Savrow Systems

[DR]

I have just spoken to the guys at Savrow systems and had a look at some of their rigs. I am not convinced that it will be as popular as they would like.

The paint looks good, but why not paint the entire system the same colour? why have them 2 tone (alu and red?).

I will post some pictures later to reveal more.

[Maldonado]

yer - need pictures!

[DR]

I have a few on my camera.

[Maldonado]

sort it out!

[Stoo]

To be honest the specs are pretty poor, in the other thread, the system that quoted was over £2k and it don't really have anything over what could be had for £700 from a box shifter like Dell, okay it's got a pretty case, but who would be stupid enough to pay £1300 for a case??

The paint is just on the side panels and top isn't it?
IIRC painting like that could actually do the system more harm than good, because it negates the cooling benefits to be had from the aluminium in the first place..

[SavRow]

Hi guys,

It was nice meeting David at the I17 event, before he posts the pictures, please find a link to some photos of the sytstem he is referring to so you don't wait anymore.

Some people prefer the two tone effect of brushed aluminium and car paint, but it really depends on taste, so take a look for yourself and decide.

SavRow Platinum 1
SavRow Platinum 2


I don't really think the specs are poor at all for our systems. I believe that the post we put on our website that you refer to for the £2k PC, we actually recommended a cheaper configuration that would do the same things that the client had requested, our config didn't reach £2k from memory.

You should play around with the configurator and see for yourself. We don't have an set specs so you can choose anything from the 9600 Pro to the 5900 Ultra, from a 17" CRT to a 30" TFT. Now it is really easy to say that these systems are expensive, but you can reach similar prices at any of the bigger manufacturers if you opt for extreme components like a 30" flatscreen TFT.

Finally, the extra work that goes into our systems does mean that they are more expensive for us to make. It is a little unfair to compare a full aluminium case, which has been disassembled, modified, painted with actual automobile paint, comes with a 2 year future proofing warranty, with a system in a plastic case that retails for £799.

Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking the £799 system, but it is a fundamentally different proposition to what we are selling. I think both have a place in the PC market and that is why we are focusing on higher end systems as we believe that we can add more value to our products there, than competing head on with a Dell.

I always appreciate feedback as it is the only way we can improve our products. So thank you all for your comments. Rest assured we will consider all of them and implement whatever possible. Furthermore thank you to Hexus for inviting us to respond. If you have any other questions or comments, feel free to email me on one of the links below.

Thank you and kind regards.

[Nimrod]

They way I look at it is this...

If I could afford to buy a suit from a Saville Row Taylor, then there is a very high probability that I would buy my PC from there too...

and would you like to know the main reason why ??

Thats right, because I could

I think its an interesting niche you're in there savrow

[SavRow]

Thank you Nimrod.

[Bunjiweb]

I think some people are forgetting that you're not exactly Targetting those who are strapped for cash and couldnt give a poo wether their pc comes in a plastic or aluminium case.

SavRow is aiming for the higher end of the scale.... the London business men? The rich and famous? The down right lucky?.... They aren't trying to compete with Dell or whatever..

Ben.

[Stoo]

*Shrug*

All I see is a bog standard system in a painted coolermaster case, so what you're actually paying all the extra for is some car paint and a bit of a discount on components in the future.

So it's car paint being used, and you've stuck a little badge on the top, and maybe changed a couple of fans/leds, IMHO that simply is not worth the extra that is being charged.

I also dispute the fact that you recommended a cheaper system, the client stated he had a budget of £2000..

You said:

I recommend that you get a system with a Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB. This is a great value card that has almost as good a performance as the more expensive Geforce FX 5900 Ultra and Radeon 9800 Pro.

For gaming, 512mb is minimum we ship, however you might want to get 1gb to be safe. Either way you system will fly.

For CPU I think you should be OK with a 2.8GHz or 3.0Ghz P4 running on a Springdale Abit IS7 board.

Sound is important in gaming and all of our boards come with built in 5.1 sound. You may want to augment this at a later date with an Audigy card. In the meantime, you should be happy with the built in sound and the Logitech 640 speakers.

If you wanted to budget, I suggest moving your CPU down a notch as the first option. The higher rated CPUs are always steeply more expensive than the lower ones and they don't necessarily give as much performance in gaming as a bit better graphics card.

