f13.net

I customized a PC through Dell last week. It was supposed to ship Friday (31-July) and arrive Monday (I paid for overnight shipping). Friday afternoon I logged in and checked the status of the order- and it suddenly had an arrival day of 10-August instead of 3-August. I checked my email- no notification or explanation from Dell. So I started slogging down the customer service email track. I finally got a real person to reply to me. I told them how unhappy I was that they had bumped my order back, and I was especially peeved that they hadn't bothered to notify me. I demanded that they refund the shipping costs or cancel my order. They wouldn't eat the shipping, so I canceled.

I ordered a different PC from HP last night. Was going to post the specs for both here and see how I did. I went to Dell to get the specs on the canceled order. And it was listed as SHIPPED today. I called customer service and then escalated to a 'supervisor'. He told me that there was no one at Dell authorized to call Fed Ex and have them return the package to Dell. I am sure that Michael Dell himself would be helpless to do anything about it  :oh_i_see: I spent 8 years in the courier business, and I can guaran-godamned-tee you that a shipper can call and ask for a package not to delivered and instead returned. Dell's solution was for me to go through their return procedure. Fuck that. This is THEIR fault, not mine, and I am not jumping through hoops for them.

My next call was to my bank to dispute the charge. The charge for the HP system I bought last night was posted. There is no record of any past, present or pending charges from Dell. I asked her to note in my account that I called and planned to dispute any charges, and told her I would call back and initiate the dispute procedure if/when it appears. So at this point Dell has irreversibly shipped out a free computer.

My next call was to Fed Ex. Armed with the tracking number, I called their claims department. I had the shipment marked as return to sender in less then 2 minutes.

More as the story unfolds. My first attempt to order a PC through Dell. Wow. HP should be kicking their ass soon.

System specs for both below in case anyone cares. I am curious which one everyone thinks is better-

Sounds like the HP was a completely better deal overall. I've had good luck with HP/Compaq.

The Dell for simple reason, crossfire 4870's.

Last I recall, CrossFire and SLI weren't that much of a huge benefit unless specifically designed for it.

You paid too much for both. I assume you were happy paying like $600 more than necessary though just to avoid building it yourself.

I would be surprised if it was that much more, but I definitely don't mind paying for convenience. I could newegg all the parts and build it myself, but it would be outdated by the time everything got to me and I finally slapped it together.

I'd agree with "paid too much", but on the other hand newegg'ing the parts always results in me paying a couple hundred extra compared to absolutely the lowest price because I simply cannot accept the default cooling fans, or the cheapest cheapest case, keyboard, mouse, power supply, etc.

In the long run I always spend that extra 500 bucks on replacing parts or whatever when I build my own anyway, as things die without service in place or whatever else anyway. At this point just buying a Dell every 3 years is pretty appealing to my laziness.

FIFY. I beg you, do not give those asshats any more money.

I've been using them for years at work - both servers and desktops - and have absolutely no complaints whatsoever. Heck they basically gave me two free 24WFP monitors last time I bought home machines. I do my purchasing through my direct sales rep at work though, so that may explain the difference in the level of service I am getting.

The HP has a far better CPU but a very gimpy GPU so it's hard to compare. For right now, the Dell is the better system for gaming. However the HP has a lot more "headroom" cause of the CPU difference and given WAP bought a prebuilt system he's probably not the type that likes to go in and swap CPUs while changing a GPU card is trivial.

Ditto.  Been buying Dell for years, zero complaints.  Will keep buying for the forseable future.

Try not to make stupid mistakes like this when buying nearly $2000 of equipment.

My integrated audio is fine. Most are fine. Sound Blaster has been repackaging the same damned sound card for YEARS. There is NO REASON to buy a separate card at this point for video games or general music listening unless you're doing studio work or have a studio ear.

I'd take integrated over a Creative card any day at this point.

Pretty much why I do it.  Then I hate myself when in a couple years I start replacing parts.  Their "cable management" is a nightmare. Their cases are incredibly difficult for adding certain pieces in.  Once when I changed a motherboard, it wouldn't let me install windows anymore.  And for when I start putting in better pieces, they inevitably have very poor air flow in the cases (and little way to improve save taking the side panel off) causing heat problems.  You really notice where they cut corners when you open the sucker up.  Maybe they've improved in the past few years..

But it all seems better to me than building my own.  My last attempt resulted in a very problematic PC that took forever to build and took years off my life in frustration.  I'm pretty confident I could do it now, but there's always the nagging feeling that I'm going to colossally fuck it up.

edit: The one time I tried integrated audio it was nothing but trouble.  Certain games just straight up hated it. Don't care much for Creative either.  Windows seems to hate their drivers.

