Build or buy rant

I've built about 5/6 workstations for the company I work for over the last year or so.
No problems at all (around 2k budget ex vat per machine)
The new "IT" company is claiming that dell/hp machines are better than the beasts I've been putting together from off the shelf parts.
Even thought they will be lower spec/more expensive with silly propriety parts.
PCs are used for heavy 3D modeling/rendering .
Rage inducing ,

Xenoronin

They just don't want the support hassle. It is easier to call up Dell and say "PC broke, send engineer", than to take the PC down, find problem, order replacement part, rebuild from image if necessary.

We've had this discussion before in previous threads. Unless you are wholly in control of the IT for a small company, and have backups ready to go, it is generally not a good idea to use custom builds.

yoshiktk

BrownFinger wrote: »

I've built about 5/6 workstations for the company I work for over the last year or so.
No problems at all (around 2k budget ex vat per machine)
The new "IT" company is claiming that dell/hp machines are better than the beasts I've been putting together from off the shelf parts.
Even thought they will be lower spec/more expensive with silly propriety parts.
PCs are used for heavy 3D modeling/rendering .
Rage inducing ,

New IT prefer the service which they provide?

smacl

yoshiktk wrote: »

New IT prefer the service which they provide?

Yep, if you've a small reliable PC builder, you could possibly end up with as good or better service and support than Dell or HP. In the same boat myself at the moment, looking at a couple of new PCs, and not that enthused by Dell, will start a fresh thread.

yoshiktk

smacl wrote: »

Yep, if you've a small reliable PC builder, you could possibly end up with as good or better service and support than Dell or HP. In the same boat myself at the moment, looking at a couple of new PCs, and not that enthused by Dell, will start a fresh thread.

I would say it all depends of many factors.
In one of my jobs IT dept. had to replace almost every machine, like 20+ pc. When they did the math with custom pc included still ended with HP for the simple reason, maintenance cost in longer period was not worth the amount which was saved on purchase as they would need to have extra pc and parts as spares.

Cuddlesworth

smacl wrote: »

Yep, if you've a small reliable PC builder, you could possibly end up with as good or better service and support than Dell or HP.

Selling on the side, building mid to high tier gaming PC's. Sure you could make a few bucks.

Selling as a business, providing warranty and support. Doubt it.

smacl

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Selling on the side, building mid to high tier gaming PC's. Sure you could make a few bucks.

Selling as a business, providing warranty and support. Doubt it.

The bulk of my clients (mostly UK to be fair) tend to need high-end workstations and many of them use custom PC builders rather than big manufacturers. Once you start going 64gb+ memory, twin high end xeon, twin graphics cards, the likes of Dell get very expensive and I'd guess there's plenty of margin to be had. e.g. Precision 720, 2 x Dual Intel Xeon Gold 6146 3.2GHz, 64gb ram, 2x Radeon Pro WX 7100, 8GB, 1 TB SSD would set you back > €10k ex VAT. That gives you three year next business day on-site service and support. It doesn't guarantee the workstation will be fixed next day. While my experience of Dell support over the years on their workstations has been good, its certainly not beyond any skilled PC technician with access to spare parts.

I'd imagine gaming PCs would be considerably more competitive and mid-range office PCs worse still.

Cuddlesworth

smacl wrote: »

The bulk of my clients (mostly UK to be fair) tend to need high-end workstations and many of them use custom PC builders rather than big manufacturers. Once you start going 64gb+ memory, twin high end xeon, twin graphics cards, the likes of Dell get very expensive and I'd guess there's plenty of margin to be had. e.g. Precision 720, 2 x Dual Intel Xeon Gold 6146 3.2GHz, 64gb ram, 2x Radeon Pro WX 7100, 8GB, 1 TB SSD would set you back > €10k ex VAT.

Dual 6146 around 7k inc VAT.
Dual WX7100, 1k inc vat.

Before you get into Ram, cases, power supply's, a 1tb SSD all shipped safely with a warranty and support structure behind it. You might think its funny, but lob a dell or HP workstation and watch it bounce. They are built like tanks, perfect for shipping.

I've heard this argument before about making money building PC's, even seen some people try it over the years. Its all great until you build that 10k workstation and a 3k CPU fails but you have no idea which one. And why would you, we don't all have 3k Xeon CPU's lying around depreciating. The customer gets pissed off at the long repair times as you fire parts out to providers that sit on desks, get lost in the post or that just disappear into the void and never come back. In the meantime they sue you for a refund and dump a 50% depreciated workstation nobody will buy in your lap. And as a business you are expected to be able to provide a repair, replacement or refund within a reasonable amount of time.

You can build better workstations then what Dell or HP offer for slightly cheaper prices, but you usually have to go "niche" like offering products the rest are not bothered by, like threadripper currently. But its never cost effective, the parts are too expensive, everything you buy is part of a delayed supply chain that's not even based in the country. When you start to try offer services like Dell/HP, you end up were all the rest of the custom workstation company's are, carrying hefty price tags to offset the risks and costs involved in selling those system types.

smacl

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Dual 6146 around 7k inc VAT.
Dual WX7100, 1k inc vat.

Before you get into Ram, cases, power supply's, a 1tb SSD all shipped safely with a warranty and support structure behind it. You might think its funny, but lob a dell or HP workstation and watch it bounce. They are built like tanks, perfect for shipping.

I've heard this argument before about making money building PC's, even seen some people try it over the years. Its all great until you build that 10k workstation and a 3k CPU fails but you have no idea which one. And why would you, we don't all have 3k Xeon CPU's lying around depreciating. The customer gets pissed off at the long repair times as you fire parts out to providers that sit on desks, get lost in the post or that just disappear into the void and never come back. In the meantime they sue you for a refund and dump a 50% depreciated workstation nobody will buy in your lap. And as a business you are expected to be able to provide a repair, replacement or refund within a reasonable amount of time.

You can build better workstations then what Dell or HP offer for slightly cheaper prices, but you usually have to go "niche" like offering products the rest are not bothered by, like threadripper currently. But its never cost effective, the parts are too expensive, everything you buy is part of a delayed supply chain that's not even based in the country. When you start to try offer services like Dell/HP, you end up were all the rest of the custom workstation company's are, carrying hefty price tags to offset the risks and costs involved in selling those system types.

Fair enough, but if you type custom workstation UK into google, you get a lot of hits for companies specializing in exactly that market. When I go into client sites that have teams dedicated to modelling and rendering, I don't see that many Dells or HPs any more where they were once ubiquitous. FWIW, I've two precision workstations myself, and they are indeed built like tanks. They also have custom PSUs which ties you into Dell for maintenance to a large extent.