Earn about 13 bucks/hr building 4K+ computer. Crazy?

[Superrock]

I was making 20 bux an hour two years ago and I did something similar. I built a rig for about 1200. My advice if you have your heart set on something like this is to make smarter purchases by splurging on items that won't depreciate in value as fast.

Get a nice monitor, nice chair, and speaker system/peripherals, but get an average, budget-oriented video card, cpu, and everything else that depreciates at an painfully exponential level.

If you spend a lot of time doing something you love, then money shouldn't stop you. You can always earn money. You can't buy time.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: Superrock
I was making 20 bux an hour two years ago and I did something similar. I built a rig for about 1200. My advice if you have your heart set on something like this is to make smarter purchases by splurging on items that won't depreciate in value as fast.

Get a nice monitor, nice chair, and speaker system/peripherals, but get an average, budget-oriented video card, cpu, and everything else that depreciates at an painfully exponential level.

If you spend a lot of time doing something you love, then money shouldn't stop you. You can always earn money. You can't buy time.

That's basically what I ended up doing if you look at the specs.

 

[0roo0roo]

and emergencies? at 13 bucks an hour your fall back safety net account can't really be that flush

 

[theeedude]

As a computer hardware engineer here in Silicon Valley, I thank you. Please buy again soon

 

[ShawnD1]

Hey I just built a similar computer on Dell Canada's website for $1000 less

XPS 420 Components:
Intel® Core?2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista? Home Premium Edition
3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 DIMMs
500GB - Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
ATI Radeon HD3650 256MB GDDR4
Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
No Monitor
Cost: $999

Add $200 for a GeForce 8800GT at a computer store. Add $100 for a 400gb external hard drive (I bought one at Staples about 2 months ago). This sort of makes me wonder why I keep making custom computers when they actually cost quite a bit more these days.

 

[Scouzer]

crazy? no. stupid? incredibly.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
and emergencies? at 13 bucks an hour your fall back safety net account can't really be that flush

Depends on how you look at it. Currently live at home with my parents so I don't have many expenses to speak of. If need be I can afford a cheap apartment if something were to happen to them. And the money I've saved would still be used for University. Sure I would be living a very meagre lifestyle but nothing horrible. As for medical expenses I live in Canada so universal health care takes care of emergency medical expenses for the most part.

 

[mozirry]

A good LCD is definitely a great investment for the $$, but for PC parts, you may want to stick to upper-midrange and then upgrade every year instead of buying a super high-end part.

(I.E., a 7900gs Last year, upgrade to a 9600GT this year, next year get the 2nd gen DX10 cards,)

That would save you tons of money IMO, andyou would still get good framerates

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: mozirry
A good LCD is definitely a great investment for the $$, but for PC parts, you may want to stick to upper-midrange and then upgrade every year instead of buying a super high-end part.

(I.E., a 7900gs Last year, upgrade to a 9600GT this year, next year get the 2nd gen DX10 cards,)

That would save you tons of money IMO, andyou would still get good framerates

Well that's sort of what I did. The original post is almost a year old. The system I ended up building was just a little over $2000 without the monitor. And the monitor cost about 1600 so almost 1/2 the price of the system was the monitor.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Hey I just built a similar computer on Dell Canada's website for $1000 less

XPS 420 Components:
Intel® Core?2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista? Home Premium Edition
3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 DIMMs
500GB - Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
ATI Radeon HD3650 256MB GDDR4
Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
No Monitor
Cost: $999

Add $200 for a GeForce 8800GT at a computer store. Add $100 for a 400gb external hard drive (I bought one at Staples about 2 months ago). This sort of makes me wonder why I keep making custom computers when they actually cost quite a bit more these days.

Add those on and it's 700 bucks less. Considering I bought mine a year ago and bought the parts separately instead of ordering a custom built machine from dell, hp etc... it sounds about right.

 

[Fritzo]

Man...what a waste.

 

[lokiju]

Hell back in 2003 I dropped $3k on a system and 19" LCD (which cost $600 at the time) making $55k a year and look back at that now and realize how much of a waste of money it was.

