O/T: Need To Build A Puter

L

Leon 15 years ago

I ordered mine from him on a Friday afternoon, he delivered on Monday afternoon. He builds to his customers needs so he really does not keep an inventory of assembled machines IIRC. He does not just buy parts and assemble, he apparently knows which parts work best together.

I was sold on an i7 processor and he talked me out of it. Apparently nothing that the average user would use would ever need an i7 processor in the foreseeable future or as he put it, the life expectancy of the machine.

It would have been significantly less expensive had I gone for a 1TB primary hard drive instead of the 128GB Solid State drive.

I have really enjoyed the simplicity of having the OS and program files on the SSD and my data files on the HD. No convoluted tree/directory to track down a data file.

I use Quicken home and business and when I installed the program it placed my data file on the SSD also. Launching the program was instantaneous. As soon as I clocked or let go of the enter key the program and file were on the screen. Now that I have moved the data file to the HD it takes 2 seconds. Seems like an eternity. :~)

Component Details Subscore Base score Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz 7.5 7.0 Determined by lowest subscore

Windows Experience Index on score 1.0 to 7.9

Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB 7.8 Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5670 7.0 Gaming graphics 4852 MB Total available graphics memory 7.0 Primary hard disk 64GB Free (119GB Total) 7.9 Windows 7 Professional

System

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manufacturer System manufacturer Model System Product Name Total amount of system memory 8.00 GB RAM System type 64-bit operating system Number of processor cores 4

Storage

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 1517 GB Disk partition (C:) 64 GB Free (119 GB Total) Disk partition (D:) 878 GB Free (932 GB Total) Media drive (E:) CD/DVD Disk partition (J:) 226 GB Free (466 GB Total) Media drive (L:) CD

Graphics

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type ATI Radeon HD 5670 Total available graphics memory 4852 MB Dedicated graphics memory 1024 MB Dedicated system memory 0 MB Shared system memory 3828 MB Display adapter driver version 8.821.0.0 Primary monitor resolution 1920x1080 DirectX version DirectX 10

Network

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Network Adapter Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Network Adapter Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)

Vote

S

Scott Lurndal 15 years ago

I've bought over a hundred custom systems from these guys (Santa Clara, Ca) in the last 8 years. They're very good. I'm not sure if they do one-off's tho.

formatting link

Vote

S

Scott Lurndal 15 years ago

I picked up one of these the other day:

formatting link

core, 64-bit, GPU on cpu die (AMD Fusion), HDMI, SATA 6Mb/s, 1Ge, USB 3.0 pulls 11 watts idle; 18 under load[*]. Supports virtualization (I'm running 2 web servers and a mail server, all in individual virtual machines).

Price can't be beat. Should be sufficient for most home surfing/word processing and media center applications.

scott

[*] Measured at the 120v wall plug.

Vote

E

Eric 15 years ago

Need to order a new puter for a friend.

Place I used locally last time has gone out of business.

Need to find a new source.

A company in SoCal would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

Anybody have a source they would care to share?

Lew

======================

Newegg.com

The prices are good,you can choose your parts individually and they will be there the next day.

Vote

L

Lew Hodgett 15 years ago

Lew,

I don't know if they have Best Buy stores near you but you can usually get interest free for 18 months if (s)he doesn't want to lay cash out. Then if something does go wrong with it you aren't on the hook to support it. I do this for a living and have really gotten over spending my time at parties and gatherings looking at friends computer issues.

-------------------------------------- You have described 80%-90% of her applications.

BestBuy, HP, & Compaq are non starters.

Do me once, shame on you, do me twice, shame on me, applies to them.

As a result, most of the chain stores are eliminated.

--------------------------------- You can get more for your money building it your self, but is that what this person really needs?

----------------------------------- Have done it both ways.

Specified the build list, then purchased it assembled or assembled it myself.

This is definitely a buy it assembled task.

Just want to be able to specify the build list.

Does that provide more useful info?

Lew

Vote

L

Larry Jaques 15 years ago

Excellent service! Having a local computer guru is the best insurance you can buy.

Why did he talk you into the SSD?

Right, nice!

I'm well aware that Instant Gratification Takes Too Long.

I like (and use) Win7Pro. My graphics card drops my system down to

3.8. Wah! Mine is only a 32-bit and 2.5GHz with slower RAM.

You officially SUCK, Leon!

-- Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. -- Robert J. Sawyer

Vote

E

Eric 15 years ago

Lew,

I don't know if they have Best Buy stores near you but you can usually get interest free for 18 months if (s)he doesn't want to lay cash out. Then if something does go wrong with it you aren't on the hook to support it. I do this for a living and have really gotten over spending my time at parties and gatherings looking at friends computer issues.

-------------------------------------- You have described 80%-90% of her applications.

BestBuy, HP, & Compaq are non starters.

Do me once, shame on you, do me twice, shame on me, applies to them.

As a result, most of the chain stores are eliminated.

--------------------------------- You can get more for your money building it your self, but is that what this person really needs?

----------------------------------- Have done it both ways.

Specified the build list, then purchased it assembled or assembled it myself.

This is definitely a buy it assembled task.

Just want to be able to specify the build list.

Does that provide more useful info?

Lew

============

Best Buy just plain charges way too much more than most other sources.

