I believe the OP added an extra 0 - 3500 USD checks out more (unless it’s the Titan card… which costs I can’t remember how much kidneys).
For the SI - I hear “GN’s Steve” voice in my head, whispering the word “DELL”.
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This where I’m at for desktop and workstation hardware. Better parts for less than what the OEMs charge without all the lock ins and upcharges, no hassles trying to get somebody following a support script to accept there’s a problem needing something to be done, and the risk of not being able to replace parts is pretty much as low as it gets.
But if all you care about is that it’s a computer which does basic computer things then I kind of agree with @martona. Paying a large OEM’s profit margin (Lenovo, Dell, HP, Apple) is a markup on what are often entry level components but if it’s a basic config that’s not getting demanding use it easily makes more sense to buy something turnkey than to spend the time to custom build (labor in parts selection, assembly, and test = $$$, after all). My work’s like 98% OEM boxen and 2% custom builds for this reason.
And we’re 100% OEM laptops because laptops lack an open hardware ecosystem the way desktops, workstations, and servers have. Framework mitigates that a bit, which I think is great, but there’s only so much one small company can do.
I definitely don’t have faith in OEM desktop thermal solutions and we’ve had problems with operating noise even when throttling hasn’t been an issue. But if it’s like SFF with a basic processor and iGPU, sure, ok. 9900X + 9070 kinds of things and higher power levels, I build those.
We have a pretty good relationship with one OEM (I probably shouldn’t be specific here) and some of their 4080 desktops and stuff I’ve looked at have been… not terrible. Like if you bought parts and did your own ATX build you’d get higher component level quality but not necessarily better overall design quality. I custom build because access to the broader range of openly available parts lets me select stuff that goes together in a way which pushes up the design quality in areas where turnkey doesn’t work well for us.
Partly that’s possible because we’re building at price points where not paying the top level OEM saves enough in purchase cost to cover my labor, partly it’s because we have enough compute to be close with hardware details anyway, and partly it’s because I’m enough of an engineering enthusiast to subsidize the effort with time outside of work. Usually it’s not the case all three apply.
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I may be wrong here, but that doesnt look like a Dell or HP system to me. I think I know who it is but I don’t want to be wrong and unnecessarily give someone a bad mark so i’ll keep my speculation to myself.
I have systems from the SI I think this is from and there is a reason my last system came from Falcon NW instead. If the OPs system is from who I think it is, I can believe the cost and I also don’t understand why.
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I’m 99% sure I know who the SI is too; I’m not happy with them because they’ve put out highly misleading benchmarks for some of the applications I use that just cause confusion.
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Doesn’t this just mean everything everyone else makes sucks? Thus everything sucks?
This came with warranty and support right? Like if the GPU dies they send ya a new one? If yes then, I get it, can’t put a price on peace of mind!
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That is an often overlooked reason to purchase from a SI.
That’s just what being over 40 is like. Like teenage angst, but without the hope.
Yes, both.
HOLY SHIT. This is how I get support from Nvidia re. MIG not working. I bug the SI, they won’t ignore me, then they bug Nvidia, who won’t ignore them. Genius!
That’s what it’s supposed to do. BMC talks to the device in the PCIe slot over SMBus, it doesn’t see what it expects to see (I’m guessing thermal readings or fan speeds) and pulls the fire alarm. You can probably get it to accept fate through IPMI or Redfish.
Are you happy with it? I know Wendell shills for them pretty hard, but my experience with them hasn’t been all that great. Nothing to do with design or build quality though, and I can’t judge either because I only got that one laptop.
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Well, I have a Threadripper RAK and yes, I am extremely happy with it. I am sure the laptop they sell is the same one you can likely get from any number of vendors with different branding being the only real difference. I am not surprised you’re not overly excited about it.
When my machine stops working below 18c in winter… Gets me thinking about 3 PC’s redundancy and not chrome bling. Lucky I have a heater.
Usually the way that works is 1) the ticket is ghosted, 2) the ticket ends up with someone incompetent to do anything, 3) they say you killed the GPU and it’s your problem, 4) some other reason is created to deny the claim, or 5) you get a dead GPU for your dead GPU.
I… don’t know why I’d want to pay extra for any of these? Since support is a cost most companies do everything they can to minimize it’d save everyone time and money if they just stopped pretending. If I did the build I can support it better anyways.
Considering the 7995WX costs more than 11.000$ by itself, 35.000 doesn’t seem too far off the real price😅
I dont know who you buy from but you need to pick better vendors.
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Ah, sorry, my brain zoned out the 7995 part. Then yeah, I can assume it costs that much. But for the cabling… still hear Steve in my head. That price tag (unless the parts themself cost that much) for the level of work would be a ‘yeah, sorry, but I will find a different company, which at least understands what quality is’.
