Slacking on new posts

I've been slacking on new blog posts lately, partly because it's the weekend and partly because I've been so busy comparing prices and service for my new computer. I had ordered a customized XPS 700 from Dell in late June, but the estimated ship date has been bumped several times and when I cancelled they still had yet to ship ANY systems and were unwilling to commit to a date other than August. It was just way too fishy for me so I just cancelled the whole thing, especially with Conroe coming out in July and Dell unwilling to honor any kind of price adjustment for the delay.

Where did I look after that? I was going to look locally but since Totally Awesome went out of business (stupid Dell Schanze) there's no real vendor locally! I called PC Laptops (the company that took over TAC warranties) and they refused to quote a price because the GeForce 7950 GX2 was "unreliable and unstable" and DDR2 memory was "extremely expensive and hard to get ahold of". At that point I pretty much tuned the sales rep out while he went on and on about how great Dual 7900 cards were with Intel's processors. So there were two other local vendors: Abcon Systems and Ricon Computers. Ricon couldn't give me a quote over the phone and couldn't understand why I wanted an AMD AM2 instead of an Intel processor, while Abcon Systems has yet to return a phone call or an email requesting a quote. With that kind of service, I'm done with either of them.
Update: I received a quote from Abcon later that night, with a machine that was note quite as nice as the one put together by CPU Solutions but priced at exactly $2400. Since I'd already ordered from CPU Solutions and their system was a tad nicer, I'm sticking with them. Maybe next time.

Next, I tried Alienware. They're expensive, but you can't beat them for the cool factor and custom work with their nice sound dampening, video cooling, and liquid cpu cooling. They quoted me $3200 for the system with an AMD 5000+ and $3800 for the system with an AMD FX-62 in it. Plus no financing. Ouch! Wife wouldn't go for it so the search continued for a system with a lower cost.

OK, let's see what it'll cost to do it myself (DIY) with parts from Newegg. That's when I settled on the AMD 5000+ instead of an FX-62. Benchmarks were about the same but the FX-62 was a whopping $1100 compared to the 5000+ at $800. The system priced out at just a tad over $2000 and Newegg offers 6 months Same As Cash. Still, I REALLY didn't feel like putting the thing together myself. I'd have to neglect the kids, get no real support, and hope that the components were all a good match. Not to mention availability was still in question on some of the parts and I don't do a really good job on wiring management inside a case. OK, I decided, $2000 is about what parts will cost me plus upgrades and freebies.

So I found IBUYPOWER. Great price on the configurator ($2200 for a slightly better system and some freebies). Great! Even a 5% discount! So I went searching for reviews of the company. Ick. ICK. EEEEEWWWW!!! Evidently the company is about 50/50 on their support. Any problems and the company just treats you like a plague victim. That and they had a history of shipping problems that resulted in dents and dings to the case, potential hazards from incomplete installs (one customer mentioned that the CPU fan wasn't even screwed on!). So I kept looking.

Falcon Northwest... Too expensive (although well worth the money if I was still single). Tigerdirect... close.

Avadirect was one of the few willing to email a quote to me, came out to $2212.69. OK, not bad, but they're using a mid-tower case and DDR2 667Mhz instead of 800. So I kept them in mind but keep looking.

Cyberpower was $2430 after their instant rebate of $50 for systems over $1000. Again, a mid-tower case. Reviews were dicey but not quite as bad as IBUYPOWER. Unfortunately, HardOCP's review found several small problems with both computer and support versus IBUYPOWER's singular problems in the support division so I kept looking (not to mention that price tag bothered me since it included several freebies I could do without).

Thus we come to my favorite so far - CPU Solutions. Their website configurations don't have AM2 so I went ahead and used their live chat to ask if they did custom configurations with socket AM2. The sales rep(Steve) replied that they did, got my key specs, asked for some smaller ones that I didn't really care that much about (hd size, case color, etc) and said he'd email me a price quote. A few minutes later, he emailed me letting me know that he'd gotten prices on everything but the DDR2 800 and that it might take him awhile to track down the supplier and get a quote! While I'd normally be a little upset that something like DDR2-800 was unavailable, in this case I've gotta give props to the sales rep for letting me know why the price quote was going to take longer. I replied back for a quote using DDR2-667 instead, got a quote within 5 minutes. The quote was $1466. Uh-oh, something is wrong here! So I looked at the parts list (itemized, yay!) and noticed that while the processor had a line item it didn't have a price! So I replied back with Newegg's price and asked for an updated quote that would include a good heatsink/fan. Steve replied back mentioning that he would recommend using a stock cooler but he'd be willing to add a higher-quality cooler if needed. He also mentioned that Newegg was an OEM (very limited warranty) versus the 3 year warranty I'd get going retail. Even then, the price as the same as Newegg! That brought the total up to $2265.14. I've fired off another email asking about financing, RAID-0, dropping the floppy drive ($10 line item), and estimated ship date and that's where that stands right now.

While I was between emails, I looked on eBay. A seller had a fairly nice system that was close to my specs but with a 4200+ instead of a 5000+ and using DDR2-667 instead of 800 (maybe there is a shortage?) as well as no OS for $1899. So I fired off an email to the seller asking for a price quote to upgrade to a 5000+, 800Mhz memory, and x64.
01) Upgrade to 5000+ is $520.00 (retail difference is $440)
02) Upgrade memory to CORSAIR XMS EXTREME DDR2-800 is $60.00 (ok, that's about right)
03) Install Windows XP PRO 64-bit is $159.00 (that looks about right)

Still, that brought the price up to $2600! So either I'm going to eat the speed difference of a 4200+ vs 5000+ or I'm going with CPU Solutions. The deciding factor? Price and service. CPU Solutions has an outstanding sales staff, which usually bodes well for the support staff. Their prices are VERY close to IBUYPOWER but without the crazy bad reviews. I'll keep you updated!