How much do you spend on average.....

[mrbios]

How much do you spend on average per computer.

 

Lets say the situation is 31 PCs in a classroom, they've gone by their 5 year usage and you're looking to replace them as parts are dieing and your starting to get very mismatch hardware.

 

Standard use computers, say the room is bookable by staff, all your science, English, maths, languages etc software on, most intensive app being something like adobe flash CS5 or something and running windows 7. Your also after them lasting another 4-5 years. Budget wise your going with the conservative way of life, cut budgets and what not so cost is an issue......how much do you spend per pc? (per PC = complete base unit + monitor)

 

(don't worry i'm not going to suddenly make a million polls a week, this one is purely to fuel my own curiosity rather than anything needed for work, i may explain why i want to know this later)

[kmount]

I used to work on £500 a unit for replacements where the only license was the OEM windows one the rest reused.

[Guest Guest]

Depends what colour socks I have on that day. The market is changing so much thats a pretty hard question to answer. In the last 5 years we've spent anywhere between £300 and £800 per pc.

[glennda]

We got 250 core i3 4gb seperatly 4 yr warranty from stone for under 300 quid last year ( no monitor or windows license as we have purchased these seperatly)

[mac_shinobi]

Too much ??

[mrbios]

Well so far im pretty...shocked by results, was going to say surprised but that would have been an understatement. Keep them coming though, this is interesting.

 

I know what you mean though, it's not the easiest question to answer considering the way the market is, but treat it as if the market were static, and how much you would spend this very minute given the usage requirements in my OP

[kmount]

Are you shocked that they are high or low?

 

When purchasing in blocks of 30 I would always have a hardware warranty for the expected life of the system (so, 4 or 5 years), I'd not buy cheap processors and would always go for a good amount of RAM so that each 'year' the spec of the machines were better and better.

[mrbios]

Are you shocked that they are high or low?

 

When purchasing in blocks of 30 I would always have a hardware warranty for the expected life of the system (so, 4 or 5 years), I'd not buy cheap processors and would always go for a good amount of RAM so that each 'year' the spec of the machines were better and better.

 

Honestly i didn't expect anyone to select 400+

 

I'll explain my thinking later on down the line and let people argue their points against mine once more have contributed to the poll.

[featured_spectre]

£350 per machine, but that's including bulk discount, them building it and delivering it.

[glennda]

Honestly i didn't expect anyone to select 400+

 

I'll explain my thinking later on down the line and let people argue their points against mine once more have contributed to the poll.

 

I would only spend that much for specialist machines like our radiostation broadcast PC as the software eats ram etc but not on a bog standard machine

[mrbios]

I would only spend that much for specialist machines like our radiostation broadcast PC as the software eats ram etc but not on a bog standard machine

 

But if anyone was selecting 400+ with that sort of thing in mind then they didn't read the OP, i'm assuming the selections were all made with the focus being that they would be standard machines, no special requirements, just to run your bog standard school software.

[mb2k01]

My selection was 400+ and perhaps I hadn't read the first post properly, but that isn't really how I usually go about computer replacements.

 

Generally with our rolling replacement programme we will look to buy a bulk allocation of high quality kit, nearly always replace the equipment in IT suites or other speciailist areas, then look to redeploy those stations elsewhere until eventually the oldest equipment is left without a home.

In our specialist areas we would look around the 500 mark with the highest spec we can possibly get in line with budget restrictions etc.

[SYNACK]

I picked 400+ given NZ pricing but for a four to 5 year cycle without punishing the last batches of students that use them I would be looking at i5 with 4GB of RAM minimum and 22" moniters along with a 3 year warrenty. I'm also after vPro enabled motherboards to ease managment and repair costs in the long term. The last batch we brought, 12 units from hp met the above spec for just over the 400 mark in pounds but in the UK you would almost certainly get them under that amount.

 

Its fine buying lower end stuff if you are looking at hefting it after two years but getting stuff that just copes now does not end well in the long run. The i3 pcs that I have used are frankly weak, simple stuff like screen capturing with Media encoder slows them right down and that is with todays software. Five years of additional code and features on top of that and you will end up with a scrapyard as the students disassemble the pcs due to their excrusiating bordom with waiting for them to do anything.

[mrbios]

Ah it seems one person has selected 200-249, come forth and show yourself, what are you purchasing currently?

[tech_guy]

Around £450 with licences.

[RTFM]

We spent 650 ish per machine for our new media suite (with windows 7 64bit) but usually 400 ish for normal it suites (xp pro, the machines still run cs4 happily though). Both with 5 year swap out warranties.

 

I believe that you get what you pay for so if you spend 200 quid a machine even with a long term warranty there is a reason they are so cheap and I wonder how much time they will be in a class as opposed to in a couriers van on the way back to the supplier.....call me cynical!!!

Edited January 13, 2011 by RTFM

[bossman]

@mrbios:

 

All our workstations are microATX format 200w psu and at the moment house core 2 duo motherboards with mostly 4Gb RAM 120Gb SATA HDD and a 5 year onsite warranty at a cost of £329 complete with E17-DA Neovo hardglass 17" TFT monitors.

 

They are very quick machines and more than fulfil the curriculum and admin needs.

 

As my budget has been reduced as of this last year I have had to devise a new strategy and this will probably involve purchasing a motherboard bundle and have found a decent i5 processor with heatsink and fan with 4Gb RAM which will slot into our cases at a cost of £215.

