Marine Aquarium 3 Rumors and Speculation

[Marian Nichols]

If memory serves, I think Jim went on broadband sometime ago.

[Jim Sachs]

DSL in California, and cable modem here in Oregon.

[jleslie]

Surely you could paint little fish pictures on Abacus beads?

(Not that I'm sugesting the 8500 is a bad idea...)

[Jim Sachs]

The computer builder assures me that this is the most cost-effective system for my needs. It's still nearly $1000, even with the bare minimum DVD-ROM (no writer), minimum hard drive, only on-board sound, no monitor, and cheapest case.

[grape_jellyfish]

I remember when computers were much higher than that and could do much less.

[Jim Sachs]

It just bugs me that the discount stores around here have machines with DVD-burners, big hard drives and monitors for much less than I'm paying for my bare-bones unit. Just the reasonably fast CPU and video card REALLY jacked up the price. A year from now, they'll seem slow.

[Yodelking]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

It just bugs me that the discount stores around here have machines with DVD-burners, big hard drives and monitors for much less than I'm paying for my bare-bones unit. Just the reasonably fast CPU and video card REALLY jacked up the price. A year from now, they'll seem slow.  

Well, the price difference between DVDrom and DVD-burner is almost nothing, and the price/GB is quite low aswell on HD's, but you have to draw the line somewhere...
I look forward to hear how it all works out on the new computer.

[feldon34]

$1k sounds very high for no DVD burner. DVD burners are $30-40.

[Jim Sachs]

Antec 350-watt case......................$75.60
Asus M2N AM2 DDR2 A/G/SR.............$129.60
AMD AM2 DC X2 4600+ Windsor.........$180.00
Corsair 1GB DDR2 800mhz XMS..........$128.25
Sony 52x32x52x16 Combo drive.........$44.55
Western Digital 80GB S-150 8M.........$62.10
Vista Home Premium........................$145.15
nVidia eVGA 8500GT 256Meg............$124.90
MS Basic value pack........................$28.30
Labor for system build......................$40
________________________________________
$958.45

[drfish]

Sorry, But I have to post this (everything from NewEgg of course)...

COOLER MASTER Elite 330 Case - $40
Thermaltake TR2 PSU ----------- $40
ASUS P5N-E SLI ---------------- $130
Core2Duo E6600 ---------------- $224
G.SKILL 2GB DDR2-800 ---------- $95
SAMSUNG SATA 18X DVD±R ----- $38
Western Digital 160GB RE ------- $60
Vista Home Premium OEM ------- $120
eVGA 8800GTS 320MB -----------$290
Shipping ----------------------- $32
Rebates ------------------------$-20
Labor -------------------------- $0
____________
$1,049

...and you'd have an entirely different class of system on your hands... I can personally vouch for the first six items exactly as I call them out (I've bought over a dozen of each of them with no problems so far) and I can also vouch for the quality of eVGA video cards and WD RE hard drives in general (my last 4 video card buys have been eVGA and they're all I buy for work as a result, also I have a 250GB RE drive in my HTPC and my dad has two in RAID 1 in his system).

BTW, 1GB of memory is going to suck for Vista... Again, I'm sorry, but I can't help but feel a little insulted, you have an army of geeks here just waiting to spec out a system for you and you go to a local place and get robbed instead...

*sigh*

[Jav400]

The only thing you left out was the extra shipping to send it to him once someone here put the parts together, but yeah I pretty much agree.

[drfish]

Somewhere in this thread I think I offered that at no charge...

[feldon34]

You're getting ripped off on the RAM. 2GB is about $100. And $45 is unbelievable for a DVD reader.

[Jim Sachs]

Yeah, I've also seen a comparable Dell with a much nicer case and an LCD monitor for $100 less. I guess there's a reason why nobody's supporting their local stores any more.

[drfish]

Yep, but it goes both ways, without those kind of margins they couldn't still exist...

Of course there's always customer service, but the relationship shouldn't be started by robbing you blind...

[Jav400]

Everyone has to make a living. The question for me is one of service afterwards in cases like this.

There is no way a little shop can compete with Dell, its not gonna happen. But, if you have a problem and this guy is 5 miles down the road and takes care if it immediately for you with minimum fuss, then thats something Dell can't do either.

[dwax]

If it's not to late you should update the power supply to at least 450 watts. The 350 is just a bare minimum for that setup.

[FishyBusiness]

Originally posted by Jav400:

Everyone has to make a living. The question for me is one of service afterwards in cases like this.

There is no way a little shop can compete with Dell, its not gonna happen. But, if you have a problem and this guy is 5 miles down the road and takes care if it immediately for you with minimum fuss, then thats something Dell can't do either.  

I was going to post something similar. It's hard to compare someone who is willing to not make a profit to someone who is. It's just plain

My Personal history:
In the mid-90's, the little guy was making a lot of money. Back then, the industry (HP, Compaq, etc.) had just got done saturating the market with $1700 systems. Money stopped flowing to large corporations so they started the upgrade machine. By that time, people sunk their money into $1700 systems, so getting an upgrade from a local guy was a positive choice. Also, it was generally only the local guy that had ALL of the parts someone could want. Of course, people like myself that didn't have $1700 bought Cyrix chips, motherboards, etc to build our own. $325 for a whole system. Again, going to the little guy was the best place for those parts. Computer Shows sprouted and everyone started buying whole systems from these palce. Even the average joe. Again, the little guy was making a very good living. Around 2000-2001, their goal was to get people to buy a whole new machine about every three years. The Industry started buying huge volumes of parts...getting OEMs to discount as well. Selling whole systems for $1000 or less was on the menu. At the same time, my friends and part suppliers (the local little guy) started having their prices dramatically increase. Probably footing the bill for the discounts that were given to large corporations. Fast forward to present. The industry won. Mix the cheap systems with the general American sense of 'I must have everything new' and spyware/malware/virus, you get, "My computer is so bogged down. I am just going to buy a new one instead of reformatting or cleaning it out." Even though most people computering habits haven't changed much.

My friends and old part suppliers have long since switched gears and aimed their services at Small Businesses. A lot of them have gotten out of the hardware business all together and provide consulting and IT help. Unfortunately, the big corporations have now shifted their aim at Small Businesses too.

[Socrates]

I used to refer my small business customers to local small builders for all their new systems. I even used to build some of them myself.

The problem is there came a point where all the good local builders that I knew of either sold out or closed down or switched to some other line of sales. They couldn't make a profit on a machine anymore.

What I quickly found out was that most of the small builders that stayed in buisensess did it by screwing rhe customers with pirated licenses and/or inferior hardware.\

I'm sure there are honest builders left, but they have to be having a hard time.

[Jim Sachs]

Update: For the last 10 days I was totally stuck trying to get a simple transparency effect working. There is so much more data to load in MA3 that the "blank" time when the program fires up was getting to be significant. So, to fill the time, I wanted to show the SereneScreen logo, which would fade away when the real scene came up. Well, that fade-out turned out to be a real nightmare but I finally got it working last night.