Left Nothing wrote:

I always find it interesting to see these differing perspectives.

I have worked in the PC industry for many years now and during my time
have visited many of the tier one and smaller suppliers' facilities.

I can tell you that contary to what many people proberbly beleive, the
tier one suppliers *do* test their products compatibility and
reliability for some time prior to releasing them to market. This is
done (in the main) to reduce their after sales costs, the more
reliable their product, the more money they make!

Quite prepared to accept that...

They have teams of people carrying out this testing, working alongside
the suppliers of components to produce the best quality product they
can that meets the price points expected by the market (i.e. us, the
customer).

and that...

Why am I telling you all this? Well, if the OEM sells less than 100k
units pa, they have no chance of obtaining the kind of support offered

also probably true...

to the major OEMs. Which means PCs purchased from the smaller players
[ 100k units pa] have more chance of failing or causing compatibility
issues than from major suppliers [statistically] generally speaking.

Not sure about that - it does depend on the skill and experience of the
"white box" builder though - so there is more of an element of lottery
perhaps unless you know the small system builder by reputation.

Note also that some of the big OEMs can have quite frightening return
rates on some kit - Dell and laptops for example.

I have heard the term 'Optimising' used in this thread, unless you
have strong links with the component manufacturers, there is very
little 'optimising' that can be carried out on todays hardware. (Major
OEMs can have drivers re-written, firmware changed, BIOS's re-written
etc... simply put small OEM's don't have a hope of competing with them
on 'optimising' for both speed *and* reliability).

In the sense of hardware optimisation etc you are right - I doubt even
the big OEMs would want to routinely go in for BIOS rewrites etc. The
areas where the smaller dealers will win are on service and attention to
detail.

That spec of PC if built by a major OEM would proberbly retail around
1,500 UKP. 2k should get you bigger HDDs and faster processor. The
problem will be finding a major OEM with your exact requirements.

true - also as a home user looking for a top end system you are often
wanting to specify things that the big OEMs give you no control over at
all (like getting a case that makes good use of internal space - has
enough free internal drive bays - with good filtered air flow over them
etc).

If I were spending 2k on a PC, I would _only_ buy it from a major OEM.
I like the comfort of knowing that it has been tested by a *team* for
compatibility / reliability, have backup incase of issues arrising in
the future e.g. software / driver / firmware updates but most of all
the warranty in case of failure.

This is the statement that give me the biggest difficulty! Yes the basic
package of components used for the system will have been tested for
compatibility, and the assembled unit you buy will have had some burn in
testing - but that will be true for most small system builders as well.

Firmware updates etc are mostly produced by the components vendors - the
big OEM may package them and make them easy to find on their web site -
but that is normally the extent of the service.

It is in the backup and service issues where you can really win with the
smaller players, plus attention to detail on the things that matter to
the customer now and in the future (rather than things that cut
production and support costs for the OEM):

If you phone a big OEM for tech support you get routed to a call centre
staffed by a (relatively) non skilled person with a check list to
follow. This is usually a painful experience that is often a waste of
time, where you go over all the fault finding tests you have already
done, and try to ignore the instruction to "just re-install windows from
your recovery CD". Next time you phone you can't talk to the same person
again. It may take many calls (and hours in telephone queues) just
trying to get to talk to the "level 3" technical bod who you can
actually communicate with on equal terms!

With the smaller dealer you may get to talk to the same person each time
- who remembers what you said in a phone call a couple of days ago and
can carry on with the diagnosis where you left off - not with the next
check list.

When you look at you nice new big OEM box it may work fine up until you
want to upgrade it. You open its nice corporate friendly "tool free"
chassis, ready to install a extra hard drive and find there are no spare
mounting bays, or the "value added" design of the "sleek low profile
case design with PCI riser" means the card if half an inch too tall!

A few years down the road you decide that the base computer is fine but
it is time for a motherboard, CPU and RAM upgrade. Then you find the big
OEM used a non standard motherboard layout, and the PSU connector is not
the same.

L.N.

P.S. For those wondering, NO, I don't work for any of the major OEMs
but I have visited the manufacturing facilities for 90% of them!

Not knocking the big OEMs - much of their output is very well suited for
their main target market (i.e. businesses), just highlighting that the
things that can make a great supplier for business customers can also
work against the discerning home customer.

--
Cheers,

John.

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