leasing or not, your opinions????

[priad]

All in the tittle, it's about workstations, I never know if I must buy/rent/make a leasing with hardware upgrade included.
please help me to choose the best way.

[Clifton Santiago]

It depends on if its your money or not. I have worked for companies that leased high-end workstations for me and they ended up paying 3x what they would have buying up front. Typical corporate american waste.

I leased my first (and last) personal workstation in 1997 and ended up paying twice what I would have up front. I felt pretty stupid.

All my subsequent machines have been built by myself and paid for up front. I have never had any regrets buying (the parts for) a workstation.

[priad]

thx for answering this, this is my money and I have buy all my workstation in one time.
but like everybody IMO I have some computers which are totally obsolete and we can't sell us or use us, with the option to make a leasing we have the choice to upgrade or buy, that's my dilem.

[Clifton Santiago]

Okay. Buy then. Leasing is always more expensive.

[priad]

more than buy a new station?
I have buy a station 3 years ago around 7000€ and now I need an other around 7000€ a pretty better one eheh (it's only to test the bench ).
but okay, I'll take this into a count.
Thx Clifton

[dominiquelaksmana]

c'mon laurent, hehehe if you buy, you can get back that money so fast with your quality renderings.... right?

i always buy one time, and sulk, and fight so i can get the money back in shortest time (a month), soooooo, for the next 11 month, it's consider a free computer. hehehe.... then i repeat the same pattern. hehehe

[voltron7]

well, i am in a similar spot now, so if anyone wants to add to the previous comments, I'd love to hear different thoughts on pros/cons...
thanks

[simmsimaging]

I always buy my machines, or have them built. They used to run me 12K each back in the day, but it's much cheaper now of course.

Possibly a good way to look at it is this: if it was better for *you* to lease, why would so many companies be so happy to lease you machines? Money is cheaper these days, but you still have to pay for that borrowed money over time. Leasing provides minor temporal tax advanatages (that I am aware of) but really what it does it provide you with a cheaper entry cost (so you don't have to save all the money up at once) but the long run total is generally more.

Anyway, the simplest way to work it out, IMO, is to calculate what your machines cost you per month. If you paid 7000 for it, then divide it by the number of months you have used it, and will continue to use it as a render node for a while to come I'm sure, and see how it balances out to the *actual* monthly cost of your lease - which must factor in all the hidden and front end/back end costs that will be part of it. Then your answer is easy to find.

/b

p.s you should also be able to build a pretty kick ass workstation for less than 7000 Euro IMO.

[voltron7]

Brett, thanks for the insightful notes. I am looking at a system that would cost me about 6k purchased, and to lease it for 5 years, will only add about 200 USD to the total, so it may be worth it for me because the up front cost is the harder part for me usually. So I am in an unusual situation (for me) where I could afford to buy it outright, but then I'm still stuck with it later with no real re-sale value. (In case it matters, it is with Boxx)

Thanks again...

[simmsimaging]

If the real total difference is $200 then I would say go for it. It's a pretty small amount to pay for financing over 5 years, and any machine after 5 years is going to be of limited value even as a render node (although I do have one still kicking that is about that age, and one just retired at that age)

One other thing I would add to the discussion: I used to be a big believer in going for super maxed out machines - buying the best I could get at the time - but I've really come to change my tune on that. Boxx probably builds great machines, but I am pretty sure you could have one built for close to half that and it would be far more than 1/2 the machine. The actual dollar payoff for higher end machines just doesn't seem to be there in my experience. YMMV

/b

[voltron7]

Again, thanks Brett...I have heard similar comments regarding Boxx, but have never gone that route and thought it might be a nice change from the crap machines I keep recycling
And, it's not even the best of the best from them...The local computer shop is not an option as they have already proven their incompetence...and I am better working on cars than on PCs, lol.

Well, great, now I have more to think on this weekend, all the best

P.S. Maybe I'm too old, but what is YMMV?

[simmsimaging]

It's an oldie actually - you are probably too young
YMMV = your mileage may vary.

[voltron7]

Oh, hehehe, I have heard that, just couldn't make the connection, doh!

[glorybound]

$6000 - $7000 per machine? I built my five i7's, several years ago, for less than $4000.00 total. Unless one of those machines can process what all five of my can, why so much?

[voltron7]

well, it is a E5-2650 dual eight core Xeon system and 16GB Ram...I think that is most of the cost...They also supposedly put them through series of tests before shipping out.
hoping to replace my current 2 weak systems, lol.

I couldn't say whether it could out-process 5 i7s you built...
-just wondering, how long did you have in labour per machine?
-did any of them give you any problems within the first couple of years of service?
-ever get any BSOD on any of those?

Thanks for any input, Bobby, since building my own could definatley save some money, but I would need to do more research on PC building first, I guess.