[colug-432] Cost v. Price for a new build

[Rick Hornsby]

On Jan 25, 2014, at 1:49 PM, Steve VanSlyck <s.vanslyck at spamcop.net> wrote:

> Hey guys. Looking for some one with opinions.
> 
> I built my first new system and was just curious what a similar system 
> would cost if bought from, say, Dell or HP. Don't need anyone to prove 
> anything or look anything just, just best guess.
> 
> http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1988041/build-save.html

An apples-to-apples comparison will be a little difficult, unless you’re going exactly to spec from a model that Dell sells.  In that case for a low to mid end PC, it might be cheaper from Dell simply because they can discount on volume from what you pay for the components.

I’m not sure I’ve ever tried to put a price on the satisfaction I had from building my own systems.  Beyond the sense of accomplishment, I knew exactly what parts I was getting, and the specs of those parts.  I could pick and choose very carefully including with the case itself.  The outside of the case is for looks, but the inside the case makes a huge difference in terms of replacing/adding memory, adding a new HDD, swapping out the power supply, cable management (or mess), removing everything to clean the dust out, etc.  Maybe it was just perception, but I also felt much better knowing which parts I put into it, making it much easier to troubleshoot and fix when something went wrong.

For the average person, buying a pre-built PC is going to be cheaper.  For someone technical, you’re probably not going to get exactly what you want, and to spec something out in the high-end that you do want may involve paying significant markup.  Building your own also avoids the old Microsoft tax.  Dell’s position on shipping Linux or only Windows systems seems to wax and wane over the years.  (Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall Microsoft trying to force some component vendors to charge for and bundle Windows, in the name of fighting piracy. Could be wrong about that.)

As an aside, frankly, I’d never buy a PC from HP.  Every one I ran into in the day was crap.  Great printers, good calculators, lousy PCs.  This was just one guy who probably isn’t representative, but HP sent a tech out to replace a failed in-warranty motherboard in my friend’s Pavilion and he left her with a computer that booted up, but was otherwise half working.  I had helped her determine that the MB was bad, and after the tech left, she called me back to ask me to come figure out why it kept crashing a couple of minutes of being up.  The tech had set several jumpers (CPU voltage, etc) wrong.  Sloppy.