The Cost of Computers by TGS

Looking back at some older magazines I'm shocked at the prices of computers. Just 10 years ago in Maximum PC's first issue features Dream Machine ’98 with a total cost of $4934. Obviously, Dream Machines are meant to shock, but the cost of the dream machine doesn’t surprise me. The column next to it features a far “better” system that is beyond insane. Here’s the craziest part of the breakdown:

450MHz Xeon - $3690
Tyan mobo - $559
4 x 256MB (1GB) RAM - $3100
No Name Soundcard - $500
2 x 9GB Hard drives - $1580
CD-ROM - $200

Throw in the case, PSU, modem and other stuff and the total cost of this computer was $15,435!!!!

By today’s standards that is insane. You can by 1GB of RAM (the absolute best I could find ) for $185, but back then a gig of RAM was over three grand! Remember, it was only 10 years ago. The processor was $3690, but that was not unusual back then. Nowadays computers still have a relatively high cost, but when do you see a Processor for $3690? You don’t.

The 2008 Dream Machine looks kind of like this:

2008 Dream Machine Specs and Costs:

CPUs: Two QX9775's: $3000
Memory: 8GB: $350
PSU: 1.2KW: $530
Motherboard: Intel D5400XS: $650
Water Cooling: $360
Videocards: Two ATI Radeon 4870 X2s: $1200
Soundcard: $200
Storage: five HD's: $1800
Display: Gateway XHD3000: $1700

Plus everything else....For a grand total of $17,285

The chroming and stuff was ridiculous extras.

As you can see it's $690 more for the lonely Xeon and it was only $350 for 8GB of RAM instead of $3100 for 1GB off RAM.

Looking at the reviews that issue we get more surprises. The HP Pavilion 8290 cost $2898 with the CRT. What was the rating? Just a six out of ten. Next, was a better setup than the HP, so nice that Maximum PC gave it 9 out of 10. It was the Quantex (where did that company go?) QP6/400 SM-4x cost a killer $2999! Remember, these were all ugly beige boxes with very little flexibility and high prices.

In today's market you can buy a Gateway DX4710 with an Intel Quad Core Q6700, 8GB of RAM, and a 640GB Hard drive for only $750. Throw in a 22 inch LCD for another $300 and you still spend only a third of the older systems.

Another example: HP M9350F with a Quad Core AMD Phenom, 6GB of RAM, a 750GB hard drive and a GeForce 9800GT for only $1099. Throw in another 22 inch LCD and you're still hitting less than half of the older systems.

Skip ahead to Dec 2001 and the first issue of CPU Mag. The monthly challenge is to build the best Granny PC for under $800. The most expensive of the two came to $774 and featured an AMD Duron @ 750MHz, 128MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive and a 17 inch CRT. With today's money you can get an Acer AM5641 featuring An Intel E2200, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and a 19 inch LCD for $640. The Acer is still a midrange system, but a much better system than you would have expected.

2001 was the time of Pentium 4's at 2.0GHz. This builder challenge came down to the competitors having to pick old crappy parts instead of newer ones. It comes down to far worse early systems with a HUGE cost and newer systems that are far more feature rich for less money comparatively.

So I ask myself, is it the cost of computers that’s going down or the value of the money?

-TGS

Good story. The cost of parts has dropped significantly.

I love the title photo, when computers had 2 digit displays to show the speed (normally 33mhz or Turbo 66!)

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Originally Posted by jdbnsn

The chroming and stuff was ridiculous extras.

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Agreed. This year's Dream Machine @ MaxPC had some serious bling that a lot of people feel was unwarranted. $1000 for the case (an HP Blackbird, and yes, the general public will be able to buy the case itself for a cool grand) and the aftermarket chrome application ($5000).

Throw it into a Rendermandan, Tech-Daddy, Defyant, mashie or Crimson Sky original and then you would have a true Dream Machine imo.

I don't get it, $5000?? Local bike shops will chrome a case for $300 to $500.

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Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan

I don't get it, $5000?? Local bike shops will chrome a case for $300 to $500.

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If you look at this thread, the first poster says the same thing. Must be an extra special chrome job.

Exactly. I saw this year's Dream PC, and it about loosened my bowels - you'd think, for that kind of money, they'd pick a more practical, larger case with more upgrade potential - say, a Lian Li or Silverstone. The Blackbird looks cool, but forget it - and definitely forget that plating.

A few things haven't changed much. What does a Blu-Ray drive go for today? That's about it, though - really, the biggest shock for me was the sound card then. A cheapo sound card, for $500? Some PCs had decent onboard at that point! Come on, guys.

