I usually buy computers from a specific value-added reseller I’ve dealt with for a number of years. I’ve always found them to have adequate pricing and, as such, I haven’t ever really “shopped around.” The other day I received one of the random spammy emails from Dell that was talking about killer pricing, so I asked for a quote for the desktops I need to get for this summer. Turns out, by getting them straight from Dell I am saving about $4k which is bananas for the same computer. I asked them for a quote for the server I want to get, and their quote (with all the same shit except a little bit higher-end processor) was literally twice as much.

It’s weird how shit like that works. Like, the desktop division has completely different pricing and margins than the server division I guess. Oh well, looks like I’m buying from two different companies this year!