Seeking community expertise....please

B

bplives

n00b
Joined
Mar 6, 2008
Messages
3
ADMINS: I don't want to violate any rules here so remove the post or tell me how I can edit it if I cross a line. I am NOT trying to advertise, but am simply seeking feedback on a frustrating endevor.

I frequent this site but this is the first time I have posted. I know the membership here is intelligent and can possibly shed some light on why I can't sell what I think is a strong PC.

I won't post the link, but I am attempting to start a custom PC business. The first build is this:

Q6600@3.7
Asus Maximus Formula (Special Edition) X38
G.Skill DDR2 PC2 8000 4GB(2GB x 2) CL 5-5-5-15
Sapphire ATI HD 3870 512MB PCIe Video cards (Two in Crossfire setup) OC'd @700/1000
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad
Swiftech Apogee GTX CPU Waterblock, MCP655-B 12V pump, MCR320 QP Radiator
Silverstone TJ07 Full-Tower PC case (Custom black Powdercoated interior)
2x 500GB Western Digital hard drives (RAID 0)
Lite On 20X DVD RW Sata Drive

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This has been on an auction site for a month with the initial price around 3k, and now whittled down to 2k (below our cost) and we have only recieved two questions and no reasonable offers.

Thank you for looking, and I appreciate ANY comments positive or negative that you can give me.
 
First up, it's an X38 board, not a P38 board. There is no P38. That makes you look like you might not know what you're doing as the builder which is by no means a good place tot start, but it's a pretty minor mistake.

The 3870s aren't bad, but I think you'd get more bites with a single 3870X2 or a 8800 based SLI setup instead.

It's not a bad build by any stretch, but it suits a very small segment of the PC purchasing market... a segment that isn't likely to pay much if anything more than cost (particularly via any auction site) for something they didn't personally commission to be built. They're also much more likely to build it themselves in the first place.

Aside from the powder coating I don't see much if anything you did that the average user with a Dremel and some motivation couldn't have done... and really, bottom mounting the radiator is the only "mod" I see.

In the end I suppose the biggest issues here are:
- no one asked for this to be built, and people who want a custom machine at this level want their machine, not something you built without their input.
- it does not belong on an auction site (it's classy rather than flashy, it uses high end components but not /the absolute highest you could possibly find/, there are parts with higher numbers out there now -- these are actual selling points with the auction crowd, sad as it is)
- it has nothing differentiating it from a reasonably well done build by any enthusiast.
 
If you want to sell it on an auction site, its all about marketing. ;) Just lookup some of the uber gaming systems on eBay... you'll notice their parts are crap compared to what you have there, yet they sell for 2k-3k!! Again, its all about marketing.

The vidcards are air cooled?! :(
 
The p38 was a typo, but thanks for pointing it out (It's correct in the auction). And I agree that there are Vid cards with bigger numbers right now, but we got these back when the 8800GT's were nowhere to be found and the 3870 X2 wasn't even announced. That's how long we've been sitting on this one.

I also agree we didn't do anything most modders couldn't do, but lets face it, there are way more noobs than modders, and all the liquid-cooled PC's we saw on ebay were god-awful looking Antec 900 clones with radiators hanging off the outside. I even saw a one with the rad hanging off the front!

It gets 19,010 3DMark06 and outperforms most of the things that actually sell on ebay. My partners and I joke that if we packed it from end-to-end with cold-cathodes and glued a plasma ball to the top we'd sell it in a microsecond. Your probably right, it's classy not flashy. Plus, my photography skills blow as you can tell.

Thanks for the input, It makes sense. It's just frustrating when we're out the cash and we can't even unload the thing below our cost.
 
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