John W. Colby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Tue Oct 19 14:21:30 CDT 2004
Gustav, I have purchased exactly one machine in my whole life, a zeos 386-20 back in 1988. Since that time I have always either upgraded or built from scratch. I have experience paying too much money for not enough machine. I also have experience building much more powerful machines than I can afford to buy from the IBMs of this world. It sounds like you don't have experience on both sides of that fence. Building certainly isn't for everyone, and from talking with my friends in Europe, building isn't as cost effective over there anyway. But in the US it can be a great way to save thousands of dollars. I do not build systems for clients, I send them to Dell or someplace similar, but that doesn't mean I have to do that. Contrary to popular belief, building a system, even from scratch is NOT a tough job. Of course I spend time researching what I want, processors, chipsets, motherboards, video cards etc. but I find that satisfying. I read reviews on all the pieces and I carefully select those vendors that I have high confidence in. OTOH, don't you do the same when you go to buy a prebuilt system? It is no doubt a little scary to spend $600 on a bunch of parts, that first time you do it. Opening the boxes, wondering if it is going to work when it is put together. But the actual building is simply not difficult. I have done this since 1990 (and even back in the late 70s and early 80s when I actually BUILT (from scratch, soldering iron in hand) the pieces and parts). In the latest round of updates, I built from scratch or upgraded 3 machines and out of all the parts I purchased, one DIMM memory was bad and had to be sent back. I can't remember ever RMAing a part since I moved back to the US from Mexico other than that one. This stuff is so simple that young teenagers do it. In this case I would say YOU get what you pay for. I get MORE than I pay for, which is exactly the reason I do it and I highly recommend doing this. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: http://folding.stanford.edu/ -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 2:38 PM To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Desktop recommendation Hi John > ROTFL. There's a guy with too much money! Not really. But my first IntelliStation lived for 5.5 years without a glitch. You get what you pay for. > Do that with your IBM Gustav. Well, I wouldn't, as that would leave me with one not-up-to-the-mark machine and some garbage, while buying a new will leave me with one up-to-the-mark machine and a good old machine useful for something else like a spare, a gift or a test server for an SQL engine or a mail server or a web server or a Novell or Linux file/print server. I'm absolutely convinced that upgrading machines with anything else than disk and ram or some common accessories won't pay off as it will lead you into a never ending upgrade path which simply doesn't pay off in the long run. Also, buying a new machine enables you to have the old machine running while you configure the new; and when done, you still have the old as a spare for some weeks should any surprise show up with the new. /gustav _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com