| Bill Jonas on Thu, 29 Nov 2001 15:59:01 -0500 |
|
On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 03:21:42PM -0500, Mike Leone wrote: > > The extent of the "learning" involved is reading the 10-20 page > > booklet that comes with the motherboard you buy (and that's only if > > you can't figure out what to plug in where). I respectfully disagree. (See below.) > While they might be that technically proficient at PC hardware, I'd > bet they were in the minority of folks their age who are. The thing about building your own is that it doesn't prevent you from buying crap. It only *enables* you to *not* buy crap. When I put together my current workstation, I did it because I didn't like any single package that any systems integrator out there had (that I was aware of). (That, and that I wouldn't have to purchase everything all at once.) "That one looks nice, but its sound card isn't good. That one has a bad motherboard. I don't even *know* which motherboard this one has. This system would be nearly perfect if it had a better video card. That one has an integrated video card -- yuck," and so on and so forth. The problem was that there's still a lot of crap hardware out there that you can buy and put together to make a system. I had to spend a while educating myself, reading articles at hardware sites, and such. I probably spent a month or two reading up and educating myself on the current state of the hardware market. (Granted, this was partly while I was getting the money together, but it was still work.) This is way more work than Joe and Jane average want to do. They just want to go to the store and ask either, "Which one is the fastest?" or "Which one is the fastest for less than x dollars?" (At least, that's what I *think* happens; I'm not normal and I've never been a computer salesman.) There's no way they'd read Anandtech or Tom's Hardware and think about what they really want. So I guess what I'm saying is that assembling your own system does not *guarantee* quality, it only *enables* it. (Like, "All dogs are animals, but not all animals are dogs.") -- Bill Jonas * bill@billjonas.com * http://www.billjonas.com/ Developer/SysAdmin for hire! See http://www.billjonas.com/resume.html Attachment:
pgpCixyUHh22a.pgp
|
|