Need some Computer advice, pwease ^^

TigersGoRAWR said:
Thank you everyone for the advice (:
I will take everyones points into consideration ^^

Another question I thought of:
What would be your recommended stats for a computer?
like, RAM wise, HDD wise, Graphics Card wise etc etc.
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Really depends on what you're looking to get.

HDD:
I'd always recommend getting the largest HDD capacity you can afford after the cost of the actual computer itself. These days, Apple Macbook Pros ship with a 750GB drive, and the iMacs ship with at least 1TB. You can opt for SSD in either model, or dual SSD in the larger iMacs, but SSD is quite expensive and might not be within your budget. For your conventional desktop PC, you have a lot more options with upgrading the HDD in the future, whether by yourself or with the help of a third party. With macs, you're pretty limited. For instance, I recall my aunt took in her iMac to upgrade it with a HDD she bought herself to an Apple Store, but they wouldn't put it in; instead, they insisted on putting in one of their stock drives. We then turned around to Best Buy, which quite a few are authorized to work on Apple products now, and they upgraded the drive no problem with the standard hardware install fee and their own warranty. Only catch was, if the computer needed to be sent back, we needed to take the iMac back to BB to have the original drive put back in for warranty reasons.

Long story short, if you can, just put in as large as an HDD as Apple will allow at the time of purchase if you go with Apple. It's a relatively inexpensive upgrade, so I'd recommend it even if I didn't have that little aside to go with it. With desktops (or a Mac Pro if you invest in it), future HDD upgrades are easier... although if you've never put a PC together before, you might want to just take the thing to BB to let them do the upgrade. Power Supply cables, in my experience, are a bitch to work with at first, so it might be worth the $50 just to have them install it for you.

While you might not think you need a lot of space, it's better to have more space for when you might need it; I've already filled about 1.5TB with personal media files, and I never thought I would. Those kind of files are only going to get larger as quality improves. From my experience, I'd recommend going with a Western Digital HDD, as I've had a portable WDHDD that's nearly 6 years old today.

RAM: Little more tricky to describe. Most users can get by just fine with 4-8GB. In a laptop, I think this is all you look to get, as I've yet to see a laptop with 12GB, 16GB, or 24GB configs. If you're planning on doing more graphic/video/audio work, you might want to look to larger RAM capacities.

Graphics Card: Also depends. ATI Radeons seem to be all the rage these days. I usually recommend anything in or above the HD 5000 series from ATI for desktops, and whatever's available in laptops (which may or may not be NVIDIA, depending on the make/model). Both brands have their support by manufacturers, communities, users, etc. It depends on what camp you feel more comfortable with. If you play games and graphics matter a lot to you, go for a larger video card. I'm assuming you won't be building this computer yourself, but if you are, keep in mind the size of the card and the size of the case. Tight fits aren't a good thing for computers.

Processor: Intel, go for Sandybridge; the latest and greatest in quad cores (you'll likely find nothing with 6, 8, or 12 cores in the consumer price range). AMD: ask someone else, as I haven't been in the AMD market for many years.

Ports: Make sure you have all your bases covered, such as USB 3.0/2.0 (USB 3.0 works with 2.0, so don't worry about that) and whatever other ports you might need for the use of the machine.

I can't think of anything else to mention. If I do, I'll post it here.


aeon said:
Bootcamp allows for a dual-boot system — it is not a virtual machine.

So any current-day Mac can be a pure Windows PC or Linux box, should you want.
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I'd just like to point out that I've experimented with Linux on the Mac. It works, sure, but it can't utilize all the hardware, such as the wireless internet card, because Apple keeps the drivers for those within their own circle. If you have ethernet, go for it, but you might experience other problems (I never could get the display resolution to match the actual resolution supported on the display).
 
Detective Conan said:
I'd just like to point out that I've experimented with Linux on the Mac. It works, sure, but it can't utilize all the hardware, such as the wireless internet card, because Apple keeps the drivers for those within their own circle. If you have ethernet, go for it, but you might experience other problems (I never could get the display resolution to match the actual resolution supported on the display).
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Interesting i thought that may have been the case, thanks for the heads up!
 
~jet said:
Yes they are expensive; no, you are not just paying for a name (though you are also paying for it, too.) I spent the majority of my life in PC land, and upon using macs found them to actually be WORTH at least MOST of the extra money. I've found them to be be more stalwart and reliable, more resiliant, less prone to hardware and software issues, less prone to infection, last longer, are quite powerful, etc. By the time you spec a PC up to the performance of a mac, you aren't actually paying much less at all ~and~ while a savvy computer user can deflect and cure the typical ailments of typical pcs, not all that many people can really say that.

