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For $1500 you have a large selection of 18-20" LCDs to choose from http://www.pricewatch.com/1/34/4216-1.htm

You gotta be jokin' me dude. COMPAQ 15" monitor: $69.

Large quantity wholesale pricing? I wouldn't be surprised if you get something down to $50.

Not to say we're talking GOOD stuff, but...

I've had the archos jukebox (6000) for about 8 months now. and i must say that thought it is not without flaw, it has fulfilled all my expectations.

first of all... 6 gigabytes... of course you can swap out the included hdd and replace it (but not without voiding the warranty).

second of all.. it's a simple USB hard drive. so it'll work on just about any OS you can toss at it. newer models have usb 2.0, and recording features. but I have been very happy with mine. and since it's a simple usb hard drive, you can store anything u want on it, not just audio. keep a copy of your favorite linux distro on it. backup yer system. whatever

the batteries tend to last me about 5 hours on the average, and i've never had to change them.

of course if u wanna go apeshit there's this thing.

The cheapest pricewatch price for a GF4 Ti4600 is $280.

The entry price of the Trident card is $99 (or so the article says.)

So would you by a card that has 20% less performance than a GF4 Ti4600 and 65% (or better) less cost? Maybe not. But would you put one in your kids' machine or kid brother's machine who has been whining about wanting a 3D upgrade so they can play Max Payne?

Cha-ching! Cash for Trident from your wallet.

--

Personally, I think CompactFlash cards are an ideal replacement for the floppy. Pricewatch shows an 8MB card going for $9, and I'm sure in volume you can get the 4MB cards for even less. They're re-writeable, albeit a limited number of times, but then, so is the floppy for all practical purposes.
It's solid state, no moving parts, relatively low power consumption compared to a floppy with the motor & head actuator. Also, it's 'compact' (literally), IMO, approaches the usable limit for storage miniaturization meant for humans. Much smaller than a CF card and it becomes more of a liability, prone to being lost.
CF is somewhat fast, using an ATA standard interface, allowing it to be plugged in to a standard ATA bus with the proper adapter. Also, some cards, notably those from Lexar Media contain built-in USB circuitry, allowing for a dual-purpose device (ATA / USB).
All we need now are the hot-swap capabilities for non-PCMCIA uses, i.e., a hot-swap ATA bus on the desktop. They work fine in laptops, and I have booted PCs from them.
I think this is far superior to any other type of medium because it's a somewhat open standard, and the capacity isn't fixed or locked in by the interface. You can plug a 1GB microdrive into the same Type II slot that will hold a 4MB solid state card. If desktops came equipped with these, you'd be able to take advantage of improvements in capacity. I think we'll see 2GB solid state CF in the next 18 months. In five years? Imagine if you could use your old floppy drive to read a 500MB disk that was the same form factor and used the same interface, etc...

I hope this means that windbag Jessie Burst is getting canned!

ZD owns some really good properties, and they're aren't as biased as some other publications, but I'm sure the problem is the high cost of print publishing and the move toward internet sales. Something like Price Watch must be killing Computer Shopper.

Still, I suspect people are going to want to read computer magazines for a while. Like most businesses right now, they might just need to merge their way out of this mess. Don't you just love the business cycle?

Pricey indeed. The complete specs for the A1000 they put together is on their site. I'm sure if you badger them for the complete specs on the NES or A2600 they'll tell you. There's no custom-manufactured hardware in there; this is just a pricewatch or ebay affair here, folks. Even the "adapted" NES controllers they're selling for $40 (!!!!) are available on the net, or you could even make them yourself. But, whatever, the 40-50% profit they're making is alright with me, if I find the urge to have a PC in an NES case, I'll do the research and build it myself...

If you're interested in Small Form Factor (SFF) stuff, I'd suggest this forum.

> for a very long time

Let's compute this long time, just for fun. Let's see, we've got to assume a bunch of crap before we can compute a specific time for this. Using data from this and this, let's assume that the current largest hard drive size on the market is 180GB with a doubling rate now at 9 months. (The 80s saw 30% growth annually, 60% in the 90s and 130% now.) Unlike processors, which have been steadily doubling every 18 months thanks to Mr. Moore, it appears that the growth rate itself for storage capacity is doubling every 10 years. Go figure.

Let's use this, blow some hot air and molest these numbers a little bit.

