PCA Forums

Wow, I just bought my sister a new computer for under $500. She already had a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, but everything else is brand new.

It really makes me sick to my stomach to think of all I have spent over the years. Hell, my first memory upgrade was an 8 MB of DRAM and it cost $250. That was a HELL of a deal, at the time. RAM was going for $50/MB, and I got lucky and found a guy selling some on the local BBS (anyone else remember fidonet?).

I guess I just have the "upgrades are cheap, but I ain't got no money" blues.

In fact they're getting so cheap that it's almost not worth the bother of building them yourself anymore, at least not for other people IMO. The only real advantage of the home built PC now is that you have better choices on the parts after you've done your homework but for your average PC home user, it's no longer costly to buy a new one that's good enough for them as is. Most people I meet aren't serious gamers or PC Abusers either. Many still don't really seem to understand how to use the internet but are happy with just e-mail (which doesn't require a PC now).

I now can't believe what I paid for my first and only store bought PC, a P100mhz POS PC over 5 yrs ago.

dont make fun of the p100's heck that is what i am running now, well cause im sorta to cheap to buy anything else

I've been sending a lot of clients to Dell lately.

They don't make a big deal about it, but Dell sells refurbs for very good prices, and they give you a 1 year warranty with the option to extend it to 3 years.

i build my computers for quite a few reasons, mainly the price and the fact that i know what everything is and where it is in my system when i need to make repairs or adjustments

ido homemade cause i dont upgrade everythign atonce and know I can upgrade what ever I wantwhen ever I want...and it doesnt void a warrenty I would care about.

but for some yes PC's are priced extreamly well right now.

Greg

The killer is that for less than you can build a box, you can buy one with WINDOWS INCLUDED!!! If you got the legal route, you will pay ~$140 for an OEM XP Pro license on top of the components. It's so I advise people who aren't "hardcore" to just go to Beast Buy or Dell or whatever and get a machine with a warranty and tech support.

I'll keep building my own because I like having control over EVERY piece that goes into the box, but it gets annoying at times.

it is amazing how cheap they are - a buddy at the office grabbed one of those hp 667 celery rigs from the geeks for like $237 and actually got it in 3 days.

i've been buying parts from dell ! of all places - got an 8500 for @215 and a 19" Nec for $211 shipped.

with ram prices going back up mebbe i can sell a bunch of my extra stuff and recoup some of my ....umh...required upgrade costs

I know a guy that paid close to $2100 for an HP almost exactly like that less than 12-14 months ago. Incredible. Needless to say he ant the sharpest knife in the drawer. I think he got suckered into one of those 3 year MSN deals too when he bought it.