Hp vs Dell (new title- need more feedback for new PC).

[Big Gulp]

But who the fuck builds a $600 gaming PC?

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

[OcellotJenkins]

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. 

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.

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

[Mrbloodworth]

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.

[Sky]

But who the fuck builds a $600 gaming PC?

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

I've been totally srs bananas in this thread.

[Surlyboi]

My rig is quiet as a church mouse. 

[Rasix]

But who the fuck builds a $600 gaming PC?

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

I've been totally srs bananas in this thread.

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

[Rasix]

My rig is quiet as a church mouse. 

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

[fuser]

The customer service smells of rotten dog feces and almost every Dell box I have at my office (not bought by me ) has something wrong with it.

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.

[ghost]

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.

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

[HaemishM]

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.

[Sky]

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 

[rattran]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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?

[HaemishM]

Why is this thread three pages?

Penis.

[Rasix]

Why is this thread three pages?

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. 

[Teleku]

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.

[dusematic]

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.

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).

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.

[Big Gulp]

 I mean, just buying a legit copy of Windows is like, what $200?  $300?  

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.

[AutomaticZen]

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.

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.

[bhodi]

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.

[rattran]

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.

[Sky]

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.

[WayAbvPar]

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.

[dusematic]

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.

[Sheepherder]

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.

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.

[Paelos]

As for the raging debate about what a retard I am for paying so much money- I know I paid a lot.

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.

[schild]

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

[Trippy]

I disagree.

[Big Gulp]

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.

[Trippy]

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.

[WayAbvPar]

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 

[WayAbvPar]

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.

[Mrbloodworth]

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

[Sky]

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?

[Lantyssa]

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.