PC ideas...
 

so this summer I want to get a new computer. I really want an iMac Duo, but I'm considering a PC.

Any ideas?

I was thinking of maybe an HP Media Center PC, or something similar.

I want something that is good for gaming.

I don't buy (and don't suggest my customers buy) any of the name-brand PC's any more. Primarily we have them built to order at a local shop, which is close to me so if there's a problem it's easy to get diagnostics performed and parts replaced.

Plus the normal retail stuff comes with piles of extraneous crap installed, in the interests of "branding." :rolleyes: I prefer custom OS/applications installs, too.

The exceptions being servers, where I'd still go with IBM or HP, and laptops, which with IBM out of the business, has pushed me to Acer, of all vendors.

Ugh! The thought of spending money on a Windows based device depresses me. If I were buying a machine for games I'd get a Playstation. I don't like where the Xbox comes from. :eek:

If you're at least kind of tech savvy it might be worth you time to build your own box, it's not all that hard. But I'm also with cwtnospam, if you are buying this for gaming just get a console instead. There's more games, and the system is cheaper (notice, I never said better games, I like my RPG's... but unfortunately the extra money spent on a decent gaming computer just doesn't justify...at least not to me...of course I could have a PS2 and Gran Tourismo 4 and die happy...)

Pantherman-

I would build your own PC, but that is what I would do. About two years ago I built my current PC and these are the specs:

AMD 64 3400+
Asus KV8se MB
2 Gig of DDR400 Ram
72 gig 10k RPM SATA drive (raptor)
GeForce 6800 vanila (with the riva tuner hack)

It is ultra fast, boots into windows in like 10 seconds, runs video games at over 100fps (or to the cap the game allows). I can play FEAR, HL 2, and FarCry with the physics and graphics at the highest, and it is still playable.

I would check out newegg.com and see what mb + processor packages they have. At the time I built my PC it was retailing for around 1400ish in parts but I managed to build it for approx 700 shopping online.

What all do you plan on doing with the PC, and I can better help you out. You can build a killer gaming system for under 1,000 dollars easily. I just built a PC for a good friend of mine who does video editing, and it easily can compete with a G5 as far as performance goes, and I ended up building it for him at around 1100ish dollars.

From what you guys have said, building sounds good. I really do hate all that extra software junk that Dell and HP throw in for no reason. Anyway, If I do build one, I'm going to do it at the end of the year.

What am I going to need to run Windows Vista well? I'm going to want to be able to run Aero well. I know I would need a really good graphics chip, but what else?

How fast a processor?

and AMD or Intel?

AMD, I'd go 3600, though I'd still like to know what it's for. If you want a good graphics card just get the latest and greatest from ATi or nVidia. But only from ATi or nVidia, there's a reason Apple only uses one of those two.

And you want Vista? When are you building this, 2010?

Really for consumer end video cards there is only ATI or Nvidia these days. Matrox only makes commerical cards now, which would not really be that great for video games, and every other video card company has been bought out by either Nvidia or ATI.

Vista is out this year, I think towards the end of 06. I like AMD processors personally, and I run an AMD 64 right now and it is pretty smoking fast.

The motherboard is the most important piece of any system though. It is the backbone of your system. Picking out a good motherboard should be the first step. Then make sure you get a good chipset that works well with your mb, and processor. For example when I was shopping around I was reading how well the new via chipset was working with the AMD 64s, and how it was the most stable. So I got a MB with the via chipset on it.

Go pick up a PC mag and check out Tomshardware.com and read through some reviews and make a good decision based off that.

Mac OS X will always be number one on my list, but when it comes to gaming, OS X just doesn't have that many games for the platform.

Next question:

I'm def. going to get Windows XP Pro, but what about 64-bit edition, or Media Center?

Well, I would just wait for vista since there is going to be like 5 or 6 retail versions released. They will have one specifically for multimedia and gaming. At least that is what the MS reps are saying at the moment.

I'm still trying to find a good reason for two versions. Home and Pro? Give me a break. It's a computer, not an athlete. Multiple versions can only be a blatant attempt at ripping off the customers.

Or a way to let the customer pay less if they need fewer features.

Or a way for users to buy a cheaper OS, realize they've limited themselves in some unfortunate way, and have to go buy some upgrade to fix it...

I'm with you on the PC's have more games thing, but if you're not allergic to consoles I think I'd just buy one of those. They're cheaper and have many many more games (granted, a lot of them are crap, Barbie Pony Racing never did it for me you know...)

You mean a way to charge more if they want more of the features that come standard with OS X at $129.

OS X costs a LOT more than $129, but in any case, that's a whole different argument.

I'm curious as to what you mean. Not really looking for an argument, I just wonder what other costs you are including.

I plan to get Vista when it comes out, but I would like to have this thing running by the end of August if possible.

64-bit or regular Pro?

Regular pro, I can't think of any games that run 64-bit, and I'm told the 64 bit version is less stable than the regular.

