I wouldn't break your friends heart as long as their happy you could just say that many good choices were available. Maybe the real lesson is to be educated as best as possible before stepping into the store and to make sure your comfortable with the place completely. You hit the issue solid on the nail: There was an urgency at play and a willingness to be sold.
Worth? My arse.
What board did he get do you know? Only the x79 Asus Rampage IV Extreme / Black boards break the $500 barrier here in Aus.
He (and his mother) were financially raped. The salesman is little more than a crook.
What store did he use? Fingers need to be pointed in this case.
A "gaming board" consists of two things: The amount/quality of phases for CPU overclockablity and the PCIE lane compatibility intended for quad sli/crossfire usage. 1150 is best at x16/x16/x8/x8 2011 is the full x16/x16/x16/x16
My Board was only $125.00 and it is a Beast
I did to the Salesman that he did to your friend i stuck it to him
True - "Worth" was a bad choice. "For" would have been a better word
What breaks the $500 barrier depends on the integrity of the salesperson it seems. Though there are a few 1150 boards that break the $500 barrier around Melbourne alone. The G1 Sniper5 Z87 ($515), The ASUS Maximus VI Extreme ($535), and GA-Z87X OC Force ($550).
In any case, he was sold the G1 Sniper for $569.
He lives in Newcastle.
I feel so bad for him. I really tried to give him good advice (and it may well have been), but he still got ripped off (IMHO around $800+). There was no real need for urgency as he had a laptop and a working system that was only 3 years old. But as teens go, when they want something they want it now!
Everyone's responses have been wonderful. I've picked up several good pieces of info here and I'd hate to see this thread devolve into a less than friendly state. Can we consider this question answered.
Wow! your prices must be high in Australia cause here in the United States, that G1 Board is only 399 which even at that price is a bit much. Still I have that board, but got it at 339, which is still a bit high, but far better than 399 here, or 569 there.
On the flipside, it really is a nice feature rich board. Incidentally the Asus Maximus VI board here is going for $378, the GA-Z87X OC Force at 409 (Amazon prices).
All 3 are these boards are considered high end gaming boards with loads of features and overclocability not normally found on "standard" boards, and as such are priced accordingly.
If you look at the features and capabilities of these boards compared to non gaming boards, you'd get a sense of why they come in at a premium price.
Are they worth it? Depends on what you want. Why do people pay 6-7 hundred dollars for a video card; a thousand dollars for a CPU?.... Performance.
Think of these rigs as the sports cars of the computing community.
I used to get asked all the time by people what should I buy, be it TV, computer or even VCR's DVD players etc. I would advise on the best of my ability thinking of build quality, ease of repair (having to ship a Vizio TV to California for repair is not what I considered "good" support from the manufacturer) or in the case of Vizio badge engineered Chinese junk were they stick their name on a product. It was a complete waste of time in all cases, they bought what the salesman recommended not what someone who had spent 30 years in electronics had told them. Of course we all know sales staff are so very qualified as they are just out of school and know sweet FA apart from how much commission do I get on this product. I would not let it phase me Tanya. Just another moron that asked for advice and was sweet talked by a salesman. Happens all the time.
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