Average Charge for Building a Computer for Customer?

[tacooverlord]

Hello I have been building custom computers for a little bit know and one of my clients contacted me and asked me to build him the best computer money can buy. He mentioned that money was no object and that he would pay anything. Here is the pcpartpicker link:http://pcpartpicker.com/list/ZvbJxY. I was planning on charging 20% but I am not sure if is a decent percentage because I haven't made a computer that was this expensive before. Please reply with any help.

 

[Lochekey]

Are you looking for a percentage to charge for this sale or a percentage for all of your builds.

I don't think you can reasonably charge based on a percentage you need to set your prices based on the work being performed.

Think of it this way. You have 2 customers come in that need a gpu installed. One is a $1000 gpu the other is a $200 gpu. Based on your 20%, customer A would pay $200 dollars to have their gpu installed and customer B would pay $40 to have their gpu installed. Can you justify the price difference between the two customers?

As for the parts linked it seems like you just picked the most expensive parts you could find and threw a system together.

What is the customers intended usage? The parts seem mismatched and just over the top. Take the monitors for example, they are cheap monitors with freesync, but you are buying nvidia gpu's. Also the ram is 128gb really necessary? I would go on but want to see what the intended system usage is first.

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Oh and what radiators are you planning on using?

 

[sobe]

Also just to point out, Corsair fans are not particularly any sort of amazing.... Even as case fans. If you are going to be spending $15-$20 per fan anyway, there are better options available.

 

[tacooverlord]

I get what you are saying about the percentages and how it will skew when dealing with smaller components. I was also considering an hourly cost but I was not able to determine what that would include.

The customer is the son of a millionaire that I go to college with and he said that he wanted Intel's newest Broadwell-E CPU so I built the computer around that. He plans on using the computer for everyday tasks like searching the web, gaming in 4k on a single huge monitor AND gaming on 3 1080p monitors, and he also plans on using it as a workstation. Again he just wants the best of the best so he can brag to his friends in his home state. That is why it has 128 GB of Trident z 3200hz RAM, the SLI 1080's (would be quad if NVidia still supported it), and all the watercooling parts. The computer is fully planned out on paper so everything will fit and work in theory when the parts get to me.

I forgot to include the radiators in the parts list I linked. I am using a quad 120mm rad in the basement and a triple 120mm rad in the top. The monitors in the original link were also just ones thrown in there I put the correct ones that he told me he wanted in the new list. UPDATED LINK: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/cfDLkT

Any suggestions are welcome for better parts and such. There is no price limit so he doesnt care about price per performance.

---- updated ----

And he will be reciving the Vive so it will be used for VR as well.

 

[sobe]

I get what you are saying about the percentages and how it will skew when dealing with smaller components. I was also considering an hourly cost but I was not able to determine what that would include.

The customer is the son of a millionaire that I go to college with and he said that he wanted Intel's newest Broadwell-E CPU so I built the computer around that. He plans on using the computer for everyday tasks like searching the web, gaming in 4k on a single huge monitor AND gaming on 3 1080p monitors, and he also plans on using it as a workstation. Again he just wants the best of the best so he can brag to his friends in his home state. That is why it has 128 GB of Trident z 3200hz RAM, the SLI 1080's (would be quad if NVidia still supported it), and all the watercooling parts. The computer is fully planned out on paper so everything will fit and work in theory when the parts get to me.

I forgot to include the radiators in the parts list I linked. I am using a quad 120mm rad in the basement and a triple 120mm rad in the top. The monitors in the original link were also just ones thrown in there I put the correct ones that he told me he wanted in the new list. UPDATED LINK: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/cfDLkT

Any suggestions are welcome for better parts and such. There is no price limit so he doesnt care about price per performance.

---- updated ----

And he will be reciving the Vive so it will be used for VR as well.

Take out the PG278Q and use the PG279Q or the Acer XB271HU for the 3 panels.... No sense in going with a crappy TN panel for that price when the IPS versions are $50 more, and personally I'd aim for the XB271HU units from Acer as they are less quality control issues compared to ASUS panels. I think there needs to be more research here honestly. On top of the monitor issue with you choosing a **** poor TN panel, if he is going all out, why not grab a couple 2TB 850 Evo's in place of the mechanical drives (If he is already spending this much, what is another couple hundred to do away with mechanical drives?)? Also, what about the Acer X34?