Macs aren't perfect nor are they for everyone, but they are slick, powerful, and valuable machines that do far more than a dyed-in-the-wool pc enthusiast will admit to. The extra money is well spent.
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While this may all be true, it also strikes me as something that would be really, really prone to psychological biases. I wish I could find a site with graphs that showed longevity of macs vs. PCs (and, if possible, with PCs broken up by different laptop brands. Since Windows doesn't license its software as strictly as Apple, lots of different companies make "PCs", while only Apple makes Macs. Since some companies obviously make better laptop cases and ventilation and things like that than others do, it's unfair to lump all PCs together), but unfortunately all the google hits were links to blogs and other stupid articles-of-opinion with nothing but the blogger's views on them.

My guess is that there are certain laptop makers who have put out some really lousily designed models (a certain brand of HP that a friend had comes to mind, as he had to send that back multiple times to be repaired/replaced), and others who have put out some fine/reliable machines (my Dell Inspiron E1705 hasn't had a problem in 4 years--and I even bumped it pretty hard a few times, travel back and forth on the airplane between college and home with it several times a year, etc).

I was trying to research & try to type up an explanation of why macs seem more powerful than PCs (it basically boils down to: it's impossible to get a mac without a very high-end processor in it--they just don't exist. So unless you were going to get an i7 for whatever you're doing, you're forced into getting something higher end by the nature of the package.

Putting equivalent hardware in a system does not mean you're "not actually paying that much more" for a mac. I'll admit I wasn't terribly careful, but compare the mac on http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC721LL/A?mco=MjEyOTY5MDM to the Dell laptop on http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...VDRW&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=xps-l502x and stick in the same hardware. When I give the Dell the same RAM/processor/hard drive space as the Mac, I find that the Dell costs $1075 and the Mac costs $1800 (make sure to upgrade the video card to the GeForce GT 540M to make it slightly better than the Macbook's Radeon HD 6490M, according to http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html).

The price is very significant, so I'd wanna be really sure that Macs are more reliable, last longer, or have other intangible things working in their favor (at least until someone puts together real data on how long laptops actually last, which I couldn't find) before I sprung for one. Right now I just don't see it, though.
 
frozen_water said:
While this may all be true, it also strikes me as something that would be really, really prone to psychological biases. I wish I could find a site with graphs that showed longevity of macs vs. PCs (and, if possible, with PCs broken up by different laptop brands. Since Windows doesn't license its software as strictly as Apple, lots of different companies make "PCs", while only Apple makes Macs. Since some companies obviously make better laptop cases and ventilation and things like that than others do, it's unfair to lump all PCs together), but unfortunately all the google hits were links to blogs and other stupid articles-of-opinion with nothing but the blogger's views on them.

My guess is that there are certain laptop makers who have put out some really lousily designed models (a certain brand of HP that a friend had comes to mind, as he had to send that back multiple times to be repaired/replaced), and others who have put out some fine/reliable machines (my Dell Inspiron E1705 hasn't had a problem in 4 years--and I even bumped it pretty hard a few times, travel back and forth on the airplane between college and home with it several times a year, etc).

I was trying to research & try to type up an explanation of why macs seem more powerful than PCs (it basically boils down to: it's impossible to get a mac without a very high-end processor in it--they just don't exist. So unless you were going to get an i7 for whatever you're doing, you're forced into getting something higher end by the nature of the package.

Putting equivalent hardware in a system does not mean you're "not actually paying that much more" for a mac. I'll admit I wasn't terribly careful, but compare the mac on http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC721LL/A?mco=MjEyOTY5MDM to the Dell laptop on http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...VDRW&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=xps-l502x and stick in the same hardware. When I give the Dell the same RAM/processor/hard drive space as the Mac, I find that the Dell costs $1075 and the Mac costs $1800 (make sure to upgrade the video card to the GeForce GT 540M to make it slightly better than the Macbook's Radeon HD 6490M, according to http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html).

The price is very significant, so I'd wanna be really sure that Macs are more reliable, last longer, or have other intangible things working in their favor (at least until someone puts together real data on how long laptops actually last, which I couldn't find) before I sprung for one. Right now I just don't see it, though.
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I'm only really going to address the two statements I bolded because I don't feel like going anecdotal tonight.

1. The thing about studies, especially those done to compare products, are naturally biased by the research team and publisher, so I'd almost say that blogs are just about as reliable as those sorts of studies, especially tech blogs kept by professionals. In general, you'll have to listen to the opinions/experiences of others. Unfortunately, relying on that even requires some logical observation just to catch any flaws in reasoning.

2. Most will say that Macs are faster than PCs because of the operating system (that whole Unix foundation probably helps a lot). That's probably why so many techies have Hackintoshes (I've built a few in the past, a somewhat challenging task if you're under a time constraint); they save money on parts but get all the benefits of a genuine mac (save for wi-fi). I wouldn't recommend it to people that have even an average amount of technical know-how; you'd need to be able to cope with software issues along the way, which is a lot more than what most want to do in their free time. The processor comparison is a good idea, but even when macs had the core 2 duos in them, they were faster than comparable PCs.
 
