Need help choosing the right motherboard

[Daveyo]

Wow, things have changed inside a month. I do recall you saying the prices were going down, and I have not yet bought the components as I was gambling that the prices would continue to drop.

I have to add the Haf 932, the cooler, the SATA to IDE converters the PSU and a LCD and Graphics cards and last of all the HDD to that price.

What is the latest on the Haf and the PSU now. I know the monitor is the one that will cost a lot, and that is what is slowing me down somewhat.

With the missing additional included we are talking close to near 1,500 by the time all is said and done.

I am guessing the following missing additions costing>

HDD about 150 (each something like 70 on average)
PSU about 100-150
Tower about 140
CPU cooler about 45
Graphic cards about 300 (each 150)
Converters about 30
Monitor about 300 (average)

So this adds up to another > 1150 dollars. Combined about total 1600 to 1700 complete. Right or wrong????

Normally if one buys a already configured system made by a company it probably is half this much.

Seems when you buy up the components it costs more, whereas when you buy say from DELL it is half price to like around 800-900 desktop systems. Something does not make any sense here. Somebody is making a huge profit somewhere when they sell individual items.

Now if one was to buy all the compnents and build from Scratch it should nearly match already full complete Desktops that are sold in the market to be competitive, but what I am seeing is, it is the other way around. Separate components cost twice as much than already configured full Desktops that are sold in the market. I have my own software to install my programs which should technically the desktop be even cheaper but the prices given now does not do me any good.

How can one win or beat this scenario and come out ahead price wise???? Hard to do when it is fixed like this to kill the customers pocket change.

It makes you wonder.


Daveyo

 

[nerrawg]

Dear Daveyo,

If you are comparing with Dell, then I think it is a lot cheaper to build from scratch, although I did catch a faint tone of irony in you letter. Assuming therefore that you know dell spends a lot less because they buy cheaper hardware that isn't individually guarantied to last as long, and that price for price their components will be much lower performance.
Are you thinking to go SLI or CF with the graphics cards?
-
Nerrawg

 

[Daveyo]

I also have to add the factors to the individual pricing. I know people like Newegg they get it quite cheap, since they buy larger quantities. So with this in mind, I figure any outfit selling computer items they are making on average 40% profit on parts sold plus some additional amount to pad future items to resupply their stocks.

Hence that is why they can say well an item is on sale and give discount prices like 20 dollars or more off. This is the nature of the business itself.

When I was a young man, I used to work for a factory and was in the Production Control Department and my job was to figure the actual cost per item made from raw steel bought, to when they start to cut it to sizes, to final assembly. Each department was calculated per production run. So once I had all these figures put together, the company then knew the actual cost of the product plus they then did the same in taking the total cost of the payroll, dividing it etc, plus they then look for their profit margin to stay afloat.

So when they the manufacturers get the raw items and start from beginning to end by the time its finished its sold to the customer perhaps costing 600 dollars per item. Then maybe this distributor gets it say for like 500 since they buy a larger quantity more than one. The distributor then sells to retail outfits by increasing the price to like 700-750 dollars. Now the retail outfits add another 40% or more to that price and then its sold to people like us. So now this same item costs around 1000-1100 in the store.

The above pricing I gave you here is just a rough draft but to illustrate the point from manufacturing process to distributor to stores to consumers on how parts and the prices keep spiraling on up.

A lot of times if the manufacturing company has an outlet store on site, one can by pass the distributors and stores to save a lot of money. Such as the example above you can save almost 500 dollars right there. Also manufacturers don't like to sell to customers individually since they don't want to be involved in direct retail sales.

But if one gets lucky to have some inside tracks like connections, yea you can bypass stores and distributors.

I had a friend of mine who worked at the distributor and he gave me prices unheard of on my requests and it was so cheap it blew my mind. He still made a profit on the sale, but not as much as he would do to a store or some other outfit. Trust me I did save a ton of money thru the years.

Newegg itself is a retail outfit outlet type deal. They keep their overhead low to be able to sell the items as we are seeing on the market. They are not a full store but more on the outlet side but still sell the items. That is the difference here.

If say they were to stay on a uniform format like from Manufact all the way up to Retail and each sold it at 5% profit then the price looks good. But that is not the way it is now.

So when you see say Haf being sold for 150 dollars figure it is 55% higher than the actual cost straight from the manufacturer which would be about 60-68 dollars. Yep you got it. The rest is the spiral price increases from tier to tier as it moves along the market sector.

So if I bypass the distributor, and buy direct from manufacturer and sell as outlet not retail I can then set that 150 dollar price down to say 90 dollars at the drop of the hat or maybe a bit less. This knocks out the distributors and retail out the window. For a 300 dollar item I can sell it for 150-160 out the door and still make money on it.

All the above is just mere examples of the options one can do and how they are killing us but as it is today very hard to do because so many want a piece of the pie itself, unless your savvy enough to make a go at it, and stick with it without getting so greedy pertaining to doing business with customers.

First one needs capital to get started and some extra for lean times. Second one needs to make business deals with the manufacturers to buy their products direct and if you get lucky, then you need a spot to sell it and also internet and advertising to get the word out. If you get that far as time goes on the engine will pick up speed and viola your in business. Most start up businesses today have a failure rate of 70% to 80% and do not last beyond 3 years. If you get past this and if the business grows a lot, now you need help hence your payroll starts to climb so will your prices of the goods you sell so you can still stay in business. Eventually your back to the same rut as before but not that bad since you still by-pass the distributors and most retail and your business begins to change from pure outlet to outlet retail.

If I was to do this, I would hire a small overhead of people and stick with it, and then set the pricing for the market and if the orders are getting huge, just stick with the game plan and make very small adjustments to compensate for the demand. This way I won't hit that break point so fast. So if you got back orders that is good. What you don't want is no orders or cutting down the prices just to get the sales cause that will kill your business. As of backorders hopefully it does not get out of control or get that large and one does not have to wait too long because the customers patience is short to say the least.

Daveyo