Darwin x86 Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 Well, I understand that there's a lot under the Mac Pro's hood, but the fact remains that I don't want that much horepower, at least not right away. It's just too much money upfront. I've never dumped more than $1000 or so into a single machine over the course of its life so there's no way I'd blow $2000-$2500 at one time for a computer. Plus, FB-DIMMS? Get real. Talk about overkill for someone who just wants an upgradeable desktop. The fact that you buy outdated and obsolete hardware is the reason why you are in the position you are in. If you buy a brand new Mac Pro, you get the most current, up to date, fastest, so on and so fourth. Then, you could easily wait four or five years until you buy a new one. (upgrading if you want to, not because you have to, not because you planned to the day you bought the machine) If you are spending 1k or less on a computer, you are walking out of the store with stuff that is obsolete. Apple will not let you do that. And it is for your own good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niteman1969 Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 I understand completley that you don't want to pay this sort of money for a macpro. But look at it this way. Why not get one and be nice and secure in the knowledge that unlike a pc you will probably not have to upgrade for a very long time. A friend of mine has had a dual g5 for quite a while now and other than adding ram and more hdd space has not spent anything near what your avid pc user spends every couple of years getting the latest mobo, ram and processors to run the latest operating systems and games. A mac pro will give you a good few years use with osx 10.5 and beyond. If i had the money i would definatley get a dual quad core macpro safe in the knowledge that it would last me a very very long time. regards Niteman1969 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neilis Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 I understand completley that you don't want to pay this sort of money for a macpro. But look at it this way. Why not get one and be nice and secure in the knowledge that unlike a pc you will probably not have to upgrade for a very long time. That's not really much of a comfort. Your price to performance ratio is never at it's best near the top of the curve. You always get more bang for your buck by scaling back a bit. So if I've got $2000 to blow, I can either blow it now. I get a good system that might last 5 years. In 5 years it's going to be decrepid as hell though, and it's REALLY going to be time for an upgrade. Or, I spend $1000 now for a machine that's pretty decent. In 2 years the processor and RAM are a bit low. I spend $500 upgrading. Takes all of 30 minutes of my time to install, and given the 2 year difference, the $500 upgrade is probably gonna yield better stuff than I'd originall gotten from the $2000 machine. Ok, fast forward another 2 years. Space is getting tight on my drive. I drop another $500 on a big hard drive (bigger than what would have come with the $2000 machine), and I'm going again. A year later and I'm at the 5 year mark. I've put the same ammount of money into both systems, but the upgraded one is now faster, and can probably last me another year. That's negating the fact too that those payments were easier to make becuase they were so spread out. You also have to wonder about Apple's choice in using certain technologies. They jump on the latest and greatest VERY quickly and it's not always a technology that survives. I've got an older PowerMac G4 for example (it's my "real" mac so I get to be part of the club ). It's got a DVD-RAM drive. Now, that was an awesome technology back in the day, but was expensive to implement, and was very quickly eclipsed. It's just not always a good thing to pack a system with "the best money can buy". Problems with Apple's systems - Mac Mini - Too slow, and not upgradeable. iMac - About right as far as components, but the package is all wrong. I'd like to pick out my own monitor rather than to be tethered to one for the life of the computer, and I want a modular system. Again, good specs, but not upgradeable. Mac Pro - The form factor is is right. Tower case, modular components, no integrated monitor. But the price is too high. All it's got going for it is the 2x dual core processors over your run of the mill PC. For anybody willing to go with a single Core 2 Duo (which will work fine for 98% of the desktop computing world), you can build a system that matches the minimum config of the Mac Pro ($2000+) for under $1000. Heck I just built a computer for my brother (Windows - he's not a mac fan) that had 4GB of ram, 2x 500GB hard drives, AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000, a Geforce 7900GS, AND a 19" widescreen LCD for $1300. For an extra $700 from the Mac Pro I can drop to 1GB of RAM, only 1 250GB hard drive, a Geforce 7300GT, and lose the monitor. All for the benefit of an extra CPU that I don't need nor want. That's why I like my hackintosh. It's not a blazing fast machine (2.8ghz Celeron, 1gb RAM, Geforce 7300LE, 80gb hard drive), but you know what? This thing costed $250 to build (I chose to go this route rather than upgrade my PowerMac), and I like the setup far better than the Mini or iMac. I also have the option to pop out that processor and make it faster at any time I want. I can upgrade the hard drive, swap video cards, put it on a KVM with a shared monitor, etc. A little harder to get up and going at first, but after working out my install issues this system is every bit as stable and reliable as my PowerMac is (ie, it hasn't crashed or given me any problems at all). I'm not sure Apple will ever cater to people like me, and I know they'll never sell just the OS to work freely on any hardware, but I really, really wish that they'd license it out to a few clone companies like they once did, so that those companies could fill some of the niche's that Apple is missing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts