Thanks. I assume you're referring to the 2600 Pro....rather than the 8800...yes?
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Apple Releases New iMacs
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Thanks. I assume you're referring to the 2600 Pro....rather than the 8800...yes?
*groan*
I was hoping I wouldn't to drag out the Mac Pro (Early 2008) Developer Note.
If you need more power get it from the power supply instead of the slots + aux connectors.
I was hoping I wouldn't to drag out the Mac Pro (Early 2008) Developer Note.
If you need more power get it from the power supply instead of the slots + aux connectors.
The 2600 Pro will be enough for any house project. if you want to make big HD quality stuff then you might feel it's lack of power.
Thanks for that, I guess the AUX connectors aren't really tied in to the power supply. While that makes for a neater looking system, that is an interesting handicap. Especially since the MP comes with an 1100W power supply.
Cool. Thanks for the feedback. So I guess I'll take the question a step further...
With the graphics card question answered, I'm tempted to jump on the Refurb 2.8Ghz deals at the apple store. Are there any on-line sources that provide benchmark data for the new machines vs the prev gen? I found some old data on the macworld site, but it didn't include the prev 2.8Ghz. I assume macworld might be soon posting new data, right?
Anyway, $1600 for the 2.8GHz w/ 500Gb is tempting...pending some compelling data that i could spend just a bit more and great performance from the new 2.8Ghz iMac...which would also give me the option to upgrade to the better graphics card in the future if I deem that to be necessary.
No comparision against prev 2.8 but should give you a little idea.
Benchmark test of new 3.06
As far as I know you will not be able to upgrade to a better GPU in the future at least that's what Apple told me on the phone. If you ever consider getting a better card then keep a bit $$ and wait a month or two and then get the new 2.8 with the 8800 GPU.
Just stay away from 20" if you want to do anything with graphics. Poor 6bit screen will show it's flaws when working with graphic stuff.
Not perfect, but these might help you, too:
Primate Labs. (Current models at the top, last year's further down.)
OWC (scroll to bottom for XBench results).
True, but the native Mac game market was laughable until recently so there was no need to put in gaming cards. And it's still laughable compared to the Windows market. And playing games on Windows is neither easy nor painless much of the time. Driver updates. BIOS flashes (system and card). Direct X patches. Game patches. Etc. Etc.
On the Mac, my games work. My tanks in C&C3 might not drive across the screen at an actual 45mph because I lack the graphics horsepower of the "BFVC 5000", but neither do they keep slipping the clutch, throwing a track, or burning up the flywheel.
Someone up-thread called it "the cost of OS X", but it is more than that. It is the cost of a complete system that provides a level of stability and...elegance...in doing all things that I find very refreshing after over two decades of Windows. Part of that is the decisions Apple made in designing the OS and APIs, part of it is the care OS X programmers seem to take in their code (see below) and part is the distinct lack of options available to us in terms of hardware and software which minimizes the chances of something coming in and messing it all up.
I agree. Someone wrote a blog or an article about it. People ask me why I use a Mac and I reply with one word "elegance". The OS and the apps are just more elegant in their design and execution...
...much like the hardware it runs on.
While we're nit-picking: How about a system that doesn't use buffered RAM? I know, I'm just fueling the fire.
That's driven by the chipset and systemboard design. All of our HP workstations uses buffered DIMMs, as well. Intel has implied in some comments that it was a "mistake" so hopefully they will go the way of RDRAM as newer technologies and platforms enter use.
Once again, insult-based argumentation. Funny enough, that is how a "spoiled kid" might react when he is told what he does not want to hear.
Yep, I'm detecting a psychological pattern among fanboys, "projection"--if they accuse someone of doing something, it is probably because they are doing that very thing themselves.
But I digress. You claim to be covering all angles. Yet not once do you use the word "linux", or acknowledge the existence of other non-Microsoft OS choices. You do not deal with the clear descent in quality in the iMac line since the white iMac days (with no corresponding descent in price, naturally). You do not deal with the fact that many users despise glossy TN displays, and prefer to insult said users rather than simply acknowledge that the previous displays were better (if you're going to claim that the current ones are better, then you should probably stop using the word "ignorant")...
Then you take up our time putting silly phrases in large bold font, etc.
