I might pay that much for a nice laptop, but for a stupid desktop pc? I bought my kids a $600 computer which is better than mine. If I was that much into computers and hardware, I’d probably build one to match the $1500 Sony or whatever.
My guess: the same people that buy the Cadillac SUV.
Well, some people have powerful software that they need a speedy computer for. (CAD software, graphics software, etc) Others want a computer that won’t be obsolete in two years. Still others want a blazing fast gaming machine. There are plenty of good reasons for a fast computer.
Windows 95: 32-bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor, written by a 2-bit company that can’t stand for 1 bit of competition.
(Raising hand.)
Or rather, my mom did. Yeah, I’m old, but I still have my mom. 
Mine was a Christmas gift and I’m told the system cost about $2,000. Nothing special (except to me, of course) – Dell, CD-ROM, 56K modem, etc. (No printer or scanner though.)
My son told her he could build the same system for half the price, but mom wouldn’t go for it.
She’s one of those people who always buys brand names, and it was more convenient for her to just order the package, I think.
So – that’s who buys 'em. My mom.
I’m asssembling costs for the PC I’ll be using at work and it’s going to right around $15,000. OTOH, for home use my next one will be less than $1,000.
beatle,
If you don’t mind my asking, what do you do for a living? A $15,000 system budget… I’m drooling over here!
stoli
Well, blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo,
as far as I can tell.
I realize that’s an anomolous cost, but I just happened to be putting the numbers together this afternoon when I saw sunbear’s question.
The system I referred to will be a geophysical workstation. It’s going to have dual 800 MHz Xeon cpus, 1GB RAM, 8mm tape drive, 3 x 21’ monitors, CDRW/CD, and (not finalized here yet) 72 GB SCSI HDDs.
What Neutron Star said. If you’re doing heavy-duty graphics or desktop video, you want all the performance you can get.
Also, consider that it’s not just the hardware cost, but the software and peripherals as well. At work I was asked to spec out a system to be used as a scanner workstation. The PC, extra memory, and a SCSI card came to $1200, but by the time I shoved in a big-ass monitor and Photoshop, the grand total was $3,500.
A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.
My husband does music recording in his home studio, so he has a machine with 2 18gig drives in it, about a bazillion meg of RAM, a CD Burner, super-duper fancy-schmancy Video and Sound cards, and all sorts of other stuff.
Needless to say, it was pricey. Yikes!
Zette
“If I had to live your life, I’d be begging to have someone pop out both my eyes. Just in case I came across a mirror.” - android209 (in the Pit)
Zettecity
Voted “Most Empathetic”- can you believe that?
Well, I could pay $600-$900 for a computer that I’ll need to replace in 2 years tops, often from a company with no history, or a poor service and reliablity record. Or I could drop $1700 on a machine that’ll last for closer to 4-5 years, with plenty of expansion slots. Sounds like 6 of one, a half dozen of another. This is just for you typical home/small business system. The high performance custom systems that those w/ high graphics and media demands are the obvious buyers of very expensive machines. A smart person will weigh the odds of their system not being obsolete, against how their needs will grow. Also, one needs to consider if it is more practical to buy a top of the line machine and forgo the hassle of shopping and begining anew with a new system, versus buying a economy model but getting a fresh package every 18-24 months.
The parallel to buying a Caddilac SUV is off base. I fast machine isn’t a status symbol. A more realistic comparison is to whether you buy a Ford Escort/Chevy Cavalier at a rock bottom price, that’ll get you rom point A to point B, but has questions about how long it’ll last. Or if you opt for the better built, more durable $25,000-$30,000 sedans, that offer more in performance, cargo, and bells and whisltes.
:::raises hand meekly:::
I just did. Why? I wanted the most bang for my buck. I have 20gig, 700mhz, a CD-RW (I think that will be very, very handy), an external zip (to use between this machine and my laptop–which isn’t technically mine, but school property, so I don’t want to put personal stuff on it), 19" monitor, and a serious sound system with surround-sound speakers. Why the stereo system? Because my stereo’s CD player went kaput for the 2nd time in 4 years, and I’m not shelling out another $100 to have it fixed again. This new computer also serves as my new stereo.
FWIW, my old desktop crashed at Christmas time to the point of near functionlessness. It won’t read or write to the floppy drive, and the CD-ROM drive hums at ominous volume levels, in addition to the various fatal exceptions, GPFs, etc. I believe both drives need to be repaired, but the cost of fixing them isn’t worth the machine itself. So, I erased everything, did a quick restore, and hauled it into my classroom.
Incidentally, this is the 2nd time the old PC crashed. The 1st time was just 8mos after purchase and they put a new hard drive on it. Now, I’m not computer stupid–I regularly ran all variety of tests on it and kept it clean with Scan Disk, Defrag, and otherwise treated the machine with care, to no avail. Apparently, that model was simply a lemon–the Compaq site describes some of the problems with it and offers a few weak tips that admittedly may or may not work. There was even a lawsuit against Compaq regarding it and other similar models a few years back. I don’t know whatever happened with it, though.
No, I do feel a little weird about spending so much $$ on this thing, but I am getting a bonus, a raise, and some other extra cash, so it won’t hurt me particularly much. And considering that 3 years ago I shelled out $3000 for a system that was, then, a “lower end” machine, I figger I got a helluva deal.
And hey, to all the Dopers that helped me in deciding what to get–thank you! Dell ROCKS! 
