rational geekery

An interesting post on The Guardian’s Technology blog, here, highlights one of the realities of globalisation: it’s cheaper to buy a PC from Dell, than to construct one yourself from the constituent parts.

The article explains some of the factors, that contribute to Dells low cost:-

Dell certainly isn't paying $111 for a Pentium 4 and $89 for a copy of Windows XP. And it doesn't only get discounts for massive volumes, it probably also gets advertising support payments for mentioning Intel and Windows in its ads.
Finally, Dell bundles a bunch of stuff that people pay it to install on new PCs, such as links to ISPs and trial versions of anti-virus programs. These payments could even provide the majority of Dell's profits. Home users, of course, generally don't get paid to install stuff when they build their own PCs.