gaming
I never ever ever, make computer purchase decisions on the basis of games.
Never have never will, though the specs that gamers used are a part of the info somewhat, I will not buy a machine soley because it can play a particular game. Besides Im likely to buy a lot more power & particulars than a gamer, since I am looking longterm and the gamers I know are at times only looking at the game they want to play better/cooler with.
Unlike my classmate, who has over 90 games (on about 120 cd's approx).. I only have 5 cd's.
Though I do have over 100 games(low end ancient) on 1 cd.
Cards,old pc games,etc. But all of them will play on any pc of any windows os and most of them.
For me games are timekillers, not entertainment (I will use my future xbox for that).
Yet I have more than 300 cd's of non-game stuff of which he only has 10.
Nearly half of my stuff is sw developement related.
Fact is, my cd collection will outlast his by many years.
His next upgrade might very well eliminate 1 or more of his cd's.
My next upgrade might at most eliminate 3-4 if even then.
My computers last years, my primary pc is 10 years old and is currently 5 times better than its original purchase.
and has 10 times the ram, and 25 times the hd. And has been (except for motherboard) has been totally rebuilt.
I had altair for 2 years.
I had one APPLE II or another for nearly 12 years.
I had Amiga for 5 years..with 2 years of it emulating pc's better than the real deal.
I had pc for 9 years (different brands/os,config.
I never even considered mac untill normal screens & color was available.
I never even looked at pc's till windows 95.
Until win95, I could do everything required of msdos or win31 without ever owning a pc.
Emulation was often a lot better on mac or amiga than the real deal was. (and was sw only).
My best frined emulated on his mac, similarily but even better. (at times hardware, at times sw only).
My socalled amiga emulation of pc would emulate a pentium at nearly double the mhz that was available then.
Despite the fact that myAMIGA 3000 I had was 25mhz (??, dont remmber mhz).
My amiga is the only computer I have owned that I wish I had kept.
I do not ever keep old pc's on the shelf, though I keep a equally stupid volume of parts & devices anyway.
My other pc's in the home net are garage sale pcs (total cost pre-upgrade was $50).
Upgrades were needed obviously, and the only past garage sale buy that was wasted $$ was the 6400/180 mac.
Great for its time, but for what I wanted to do, was a waste of the $10 I spent to get it.
(did upgrade ram & hd and os, but will take the hd back out and reinstall the original, to give it away).
Fortunatley those low end units are 'webbrowsers' & boinc only pc's. I almost never use them for anything else.
I was going to linux'ise the mac I had, but the side issues elimated the worth I was looking for.
Upgrades here were definatley not cost effective enough to bother with.
In fact, what makes me want to buy a pc or mac:
$$$ costs - can I do the same for less or compariable.
Appearance - I might consider a cool looking box over a better computer.
Chances are no sacrifices will be needed.
Capacity - ram & hd, (though hd is less relevant for me since I have 1000
gig on my home network).
HD & Ram on a laptop though would be a consideraation.
Laptop screensize (larger than traditional).
Video - capability to go multiscreen - high resolution
Boinc (seti) app: though not the only app is one of the reasons I wont go OSX less than 10.3 (or is it 10.4).
MS OFFICE (mandatory for both pc & mac) though I already have MS OFFICE (PC)
QUICKEN (prefer pc, but quicken on mac would be ok).
Full network capabilities - (not really an issue, just a consideration).
Hercules - (mainframe emulator) - will be eventually on every pc or mac in network..(though I dont know for sure about mac options here yet. Is sw based.
Video - full blown editing must be similar to better to what I was already doing on my pc (and it beat my brothers mac video editing hands down and for a lot lot less $$$). Costs are a consideraiton here.
Fortunately dont need high end systems for this, Im doing studio quality editing on my 10yr old pc and had similar hardware on the previous pc.
MAME - classic video gameplay - pc & mac.
Dont even need highend my 650mhz plays these fine. And i even put these on a lowend laptop for a newphew of mine.
Some of these games are as good as the socalled high end games my classmate has.
ORACLE or SQL related - decisions here may color what I go for.
I dont yet know what (if any) limitations I might have.. Presumably none.
There are a great many other reasons but the above is the biggest.
I relize some of this is arguable... But I dont consider myself a anti-mac user or a windows bigot. (Considering that ive been a personal computer user since 1979 and have only had ibm (or windows) since 1996-1997.
My apple II/amiga history is much longer.
My #1 consideration will always be cost.
Since I figure on getting an additional 2 computers (1 laptop,1 desktop).
Since desktop choice (whether mac or pc) will be a very high end selection:
pc: amd64/dual core/dual processor choices.
mac: similar dual mac choices.
Laptop choice will be not so high end but there may be some changes in decision choices, and flexibility in future use.
Unfortuntely, usergroups (mac & otherwise) tend to be useless as they will be often understandably biased and not always a good source for decision making. (Mac users locally in the past were the prime reason I went AMIGA, and never regretted it).
The mac users I know are dual users (mac & pc). And are the resource I am using to decide what & how much.