I'm sure the system will be kickass for a year or so but in 3 years it will be outdated.

 

[Xylitol]

Originally posted by: mugs
Yeah, that's pretty stupid, but whatever floats your boat.

I love how blunt that statement is

 

[thomsbrain]

I love computers, but even if I was making $100K, I would have a really hard time justifying spending that much on a computer. Frankly, if you haven't even finished college, you should be spending your time attending community college and working full time or more than full time to save for real school. You should not have enough free time to justify having a nice computer with which to spend it.

 

[coldmeat]

My rig was about 3k when I built it and I only had an $8/hr job.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Wow... $4k on a computer.

I have to ask, if you were so determined on this, why even bother making a thread about it?

 

[Eeezee]

More than $1k US on a computer is too much in my opinion

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
update ur "My Rig"

Ahh yes thanks that was a year out of date hehe.

New rig looking good :thumbsup:

I'm waiting for SSDs to become mainstream before I do a system refresh. That said, it's only been 3 months for my current set up

 

[Leros]

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
Wow... $4k on a computer.

I have to ask, if you were so determined on this, why even bother making a thread about it?

Do you really need to ask?

OMG, I'm spending 20%* of my life savings on a computer I don't need. LOOK AT ME!!! WHEE!!!

*this is a made up number, I refuse to put in the effort to reread the OP

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Spend 4k and watch.... 2 years later, you will be like in the same "WTF my system sucks now" as someone who drops 2k or less.

I dropped 1.8k on a 3700+, 7800GT, 19" LCD.. blah blah. Let's say I threw in probably another 400 - 500 in upgrades here or there along the road, and my storage grew from 410gb to 1.3tb, and I upgraded to a dual core Opteron.

So in 3 years, I spent, let's say 2.3k? I'm relatively satisfied, but I know I'll upgrade with Nehalem out. Consider if I spent $4k back then. What would I have. Dual 7800GTs? Dual core right then instead of like 9 months later? What's the point?

Ok, shit I forgot I dropped 1k on my Dell 2707 a few months ago, but I think I got more out of spending 3.3k in 3 years than if I dropped 4k right then.

So think about it.

Drop 2k now if you REALLY want something hardcore, and then in a few years, drop another 2k. At least you get more bang for your buck.

 

[Locut0s]

Interesting how most people don't seem to have read the thread yet like to respond anyway. The system itself was not $4K it was $2K. I spent about $1.6K on the monitor. The monitor will outlast this system and probably many more and so will not depreciate in the same sense as the computer. The parts in the system itself were nice parts but nothing special I wasn't building a screaming fast SLI setup as you can see. And I also mentioned in the post that I had fairly significant savings put aside for university, and now have more put aside. I have enough for one degree at least as it stands now if not two. It is true that I have spent a lot of money on these items and of course I am not in the norm on this. But then these are important hobbies to me, computers and photography. I suspected a lot of people would think I was stupid or crazy, I wouldn't have made the post if I didn't think so, but it would be nice if they read my whole thread first and took everything into consideration. But oh well.

 

[QurazyQuisp]

I would've waited on the 30" if I were you... It was my dream monitor but at $1400+ I could never, ever justify it. But then, HP had a sweet deal on their 30" (rated better than the Dell 3007fpw and Apple 30") for $700 shipped. At that point I decided to sell my Mac Book Pro and purchase the monitor along with building a new computer. I came in under what I sold the MacBook Pro. It all kinda worked out as well, because my work has provided me a MacBook Pro so it's kind of like I never sold it.

 

[Chiropteran]

$4k computer is stupid. Buy the best computer you can get for $800, and then in 2 years spend another $00 and you will have a far better computer than your $4k dream system would be.

 

[Freejack2]

I'd recommend two 22" lcd's. This way you can have a game or movie on one screen and anything else on the other. You don't have to worry about radiation like crts so you can put it as close as you want to you.
Two 22" lcds would cost you about $400 to $600.