Re: It doesn't make sense
"What a load of crap. Not every business has an annual IT budget of several million pounds, SMBs just can't get the same deals that #big_megacorp gets when ordering their kit."
Spoken like a true amateur.
FYI I work for an SMB and I *DO* get such a deal ALL THE TIME - this is why I keep returning. Again, you are clueless and shouldn't be involved in purchasing if you cannot get at least 25% off at Dell, period.
"Yeah, well, that's great, unless your business is somewhat important, at least important enough to justify going for that 4hr 24/7 maintenance contract, because if something goes wrong you want that thing fixed now and not have to deal with multiple vendors (of which many even offer no onsite service watsoever) just because you saved a few bucks on memory."
Once again, "clueless" is the operative word - Dell's support contract has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR MEMORY of choice, your 4-hr Critical/Mission Critical applies with *ANY* memory.
And it goes without saying that when you buy 192GB memory then you add 3-4 extra modules for spare, I thought I don't even have to explain this...
"And while I agree that Dell overcharges on memory, you would be surprised how expensive high density server-grade memory modules can be even from 3rd parties like Micron, Kingston or Transcend."
No, I am not surprised at all because they are NOT expensive - when I wrote $4k for 192GB it wasn't an arbitrary number but an educated guess based on what I paid for half a terabyte server-grade 8GB modules last Fall (incl. estimated price decrease.)
"Nonsense. The prices for these cards vary a lot. Dell generally overcharges on these cards as they do on memory, but as with memory if uptimes are important then you better just bite the bullet. More often than not I found buying the generic PNY card (PNY is the only board partner for Quadro/Tesla and hence all Quadro/Tesla cards are made by them anyways) to be cheaper than what Dell could offer, and in many cases HP even managed to undercut both."
And again, if you would have at least the slightest clue about what you are talking about you wouldn't get into these hilarious claims...
1. High-end Quadros almost *ALWAYS* cost the same (+/- 3-4%) at ANY reputable seller:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?sugexp=chrome,mod%3D14&q=quadro+6000+6GB&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=1883289758933923353&sa=X&ei=M4y2T9XCHqjW6gGIueHlDw&ved=0CF4Q8wIwAQ
As you can see it starts around $3,900 and goes up to $4,400 or even higher if you pay taxes.
2. Dell's price? It's $4,540.00 http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bwcwrzp1&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&model_id=precision-r5500
3. Probably the weirdest, most illogical argument in your post is when you are claiming it's smarter to save $300-400 on a $4k critical, single piece of hardware and risk having multiple days of downtime waiting for the replacement instead of having it covered under Dell's same-day on-site WS warranty umbrella but at the same time you argue it's smarter to pay DOUBLE for a dozen memory modules to get it covered in case one or two fails instead of saving thousands and just keep 3-4 spare modules...
...priceless (:D), indeed.
But again, it's about knowing what you are doing - no offense but I really hope you have nothing to do with purchasing because you certainly cost a lot of money to your company.
FAIL because it is.