The first couple computers I actually bought instead of built, were Dells and were nothing but crap nightmares. My last couple have been HPs and I haven't had one complaint. A++ Would buy again.

My last Creative card just would not work right with LotRO ever. I would get horrible blasts of static, etc. There were some other things it had issues with too. I finally just went out and bought some fly by night $10 audio card and it works perfectly with everything.  :oh_i_see:

Long as a game has a profile there should be a very tangible increase in performance.


I was thinking about future expansion and the 940 is drastically outperformed by the i7 but the system is so gimped in the HP. As you mentioned the GT 220 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gt_220_us.html) is a really gimp card, and would have to be replaced to play pretty much anything beside peggle. This leads into what kinda PSU is in the HP and whats the slot physical limitations. Poking around dell's site there's really good i7 deals there if crossfire is no concern to you (1,100studio xps - 1,600xps 435 for i7-920's).

I'm going to second the paid way to much. You could build that same system for around half that price (looking at the hp). I owned 2 Dells, but for the price you can get such a better machine if you self build. Also, how is ordering the parts from Newegg and building it going to take you so long? Shipping time from the egg is about the same as you would get from Dell, and then like 2-4 hours to build, and maybe 24 hours of burn in/testing.

That system I specced recently was the same but with 12gb ram and a nvidia 285 for around $1300.

I just bought a 3.0Ghz quad core with 8 gigs of RAM and a 9800 GTX for less than $600.  Why the fuck would you pay what you just did when an hour of snapping the thing together would save you over $1000?

Service & support, non-shitty-bargain-brand components, the aforementioned laziness, and no chance of accidentally fucking the cooling up and melting your CPU.

This is why one shops at Fry's? I think they have them in Seattle.

Dell has had some serious delays in shipping of late. I'm not sure why, but of the last 5 purchased systems at work, including a home purchase of a laptop, each and every shipment has been pushed back at least a week, two weeks in some cases.

I'm not sure what's going on with them. They may be redoing their distribution chain, moving manufacturing, or some other such thing, but its been really slow going with them.

Fry's (pew pew pew) isn't as cheap as ordering online, at least locally, and I don't know that I'd trust them to assemble anything.


Maybe they've been cutting hours or doing layoffs like everyone else, although I don't recall reading about any big layoffs there recently.

Service & support?  Over a grand's worth?   :why_so_serious:  Non-shitty components?  I wasn't aware that Intel, AMD, and Nvidia made super-sekret quality components for the OEMs.  As far as cooling goes, how difficult is a few dabs of Artic Silver, and slap on the heatsink/fan?

Fuck, I'm a mechanical idiot and even this doesn't scare me.  But hey, feel free to toss shitloads of money at middlemen.

Do people still use thermal paste?

Every CPU I've used in the past decade has had a thermal pad already stuck on. They've yet to overheat or catch fire or anything like that.

I do, just because old habits die hard.  I know it probably makes marginal difference between Arctic Silver and whatever the manufacturer uses, but I still wipe off their shit and use my own.

I meant to order a sound card and didn't notice until the order was 'final'. Which was another reason I liked the HP system better. I have always had good luck with Intel and nvidia stuff too, (although my proc now is AMD and I haven't had any complaints).

I built a system a long time ago. It is a pain in the ass and I don't relish the idea of doing it again. I have precious little free time as it is with the baby nearing toddler stage (he is mobile now and hard to wrangle!), and I didn't want to slap everything together. HP took 15 minutes to assemble and order. I am sure I paid a premium for it, but last time I bought local I still spent $1500 on parts and assembly, so I didn't think this was that out of line ($48 bucks was for the flash drive and separate shipping, which kind of annoyed me, but that's life).

I am dismayed to hear the the GPU isn't very good. It was the 2nd or third upgrade option. It will certainly be better than what I have now, so it should be ok until I find something it doesn't run very well.

Okay, let's assume it would take you 2 hours to put the thing together, assuming you're nervous about doing so, and want to take the time researching every step along the way.  Hell, let's say it took you 3 hours just to be generous.  You're saying that your time is worth more than $333 per hour?  What the hell do you do for a living???

If he's happy with his purchase, who gives a fuck?

He asked us what we thought.

He asked which one was better, not whether he got a good deal.

Better?  That's like asking whether a $600 Timex is better than a $600 Casio.  They're both shitty deals.

ETA:  To take the analogy further, and put it in context, what if I told you I could sell you the same watch, either brand, that would work identically for $200.  The only catch is that you would have to attach the band to the face yourself, but I'd give you all the parts to do so.  What's the better deal?

Kind of a wash between the Dell and HP.  The Dell has a good gpu.  The HP has an ass GPU, but it also has a dedicated sound card (how important I don't know, I use a Xonar sound card myself), a much better CPU, better ram, and extras like bluetooth (cool for a gaming mic), firewire and 802.11n.  If you're happy with it I wouldn't sweat it.