In terms of HD, unless you want to movie-edit, a 120GB system should be good. You could always upgrade your system using our Future Proofing Warranty.

FYI I have included a system proposal based on the 3.0 GHz Platinum system.

I hope you like it. If this is OK, you should goto the (Platinum System Configurator.

This may be a bit above the budget you required, however you should note that it gives you a full year of wholesale upgrades, also the system is shipping with a 3Ghz CPU.

So you were in fact charging in excess of £2000 for the following system:

Intel P4 3GHz				- £330 
Abit IS7				- £102
Onboard Sound				- £Included 
Radeon 9600 pro				- £130
120GB HDD (Maxtor 8MB Cache)		- £87
Coolermaster WaveMaster Alu Case	- £117
Enermax 550watt PSU			- £100
512MB PC3500 DDR (Corsair)		- £130

Okay, now lets add a couple more bits, such as a nice logitech cordless keyboard and mouse (£66), a nice DVD writer (£130), oh and the speakers (£68).
That's still only £1260 compared to the configurator which is at £2233.68 and that's still without a monitor.

So in effect that's £1000 for a paint job and a logo..

Okay there's there exclusivity thing, but IMO anyone paying that far over the odds for the same equipment deserves to lose everything in bankruptcy..

So unless your aftersales is something akin to the Carlsberg Bank adverts I dare say I won't be a customer, and really couldn't advise anyone else to be either, even if I/they did have the money.. could buy my girlfriend another pair of shoes or some more jewellery instead, and get a *lot* more reward out of it

But umm "Good Luck" I suppose lol

[SavRow]

Hello Stoo,

I appreciate that you are offering to build this system for free.

You should understand that simply buying the components, shaking them in a bag doesn't always bring a PC out.

Although you may not understand the concept, we have to charge for the build time of our engineers, I would be more than happy shipping all of the components out at prices similar to those you found, but then the client would need to put it all together.

You are also missing a couple of other points, WinXP Pro is around £120, again, you may not want this if you are going to pirate a copy or use an old copy you may already have. But we do not ship systems without OSs because of the obvious piracy issues. Oh and yes, the paint and logos do cost money, if you don't want them, don't buy from us, let alone condemn our clients to bankruptcy (mature comment there). Oh yes and theres the small matter of commissioning and testing the systems, how long did your last PC build take, how much is your time worth to you?

Also you carefully omit shipping charges, insurance, ongoing support and the future proofing warranty.

I don't think you offer those on your free build systems yet (do you, maybe I should warn Dell).

I think you are being a bit naive in comparing a pre-built system with the purchase price of the components. As I said before, a great deal of work goes into our systems, if you don't like our prices, don't buy. There is no need for such an emotional outburst, I assume you are an adult.

Furthermore, the price of the system you quote at £2233 comes out at £1872.00 (£2199.60 inc VAT) on our website:

Contents of your order
Component Selection
Core System Options
Bespoke SavRow Case *New* SavRow Platinum Case

Processor Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB w/ 512KB Cache & HyperThreading

Motherboard Abit IS7-G

Memory 512MB Geil "Golden Dragon" Dual DDR SDRAM PC-3500 - 2 x 256MB Module

Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home

Hard Drives - Primary 120 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA IV 8MB Cache

Optical Drive One Plextor DVD+R/+RW Recorder - Black

Audio Visual Options
Sound Card Built in 5.1 Analogue Surround Sound

Speakers Logitech® Z-640 5.1 Speakers

Entertainment Software MusicMatch MX Jukebox

Video Card ATI RADEON™ 9600 PRO 128MB 8x AGP w/DVI & S-Video

Other System Options
Keyboard Logitech® Cordless Desktop® MX™ (Keyboard & Mouse Combo)

SavRow Options
Paint SavRow Pre-Defined Paints [Ferrari0011]

SavRow Service
SavRow Client Access SavRowClient.com Email and Forums
Service Options Service & 1 year Future Proofing Warranty
Delivery Royal Mail Parcelforce


Push the button to continue with registering your order

On a final note, I suggest you stop comparing the benefits of buying PCs with those of having a nice stable relationship, yet again an apple and oranges statement. I wish you all the best and thank you for your outburst.

