Dosh processing - #30

You know a good deal when you see it? So does Gramps, driving his 1955 Bentley S1. Sagely Daniel Rutter lets us know that everyone is right.

How much does a computer cost?

It depends on who you ask.

Ask a typical with-it Atomic reader and you'll get an itemised quote, featuring the latest tweaky motherboard with striped lime-green and 'International Safety Orange' PCB, a processor that's five steps down from the fastest one you can get but has an 83% chance of overclocking to 15% above the fastest one's sticker speed, a couple of sticks of RAM that total as much storage as sixteen thousand C64s, a video card that preferably takes up two slots but requires an auxiliary power cable, a case that weighs about as much as a milk carton and has a factory fitted side panel ant farm, and a smattering of other components chosen on the basis of a democratic survey of the opinions of Atomic, Tom, Anand, Kyle and Agg. And maybe me, if I'm really lucky.

The price of that little lot is likely to wind up around $2,000. Assuming you value your time assembling the thing at zero dollars an hour, that is.

Now, try asking someone's uncle who reckons he knows a bit about computers, seeing as how he's bought four brand name boxes since 1983.

He'll nip off to ibm.com.au or dell.com.au or the now-interchangeable hp.com.au and compaq.com.au, and play with the 'Build Your Own Box Your Nephew Will Laugh At' widget until he's come up with something with most of the CPU power of the abovementioned pile-o-components, almost enough RAM, a fatal flaw somewhere in the graphics subsystem (if he manages to get a fast video adapter, he'll pick a slow-response LCD monitor to go with it), and a case that seven out of ten focus group participants agreed looked 'serious, yet stylish'.

He'll probably pay at least three grand, because that's what a decently fast computer used to cost.

Now, try asking a Linux geek. Try to find a mellow, yet knowledgeable one -- somewhere between the ones who get angry if you don't say it 'GNU/Linux', and the fakes who don't even have a beard.

Hi-ho to ebay.com.au you'll go -- or auctiontrader.com.au, in case it has a liquidation batch -- in search of a perfectly serviceable used Pentium II box for a couple of hundred bucks. Shop carefully and you'll get a monitor as well, for that money. You'll probably be buying a superannuated business machine with 64MB of RAM; a well-used low capacity hard drive and The Worst Mouse You'll Ever Touch. But for unpretentious users of the Finnish OS, that's A-OK.

Search for used computers on tradingpost.com.au and you'll find a lot of people who need to be told 'they're dreaming'. But if you just need a basic box, hit the auction sites and you'll find that the price/performance ratio of unsexy machines two CPU generations behind the cutting edge really can't be beat. Just stay alert for CPU or PSU fan bearing failures.

Oh, yeah - spend another $400 on a new hard drive and more RAM than used to exist in the whole office where this thing lived, and a cheapo auction site P-II will happily run WinXP. Shh.

Now, go and ask an office PC procurement nebbish. In between soulful stares at the Dilbert cartoons on the walls of his cubicle and facial twitches, he'll spec out a $1,000 box that'll be on eBay for $150 by 2007. He'll probably pare the price down by picking a P4 Celeron, a smallish monitor and the bare minimum RAM needed to run Windows, because nobody has ever been fired for making a computer that takes five minutes to boot.

His advice probably won't help you much, though, because the same box will cost you $1,500 if you don't have the buddy deal he has with his preferred supplier.
That deal's not worth what he had to do to get it. Trust me.
OK, so what's a computer cost, if you ask me?

Well, I'm not a big fan of brand name machines. I'll give you all a moment to get over your astonishment about that.

I suppose brand name boxes can be good for people who reckon they're likely to need a lot of support, but really, if you just want a computer for home stuff and you're not too PC-savvy, be sensible and get a Mac, OK? If you're short of cash, check out the second-hand Macs on eBay. Perfectly good CRT iMacs, $500 to $1,000. Beige G3s cheaper than old P-IIs. Bewdy.

Back in PC-land, a titchy low-noise Micro-ATX box is now a thoroughly sensible choice for a lounge room PC, or for anybody who needs to tote their PC to and from the office or geek gathering regularly. You can throw a good one together for a thousand bucks, sans monitor.

But, of course, you wouldn't catch me using something the size of a toaster as my everyday PC. They'd fire me.

It's full ATX mobo, funky case, bit of an overclock, build it yourself for me. Naturally. And yes, two grand sounds about right.

If you're part of the population segment that regularly sends letters to their MP complaining about the law that precludes non-cola soft drinks in this country from being caffeinated, thereby forcing you to attempt to recreate the LAN party Mountain Dew/Bawls experience with water, Fruit Tingles and No-Doz, then I'm presuming you'll be with me on this.