180 * 2 ^ p = 8 billion TB

p = periods of doubling = 36

Using a flat constant growth of 130% this would equal to

36 * 9 = 324 months / 12 = 27 years

Now, we see crossed 2 periods of doubling in growth, but can storage technology really experience growths of 260% or 520% annually. I'd have to say not, so I'll just give up computing the time given the growth of the growth right now. That's an assignment left to the reader -- I'd say it has to do with "e".

Anyhow, the reality is:

1) No one will ever read this comment since the article is so far down on the front page.
2) We'll have quantum computers in 10 years that will use unlimited-bit numbers to access unlimited capacity storage devices.

Ok, I'm all babbled out...

Or less

Geforce4 4200 and Radeon 8500 prices. Of course the GF4 4600 starts just shy of $300. Bang for the buck would suggest you buy one of the first 2 unless you really need the speed.

Maybe you just want the extra speed. Ok, go ahead. I'm not telling you what to do.

Geforce4 4200 and Radeon 8500 prices. Of course the GF4 4600 starts just shy of $300. Bang for the buck would suggest you buy one of the first 2 unless you really need the speed.

Maybe you just want the extra speed. Ok, go ahead. I'm not telling you what to do.

Most of this was written to help a friend out, I've updated it to reflect the situation you've discribed. I've included a couple of URL's below that should help in your search for a good Mac for your purposes. It might be worth noting that when you're buying an Apple, it often is a better deal to get a refurbished model and purchase additional AppleCare service agreements. Any reputable dealer will have more information on this for you, if you ask.

Go for MHz over memory. Memory can be added later. Invest in MHz. Also, it seems to be more prudent to buy your memory separately from the computer, for the dealers often use memory to pad the profit margin. For instance, Apple's current rate for 512MB memory on the PowerMac G4 is $300, vs. $71 at a memory retailer. Same thing goes for hard disk drives, though the difference won't be as great, and depending on the model it may be less trouble to buy what they're offering than to do the upgrade yourself. For reference, I have recently found an 80GB 7200RPM drive with an 8MB Buffer for about $114. That's a large, fast drive that surpasses most OEM hardware...

One thing you may want to keep in mind is that Macworld New York is coming up at the end of the month, and Apple may be introducing new hardware, or updating current line-ups at that time. The signs are good, and point to some changes I've been anxiously awaiting for some time now. For instance, Apple recently introduced xServe, which is a rackmount server with a motherboard that uses DDR memory. This change in memory type is an advance that should have been made some time ago, and may percolate down to the non-server models at Macworld NY. If you must buy now, go with the xServe, 1GHz Dual processor: as a professional, it would not be a bad investment. As a home user, it probably isn't suited to your needs, so a tower would be a better choice, but that DDR sure looks yummy!

http://dealmac.com/
Tips on hardware and software deals.

http://dealnn.com/
Tips on hardware and software deals. Different though.

http://www.ramseeker.com/
Good memory prices, provides merchant reviews. Another deal-site, not a retailer.

http://www.powermax.com/
Reasonable retailer, offers new, used and refurbished. Does packages.

http://www.smalldog.com/
http://www.smalldog.com/SmallDogPriceList.txt
Another reasonable retailer, offers new, used and refurbished. Does packages too. Second address is for the pricelist, gives a No BS rundown of the equipment they carry.

Now I've only listed a couple of places here, if you want more let me know. I think you'll notice that the big names (The Apple Store, MacMall, Etc.) aren't listed above, because I figured you could find those easily enough. If you want a list of big guys, email me. They have good deals too sometimes.

Oh, forgot to mention - Apple runs all kinds of rebates and promo's all the time so check their site out for the forms and such. And you don't always have to purchase directly from Apple to qualify, either.

I know I've not answered every specific question, but hopefully you haven't been too swamped with replies at this point and this will help with your purchase.

Good Luck!

PS: I bought an Power Mac G4 450 DP when they were first announced about two years ago, and still use it day-to-day for motion graphics, web development, video work, and fun. I've got 768MB RAM, and am running OS X v. 10.1.5, and my biggest bottleneck at this point is my hard disk drive speed. I will probably be investing in the drive I mentioned above: Western Digital model #WD800JB can be found on PriceWatch.com by searching for "8mb 7200" and if you want the larger model (120GB) look for model #WD1200JB.

