Yeah, I did price out the parts.... I couldn't even come close. I got 2 systems 2.4GHZ HT 800Mhz FSB for 329.00 a pop shipped....
You have to price out Intel board 875P that has SATA and 1 Gig Internet connections. I figure a board like this is going to run you around 135-145 bucks.
Proc is going to be around 170.00
You will have to buy a CPU Fan.... Depends if you want to over clock the sky is the limit... 40 bucks for a decent one
You'll need a good Power Supply and Case esp if you plan on over clocking. 80-120
40 Gig Hard Drive, CD ROM and A floppy Drive... adds about another 80.00 or so...
Freebees with a Dell, PCI ATI Rage II card, You'll have to update that to an ATI 9700 PRO or 9800 Pro 300-400 bucks gonna spend that anyway....
Freebees RAM 1 stick of 128... You can sell it on ebay for 20-30 bucks... Whatever... Buy a couple of 256 Meg Sticks from Crucial 3200 DDR 80.00
Freebees Keyboard and Mouse....
Dell Gives you free shipping... I figure your gonna buy a lot of those parts from different venders to get the best deal so shipping will cost from 35-45 bucks...
Now you got to put assemble all your stuff once you get it all out of the boxes and PREY it all works once you waste half a day getting all the wires and zip ties looking nice & and you have to read the book on why your ram isn't posting right or your chip isn't booting up at the right speed not to mention figure out why the hard drive isn't being recognized by the BIOS. With dell it's already pre configured and they test it before they ship it out to you...
Advantages to Dell? You get a really nice QUIET machine... You don't have to really turn any screws... It's the Lazy way to go... Even installing windows is really easy...
Advantages to building it yourself? You can custom pick all your parts like heavy duty power supplies... Fancy cases/different colors...etc. You can Tweak the BIOS and OVERCLOCK!!! The only reason to build it yourself to push the system to it's limits. And that means IT's GONNA be LOUD!!! The further you over clock the more heat and the more fans you will need. So... It will be a bit faster but... I really hate FAN noise. I've had enough of it...
Disadvantages of DELL ... You get one Big BLACK UGLY box that says DELL all over it... And people think you are retarded that you can't build your own computer for yourself... Sigh... No Wow factor when your friends come over... No windows or tweaking the BIOS into pushing the CPU and RAM... Sigh... But who really wants too? I guess you can fry your chip and lock your system up... Those days are over for me. The only other bad part is that you got to talk to someone that can't speak english when you need a new part... Dell CS is lacking but oh well, it almost beats trying to RMA some part you bought yourself since dell ships out the new part you don't have to pay shipping on sending the old one back providing it's still under warranty.
#1 one reason to buy 4 or 5 of these things? You can run your fav DC project like Seti or Folding at home. With Hyper Threading and an 800 Mhz Bus with DDR RAM you can really crunch data fast!!! And do it very cheaply! So go ahead and buy 6 or 10 of these and join Anadtech SETI Team ... You'll have over 10,000 WU's in no time! It won't even sound like a server room either!!!
Back to the subject after I got done pricing out CPU/MOBO/HeatSync Fan/Shipping <--- Just those alone almost came out to what one will spend for a new Dell System...