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Originally Posted by FuzzyPlushroom

A few things haven't changed much. What does a Blu-Ray drive go for today?

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At least they can burn, too.

Blu-Ray burners go for about $225 on Ebay

It's funny, too, thinking that most of us have these parts in our junk/spare drawers.

256 MB stick of SDRAM? Got a couple in computers I need to rebuild. 9 GB HDD? One or two around. CD-ROM drive? Here, take one. Please. I have a couple ten-ream paper boxes (cases) full of 'em, dead and alive, 4x to 52x. Even got an old burner or two. Take 'em away. Hey, want a dial-up modem, too? They're great phone-cord extenders!

I have to admit, it'd be cool to go back in time and pay for your college/mortgage/retirement selling then-current PC hardware obtained for free today...

ok guys first off we gotta stop we are showing our age. 2nd I am glad to see that I am not the only one who mounted a old modem to the back of a picture frame to extend the cord and hung it on the wall so you couldnt see the modem.

I just barely remember back to the nineties.

I would be in 2nd grade back in 1998, and yes- I remember that it was very, very easy to run out of hard drive space. I also vaguely remember an ipod that my uncle had, 4 gigabytes. My dad said "That thing has as much space as our computer!"

I played computer games then, also. Worms Armageddon baby- that thing was awesome.

nuff said.

Here' the ad from the back of the 1st issue of Byte magazine (9/75) of the Altair 8800!

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Originally Posted by Quakken

I just barely remember back to the nineties.

I would be in 2nd grade back in 1998, and yes- I remember that it was very, very easy to run out of hard drive space. I also vaguely remember an ipod that my uncle had, 4 gigabytes. My dad said "That thing has as much space as our computer!"

I played computer games then, also. Worms Armageddon baby- that thing was awesome.

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hate to burst your memory blast kid but ipods didn't come out till 2001 even then it wasn't 4gb and you didn't run out of memory that quick unless you were making water painting all day, games were hosted on the cds not on the hard drives

awesome write-up! +rep

i rem back in the 90's i was running windows 95 rite upto about 99, i had a 2gb HDD for windows and a 12GB drive for everything else, and i was constantly uninstalling stuff to try and save space.

I remember playing Decent on my dads old Packard Bell. Had the 100MB drive double spaced to 120MB. Then still needed to uninstall different programs to install games I wanted to play. How many people here remember cruising around on local BBS's to pass some time?

I remember playing descent on my old compaq! it was the **** when the original pentium came out! lol a whopping 120MB HDD lol

I remember playing DOS games on my grandparents' old compaq with a 486 and a ~700MB, I think hard drive. That drive is still running. Then there's the first family computer, a Dell XPS P120C. It came with 16 MB RAM, upgradable to 128MB (I did upgrade it to that a few years ago), a Pentium 120MHz cpu, a sweet somewhat new (at the time) technology PCI video card(Number Nine, really just an S3 card) and a whole 1GB hard drive. It was purchased on july 14 1995. It came with Win 3.1 for workgroups. My dad had a hell of a time upgrading 95.

With our packard bell my dad wanted a CDROM installed and when we tried to install it we found out that the motherboard only supported 1 ide. and the sound card I got for it, somewhere around $150 used, had no ide plugins on that.

Nice writeup! What you forgot to mention though (probably because its pretty obvious) is that these "dream machines" of the past don't hold there value! Wich is quiet frustrating for owners but great for us retro fans :). Me myself built this dreamer as the "ultimate game system '98" a year ago for just over 150$ ! I thought the value back then was about 5000$ but reading this article really opend my eyes.

+3K for a cpu :think: no thx :D

I had my 286 custom built. What really made it look boss was the fact it was in a tower. I also got the biggest HD they had ever put in a computer, a 120mb drive. It was insane storage space. But at the time, I could 'rent' computer games. Rent/install/play forever. It was allot cheaper then buying a console and cartridges. Later I installed a 14.4 modem and discovered I needed something called Windows 3.1 to run Netscape on. Paid well over $100 / mb for RAM.

my very first PC didn't even have a HDD, everything was run from 5" Floppy discs with an impressive 2MB of RAM!

I remember using those types in school! those were the ****! :D

My dad used to be in programming. We still have [very long] sheets of data and lots of punch cards lying around.

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Originally Posted by nevermind1534

My dad used to be in programming. We still have [very long] sheets of data and lots of punch cards lying around.

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THAT ONE WINS THEN!:banana:

Haha, I remember when I got my first sound card. I have been playing The Return to Monkey Island, with all these beeps and stuff. My dad got it for me just so we could hear that owl talk. All that money to hear a low quality voice from an owl. But at the time, it was bad@$$ :)

Xcartguy