Build vs. Buy - Getting Harder to Justify?

[lancer]

That is a good point, however I would think there is more of a market for lower end systems because they are much more highly effective. If you are building a machine for say gaming, dvd-authoring or anything resource intensive, you are MUCH better of building. The markup on hardware through Alienware specifically is probably close to 3x market value. But, you pay for the name, and the bragging rights to your friends

To me there is no bragging rights over wasting $3k.

 

[Steevo]

Almost 10K from a machine that is dead silent?

$1,800.00

AMD X4000+ @ 2.88 stable 230FSB
X1800XT Vivo @ 710/780
Antec case/smart power.
600GB RAID0 Storage
Dual Layer DVD burner, high speed CD-R
1Gb RAM

 

[Mastershakes]

Build it. Always.

and the GX280 is just fine for work purposes.

Nice system Steevo.

 

[kcnychief]

GX280 is a great machine, but in regards to quality the GX620 is 10x better

 

[Son Goku]

Well, the software is an issue still, no matter how one slices it. And lets face it, probably most of us have our own, and even some rather expensive pieces of software, like the C++ compiler I have sitting in the closet. Bloat can also be something one doesn't always want...

But setting all that I've mentioned previously, there comes:

- freedom to upgrade

And on the cooling that someone mentioned, it doesn't go without saying that I've seen some pre-built that run hotter then I would like to see my hardware run. I'm sorry, but anything over 60 c on the CPU, or even over 50 c, I'd rather not see... I also prefer to keep margin in the systems in a variety of ways from temps, to timing, to margin on the PSU, etc... I just don't like running things near to the limits of their respective tollerances.

- If something does go wrong (and though I've mentioned that a block order of business PCs is one area where I wouldn't commit myself to building as there's just too many for 1 person, and also matching PCs can be useful for ghosting one install to all other PCs to avoid multiple installs, etc), one is stuck with either:

- Yes, I could fix that, but if I do, the warranty will be voided. This while corporate heads are breathing down one's kneck about lost productivity costs that downtime is incurring on the companies bottom line.

- No, to keep the warranty, you'll just have to wait for their own guy to arrive, and tollerate lost productivity till then.

Any action that could cost them the warranty, I wouldn't be ready to do, until I get it in writting and they've signed off on the thing. It protects one's butt latter on, and helps insure one's own job security

All in all, not all businesses can afford downtime, albeit that's also why they have backup servers and the like. Anyone want to hazzard a guess at how Ebay or Amazon.com would be effected, if they were to suffer downtime?

 

[Dragoon6th]

I agree building a system is better if its not price constrained but if it is I would say get a base from dell and expand upon that according to what your budged could allow. In my view, I run most applications well with my 1.7 at home and if I can get something decent for $500 and spend another $1000 expanding that would probably be the way to go.

Btw This is my first post so try not to butcher my opinion too much ;-)

 

[kcnychief]

I agree building a system is better if its not price constrained but if it is I would say get a base from dell and expand upon that according to what your budged could allow. In my view, I run most applications well with my 1.7 at home and if I can get something decent for $500 and spend another $1000 expanding that would probably be the way to go.

Btw This is my first post so try not to butcher my opinion too much ;-)

not a bad opinion at all, and welcome to OSNN

If I can make one recommendation though, don't buy a Dell with the main idea being to add parts to it. Although I may have originally not explained my point correctly, I was more towards a budget system that basically is complete when you buy from the retailer, or build.

A PC that you just buy the barebones and then expand on it, you are probably better off building.

 

[bharless]

I always thought that buying was mainly for the warranty and was for people who were not true enthusiasts. Those who love to tinker with overclocking, custom building/settings, etc, would be the ones to buy. And also those who actually had no need of technical support from any of the vendors. If I had to choose a vendor, I always told myself that I would choose Dell, since they probably have the best machines and track records for as far as things working. However, it should be noted that unless you buy a gaming machine from one of these vendors, you aren't going to get as robust a machine as you normally would by buying a high quality motherboard from say, MSI or Asus.

 

[Steevo]

A couple years back I built a $500 machine. It wasn't as fast as some, but $ for $ it was way faster then any prebuilt in it's class.

2500+ OC'd by 10%
512 Corsair Value RAM
Gigabyte Mobo
200Gb hdd
9550, hacked to a 9600XT. AGP 8X
Lite on 52X CD-R 16X DVD-ROM
Lite on case with 400W PSU (it works decent)

At the time you could buy a machine with onboard video, sound, NIC, and 120Gb HDD, 512 or RAM for about the same.

Same for anything today. I am planning on building my parents one with soem spare parts I have arond, it shouldn't cost me more than $200 to but any extra parts I need.

 

[bharless]

GX280 is a great machine, but in regards to quality the GX620 is 10x better

Thought I'd point out that the Gx-270 and 280's have, if you hadn't heard, hardware problems coming off the line. The capacitors on the motherboard will sometimes blow. You can see this if you notice them bulging at all, or if you see anything leaking from them. In many cases, the machines continue to function, but develop intermittent problems, such as random crashing/lockups. I believe Dell issued a recall on a lot of the boards for these machines, too (I've been sent to replace many). Hope this helps.