The alternative is spending those part of those 3 hours putting things together only to find your beloved darling child has drooled all over a video card or gone chomp chomp on an internal cable lead. Also I've found with kids you don't get 3 hours to concentrate on doing anything - you might get an hour tops. So it might take two or three days to actually put things together.

Alternatively: I could probably save a bunch of money if I learned to be a mechanic. Even doing basic stuff like changing oil filters and <insert engine stuff>. However, I don't want to take the risk of messing up my car without having a guarantee to fall back on and I also don't want to be spending my weekends fixing my car when I already have such limited free time.

I'll pay for the convenience if it saves me free time. Sometimes you get screwed over - I had a local shop build my last PC and had to take it back 3 times in 2 month to get them to try to fix it (still doesn't work correctly) - but at least I had the option of taking it back to be fixed.

I'll stay away from harping on how much you could have saved.  Instead you'll get a similar story. 

About 3.5 years ago I got a Dell 21" LCD as a birthday present from my wife.  Dell support at that time was based almost entirely out of India (we can all imagine the stories).  The first LCD had a minor screen defect, but since I'm paying full price I want it perfect.  I call Dell and speak with about 12 people over a two hour period.  Dropped calls, being hung up on, "I can't do that, but X dept can"... so on. 

I finally get them to cross-ship a new LCD out.  On the day I get it, the driver is supposed to take the defective one.  He doesn't have orders for it and doesn't take it with him.  Now the second LCD has oil smudges all over the screen.  At this point I'm livid.  After another hour on the phone with Dell they cross-ship another (3rd!) LCD. 

Get the third one, driver can't take the first two monitors because he wasn't ordered to.  The third LCD has the same light leak issue the first one has.  I throw up my hands and tell them to come pick them all up. 

Nobody ever shows.  I keep looking at my credit card, and they're not billing me for the other two, even after a month.  Finally I said fuck it, cleaned up the other two monitors and kept them.  Never was billed for the extra two LCDs, Dell never even called to see what happened. 

Dell is amateur hour.  I will never buy a thing from them again, even though the odds are in my favor. 

Ya, I have never had this bad an experience with Dell at work. I hope that this change to clownshoes is temporary, because 100% of our computers are dells. That's over 100 units.

What's the point then in being a total dick about it (not you)?



I'd tell you to attach the band for $30, because that's how much my time is worth in relation to a $200 watch purchase. Not surprisingly, like all analogies, that one sucks.

What's the point in sugarcoating it? Who does that help?

Deal's done, dude.  Who exactly are you helping?  Way's just going to likely build a premade next time, because his free time isn't composed of vacuuming potato chips out of his favorite keyboard.  People value time and convenience when their life lacks either.

Rasix wins. By a fucking mile.
-
And no, you shouldn't post a NO U pic.

Who said this was about helping?

I'm confused, what are you going on about?


You edited your prior post and then responded to me after I responded. As such, it's not a matter of an analogy sucking, it's a matter of how you value your time. And much love to the new one and all, but your time is in a totally different universe than bachelor land. Odds are WAPs is also, but there is no way he's crazy enough to ask f13 to pat him on the back for buying a computer. He asked what we though. A bunch of us answered. OBVIOUSLY the extra money may be worth it to him.

To me, the guy that cleans hand salsa out of a keyboard built before I was born, I would build my own PC and save the money and spend it on games.

What exactly are you white knighting anyway?

Don't buy prebuilt because they suck mostly for the case airflow and part replacement nightmares that tend to follow if you try to make normal upgrades to extend a prebuilt's life.  It is really going to suck if that GPU becomes a bottleneck and you can't replace it because they design everything in prebuilts to never be removed ever.  Hope that doesn't happen.

Also I would have tried to get the Dell computer for free just in case they fucked up on their end and they've lost the machine in the system, I've known something like that to happen w/ smaller retailers twice.

My bad I read it wrong. Thought he said, what do we think.

My thing with building my own systems is this: I am usually on a budget, and I can get a much better computer for the amount of money I have if I build it myself.

I don't really have anything so complex as a "budget".  What I do have is a deeply ingrained sense of cheapness that refuses to hand over money to middle men when what they do is something that is trivially easy to do for myself.  I sure as hell wouldn't give my money to a PC vendor who'll overcharge me, intentionally limit my upgrade path, and to top it all off, they'll fill my pre-installed OS with so much crapware that I have to reinstall the OS just so I'm not assaulted by the bullshit apps their business partners forced onto the system.

Sorry man, but when I see someone buying a prebuilt system I either assume that they're clueless or that they're suckers.

