Posted on 05/03/2011 9:03:20 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple today updated its signature all-in-one iMac with next generation quad-core processors, powerful new graphics, groundbreaking high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology and a new FaceTime HD camera.
(Excerpt) Read more at macdailynews.com ...
Which brings me up to the next thing: Somebody follows the advice and does this and starts to build their own system and gets ready to install their copy of Windows and "Oh, sorry, you must have Vista or XP installed to run this update." This means the poor guy who followed the advice given earlier in this thread either has to track down copies of Vista or XP to install BEFORE installing his Win7, or he can buy Windows 7 Home ($179 or Pro for $265 on Amazon.) Undoubtedly, someone will be along to explain how to fool the installation into thinking you've already got XP installed.
The Samsung monitor one of them was talking about happens to be the one I use for a second monitor with my iMac setup. It's fine for holding the palettes and Photoshop and Aperture control boxes and playing a book on iTunes while I work on photo editing, but I would NEVER use it for the serious photo editing necessary to make sales. The image being edited is ALWAYS on the iMac screen.
So much of the advice given here on building your own box is just garbage.
On this one I just copied the guy I was responding too. He said you can get Windows 7 for $50. I figured it must be an academic edition. Ask him >>>> astyanax <<< where that $50 copy exists :)
Let's assume 1 hour to put together for someone experienced equal what 3-4 hours for normal people? Last time I installed an OS on to clean HD took at least an hour (XP Media Center). I'm up to 5 hours of my time. My hobby makes me money, so for me it is much more worthwhile to pay for what I need and use the other 4 1/2 hours to put money in my pocket.
Cases are 0$. Already have some.
You can spend $800 on a computer case if you put your mind to it
Or about $35 shipped for one that is functional
For the office computer, get a CPU/mobo combo deal at Newegg, pretty cheap.
That usually works out. You can get a good CPU/mobo combo for $90-$120. You can get cheaper than that but is usually is VGA out on the motherboard. But my minimum requirements are DVI or HDMI out onboard video
The PSU prices are for the absolute worst garbage you can find on the market. It will have low efficiency, produce unreliable voltages and will be loud. Don’t think of spending less than $50 for a “good” office computer, and expect to spend over $100 for a good gamer PSU.
My personal experience with ~$25 ThermalTakes and CoolerMaster has been zero problems
Monitor, $150 is fine for office, but for gaming you want better. LED backlight and IPS with a fast response make a gaming monitor, start at over $200 at 23”.
What I see is an LCD sweet spot of ~$130-140 for 23".
Peeps have been gaming for years with 2-4ms response time LCDs
Keyboard/mouse? Cables? Hard drive?
Does Apple include those things? Not on a Mac-mini
Samsung 1TB eco-green is $45 at New Egg right now but I see deals all the time for 500GB-1TB in the $40-$60 range shipped to your door
Pros: Silent, very cool running, large capacity and good performance. It's obviously not a screamer at 5400 RPM but unless you're working with exceptionally large files you won't notice it in day-to-day use. I use Eclipse, Netbeans and Sparx Enterprise Architect and even on very large commercial projects (5000+ classes) it's impossible to tell whether I'm running them on a 500GB or 640GB 7200 rpm Samsung drive or this 1TB drive. The only way you'd know it's slower is to measure it very precisely because on small/medium sized files the difference in speed is going to be found to the right of the decimal point.
Like I said, they're doing their "disk" performance testing with a large RAM-based disk cache enabled in the computer. That doesn't measure the speed of the drive, it measures the speed of RAM and software. It's not unreasonable, since RAM disk cache is fairly standard, but it's cheating with regard to rating the performance of the disk.
The true performance of a disk is measured with a setup that exercises the disk, not memory. Modern disks have internal cache in the drive, but it's typically 64MB or less, not 500MB or 1GB like a RAM-based disk cache can have.
The reason that difference matters is that if you're running a lot of programs concurrently, you can't allocate lots of RAM to the RAM-based disk cache, or else you end up swapping running tasks to disk, in which case you're even worse off than before.
You can spend another $40-80 on more RAM (assuming your mobo can hold it) but then you've lost the cost advantage of the "cheap disk".
Lesson: There is no such thing as a free lunch.
> Why is it silly? That's like saying comparing the cost of any DIY project to the cost of contracting it out is silly.
It's silly if the two things being compared are not comparable, other than the one characteristic being compared.