With our rapidly increasing HD sizes, backup methods and media aren't keeping up. I've already lost 2 large HD's in the last 2 years, and with my shiny new 80 Gig drives, I've got a Raid-1 setup, but still if they both fail within a short amount of time from each other, I'm outta luck.

Moreover, the advancement of HD tech makes it almost certain that when one fails in a year, I won't be able to get an exact replacement to reload it from the RAID.

Does anyone know of a PRACTICAL way to back up 80 Gig's of info? AHSay.com offers online backups, but the initial backup would take weeks through my ADSL modem, and then incrementals would be pretty much useless. I suppose I could use DVD-RW, but at 4.7 Gig a disk, we're talking 20ish disks, at several hours a piece. And doing incremental backups that way is a nightmare. It seems that my only real option is to use something like a MonsterTape backup storage device, but systems with 80Gig capacities and up START at $4000 a piece, and the tapes are 80 bucks a piece. With 80 gig drives available for $129 bucks (Pricewatch), it doesn't seem like a good option.

The current best fast machine with lots of expandability and a not-outrageous price seems to the be the Shuttle SS40. It's a pretty sexy and silent little box, with firewire to boot. pricewatch suggests this barebones box will run you about $US 350. According to Storage Review, the Seagate Cuda IV is the quietest drive on the market, but the Western Digital JB series are only a bit louder, and their 8mb buffer makes them hella fast. Throw in the fastest Duron or Athlon XP you can get your hands on and some CAS2 DDR, and off you go.

Or you can just go to Smalldog and get the fastest Powerbook G4 you can afford, which serves as a pretty darn good desktop replacement, especially the new one with a 17" LCD attached via the DVI connector (-:.

Given the fact that you want no video, it seems you need servers on the cheap. If you're actually buying thousands (or really more than ten or so) of machines, I suggest you go with an integrator like XRam or Fnord. They'll build whatever you want for you, configure everything EXACTLY the same, test everything, install & do a basic config (i.e. network config and root password) for any OS you want, and install your machines on site. I'm sure the'll give you a nice quantity discount if you buy in the numbers you're talking about.

Don't even THINK about deploying that quantity of machines without racking them in a proper datacenter type environment (cooling, ample redundant AC power feeds, generator, decent physical security, etc.); FORGET about normal PC cases on Ikea shelves in your basement/office. Whatever cash you would save doing it the ghetto way is absolutely not worth the headache of blowing breakers, having your ambient temp at 35-40C and grilling PC parts if your cheap-o electro-cool chiller dies or spills its bin of water all over the place, your local power company decides you're not important, etc.

That being said, here are a few links for what I'd build if I had to do it myself on the cheap (try googlegear.com for good qty. 1 prices on this stuff:

Elite K7S5AL mobo (integrated lan)
1.2 GHz AMD Duron with a really good fan (i.e. Tai-Sol or similar overclocker freak fan)
at least 512M of brand-name CAS2 ECC DDR SDRAM
Western Digital JB series hard drive (WD800JB or WD1200JB)
Netgear FA311 NIC

The cheapest 2u rack case on the net seems to be the Electroseller IPC-2025 at $118 without power supply and fans. It takes nomal ATX size CDRom, floppy, power supply, fans, etc. pricewatch is your friend (-:.

This should net you a pretty sweet 2u rackable server for about $500. I envy not the man that has to assemble more than about 10 of these things by himself. Maybe those chainmail gloves that people that shuck clams for a living use would help.

If you want to do something with the data on these machines, you'll probably want to stick a pair (yes, a pair) of big ethernet switches in front of them. I suggest Foundry or Extreme. You can buy these "certified used" from BizInt.

"Imagine a beow..." (-:

You compare Xeons to XPs and MPs. Fine with me, just don't forget to compare the Xeons with Hammer when it comes out (because Itanium won't stand it). Oh, and check here for a database comparison of Xeons and MPs. Interesting, no? You can check the rest of the article if you absolutely need some charts with a Xeon on top.

Thoroughbred is here now. Where's that 3GHz+ proc? Oh, and here's a link to the report of the 10GHz ALU. Remember, it's not a complete processor, just a small part (Arithmetic and Logic Unit).

For the Hammer, I agree: it's where AMD's future is. But the Tualatin PIII was also doomed from it's conception. As was the PIV 423 platform.

