(no subject)
Jul. 12th, 2004 08:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqThe pattern is familiar. A friend approached me and said, "I have some friends who want to upgrade their computer, and I wondered if you could help me put it together."
"Sure," I said, "what are the details?"
"Well, they are currently using [a system that would have been okay in 1997] and would like to upgrade to [a system that is nearly state-of-the-art] but they are a bit tight with money, so their total budget is [almost enough to buy a fancy mouse]. They are pretty inflexible with the budget."
I knew what the result would be, but I did some shopping and comparing online and finally put together a sexy little system (better than what I am using right now) with solid, name-brand parts. The problem is that it came out 12% over their budget after tax. I showed the system specs to this friend, and out came the knife. Here is the exchange (with a bit of paraphrasing for brevity):
Him: This video card has TV out. They don't need TV out. You could probably save money by scrapping that feature.
Me: The next card down is slower, has half the memory, and is only $10 cheaper.
Him: There, see? Right there you're saving $10. They don't need that much in a video card. Why did you put such a fast CPU in it?
Me: Because that's the cheapest one in the line with the new core. There's no point in making the system obsolete right from the start.
Him: They don't need something that fast...
I knew where this was going, so I told him to leave me alone again for a few minutes while I redid the system from scratch. I then picked out all of the cheapest, non-name parts that I could find. The motherboard is one of those ones that has onboard video, audio, LAN, and an overclocked CPU soldered onto the board. I dropped in 256mb of the cheapest no-name memory they carried, a 40g Maxtor drive with a 2mb buffer, the cheapest CDRW drive they offer, a floppy and a slightly-inflated estimate on the cost of a case. The whole thing came out to about 94% of their budget, so I upped the memory and motherboard and put it at 107%. When he balked at that, I told him that he could probably bring it down to par again by skimping on the case.
"This looks like a decent system," he said. "It should last them for a few years."
"No, this will not last them for a few years. This motherboard is cheap for a reason. I can't promise that it will last for more than one or two years before it fails. I can promise you at least four years out of the first system I put together, but I refuse to give any guarantees on this one to last out the year."
"Hm. Ya, so if I skimp on the case this will come in just under budget. They'll be happy about that."
Oy.
"Sure," I said, "what are the details?"
"Well, they are currently using [a system that would have been okay in 1997] and would like to upgrade to [a system that is nearly state-of-the-art] but they are a bit tight with money, so their total budget is [almost enough to buy a fancy mouse]. They are pretty inflexible with the budget."
I knew what the result would be, but I did some shopping and comparing online and finally put together a sexy little system (better than what I am using right now) with solid, name-brand parts. The problem is that it came out 12% over their budget after tax. I showed the system specs to this friend, and out came the knife. Here is the exchange (with a bit of paraphrasing for brevity):
Him: This video card has TV out. They don't need TV out. You could probably save money by scrapping that feature.
Me: The next card down is slower, has half the memory, and is only $10 cheaper.
Him: There, see? Right there you're saving $10. They don't need that much in a video card. Why did you put such a fast CPU in it?
Me: Because that's the cheapest one in the line with the new core. There's no point in making the system obsolete right from the start.
Him: They don't need something that fast...
I knew where this was going, so I told him to leave me alone again for a few minutes while I redid the system from scratch. I then picked out all of the cheapest, non-name parts that I could find. The motherboard is one of those ones that has onboard video, audio, LAN, and an overclocked CPU soldered onto the board. I dropped in 256mb of the cheapest no-name memory they carried, a 40g Maxtor drive with a 2mb buffer, the cheapest CDRW drive they offer, a floppy and a slightly-inflated estimate on the cost of a case. The whole thing came out to about 94% of their budget, so I upped the memory and motherboard and put it at 107%. When he balked at that, I told him that he could probably bring it down to par again by skimping on the case.
"This looks like a decent system," he said. "It should last them for a few years."
"No, this will not last them for a few years. This motherboard is cheap for a reason. I can't promise that it will last for more than one or two years before it fails. I can promise you at least four years out of the first system I put together, but I refuse to give any guarantees on this one to last out the year."
"Hm. Ya, so if I skimp on the case this will come in just under budget. They'll be happy about that."
Oy.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 10:20 am (UTC)Places like NCIX and Tiger Direct have cheaper prices, but the folks I build systems for usually don't want to wait for (or trust) mail-order.