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Well, mine, which is is burn in process and will be picked up tomorrow is over $1500, but then again I specified (for the most part) what components are in my system. ( no monitor, printer, etc. included)
But you to consider something here, my computer (the one I am typing on) is a worn out old Nelly. As a tech chick, I also have higher demands than the average user.
So yeah, if you use your computer mainly for word processing and Email then a cheapo puter is for you
Ruffian:
I had a similar situation. The hard drive puked the first year,under warranty. More recently, I’ve had the floppy and CD-ROM($40)drives replaced. I hope to get a fourth year out of this. At work, I’m stuck with one brand.
I don’t think we consumers are getting a good deal, but the desktops are cheaper.Almost less than half price compared to three years ago.
We actually had to junk a 386 computer that still runs after 6 years.So quality was OK before in some brands. Now…
On the one hand, a good corporate server PC can easily cost you $15,000 after you’ve gone for the big RAID drives and a gig (or more) of memory. Also, remember that reliability counts a lot on a corporate server, and reliability costs money.
On the other hand, my tendency these days when purchasing a home computer is to wander into the local MicroCenter store and pick up one of the cheapest system boxes they have, then blow another $100 or so to add more memory to it. That’s what we did last fall when we picked up a 400MHz store brand PC with 32MB of RAM and a 4GB drive (but no monitor) for $400, then spent another $80 adding another 64MB of RAM to it. We plugged the system unit into an existing monitor.
Mine was $1300, but it has sweet speakers, a burnable CD-rom drive, and a kick butt monitor. Plus it just speeds through the internet, unlike my old one that needed a cane.
[Well, I could pay $600-$900 for a computer that I’ll need to replace in 2 years tops, often from a company with no history, or a poor service and reliablity record. Or I could drop $1700 on a machine that’ll last for closer to 4-5 years, with plenty of expansion slots. ]
I don’t think that name brand will net you 2-3 additional years, with capacities doubling every 1.5? yrs, you will be lucky to eak out an extra year by buying top of the line now. Also I have noticed that many name brands can only be upgraded in a mimimal way because so much is built in to the motherboard (vidio, sound, modem) while no name brands are usally expantion cards - which makes upgrading a snap.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Omniscient:
**Well, I could pay $600-$900 for a computer that I’ll need to replace in 2 years tops, often from a company with no history, or a poor service and reliablity record. Or I could drop $1700 on a machine that’ll last for closer to 4-5 years, with plenty of expansion slots. **
[quote]
Omni, you’re such a knucklehead. I just spent $900 for a computer so crammed full of sensible components and frivolous extras it’s unbelievable.
-533MHZ processor
-20GB Hard Drive
-64MB RAM (11MB video memory)
-DVD Drive
-CDwriter Drive
-6 bays and 4 slots, plus extra room to add a ZIP drive or tape backup system.
Of course I’m sure I’ll have to sacrifice some quality since it’s made by those new, questionable, slatternly upstarts: HEWLETT-PACKARD! :rolleyes: I probably could’ve padded it up to $2,000+ if I fancied myself enough of a cinemaphile to buy one of those big-ass monitors, but the 5 year-old monitor and HP printer still work fine.
Hmmmm. If only I had a purse big enough to haul it around… 
“I don’t know…I don’t know.” – St. DooDah
beatle . . 1 gig? . . a tape drive?
I never said that. I said that name brand is worth something, but that price increase I quote also includes a processor with double the speed of the $600 model, a better that 100% increase in hard drive size, and tons of software and multimedia add ons. Example, I can get a Acer 350 MHz package for $600, or I can get an Aptive 700 MHz for $1700, the IBM name counts for alot, but the 2-3 years I say your buying are due to the performance advantages.
I’m one of the suckers that paid $2300 (after taxes)for my computer. When I bought it a year ago, it was pretty high end. It has a 500Mhz Pentium III chip, 128MB RAM, 12 GB hard drive, 17" monitor, 3-piece speakers, etc. I bought it immediately after Intel released the PIII 500 chip. I know I could have waited a bit for the price to drop, but I wanted a new computer right then, and I had the money. I have no regrets about paying that much because I knew I wouldn’t have a need to buy another one for a few years. I can always add more memory or anything else later. The only thing that bums me out is that I can buy the same machine for around $1100 now. Oh well.
“Penises don’t belong in the mouth, girls and boys. You’ve got the wrong hole there. Just like you wouldn’t shove pizza up your nose.”
-From the Brother Jed flyer-
VV, I’m a knucklehead? HP doesn’t have the greatest track record, but I admit its not an Acer. Also, I wonder if you’re sporting a AMD K6, or a Pentium II/III, AMD isn’t what I’d call a well traveled brand (only having been popular for a few years), HP or not.
I spent ~$800 more than you a year and a half ago and still have more machine, especially where it counts.
550 MHz Pentium II
13.5 GB HD (you win, but this isn’t anything not cheaply upgraded)
128MB RAM - probably second only to processor in value
DVD II
Printer and Monitor Included
While I need a CD-RW, and you got me on the HD, I think that year and a half I bought is worth the money. Only time will tell as to if either will be obsolete in the very near future, but I don’t think I made a bad investment. Especially since I didn’t have an existing system and I needed the peripherals, but did spend an extra ~$300 on a few upgrades, including the 21" Trinitron.
I guess everyone has their own idea of whats important, but I have no regrets.