And what's wrong with just keeping the computer together for a couple of years? My dual PII-400 has 3 years this month: never changed the procs (in part because to go higher than 600MHz, I'd have to change the MB because mine doesn't play well with CuMine CPUs). So far for "upgradeability" in the future...

File format longevity is the real killer, though. I have quite a few 5.25" floppy disks with documents that were created in industry-leading formats in the mid-1980s. I would like to retrieve some of them, but I (a) haven't seen a 5.25" floppy drive in years (b) can't find any software that will read those formats. And that is only 17 years! Do you really trust your family's history to the idea that JPEGs, for example, will still be readable in 2102?

Problem A is easily solved: 1.2MB 5 1/4" floppy drives at pricewatch. I'd hurry up if I were you though, the list is short :) I'd bet you could always ebay the software you need too.

Service, Service, Service.

Pray for destructive viruses... They are lucrative. Pray that Microsoft and Apple never get their acts together. Their crap software and hardware generates Lots of service. Thank all the major hardware vendors for all their crap hardware too. Never put a crap power supply, motherboard, CPU cooler or generic memory into a machine you build for sale. It will come back-and service will be on your dime. Never flash a bios for a customer unless you have an Identicle motherboard in stock AND you put the system on battery backup. Check out VIA's Eden platform to build an OEM price undercutting system. Never attempt service on a computer older than PII/Win98SE/SDRAM/FlavoredMac. You will break more than you fix by changing anything in their system. Spend 2 hours a day MINIMUM researching hardware and software online. Learn apply a mechanic's lien to a computer when you put $300 labor into a system and the customer won't pay. Get on a first name basis with your sales rep at each of these places. If your shop is really small, use pricewatch and RESELLER RATINGS.

Oh, hell, I'll bite. How about a 32x12x40 burner for $49 US with free shipping?

I hope that comment sufficed.

> I still think you can't beat a $50 CDR and 0.20 media costs.

That's debatable.
Hard Drives are approaching a dollar a gig.
Check Pricewatch.com sometime. $85 for 80 gigs or $136 for 120 gigs isn't too shaby even if it is a 5400 RPM drive. Besides, if you're doing backups, a 5400 RPM drive is going to be way faster than the fastest burners, and WAY easier to automate.

Last Thanksgiving I actually beat that price.
(60 gig Western Digital for $50 after rebate at bestbuy)

Yes, I do burn my ghost backups to CD, but lately, I'm wondering if it is even worth the effort at the cost of hard drive space.

The cheapest 4.7G dvd drive from pricewatch is $36 which is $7.66/gig. A 60 gig hard drive is only $69 which works out to be $1.15/gig. There just isn't any reason to use DVD for online storage when hard drive space is so cheap. The software raid driver in linux makes these large arrays easy with a trivial amount of hardware behind it.

heres a couple places that i really like

• http://www.pricewatch.com
• http://www.mwave.com
• http://www.augustustech.com

j0sh

I don't think this has been mentioned before. You could try Newegg, Newegg, Newegg, and you might try Newegg too. Oh yeah, and Pricewatch. Surprised no one has brought them up yet... they're pretty big/well known.

Personally, for my uses, I'm use the computer for the latter purpose and have been quite happy running Linux on a cheap Cyrix 300 MHz system. I do lot of surfing, writing, and spreadsheet analysis with StarOffice (actually, I've just upgraded to OpenOffice 1.0). However, I have built a number of systems in the past and have found these links are a must:

Pricegrabber

Pricewatch

CNET's price comparison site

Techbargains (if you are patient enough to wait for that perfect machine to be affordable)

Your time is really worth the money, and when it comes down to it, those cheap systems from Dell, Compgeeks, or Walmart are actually worth the heartache that you may encounter later when you find out that the motherboard you bought has spotty USB support in Windows 98. And if you add up how much you'd spend to make a comparable system, you'll find out that you're only saving a miniscule amount, if that. But again, if you wanted a high-end machine, then building your own will definitely be worth the time and effort to find the right parts and putting them together.

http://www.pricewatch.com is a good starting point, but http://www.newegg.com has really good prices for small stuff. For larger items that shops like to jack the price up on, http://www.tcwo.com is an unbeatable bargain- $6.95 ships anything up to 150 pounds.

Yes, pricewatch rocks, and it's an invaluable tool. The second invaluable site is resellerratings.com. These two sites together rock! I've built about 15 machines so far using these sites, and so far no horror stories.

