Advice on pricing build

[morasco68]

What I have so far

Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo x2(2 graphics card)

Phenom II x2 550 Dual Core Processor 3.1GHz

CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W

MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb USB 3 ATX Motherboard

Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

4x G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL (8GB total ram )

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS(dvd/cd burner) my choice but haven't bought yet

No hard drive choice yet.

Anyone have any ideas how to finish this off and how to price it?
Or anything I should change to increase value? Selling it is not a huge priority but I would like to get an idea how to value a custom build.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[morasco68]

How would you rate this as a budget computer. Paid $445 for everthing

 

[geekapproved]

Are you asking us how much you should sell it for?

What do you mean is there anything you should do to increase it's value?

 

[DXRick]

So, with a $50 HD and Win7 64-bit Home Pro it will cost you $600. Add a $100 monitor, and you're at $700.

At BestBuy, one could just walk in and buy this system for $600, and get a better CPU and a printer.

Or one could buy this tower PC for $500.

With both systems, they would get a 1 year warranty. You would be lucky to sell it for what you paid for it.

 

[morasco68]

I didn't know bestbuy sold customizable desktops. I looked and failed to find one that closely resembled mine. Every computer seemed to have poor integrated graphics. Less than 8GB of ram. This is supposed to be a budget gaming computer. I wanted to try to sell locally.

 

[morasco68]

Also wanted to know if overclocking would increase or decrease value. Since my motherboard has a knob that can automatically increase or decrease overclocking.

 

[DXRick]

Did you see System Builder Marathon, March 2011: $500 Gaming PC? It is a much better build for $527 (or $627 with Win7).

I didn't even notice that this was a gaming build. As for value, you can't offer a warranty and would be competing with Dell, Gateway, Ebay, and everyone else trying to sell low end computers. Even though you used quality parts (like the PSU), you would need to find someone that actually understands this but is too computer illiterate to just build their own.

 

[geekapproved]

This guy is smoking crack if he thinks he can make money by building and selling computers.

 

[DXRick]

This guy is smoking crack if he thinks he can make money by building and selling computers.

I was trying to say the same thing in a more tactful way.

I got the hair-brained idea to do this when the PIII 550 was king (1996 maybe?). I built a great $2000 system and sold it on Ebay fpr $2100. Since similar systems were selling for $2600, I thought I could make around $300 doing this. I was lucky to find that one buyer and get out with a $100 profit. Even though I packaged it well, UPS monkey handling caused the CPU to pop out of the socket. The buyer was clueless and had to pay someone to fix it for him. Naturally, he was mad at me.

I now understand why other companies charge what they do for complete systems. They gotta cover the cost of building it, warrantying it, and still make a profit.

 

[wombat_tg]

Casually wandering new egg I priced the board, CPU and 2 cards out at about $460ish (assuming I got the right card) And the cards are pretty terrible. Finished off with a harddrive (and no OS) I would probably say the rig is maybe sellable at $350? Maybe. OC'ing won't increase the value either.

Building low-end machines like this and hoping to flip them for a profit isn't really doable for the small time builder. The production line PC makers get to negotiate for the crummy parts in bulk, resulting in lower prices. So at the bottom-of-the-barrel price points I will grant production line PCs are usually a better value considering what they are.

 

[morasco68]

I actually ended up selling it for $1000 locally, so all your advice wasn't really relevant, thanx though. Seems like being a good salesman has much to do with it.

 

[DXRick]

I actually ended up selling it for $1000 locally, so all your advice wasn't really relevant, thanx though. Seems like being a good salesman has much to do with it.

Nice job!

 

[morasco68]

When you give a person a crash course in the difference between custom and brand name really seems to peak their interest. It might have just been luck. But from what you guys tell me this seems to be a frivolous venture.

 

[DXRick]

What were your final system specs and price, and how did you find the buyer?