[lug] CPU comparisons

[Nate Duehr]

On Oct 29, 2007, at 5:06 PM, Zan Lynx wrote:

> EVERYBODY knows about sales tactics.  The $8 pizza with $2 delivery  
> fee.
> The $2.99 used book with $3 shipping.  Buy one get one free coupons.


That's not a very good reason to put up with it for those that don't  
want to.

If you order the pizza (or the rack rails) from someone else, the  
seller figures out that you're not interested in playing such games  
and decides if they're losing enough business to stop doing it.

The logic you're employing is something akin to "if everyone jumps off  
a bridge..."

But, sadly I think what pushes companies like Dell and others to do  
such things is that many of the PURCHASERS of the products are trying  
to play games inside their companies to show things like, "Hey the  
servers only cost us X from Dell!"... while leaving out that you need  
thousands in "accessories" to actually put them in the rack cabinets.

Other outside factors include that Dell's rails are probably the only  
way to mount them that's approved by Dell for warranty/on-site  
maintenance work... somewhere in the fine print.  If their tech comes  
out to fix something on-site, and sees you bolted the things to the  
rack with someone else's rails, they usually won't say anything -- but  
they could, I bet. Seen that before with other vendors.

In the end, it's all about $ and how much the total cost of doing  
something is... if you're not vendor-locked for political or as I call  
them "religious" reasons... you choose on price and performance and  
maybe service quality, if you're smart and have some experience with a  
particular vendor's service program.  If Dell's honking you off by  
splitting out a cheap piece of aluminum for $250 that should cost  
$50... don't buy.

Servers are getting like cars... let someone else take the ridiculous  
depreciation hit and buy them from the secondary market, with the rack  
rails still attached, and all of their markup gone.  Let some  
corporate loon with a budget that's not monitored closely for return  
on investment buy the new ones and wait for the fire sale.

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com