MR GATES, DO YOU EXPECT US HOME USERS TO BUY MORE THAN ONE LICENSE AT $200-BS!

P4 3.0Ghz
2 Gigs ram
4 120GB IDE Drives.
2 Seagate 60GB IDE drives
Maxtor IDE controller
5 Seagate 18GB 10,000 RPM SCSI drives in RAID 5
SCSI HotSwap Backplane.
Floppy drive with 6 integrated memory card readers.
Adaptec Raid controller.
650 watt power supply
Sony DVD
Sony DVD Burner
Iomega Zip 100
12 80mm fans
1 120mm fan
DigiDoc 5 LCD controller
4 cold cathode lights.
SuperMicro SC760-a chassis

OS:
DOS 6.22
Windows XP Pro
Windows 98
Mandrake Linux 8
SCO OpenServer 5.6

This is just off the top of my head, there are
a lot of other "extras" that have been added, like round IDE cable
and such but I can't think of all of them off hand (not with it at the
moment)
If you purchased everything at retail, starting with a PC and adding
everything that
you could not get from the dealer, it actually comes to far more then
$4,000.00.
The SCSI drives alone where retailing for over $350.00 apiece.


"Lorne Smith" wrote in message
...
You built a workstation for just under $3k?? Hmmm... remind me NOT to shop
from you!! Curious... what on earth was in it to cost that much???

"SunSpot" wrote in message
...
Not what I have been seeing.
I build systems all the time and it costs me a lot less to buy and
assemble
them then purchasing them ready made.
For example, I built myself a server that had a comparable list price of
$9,000.00.
It only cost me $2,800.00 to build.
My workstation would have cost $4,500.00 easily, but I built it for less
then $3,000.00


"Papa" wrote in message
...
Well, from experience I will have to disagree. If one does a detailed
price
comparison of a high end build-your-own system (purchasing the parts
as
cheaply as possible) versus a pre-assembled high end system with the
OS
installed, the pre-assembled systems are invariably less expensive -
and
more often than not, considerably so.

Regards.

"Michael Stevens" wrote in message
...
Papa wrote:
And that is why computer hobbyist who build their own PCs are
rapidly
disappearing. It's no longer cost effective. You can't possibly
buy
the individual parts, plus the OS, for anything close to the price
of
a commercially built system with the OS pre-installed. It was fun
while it lasted.


It is still fun and cheaper if you are building high end systems
that
the
price of a full version of XP is the least of the concerns. You are
right
about an entry level system, it is cheaper to purchase a system from
Dell,
HP, Sony, etc. than to build a comparable system.
--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

"Mike Brannigan [MSFT]" wrote in
message ...

snip

The price of our products to
OEMs is always different then to the retail channel.
You can buy a $500 dollar PC with an operating system that retail
costs $200. The bare hardware in that PC costs more then $400 so
the OEMs do get a reduced price (for many varied reasons).
Product Activation in OEM versions of Windows and Office ca be
removed from the user perspective and is not visible to anyone,
as
we can use what is often referred to as "BIOS Locked" in that the
product does not need to activate as it is locked to the BIOS of
the
PC it is installed to.

Product Activation and new pre-loaded PCs

All that in a workstation? Sheesh!! That'd make a pretty meaty server!

"SunSpot" wrote in message
...
P4 3.0Ghz
2 Gigs ram
4 120GB IDE Drives.
2 Seagate 60GB IDE drives
Maxtor IDE controller
5 Seagate 18GB 10,000 RPM SCSI drives in RAID 5
SCSI HotSwap Backplane.
Floppy drive with 6 integrated memory card readers.
Adaptec Raid controller.
650 watt power supply
Sony DVD
Sony DVD Burner
Iomega Zip 100
12 80mm fans
1 120mm fan
DigiDoc 5 LCD controller
4 cold cathode lights.
SuperMicro SC760-a chassis

OS:
DOS 6.22
Windows XP Pro
Windows 98
Mandrake Linux 8
SCO OpenServer 5.6

This is just off the top of my head, there are
a lot of other "extras" that have been added, like round IDE cable
and such but I can't think of all of them off hand (not with it at the
moment)
If you purchased everything at retail, starting with a PC and adding
everything that
you could not get from the dealer, it actually comes to far more then
$4,000.00.
The SCSI drives alone where retailing for over $350.00 apiece.


"Lorne Smith" wrote in message
...
You built a workstation for just under $3k?? Hmmm... remind me NOT to
shop
from you!! Curious... what on earth was in it to cost that much???

"SunSpot" wrote in message
...
Not what I have been seeing.
I build systems all the time and it costs me a lot less to buy and
assemble
them then purchasing them ready made.
For example, I built myself a server that had a comparable list price
of
$9,000.00.
It only cost me $2,800.00 to build.
My workstation would have cost $4,500.00 easily, but I built it for
less
then $3,000.00


"Papa" wrote in message
...
Well, from experience I will have to disagree. If one does a
detailed
price
comparison of a high end build-your-own system (purchasing the parts
as
cheaply as possible) versus a pre-assembled high end system with the
OS
installed, the pre-assembled systems are invariably less expensive -
and
more often than not, considerably so.

Regards.

"Michael Stevens" wrote in message
...
Papa wrote:
And that is why computer hobbyist who build their own PCs are
rapidly
disappearing. It's no longer cost effective. You can't possibly
buy
the individual parts, plus the OS, for anything close to the
price
of
a commercially built system with the OS pre-installed. It was
fun
while it lasted.


It is still fun and cheaper if you are building high end systems
that
the
price of a full version of XP is the least of the concerns. You
are
right
about an entry level system, it is cheaper to purchase a system
from
Dell,
HP, Sony, etc. than to build a comparable system.
--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

"Mike Brannigan [MSFT]" wrote in
message ...

snip

The price of our products to
OEMs is always different then to the retail channel.
You can buy a $500 dollar PC with an operating system that
retail
costs $200. The bare hardware in that PC costs more then $400
so
the OEMs do get a reduced price (for many varied reasons).
Product Activation in OEM versions of Windows and Office ca be
removed from the user perspective and is not visible to anyone,
as
we can use what is often referred to as "BIOS Locked" in that
the
product does not need to activate as it is locked to the BIOS
of
the
PC it is installed to.

Product Activation and new pre-loaded PCs