Vote

L

Lew Hodgett 15 years ago

------------------------------- Have done that in the past; however, not this time around.

Prefer to spec a build list and let someone else take the responsibility.

Lew

Vote

L

Lew Hodgett 15 years ago

Thank you.

Lew

Vote

C

clare 15 years ago

" Dell from Hell"

Vote

B

Bill 15 years ago

How bad was your experience BestBuy and HP (who acquired Compaq in

2002)? Just curious.

Dell gives you quite a few options in building a system. You might also look at some of their pre-built (returned, I guess) systems for a good price. To do this click on "outlet" towards the right of their main menu at dell.com to see if you can find something suitable.

Bill

Vote

L

Lew Hodgett 15 years ago

------------------------ An elephant has a shorter memory than I do.

Lew

Vote

L

Lew Hodgett 15 years ago

formatting link

would be a winner, they are litterly out my back door.

Now if I can just figure out how to configure a system for them to quote.

Lew

Vote

L

Lew Hodgett 15 years ago

------------------------------- Have done that, but not this time around.

Just want to to spec a build list and have others do the work.

----------------------------------

MicroCenter is about 50 miles, NewEgg is in the neighborhood.

Lew

Vote

B

Bill 15 years ago

formatting link

>> -----------------------------------

The website tomshardware.com has lots of information for someone building a computer. Newegg has helpful customer reviews of components. Start counting the hours now... Have fun!

Bill

Vote

L

Larry Jaques 15 years ago

I bought my last stereo receiver from BestBuy and it died (surround sound switch on = no sound whatsoever.) The salesman assured me that they had a repair station at that local store. When I returned it, the guy at the service depot counter said "Oh, we don't repair those here. All we can do here is replace knobs and such. It will take two weeks to repair." Two and a half weeks later, they returned it. It wasn't fixed. They stated, AS IF, on the repair slip "Resoldered transformer connections." I've never been back to the lying bastids.

It was and is a transitory problem, about once in 150 turn-ons. I believe it's an occasionally sticky relay. A few repeated on/off cycles fixes it, so I've never bothered to repair it properly. I've seen it maybe 2-3 times a year...for about 13 years now. ;)

-- Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. -- Robert J. Sawyer

Vote

N

nailshooter41 15 years ago

Lew - go to their website, and they literally have bundled kits ready to go that provide just about anything and everything. With their already aggressive pricing, this just makes it a bit sweeter if you don't mind spending the time to put it together. Look at the bottom right of this page:

formatting link

have bought the components for my last two computers there, and it

*seems* that they have better than the normal stuff at the discount computer places around here. Plus, my experience is that they really stand behind their products.

They have good prices on their finished boxes, too.

As for me, I split the difference. Although I don't mind working on one, I didn't want to build it myself either as I would be spending an entire day doing it. So I paid a friend of mine to build it for me at the going rate of $100, including having him do all diagnostics on the machine and print out reports. I got it from him, took it home, hooked up the monitor, modem, mouse and speakers and off I went.

Remember, due to licensing agreements, these things aren't always what they seem. If you buy a prebuilt machine, you will get some form of Windows if it is a working box, even with no keyboard, monitor or mouse.

But if you buy a kit or box of parts, you need to remember that you will be buying your operating platform, so don't forget to figure that into the price. For an apples to apples comparison.

DAMHIKT. Lessons learned.

Robert

Vote

L

Leon 15 years ago

That was a big point in my decision making process, him living 3 doors down.

He didn't, he mentioned that they were offering that as a primary drive. I jumped at the opportunity. A little more expensive for the machine as a whole but extremely fast, no moving parts. IIRC the 128Gb SSD was about $125 more than the 1Tb HD. With the OS and all of my program files loaded I have only used about 1/2 the capacity.

Why thank you Larry!

Vote

L

Leon 15 years ago

Dell is great if you never need to talk to the service people. I threatened to return my dad's Dell 3 weeks after receiving if they transferred me to another department to answer a simple question. I was transferred all over India no less than 15 times in a 90 minute period. I did get my answer but I was boiling mad. My previous 9 computer purchases were Dell and the phone service has been going down hill for quite some time.

Vote

B

Bill 15 years ago

An "entire day" huh? I trust the people making comments like this are the same ones that walk into a woodworking store and buy a TS on the first visit. I almost hate to say it, and it may be difficult to believe, but I think a computer is at least as complicated as a TS and you can easily, even accidentally, devote as much time to choosing the components for one. For instance, try to answer the question, "Which SSD drive" should I choose? A year ago, there was a clear answer, but "marketing" will (try to) obscure your ability to find it.

After choosing an SSD (or HDD) you can play the same game with "Which graphics card?". You should probably choose your platform and MB before you choose your SSD or HDD. It's sort of a circular process, with your applications leading the way, and some choices dependent on others (consider various HDD interfaces available).

Not all graphics cards fit in all cases, but I also expect that no one here is afraid to cut sheet metal. Anyone can build a computer and it's getting easier every year, it seems. I'm just sayin'.

I blew the $10 on an anti-static mat, and in the wintertime I left a pot of water on the stove to create humidity while I installed the components, but that's just me. In California the steam is probably unnecessary.

Bill

So I paid a friend of mine to build it for me at

Vote