Quality of hardware today

[Operandi]

I've noticed bleeding edge hardware tends to be more prone to DOA; particularly video cards. Just about every RMA I've dealt with was for a machine was high-end and would be used for at least some gaming.

The PC market is also much bigger then it was in the past. That opens up doors for a lot of companies to make cheap crap and make money doing it. Solution, don't buy it.

 

[fire400]

ever since conroe was released, I know for sure that fast computers are no joke.

 

[Geomagick]

90% of all the problems I've ever had with hardware have been self inflicted and have nothing to do with the build quality of the component

 

[Slammy1]

The more complex the machine, the more things that can go wrong with it. I've always focussed on buying quality parts that are supposed to work, so the only thing I've RMA'd for failure was some RAM (that was open box). Had very few problems with failures; a couple of HDDs, a controller card, a keyboard, maybe a couple of mice. Every system I've owned went to friends and was retired cause it was obsolete rather than failed. Yeah, it's mostly luck not skill but I built my first PC a long time ago and am probably more paranoid as a result about ESD and silly things like bending pins or bubbles in thermal x-fer paste than I need to be. I've actually been most impressed with the quality of complex, mass produced items for use in the PC. Now, software issues I would say are definitely on the rise as we have more complex systems. At one point I could go to BB and pull about any component and slam it into a system and expect it to work. Anymore it takes a lot of research to find the technological G-spot for component compatability.