Poll: What is a midrange price for a build?

[Klish]

I just built a system which i would consider midrange from the Price point of view..But the components arent what i would say Cheap either.
I have 1,434 dollars invested in mine and im very happy with the results so far.
My system specs are.
Case Antec 900 Hundred. $125.00
Mobo MSI P7N Platinum $165.00
Memory 2gig of Balistic PC2-8500 1066 $99.00
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 4mb 1333MHZ $195.00
Antec Trio 650 Watt PS $119.00
Lite On 20x DVDRW SATA W/ Lightscribe $ 45.00
BFG 512MB DDR3 Geforce 8800GT OC $279.00
Western Digital Cavier SE16 HD 320gb SATA $89.00
Im really Happy with the MSI Mother Board its got all the nice features of SLI..Over Clockablity and MSI is Has alwaay provided me with stablity and longevity in the past.

 

[guanyu210379]

After oberving this thread for a while, I know that the limit for midrange is different from person to person, but I can see that the most mentioned value is around $1000-$2000.
Don't you agree?

 

[fatcat]

You can built a pretty decent mid end machine for around 1000-1200 $. Especially if you don't mind you're case too much, I think that's one area that you can save money. As long as you have enough space and at least 2 x 120mm fans, you're pretty much in business.

 

[tank_atlantis]

Around $1000 seems reasonable, $500 + for a budget. Glad to see that Tom's is taking members comments into consideration.

 

[yipsl]

I'm compiling a quick survey of every "rate my build" and "this is my build" thread for the past year or two. I also wanted to put up a direct poll. This will be up for only a few weeks.

If you were building a midrange system, about how much would you spend? This is not a spending "cap".

This price does not include monitor, or OS. Just parts cost.

IMHO, it's a range between 800 and 1200. I picked 950 just to be cantankerous. A budget build I'd call between 500 and 799 and an enthusiast anything over 1250, with the caveat that definitions of enthusiast differ, as do needs.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

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

Monitor
Keyboard
Mouse
Mousepad
Speakers
Printer
Operating System
Office Software
Router

I think that's because peeps rarely build their 1st puter and when the building their second, they already got everything on that list except perhaps the OS.

 

[surrealdeal]

yeah, but what about real work, not just games?

 

[litlrabi]

I have to say, I'm starting to think my $1250 was a little off the mark. My new build (as in last 2 weeks) cost just under $1000 with shipping, and could have cost much less (I went with a better case and PSU than I needed). I'm still in the overclocking stability testing, but it looks like 3ghz cpu and 1066 ram is nice and stable.

It seems that I might be beyond mid-range (or at least what I think of mid-range) in performance, at less than my voted price. I have to say $900 or less and you can get a very solid, mid range box.

 

[tsd16]

Does this price include monitor, and other items of just the box?

in january i spent 750 on a E6750 8800GT based system although i recycled my Sound card and optical drives from my previous PC and of course monitor keyboard etc.

So I would guess 1000-1200 for mid range if you add in allt he crap I didnt have to get.

 

[Ombudsman]

A side note: Since I'm monitoring this thread anyways, here's also a good place to propose ideas for future System Build, or System Builder Marathon articles.

There's no rule that says that the System Buidler Marathon has to be a gaming rig. We could do a HTPC, a portable gamer box, a video/sound editing system, a silent system, or anything, if there's enough demand for it.

 

[guanyu210379]

to : Ombudsman
Exactly! Agreed!
Not everyone, who wanna buy a PC, want only to play games.
So it has to be from every point of view.
for Example :
1. HTPC build marathon.
2. Office or general use build marathon.
3. Special usage build marathon (sound or video editing, CAD, etc.)
4. etc., etc.

 

[PeteA38]

1100 with monitor and decent speakers. If you pay more than that you are not getting much for the extra $$$ spent! It might benchmark higher on tests, but in reality when you are using "real" world programs/games, you wouldnt know the difference.

 

[bgd73]

a thousand dollars got a big vote....
I don't quite understand.
I am maybe 500 after studying what goes for 3 years or more...this thread is midrange am I not mistaken?
I would swear I have answered this and disappeared from the net... anyway...midrange pc has nothing to do with that...
back in 2003- 2005 (some parts before then, and may reuse even for a few more years)
*2004 antec2600amb builders case with psu retail, best buy $92
*2005 p4 2.8e presscott socket 478 $136 (I would pay double that even today- thank god for idiots and bad reviews, the price is nice. the cpu the worlds greatest)
*2005 msi 6728 platinum final, ebay (reputable seller, rare against the stereotype I am sure) $135
*2005 kingston 512x2 $80
*2005 msi9550se (since popped) $55
2008 visiontek 2600 pro agp (badly needed heatsink hack) $55
2008 accelero s1 r2 $38
*2005 wd800jb x1 $80
2008 wd800jb x1 $42 (delivered 2 day air mail)
*2005 antec cobra cable (staples) $20
* 2005 toshiba used usb floppy, ebay (company liquidation) $25
*2004 logitech mx310 $35(? not exact price, but close)
*2004 logitech elite keyboard le $40
*2004 nu dvd 8x writer $40
*2004 cheap cdrom $20
2003 apc ups $90

many things have been used before this build, I am under 500, the asterisk was all part of my current build, and even that was spaced enough over time, it was cheaper than all at once. My monitor is 10 years old and being very nice to the HD vids... Hard to put a price on that.

