comp parts manufacturing question

[scylla]

I've decided to make the Great Leap Forward, (for me), and build my own computer. Perhaps the concern I have is foolish, but I try to buy American made products when I can, and looking at various computer parts I've bought lately they all seem to be made in China. Is it now possible to build a comp with mostly American parts, or have we lost the manufacturing war?

[malcore]

I don't think America was ever even a contender in chip manufacturing. Most of the major chip makers are headquartered here in Taiwan. Years ago, almost everything you touched had a "made in Taiwan" label on it. However, as Taiwan progressed, so did its wages for labour. China recently has become to Taiwan what Mexico is to America, a source of very cheap labour.

I would wager that if chips and boards were manufactured in America, we would all be paying a great deal more for that new motherboard or graphics card.

As for CPUs, I believe the wafers are actually made in America, but the assembly occurs in countries like Costa rica and Malaysia (Intel anyway). American companies like Intel, Nvidia, Crucial, Corsair, all use chips which are either manufactured or assembled in other countries. Buy an Intel CPU, and Intel motherboard, an Nvidia (ATI is Canadianhttp://www.pcguide.com/ubb/smile.gif) graphics card and Crucial memory and you will be giving profit to American companies, though the manufacturing may take place elsewhere.

Even those nice American Nike trainers are not manufactured in America.http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/wink.gif

[saphalline]

I don't think America was ever even a contender in chip manufacturing.
Hahaha! That one made me laugh out loud! So true, yet so sad. Still, the benefits far outweigh the shortcomings. That is to say, cheap parts are better than trying to encourage cheap labour here in the USA. Malcore is quite right about the labour situation, and I would like to add that if manufacturing took place in the US, most chips makers would turn to the old model of illegal aliens working in unsafe sweatshops to keep their costs down. Remember that one US dollar doesn't go far here, but one US dollar buys a whole lot in China and Taiwan! Relative to their economy, the overseas workers get paid a lot to crank out chips and assemble ICs. And of course high-level management and high-tech experts in those locations are still US/European workers (unless it's a Japanese company).

To say that it's un-American to buy high-tech products made in China simply isn't true. The reason US companies do their hard labour overseas is to keep their costs down and avoid a major headache with US labour/tax laws. These are still US companies at their roots, but are multinational in their scope and power.

Now, out-sourcing tech support, that's un-American! :mad: