The justification for buying a partially built system (example: case, mother board, pwr supply, cabling) would be if you couldn't find an OEM offering the drives and or cards you wanted.
I agree. The more time you spend investigating the machine you want the more difficult it is to find an oem that will match your needs (wants).
I prefer a custom machine..home built or assembled by others because I am confident that the machine is not proprietary. I want an ATX case and power supply, a stand alone video card. I want the OS on a separate CD and all of the software on separate CDs. Many of the big box makers will give you a recovery CD and nothing else. To reinstall software you will have to reformat your harddrive and lose everything.
Gateway, DELL, Micron and others do have open architecture machines but you still have to be careful. Some of their machines are proprietary.I would not advise Compaq or IBM if you want an open architecture machine.
The last time I looked into this it was much cheaper to buy an already built system from an OEM.
Generally cheaper but not much cheaper. I think the OEM machine is good for a first time computer buyer. The new buyer does not have a personal collection of software so the limited edition software supplied on an OEM machine works as an introduction to computing. For an experienced user the software installed on an OEM machine is useless garbage IMO.
An exception is a 450 machine based on an overclocked Celeron 300A CPU. This customized machine is much cheaper than an OEM 450.
The OEM packages come with support (you have to like pain... Your call is important to us, all of our representatives are helping other satisfied customers, please hold ...music...then Have you run scan disc?? shame on you..please run scan disc and then call back).
I find the documentation supplied with the custom machines much more complete than the documentation I get from the OEMs. (Some, not all..ABIT, Aopen, TYAN, ASUS have excellent documentation compared to the OEM machines I have used).
You can get Internet user support for the main stream mobos. It is easier to get answers for an ABIT BH6 than it is for a Compaq for example.
Do I go cheap or expensive?
Cheap, but go for quality<g>
If I go cheap I'm concerned about buying a motherboard that's 6 months old and thus doesn't have the latest and greatest chips and chip sets on it
Stick with the BX chipset..
Also by going cheap am I getting what I pay for? In other words I might save, but will I run into serious problems because of trying to save a few bucks?
No. You will run into problems if you do not research the components and your overall system design.
I want to go with a SCSI HD (probably the latest I can get, either SCSI 2 or 3).
Why? Stick with IDE. Half the price and the same performance. Go for SCSI for peripherals and when your IDE controller is full (four devices)
I'm leaning towards Win98 but haven't made the final decision.
The consensus of the thread is NT. Then they tell us you have to buy books just to figure out how to use it!
If you want stability go for NT and spend some time on the learning curve. If you want the best multimonitor support go for Win98. Either way you will end up in NT as you indicate.
Best solution to guarantee NT hardware compatibility is to follow in Clarence's foot steps. He researched his NT machine and then had Minotaur put it together for him. The machine will be *burnt in* with NT ensuring an NT capable machine.
Zeuspaul |
