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By that do you mean a custom build or off the shelf, I used to have a guy in Sydney who would build a machine to spec, I think he would add $100 for our personal boxes. We did steer quite a bit of business his way because the service and quality were excellent.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I meant I used to build my own machines, but now I cbf.
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I have built a computer for a friend, and have been using a desktop that I got a while ago. Now actually building a desktop computer because I cannot find what I want.
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Best money can buy... with a trackpoint and SSD. No compromise.
Less hand travel, and no wait improve wiring of my brain to my IDE.
My dell precision is like an extension of my body, a part of it maybe !
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or my own compiler? how about my own editor? (vi used to be good enough; now it's VS2012 ;o)
building my own machine is a waste of time ...
Grace + Peace
Peter N Roth, President
http://PNR1.com
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That is like comparing apples and oranges.
It's a shame that down voting is unavailable because your answer is rude and obnoxious.
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so you build your own hammer, so what? ;/
d{^__^}b - it's time to fly
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If you want to spend more money for a name and spend even more money the next time you need to upgrade because you have to buy the system all over again, then have at it.
The next time I need to upgrade I just need the motherboard, the chip, and maybe memory.
It's cheaper and I, not the builder, gets to decide what's in my system.
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Thanks for your response!
I hereby accept the lash of 3 chastising down votes.
Grace + Peace
Peter N Roth, President
http://PNR1.com
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Peter N Roth wrote: how about my own editor?
Yes.
Peter N Roth wrote: my own compiler?
For my own language, yes.
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I haven't had a store-bought PC at home since 1993, and I'd be building my own laptops if the parts were available. For work, though, I prefer to standardize on one or two configurations and buy from a reputable manufacturer.
Will Rogers never met me.
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most of my development at home over the last few years has either been on an iMac or recently with MacBook and while they are already built I am always making the modification to max out the memory.
so not custom built but I do make some customizations to it.
I haven't built or looked at the insides of PC for about 10 years now.
as if the facebook, twitter and message boards weren't enough - blogged
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I think if you are doing basic development on windows (me it's desktop) even the crappiest machine is good enough. I typically buy the cheapest one I can find.
On the other hand I *must* have a high quality ergonomic keyboard and a good quality laser mouse (typically with a cable).
I like the guy who said the most important piece of equipment is your chair. I think its your keyboard...
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I definitely agree that the keyboard is important. I use an ancient Compaq keyboard simply because I haven't found a modern one at any price that provides the same tactile response. Anyone who has a reasonable touch typing ability will probably agree.
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Me too, I have an ancient IBM keyboard that would cost over £100 to find an equivalent of nowadays.
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Shopping for parts, grouping components based on specs... just not worth the hassle when you can get a good machine for a $1-2k. At least that's my opinion... of course, some people just like doing it but like Naerling posted, I'd rather be working on my own work rather than trying to figure out why the RAM is causing random power-offs (for example) or why the driver isn't working on Windows 7 (another example).
[edit] I should note that if you don't have the financial means, you probably do want to shop for everything and make sure you get the most bang for your buck. I did it back in college but not as a professional who makes a decent rate, I just have too many other things going on.
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I had a great experience way back in 2008; when I assembled a system from the scrap. I collected the working SMPS, mother board, HDD, Network card etc from the junk we had in college; as I needed a machine urgently for my project.After assembling I installed the os, the drivers, visual studio, oracle etc and finally got a running PC..
coding my world, compiling my destiny
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I keep telling myself I'm going to spec and build something from new parts, but I cant bear to throw anything away. I love making old stuff work with random linux distos just because, and I love digging through boxes full of cables and stuff and seeing what I can do with it. I still have a 2gb ide hard drive, no idea what to do with it except possibly tru crypt it and hide it inside a machine for no other reason than I can. Perhaps its because I remember the time when everyone said "1gb! How can anyone possibly need that much storage?"
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Why throw anything away? I use my Pentium 3 with Lubuntu. Still looking for a use for my 486...
Yaakov
What one man can invent, another can discover. --Sherlock Holmes
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Nowadays you have overwhelming choice of parts. I built new PC every 2 years due to high demanding games. There are so many factors you need to consider when building a Gaming PC. It is fun when trying to achieve best performing PC in your fixed budget, at the same time trying make it silent enough to use as a development machine.
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At home I always build my own. At work for years I built every single PC in our department however with the reduced list of "approved vendors" the cost of building has gone up significantly so I now spend about 45 minutes on every PC purchase looking for the best deal usually that means getting the base system then adding my own upgrades instead of paying 4 times the cost of the RAM upgrade or 2 to 3 times the cost for the hard drive upgrade.
John
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I have got to the stage where a name brand box will meet my needs and I can afford to buy a new machine every few years. What a bloody relief, never again will I have to rat around the innards of a dammed halftower, compare part numbers and prices and hope like hell the bloody thing will boot when I have finally assembled all the bits!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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me too
The custom machine are usually (or used to be) noisier than brand machines. I hate moisy PC!
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fabianocruz wrote: The custom machine are usually (or used to be) noisier than brand machines
The real reason I use name brand machines. The last white box I got sounded like a plane landing, drove me nuts!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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The reason I will never buy a pre-built brand (tower) is because of unwanted crapware that gets loaded along with OS, it used to take an hour to remove it off my laptop.
The reason some systems are quiet is because they have a modified OEM BIOS which cripples performance, limits your CPU upgrade options, in favour of dB levels. (BIOS power options will usually have fixed values)
But I haven't built from new for about 8 years, I just keep replacing/upgrading parts when they lower to a price I'm willing to pay.
"It's true that hard work never killed anyone. But I figure, why take the chance." - Ronald Reagan
That's what machines are for.
Got a problem?
Sleep on it.
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