevant observation that companies like Dell don’t make the parts.
I grew up in a hick town in North Carolina; there were no reputable local shops. My family started out with Gateway, then switched to Dell. I currently have a Dell Dimension and an Inspiron, and would happily buy from Dell again even though I’m now living in an area that’s likely to have good custom computer shops. My tech support experiences have been positive (call mid-day to late afternoon on a Sunday – that will almost always get a U.S. call center), the quality of the machines is fine, and my last two machines were very reasonably priced.
Scylla or Charbidis?
Titanic or Birkenhead?
Sam the Sham or Guy Lombardo?
Mussolini or Franco?
RMN or GWB?
meh
FWIW, I had an HP zd7000 for a long time. It was a really nifty laptop in theory: it cost under $1800; it had a 17-inch screen (on a laptop!); it had a 10-key right on the keyboard (on a laptop!!!); it had a 3.0+Ghz processor; a memory card reader (pretty rare on laptops at the time), built-in wireless-g (brand new at the time), and it felt like it was pretty solid. Good luck trying to find a desktop for under $2k that includes a 17-inch monitor (in 2004-2005). It was a relatively cheap deal on a top-notch package.
However.
First, it would overheat like crazy. HP had stupidly designed it so that the fans draw air from UNDER the computer where there was about an eighth of an inch of clearance. I ended up building a wooden lap-desk to keep the fans exposed. Then, the power connection broke, and the only way to fix it was a whole new motherboard ($400+). And THEN the hard drive failed. It was over three years old, but still a pretty serious bummer.*
On the bonus side, I now get to participate in a class action lawsuit against HP for installing defective power connectors, and I might get my repair money back!
*I still might get a new hard drive for it, but, eh: I’ve moved on to better things.
High-end computing means hard-core statistics (multilevel modeling, poisson link, user-defined error matrices at each level; 4000x10x40 observations in the dataset - so throw that into memory.
Also GIS (geographic information system) analysis, production and storage of many images. Analysis involving these images.
NO gaming.
Is that hard core? It feels hard core …
I agree. I had a terrible experience with a remote retailer a few years back because of this.
If you buy from a local retailer, and the computer doesn’t work right, you can always bring the computer back, dump it on the counter, dispute the charge on your credit card, and have a pretty good chance of getting a refund.
Local isn’t really an option. My current location is ‘no location’. I’m staying in one of two cities while I recover from major back surgery, trying to get to a third which is ~3000 miles away from the first two. (No, my life is not complicated …)
So it’s big box, mail-order, or do-it-yourself. I’d really prefer the latter, but all my diy buds won’t be on the west coast, which is my goal. (Frye’s is so cool)