I can't believe this is coming down to interpretation. He asked which was better. The he asked how he did.

How he did.

We answered that. We also answered the former. Both were win/lose against eachother. Graphics vs. Processor. Better processor wins because a graphics card is a trivial replacement. Also, he paid too much. Sorta closes the book on it, imo.

I dunno man, some of those cases/motherboard (dell included) are a hard fit for dual slot cards + the PSU might be shit for power output on 12v rail  :awesome_for_real:

I mean is it really THAT much cheaper?  I built a computer once off of newegg and I didn't feel like I saved $700.  Probably a few hundred.


Edit:  Also, it takes longer than 2 hours for a newb to assemble a computer from individual parts.  It's kind of a shitty process that will eat up half a Saturday.


Edit:  Please spare me the nerd pride in how quickly YOU can assemble computers and how it's no big deal.  Some of you people are too fucking predictable.

Last time I bought my Dell, I priced out the parts at places like Newegg and came up with about a $300 premium on not building it myself on a ~$1900 purchase.  There are future considerations that I mentioned above, which are negatives beyond what I essentially paid for labor.  Take into account that I paid for legit versions of Windows XP and MS Office (just Word/Excell/Outlook).  

Pertinent to nothing; I've since traded out the video card, memory, hard drive (twice!), keyboard/mouse (duh), and power supply.  The power supply was incredibly difficult to change out and barely fit (technically).

edit: I needed pretty much everything.  There were no wasted parts beyond the wireless kb/m that I hated.

It's cheaper in the sense that you only get what you need. Most of those "full featured" pre-built boxes have a lot of extra crap you don't need/want.

Yeah $300 makes a lot more sense.  It doesn't make sense in a free market that it would be as big a difference as some of the more exaggerated claims in this thread.  I'd pay $300 to not have to fuck with putting a computer together and install the software myself any day of the week.  But I'm loathe to get into another discussion about my time over money theory again.  That ended poorly last time.

Heh... Dell...  :crying_panda:

Tell me you aren't suggesting he buy something that's $1500 too expensive and only runs games via futzing around ;)

:awesome_for_real:

$1500 is extreme hyperbole.

Not if you are buying a Mac Pro.

Macs are lame.  I guess if you're really into hardware the same way people get really into cars, it could make sense to pay more and get less (except for an aesthetic).  But if you just use your computer for games, jacking off, and fagging up the internet like I do, then Macs are lame.

Don't simplify our lives like that. Jesus christ, man.

genuinely laughed.  lol

I got nothin'  :awesome_for_real:

I took the creative card on my last build.  It's worse than my wife's integrated sound card for many things.  Voices in WoW play very quietly, or always 'behind' you on the SB, for example.  Lots of sound artifacts and glitches in my FPS games, and absolutely pathetic bass, even when maxed in the software.  I shouldn't have to turn my subwoofer up to max to get thumping noises in Bioshock.

Just last week I bought a 3Ghz AMD quad core/Asus mobo combo with 8 gigs of DDR 3 at 1066Mhz, with a 9800 GTX.  I also bought a new case, power supply, wireless card, hard drive, and DVD burner.  Grand total?  $598.89

Yeah.  It is that much cheaper.

ETA:  On the other hand, I didn't go crazy with all the little subsidiary components.  The power supply is only 580w, but since I'm not SLIing or anything crazy like that it's more than sufficient.  The DVD burner is nothing special, but then again they're going for around $20 nowadays, so if it dies I just replace it for a quick $20.  The case is nothing special, but I made sure it has 3 fans and plenty of air intakes/outlets.  Again, cost me around $20.  I didn't buy an OS since Windows 7 RC1 is just fine 'til I get a system builder version for around $100 later down the road.

With OEMs you're paying for a lot of extra bullshit, some of it of negligible value, some of it an actual detriment (non-standard case design).

The HP is the better computer. While the Dell has better GPU(s), nearly everything else on the HP outshines it, and video cards are damn easy to replace.

You paid a lot for a prebuilt, but if you're willing to pay that much for convenience, more power to you.

My only experience with Dell support was very positive. I bought a Studio 17 laptop for the wife about 5 months ago, it arrived on time but unfortunately had a red vertical line on the screen. Dell support offered to replace the laptop or replace the screen. I chose the latter and a technician came out the next day. Haven't had any problems with it since *touches wood*.

People like this shouldn't even have computers, it's why god created consoles. Get off the internet you moronic simpletons, important people need to use it.

I custom built PCs for a decade but gave it up and opt for pre-mades going forward.  One big reason for me, that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread, is noise.  You can't build $600 gaming PC that is anywhere near as quiet as something like a Dell.  In fact, it probably sounds like a fucking vacuum cleaner.  I used to spend a lot of time tweaking my custom builds to be quiet and cool too (hanging out on silentpcreview.com and similar sites).  You can get quieter components but you'll spend more and the machine is still likely to be annoyingly loud.

