I bought one of their laptops a few year ago. I needed a new power supply as the cable had frayed that came w/ the unit. I wanted to get the original cable, so I called and asked "what was the original manufacturer" so I could purchase a new power supply. They would not tell me and they wanted approx. $75 for a replacement from System 76. I peeled the sticker System 76 put on the bottom and found out it was a Clevo. Once I had the original Clevo model number I was able to purchase a new power supply, that worked, for $29 plus shipping. In short, hardware was good and performed well, their Linux integration was awesome (camera, wireless and all the other do-dads worked flawlessly), but IMO they are overpriced and their lack of candor about their re-branding put me off quite a bit. If having your Linux run w/out issues on your hardware purchase is important it might be worth it to you spend the extra $$.

Can vouch for this I had a very similar issue where they refused to share with me the original manufacturer of the laptop.

> hey refused to share with me the original manufacturer of the laptop

My experience differs significantly.

Right after I bought mine, I opened a ticket for the model information. They provided me the full model code and hyperlink to maintenance manual with part numbers.

This was a few months ago.

My Darter Pro had a sticker on the bottom that clearly labeled the Clevo model number.

A laptop with a proprietary power supply? What does that even mean? A custom weird tip?

Most of what is inside any given laptop is custom/proprietary to a degree.

A power supply isn't inside a laptop.

See: Apple.

I specced out the closest I could to my recent 3970x build. It was ~$1500 more through System76.

At my current bill rate, I am barely better off financially for having built on my own. Had any hardware been defective, or if I had to troubleshoot the first boot, then I would have been better off buying.

I imagine anyone who can justify a machine like this for their work will likely be in the same ballpark for bill rate (or higher).

I chose to build because I enjoy it. I'm sure plenty of others wouldn't enjoy it, and so would be much better off purchasing.

Definitely true points, but also worth noting how much easier it is to build a reliable desktop now than just a few years ago. Their own marketing images of the thelios show how empty the case is. With everything but storage, display and power supply on the board there's little left to do beyond mounting the cpu, inserting some sticks of ram from the QVL, plugging in the power supply connectors and maybe a video card and powering up. With the exception of handling the processor everything else is well within the reach of anyone who can plug together and configure a home entertainment system imo. Five years ago, say, getting the BIOS settings right could be a little tricky but that's basically become a no-brainer too.

The hardest part has always been plugging in the annoying little speaker, light, power, reset, etc. cables into the right spots on the motherboard.

How many hours to build a PC?

Are you turning down paid work to free up time to build a PC?

I didn't track the time, but I was between four and six hours hands on over the course of a few days. I am probably a bit more fastidious than most builders. Also this doesn't count any research time or shopping time. Probably between eight and sixteen hours invested there.

Bench build with mobo on the desk and each stick of RAM individually, and one pass of memtest86.

Then full build in case. I am fiddly with cable management. Also had some extra fans to install. 3rd gen Threadrippers throw off a lot of heat.

Some BIOS config (biggest thing was adjusting RAM timings and enabling virtualization features).

Then 24 hours of Memtest86.

Install Windows (a lot of benchmarks and stress testing stuff is much easier to just download and go on Windows).

Then 24 hours of Prime95 with hardware sensor monitoring. A few other benchmarks.

Then install Ubuntu.

To be fair, I'd have done the stress testing on a purchased box as well, but that is pretty much hands off.

January was light for me in terms of scheduled work. I didn't explicitly turn something down, but I did take advantage of a gap in my normally billable period (midday on a weekday) to build the machine. If I had wanted to, I probably could have found a way to be billing during that time. I greatly value flexibility in my time.

Could I have gotten done faster? Probably. My mise en place was awful. I was building in a cramped space. I haven't built a machine in quite some time. I also took my time to read the full mobo manual as I was installing and plugging stuff in. But like I said, this is something I enjoy. I was happy to take the time to research and shop around and then build the machine.

The comment on the value of time is more illustrative than a concrete argument. It is worthwhile to consider, especially for someone that doesn't enjoy building a PC. I could have chosen to find billable work instead and devoted that toward purchasing a completed machine. I'd only be a few hundred dollars worse off if I chose to do so. To me, that's a very reasonable price to pay to avoid something undesirable.

