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aznatari

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 28, 2002
48
0
NJ
I'm going to be a freshman in September and i'm going to switch to mac. I want to know which desktop i should buy. I do a lot of photography, video editing and run some gaming apps like Quake 3. I have a somwhat slim budget about $1,600 so i need the best desktop for my money. Tell me what you think any why? Thanx for all replies.

-AzN Atari
 

evildead

macrumors 65816
Jun 18, 2001
1,275
0
WestCost, USA
iMac

Get the best iMac you can get. Spend the extra few bucks. Also.. your a student so dont forget to get your Sudent discount from Apple. Its not much but its something.

-evildead
 

aznatari

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 28, 2002
48
0
NJ
iMac

iMac with OS X 10.2 Jaguar

iMac i shall get....but which model with which configurations?
 

sageenos

macrumors member
Jan 5, 2002
57
0
South Carolina
With a student discount you should be able to get an iMac 17" for about $1,800 I think. The extra screen real estate would be worth the extra. Go for as little ram from Apple as you can, then get some more from someone like Other World Computing. Apple's ram prices are quite high...OWC has 512 dimms for about $100 if I'm correct. The eMacs seem pretty good, but I'd say that the iMac would be a better choice.
 

evildead

macrumors 65816
Jun 18, 2001
1,275
0
WestCost, USA
get the 17in

Get the 17in.... you well really like it. Have you seen one in person? I have a 17in Apple LCD and it is very nice. Even my PC friends drool over it when they come over. The extra space is a must for any Phot edditing and or gamming.


... not to mention that its a kick ass machine! I would also get some more RAM for it... you can never have enuph RAM

-evildead
 

King Cobra

macrumors 603
Mar 2, 2002
5,403
0
When looking for RAM, look no further than
http://www.18004memory.com

Excellent quality, little fuss, and incredible deals on prices.

There may be a few other low priced memory dealers, but I'll let others post their opinions. :p
 

Hemingray

macrumors 68030
Jan 9, 2002
2,926
37
Ha ha haaa!
Not to mention that with the high-end iMacs you get the SuperDrive, something you can't get with the eMac. If you're into video editing then burning to DVD certainly can't hurt you none. :)

As for memory, I always like Crucial http://www.crucial.com for RAM.
 

aznatari

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 28, 2002
48
0
NJ
Apple's ram is known to be very expensive so i would get as little as possible from them.......but how many extra shots are there in the iMac so i could get it from another company that sells it cheaper? also got any good deals online for 512 mb? (need url)
 

Hemingray

macrumors 68030
Jan 9, 2002
2,926
37
Ha ha haaa!
There's two DIMMs, one's inside and very complicated to get to and one's user-accessible. If you get the 256MB default by Apple, you can add your own 512 for a total of 768. Otherwise, you can get a 1-DIMM 512 installed by Apple for an additional $250 (ouch) which leaves you open for a total of 1GB.
 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
Look into the Tower, depending on your future needs this may be your best bet with your student discount.

A Tower may not be the best value for your money today, but throughout your schooling it may be your best long-term value.

Right now it's a little hard for me to recommend anything with a GeForce2 mx chip soldered to the motherboard as a computer to buy and use for the next several years.

Especially something for video editing and game use.
 

mymemory

macrumors 68020
May 9, 2001
2,495
-1
Miami
Get the iMac, specially because of the DVD burning option. Once you have all that ammount of video files the start saving them in CD's is a pain, specailly when you end up with 1GB + files, thet DVD is the best solution to storage and to share your videos.
 

AlphaTech

macrumors 601
Oct 4, 2001
4,556
0
Natick, MA
The iMac uses one SDRAM and one SODIMM memory chips. The SDRAM (normal sized memory) is the one that you CANNOT change. The SODIMM is the one that you remove the base plate to access.

As far as getting additional memory, just go to http://www.mohawkmem.com.
 

dhdave

macrumors regular
Oct 23, 2001
121
1
NJ
Ok, I'll be the lone dissenter.

Go for the eMac. In my opinion the CRT is sharper and just as flat as the iMac. PLUS, you get more screen realestate.

Worried about the Geforce2 card? You shouldn't be. My windows pc has a 4 year old TNT card in it with a whopping 16mb of video memory. It plays everything. STILL. The geforce 2 with 32mb of memory will be FINE for at least a couple of years.

Get the base eMac on Apples education site and then add a large hard drive (if you need more space -- I do, I'm putting a 120GB drive in mine) and memory from crucial. You should be able to do the eMac with 1GB of memory and a 120GB hard drive for well under $1500. It's the best value going.

As for the super drive there is a company selling internal kits and also one selling external kits. The eMac is limited by nothing.

dh
 
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