Like others have mentioned, I've been using newegg a lot lately - they have great prices and great service in my experience.

You can spend some time searching through Pricewatch.

I've been doing this for a custom system for a few months now (over half a year) and
this link has what I'm planning on putting together.

It should be good for sound, games, gfx and coding (all which I do.)

RAM: www.crucial.com
everything else: www.newegg.com

reviews: www.anandtech.com
general price updates: www.pricewatch.com
questions, web boards: www.arstechnica.com

Also, Sysopt has a great site with user reviews of products, if you're not quite sure about X-brand cd-writers, or the newest NVidia video card.

1. First get an idea of how much you can afford to spend.
2. Think a bit about what sort of tasks you want the computer to do. Do you want high end video for gaming? Do you want to build a PVR? Do you want to build a small server to host web/ftp/email services over a broadband connection?
3. Go online and do some research to see what's out there to fulfill the role you envision for the machine. arstechnica, tom's hardware, anandtech, storage review, and other sites usually have good information on recent and upcoming technologies. I do a lot of looking to see what's out there and what's around the corner, then go back and revise my budget accordingly.
4. Decide what you need to buy. I don't generally go for the biggest, fastest, best, because it's generally twice as expensive (or more) as it will be in just a few months. I don't buy the cheapest stuff either, as it's usually of inferior quality, obsolete, or will give inferior performance compared to spending a small amount more on something better. I look at the price/performance curve, and generally buy in the "knee-bend" of the curve. The only exception is if there's something dirt cheap available for a non-critical component that doesn't make much of a difference (like a floppy drive, NIC, or keyboard) or an absolutely critical high-priority component that the system *needs* in order to perform its role adequately (like a GeForce card for a gaming station) or a SCSI controller for a file server.
5. Shop around. You can try pricewatch.com to get an idea what stuff is going for these days. But I find that shipping makes finding a real bargain somewhat difficult. That's especially true if you buy from more than one vendor. I try to go through one vendor, for simplicity's sake, and right now my choice is Newegg.com. They have very good service and their prices are often near the top of the pricewatch search results anyway. You can try local stores, too. Stay away from chains like CompUSA and Best Buy, and support small local businesses run by knowledgable, competant people. Their prices will generally be about twice the lowest you'll find on pricewatch, but you may find the convenience of not paying for shipping, not having to wait for delivery, and having someone to go to for questions and advice useful. If you're more experienced, you probably don't need that, but few people know everything about everything, and everyone you talk to can potentially teach you something.
6. Put it together. There's plenty of guides out there on the web that will go into detailed instructions on how to put a PC together if you need help. PC Mechanic is a good example, and there are many others out there. Read the instructions a few times until you know what you're doing, then do it.

Once you have decided what you want, you can do this for most of your items:

1. Check Pricewatch for lowest prices. (they now include S&H in the total)
2. Check the credibility of the companies with the lowest prices on pricewatch with ResellerRatings.com .
   I cant emphasize this enough. THIS is the most important step.

Other stuff:
You may be interested in special items, like a modded case, or a watercooling setup, these you have to look into yourself and you won't find them on pricewatch. Not necessary to build a computer.

I AGREE! Local shops have always been the best solution for me, be it here in New York City where I now live, or Miami, Philly or D.C., where I've lived before.

In fact, I just built a new system, mostly with parts from a local shop. I preshopped at pricescan, which I think is much better than pricecrotch for accurate low prices. Then, I took price printouts with me to the shop, haggled with the salesman, and got a terrific deal on most of the components I wanted. One thing he didn't have (60GB 7200RPM HDD), I got from Spartan Technologies. And CompUSA had an amazing, unbeatable deal on one other item I wanted (CD-RW).

Before the explosion of the commercial Web, I did the same thing with catalogs or ads from Computer Shopper -- snip 'em and take 'em to the local guy.

I have found that if you buy a box with what you want in it already (or something reasonably close) then you can usually save a lot of money. More so than buying each piece. So what I do is I try to find a system which is really close to what I want and then just order the other parts.

The reason is, is because it is cheaper for the computer place to put it all together than it is to sell the individual parts. Less paperwork, fewer boxes to ship, lower shipping costs, etc.... The company also makes a better profit off of the deal. So they usually pass some of those savings on to the customer. Not all of the savings - but some.