The premium cost of a pre-made can be worth it if you research what you are getting.  The time saved building, the warranty, and the silence make it an easy choice for me these days.

lol!

:oh_i_see:

Though I'll give you one thing, you might not be able to do it for $600. But who the fuck builds a $600 gaming PC? Turn in your gaming card, there are pc gamers who need it. Go buy a console.

I last bought something from Dell in 1999 or 2000.  It was a piece of shit laptop that is easily the worst computing device I've ever used other than a PC Junior.  The customer service smells of rotten dog feces and almost every Dell box I have at my office (not bought by me :awesome_for_real:) has something wrong with it.

How is the rig I just put together not a gaming PC?  And aren't you the guy who runs everything at 1280x720?   :oh_i_see:

My last dell lasted me 8 years. Of course, as I have posted before, i was unable to upgrade to today's hardware due to its age, and me buying a ram type that had its 15 minutes of fame and is now a collectible.

I've been totally srs bananas in this thread.

My rig is quiet as a church mouse.  :drill:

To be perfectly honest, it's hard to tell with you.  You tend to be a bit batty/oddly agressive about certain topics.

Noisey computers can be quite useful.  White noise is great for putting a kid to sleep.  :awesome_for_real:

Tell us how you really feel!

We're a Dell office also with a totally different experience. The hardware faults in the past three years have been 2x hard drive failures, 1x ddr module failed, and a shipped broken front indicator panel on a power edge (the blue location indicator led didn't work). Really their hardware is not bottom of the barrel crap.

The preconfigured installs are a totally different matter. We spent the few hours setting up Vista automated installs with AIK and an XP cd configured via nlite so soon as a system is popped out of a box the first steps is formatting + loading drivers + patch. This alone saves so much support and configuration time. It's much easier to pop in the cd and let it go for 15-30mins, grab the drivers (if need be) 10-20mins of work and let it patch up vs uninstalling crap and tweaking the system.

Engels is right, there is something seriously up with their supply channels or production. I had two unexpected delays on very common systems with off the shelf parts and no special work. Last order the build times was 5 business days longer then normal.

This is an absolute must-do with any new PC these days. 

I've built a computer from parts before. I'm fairly hardware savvy, but I fucked it up. Put the CPU in the motherboard wrong and bent pins. Had to take it to CompUSA to get them to put the damn CPU in and make sure it POSTS. That was an extra charge that could have been much worse, because had I fucked up the CPU beyond repair, it would have been another $100 to replace it AND the cost of having a non-monkey (i.e. not me) put the goddamn thing in. After that, I stuck to what I knew well, which was replacing components as needed in a pre-built. And BTW, that computer burned up probably less than a year later (I think it was the power supply that came with the cheap ass case I bought). I don't have the money to wily-nily replace parts I fuckup myself - same as with my car. I'd rather pay someone $20 to replace the oil than do it myself for $5 because if I fuckup, the cost to unfuck it is a lot more than I would save with DIY.

As for Dell, I avoid them. The HP's and Compaqs I've dealt with (our office is all HP, my PC is an HP and my wife's last 2 computers have been Compaq) have all been great systems, with easy to replace components, nice easy access cases for the most part and they've lasted longer than the cheap DIY's I've bought before. HP is much much better than Dell all the way around.

A few years ago we had a couple separate instances with Dell USFF pcs, bad caps on the mobos. The first time they sent someone out to do the repair. It was pretty prompt, two days (I prefer next day!). However, the person was completely inept, even with a big set of instructions. I ended up just taking over and showing her how to swap in a new mobo to a USFF. Then, when the next one popped its caps, I just had them send me a replacement mobo, got it next day and everything was ducky.

If I hadn't known how to swap out a mobo, though, it would've been  :uhrr:

Building your own machine and cheaping out with shitty psu, loud fans, etc is bad. Just like buying shitty prebuilts (Hi Emachines!) is bad. If you are mechanically inept (not your fault), can't/won't read instructions, or just don't want to bother, you should buy a prebuilt.

I build my own machines, and have done so enough times I don't screw them up. The longest time sink is installing the os. My gaming box is moderately quiet, my server is silent and likely a better gaming machine still than most.

WAP, if you really want the nicety of a home-built with the convenience of a pre-built, at an average of the two prices... put something together on Newegg and fly me out.  I'll assemble it for you and we can go do dinner with your family afterwards.  Or you can pay me (lots) extra and I'll do babysitting duty so you and the missus can have a nice evening.

Problem solved.  Why is this thread three pages?