 

[kcnychief]

Thought I'd point out that the Gx-270 and 280's have, if you hadn't heard, hardware problems coming off the line. The capacitors on the motherboard will sometimes blow. You can see this if you notice them bulging at all, or if you see anything leaking from them. In many cases, the machines continue to function, but develop intermittent problems, such as random crashing/lockups. I believe Dell issued a recall on a lot of the boards for these machines, too (I've been sent to replace many). Hope this helps.

I have heard of that actually, and they aren't recalling aggressively from what I have seen. Not only that, but the warranty exchange on parts has become more of a bear as their accepting process is much more strict these days.

We have had many problems with those at a place I used to work (no longer as of Friday), as well as the SX270's shorting excessively.

 

[Dragoon6th]

Yes I must agree with the previous post that states "Thought I'd point out that the Gx-270 and 280's have, if you hadn't heard, hardware problems coming off the line. The capacitors on the motherboard will sometimes blow."

I have found a couple faulty ones at work with blown compacitors but in regards to 620, I would say that my experience with them is not too advanced to say much other then a few(1 out of 10 so far) out of the box faulty ones they seem like a stable system. If though you can afford to buy that then building your own system should be no problem cost wise.

 

[Son Goku]

And yet with the 620s, is one really buying them for a high end desktop, or is one buying them for servers and the like. As we're back to talking about work machines, it's back to a (though I can't speak for others)...my computer I would build. A few systems I might build for friends and family. There's no way in hell I would commit myself to building, and then testing a large number of systems to put into production by next Tuesday (well something along those lines) while having other duties to perform :laugh: I'd end up getting like no sleep for a week

I do know this much however. If I were to buy several $3,500 systems to have the capacitors blow, and not get the mobos replaced under warranty (see KC's post), I would be one displeased customer. Especially if I was having to spend a long time arguing it with the phone guys while several (perhaps mirrored) dBase servers were offline and on the other line was a displeased corporate exec who wants to know why they can't get to some data they need to present to the board of directors or something

 

[j79zlr]

At my job, we have only Dell's, they are high end Dell's. They all have better specs than my home PC, yet they all are noticeably slower. My main PC is not a monster, P4 2.53, 1GB of RAM, yet I built it will all quality components. My guess is that my power supply, RAM, hard drives, and motherboard are definietly better quality, and it shows.

I don't like proprietary computers, replacing easy items like a CD drive can be a nightmare just trying to get to the damn screws holding it in. Usually the other compnents like the mobo and power supply are not standard form factor, so you have to buy their crappy replacement parts as well.

A relatively decent Dell for $500 with XP installed, but by the time you customize the options to a decent PC, it gets expensive. $150 more for XP Pro. Upgrade the DVD-ROM to a DVD burner for $50, which is ridiculous. $30 for a floppy dive [wtf?], $220 more for a 17" flat panel, so now your $500 dell is $1000 with shipping. Don't forget that the low end Dell's use Celerons, which really are terrible processors.

I can build my own PC for the same price with much better components.

 

[kcnychief]

At my job, we have only Dell's, they are high end Dell's. They all have better specs than my home PC, yet they all are noticeably slower. My main PC is not a monster, P4 2.53, 1GB of RAM, yet I built it will all quality components. My guess is that my power supply, RAM, hard drives, and motherboard are definietly better quality, and it shows.

I don't like proprietary computers, replacing easy items like a CD drive can be a nightmare just trying to get to the damn screws holding it in. Usually the other compnents like the mobo and power supply are not standard form factor, so you have to buy their crappy replacement parts as well.

A relatively decent Dell for $500 with XP installed, but by the time you customize the options to a decent PC, it gets expensive. $150 more for XP Pro. Upgrade the DVD-ROM to a DVD burner for $50, which is ridiculous. $30 for a floppy dive [wtf?], $220 more for a 17" flat panel, so now your $500 dell is $1000 with shipping. Don't forget that the low end Dell's use Celerons, which really are terrible processors.

I can build my own PC for the same price with much better components.

You obviously haven't purchased from Dell in awhile.

A lot of the time, they have free upgrades to XP Pro, DVD-RW drives and LCD monitors. Granted, it's not everyday, but they are more and more common as they are trying to phase out the older models. They also only use Celerons on there VERY low end systems...

 

[j79zlr]

I went on their site and checked prices when I posted that, those were the exact prices for their upgrades on the low end $499 system.

 

[kcnychief]

Yeah, I stand corrected, but only slightly. I saw a commercial earlier today after the post, about them selling a mid-range system with celeron. I thought those tools stopped doing that

 

[j79zlr]

Still makes sense for my company to buy Dell's. I bill out at $115/hour, so if I spend a day building a PC, since I am the only one there that could do it, it would cost them $920 extra.

 

[kcnychief]

Still makes sense for my company to buy Dell's. I bill out at $115/hour, so if I spend a day building a PC, since I am the only one there that could do it, it would cost them $920 extra.

It takes you an ENTIRE 8 hour day to build a PC? wtf do you do, massage it?

 

[j79zlr]

Considering everything yes it does take that long, probably 2-3 hours to get everything installed properly and six hours to set it up. We use lots of programs at work. AutoCAD Building Systems takes almost an hour to get installed and set up. It still takes a half day with a preinstalled computer.