To this day I remember a pc, which one of the relatives bought as a prebuild(in the old days). At some point I was asked to have a look at it. The case choice was so bad, that the only hdd spot was on the level of the gpu. And the gpu was a (maybe) full centimeter away from smashing in the hdd. The radiator was literally applying pressure to the ata and power cables… and sharing a cup of gpu heat with the drive.
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Definately agree, for that level of princing, the employee shouldn’t have cut corners.
After seeing the advertised short 4U case with a typical build on the SI’s website, as far as cable management goes, OP gets exactly what’s advertised.
Now I don’t know what he was complaining about. lol
Cable management, ziptied noctua fan on the back (the photo with the gpu is raising questions the more I look at it). This is the level of work I would never expect for something, that costs “that much money”.
We need Wendel to follow GN Steve’s idea about buying prebuilds (but this time, servers), and doing an overview of the quality of SI work.
As much as I don’t feel like defending these guys, that’s not correct 
That’s the front, and the fan is properly secured with four M3 bolts. The zip ties are holding neatly bundled excess front I/O cabling to the unused rear mounting point on the fan.
But that doesn’t excuse all the other crimes committed.
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Sometimes it’s possible to switch. But, in general, there’s not a lot of alternatives to MSI, Fractal, Seagate, Thermalright, and similar and it’s not like you can really test a product and its support until after you’ve bought something. Reviews’ll cover the basics and there’s prevailing rep (plus experience, e.g. Asus) but, if you cross off every company that doesn’t reliably stand behind its products, at least here probably you’ll end up not being able to build because you can’t a part or the parts on the allow list don’t satisfy the requirements.
Like Seagate spent months warrantying with dead replacement drives before sending one that actually worked. With Thermalright we wrote off a bunch of fans because new ownership downgraded quality and could no longer meet the specs they’d bought. Fractal has a good reputation but it turns out the support guy we’re affinitized to either doesn’t understand how screws work or isn’t willing to replace defective ones. Since nobody else makes a multibracket I ended up moving that build into a Lancool. MSI ghosted. I’ve had ASRocks fail but that was within the exchange period with the seller (who’s been good to work with on three such incidents that I know of), so no test of company support there.
Corsair I’ve had good luck with so far but we haven’t needed to ask them for parts, just to provide proof of SKU substitution fraud on an order that’d gone to an affiliate reseller instead of being placed with the primary website operator (got started by a misclick on our side by purchasing). Probably the best somewhat recent one was a Chinese eBay seller who sent some knurled nuts with badly cut threads (I’d have to look up the account name). They refunded and I salvaged what I could with an M3 tap.
Ah, ok. Now I see it. But even there… “my eyes!!!”.
I’ll not speak for the vendors here (the 3 generation of my pc parts are MSI… after I gave Asus and Gigabite a try). But will speak for folk like “PC part retailers”.
There is one local “e-commerce” store in my country, which basically is dominating the market. But when I was still a “junior”, and my salary wasn’t much, I decided to buy my first mechanical keyboard (Razer blackwidow, if I remember correctly). The kb arrived seemingly without visual damage, but half of the keys were dead. I brought it to their local store for a fix/replacement.
After 3 weeks (2 of which were shipment shinanigans) I had to call them (who would bother calling back to me? pfff). And I got a “the product is severely damaged with visual abuse → don’t even dream of a refund”. I got disappointed (the kb costed me close to what I was making in a month). And simply posted the whole story to a store review website we had then (and still do), describing the whole thing. Interestingly enough, in 5 minutes (literally) I got contacted by that store (I was asked by the representative in the comments for my order number, for which I said that I don’t really care anymore). And a brand new keyboard was sent.
But I’ve learned my lesson. It’s been maybe 7 years ago (or even more), and I never bought anything PC related with a price tag above 50$.
On the other hand. I found one store, which specifically specializes on PC parts (a rarity!). I had a problem with the PC build I made a year ago. I contacted the manager and explained the situation.
Lets understand that the person could’ve simply football me to the service center (and don’t fn bother me, lad!). Instead, the person was also a tech guy, and had direct communication with their repair guys(and gels). For the first few weeks we were basically trying all the possible scenarios to uncover the root. After which I was asked if it was possible for me to send all the parts to them, so they would try from their side. Which I did. When, after a few weeks the person wrote to me “we tried everything, but didn’t find anything” I had zero doubts they did. And send me back the parts (not footballing with the message “you’re on your own, bud”), saying that I need to find what isn’t sitting right with my current parts (and I did find the problem).
But the thing is… from that time I build a second PC with this guy, bought a 5080 (not even questioning the price tag), and all major things I buy, before going for other stores, are first messaged to him, asking if they have it.
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