Penis.

Because of the internets?

Heh, next time I need to upgrade perhaps I should just hire someone here.  I know rattran makes it down to AZ every once in a while.  :grin:

My latest PC build went perfect, with no problems at all.  I turned the computer on for the first time and everything worked perfectly (usually there is some something I didn't plug in correctly, or got a bad part, etc).  Loaded Windows 7, ran from there.

My only real fuckup is that I just ordered a 3rd party fan I saw recommended (without really reading reviews), since I might want to overclock my PC a bit (otherwise, the generic fans that come with the i7 processors work fine).  While I'm sure its keeping my PC cool, the god damn thing sounds like a jet engine, and is fucking humongous, which takes up a lot of room in the case.  But ah well, white noise from PC's like that doesn't bother me very much.

On the topic of Dell:  You can get a pretty nice gaming machine from them, and its a lot less hassel.  However, I couldn't justify it to myself as for the same amount of money they wanted, I could build a PC with much much better processor, GPU, and Ram.

I just did a little checking on Ars Technica's gaming computer outlines.  Your claims seem plausible.  However, the fact that you didn't get an OS or a monitor are huge considerations that need to be factored.  I mean, just buying a legit copy of Windows is like, what $200?  $300?  Anyway, you would think a business would come along that simple buys shit off newegg and assembles the computer and then ships it off to people while taking a small cut.  I mean, does Newegg have a polciy where you can't do that or what?  I'm trying to understand how in a  free market the markup could be so fucking high.  Presumably Dell gets its components for even cheaper.  Weird.  Sounds way too high.  I mean it's not like it's that fucking hard to assemble for a veteran nerd.  Get two guys and pay them 15 bucks an hour to speed assemble.

More like $100, but that's for the system builder version, so you don't get a manual or a fancy box or anything.  Big whoop, all I want is a legit key, anyway.  As for a monitor, fine.  Toss in another $200.  Shit, I got two very nice 22" Acer monitors for $200 each.

My point is, all this stuff is dirt, dirt cheap now.  There's no reason to keep subsidizing these shitty OEMs if you have a nerd friend that can build a box for you.  The only exception to this would be Apple if you just have to have OSX, and even then a hackintosh is a quite viable option.

Buying those items would only add $300 to the price.  That's $900.  Still much less.

Perhaps you have a system builder in the area who may do it cheaper for you as well.

Dell/HP/whoever generally has shit "default" prices that don't beat buying individual components but then tends to have terrific deals periodically that beats the pants off of them. Stuff like free/discount monitors, things like that.

And many people do have businesses doing that sort of thing, I make a couple grand a year building machines for people. I used to make more, had wholesale accounts with a few places. But support is the big thing. If someone computer illiterate/annoying wants me to build a machine, I generally point them at Dell and suggest getting a 3 year warranty. That said, a well built machine makes it so I don't get many calls from the people I do build for, all the ones this year have been from 2 failing ups (2+ years old on iffy power sites) and 1 case of a machine getting horribly infected/owned due to user error.

Important note: if a porn site tells you to disable your antivirus/antispyware for faster browseing, don't.

When I was building machines, it was only for a few gamer friends. I tried building them for Joe Q Public, but fuck supporting ignorant users, it's a total waste. That's why Dell and others have phone trees to people who speak English as a second language. The last guy is one I work with, and finally I told him I just couldn't support him any more because he and his family did literally every single thing wrong that I could think of on a computer. He was also still insisting that somehow I could make his daughter's pentium 2 machine faster.

I truly feel bad for people who don't want to learn safe computing, they're fucked. And not just from all the pitfalls out there, the local computer shops are run by fucking morons, and the major players can't spend the time they need dealing with the piddly issues that they get into.

Update-

Got home and checked my email. Sure enough, there was a "your order has shipped" email. I copied the entire thing and pasted into a reply to the email I received from Dell customer service and told them they should be embarrassed by their incompetence. Get to work today and check my credit card online- predictably, they had charged me for the system that was headed back to them. Called the bank again, got the dispute form, filled it out, wrote a 1 page summary of the whole sordid affair, and printed the entire email chain (I was lucky enough to think to BCC my reply to them to my work email, so I had the whole thing). 11 pages and three fax attempts later, and I SHOULD be done with this. I will check back with my bank on Monday and see how things are going.

As for the raging debate about what a retard I am for paying so much money- I know I paid a lot. But I got an installed OS, a free W7 upgrade when it releases, a warranty, and didn't have to skimp on chassis, fans, power supply, etc. I NEVER get three hours consecutively to do anything, much less assemble something as delicate as a PC. With my suspect skills it would be closer to 8 hours anyway. If I didn't Haemish it and have to get help after nearly ruining it in the first place. Not worth the hassle.

