The $16k PC.

[Datech]

I think someone needs to mod this...

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/?p=11512

I wish they gave a price breakdown though.

Can someone move this to Tech Talk? I didn't think about that when I posted, but more people should see this.

[Luke122]

It's ugly on the outside, the cable management inside is terrible, and there's no way that cost $16,000. :P

I agree that we need a price breakdown..

[NightrainSrt4]

That is disgusting, and not in a good way either.

It looks completely unprofessional. You can get a pair of the opterons w/tlb errata issues for 100$ oem new on ebay, and a quad mobo for cheap at newegg. They are only using 2gb dimms in those pics, so that's nothing special.

Unless I am missing something huge, whoever buys that is a complete sucker. It looks like something someone threw together real quick in their basement.

Nothing about that screams 16k to me.

[SXRguyinMA]

yummy :D

[Datech]

I'll do a price breakdown of my own a little later tonight from what I can see in the pics and what they mention. Everyone else is encouraged to do one too! Lets see how far under 16k we can make it, then send it to the writer and builder in one big package, lol.

[p0Pe]

first of all, why go with a ddc pump in a koolance bay res? that thing costs 200$ aprox, is noisy, and dont performs well...

two, one pump for four cpu blocks and a mora sized raddy!?!?! no way they are hitting 45 max on 5V... maybe outside...

three, i only see 4 harddrives?

four, a passive cooled grafic card?

as you say, no way in hell they threw 16K into that one.. maybe a few years ago but not now lol

[xRyokenx]

Yeah, that's pretty sad for a $16k rig... if it is in fact a 16k rig. For the hardware in that I'm betting you could build it for less than half what they claim that cost to build and it would be much, much better.

[Spawn-Inc]

first of all, why go with a ddc pump in a koolance bay res? that thing costs 200$ aprox, is noisy, and dont performs well...

two, one pump for four cpu blocks and a mora sized raddy!?!?! no way they are hitting 45 max on 5V... maybe outside...

three, i only see 4 harddrives?

four, a passive cooled grafic card?

as you say, no way in hell they threw 16K into that one.. maybe a few years ago but not now lol

if its the DDC pump, it can handle it but not with 3/8" tubing and stock top.

all that and they go with koolance crap....

[XcOM]

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/TBCS_Group/xcom/16k.PNG

Mine is a third of the cost, had two Solid State Drives in raid, 6TB's Faster CPU's, Faster GPU, a watercooled GPU, bigger PSU, three loops (One for CPU 0,1, One for CPU 2,3 and one for GPU), res's and generaly better watercooling equipment, and it still is cheaper with us in the UK paying more!

Forgot to add fans, so say £50 for high quality fans,

[Datech]

I followed the links to Tom's Hardware's original story. The picture slideshow is extremely annoying, and the "full list of hardware specs" is dispersed throughout the 25 slides.

http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/495-puget-systems-extreme.html

"Puget adds a one-year parts warranty and a lifetime labor warranty, bringing the machine's total cost to $16,338.89."

Here is the overview:

"Our client came to us with a need we hear often: he wanted a high performance machine, but wanted it quiet. Of course, “quiet” is a subjective term... Building a mainstream PC to be quiet isn't difficult at all, but high-performance machines are more challenging. This particular computer has four quad-core Opteron processors, 32 GB of memory, two VelociRaptor hard drives in RAID1, and six 1 TB hard drives in RAID 5. That's not a easy machine to make quiet! We opted to cool the machine with a massive radiator mounted to the side of the case, providing an extreme amount of radiator surface area, allowing us to run the fans at 5 V for nearly silent operation. And the temperature on the CPUs? 36 C at idle, 45 C at load.

We begin by testing the board under air cooling, to make sure the motherboard, CPUs, and memory are working properly. It takes half a day to run one pass of MemTest!"

