Dell vs. Build It Yourself (part 1)
I posted a couple of weeks back about the spec for a media center box that I’m building. I’ve got most of the parts now and am building the machine soon (still waiting on the case) although initially I’m going to use it as a workstation machine rather than media-center.
While figuring this out I thought it would be interesting to compare what I was purchasing to an equivalent Dell machine. For years I always built my own PCs (before that I bought Macs). Then I realized probably back in 1998 or 1999 that certain Dell configurations were such great deals that it never made sense to built it yourself, just buy the crazy discounted Dell and upgrade whatever parts you needed to.
Starting a bit more than a year ago the Dell machines stopped being the same good deal. It pretty much can be traced to the introduction of the XPS line. The XPS were the “high end” machines, but never had good discounts. Initially the non-XPS machines could still be had at 40% off (some inflated price) but were available in configurations that either started out high-end or could be upgraded. For example one of my machines was initially a 2.4ghz P4 Dell that I upgraded to the 3.6ghz cpu later. Because Dell offered the same model with the 3.6ghz chip, I knew the upgrade was possible. Lately however Dell has gotten rid of anything remotely high end in any model line but the XPS so the choices haven’t been as good if you want anything beyond basic performance.
To quickly review the specs on the machine I just bought
CPU: Intel Q6600- 4x 2.4ghz 1033mhz bus. $290
Motherboard: Asus P5K Deluxe. $220
Case: Zalman HD-135 Media Case. ~$275
Power Supply: Zalman Ultra-Quiet 500W $119
Memory: 2GB (1GBx2) DDR2 800mhz PC6400 CAS4 ~$99
Video: Gigabyte GF 8600GTS Silentpipe3- $183
TV Tuner: AverMedia MTVPEMCER- $104
DVD Burner: Sony Optiarc 18X DVD+R 8X SATA- $33
Hard Drive: Seagate 750GB $199.
Total is $1522 for a fully functional system.
Add Windows Vista Premium for $115 for a total of $1637.
So today I went shopping on the Dell site. Things had improved quite a bit since the last time I checked- go figure that the pricing changes are a bit harder to anticipate there, but they do show up. There was some strange CPU pricing still- the dual-core 2.66ghz CPU was $100 more than a quad-core 2.4ghz CPU, but I think they just hadn’t fixed things up since the Intel price cuts.
I first tried to compare to the Dell XPS 210. Since my machine will be in a medium-low profile case, this was the most equivalent case that they provided. The bad news is there was no way to get a XPS 210 to an equivalent configuration. They didn’t offer any quad-core CPUs for it (for no particular reason), only offered a 500gb drive maximum and only have crappy video choices. The total still worked out to $1728.
The XPS 410 was a much closer comparison. I managed to spec one out that was just about equivalent. Same CPU, same GPU, same hard-drive. The only deficiencies in the Dell were that the TV Tuner card is less powerful, the power supply is only 375 watts (which is probably fine) and there is one less PCIex1 slot. That configuration worked out to only $1499 which is a pretty good deal- compare it to $1522 or $1637 depending on whether you want to include the price of Windows (which the Dell does include).
The plus side for the Dell is that it includes support. Of course at this price its only the 1-year basic support. Up that to the 3-year premium support and even with the discounts that adds the price is still $1698.
The down-side is that the Dell case is really poor compared to the one I’m getting. Almost $400 of my price is going to the case and power supply, with the goal of a low noise, low-profile (135mm high so it can fit in my cabinet which is only 170mm clearance), high quality case. The Dell cases are OK, but they are nothing special and in any case the XPS 410 is 18.75cm wide so it would not fit where I want it. Its pretty easy to get a decent home-built case for $99 (there are some with power-supplies for as little as $19.99 on NewEgg).
In the end the prices are both in the same ballpark and the trade-off is flexibility vs. having someone else to deal with the problems that might happen. Now, Dell support for laptops has been great, but I’m not so sure how well it would work out if I had a problem with a desktop. Mostly desktop machines are reliable enough that its safe to put aside $200 and if something breaks, you just order a new one. None of the parts except the CPU are much more than $200 and if that broke there are likely going to be better ones available for $200. For me the hassle of following up on a warranty / RMA return is rarely worth the cost of the item so its easier to just buy another one.
Which brings up another point- one of the nice aspects of going the home-built route is that you can pretty much get premium parts all around. Thanks to Dell keeping up the price pressure, its possible to stick with the good reputation name brands and the results can be pretty good- these guys tend to keep their drivers up to date and the failure rates tend to be low. With the Dell you don’t know who is actually making all the bits and pieces, and Dell has to update the drivers which often creates a big lag. Its usually not a big problem since anything causing big reliability problems will get addressed (if its generating support calls for Dell).
Next step- I’ll report some results from my build.
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