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

[Pottsey]

The last PC batch here was around £518 Exc. VAT per machine. We used to get cheaper ones but I found spending a little more makes the machine feel far more responsive and last much longer over the years. £200 to £300 budget PC just don’t tend to last 3 or 4 years that well compared to £400 to £500 PC's.

 

Personally I like to do all those little upgrades, £20ish extra for a dual core, £20 ish extra for 2 gig minimum with a slot free for further upgrades in 3 to 4 years times if needed.to.

Edited January 14, 2011 by Pottsey

[glennda]

Another thing is does everybody replace the monitors when they replace the PC?

 

I have brand new machines still using CRT's for the pure reason its so much cheaper and no point getting rid of monitors that work fine

[mrbios]

Another thing is does everybody replace the monitors when they replace the PC?

 

I have brand new machines still using CRT's for the pure reason its so much cheaper and no point getting rid of monitors that work fine

 

If we were running CRTs we would, but as we're 100% TFTs now we don't. We have 2 ICT suites running monitors that have been here since before i started work here 4 and a half years ago and all the PCs in those 2 rooms have been replaced during their life span. We'll probably replace them soon as 17" screens with 1024x768 resolution just don't cut it any more. Minimum screen size is now 19" 4:3 but we're starting to move towards 22" widescreens as they can be had for £80 a piece now.

 

I had typed out a really long reply earlier, a very controversial one too, then the page refreshed and i lost it all (not to do with your monitor problem as per quote but to do with the thread in general)

[Orangescott]

From the other side of the fence,

 

95% of my education customers are buying £350-£450 machines and I'm noticing alot more people are asking about clone machines.

 

One thing to mention is, that I've got a couple of schools that are in the top 2% exam results type list and they both buy dual core machines with 2GB. I'm not sure flocking to I3 and I5 really makes sense, are they really needed?

[SimpleSi]

For a desktop I'd expect to pay £300+ for the base unit £100 for monitor.

 

I'd only buy new monitor if old one was <1024x768 LCD or a CRT.

 

Si

[john]

Must agree with Si's figures there £350 or so for the PC and around £100 for the TFT monitor.

[mrbios]

One thing to mention is, that I've got a couple of schools that are in the top 2% exam results type list and they both buy dual core machines with 2GB. I'm not sure flocking to I3 and I5 really makes sense, are they really needed?

 

Ah so some of your customers are buying the same as us then, at least prior to this summer anyway. Apart from dedicated media, video editing apps there's simply no need for anything more, what i have started doing now though is speccing machines with solid state drives, they're slowly coming into an available price bracket, we only need the 40GB models and they should save on electricity, a far better spend than buying more expensive motherboards and processors. That said, we're about to get i3 processors now as the bundles are getting cheaper (only £30 more than an E5400 bundle) but there's still absolutely no need at all for i5s and i7s in anything school related, our media students are doing video editing on E8x00 cpus and 4GB memory without issue.

 

This is what we're looking to buy 90 of this summer:

i3 540 / H55 motherboard / 4GB memory bundle £147 each - if we were upgrading one room or a set of PCs we would still go for the E5800 / 4GB DDR2 / G41 motherboard bundle for less, but it makes sense to move to DDR3 and have the same board for the entire building.

Intel X25-V 40GB SSDs £57 each - Hopefully the new G3 drives should be out by summer and also cheaper!

500w PSU £9.35 each

 

We don't buy cases but if you add in £15 per case and if you really need a dvdrw that's another £10 the build per PC still only comes to £238, how can people justify anything more? I could easily make that build cost £150.99 per pc if i really wanted to and that would get you a PC that's more than capable of running everything a generic school application would require. Add on £87 per 22" monitor and you've got yourself an i3 base unit with a 22" monitor for £325 (or £238 for the cheaper build). I'm also willing to garuntee that they'll last the full terms usage without becoming a major hinderence in 5 years time, and on the i3 builds you could easily do video editing if you so wished.

 

So how do the people ticking £400+ justify what they're paying?