This seems to be a good unbiased page comparing laptop brands - http://smidgenpc.com/2010/04/23/the-best-laptop-brands-a-comprehensive-review/

Interestingly Lenovo Thinkpads aren't as reliable as i might have expected, kinda makes me wonder what the results would have held when IBM Thinkpads where being produced. Asus has good results here and i have always respected the fact that many of their range are good in terms of performance, as is Apple ofcourse.
 
Detective Conan said:
2. Most will say that Macs are faster than PCs because of the operating system (that whole Unix foundation probably helps a lot). That's probably why so many techies have Hackintoshes (I've built a few in the past, a somewhat challenging task if you're under a time constraint); they save money on parts but get all the benefits of a genuine mac (save for wi-fi). I wouldn't recommend it to people that have even an average amount of technical know-how; you'd need to be able to cope with software issues along the way, which is a lot more than what most want to do in their free time. The processor comparison is a good idea, but even when macs had the core 2 duos in them, they were faster than comparable PCs.
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There's a site comparing the two at http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31012_7-10319612-10355804.html using the same hardware. In short it says that Macs are better in general performance cases, and slightly better in terms of startup/shutdown time, but Windows is better at 3D rendering and gives higher fps when gaming.
 
I went Mac, and then I went back.

Macs are susceptible to both software and hardware issues, just like a PC running Windows. I had weekly kernel panics (basically where the OS freaks out and will either lock up or shut down the computer). I'm a pretty experienced computer tech, ran multiple hardware scans and could never find anything. It stumped my Mac coworkers as well. Seems like I had an isolated incident, but I figured it was worth a mention. I sold my Macbook once Windows 7 came out.

I want to make another thing very clear: if someone tells you Macs can't get viruses, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. I have seen it dozens of times. Most of the time it calls for a wipe and reinstall of OSX.

I really like the hardware, but the OS is too limiting unless you hack the hell out of it, and even then it feels like you're in Tonka-toy Apple Safetyland. I'm okay with screwing something up on my PC because I know I can fix it, so if this terrifies you then maybe a Mac is the way to go. Also, running Windows 7 was an irritating experience at best, thanks to the shoddy touchpad drivers and poor resource management (the system would get hot as fuck when it was just sitting at the desktop, doing nothing). I've been told these have gotten better, and they probably have as I was using it when Windows 7 was still in beta, but I wouldn't believe it until I saw it.

All-in-one PCs pretty much suck. You're paying more for a weird form-factor that's a pain to pull apart should something go wrong, and your hardware is worse than if you would've just bought a regular desktop.

If you need to be portable, get a laptop. If you don't, get a desktop. If you're not sure, get a desktop and a decent netbook (AMD Fusion based, anything with the E-350). If you like to spend a lot of money, look trendy, and use a safety-net OS that a four-year-old could figure out (no offense to anyone with a Mac, I actually like a lot about OSX), get a Mac system.
 
All-in-one PCs are actually pretty nice. I know I worked on a Client's all-in-one Gateway PC and I have to say it impressed me -- all she needed to do was lug around the all-in-one and a keyboard and mouse and it was good to go. However, all-in-ones are obviously not designed for gaming and good luck putting a high-end video card in it.

You can use a laptop *as* a desktop PC if you don't happen to like the ergonomics/feel of using a laptop. Just get a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse and hook them up to the laptop and you can use it like a desktop when you are at home, and as a laptop when you go somewhere. I personally have my laptop hooked up to a 1920x1080 monitor and a Logitech Wave keyboard -- works great. Of course, not so great for gaming, but if you get a good laptop you may be able to run modern games at the lowest settings (which still look decent) and have an acceptable framerate -- just don't expect to do so if you're paying under $1200 or your laptop.
 
Windows 7 is great. Fixes most of my annoyances with XP, and has great compatibility.

Macbooks have EXCELLENT battery life. Macs are certainly slick, and are generally well-built.

A Windows desktop PC is the best for gaming. I wouldn't personally spend the money required for an iMac. Macbooks are capable of gaming, but... eh.


It might be worth it to get a desktop/laptop combo. A gaming desktop (1-1.5 year old parts are very cheap and worth the money, if you don't mind building from scratch) and a netbook for cheap on-the-go email/Facebook/forum access. Basically anything non-gaming can be done reasonably well on a netbook or cheap laptop (do your research, though!). You could substitute the netbook with an iPad; those are pretty good for on-the-go computing.

All just suggestions, of course.
 
Sali said:
People actually bought the macbook air?
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I know a few people who did so. In each of their cases, it really suits their needs
 
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