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what do you guys think of my new Mac?

lewdvig

lewdvig

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 1, 2002
1,416
75
South Pole
I grabbed a 17" iMac yesterday for $2130 CDN. Thats $1600 USD.

1ghz, 256mb DDR, 80gb HD, superdrive, etc. It was a floor model.

I have a PC for gaming, but I am wondering if a PB would have been a better choice. I will be doing video, photo and music.

No level 3 cache seems to make these slower than the PM and PBs.

So, what do you experts think? I have two weeks to decide whether to keep it.

It sure is purdy. I might even keep it in my kitchen - its not something I want to hide.
 
It ain't in the wrong place. Hmm, maybe the mods moved it. Well does your mac have any scratches? As long as you arn't using it heavaly it won't show any slowdowns, with Panther coming it can only get faster....The iMac is beutiful, thats why I chose the iMac over a powermac...I beleive teh nVidea 5200 is better tahn the Radeon 9600 Portable chipset...i might be wrong. What games are you planning to use?? Music, Videos and photos will be fine with the imac
 
Same

Same as my iMac. And i also have a PC sitting at the other end of the desk. It looks like Beauty and the Beast. As soon as I get some extra cash, I'm going to max out the RAM. From what I've read, it makes quite a difference. I thought that the 80 GB hard drive was overkill. But, after moving some home video shots to my Mac, I can see why the newest iMacs have such a large HD. A 40 GB iPod is definitely on the wish list.

Enjoy.

Squire
 
Congratulations on your new iMac lewdvig, think that you made a good choice. Increasing the memory would be a good idea, you can never have enough.
 
Re: Same

Originally posted by Squire
A 40 GB iPod is definitely on the wish list.
Click to expand...

<kiddy voice>can i have one too santa? </kiddy voice>
<brat voice>WHAT! You cant bl**dy afford it, some santa you are - the one in grace brothers said i can have one (storms off) </brat voice>
 
Originally posted by applemacdude
It ain't in the wrong place. Hmm, maybe the mods moved it. Well does your mac have any scratches? As long as you arn't using it heavaly it won't show any slowdowns, with Panther coming it can only get faster....The iMac is beutiful, thats why I chose the iMac over a powermac...I beleive teh nVidea 5200 is better tahn the Radeon 9600 Portable chipset...i might be wrong. What games are you planning to use?? Music, Videos and photos will be fine with the imac
Click to expand...

That is VERY wrong.
The ati 9600 beats the nvidia 5200 knockout in every test hands down.
Why do you think they use the nvidia 5200 in the 12" pb, and the ati9600 in the 15" and 17"pb?
The Ati 9600 is much better, and it's the best mobile graphic card to date.
 
Yeah, I am finding that the iMac is quite a bit slower than the PM I used to have in games. Mine has the GF4MX which is only marginally slower than a 5200.

I think I will probably keep it. Its on one of those pay no interest for a year deals. I always pay them off on time so its like buying something with someone else's money. This one was the floor model - not sure if I got enough of a mark-down. The brand new ones are $2500 CDN - this one was $2130. I guess the key factor is whether the iMac qualifies for up-to-date. It should, but if it doesn't its going back to the store.

Luckily I have a 3.36 GHz P4 system for games (overclocked 2.4c). I keep telling myself that the iMac is not for games, but I keep trying demos anyway.

UT2K3 is unplayable. Even at low resolution the framerate is well under 24. Talk about a head-ache!

Games made by Blizzard, Myth III and Giants run and look great, but I am not having much luck with anything else.

Yesterday I bought Sacrifice, a game I never did get around to playing when it originally came out, and it doesn't even run. Not the Mac's fault - it just seems as though Macplay abandoned it. Bummer. I really want to support Mac game devs, but then you get stuff like this...

I bought FCE and have about 100gb of raw DV footage of the family to get through. If it all goes smoothly I will keep this pretty thing and be happy for a year until the g5 iMacs come out.
 
I use my PC for games and my iMac for almost everything else. The iMac is pretty slow on the gaming side of things. (By the way, can an iMac's graphics card be upgraded? I saw a nice 256 MB ATI Radeon card yesterday.) Speaking of games, "Marble Blast" is exactly that- a blast. It's one of the extras for joining .Mac.

Squire

<Edit: Better double check my facts on that G-card.>
 
Originally posted by Squire
I use my PC for games and my iMac for almost everything else. The iMac is pretty slow on the gaming side of things. (By the way, can an iMac's graphics card be upgraded? I saw a nice 256 MB ATI Radeon card yesterday.) Speaking of games, "Marble Blast" is exactly that- a blast. It's one of the extras for joining .Mac.

Squire

<Edit: Better double check my facts on that G-card.>
Click to expand...

Re: Upgrading a graphics card on an iMac.
Bascially no.
The Radeon card is probably a 9800 - AGP card, PC version ... this won't even work on a PowerMac without a bios hack.

-Wyrm
 
Originally posted by Wyrm
Re: Upgrading a graphics card on an iMac.
Bascially no.
The Radeon card is probably a 9800 - AGP card, PC version ... this won't even work on a PowerMac without a bios hack.

-Wyrm
Click to expand...

I didn't think so. The card was a 256 MB ATI Radeon 9600 and it was about $150 US. Now before people start telling me there is no such thing- I was worried about that, hence the double-checking- there is. It's not on ATI's US or Canada site but I've seen it elsewhere. I was also told that their products often differ from country to country. They have a listing for Mac graphics cards, too.

I guess I should throw my money at some RAM first.

Squire
 
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