Apple is in trouble if it relies on "knowledgeable" users that behave in this matter. People are not as stupid as all that; they will eventually see that the expensive iMac is not as good, hardware-wise, as the other machines cropping up around it. In particular... compared to the previous generation from Apple itself. At the moment, Apple is riding the tide of previous excellence in product (which the white iMac, I would argue, was, in spite of its shortcomings). But another year of aluminum iMacs will begin to reverse the tide.
Someday I might understand why a user of a computing platform would prefer to see a product's decline in quality rather than hear fellow users describe said decline. For now, I'm simply puzzled. Apple execs, shareholders, employees... that I would understand; but fellow users?
Look, folks, everything this poster says is true. It's just missing the point.
...
The thing about all of that replacement stuff is...I don't want to do it any more. I'm tired of tinkering, having parts fail, reinstalling software after a crash, etc. My time has become more and more valuable to me, and now I hate even spending the time necessary to build a new computer, much less replace something that's gotten old or repair something that's broken.
To get into the Mac world, I bought a used Powerbook G4 a couple of months ago. It was just an experiment. Thing is... It's SIX FREAKIN' YEARS OLD, AND IT STILL WORKS. I've never had a PC last six years. Never. So I went ahead and ordered the iMac. I expect that my $1400 investment will still work pretty well five or six years from now, and I won't have to change any hardware. When you look at it on a per year cost basis, that's not all that expensive.
That doesn't invalidate what the original poster said, it's just a different value system. He values power for cheap. I value reliability and total cost of ownership. My estimate is that he'll buy two computers, or two computers worth of parts, over the next six years, and possibly spend several weekends upgrading or repairing. I'll spend those weekends doing something else, and I'll only buy one computer.
Let the original poster have his powerful machine. I'll take my iMac and, in the long run, save money and have the same computer for twice as long. Yes, it'll be less and less powerful as it gets older, but I don't really care to play the latest and greatest video games--I have a Wii for that!
Just so you know, I'm still using my Tibook. Nice laptop.
Anyway, I saw you coming and going in another post down the line... let me quickly say this: you describe there being alternative viewpoints, and them being equally valid according to the user's needs. By and large, I agree, of course. In fact, if someone likes glossy TN displays, then the 20" iMac is just great for them!
The problem here is that Apple has expressly and deliberately chosen not to address that other viewpoint.
So, no, I am not invalidating your approach in the least (it's why I bought a Tibook back in the day instead of continuing with linux). Heck, it's why I bought a Mac Pro this time around.
But if Apple continues down this path, then it's not going to be fun to run OSX anymore, for the reasons that I've already talked about in several posts. The cool hackers are going to desert our platform, and it'll start to smell kinda funky around here.
I've never had to BIOS flash to run a game, the only BIOS flash I've done on my current machine was to enable my mobo to recognise Penryns. As for driver updates, I get these on disk or download from nVidia as required, DirectX patches automatically from Windows Update and game patches all link into modern games through support networks.
So I've never really had a problem with any game except Civ IV and it's annoying nVidia driver bug, but then you'd get that on an nVidia powered Mac too.
On the Mac, my games work. My tanks in C&C3 might not drive across the screen at an actual 45mph because I lack the graphics horsepower of the "BFVC 5000", but neither do they keep slipping the clutch, throwing a track, or burning up the flywheel.
But mine all work and they're displayed as they should be. None of them, Civ IV aside, required any tweaking except Bioshock but that was just Bioshock's crap programming.
Well fair enough, but I've had few issues with Vista - and none since upgrading to SP1 - before that I had none with XP for over three years. I can only speak from personal experience but Windows has been fine for me.
Once again, insult-based argumentation. Funny enough, that is how a "spoiled kid" might react when he is told what he does not want to hear.
Yep, I'm detecting a psychological pattern among fanboys, "projection"--if they accuse someone of doing something, it is probably because they are doing that very thing themselves.
But I digress. You claim to be covering all angles. Yet not once do you use the word "linux", or acknowledge the existence of other non-Microsoft OS choices. You do not deal with the clear descent in quality in the iMac line since the white iMac days (with no corresponding descent in price, naturally). You do not deal with the fact that many users despise glossy TN displays, and prefer to insult said users rather than simply acknowledge that the previous displays were better (if you're going to claim that the current ones are better, then you should probably stop using the word "ignorant")...
Then you take up our time putting silly phrases in large bold font, etc.
