That's not Dell, that's Intel. They have engineered uprgradeability out of everything they sell. That's because their clients are OEMs who make nothing off piecepart upgrades, just new systems.
Literally, on the cusp of a product cycle, yesterday's image won't boot on today's chipset, or vice versa. That practice became 'standard' circa 2003-2004.
And of course, Microsoft trumps both Intel and OEMs. Vista takes ~10x the hardware W98 did, to do essentially the same thing.
Dells were all pretty bulletproof when I worked there. That's what we aimed for. Chinese may be 10x cheaper, but Americans are 10x better.
The reliability trend for portables vs. desktops is the inverse of what you observed, however. The trend is, the less space they try to pack it into, the less reliable it is.
Face it. OEMs are in the 'new system' business, not the upgrade business. Intel's prime customers are OEMs, they don't give a flying farg about endusers or their aspirations of performance.
Intel raises performance, Microsoft neatly absorbs/negates it. It's only getting worse and more blatant. Yeah, they'll sell you more cores or more GHz that will still fit your socket and chipset, but you will be hard pressed to see anything change unless you're running very specific applications, and even then the change is marginal.
And of course, Microsoft trumps both Intel and OEMs. Vista takes ~10x the hardware W98 did, to do essentially the same thing.
I couldn't agree more. You're 100% correct, for me switching between Ubuntu and Vista these days is alarming to see the difference in system requirements.
That's not Dell, that's Intel. They have engineered uprgradeability out of everything they sell. That's because their clients are OEMs who make nothing off piecepart upgrades, just new systems.
So Intel are the reason Dells upgrade so poorly? One way of looking at OEMs.....
I had partly guessed something like that would be the cause. Dell (should they sell more upgradable systems) would experience a big boost in sales IMO. The XPS 630 was a nice start, however it is has problems. Problems that should have been fixed before they released it.
Message Edited by mfinnan101 on 05-23-2008 11:38 PM
Face it. OEMs are in the 'new system' business, not the upgrade business. Intel's prime customers are OEMs, they don't give a flying farg about endusers or their aspirations of performance.
Intel raises performance, Microsoft neatly absorbs/negates it. It's only getting worse and more blatant. Yeah, they'll sell you more cores or more GHz that will still fit your socket and chipset, but you will be hard pressed to see anything change unless you're running very specific applications, and even then the change is marginal.
Do you know, that's a very very good point. I agree with you 100%! ;)
x_lab rat
2K Posts
0
May 23rd, 2008 21:00
That's not Dell, that's Intel. They have engineered uprgradeability out of everything they sell. That's because their clients are OEMs who make nothing off piecepart upgrades, just new systems.
Literally, on the cusp of a product cycle, yesterday's image won't boot on today's chipset, or vice versa. That practice became 'standard' circa 2003-2004.
And of course, Microsoft trumps both Intel and OEMs. Vista takes ~10x the hardware W98 did, to do essentially the same thing.
x_lab rat
2K Posts
0
May 23rd, 2008 21:00
Dells were all pretty bulletproof when I worked there. That's what we aimed for. Chinese may be 10x cheaper, but Americans are 10x better.
The reliability trend for portables vs. desktops is the inverse of what you observed, however. The trend is, the less space they try to pack it into, the less reliable it is.
x_lab rat
2K Posts
0
May 23rd, 2008 21:00
Face it. OEMs are in the 'new system' business, not the upgrade business. Intel's prime customers are OEMs, they don't give a flying farg about endusers or their aspirations of performance.
Intel raises performance, Microsoft neatly absorbs/negates it. It's only getting worse and more blatant. Yeah, they'll sell you more cores or more GHz that will still fit your socket and chipset, but you will be hard pressed to see anything change unless you're running very specific applications, and even then the change is marginal.
mfinnan101
2 Intern
•
1.2K Posts
0
May 23rd, 2008 21:00
mfinnan101
2 Intern
•
1.2K Posts
0
May 23rd, 2008 21:00
I couldn't agree more. You're 100% correct, for me switching between Ubuntu and Vista these days is alarming to see the difference in system requirements.
So Intel are the reason Dells upgrade so poorly? One way of looking at OEMs.....
I had partly guessed something like that would be the cause. Dell (should they sell more upgradable systems) would experience a big boost in sales IMO. The XPS 630 was a nice start, however it is has problems. Problems that should have been fixed before they released it.
mfinnan101
2 Intern
•
1.2K Posts
0
May 23rd, 2008 21:00
I learned that the hard way.
Do you know, that's a very very good point. I agree with you 100%! ;)