The heavy markups are clearly on the new toys. Dell's markup for the i7 products was insane, and HP was no better. What was really odd was that some of the Del setups seemed wrong. Chris can correct me, but I think the new i7 chip-set uses 3 memory channels, so you need multiples of 3 for RAM - i.e., I have 3 rows of 4. But when I tried to order the dell, it only offered multiples of two, and capped at 8. Perhaps I don't understand, but I don't think that is a good use of the chip-set. And for that inefficient design, you pay an extra $2,000. Wow, $2,000 and a guy to read the instruction manual to me in Hindi after 2 hours on hold when I have a problem, sign me up!