[Jonny M]

You have to accept though that people on these forums buid their own PCs, and hence will compare your prices to what they can get the same spec for. It's easy to forget tech support lines etc because they don't need them.

On another note, how much for a chromed Coolermaster keyboard?

[Stoo]

Dear SavRow..

Yeah, and the prices for the components that I sourced are retail VAT inclusive prices, if you are a company you get them at trade bulk prices which are obviously significantly cheaper, futhermore the price I quoted *was* from your site.

Here is a directly comparible spec to the one I mentioned above:

Contents of your order
Component Selection
Core System Options
Bespoke SavRow Case *New* SavRow Platinum Case

Processor Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 3.0GHz 800MHz FSB w/ 512KB Cache & HyperThreading - Recommended

Motherboard Abit IS7-G

Memory 512MB Geil "Golden Dragon" Dual DDR SDRAM PC-3500 - 2 x 256MB Module

Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional - Recommended

Hard Drives - Primary 120 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Serial ATA IV 8MB Cache

Optical Drive One Plextor DVD+R/+RW Recorder - Black

Audio Visual Options
Sound Card Built in 5.1 Analogue Surround Sound

Speakers Logitech® Z-640 5.1 Speakers

Entertainment Software MusicMatch MX Jukebox

Video Card ATI RADEON™ 9600 PRO 128MB 8x AGP w/DVI & S-Video

Other System Options
Keyboard Logitech® Cordless Desktop® MX™ (Keyboard & Mouse Combo)

Mouse None (mouse is included in keyboard package)

SavRow Options
Paint SavRow Pre-Defined Paints [Ferrari101C]

SavRow Service
SavRow Client Access SavRowClient.com Email and Forums

Service Options Service & 1 year Future Proofing Warranty

Delivery Royal Mail Parcelforce

Total: £1993.00 (£2341.78 inc VAT)

Of course I know that there are extras such as technical support, system building etc, but I cannot believe that any of that would come to anywhere near the extra £1000.

Does anyone else believe that a copy of windows xp, a coat of paint, build/test, and the availability of tech support even comes close to the extra £1000 that SavRow are charging?

[Gordy]

Closed while I sort this thread out...

[Gordy]

Right, I've made some edits in here and I will be watching this thread very closely. May I remind everyone that these forums are friendly conversation/discussion not for personal attacks, keep it civil please.

I'm going to clear up a couple of things that need to be in this thread.

1st No one is forcing you to purchase these systems, the company has a right to charge exactly what they like/think the system is worth. No amount of adding up costs will take into account having to pay the bills of a full blown business rather than a one man band.

2nd Aluminium cases do not provide any heat transfer through they case itself. Apart from two exceptions which are the Hush and tranquil pcs. This is a common myth and paint will not effect the cooling of a case.

3rd Being a long time modder I know all to well the price of modifying cases and paint to a high class is very expensive, other similiar companies I know of charge $450 for the paint alone.

4th Looking at the website in question they are clearly not aiming themselves at people that generally frequent these types of forums. Most of their clients would be those who want a pc to look good , go fast and have good after market support. Similiar to the idea on which alienware/falcon was founded.


Ok I think thats cleared a few things up, please don't argue the toss over prices in itty bitty detail its not worth it , just put you think they are expensive.

Personally I think they are over priced but that is because I can do it all myself but not everyone is like me.

Note: I know as much about the company as you I'm working on experience .

Thread reopened

[fondie]

If their business is profitable then their prices are good! There is plenty of competition around, so consumers are quite free to vote with their feet if they wish, as has been mentioned, no one is forcing them to buy from SavRow. If everyone thinks the prices are too high and don't buy from them then SavRow gets no business, but they obviously think there are people who do want their products at the prices they are offering them at (and i'd agee, i'm sure there are plenty of people who want a more exclusive looking pc than a Dell and who don't have the technical ability / time to buid their own) so i see nothing wrong with satisfying the demand. Businesses are there to make money, if i were in SavRow's shoes i would charge as much for each system as someone would be willing to pay! To people who complain about high prices of pre-configured computers i can't help but think that if they think these companies are making so much money that they should get in on the act themselves. I personally can see where SavRow's costs add up, and they are entitled to a profit for their work.