General rant about hardware prices

[supersunbird]

No, you are getting a extreme PC, not the most extreme, but still extreme, R2000 motherboard, R1000 powersupply, R1600 case. If you get top of the line stuff expect to pay for it, the top of the line always comes at a premium, you dont get a BMW for a Hyundai price now do you?

I could sell a reasonable office machine (2.66 Celeron D, 80GB HDD, 512MB RAM, DVD Writer) for R2900. A good gaming system for R6000.

The prices arent getting more, the P3 1GHz cost R8500 when it came out, prices have rises slightly cause of the recent R1 exchange rate drop, thats to be expected...

 

[LethalChicken]

just off the top of your head, what would be in a R6000 good gaming system?

 

[nocilah]

ok, so tell me if I'm going overboard here ... this is what I'm looking to make up the almost 15k

Core 2 Doe (E6300 - lowest end of core 2 duo) - R2300
DDR2 2GB - R650 per gig - R1300
975X Mobo - (to support the Core 2 Duo) - R2000
3x 250GB HDD - R700 each - R2100
DVD Writer - R350
7900GT Gfx - R2900
Good 500W Power - R1000
Server Case (P180) - R1600
Thermal compound, cleaner and adabtors - R200

Total: R13750

So maybe an overkill on the case - but I want quiet with airflow, maybe overkill on 7900GT - a bit of future proofing. The HDD I want to stick with as I run oracle on that PC as well as other propriety apps so I need to spread the HDD load. Power supply I'm not going to compromise on as thats where most PC's get damaged.

SO if I go down to a 7600GT (R1700) and take a normal case (R300)

We are still on about R11,000 for a not very 'extreme' PC

Dude no matter how you look at it that is extreme. The normal office pc has about an 80Gb drive, some cheap celeron chip and onboard sound and video. Perhaps your order is not the best PC on earth but it certainly is a high end PC which is deserving of the high end price tag.

 

[nocilah]

just off the top of your head, what would be in a R6000 good gaming system?

hrm - a sony play station

 

[supersunbird]

R6000: Single core 3800+ (2,4GHz), Foxconn Geforce 6150 motherboard, 2GB DDR400, 320GB Seagate HDD, DVD Writer, XFX Geforce 7600GT, onboard sound with 2.1 Logitech.

 

[nocilah]

R6000: Single core 3800+ (2,4GHz), Foxconn Geforce 6150 motherboard, 2GB DDR400, 320GB Seagate HDD, DVD Writer, XFX Geforce 7600GT, onboard sound with 2.1 Logitech.

eek not logitech speakers :/

Damn but that is a good price

 

[supersunbird]

eek not logitech speakers :/

Damn but that is a good price

It doesnt include a monitor though...

 

[nocilah]

It doesnt include a monitor though...

heh - last time i upgraded my PC it cost me about R2000. If i had included a LCD screen it would have pushed the price to about R3000.

But wasnt bad:
1x M/b
1x GFX card 6600GT
1.5GB DDR RAM
1x AMD64 2800+

Granted not an uber system but bearing in mind these were my previous specs
amd1800XP 512Mb Ram and geforce440mx

Hard drives i always treat seperate cuz i need a lot of storage and i found the best solution is 250Gb system drive +250Gb secondary drive and then i have tonnes of external drives for sotrage needs. Last count was inthe region of 1.5TB space and i am still running low

 

[supersunbird]

The 250's were the price/storage sweet spot, now its the 320's. (R2,68 per gig/2.59 per gig)

 

[ShockG]

Someone earlier said the american companies save for ATI charge a lot more than their eastern counter parts, but that is not true.

South Bridge R&D isn't even a factor as from CPU dataheets you already know what you need and how to implement it.
A south bridge hardly houses 10million gates, compared to an Intel Core2 that is the other side of 260million. The cost of that R&D is at least 26X that of a southbridge if not more.

Hardly any maufacturing is done in America (except for AMD's new Fab in NY) almost all of it is done either in Germany or the far eastern countries. In Fact Charter is also manufacturing AMD CPUs. Both ATI and Nvidia are fabless companies who have their semiconductors made at TSMC (Taiwan), UMC, Fairchild etc...

Technology does actually get cheaper contrary to what many believe.
When GF6 ultra came out, it was the height of insanity. For the first time prices broke the $499 virtual ceiling. Some cards going for close to $600 if not more. Fast forward today to a 7950GX2. You can find these for $539. Thats at least 3~3.5X the power, at least 3X the gate count and twice the complexity for $39 more.

Or look at a 7900GT, still much muh faster than 68UE but costing half the price (some 7900s cost $249)

Now a quality fridge from 2000 like that LG fridge with a TFT/internet access was R80K, bet you today its still R80K.

 

[nocilah]

Now a quality fridge from 2000 like that LG fridge with a TFT/internet access was R80K, bet you today its still R80K.

and it cant even make coffee...

 

[LethalChicken]

Those internet appliences just make me want to cry. The bloody americans have a 10mbs line to their REFRIGERATOR and our web orientated development company with 10 pple in south africa has a 512k line to the office.

That is just so wrong !

 

[werner]

Someone earlier said the american companies save for ATI charge a lot more than their eastern counter parts, but that is not true.

South Bridge R&D isn't even a factor as from CPU dataheets you already know what you need and how to implement it.
A south bridge hardly houses 10million gates, compared to an Intel Core2 that is the other side of 260million. The cost of that R&D is at least 26X that of a southbridge if not more.

