Emory,
I read thru Zeuspaul's reply and it is all textbook, right on the money, I will see if I can add some things.
"The last time I looked into this it was much cheaper to buy an already built system from
an OEM."
Let me offer an opportunity to question this assumption, I have found most (all?) major OEM's to be 10%-30% MORE expensive than a system I can put together from !'Net! resellers, if I compare part to part.
Most OEM systems will cut corners somewhere, Winmodem (doesn't work on NT), mediocre printer, small case, 15" monitor (a very good 19" can be had for $425 (CTX VL-910)), no ergonomic kb, small HD (under 6 GIG), and my personal pet peeve a video card with either a second rate chipset or the cards smaller memory option( ooo i hate that).
Once I factor in that I am almost always sacrificing quality somewhere with an OEM the "perceived" savings start to evaporate, and I am just refering to the $800-$1200 systems from there on up the gap widens, quickly, try pricing a high end system sometime.
The trick is buying off the Net(my favorite spot killerapp.com ). Comp USA a major national chain has prices that are literally 15%-40% cheaper on THEIR OWN website than in THIER OWN stores, this kills me, I love telling their customers about this whenever I am in a Comp USA. I have OEM friends who often can't mach Net prices with their COST.
"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?"
I think it is important to consider HOW to save a couple of bucks, as stated above WHERE you buy is important the next part is WHAT you buy.
I have concluded that the leaders (Tier 1) in the field have some advantages I don't want to do without. Drivers, some companies are already working on NT5 drivers, these are the same that have NT4 drivers, and drivers ON the Win98 CD. Compatability, does it work on NT, Linux, BE OS? Experience, Tier 1 products have alot of users, many of wich have already worked thru the problem I am about to have.
So to me the WHAT is usually not which maufacturers but which of their products (more accurately when, since I like yesterday's "Picks" and "Editors Choices"), there is a price drop that depending on conditions occurs 2-3 months after a product release ( like a new car driven off the lot) this is the end of the "bleeding edge" markup, and then when rumors of the next "Greatest New Thing" start arriving the price drops again and begins to enter it's sweet spot. I end up with great products for a good price, mature drivers, and a wide knowledge base of support.
In the case of Zuespaul's recomendation of a BX board this is the kind of situation where I will pay the extra for something not in it's sweet spot, eg a catagory of hardware has advanced to "next generation" ( Pentium to Pentium II, this generation of vid card with 3D heavily imbedded,) and the performance and length of usefulness justifies the extra cost.
I have found Emory, that with a good collection of Tier 1 products an NT install is fairly painless (special considerations ie. multi-moniter, multi-modem, ISDN, extensive peripherals, not-withstanding).
This has been a long post, I hope of some value. I will leave a final recomendation for any interested in NT. I am a huge fan of O'Reilly Press ( oreilly.com ), their book "NT in a Nutshell" should be shipped with each copy of NT and their other books are generally well regarded also.
As to your Question about the from field, I have been wondering that as well. Nothing special on my part.
mowa |