 

[tacooverlord]

Thank you very much for your input i will make changes accordingly and let him know of the additions and changes. Back to my original question though how much would you think that I should charge him once the system is complete? I will be delivering and setting it up for him personally and I will perform maintenance, should any problems arise, with it for a year. The whole thing has custom bent PETG tubing in a custom watercooled loop plus how long it will take to build and custom paint some of the components to match the theme.

 

[Lochekey]

I still think this needs to be better thought out as the choc of parts was clearly not researched well. Like the 1200 watt psu is way more than you need. Also are you planning on using both hard and soft tubing in the water loop? I would also stay away from the colored coolants all together. Get some colored tubing instead.

 

[tacooverlord]

I still think this needs to be better thought out as the choc of parts was clearly not researched well. Like the 1200 watt psu is way more than you need. Also are you planning on using both hard and soft tubing in the water loop? I would also stay away from the colored coolants all together. Get some colored tubing instead.

The soft tubing is just for a section in the basement of the case because the part of the loop is not visible it is more sensible to go with something that I don't have to bend and it will be used for the drainage section of the loop since it has to be soft to be moved around when draining. I know the PSU is more than I need. I know that it must seem like some of the parts are way over kill but i was just building what this kid wants. If I ask him what he wants he will go look up the most expensive or crazy part he can and insist that I add it. ie the RAM.

I have built watercooled systems before and the only time I have had problems with colored with coolant is when it is a pastel because it has "sediment" that builds up in the system and clogs it up. The main attraction for the build for this kid is that since it is mainly black he can have the coolant and LEDS changed to any color if he feels like it. Implementing colored tubing would eliminate this.

 

[sobe]

If you were doing the pipe bending, doing the painting + assembly, etc. etc. My opinion would be to find a percentage to base it off of, then calculate how much that would be with an included "hourly pay".

Generally, I admittedly did builds for customers on a per customer basis. If I was trying to help an elderly couple with a simple machine for basic tasks, I'd charge $50 for my services on top of part costs. For a full custom build depending on certain variants, honestly I'd probably charge a good sum, because you have to think how much is YOUR time worth? You will not only be putting together the system, but putting together the water loop, then leak testing said loop for several hours (highly recommended btw, especially if it's not for yourself, so look at 12hours for that, though I'm not saying add 12hours of labor), then going through installation process of whatever the client may be looking for. Then of course you will have the joy of enjoying what we call the panel lottery for the nice high end IPS 144Hz/165Hz monitors for possible need of returns and so forth.

 

[tacooverlord]

Ok so lets say I charge $50/hr and the build is a total of $14,000 and we will say 6hrs for leak testing (ill probably leak test it for 24 hours just to be sure), 15hrs probably for bending all the tubing and making sure that everything works, 3hrs of painting, 25 hrs to of just general assembly and drilling holes and organizing everything and installing all the drivers and such programs. then probably 4 hours of delivering it to him and setting everything up. plus like $200 for the year of maintenance if any issues arise that brings it to about 20% of the cost of the PC.

----- addition -----

yeah i've had awful luck with monitors. I was building a workstation/server system for a company and they purchased a curved ultrawide for photo shopping and it took 4 times to get a monitor that worked.


BUILD: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/7Qxzyf

 

[sobe]

Ok so lets say I charge $50/hr and the build is a total of $14,000 and we will say 6hrs for leak testing (ill probably leak test it for 24 hours just to be sure), 15hrs probably for bending all the tubing and making sure that everything works, 3hrs of painting, 25 hrs to of just general assembly and drilling holes and organizing everything and installing all the drivers and such programs. then probably 4 hours of delivering it to him and setting everything up. plus like $200 for the year of maintenance if any issues arise that brings it to about 20% of the cost of the PC.

----- addition -----

yeah i've had awful luck with monitors. I was building a workstation/server system for a company and they purchased a curved ultrawide for photo shopping and it took 4 times to get a monitor that worked.


BUILD: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/7Qxzyf

Looking better, but I'd swap the M50X for an NVX XPT100, an open set of headphones, or the HyperX Cloud. The Cloud is a good option as a headset for $70 as it is a Takstar Pro80 clone that does very well for the price, whereas the M50X does not. The NVX XPT100 is a great value for the $$ at $80.