In the blog a few days ago I reported that the desktop "workstations" from Dell and HP were far too expensive and so I had gone for a "business" PC instead.

The PC was available immediately but as it only had built-in graphics I ordered a graphics card too so as I only ever want to do the pick-up run once (it being all of 10 miles away ...) the order was waiting for the graphics card to arrive as well.

Then, and I have no idea how I got to that page on their site, I noticed that they had a HP "workstation" tower with a Intel 4-core processor chip no less that was selling for a mere 400 Euros more than the box I had on order. Not only that but it already included 3 years next day warranty and 4GB of memory (which on the business model I was paying extra for in both cases) so the price difference sunk to just over 300 (yes, I was lying about the 400, it was more like 470 ...). So I switched the order to that (they have a good delete order policy).

So I ordered the graphics card they recommended for this model and started waiting. Once again the computer was ready but the graphics card would take a few days (and this time I couldn't use the computer without it as there was no (useless) graphics card included at all.

So I checked out the HP site to see if there was another graphics card recommended for this model that maybe had a shorter delivery time and found that the one they (the sales company not HP) had recommended wasn't on the list at HP for this model of workstation.

So back to the Internet. None of the lower price-level cards specified by HP for this model were at my seller's site but they were at another seller's site in Finland. So HP Finland have them and can deliver them.

Back therefore to my supplier. Can I change - surely you can get hold of these cards too? Yes, they could; yes they would change the order; yes, I'm still waiting for the graphics card to arrive.

But at least - and this seems important given that this seems to be a well-supported machine rather than just a box you can shove any graphics card you like into (although no doubt you could and it would work) - I now have the complete package that is HP-supported.

Leaves the Hard disk. That workstation has built-in RAID and it seems a pity not to use it for RAID-1 so I need a second 500GB drive. Do I pay 70+ for a Seagate with 5 years guarantee or 130+ for possibly the same drive with an HP label and 1 years guarantee. As I can insert the drive by screwing in the four guiding screws HP provide in the (workstation) box and slotting the drive in, the only question is where the holes for the screws are in the drives and does it matter. I think not so I'll buy the Seagate and swap it later if it doesn't fit (which seems very unlikely).

Finally. Of course the better processor; better model has put the price up by a bit but nowhere near the MacPro level and that is to a large extent (but not only) caused by the 3-year warranty extension for the MacPro costing an extra 350 Euros rather than nothing. In effect I'll get my HP workstation MacPro equivalent for 1400 instead of 2400.

Interestingly the HP Finland site is still showing the typical street price for the box I bought at from 1700+ and that was for a more normal dual core chip too. That of course was the sort of price level I rejected earlier when doing my first sweep as then I *would* have been up to MacPro levels for the similar kind of thing (but without several MacPro benefits like *four* front-accessible hard drive locations and eight memory slots not four (and each memory slot capable of 8GB not 2).

Time will tell if I got a bargain or not. But saving money wasn't the aim. Getting a solid machine with solid support at a reasonable rather than cheap price was.