I did get an xp90 and cheap evercool reverse duct setup going in the wide 2600 case (perfect fit, going to my next new system with socket 775 conversion)

machine is error free at 12000 hours (just checked: 12008 hours)
I am waiting for something from intel, I will be sure to announce it when I see it for my next build. For now, I am not enthused at all to upgrade. And my next one will be even cheaper...

single core users should be looking quite hard to upgrade however...

 

[dan1234]

US prices so cheap compared to UK...

Mid Range for UK would be around £900 = $1800

Comparing Newegg to Overclockers.co.uk pisses me off 😛

 

[sabelbuff]

i think its 2000$.

 

[sweetpants]

My mid-range bang for buck usually totals around 800ish because of the fact I don't include keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS.

Considering I spent 60 for keyboard, 60 for mouse, 400 on monitor(s), and can get any OS I want, that cuts a big portion of money out of my build costs.

 

[crbriand]

I am thinking about my first home build, I'd say it's mid Range but here is the specs, put together from www.canadacomputers.com

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Ultimate Gamer Case $101.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit (OEM) $129.99

OCZ StealthXStream 600W Power Supply - Active PFC, 120mm Fan (OCZ600SXS) $81.99

Seagate Barracuda (ST3250410AS) 7200.10 250GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive
$57.99

OCZ (OCZ2N800SR4GK) NVIDIA SLI Ready XTC 4GB DDR2 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 5-4-4-15 Memory Kit
$119.99

OCZ OCZ Vanquisher CPU Cooler For Sockets AMD 754/939/AM2, Intel LGA775*
$20.99

Zotac 8800GT 512MB AMP! Edition (ZT-88TES3P-FCP) nVidia GeForce 8800GT Chipset (700Mhz) 512MB (2000Mhz) GDDR3 Dual Dual-Link DVI PCI-Express 2.0 Graphics Card
x2 $179.99 = $359.98

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket LGA775, 3 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 6MB L2 Cache, 45nm (Retail Box) (BX80570E8400)
$219.99

EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 3-Way SLI Socket 775 nVidia nForce 780i Chipset Dual-Channel DDR2 533/667/800/1200Mhz Support 1066/1333 FSB 7.1-Ch HD Audio 3x PCI-Express x16 Graphic Slots
$254.99

Samsung SyncMaster 2053BW Black 20" Dual Mode Wide LCD 2ms, 1680x1050, 8000:1
$249.99

Total $1597 before tax.

Any suggestions before I order?
Thanks!

 

[guanyu210379]

to : crbriand
If you want to ask for opinion, then make your own thread. This is not a place if you're looking for suggestions.

 

[gators1223]

i would say it isn't 1 number but a range, maybe 1000 to 1600 ish
how to get there?
an mid range should be able to play a modern game at at least low spec
crysis low spec take about $1000 of graphics cpu etc if you include os speakers
monitor...
to play crysis high spec it takes $1700 which is where you start to call it high cost

 

[razrak]

1250 for me

 

[eperdos]

around 1000$

 

[vaag256]

i did some calculating on this,
first i multiplied all the prices with the amount of votes they got,
after that i added all those numbers together,
and lastly, divided that number by the total amount of votes.

(i.e. if 1 person would want to spend 500, another person would want to spend 1000, and a third would want to spend 1500, the average price people were willing to pay would be 1000)

what i got from all this,
is the average price people were willing to pay on a midrange build, which is 1209 dollars and 81 cents

so i think the next tom's hardware build should have the midrange build at 1250 dollars 😀

 

[clay12340]

My vote is that mid-range is around the 1500-2kish mark.

What I find interesting is that if you ask people what a mid-range CPU is I think you're going to get a lot of different answers. Personally, I'd consider something like a Q9450 to be mid-range based on price. You've got a lot of high end chips above it, and a lot of low end chips below it as well as a fair number of products that sit on a similar price point.

Also you seem to have a lot of different ways to calculate mid-range. A couple of people myself included look at mid-range as a price point. For a given component which items are priced roughly in the middle of the pack.

You've also go a significant number of people who look at it from a performance stand point. A Q6600 will run anything that a Q9450 can and that's mid-range performance, so they take the cheapest mid-range performer and that becomes their price.

I also wouldn't consider sale/rebate prices as part of the discussion. They aren't constant and rebates have a tendency to never show up.

 

[gators1223]

+1 for rebates tend to never show up
as for the q9450 being mid-range, it has like 5 or 6 above it and a nearly infinite number below it

 

[spazza]

As long as it can last 1 year, It's good