ksz said:
Then I suggest you keep your dual 2.7 for the remainder of your life because, as you say, you "could
never ask for any more speed..." The rest of us will march on to the latest and greatest.
You are touching a very interesting subject in the computer world. Indeed there are people out there who don't see any benefit for themselves to have a new and faster computer with a more modern OS and Applications. Many Software got to a point where it is just close to perfect as it is and can't be really improved anymore. The group of these people gets bigger with every day. Take for example a word processor. Word 5.1 for Mac was doing almost everything very well for the average user back then, not much room for improvements. If you compare the actual MS Word with that old Word from 1991(!!!!). Since then many features were added, but basically most of them are never used by the average user.
My step-father was using a Mac LC II until last year in combination with Word 5.1. He used the computer mainly for word processing, so he was fine with that old computer. The only reason why he bought an iBook last year was that he wanted to use the internet finally and the he wanted to be able to carry his computer around...
In many companies the main purpose for computers is Inter-/Intranet-Applications (Web-Browser), E-Mail, Word-Processing and running certain client software. For these tasks not much computing power is needed. You should what kind of computers are bought for workplaces like this these days. Low-End! Because they don't need more. Many of them still use Windows 2000 as their Standard OS. The only reason why they are starting to switch to XP is that M$ doesn't officially support 2000 anymore...
The group of people who really need a screaming fast computer is getting smaller with every day. Video-Editing, 3D-Modelling and Audio are niche-markets. I know a lot of ad agencies where the newest Mac is a Quicksilver and they don't really bother buying new machines. For the usual Photoshop and Layout work (it didn't really change over the years), the old machines are still fast enough. They are just replacing a machine when it is breaking down, still not buying the top of the line PowerMac. Who really needs to do high-end Photoshopping? Most don't...
If your needs are Internet, E-Mail and Word-Processing e.g. a Mac mini is just doing fine and will be good for still a long time to come.
For example my wife is refusing to upgrade from Mac OS X 10.3 to 10.4 on her iBook G4 (800MHz) or to get a new one any time soon... Why? That's what she said: "It does everything I need it to do, so why I should bother?"
I also want a new PowerMac, because I really need a powerful workstation in my Office for my projects. But most people really don't need that much power. It is more the toy factor I guess... In my Home-Office I still have a Quicksilver with a 2x1.3GHz Upgrade card running. For the tasks I'm doing there it is still more than powerful enough and I never have the feeling it is too slow. So I'll keep it as long as it lasts... which will be still very long I hope, since I really like that machine even though it is a bit noisy...
groovebuster
