PC or Mac?

[maccompaq]

Dude, stop being so rational, mature and sensible.

Without pointless arguments like Mac Vs PC, Spectrum Vs Commodore and Atari Vs Colecovision the world be be a much duller place.

And where would be we be then eh?

You nailed me there. I guess I am too rational most of the time. What I find amusing is the that OP, a youngster, is so willing to spend $2500 to play games on a computer. To me, that is such a waste of money and time.

 

[krunk]

You nailed me there. I guess I am too rational most of the time. What I find amusing is the that OP, a youngster, is so willing to spend $2500 to play games on a computer. To me, that is such a waste of money and time.

meh, it's his parents that are willing to I'd assume.

When I started college, one of the students was the son of a major share holder with universal studios. Amongst all the expected amenities of the privileged, he had a brand new 1994 Porche. A high school graduation present I imagine.

6mths into his freshman year, he got drunk and wrapped it around telephone pole. Within a week he had a brand new 1995. I think he went on to wreck a couple of others before senior year....always promptly replaced.

Point being, maybe 2500 isn't that much to him. Maybe his trail bike that he rides daily before an afternoon of surfing cost 5k. Who knows?

 

[iSee]

Dude, stop being so rational, mature and sensible.

Without pointless arguments like Mac Vs PC, Spectrum Vs Commodore and Atari Vs Colecovision the world be be a much duller place.

And where would be we be then eh?

Mac, Commodore, Colecovision

 

[SDAVE]

not that great for much else when you sit one next to a Mac.

Very biased statement...both are tools.

 

[krunk]

Very biased statement...both are tools.

Very true. It's just that one of them takes excessively more maintenance, is at a much higher risk of problems, is far less intuitive, and far less powerful. . . . for the average user.

Microsoft's last stronghold is: Power Gamers & Enterprise (integration!)

Since the average user lies outside both these categories for the most part. Windows isn't that great for much else.

 

[Sesshi]

I'm thinking of making the switch to PC. With all the gaming I do it is painful not to have a decent video card. Even when the year-old Pros get modern hardware, I know I'll be paying the Apple tax for a high end card.

A great gaming rig comes in at under $2.5k if you build it yourself. I realize that the MP Pro would be faster for some tasks, but I don't find myself encoding video and rendering 3D on a day-to-day basis. With the money I'd save I could buy a 24" Dell widescreen and other goodies.

Even a great branded gaming rig comes in at $3.5K. The Dell XPS 720 with a factory overclocked QX6700, overclocked RAM and an 8800GTX with a 2007WFP monitor comes in at around that ballpark. Everything about it is enough to give a midrange Mac Pro configuration a serious inferiority complex for "power home" use, including the way it looks.

And if you're in the market for a machine like this, iLife is unlikely to be a draw since you'll have moved up to better apps - which are also available on Windows.

I say switch, and if you're feeling nostalgic you can always buy a used iMac.

 

[combatcolin]

Mac, Commodore, Colecovision

Right, outside now.

Bloody C64 owners and there naff coloured blocky graphics...

 

[stainlessliquid]

Do you plan on getting some $1000 extreme processor and SLI 8800's? $2500 is a hell of a lot unless youre including a big monitor in that price. You dont need a crazy processor to play games, it has very little effect on the performance of a game unless its far too underpowered. You can build a great gaming PC for around $1500 without a monitor if you dont splurge on overpowered parts that wont really help.

 

[Evergreen]

I had been planning to keep the MDD as a server and OS X box, but I didn't think of the fact that a low-end new Mac could be within my budget. That makes this idea seem even more appealing.

The <2.5k figure I gave in my original post was a rough estimate. Sorry for the confusion. I haven't yet done a careful inventory of all the necessary components.

My thanks to those of you who made helpful comments.