Hardly any maufacturing is done in America (except for AMD's new Fab in NY) almost all of it is done either in Germany or the far eastern countries. In Fact Charter is also manufacturing AMD CPUs. Both ATI and Nvidia are fabless companies who have their semiconductors made at TSMC (Taiwan), UMC, Fairchild etc...

yeah, that was me, and I made mention that they dont use their own fabs. And a southbridge is but one chip on a motherboard...we know that
I still feel my argument is valid, the american companies charge what the market will bear, whereas the far east charge what it is worth.
R+D costs are astronomical and are the #1 reason that top end stuff is pricy.

 

[ShockG]

That may not always be the case.
XBOX360 is cheaper than PS3. PS3 is Japanese, XBOX is from an American company.

I don't though believe it has really anything to do with the nationality of the company. Eg is Nvidia CEO and founder is Japanese JHS

 

[Ekhaatvensters]

I don't though believe it has really anything to do with the nationality of the company. Eg is Nvidia CEO and founder is Japanese JHS

Except that Asian people get to use thier crappy nations child labour to make your goods. Smells so much better when you can almost feel teh sweat of a 10 year old on your new T-shirt..

Yep.. thast good old fashion family racism.

 

[flarkit]

ok, so tell me if I'm going overboard here ... this is what I'm looking to make up the almost 15k

Core 2 Doe (E6300 - lowest end of core 2 duo) - R2300
DDR2 2GB - R650 per gig - R1300
975X Mobo - (to support the Core 2 Duo) - R2000
3x 250GB HDD - R700 each - R2100
DVD Writer - R350
7900GT Gfx - R2900
Good 500W Power - R1000
Server Case (P180) - R1600
Thermal compound, cleaner and adabtors - R200

Total: R13750

So maybe an overkill on the case - but I want quiet with airflow, maybe overkill on 7900GT - a bit of future proofing. The HDD I want to stick with as

Good selection there, IMO. I'm not an Intel fan, so I don't know if the combination of mobo and CPU are optimal, but it should at the least perform well enough.

The 7900GT is my first choice for a well-performing, cost-effective gaming setup.

I like Antec's quality, but the P180 is a little to flashy for its price IMO. For a plain server case, I'd either go for something like the Antec Titan or TX1050B (includes an Antec SP500 PSU for about R1,500). There's the respectable Cooler Master Centurian too.

Lastly, why 3x 250Gb drives, rather than 2x400Gb?

 

[LethalChicken]

the 250GB drives are R680 while the 400GB drives are R1450, so there is a big diffrence.

Also I'm a big believer in splitting OS / Data / Apps onto three physical drives.

The problem with this PC is that it will mainly be used for working from home, but I do occasionally want to open up WoW or soem other game.

And from what I see price wise, that makes it expensive.

 

[ShockG]

Except that Asian people get to use thier crappy nations child labour to make your goods. Smells so much better when you can almost feel teh sweat of a 10 year old on your new T-shirt..

Yep.. thast good old fashion family racism.

Sometimes its a good idea to read.
That there's child labour in some Asian countries does not mean its in all of them. And its not in all industries. These are not traiiners here, its computer parts.
That is a rather racist thing to say and rather pathetic too as you clearly have no clue what you're on about.
Which poor abused child do you know of that works at DFI/Asus/Abit/FOXCONN/EPOX /Gigabyte etc..?
These production lines have sensitive equipment by and large and whoever works there has to know what they are doing because one short circuit and a mobo/gfx card etc... is dead.
Which fabs do you know of use child labour, VIA?
You sir are a champion of idiots, you should rather keep quiet if you have no idea what is being discussed. I know this is directed at you and is personal, but your post is rather moronic and quiet personal also.

 

[JTech]

I still feel my argument is valid, the american companies charge what the market will bear, whereas the far east charge what it is worth.
R+D costs are astronomical and are the #1 reason that top end stuff is pricy.

Your argument is valid... Yanks are horribly overpriced and they will not hesitate to rip people off... The Chinese on the other hand have better business models, that is why they're considered a threat now.

FYI:

* VIA is a fabless semiconductor company

* Child labour was used in some extents, particularly in manufacture of things like cellphone boards. A colleague of mine was in China in 2002 and he observed that they use children to assemble Siemens cellphone boards, without using pick-and-place machines to cut costs. Subsequent international pressure has eliminated this somewhat and they now hire people in the 16-18+ age bracket.

* We run a production line here, and the only thing sensitive about it is the fact that we need to be mindful of static electricity. We have labourers that just screen paste onto the board and load it into the in tray, the machines do the rest, including making sure placement is aligned to extremely high accuracies so shorts cannot happen. The machines spit a completed board out at the other end which is passed for testing. The only other task our staff do is re-load the machines when the reels/tubes become empty. The Chinese have access to this kind of technology easily and are world-class in this field.

A case of the pot calling the kettle black it seems....

 

[ShockG]

And yet you miss the point again.
Is the whole eastern world China?
What a narrow minded way to lok at a geographical region.

And onece again I emplore you too Jtech to actually find out what's happening.
What your mate saw in CHina in 2002 has nothing to do with Japan, Taiwan, Korea etc...

Cell phones are not what is under discussion here. How you draw a comparison between a Siemens phone and a motherboard from gigabyte is beyond comprehension.

That VIA is a fabless company is general knowledge (sorry I should have said lab), heck I was a ViaArena bastard for a long time until they bought Cyrix, then S3 (SonicBlue) and thina started going downhill...
Most semiconductor companies are fabless, save for the larger ones like TI, Intel & AMD etc...

Where are you getting ripped off?
That a GF8 is going to cost you $499 when R&D is close to $500 million is not what I call a rip-off. Go to Silicon Valley and see for yourself. That place is full of Asian people, all working R&D. Most R&D takes place in the U.S, but production in the east.

How do you compare these two at all?
Is there a Desktop CPU that's designed in the east? gfx core?

I really don't see what you're on about here.
One designs the product, the other than produces the product.
Where child labour comes into it only you two know.
:/