I had not heard of newegg.com before (although I WILL be definitely adding it to my list), but pricewatch, pricegrabber used to be good, and even zdnet.com can help you locate systems and parts.

later.

I'm looking into building a PC myself, and have found that the cheapest way by far is to buy what's called a 'Barebones' system. On pricewatch they are initially listed as 'Kits' but after following the link you seem them called 'Barebones', as all the online super-deal-megastores do. The system will include at least a case, power supply, motherboard, processor, memory, hard drive and 3 1/2, and some flavor of a ROM drive. It can be configured with basically any standard hardware (and occasionally peripherals) that you want...but they never require you to order an M$ OS (or any OS).

With a barebones system, you get the best of all worlds: when you go to order one (at a quality site), you are linked to a form where you customize your barebones PC like you would a DELL, except with many more options.

All of this cuts down the price...plus, since they're building it for you, they get the deal on the hardware for buying bulk, which is passed onto you. Also, they do what's called 'burn-in', which is where they hook up their software-preloaded-testing-hard-drive and make sure it all works, and then as a guarantee they'll tack on a 1 or 2 year warranty (often upgradable). This way, you don't have to put it together yourself and wonder what's not working, and watch all the tech-support point fingers at each other yelling 'it's-not-me-it's-the-other-part'.

If you look a little, you can find a barebones package that can be configured with all the components you wanted anyway, and certainly with any processor. (Be careful though, the default choices on the form often are cheaper in make, but not in price).

I am personally using AccessMicro to build my system. I'm getting an Athlon XP 2100+, Gigabyte KT333 ATA133 RAID-enabled, 512MB DDR 333MHz DDRAM, plus CD-RW, DVD-ROM, 40GB hard drive, floppy, keyboard and mouse, and a sweet, sweet case for under a grand, easy (NOTE: IAN Affiliated). I couldn't have found but a couple parts I want cheaper, and I'll just install those myself...I'm telling you, this is the way to go, save yourself some time.

Check out arstechnica for more information on homebrew PC's. They have a lot of information regarding reviews of components of computer systems, as well as letting people on to deals on new components. Good site.

Other good sites that people mentioned in previous responses are: anandtech and toms hardware for component reviews, and pricegrabber and pricewatch for finding the best prices on things online, and newegg is just a great online company that is very reliable and inexpensive for purchasing lots of electronic/computer components.

Guide to Educated Online Buying

1) http://www.google.com

Your first step should be to research the product/s that you are considering to put in your system. While many products look very appealing a review may shine light on severe problems that you would have never have noticed unless you found out for yourself. There are tons of Tech websites that review products read several so that you are making an educated buy.

2) http://www.pricewatch.com

Pricewatch is hands down the best Street Price finder on the Internet. At pricewatch.com you can find almost anything that you're looking for to build your computer. You should know what OEM, White Box, and Retail mean so that you don't end up with just the product itself and not the box / drivers. Another thing to be aware of is that sometimes the companies set their own warranties. For Example: If you buy a licensed retail version a 3yr warranty is included. If you buy an OEM version the warranty may only be 15days. It's very hard to return a faulty product to a vendor in 15days since most require you to get a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) first. Before you decide to buy please see step 3)....

3) http://bizrate.com/ (especially the: ratings guide

Part of making an educated buy is knowing WHO you are buying from. The business-rating guide is a collection of ratings from users who have bought items from a company. By reading their experiences you can get a better feel of whether or not the company is reputable. This is a very important step, there is nothing worse then getting ripped off by a company that is thousands of miles a way.

4) Brick and Mortar Stores:

Don't forget regular stores. While some stores may not be the most friendly of places (Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, etc.) they do have occasional deals that are much better than anything you'll find online. So keep your eyes on the newspapers for advertisements.

5) Paying Online / Deals That Are Too Good to Be True

Our final step is to pay for the products. Make sure when you pay that the site has some sort of secure buying system. I realize that some companies are run out of their home and might just use PayPal, BillPoint, etc... Just be careful when you're giving out your credit card number.

Deals that are too good to be true: almost always are. Stay away from people who sell $3,000 items for $400 when everyone else on the Internet is selling them for $2299. It will save yourself a lot of time and headaches if you don't fall prey to people who are running scams.