Apple is in trouble if it relies on "knowledgeable" users that behave in this matter. People are not as stupid as all that; they will eventually see that the expensive iMac is not as good, hardware-wise, as the other machines cropping up around it. In particular... compared to the previous generation from Apple itself. At the moment, Apple is riding the tide of previous excellence in product (which the white iMac, I would argue, was, in spite of its shortcomings). But another year of aluminum iMacs will begin to reverse the tide.
Someday I might understand why a user of a computing platform would prefer to see a product's decline in quality rather than hear fellow users describe said decline. For now, I'm simply puzzled. Apple execs, shareholders, employees... that I would understand; but fellow users?
And now you come up with Linux while diggin the same hole... lol About screens... I think i stated enough times what I think about them. But you still miss my point so...
I'm not gonna go further into discussion with somebody that doesn't even read what's written yet points out that I use bold fonts. Bravo Sherlock! You can clearly see!... but apparently you can't read and since I know what's your next answer gonna be then... You know it better - period. Fine. You're the man, you won.
cheers
D4F, are other operating systems and hardware valid? What if I have productive workflow on them? Are you willing to accept that or do I really have to use OS X and Apple's hardware?
You just asked what I wrote many times
It's all about personal preference which way you go. Some comes from the look of it, some come from the ease of work and some of a simple $$ wise selection.
I always state that for me a Mac is a superior package as my experience with Windows wasn't happy.
But i can not say how you feel about it and it's your choice to pick the setup that will suit you best.
I never say Windows suck just because. I always say that for me it sucks as it cost me serious issues over many years and since I moved to Mac my work is a pleasure.
And I'm not stupid. For the price you can build yourself a system there isn't much that will compete with it in terms of $$ and power... yet none of them use OS X and that's a immediate turn around for me.
If I wouldn't use so many pro applications I don't know if I would ever made my move to Mac. Now that I moved there's a minimal chance I'll ever go back especially that I use Windows quite often but have it all in one box
No other company gives a warranty like apple care for free so why do you add that to the cost of the machine? Talk about being biased...
Interesting.. according to this site the overall of the old 2.8 is slightly faster than the new one. Probably not enough to notice in the real world, unless you get the better vid card, but I'm glad I opted to save the cash and went for the refurb.
iMac (24-inch Mid 2007)
Core 2 Extreme @ 2.80GHz 3791
iMac (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.80GHz 3728
and just a tad under the 3.0 version
iMac (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3.06GHz 3995
IMO I wouldn't buy it anyway. With the high resell value of Apples, it's likely best to just toss the machine on E-bay after a year and buy a new one. This way you always keep a new machine and don't really lose much.
Well, I explicitly addressed this in some other post (or was it this one?), but I don't blame you for not seeing EVERYTHING in this huge thread.
The need for the warranty is to some extent dictated by what is being warranted. In the case of many Macs, you really, really need to have that warranty because otherwise it's going to be pretty pricey to fix what is wrong. Furthermore, since merely opening up the case of an iMac is already a odious and difficult task, it would be just plain foolish to buy the machine without the extended warranty.
In the case of the Alienware machine, however, if something breaks, I can probably figure out what broke, take it out, and replace it with a new part from, say, newegg. Obvious exception: motherboard failure, which is a pain in the neck to self-service.
So if I thought that a motherboard failure was likely enough, then I would also insist on the extended warranty for that system.
btw the ACD monitors are damned pricey, AND you need to pony up an extra $100 to get a decent three-year warranty on it; that is substandard for the industry, as pricey monitors tend to come with better warranties than that out of the box.
What actually happens when you need service is another matter. Apparently, people are pretty happy with the service they receive when their problem falls within the applecare window, but there is the occasional rotten-apple experience. I would say that you are doing well if there is an apple store near you; if you live somewhere where that's not the case (e.g. the entire country of Spain), then who knows.
Well, it's not hard to win when one refrains from using insults as a basis for argumentation.
Your profound "lol" comment on Linux is yet another example of an insult being substituted for a cogent argument.
Now tell us, since you're such a fan of the great workflow experience in OSX, have you figured out how to use the new feature in Leopard known as "Spaces"?
Well, it's not hard to win when one refrains from using insults as a basis for argumentation.
Your profound "lol" comment on Linux is yet another example of an insult being substituted for a cogent argument.
Now tell us, since you're such a fan of the great workflow experience in OSX, have you figured out how to use the new feature in Leopard known as "Spaces"?
Lol. and lol...
You need a life.