Poll: What is a midrange price for a build?

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What is your idea of a "midrange system"?

  • 950

    Votes: 46 21.5%

  • 1050

    Votes: 43 20.1%

  • 1150

    Votes: 18 8.4%

  • 1250

    Votes: 53 24.8%

  • 1350

    Votes: 10 4.7%

  • 1450

    Votes: 16 7.5%

  • 1550

    Votes: 15 7.0%

  • 1650

    Votes: 3 1.4%

  • 1750

    Votes: 3 1.4%

  • 1850

    Votes: 7 3.3%
  • Total voters
    214
Hey guys, first post on toms hardware forums. Anyway i am from aussie so the prices i give you will obviously be in australian. Anyway i just read the article on the $2000 budget system. So i decided to put my own system together using a fairly popular australian online store which has good prices. The site is www.computeralliance.com.au if anyone was wondering. Anyway this is what i came up with and just like in the article there is no monitor or mouse keyboard included.

Intel S775 Core 2 Q6600 Quad-Core CPU $289
2x Albatron 8800GTS 512M PCIe Video Card $698
ASUS S775 P5KC Core 2 Motherboard $164
Thermaltake Soprano Case Silver X-Type Window $139
Pioneer DVR-215BK 20x DVD DL Burner SATA Black $45
Thermaltake 750 Watt Toughpower ATX Power Supply $209
320GB Seagate 7200rpm 16M Serial ATA HDD $105
2x DDR2 4GB Geil 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 Kit $338
Onboard sound $0

Total: $1987 AUS or $1814 USD
 
I said 1250, but I was including cost of monitor and OS because I didn't read the thread first ^^..

If you already had Monitor/OS I'd say around 900-950 would be good value.
 
1250usd (I usually work in GBP, which would be approx £650)

1 video card, no raid & no fancy platinum PSU... and no SSD either lol
 
Personally, I'd say right at or under $1k (if you aren't including monitor, speakers, keyboard or mouse). My current rig is well under that, and is still fine for me.....

Antec Sonata 3 w/ 500w EarthWatts PSU - $90
Asus P5K-E WIFI - $124
Intel E2160 w/ Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro OC'ed to 3.o Ghz - $100
2 GB Corsair XMS DDR2 800 - $29
x2 Seagate 7200.11 320 GB HDs in RAID 0 (black friday deal) - $120 for both
1 Samsung DVD-RW, 1 Lite-On DVD-ROM - $55
Vista Home Ultimate EOM - $99
Front Bay card reader - $11

Right now I'm at $628 total, and all had free shipping. Since I don't game much, I got an 8600GT XXX from XFX last year for right at $100 (also free shipping). I'm up to $728. If you want more gaming performance, step it up to a 8800GS or 9600GT and still be under $800 total. Even with a decent upgrade to the CPU, and nice speakers, keyboard and mouse, you're still only at $1k.
 

That put's the $2800, $3500, and $4500 boxes in the "Too much money and don't know any better" category. :pt1cable: :kaola:
 


So anyone building a solid highly overclockable SLI DDR3 box doesn't know any better ?

Decent Case - $150
Decent 850 watt PSU - $275
790i MoBo - $300
CPU - $450
Hi End DDR3 - $45- - $850 (depending on how much ya want)
Twin OC'd Vid Cards - $900 (or 3)
Twin 1 TB HD's - $500
Cooling - $150
Floppy / Card Reader - $40
Twin Optical Drives - $70

To my mind, if it can be beat, it's not hi end and the 790i / DDR3 boxes are beating the X38/780i DDR2 boxes. The bang for the buck goes down but that doesn't stop people from buying Bugatti Barons and Porsches if they want the best.
 
I'm not implying anyone doesn't know anything, so just relax...sheesh. Some folks believe that in order to get something good, you need to spend money, but the fact is a P4 with DDR400 can print a word document and load a web page just as fast as an QX9650 with DDR31800. If anything, this thread shows that the price of mid-range machine varies based on what each poster believes to be a mid-range build and mid-range price.

What I will say though is; the "best" is very subjective. Porsche and Bugatti? Porsche and Bugatti are very nice cars, but they are not the "best" when it comes to mpg, comfort, or maintenance costs.
 


But they certainly do constitute the "hi end" which was the subject at hand. And for people buying them "mpg and maintenance costs" don't appear on the list of criteria that matter. As for comfort, I have never driven a Baron but I find the Porsche among the most comfortable cars "to drive" that I have ever owned.

Some folks believe that in order to get something good, you need to spend money, but the fact is a P4 with DDR400 can print a word document and load a web page just as fast as an QX9650 with DDR31800.
Click to expand...

If we were to take the analogy further, "printing a word document and loading a web page" is comparable to "taking the kids to soccer practice" and "running over to Subway for a quick bite", I can do that with a Taurus but few would ever call a Taurus "hi end".
 
I say around 1500 that seems to be what I always end up paying for systems (thank the government for a little more this time) I say below 1000 is low cost 1000 to 2000 is mid cost and 2000k to 3500 is high cost above high cost is dream machine

The reason i say 1500 is because the base parts cost about 1200 and you can afford to get a few extras that make your system better like a sound card tv tuner stuff like that.

Personally i try to keep my builds to around 1500 that seems to be the sweet spot for me.
 
