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Your specs, and why.

LOLZpersonok

LOLZpersonok

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 10, 2012
724
18
Calgary, Canada
Here is a thread that has probably been posted a thousand times, but this one is slightly different. I want you to explain why you have chosen this hardware. What do you do? What is your use for it?

I notice that some people have 16GB+ RAM. Is this just for your own status or do you use it? If you use it, how? Do you find it future-proof?
 
My laptop:
2.66 gHz Core 2 Duo? Because it was cheap on eBay, I could easily fix the computer, and I wanted a laptop pretty badly. I know the specs suck compared to anything even remotely modern, but it does it's job. This thing has been my main machine for the last couple years, and it's awesome to have a computer of my own that I paid for with my own money. I want to put a SSD in there soon... it's feeling sluggish of late. Plus, I'm the kind of guy who maxes out 8gb of RAM web browsing. No, seriously, I have google chrome, iTunes, and MS Word open with 7.55gb RAM filled. What's wrong with me?!?

Mac Mini? I can't even remember the specs off hand. Reasons? Because it was a cheap media server controller/RAID controller. Nothing much past that, it's going to have a pretty good life as a server, I'm still getting things set up, but it should haul butt when I'm done, and act as a home/global shared drive, provided you have the proper credentials.

I see a trend here.... Specs don't matter as long as it's cheap and will do the job. :cool:
 
LOLZpersonok said:
Here is a thread that has probably been posted a thousand times, but this one is slightly different. I want you to explain why you have chosen this hardware. What do you do? What is your use for it?
Click to expand...
I currently have two computers, a 2009 17" MBP with the usual specs (2.8 GHz and 8 GB of RAM) and a Hackintosh (i7 and 32 GB of RAM and GTX670 GPU and Samsung 840 SSD).
Both perform well, the MBP is for using it at work, though nothing CPU intensive, and when on travel. The desktop is for home use and editing and compositing.

I notice that some people have 16GB+ RAM. Is this just for your own status or do you use it? If you use it, how? Do you find it future-proof?
8 GB or 16 GB of RAM might be enough for most of its use, but when I do After Effects work, the extra RAM is really helpful. Since RAM was also quite cheap, 200 € for 32 GB, it was a no brainer.
I would have gotten a Mac Pro, but for my needs it would have been overkill, since I do not use the CPU or RAM that much on a regular basis.
I would not mind the current Mac Pro though, just for its form factor.
The Mac mini was not really an option, since I have 10 TB of storage inside the Hackintosh and while I have lived for almost a decade with external HDDs, it is kind of nice to not have to worry about external enclosures for a while.
I could however could have gotten a S-ATA or Thunderbolt enclosure, but not yet.
Currently my work, on film or commercial sets, does not require me to have that much computer power, but if I ever would have to do editing and compositing on a large scale, last year I was down a big project with lots of compositing and rendering, 270 minutes of final product, I might go down the Mac Pro route, if the money is right and such a computer would be helpful, as even the i7 can be slow when rendering that much of data.

Anyway, I always maxed the RAM on my computers, thus I probably have that just in me to do so.
 
mobilehaathi said:
For some reason I thought this was going to be a thread on eyeglasses. ;)
Click to expand...

simsaladimbamba said:
Me too, due to the location. Should we post pictures of our specs?
Click to expand...

Agree with you both. Actually, as someone who has worn spectacles since I was a small child, I also had this thought when I read the thread title. Actually, now that is a thread I would find fascinating to read.......

To the OP: Perhaps, an amended thread title might be in order? And secondly, just curious, but is this the precise sub-forum to discuss why one chose the specifications in an Apple computer (or ordered one in such specifications?) that one did?
 
I have a 13" 2012 MacBook Air that's stock except for the 256GB SSD. I got more storage because I wanted to dual boot Windows 7 and wanted to ensure I wouldn't run out of space on either partition. That said, I did run out of storage space a few months ago and had to clean out old files but I'm happy I didn't go with the 128GB SSD.
 
2011 iMac, 1 TB hard disk (stock), 16 GB RAM (third-party upgrade) due to heavy virtual machine use - which I have since outgrown. My next Mac will likely be a DOWNGRADE in terms of RAM.
 
LOLZpersonok said:
Here is a thread that has probably been posted a thousand times, but this one is slightly different. I want you to explain why you have chosen this hardware. What do you do? What is your use for it?

I notice that some people have 16GB+ RAM. Is this just for your own status or do you use it? If you use it, how? Do you find it future-proof?
Click to expand...

I started off with a 17" laptop, and soon decided to add a 23" display. Then I upgraded the laptop to another 17" with 3.06 gHz, 4GB RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, still connected to the 23" display.

Then, that wasn't quite doing it for me, so now I have a 27" iMac, 3.4gHz Core i7, 20GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive, connected to two 23" external displays. This essentially gives me a 60" wide working surface. Added to that is an X-Keys and an iPad running Custom Keypad for quick access to multiple commands.

Why do I have this? My career is in entertainment lighting design, and I'm often doing CAD layouts of 15,000 square-foot spaces and hundreds of lighting fixtures. On top of that, I have associated paperwork, notes, and survey photos to refer to. So having the screen real estate is really important to speed things up, rather than having to constantly switch back and forth.

As for the amount of RAM and hard drive space, I also do quite a bit of 3D modeling and animation. No amount of screen real estate is enough, and rendering takes a lot of processing power, and RAM. I also frequently have my CAD program, my 3D modeling program, and Photoshop running concurrently, in addition to any number of other things I might have open. So having more RAM is good.

Though, there are those people who only check email and surf lolcats who buy fully maxed out mac pros…those are probably the ones you are questioning.
 
I have the baseline mid 2013 MacBook Air (13 inch, 4 gigs of ram, 128 gig SSD). I would have gotten more storage (and by now I'm really wishing I did :p) but money was tight at the time. I'm actually extremely happy with this model... its very fast and responsive, much more so than my old 11 inch MacBook Air.

What do I do? As this is my current main machine, I use it for everything, including recording multitrack projects with Logic Pro X, photo editing with Aperture, listening to music on iTunes, web browsing, email, Facebook, Twitter, typing documents on Pages etc.
 
I have a mid 2011 Mac Mini Server (2 GHz i7 quad core) in our office that's used for a bit of everything--setup the pair of 500GB HDD as a striped set and upgraded the RAM to 8GB myself. Until very recently, this little guy was used for everything--photo editing, light video work, media conversion and serving to devices though out the house, document work, email, web browsing, you name it.

We also have a mid 2011 11" MBA with base specs that my wife mostly uses for her work as a physician (VPN to local hospital networks, document editing and Powerpoint presentations). Also used by our young kids for schoolwork on occasion.

I needed something more portable recently so I picked up the newest 15" rMPB with 16GB and 512 GB SSD. Most of the work I previously did on the Mini will be done on this machine. It's more power than I likely need right now but I upgraded RAM and storage primarily for future proofing. Initially tried a 13" but traded in for the larger model for more screen real estate and better GPU. Saved a bit of money on Cyber Monday deal.
 
i got tired of my pc wearing down after a couple years and decided it was time to move to a mac. i saved up and got a macbook pro with 16gb of ram and the mid range processor of 2.4 ghz. i did the ram not only to future proof but i also do some hd video editing and it would help with that. my old computer only had 6gb and was dragging on sony vegas.
 
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