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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Finally got new computer.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 04-16-2005 04:53 PM
My previous machine had quite a bit of updrading over the years; extra ram and new hard disk before I got it, and I added USB, Firewire and scsi, none of which it had originally. The processor was replaced by a slightly faster one ,Pentium 133 I think, salvaged from a scrapped machine.
The machine before that, a 486/66 with VESA, EISA and ISA cards was built from scratch, and was very expensive at the time. It's still in store, and used from time to time. Before that I had a 33 MHz 486sx which was bought, and given away when I built the next one.
Buying parts tends to be quite a bit more expensive than buying an off the shelf machine.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-18-2005 05:25 AM
quote: Stephen Furley
Buying parts tends to be quite a bit more expensive than buying an off the shelf machine.
It is now, and unless you want a high-end spec or one tailored for a very specific application, self building probably makes less, if any, economic sense. The first - and only - off the shelf PC I bought was a very basic 486, with 32mb of RAM, a 100mb hard drive and a 14" monitor, in December 1995. That cost £800. You can get the equivalent starter PC for less than half that in the shops now, or even less online. Factor in the cost of inflation and the price has probably dropped by two thirds in real terms during the last decade.
My current system is designed specifically for video editing, because I do quite a bit of preparing material for broadcasters and other archive clients working at home. Its last major upgrade, last summer, took it to:
No-name case with three no-name fans (two intake and one exhaust)
500w PSU
Gigabyte GN-A400 Pro 2 motherboard
AMD 3200 processor (plus copper heatsink unit)
2gb PC3200 DDRAM
2 x 250gb Western Digital SATA hard discs
Matrox G500 display card
Matrox RT2500 video capture card
Sound card on motherboard (as nearly all the material I deal with is either silent or mono, originally from optical or 16mm mag, there's no need for any more)
Dell P900 (Dell branded 19" Sony Trinitron, sold off as surplus - a bargain at £130 from Ebuyer) monitor
LG 16x DVD writer
Internal 100mb Zip drive
Sony DSR-11 DVCAM portable VTR for capture and output, connected via Firewire, plus a VHS/S-VHS unit connected via S-video (hardly ever used now, though).
The total cost came in at just over a grand (excluding the monitor and the Zip drive, which I had before), all told, but that's probably bought me around 50 days of not having to trek into work, will probably double that figure at least during the remainder of its useful lifetime and I can use it for other stuff, too.
I'm not entirely convinced that it would be any cheaper to put that sort of system together by buying a basic machine and adding bits: for one thing, virtually no packaged PCs come with a motherboard of that spec, and the three expensive things (RAM, hard drives and video capture card) would still have to be added anyway. But if you're in the market for a simple, entry-level system, I agree with Stephen - you'd have to work hard to buy the separate components for less than £400 ish, and even then you still wouldn't have any software.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-22-2005 03:36 AM
Given that you got your machine two years earlier than I built mine, it was probably quite a bit cheaper, I'd guess. In particular, the cost of RAM and hard drives came down a lot in the year or so before I built my current PC.
Only last night I noticed that Asda (British supermarket chain recently taken over by Wal Mart) had a PC package for £339, consisting of a Celeron processor, 256mb RAM, 80gb hard drive, 56k modem, a 15" TFT monitor, DVD writer, inkjet photo printer, Windows, Works and a load of games software. That literally translates as $602, but this figure probably doesn't tell the whole story because the pound is unusually high against the dollar at the moment.
For someone who wants a decent office machine but nothing seriously powerful such as would be needed for graphics or video applications, it would make sense to buy something like this, stick some more memory in it, then buy MS Office, an ADSL modem and a laser printer if needed. If you're prepared to use Open Office or a cheaper package you could probably do the whole thing for around £450. Clicking through some component prices on Ebuyer, it looks virtually impossible to get near this spec for that price by self-building. In effect they're throwing in the monitor, the printer and Windows for free.
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