Building your system yourself is definitely the right choice. Not only does it give you the freedom of choosing the right components it also helps you learn just how your computer functions. It's a really fun and exciting process. Enjoy!

sigh... but anyways -- the answer you seek is not short, but can be summerized: it depends on what you want.

lets have a few scenarios:

1) you want the fastest, most elaborate PC there is for whatever compensatory reasons. build you self all-the-way. pricewatch, pricegrabber, gotApex Deals, techbargains, and dealwalk are all fine sites to look for deals. flamingo world have some stuff too. pricewatch and pricegrabber gets you the goods, and the rest of them get you the "deals", for example Dell is selling a 20" flat panel (very nice, i have one) for ~1600 -- yesterday you could have gotten it ~1100. just have to check those places everyday. and oh yeah -- go to overclockers.com and find some people to sell you waterblocks, you will need it.

2) average man wanting an averagely fast computer. build can get you more customization and you can "grow into it" more... for the longest time dell would lock the MB so you can't swap processors! and then you can't tweek the MB on ram settings, blah blah either. price is similar if you go and find a good deal. a P4 2GHz can be had at dell for ~600 bux -- no way you can beat that, sorry, especially if you are in CA and have to pay tax+shipping for everybody from pricewatch.

3) your mom/dad. buy one -- in fact, buy one used -- or even better, sell them one of your old, "retired" ones.

4) laptop users -- buy -- because there is no options here. but today unless you are really into water cooling and all that, a laptop gives you the same speed / blah blah anyway. i have a UXGA on my laptop -- sure i have to squint when i look at things, but whatever. p.s. get a good vid.card if you buy a laptop: they are not upgradeable -- however if you are REALLY desperate you can get processors for laptops (micro-PGA) from ebay.

in the end -- for what we want to do (fast system, blah blah) building does not save money. but it's like hotrodding. i have gotten out of the gig a while back (o/c, etc etc) and wont turn back. it's just too much trouble. my laptop has 64M vid.mem and can run most of the games i need it to (and if it really runs bad, it's just a productivity killer anyway). i hope the sites listed in (1) helps -- they are the better ones i can come up with. and have fun -- and last thing. save the reciepts! if you build yourself you WILL, by laws of probabbility, have crap happen and you will know good and well what's an RMA *real* fast.

lastly -- to make everything work out by building -- you will be continously upgrading your hardware. which means
1) you need to recompile the kernel a lot / reinstall windows a lot
2) know ebay like the back of your hand. this is probabbly the only way you have a system that mostly works, does not cost you TOO bad, and you won't have tons of spare parts lying around.

so is it worth it?... well? what is "having a customized PC" worth to ya?

I am currently in the same situation.

First, you have to figure what you want to buy. Read reviews suchs as Tom's Hardware and Anandtech (to name a couple).

Second, get an idea of the minimum cost by searching pricewatch.

Third, find a vendor to buy from:

Pricewatch: I have been burned by the cheaper companies before, so I make sure they have a good return policy.

Large Internet Suppliers: I usually end up buying things from amazon or buy.com (who are now starting to sell components), there are also huge component stores like newegg.com.

Local: But I've found the best service comes from local reatilers, because you can get the part replaced or exchanged the same day. It is up to you and how much time you want to spend.

This topic is going to create some huge flamebait.

vossman

As someone already pointed out PriceWatch.Com and others are great for finding the best prices on components. But before that you need to know what to look for. Personally, I find Tom's Hardware to be a stellar source of information on what to buy. And it is geared to the do-it-yourself'er. There are others in this vein as well. Lastly, there is the tried and true realm of hard printed matter. Namely Computer Shopper. Though it doesn't seem to be what it used to... Enjoy.

So sure, you can like the other folks have already mentioned, use pricewatch, pricegrabber, even mysimon to find good prices on QUALITY components. But don't buy cheapie stuff--the best part of building your own system is that you can use quality parts and get it done for the same price as a system manufacturer might with cheap stuff!

But then you go to a store with a good reputation, such as Dell, NewEgg, Buy.com, etc. to buy all the stuff at a higher price. The best part is when you whip out the Amex Gold card to pay for it. Then you call American Express up and tell them that you found all these items for cheaper at other websites (referencing your searches above). They kindly cut you a check for the difference.

This way, you get the best price and the best service. Ahh how wonderful.

Details on doing Amex pricematching are here which is a link on www.xpbargains.com. XPBargains is a very cool site by the way.

