Mac help needed by a complete newbie

[dangermouse1964]

Hi I'm a windows Vista user and like the look Leopard better but after spending a lot of money on my PC like hard drives memory graphics cards is there a way i can switch and use these components with little or no outlay as i am totally p***ed off with vista crashing my system is AMD 4200x2 with 2 160gb maxtor hard drives 2gb ram (not ddr2) 8800 nvidia graphics 450w psu trust 7.1 sound card and 2 dvd writers..........if you can help please reply and i will give you my email so you can let me know what i need

Thanks

P.W

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Hi I'm a windows Vista user and like the look Leopard better but after spending a lot of money on my PC like hard drives memory graphics cards is there a way i can switch and use these components with little or no outlay as i am totally p***ed off with vista crashing my system is AMD 4200x2 with 2 160gb maxtor hard drives 2gb ram (not ddr2) 8800 nvidia graphics 450w psu trust 7.1 sound card and 2 dvd writers..........if you can help please reply and i will give you my email so you can let me know what i need

Thanks

P.W

To be honest, you won't be able to use most of that. I can understand your frustration though, I came from a similar set up. To be honest, you have to consider how much you could spend. If you have an 8800 graphics card then gaming is obviously important to you. As an enthusiast that's used to building your own system, the one that would probably appeal the most is the Mac Pro. They're not exactly cheap though. If you think you could afford one then that'd be the way to go. You could keep the hard drives although you'd have to eBay the rest. If you do decide to go this route though, wait for the update. New Mac Pros are expected any day soon and will almost definitely come with a far better choice in graphics cards.

 

[scienide09]

If you are into gaming you'd be best with keeping your current rig and upgrading to Win XP.

 

[dangermouse1964]

Dangermouse

Hi

SO really I would be better selling this rig complete to a gamer (and i am not a gamer its just vista is very graphics hungry) HENCE THE HIGH SPEC CARD
im on quiet a low budget so what would be the best choice for me as i spend all my time on the web and the rest lisening to music downloads and thans for replying

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Hi

SO really I would be better selling this rig complete to a gamer (and i am not a gamer its just vista is very graphics hungry) HENCE THE HIGH SPEC CARD
im on quiet a low budget so what would be the best choice for me as i spend all my time on the web and the rest lisening to music downloads and thans for replying

Well if you're not a gamer then you don't need an 8800 and could get a fair bit for that. You'll get the most for your money by selling the parts individually on eBay. You'll probably want to look at the iMacs. You won't be able to use any of what you have now (unless you put the hard drives in external cases. I'm guesstimating that you should be able to get around £500 for what you've listed, probably a bit more. That's under the assumption that its an 8800 GTS 320 or similar
I'd say that you should really be looking at either of the middle two iMac options, the 2.4GHz models. You'll still need to raise a fair bit but bear in mind you get a really nice screen, keyboard, mouse etc. Also bear in mind that if you're a student you can get ~8% off and if you're a University student you can get ~14% off.