Intel Motherboard and Processor

[Bill Cherepy]

Fry's has opened a store here in the Atlanta area and as a newbie
thinking of building a system, I have a question about what I see
advertised by Fry's.

Yesterday they advertised a 3GHz Intel Pentium 4 porcessor with
motherboard for $179.99. That price is what the advertise for a
processor alone. That makes me wonder what's wrong with the deal.
I'm assuming the MB is not Intel. I guess the only way to really know
is to trek up there and see for myself.


Bill Cherepy
Grayson, GA

 

[Dave C.]

Fry's has opened a store here in the Atlanta area and as a newbie
thinking of building a system, I have a question about what I see
advertised by Fry's.

Yesterday they advertised a 3GHz Intel Pentium 4 porcessor with
motherboard for $179.99. That price is what the advertise for a
processor alone. That makes me wonder what's wrong with the deal.
I'm assuming the MB is not Intel. I guess the only way to really know
is to trek up there and see for myself.


Bill Cherepy
Grayson, GA

It's legit. Considering they probably make 50% pure profit on the processor
alone at normal retail price, and GOOD P4 motherboards can be found as low
as FREE after rebate, or thirty-forty bucks with no rebate, it's easy to
imagine how Fry's could sell a P4 processor with mainboard for the normal
retail price of the processor alone and still make a healthy profit. -Dave

 

[JK]

It's legit. Considering they probably make 50% pure profit on the processor
alone

It is more likely that this is a "loss leader" that is priced low so that people
will
shop there and hopefully buy many other items there as well. The profit on that
deal might be small. I have heard of cases though in other industries where
products that were in very low demand and very hard for the manufacturer to
sell were given away free by the manufacturer to sweeten deals when many
other items are purchased. Carefully research the motherboard included in
that deal. If it doesn't look like a motherboard that you would want to own,
then skip the deal.

 

[jaster]

Fry's has opened a store here in the Atlanta area and as a newbie
thinking of building a system, I have a question about what I see
advertised by Fry's.

Yesterday they advertised a 3GHz Intel Pentium 4 porcessor with
motherboard for $179.99. That price is what the advertise for a
processor alone. That makes me wonder what's wrong with the deal. I'm
assuming the MB is not Intel. I guess the only way to really know is to
trek up there and see for myself.


Bill Cherepy
Grayson, GA

Congratulations Fry's is the best computer and appliance retail store in
the states. The have a 30 day no questions asked return policy with
receipt and they keep a copy of your purchase in the computer in case you
lost your receipt. I've even seen a few people returning opened software.
Fry's has changed the return policies for a lot of chains in the Dallas
area.

A few Xmas past I bought a bare bones system for my brother which was
mis-configured (wrong processor for board combo) but I was able to return
it 60 days later for refund.

All of their cpu and motherboard combos usually work. I had a problem
with an Intel 810 but exchanged it no problem and it's still working. I
heard there were bad ECS K7S5As but that was an ECS problem and I haven't
had a problem with my K7S5A.

The biggest problem with Fry's is timing your purchases to the best sale
price/performance. Today it's $179.99 next week it's $209.99, 6 months
later it's $149.99 and something slightly better is $189.99.

 

[DaveW]

It's an off-brand motherboard. You get what you pay for...