Next time I will check out a local store and see what I can piece together and have them assemble for me. I was actually planning to do that when my wife reminded me about the HP recommendation, so I checked the site and built what seemed to be a comparable system, with the extras of a sound card and flash drive added. When it totaled ~$100 less than Dell, I figured it wasn't that bad a deal.

Dude don't sweat overpaying.  You got some added value with the warranty, and not wasting an entire Saturday of your life, etc.  The people ridiculing you are like the mechanics who laugh at the suckers who don't scavenge junkyards for the repair parts they need.  I mean, it's great and all for the power user, but it's not for everyone.  You did fine.

I used to have a Dell machine with a SigmaTel integrated.  I used to play Oblivion.  It used to suck shit.  I gained 15 FPS by installing a SoundBlaster 6.

You paid for a service. Some people can do that service. They will try to make you feel bad because it makes them feel good. They also may not have your income/time-restriction/specialization.

Some folks call that fucking economics.

I don't think anyone here wanted him to feel bad. This and the "mental" thread in gen disc have gone weird.

I disagree.

Then I hope Way accepts my apology.  I wasn't trying to make him feel bad, although I realize my denned post was way snarky (Hey, it's my attempt at humor).  What I was trying to get at is that he's effectively throwing money away, which should piss anybody off, regardless of their income.  I could be sleeping on a pile of cash and wasting money would still gnaw at my soul.  And I don't buy the car analogy.  There are no special tools required to build a computer, and it's not nearly as technically challenging.  The motherboard manual will go through things step by step, and some basic research through Google (or this board) will tell you what you've got to do.

My point was that for the amount of money he spent instead of having a pretty decent gaming rig he could have built a Jesus machine.  Or, he could have saved the money.

He knows it would've been cheaper if he built it himself. He said it ON THE FIRST FUCKING PAGE. And yet you people keep wanting to wave your dicks around telling us how you can build PCs so fucking cheaply. HE DOESN'T FUCKING CARE.

Update- still waiting for the bank to resolve the Dell dispute. HP ended up being late with their delivery by a day. A couple of emails and a couple of phone calls later and they refunded my 2 day shipping charges. So if you are made of money, love convenience, and hate cutting edge components, HP is a better place to shop instead of Dell  :awesome_for_real:

Unlocking this for more feedback- sorry Trippy! If that is a huge problem let me know.

Another update-
Dell has returned all but $75.36 of my money. I am still working with my bank on the dispute, since they obviously think I should pay for the shipping. My HP box arrived last week. I spent about 8 hours fucking with it trying to get BF2 to install- it turned out that InstallShield got corrupted somewhere along the line, so I ended up doing a system restore all the way back to the original and reinstalling everything. Did about 5 sys restores all told trying to troubleshoot the issue. I also got some weird display problems (graphics went 'fuzzy' and I had to restart PC to get it to go away).

Spent the weekend happily gaming along. Got Steam up and running, and downloaded a couple of games from my account. Decided to reinstall Oblivion and OOO to see how it ran and to give the game another try with the mod. Went to Fry's to save $5 from the Steam price on Fallout 3. They were out of stock, but I grabbed the strat guide. Went next door to get my wife at Target and thought i would try to get Fallout 3 there. They were also out of stock, but I found Empire:Total War on sale for $29.99, so I grabbed that.

Played Oblivion Sunday and Monday night, then installed Empire while I was trying to get my son to sleep. Had some trouble with it crashing. Found an alert saying that the video card was causing the issues. Installed new drivers (but didn't restart the PC), played Oblivion for a bit, and then turned off the PC for the night. Got up this morning, and get green screen with a black section at the bottom. Restart. Same deal. Restart in safe mode- this displays ok. Roll back the drivers- same. System restore- same green screen. Unplugged everything, set my old system back up, and called HP to return it. Fuck this shit. Although to HP's credit, the return sequence took all of 10 minutes. They are head and shoulders above Dell in the customer service department.

My new plan is to go down to Fry's and have them build me a system. There has been some good feedback here about components, but I would love to hear some more. I am planning on getting another intel i7 proc, but might go up to the next higher one if I can get away with it. What I really need is video card advice. I obviously picked a loser last time, so please let me know what I can get that will run everything out there at full bells and whistles.

I would have gone with the dell. I have never had issues like you described.

First thing to do with a pre-built: nuke the install from orbit. Reformat the drive, install a clean copy of your OS.

My gpu advice is to buy the top end card of whatever line is out right now. I'm not up on current hardware, someone was talking about the new top-end ATI kicking ass with gddr5?

Dell's customer service might be crap, unfortunately it's the machine you have to live with. vOv

I'm not sure about good stuff to go with an i7.  I'm still on a 775.  I like things with heatpipes, as it keeps the noise down.  Also what Sky said.