So that leaves us with:


9x 120 mm fans
4x Koolance CPU-340
Koolance's RP-1000BK reservoir and pump
Koolance liquid cooling fluid
Rubber grommets
Tubing
4x Opteron 8350
brass tubing risers
Angled barbs
Cooler Master Stacker 810
MagiCool's Xtreme Nova 1080 radiator
Tyan's Thunder n6550EX
Corsair HX 1000W PSU
32 GB of registered DDR2-667 ECC memory
AsusXonar DX PCI Express sound card
Asus GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB
3Ware 9550SX-8LP SATA 3 Gb/s RAID controller
2x Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor hard drives
6x 1 TB Samsung SpinPoint F1s
2x Pioneer 20x DVD+/-R/RW SATA drives


So with that, my price list is as follows, assembled from the cheapest Google Product prices:


$67.41 - 9x 120mm fans (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185054)
$196.00 - 4x Koolance CPU-340 (http://www.eastluna.com/hardware/details.php?id=3181&id2=b)
$207.99 - Koolance's RP-1000BK reservoir and pump (http://www.infotechnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=5050&s=froogle)
$44.52 - 2x Koolance liquid cooling fluid (http://www.pugetsystems.com/store/item.php?cat=Liquid+Cooling%3A+Other&id=4950&com=d41d8cd9)
$1999.96 - 4x Opteron 8350 (http://compuvest.us/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=348045&CategoryCode=CPU_AMDO&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1)
$143.99 - Cooler Master Stacker 810 (http://www.110220volts.com/STACKER.html)
$149.95 - MagiCool's Xtreme Nova 1080 radiator (http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5946/ex-rad-123/MagiCool_XTREME_Nova_1080_Radiator.html)
$885.00 - Tyan's Thunder n6550EX (http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/merchant.ihtml?pid=6437&lastcatid=5&step=4)
$238.37 - Corsair HX 1000W PSU (http://www.cesell.com/product.php?productid=161394)
$1119.60 - 32 GB of registered DDR2-667 ECC memory (http://www.1stchoicememory.com/catalog/configurator.asp?b=Tyan%20Computers&m=58624&p=C586243281)
$79.26 - Asus Xonar DX PCI Express sound card (http://www.buy.com/prod/asus-xonar-dx-7-1-channels-pci-express-sound-card/q/loc/101/207955060.html)
$438.00 - Asus GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB (http://eforosh.com/microtech/11898/13570)
$447.05 - 3Ware 9550SX-8LP SATA 3 Gb/s RAID controller (http://www.barefootfloor.com/3ware-9550sxu-8lp-sgl-i90918.html)
$424.98 - 2x Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor hard drives (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8844717&type=product&id=1208562592342&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=8844717)
$573 - 6x 1 TB Samsung SpinPoint F1s (http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=HD-D103UJ&c=fr&pid=09f33cf6cf3caa4d8294e242402179af823a7df66ebeb0 d77add353969447fa1)
$79.98 - 2x Pioneer 20x DVD+/-R/RW SATA drives (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3859442&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&cm_mmc_o=TBBTkwCjCVyBpAgf%20mwzygtCjCVRqCjCVRq)
$300 - Anything else including tubing, grommets, extra metal, etc.


Component Total: $7395.06

So the cost is actually up there. However, the final cost is more than twice as much as the component cost. I don't care what business you are running, you should not be charging $8000 for labor, parts warranty, service, and setup. Plus, these guys probably told a TON of manufacturers that they would be building this system, and at least one of those components were either donated or discounted heavily. I would bet that most of the Koolance stuff was either free or 50% off since they used their products exclusively for water cooling.

Component Total after discounts: $6500 max.
Labor: $3200 - 40 man hours at $80 an hour, generously.
1 year parts: $975 - 15% total parts
Lifetime Service: $1600 - 50% total original labor

Total: $12275

And we all know that even that is a completely generous, BS price. Hell, I would have built that thing for them, modded it, gotten the maximum part warranty for everything and given them lifetime service for $9000. Unless I'm missing something, the buyer either got screwed or has too much money. What say you?

[NightrainSrt4]

Add on to the fact that your prices were more than generous. $440 for a 640mb 8800GTS, maybe when launched. You can snag those new for $120 from the manufacturer lol.

[XcOM]

i listed a GTX 280 with 1GB ram and that was only about $350!

[BuzzKillington]

Must have had it hand delivered from God or had it overnight shipped via Air Force One.

Regardless of it's actual cost it's still a failure in my book and I'm not speaking from jealousy. The owner is a moron.

[NightrainSrt4]

Ya, even if it actually cost 16k, just look at it. Does that look like a 16k computer? Could you actually convince your spouse that you paid 16k for that without having to bust out the slips?

None of your friends would believe you just by looking at the thing. I'm all for function over form, but at 16k, my whole theory on that goes out the window. If your going to be that much of an arse to buy a 16k computer, at least get one that looks like it is worth that much. Throw the side panel on and that thing screams cheap mod, not 16k server, at least to me.