@zalister

yeah i was wondering that myself cause i just looked on amazon and tiger(old edition) cost 77.77 and the newer edition is 114. maybe carlos is talkin about other software (adobe,cocktail, etc) which i think are a definite to most mac users. at least me.....being a graphic designer they are :)

edit: goin back to pc ideas i agree with the z-man get a console. playstation 3 looks like it could amazing (killzone 2) and the revolution has some great ideas, then get a new mac with leftover cash :)

He's saying that you have to buy a Mac in order to use the OS, so add that cost in. Apparently you can get a PC for free, buy Windows and you're all set. And if you believe that, I'll give you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Speed to speed, quality to quality, an AMD or Intel box costs less than a Mac. The price evens out only when you add in the value proposition that OS X offers, and that few people understand (obviously we do here). The $129 price is for an UPGRADE. There's no such thing as a NEW license of the Mac OS.

Does anyone really believe that a hardware-agnostic version of OS X would sell for $129??

Regardless, while I'm certainly not thrilled with supporting all those versions, it makes sense from a consumer standpoint. Most people can simply buy the cheapest version. The only people possibly being "screwed" are the corporate users who have to buy a minimum level just to support domain authentication even if they don't need any other capabilities. On the other hand, I foresee corporate migration happening very slowly.

And for my clients, migrating to Linux will be MORE viable and less expensive than upgrading to Longhorn. We're already positioning for that and Macs instead of Longhorn.

BACK TO PC IDEAS... If you get these brands you will be in the top 1% of quality and ease of support:

ASUS motherboard
AMD retail box CPU
Crucial or Corsair memory
Antec power supply

Huh, never thought of that. Since all Mac's come with the OS installed already you never have to actually buy an operating system. So you're only buying an upgrade to the one on your system...interesting.

By that definition, there is also no such thing as a NEW license of Windows. Even if you build your own, you still need a BIOS, which needs to be licensed or "certified" by Microsoft, and I doubt they've given any of those away.

Since when does a bios get digitally signed (or certified as you say) by MS? BIOS is all firmware and runs before any OS takes place and is completely independent of any OS you might load onto a PC. The BIOS controls the PC at the very basic level and does not require any resource from any OS.

I say buy a PC over a console for many reasons, mainly because it is a PC and you can do a LOT more with it than a console and it can play games. Also, multiplayer games just plain out run better on a PC over the internet than on a console. I like consoles (I own a PS2, xbox and gamecube) but first person shooters just plain out run better on a PC.

I would just go AMD 64bit proc (dual core), xp pro, antec case and powersupply (true blue), corsair memory (if you can afford it) and a high end ATI or Nvidia card.

If that were true, there'd be no issue running Windows on an Intel Mac, but the fact is that the BIOS isn't compatible. There was an article recently quoting one of the vps at Microsoft who said that they'd be happy to get Apple in their certification program. That leads me to believe there is one.

Of course, even if there isn't one, you still need to get a BIOS from somebody, so any OS is just an upgrade from there.

There is no BIOS in the Intel Mac, it's got a new technology for bootstrapping a system. It simply isn't recognized by Windows XP, or any other OS that doesn't have a new bootloader specifically written to work with it. The BIOS is part of the hardware and is licensed/purchased by the manufacturer of the motherboard, typically from Award, Phoenix, or AMI. There is no MS involvement whatsoever, except that you can optionally choose to "MS Certify" your hardware, or not. You can put any OS on that machine as long as its bootloader recognizes BIOS standards. It has nothing to do with "upgrade."

The new technology, EFI, works the same way. It's just different, and requires an OS bootloader with different calls.

For a while there you could get system-specific HALs (Hardware Abstraction Layer) for various non-Intel systems and Windows, such as those from DEC and some from HP. You could also write a HAL for Windows on PPC if you wanted. The HAL separates the OS from the hardware.

Vista will run on EFI hardware, which will slowly be adopted by all manufacturers.

BIOS, EFI, some new technology that hasn't been developed yet, the point remains the same. None of them appear out of thin air, so if you're going to classify all versions of OS X as upgrades, then you have to do the same with Windows, because both systems require you to purchase somebody else's code in order to run them.

BIOS developers do not develope a BIOS tailored to an OS. The OS devs write code in the boot strap that supports the BIOS. BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System, and it controls just that. The basic functions of every I/O on your system. Onboard devices, ATA drives, boot process, IRQs and other resources, Advanced Power management, so on and so forth. Once an OS loads, it pretty much takes control of all those things. The BIOS is how a PC runs with out any OS. Therefore, there is no unsupported x86 based BIOS that you can't load MS windows on because its not digitally signed by MS. I have never ran across any x86 machine that I could not load windows on (excluding any propritary system, that runs on its own closed x86 hardware).

Intel Macs have their own special firmware just like all macintoshes have before. You can certify your hardware to run in the OS, however a BIOS does not need to run in the OS. Once a system reaches the point in the boot strap where the OS takes over, the OS does in fact take over the system and all hardware is now controlled by the OS.

The reason you cannot load win xp on an intel mac is because no one has developed a boot strap process that boots up windows xp on a mac. If someone did develope that then you could in fact load XP on an intel mac. Getting drivers would be the next step to making the machine work in the OS.