My last round of builds (Nos. 65-68)....nothing super special but quite respectable were about $1700.....last bunch of machines been laptops so I missed the fun.....but things have gotten cheaper since then.....I remember routinely paying > $100 for a good burner....and RAM prices (DDR2) now are ridiculous). But I have built a few $6k boxes in my day.

Heck I remember paying $1,000 for the 1st 1 GB SCSI drive in 1993 .... Plextor burners were $200+ then. The box behind me (running since last millenium and now regulated as backup storage) has a TBU that was $894 when I first built it....when it died, I bought the same exact model for $215.
 
Computers do buck inflation.....all my builds for personal use 1985 - 1993 were between $5,000 and $6,000. My P2P server was $6k also but that had 2 SCSI 15k HD's at about $890 each (2 more added later), 2 SCSI optical drives and the SCSI TBU referenced above. But most desktops before year 2,000. Between 1993 and 1998, the other builds I did averaged $2,500 - $3,500.

All my laptops prior to 1996 were $5,000 - $6,000.

Since then, everything has gone down. My last laptop (custom built by ODM) was $3,194 but was $4,700 at retail vendor (WidowPC.com) The last four desktops I built were in the $1,700 - $2,100 range.
 
Mid System Total 1 070,58 $

Processor Intel E8400 213,20 $

Memory Mushkin HP2-6400 2X1GB 996533 49,91 $

Motherboard Gigabyte P35-DS3L 86,05 $

Hard Drive Disk Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 88,99 $

DVD Writer Samsung SH-S203B 25,88 $

Case Antec Nine Hundred 95,99 $

Power Supply OCZ GameXStream 600W 95,63 $

Graphic Card BFG Geforce 8800GTS 512mb 308,88 $

CPU Cooler Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 18,38 $

Case Optional Fan Antec TriCool 120mm BLUE LED 10,81 $

that is a good MID range build ( total include tax and shipping )
 
US$
Budget < 600
Value < 1000
Mid < 1500
High < 2500
Extreme > 2500

At the moment budget and value are dual core only. Budget could be integrated graphics (780G) or low discrete. Value is 3850 or NV equiv.
Mid+ is personal choice.
 
my idea of midrange is cutting edge, but cheap. so $600-900. I consider crap components with integrated graphics or slightly outdated systems and platforms to be "low end". an intel with gma3100 or AMD 690 are new low end. old tech like a good single core with a 7600 - 7900 video is now what I'd call the top of low end.

vid cards like 8800gs or 9600gt are the absolute top of my "midrange"

anything with a good dual or any quad with 3800 or 8800 video gets into the higher end.

in less than a year, the bar changes.
 
Well I measure it by the purpose. If it can play any game on high/maxed settings, its high end. For a 2k computer that plays crysis at 60 fps instead of 50 fps, yea, thats overkill. Just because something is "higher end", doesn't mean a comp that can do anything but slightly slower isn't high end. In your car example, just because a bugatti is obscenely expensive doesn't mean a bmw isn't high end.

I just built my new gaming/workstation comp about a month ago for about $1200. Quad core, 8800gt, 4 gigs of memory, 500gb hard drive, lian li case, and high quality 750w psu. I can play any game out there on max settings, except crysis, which I can play on high at 1900x1200. Thats upper mid - high end for me, there really isn't any point for me to spend more than that for dimishing returns when I can play everything maxed at 1900x1200.

For people doing crazy overclocking and sli, no they aren't stupid, they just choose to spend their money differently, but going to extremely high end doesn't make the high end any less high.

So if 1200 is high end for me, you can build a decent gaming rig that can play any modern game on mid-high settings on a 24" monitor for ~800-900. So that would be midrange for me. Thats not including the monitor, which I think we are all assuming this price doesn't include.

I think a game/monitor resolution based metric would be better than an arbitrary low-mid-high label. Thats how I've always built my rigs. Something like:
Low: Can play any game on medium-high settings on a 19" LCD (1280x1024)
Mid: Can play any game on medium-high settings on a 22" LCD (1680x1050)
High: Can play any game on maxed settings on a 24" LCD (1900x1200)
Very High: Can play any game on maxed settings on a 30" LCD (2560x1600)
Highest: If you're going any higher, you know what you're doing anyway.

As long as you treat Crysis as an exception, you should be able to keep reasonable prices for all of this.
 
Most likely they don't include that stuff because it is pretty much subjective, you can spend as much or as little money as you can afford on those things. Many people already have some or all of those things from previous systems as well. It is enough trouble to put together a guide for a tower without all the other stuff that is mainly personal preference.

Btw, you forgot the graphics card in your build. Kinda important.
 
In correspond to zpyrd :

Why does no-one include the following in a new system build.
(a few people do include the following):
..........

O yeah I do forget to tell you guys. Wenn I write that 950 euro is about my midrange. I do included :
A monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, a headset and a mousepad.
The rest of the softwares, I have most of them already, I'm still satisfied with my old winXP, ms office 2000, etc. and I am a freeware freak (not pirated, I do appriciate other peoples hardwork). Vista will have to wait, because I am kinda runout of cash right now.
 


Actually the title of the thread is "What is a midrange price for a build?" Therefore high end should not be your vote.
 
That was the point as was specifically stated in you read the whole thread:

Definition: Midrange - The sum of the minimum and maximum values, divided by two.

So, to define the midrange, it is quite necessary to define the maximum value in order to "do the math"
 
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