 

This would mean my 5 year replacement plan can still go ahead at approx 6k per ICT suite which at the moment is costing me just over 10k a saving of 4k which will be spent on other renewals such as projectors etc.

 

This motherboard bundle is Intel with Intel processor and Kingston memory to answer RTFM who thinks that you have to spend a fortune to get the best, this is a common failure within schools and this is what the salesman exploits.

 

I hope I haven't upset anyone but we as a school have very little budget for IT but over 9 years I and my team with good hard work have saved our school in excess of £1m by planning carefully and starting from the ground up, for a school of our size which is 720 students has been no easy feat but with the support of our SLT and staff we have managed to succeed.

 

Our uptime is 99.978 at the moment and I am very proud of my team ( Webman, Tallan ) well done.

 

Apologies for rambling on

[RTFM]

If your buying new though and not getting all the parts separately and then putting them together (some teams won't have the capacity to do it the way you are) then you are going to have to spend a to get the warranty, licensing, and a hardware spec which wont be out of date and redundant in 2 years as well as run the software a lot of shills need now (cs4 or 5 for example) then schools will have to spend a little more than 215 on a bundle of ram, processor, heatsink and fan.

 

Ultimately if you have a spec in mind and you get multiple quotes for this and haggle them against each other (which we do and I am sure everyone else does) then Its amazing the prices companies can drop to.

 

I personally dont think around 400-450 quid for a decent machine which is capable of comfortably running Cs4 etc is bad including licensing and 5 year warranty.

 

Every schools budget differs and every it departments resources are different so a lot depends on those 2 things.

Edited January 13, 2011 by RTFM

[bossman]

@RTMS:

 

Yes you could be right in one sense but it doesn't take much to work out a ten year strategy if you get the core infrastructure right in the first place then you don't have to keep on buying new all the time.

 

You mention CS4 well we run solidworks for our technology and a few other 3D rendering apps and these workstations we are running at the moment which cost us £329 as I have mentioned in previous post handle them with ease. Add £70 for a license and it comes to less than £400 with 5 year onsite warranty.

 

I cringe when i hear of people paying over £400 for school computers especially these schools that pay £900 - £1200 for Macs just because the teacher or head of ICT likes the look of them.

 

Too much waste in education but that will soon be a thing of the past with this governments cuts.

 

Yes you also mention that some schools don't have the expertise or the man power to do what we are, well all I can say to that is SLT have failed in their interpretation of what IT does for schools and if used and managed wisely can cost very little compared to other resources which drain the money from the schools budget.

 

I do agree with some of your comments but not all

[RTFM]

If everyone thought the same way the world would be a very boring place!!!!!!

[bossman]

@RTFM:

 

Thinking smartly is not boring but then thats why we have a forum like this to share good practice is it not?

 

Its to try to help people see and work together for a common good, which everyone can either embrace or take no notice of, that makes sense does it not?

 

I do feel that sometimes its just about common sense, then I am surprised by comments made on this forum.

 

If we did everything the same then we would be boring but if we disregarded good advice and help then we would be stupid would we not?

 

I just like to help people and give them an insight to what we do at our school, the same as every single member on this forum because we are all proud of our schools and we want to help so we in retrospect do things the same, does that make me and you "Boring?"

 

I don't think so do you?

[RTFM]

I think you may have read slightly more into my comment than i intended for anyone to

 

I do agree that the whole point of this forum is to ask for and give advice and share best practice wherever possible and there is certainly no harm in that, infact its for the best that people who need advice have a reliable place to get it when necessary

[mac_shinobi]

Around £450 with licences.

 

I would of guessed around this mark or more inclusive of OS, AV and any other subscriptions ie paper cut, remote control software ( Impero ) etc etc

[alan-d]

From a quote

 

Intel Dual Core E5300 2.60GHz LGA775 FSB800 2Mb Cache CPU

Intel Micro ATX DG41RQ 1333MHz, DDR2 800MHz, 1K LAN, VGA, PS2 Motherboard

Kingston KVR800D2N6/2G 2GB 800Mhz DDR2 Non ECC CL6 Dimm

Samsung 160Gb 7200 RPM 8Mb Sata II Hard Drive

Samsung Black Sata 22 X DVD Writer

PC71131 MicroATX Black Silver Chrome Small Form Factor Case

5 Year Next Business Day On-Site Warranty

LGA 775 Ball Bearing Heatsink and Fan

 

£411

 

The quality is decent and we standardise throughout the school wherever possible which reduces maintenance costs after the warranty expires. The 5 year NBD on-site warranty is a big selling point for us too.

 

We could get them cheaper but long term costs start to rise when it comes to maintaining them not just monetry but technician time is also considered.

Edited January 14, 2011 by alan-d

[fawkers]

We've just purchased a bunch of new computers at £499 inc. monitors and licences, and 3yr warrenty. Now these are from a 'Big Name' company and this will mark the 4th room we've updated using this brands computers. Now perviously we have had 3 other types of computers in the school. The oldest being RM. Now these have lasted for ever and are now getting just slightly past their 5 year point. The other 2 brands we have had are from smaller companies and we have had all sorts of issues, and spent too long testing, and RMA'ing them back to be fixed. So far (touch wood) the PC's from this 'Big Name' have been no problem.

 

So i have to say in my experance that paying a bit more and ensuring that you have warrenty cover is well worth the investment.