...and once again, Windows would be an 'upgrade' to that boot strap process. The technical details aren't relevant to that point.

Which console has Barbie Pony Racing? My little girl would love that!

I just don't see the logic in that since an OS is entirely seperate, but I will just agree to disagree.

Now, back to building a PC, this is how the Vista release of windows will work

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1269

When you purchase your version of vista it will have all the versions of that tier on the install DVD. So if you want a low end retail version you install that. If you wish to upgrade to the premium retail version of that OS (like Home edition) then you can do so right off the DVD and by running windows upgrade manager.

Pricing and all the features and not really listed yet, so I do not know what all will be the differences between the three consumer level OSes.

It's simple, really. The claim is that every version of Mac OS is an 'upgrade' because you need to buy Mac hardware in order to run it. I'm simply pointing out that the same is true of Windows. Software doesn't run without hardware, and you have to pay the same kind of toll no matter what OS you choose. You can argue that the toll for the Windows hardware is lower if you like, but it's still there, so you can't call OS X install disks upgrades without labeling Windows installers the same way.

I was just checking out the different versions of Windows Vista that are slated for release at this point.

Windows Vista Ultimate Edition sounds good.

thoughts?

You can't possibly really need this explained to you, but heck, here goes... Windows runs on any compatible hardware and MS gets no income from that hardware. OS X retail boxes are upgrades for an existing Mac system, from which Apple made a profit, on both the hardware and original software. Now please, stop trying to prove the unprovable.

Good for what? So far it's little more than Win XP, with some eye candy and trivial features.

Who cares where the money goes? The point is, in either case you can't run the OS without making prior purchases of both hardware and software. That makes them both upgrades.

Example: I can purchase a car from GM or Toyota and have them upgrade the stereo, security system, etc, or I can take it to somebody else to do the job, but either way it's an upgrade. The same applies to computers, but Apple does a better job upgrading their hardware than Microsoft does upgrading somebody else's.

Right. I hope you're just being obstinate and don't really think that's "logic."

I don't think it's logical to call either one an upgrade, but if you're going to do it, you need to be consistent.

<ROTFL>----- :D

Maybe what you're missing here is that you CANNOT buy a Mac without buying a copy of the Mac OS bundled with it. You CAN buy an Intel/AMD machine without a copy of Windows. Therefore, there is no such thing as a retail box "original" license of Mac OS. There are both original and upgrade versions of Windows XP.

When you can buy Mac OS unbundled, there will be a full price original license and a low-cost upgrade.

The BIOS firmware is an irrelevant straw man, you should let it go. It has nothing to do with MS.

I'm not missing anything. I just don't buy the argument. Any computer that you buy without an OS needs an "upgrade." Buying a computer and not putting an OS on it is like buying a car with no steering wheel. Neither can be driven. If some auto maker offered cars without steering wheels, would you claim that Ford, GM & Chrysler cars all had "upgrade" steering wheels or OEM steering wheels?

By the way, here's the dictionary definition of upgrade:

Note that it isn't necessary to replace a component in order to qualify as an upgrade. Adding a component is sufficient.

Now I've really lost you. You can buy an Intel box with no OS. Period. Fact, and I'm sure you know it. You can put Linux, Windows, or even Mac OS on it, albeit illegally. If you bought it blank, you can buy a NEW copy of Windows ($350 for XP Pro). If you bought it with Windows, you can buy an upgrade to another version. For example, $100 for XP Home to XP Pro.

If you buy a Mac, you are forced to buy Mac OS with it. If you want an upgrade to server or another version, you pay for the upgrade. You cannot buy a NEW copy of Mac OS, ever. Not yet anyway.

If you still don't get that, well, I give up, you'll never get it then.

Yes, the OS comes with the hardware on Macs and doesn't necessarily come with it on a PC. What you aren't getting is that it has nothing to do with it being an "upgrade" or not. According to the dictionary, both systems can be described as upgrades. Singling out the Mac OS as an "upgrade" is just a poor attempt to explain why the retail version of Windows costs so much more than the retail version of OS X. What ever happened to the much touted marketshare advantage reducing costs?

Sorry, I was trying to use logic and reasoning while you were using absolutes and "dictionary definitions." Never mind. This thread has far outlived its usefulness.

This thread has far outlived it's usefullness?? If you guys don't stop using your handbags to slap each other soon, it'll probably outlive me!

Give it a rest.

I was thinking about building a gaming rig, like mentioned in this thread. If gaming and multimedia are your primary goals with a PC you may just want to get the barebones version of vista. This way there are less things running and more resources free. Also, there is a plethora of third party applications that are free downloads to use as media players and other wise. VLC player comes to mind, Divx player comes to mind, winamp, etc.

That way you can save money on the software and spend more on higher end hardware. Maybe you should compile a list of exactly what you want to accomplish with your PC and then you can research it from there. Mind you that a lot of multimedia features can be met with third party apps and you don't have to run the ones built into the OS. Maybe, a barebones load of the OS is what you would want with a few third party apps to control the rest, and of course your video games.

just a thought.

That's excellent advice. Of course, by the time Vista ships, you may need a 5GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM, so planning ahead might be tough...