>The nice thing about System76 selling this machine is you get their excellent support (you can choose from 1-3 years of support at purchase). This is a huge boon to businesses who elect to run open source software, because they get a fully-supported hardware configuration instead of having to figure out compatibility themselves.
This entire thing reads like an advertisement.
>Note that you can buy every part of this system—aside from System76's case and support—from a retailer like NewEgg (e.g. the motherboard + CPU combo for $2349) should you wish to build a custom arm64 workstation PC.
7000$ for a computer you can build for around 3500$.
You can literally just take their part list and install the OS yourself.
I understand companies need to make a profit, but this is nuts.
Likewise in the laptop market your almost always better off installing Linux on a Windows laptop vs paying 2x for a System 76 version.
Linux can't be simultaneously easy to install and justify on 100% markup.
For my own computers, I prefer to build myself, as I save a ton, and usually end up with a machine I'm happier with.
But as someone who's helped with many IT purchasing decisions, having a supported configuration and a company to call (instead of me being front line IT support, PC support, hardware support, etc.) is a huge benefit.
And right now there aren't a ton of Linux-first hardware vendors, so System76 charges a premium. It's worth it to some, but not to many.
Note that the system starts at $3299 — $2,000 of the price of the as-configured workstation was the 512 GB of ECC RAM. Those sticks cost $160/ea on Amazon.
There's a markup, but it's not $7000 for a computer that costs $3500 DIY. The DIY cost would be somewhere around $4000-4500 and would have a 2.6 GHz CPU and Dual 10 GbE instead of 25 GbE.
I'd like to see Ampere get all their CPU models out to retail availability though. Right now if you bought the base model for $3299, you could buy a M128-30 CPU for $2299, but only through NewEgg's "Request a Quote" system, which is a potshot.
>$7000 for a computer that costs $3500 DIY. The DIY cost would be somewhere around $4000-4500 and would have a 2.6 GHz CPU and Dual 10 GbE instead of 25 GbE.
I'm seeing some deals on the ram which can get it down to 1200 or less for the 512
So instead of a 100% markup, a modest 75%.
I just can't imagine the person who.
A) Needs this setup.
And.
B) Can't fit some computer
parts together and install an OS.
Even then eventually issues will emerge. I have more faith in being able to fix my own PC vs waiting a full week for tech support. All the parts should be under warranty.
As Jeff said, professionals and businesses. Imagine asking 300 engineers to furnish their own workstation with a budget. Everywhere I worked this would be nuts, maybe 2% of engineers would be excited to build a machine, 98% would just buy OEM. And what happens when something goes wrong for those two percent? If someone at my team meeting would say “sorry I can’t help with the project this week I’m arguing with MSI support so I can RMA my motherboard” like… what?? Losing a few days of work is already $2000. Having an unbounded worst case remediation time from failure is just unthinkable.
When I have a hardware problem with an Apple device, I can drive to an Apple Store and exchange the device for a new copy the same day, errand will take 2 hours in total. Big OEMs like Lenovo will send a guy to your location to fix the system within a day or two. System76 will mail you a new copy as soon as they can build it.
I used to build my own gaming PCs and home servers but the next one I buy will probably be from a high-end OEM because I will gladly pay a 75% markup to spend my time on other things. I used to find scouring the Internet for good deals, researching fan ducts, and zip-tying cables fun, but I’ve hit my lifetime limit doing it - now it’s just busy work.
System76 has their own UEFI BIOS and EC firmware, but that doesn't even make it better since you can hypothetically buy a Clevo laptop and mod it to be a brother from another mother.
Just buy a Thinkpad or another laptop that has good support for Linux.
I definitely get the argument that your supporting Linux by buying a System 76 computer, but the last time I checked IBM Red Hat isn't exactly a charity.
I know there are a bunch of laptops that have good support for Linux, but I'm talking one more level deep than that. Good support for Coreboot UEFI is hard to come by, and FOSS EC firmware (this makes laptop specific features possible) to my knowledge is unique to System76.
Those two components are the unique selling propositions System76 has over your standard Linux-ready laptop. And they aren't quite unique when you realize System76 is commissioning laptops from the likes of Clevo.
E: I know I just rehashed by last comment a little bit, but it felt like the point didn't come across properly. I was supporting the mention that the Linux-first USP of S76 wasn't strong enough, and building on top of it.
Something to do with free software everything, not features that Coreboot provides that a standard InsydeH2O UEFI BIOS doesn't have. I don't quite get it myself, and it is quite a niche, but some people care more about it more than others. A very small amount of people.
There's great risk installing such a thing yourself, as you can end up bricking your laptop with very little recourse than to break out a soldering iron. Or if you don't do your homework carefully, end up with a half functioning PC because things like display brightness and audio apparently require driver binaries within UEFI that need to be there to work.
That is a Clevo laptop, but many vendors do use their models and don't advertise as such. Gigabyte, for example, uses Clevo for their bottom tier models with no special marketing name. I don't doubt that their other models are Clevo, but I can tell that those ones are.
I'm looking on Newegg and it looks like the the motherboard/Ampere CPU bundle is $1434 (Asrock Rack Ampere Altra Bundle ALTRAD8UD-1L2T Deep Micro-ATX Server Motherboard Single Socket (LGA 4926) with Ampere Altra Q64-22 64 cores). case and power supply $300. 64GB RAM $65. 1TB M.2 SSD $55. A400 graphics card $180 (not a great card). That comes out to $2034. So yeah, they've got about a $1250 markup.
This entire thing reads like an advertisement.
>Note that you can buy every part of this system—aside from System76's case and support—from a retailer like NewEgg (e.g. the motherboard + CPU combo for $2349) should you wish to build a custom arm64 workstation PC.
7000$ for a computer you can build for around 3500$.
You can literally just take their part list and install the OS yourself.
I understand companies need to make a profit, but this is nuts.
Likewise in the laptop market your almost always better off installing Linux on a Windows laptop vs paying 2x for a System 76 version.
Linux can't be simultaneously easy to install and justify on 100% markup.