Before you buy from ANYWHERE, check out ResellerRatings. You may not thank yourself (or me :-) later, but at least you won't be cursing yourself and the fly by night vendor that screwed you. Just remember to keep in mind: People (in general) are much more likely to bitch about bad service than praise good service.

That said, I've been really happy with NewEgg for equipment. For some higher end (or rather specific) cooling equipment, 2CoolTek is really good. Crucial is great if you're looking for high-quality RAM. PCBoost has never given me any trouble when dealing with less expensive RAM. And everyone and their brother will mention Pricewatch. :-) And although they aren't always the cheapest, Axiontech has always treated me right as well.
People have said good things about MWave, but I ordered a pair of NICs from them a while ago and they shipped in an old motherboard box without any padding -- rattling around loosely! Luckily they both worked.

But these are just MY experiences -- yours may vary.

Let someone else take the risk of screwing up a motherboard and needing to buy a new one. Retail vs. wholesale's a pretty small margin, it's not worth it to me -- especially since I've got a small work area.

I'll use pricewatch or Yahoo shopping to get upgrade parts, though.. no problem.

Two sites that I look at often are TigerDirect.com and PriceWatch.com. They both have great deals, and many products available.

Orange

One thing I've always noticed is that building your own box is much cheaper than purchasing one if you want a really high end box. For example, I have a dual 1GHz P3, 1GB RAM, SCSI RAID, and a bunch of other stuff on it. I priced a similar system from Dell, IBM, and a couple of other companies and the cheapest I found it for was $3500. I built it myself and it only cost $1700. BIG difference in price. For entry level machines, though, companies like Gateway and Dell offer much better values. As far as where to purchase components, I recommend buying a very good motherboard. Companies like Abit or Asus are what I would recommend. Other than that, you could use Pricewatch to locate the cheapest parts online. I'd go with brand names, but find the best deal you can. (i.e., look for names like Seagate, Western Digital for hard drives, etc. Not just any old name) If you do that, you'll get a great quality box at a great price. SN

I build a lot of custom systems for people because I promise high quality parts at a competitive costs to computer vendors.

What I basically find is you have two typical users. The Power Users and the Economy Users.

Your Power Users usually tend to want the latest and greatest parts with the top of the line hardware, all name brand, and want to be able to boast the parts they have in there (ie: VisionTek GeForce4, Asus Motherboard.. things of that nature). Custom machines fit this bill perfectly.

Economy Users are the people who just see the computer as a tool and plan on using it to prepair their taxes and reports for the next five years. Their main concern ? Warranty, Part Replacement and Technical Support. For people like this, you pretty much have no choice but to turn to companies like Dell, Gateway or even Compaq to have their major brand names behind the systems. I'm a big fan of Dell and their Warranty/Support.

This is of course if you don't wish to hand out your cell phone number or if you loath nagging for RMA's as much as I do.

If you're looking for a good site for computer part prices your #1 choice should be PriceWatch. This site is a database of the lowest hardware prices on the Internet.

Hope this Helped!

Companies last such a short amount of time, and their quality changes so rapidly, that it's not worth bothering with trying to get a relationship with your average low-cost budget joint.

So I just find out which company is the cheapest at that particular moment in time and order parts from there. An acceptable alternative is to find the best place to get the most expensive part and then see how they stack up for the rest of the parts.

If you try this approach, make sure that you get total name-brand stuff. Hence you want real Mushkin/Corsair/etc. memory where the module and the chips are name brand. Bad memory can cause system instability really easily, so don't scrimp there. Get an ASUS/ATi/Matrox/VisionTek/etc. big-brand card instead of whatever Jaton or other generic crap they are trying to sell instead. Check about the waranty for the "white box" OEM parts. If there's no waranty for the white box components, get a retail box component with a waranty instead.

Check things with a fine-tooth comb when you receive them. Assemble the system entirely as soon as you have the parts, not a month down the line when you get the time. And make sure that you purchase everything with a real credit card (NOT a debit card)

http://pricewatch.com/

There is no sinlge best "place," but a good start is of course, pricewatch, which compares a large number of online retailers.

Computer shows in your area are also a good bet, as small outfits will put together a barebones for less than even pricewatch can most of the time.

Finally, try "hot deals" forums like anandtech and fatwallet. They have decent coupon/rebate deals you can use locally or online to snag some great cheap accesories.

Hope that helps!

I use Pricewatch in conjuntion with ResellerRatings to find the best prices on hardware from reputable companies.