For example, some of the cost of a pre-built computer is the warranty service and follow-up support that comes with it. That doesn't come with a homebrew computer -- you built it, you support it. So how much money do we put in the "price list" of the homebrew, to allow for your time when it goes bug-frack and there's nobody to call? Is your time free? Really?
> I don't see anything in your criteria for whether to build or buy that involves any cost consideration. You'll build computer, but only if you can't buy one with the required specs, regardless of how much it costs.
Perhaps I didn't state that well. Specs cost money, and so does my time. If the specs I want are available pre-built, then I weigh the price of the pre-built machine against the cost of my time building it myself in addition to the component costs, and determine which makes more sense.
Note: Sometimes the experience gained in DIY is very valuable -- might be hard to quantify, but it can argue in favor of DIY too, especially when acquiring a new piece of technology.
Speaking of things that can’t be compared, you hit the nail on the head with “DIY experience”. If I build it, I know what’s in it. For example, the daughter has an i3, when i7’s drop in price I swap the processor and the box is good for a couple extra years. How do you weigh that value?
As I initially stated, it’s not for everyone. But if you are comfortable with building your own, then repairing your own is just as easy. If mine goes down, I fix it. No need to bring it to an “expert” or drop it off somewhere. It’s up and running again in hours, not days. No labor charge, just parts (on sale) whether it’s a week old or 10 years old. Definitely cheaper in the long run, it’s just the initial (one time) “price” of time that may be costly for some.
As I stated above, that works if you do not value your time. You work for free. That's okay, but it's not for everybody.
> If I build it, I know what’s in it.
Yep, and that's sometimes the most important thing. My daughter and I put together a series of desktop computers for her over the years, the last of which was a dual-boot Linux/WinXP box. She learned a lot. She also decided, when it came time to get a portable, to get the small Macbook (about $1000) and VMware Fusion to run Windows and Linux as VMs. So she has effectively three computers, portability, plus the high quality and support of an Apple product.
It's great to live in a country and time with lots of choices.
I won’t argue with you 7200rpm is better. In the real world most computer users won’t know or see the difference between 5400 and 7200 because their computers run slow for other reasons. Such as not reloading an OS for years and years. Or like my nephew who called complaining about slow internet at college. Turns out he had not rebooted his laptop for weeks..... So Firefox had turned into a memory hog. I showed him how to just reboot Firefox and that solved the problem. But how many other operate like this for years?
You sure got THAT right. Windows can get MIGHTY stale and slow after even six months, depending on what you do with it. Mac OS-X, not so bad although somewhat. Linux/Unix, I don't see much slowdown even after a few years.
Hard drive? optical drive? keyboard? mouse? WIFi, Bluetooth, Software suite? Cables? Warranty? Tech support?
I think you omitted a few things. Your time? Or do you work for free?
Hard drive and dvd burner has been covered. I have dozens of keyboards and mice because you can pick them up dirt cheap for pc’s. Same with wifi, bluetooth, cables, etc.
Warranty? For what? Each part has a manufacturer’s warranty.
Tech support? Why would I pay someone for something I can do myself?
My time? Yes, it’s free, it’s minimal, and I enjoy doing it.
As has been mentioned numerous times, it’s not for everyone.
Not comfortable doing it? Don’t.
You sure got THAT right. Windows can get MIGHTY stale and slow after even six months>>>>>>>>>
Reload once a year. I read that back when Windows 95 was out. I used to use Ghost to make an XP image for reloading. I need a newer version to make a Windows 7 image
Here’s another thing. I convince someone to let me reload XP, Vista, 7 for them. And of course they threw out all the CDs (DVDs)their shiny brand new computer came with years ago
Now if I can only get my iMac to run a PowerPoint with the latest version of Office!
Yep, "Oh, they installed Windows at the factory. Why would anyone need to keep those disks around?"
It's like my friend, a bass guitar player, once said (jokingly) .... I asked him what he uses as a tuner when he tunes his bass, and he said, "Oh no, this isn't a regular guitar, it's a bass. They come pre-tuned from the factory!" :)
You buy a new dishwasher, a new camera, a new computer. Why on earth would you throw out any instructions, discs, documentation it comes with? You can’t tell when you might need to refer to it in the future. But people chuck them all the time.
My daughter and I put together a series of desktop computers for her over the years, the last of which was a dual-boot Linux/WinXP box. She learned a lot. She also decided, when it came time to get a portable, to get the small Macbook (about $1000) and VMware Fusion to run Windows and Linux as VMs. So she has effectively three computers, portability, plus the high quality and support of an Apple product.
Then by your own account you did not value your time or your daughter's time by deciding to build those desktop computers.
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