Poking around on computerstop.com (they have a local place I can buy from and who will slap the thing together for me). Fry's won't give me a free Win7 upgrade unless I buy a prebuilt system; Computer Stop has licenses and will give one to me if I ask when I buy it.

Looking at this for a vid card-
http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-GTX-285-card-605.html

I don't know anything about the new stuff, so I am trying to get feedback. Looks like the big ticket items are the processor (~$625 for the i7950!) and the video card (~$300). Where can I skimp? Do I need a $200 motherboard, or will the cheap version work? Same with cases- if I buy a power supply apart from the case, do I really need a $125 case? Sound cards? $30-$125 or so. Going higher end on everything I put together a system (without OS and assembly) for like $1750. Obviously I am doing something wrong.

Would like to get into the store to order it today if possible- they are closed tomorrow though Sunday for a major remodel, so it will be a few days to get the system together anyway.

Are newegg's prices that much better? Or am I just choosing expensive components where I don't need them?

Generally, yeah.  That same proc is 569.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=i7+950+processor) at the egg.  So 55 buck right there?  What about getting the i7920 and overclocking it a bit?  That alone would save you 290 bucks.


Doesn't seem like it.

But it does seem a bit counter productive to go cheap on some parts for such a new/nice system.

Edit:  I threw one together, that includes everything from top to bottom for 1552.55.  Probably has more mobo than you're looking for (tri SLI capable, 6 mem slots, etc), though.

Personally, I get a less-than-top-speed version of the same CPU architecture and find that I save money while also not noticing a difference.  Of course, I usually only upgrade the CPU when I can jump at least one architecture up since a faster clock just doesn't seem worth the money to me.

I can post the one I just bought that was about 900$ (including a 19" flatscreen) If you want. I showed it around and people said it was a "Solid last gen machine that will do you well for a few years and have room to grow".

It came with a win 7 upgrade.

For whatever it's worth, I've read that the 920's are fantastic overclockers, so there's that...

This is what I threw together.  No doubt someone more knowledgeable put together something better:
Samsung DVD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151188) - 24.99
Antec 900 case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021) - 104.99
Seagate 1TB HD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433) - 89.99
XFX GTX 285 Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150391) - 349.99
Corsair PSU - 750W (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010) - 164.99
6GB DDR3 RAM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226032) - 147.99
EVGA E758-TR mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188046) - 259.99
i7 920 proc (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202) - 279.99
Vista 64, includes W7 coupon (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116677) - 109.99

No MIRs, all 'instant savings'.

I also go less than top end for the cpu. I generally get whatever is lowest at the top end, if that makes sense. I don't worry so much about GHz as I do making sure I've got the most cache and fastest fsb. When C2D first came out, I went with the e6600, which was the first step on the ladder of the best chips at the time.

I only locked it to save people from getting banned. I.e. the next person that says or otherwise implies WAP overpaid will be taking a forced vacation from the boards.

That is very close to what i think I am going to end up with- I am going ATI 4890 on the video card (was told they tested better), WD instead of Seagate on the drive, ASUS mobo, Antec 300 case, 22x optical drive,  and 12GB of RAM (apparently the i7 chips need it in chunks of 3s?). Price is only about $100 different than the stuff listed here, so I can definitely live with that. And if it goes tits up I can walk back into the shop and hand it to them instead of RMA and shipping and all that bs.

Thats a lot like the system I specced. Although if you have the cash, you might consider a 12gb ram kit. I believe its ~$200 on newegg.

As for GPUs, I love EVGA, they have great return policies and also upgrade policies. Their cards have always been very very good to me.

EVGA Graphics Cards on Newegg. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%2050001402&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICED) I usually go for something around $350-$400. Also, bonus, right now they all come with a free copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum. I would go for a 285 if you can afford it.

That setup looks fine to me.

Still happy with the system I built earlier this year, only hiccup being when the system went into a deep sleep coma, and required a bios battery reset.

Sounds like a nice system, and yep the i7 is triple channel. i5/i3 are going to be dual channel as a more mainstream less cost solution.

Y'know, I wasn't going to pipe up until I saw this post.  I'm still not going to say anything more to Way.

You however?  You are a cock gobbling douchebag, and you can ban away.

Oh, don't be so dramatic.

If I overpaid this time, it was by a couple of hundred bucks give or take. I can definitely live with that.

Eh, as long as you're happy, who cares?

I won't know if I am happy or not until I get the thing set up and run it for a week or so. If it is half as much trouble as the HP system was I will probably put my fist through my monitor. I got out of it under 2k and got a reasonably beefy system (afaik), so that part makes me happy at least.