Interested in purchasing a mac, couple questions/comments.

blascockblascock
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Hi, ive never owned a mac and i'm very interested in getting one. the problem i have is im one of those persons that wants the latest and greatest. meaning a powermac g5. the problem lies in the cost, its an expansive peice of equipment.



one of the problems is that for the cost of the powermac i could get pc with a lot more power. i feel like the powermac isnt worth the extra dough. i could easily build my own computer at a custom store with more memory, and a video card thats A LOT better. 256mb for the dual 1.8 is a joke, id be getting at least 512mb or 1gb with a pc in the same price range.

and why does apple give these cheap nvidia cards with their computers? they should at least give the 9600XT as the default video card. i know its cheap to upgrade to the 9600XT but if i got a pc id be getting at least a 9800xt for the same price. they should really change this and hopefully at the upcoming show in paris they will



and not to mention id want to upgrade my memory and video card if i bought a mac, and it costs a ridiculus amount for it. to upgrade to the 9800XT in canada is $490!!



another question i have is how much ram is necesarry for a mac? i want at least 512mb, but im not sure if its worth the $210 or $315 (dual 1.8 ) to upgrade to 1gb



im still going to wait till august 29th to see what apple annoucning with the new imac and anyhting else, it may be better to go with that in the end.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    talksense101talksense101 Posts: 1,738member
    What do you want to use the Mac for?
  • Reply 2 of 4
    r3dx0rr3dx0r Posts: 201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Blascock

    another question i have is how much ram is necesarry for a mac? i want at least 512mb, but im not sure if its worth the $210 or $315 (dual 1.8 ) to upgrade to 1gb



    whatever machine you end up with, don't buy your ram from apple. they always charged more and they still do.

    since i'm not from canada/us, i am not sure if crucial.com is the best place to get ram

    but i've seen it being mentioned on these boards a few times. should be worth to check it out.



    cheers
  • Reply 3 of 4
    staphbabystaphbaby Posts: 353member
    I'd definitely aim for 512MB if you can ? running more than 2/3 programs will put 256 under quite a lot of stress? Certainly don't buy it from Apple. Apparently Crucial has got quite a good reputation in the States, you should give them a look. You'll see a notable improvement in performance by going for 1GB, especially if you're a big multitasker or do lots of photoshop/video editing work. As a rule of thumb, just buy as much memory as you can actually afford ? OS X will use it if it's there (to cache files you've been using if nothing else).



    As for for video cards, yes, the card in dual 1.8 is teh suck. Unfortunately, Mac video cards have different firmware to PC cards, so you can't just go out and get a PC card unless you're willing to take the risk of flashing it. This is, however, possible. There are guides available out there if you're happy to live life on the edge. xlr8yourmac.com would be a good place to start looking for ideas. It is also possible to buy ATI cards straight from ATI, although they won't be substantially cheaper.



    I wouldn't expect the price of the Powermacs to fall in the medium-term ? certainly don't wait for it, the next lineup revision is likely to be at least 4 months away (probably more)
  • Reply 4 of 4
    matt blandmatt bland Posts: 1member
    Here are my thoughts on the matter:



    I have advised at least a dozen people about trying a Mac, or switching completely.



    Get an eMac to start off with, one with a SuperDrive if you really need to burn DVD's, otherwise get a combo-drive version and you can add an external FireWire DVD writer later on for about $100/£100.



    The low price of entry for the Mac platform via the eMac is often over looked by most people. Everyone seems to get caught in the glow of the PowerBooks and G5's (for the record I started off with an iMac and now have a 17"PB).



    Unless you actually need a top end graphics card then there is no point buying a tower, especially if you are new to the Mac.



    If you find that you are using the Mac more and your PC's less then look at selling your eMac privately and getting a G5 or PowerBook, or whatever. If you find that the Mac is not for you, you can also decide to sell it. I'm sure that you'll find that the resale value of a recent eMac model is still very good, especially if boxed and still within the first years warranty.



    The main reason most people want a top notch graphics card in the PC world is for games (although I do recognise there are other serious reasons for wanting one too). If you're thinking of playing a lot of games I'd recommend that you hang on to your PC/Console for games and use the Mac for lifestyle/serious stuff instead.





    Matt
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