This is not for end users. COmpanies usually don't expect you to build your system: they want to order something all configured. And the offering for AMD in big shops is still lacking (last i checked Lenovo's workstations were still mainly equipped with Xeons).

They only works if you're building one. If you need to get an entire office setup with these it's actually worth paying to have them prebuilt. Especially if there is a decent support package.

> Especially if there is a decent support package.

There isn't. No next day on-site like you get with a major OEM.

If someone needs it for work they would be crazy to build it themselves. This is for companies to buy for employees.

I just did the math on their entry level model because I didn't believe you, but you're pretty close with that estimate. NewEgg prices:

  Threadripper 3960X - $1400
  16GB 3200 RAM - $70
  256GB NVMe - $70
  RX 550 - $70

= $1600

System76 price = $3700

That said, if you're looking at their higher-end models, I think you still have a fixed ~$2k markup, and so you're looking at something like $10k vs $12k, which isn't a big deal for that sort of customer (does save time, after all).

Side note: I own their AdderWS laptop and am a happy customer.

You're missing the motherboard, power supply, case, and cooler in that.

I don't know why people here assumed that I thought a PC was only composed of the parts I listed (no case? honestly?). I just listed out what I thought would comprise 80% or so of the cost. Maybe it's 70%? GGP's estimate is still not far off.

Nobody builds a system like that with only 16 gigs of RAM and only 256G storage.

Plus you need a quality motherboard, case, power supply, water cooling. Add another $1200.

The OP system76 does. And if you want to upgrade to more then the price premium skyrockets.

True. I'm really saying it would be silly to build a system like that with so little memory and storage. A friend of mine just build a 3950X, 128 gigs RAM, 4 TB SSD (2 NVME, 2 SATA.) The thing is a monster.

The System76 computer includes a motherboard, case and power supply; your bundle of parts does not.

Not to mention the labor of assembly and integration, testing, and QC.

DIY is free only if your time is worth nothing.

As a power-user, I wonder if there is any reason to not do DIY PC building (for personal use) over buying from System76. It's not hard to figure out a good configuration online (or even just whatever System76 uses in their desktops?). Basic assembly itself isn't that hard (or time consuming), once you have all the parts.

And, I guess these days most people who would need a desktop at home with this configuration are potentially power users.

I have built a lot of desktops over the years. I've run into lots of strange issues. One machine would bsod like once a week and I never worked out why. Once a video card was somehow not compatible with the system despite being fine on paper. It's just an issue of how you value time. I have no time for those sort of way issues these days. When a hard dusk fails I want to call a vendor and have them show up with a part, not screw around with some return to base arrangement.

A hard drive? It's cheaper and easier to buy and pop in a new hard drive or ssd than it is to get on the phone with tech support.

I believe I count as a power user. Not wanting to humblebrag here but I have been using Linux since 1993, coding in Z80 assembly since 1987, x86 assembly since 1993 as well. As a university student, I have, in fact, made a little money on the side by assembling PCs in the 90s for others. Last I checked the CPU / cooler installation was way way too fragile for my liking. I might be outdated on this , I last tried like ten years ago and noped the hell out. I also do not have the need any more, between my laptop + eGPU for gaming and a rented Hetzner server, my computing needs are covered. https://www.hetzner.com/sb has a E3-1275v5 with 2x512GB NVMe SSDs and 64GB RAM for 46 EUR a month, it'd take quite a few months to make that server worth building and also I can use that thing to, you know, serve hobby sites.

I have done none of these things, but have assembled 3 computers now for myself and a family member. There is nothing about CPU cooler installation that is fragile, I am not sure that you could, even if you wanted, put enough pressure onto the CPU to damage it using your CPU cooler. The only really fragile thing are the pins on the CPU which you can damage if you mishandle it. Being careful with it there is really nothing scary about it.

It's very possible to damage the socket and motherboard, if perhaps not the CPU itself. Those heatsinks and coolers are heavy, and they do also rely on pressure for proper thermal interfacing with the CPU heat spreader.