About Steve Jobs and his fear of buttons

[Agathon]

Originally posted by nostromo
Dashi meant the black iBook

I see.

I worked with this lady who bought a new iMac. A few months later she bought another one because it was then available in black. I think it's pretty obvious where Apple's profits come from.

Question answered.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by LordShiva




*breathes*

Heavy professional graphics work with an nVidia 7300 GT?

The model I was talking about is the cheapest Mac Pro you can have. The point was that that thing is ****ing expensive. You can also buy a the high-end nVidia quadro, BTW.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Agathon


Apolyton nerds have no business buying one of those.

That is a computer for people who work with digital video or digital audio, or do heavy professional graphics work.

It is not a toy for video game geeks.

Yes, that computer would be over the top for my needs, but the iMac would not be an option for me either, since the damn thing isn't upgradeable.

[LordShiva]

I guess if I could sell a computer with 1GB of RAM and an nVidia 7300 for $3,000 (positioned as a "Pro" machine ), I'd deserve a sky-high stock valuation, too

[Nostromo]

nm

[Agathon]

Originally posted by nostromo


The model I talked about is the cheapest Mac Pro you can have. The point was that that thing is ****ing expensive. You can also buy a the high-end nVidia quadro, BTW.

I don't know about now, since they are due for a revision, but when the Mac Pro came out it was in fact cheaper than the equivalent computers from Dell and HP.

Comparing the Mac Pro with high end computers from other manufacturers is a bit pointless. A Mac Pro is designed for a pretty limited purpose: to run Apple's high end professional applications like Final Cut Pro, and similar applications like Photoshop from other vendors.

The reason the entry level Mac Pro has only a 7300 video card is that people who are running Final Cut Pro or Aperture don't need a better card than that. Final Cut Pro is not GPU accelerated.

Now, on the other hand, if you are running Motion I'm guessing you will need to splash out for one of the higher end cards.

I think my original point stands. The Mac Pro is a workstation designed for people using pro production apps from Apple and Adobe. It's not a gaming machine, since Apple doesn't offer one of those. It's an expensive machine because its designed for people who are going to make money out of it (compare the prices for professional grade software and the ordinary stuff).

Having said that, game companies are coming back to the Mac in a big way, because it is now very easy to port games to the Mac. Nostromo may well get his wish.

IIRC back when mac gaming was relatively healthy, you could pick up the equivalent to a Windows gaming machine in the form of a G3 tower. IIRC they weren't quite as expensive as the current pro line of Macs. The reason for that is that this was before Apple was a major pro app developer, and they depended much more on third parties like Adobe. Now they tend to build pro machines that are designed to run their own things like the Final Cut Studio bundle.

That said, if your main purpose is gaming, you are still better off buying a Wintel PC, since a Mac Pro is ridiculously overpowered for gaming.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by nostromo

Yes, that computer would be over the top for my needs, but the iMac would not be an option for me either, since the damn thing isn't upgradeable.

Some parts of it are not upgradable. Upgrading the RAM and hard drive is pretty simple.

My question would be what you wanted it for. If you want it to game on, then Windows machines are thattaway ---->

My old iMac lasted for nearly six years (and is still going strong). I maxed the RAM and put a new hard drive in that. It was still able to run the latest version of Mac OS X at a respectable pace. In the last year I had it, HD video became the big thing, and it wouldn't do that. But I think 4 years is a reasonable lifespan for a computer I paid $1100 Canadian dollars for, and which never broke down.

You find me a consumer PC bought in 2000-1 for $1000 that is capable of running Windows Vista Premium.

I'm puzzled as to why it must be upgradeable.

[Jaguar]

I miss Asher.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jaguar
I miss Asher.

Yes, we really need someone to make up **** about Apple.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Agathon

That said, if your main purpose is gaming, you are still better off buying a Wintel PC, since a Mac Pro is ridiculously overpowered for gaming.

Its not. I sold my Xbox and I rarely play computer games.

I just think a desktop should be upgradeable. If you want to change your videocard, you should be able to. If you want to add a second hard drive, you should be able too. All my music is stored on my computer in FLAC. Its eating up hard drive space fast. So much so that I had to install a new hard drive a couple of months ago. It was all straightforward on my PC. Now, if I had a iMac I would have had to buy an external hard drive. Did I mention that I also have an external hard drive for backup puposes? So that would mean two external hard drives...

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Agathon


Yes, we really need someone to make up **** about Apple.

He was good at enraging you, because you're a tool about Macs.

[Nostromo]

About the upgradeability of the new iMacs. From the Ars Technica review of the iMac:

Apple seems to go back and forth on the wisdom of letting users service their Macs. The iMac lineup is a perfect example of this. If you'll remember the original Bondi Blue iMac of yesteryear, the only user-serviceable part in there was the one of the RAM slots, and getting to that was an onerous task, requiring some serious disassembly. If you wanted to upgrade both DIMMs, you were required to dig even deeper inside the case and pull out the processor daughtercard. Yikes!

One welcome change with the debut of the iMac G5 was that the number of user-serviceable parts increased. Instead of being limited to just adding RAM, you could swap out the hard drive, replace the power inverter, backup battery, add an AirPort card. In short, do all the things that PC users take for granted.

That changed with the "iSight" revision of the G5 iMac. Instead of being able to remove the back of the computer to get to all the good stuff, users are left with a door in the bottom to add or remove RAM. Unfortunately, that has remained the case with the Core Duo iMac. I took a shot at getting inside by removing the Torx screws at the bottom of the case along with memory door covering. No dice.

On a recent trip out west, I had the opportunity to chat with an Apple genius about the more difficult Macs to service. The current iMac form factor came in at the top of list. In order to get it open, you need to insert a flat tool through the ends of the cooling vent to unlock a couple of clasps. After those are released, you'll need to dig for the iSight camera cable. Good luck, because there's very little room and you only have two hands. After that, you need to take off the EMI shielding surrounding the LCD, and tilt that up to get to the rest of the guts. It's a time-consuming and tedious process, to say the least.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by nostromo


Its not. I sold my Xbox and I rarely play computer games.

I just think a desktop should be upgradeable. If you want to change your videocard, you should be able to. If you want to add a second hard drive, you should be able too. All my music is stored on my computer in FLAC. Its eating up hard drive space fast. So much so that I had to install a new hard drive a couple of months ago. It was all straightforward on my PC. Now, if I had a iMac I would have had to buy an external hard drive. Did I mention that I also have an external hard drive for backup puposes? So that would mean two external hard drives...

You also probably prefer elevators with buttons in them, you geek

[Agathon]

Originally posted by nostromo


Its not. I sold my Xbox and I rarely play computer games.

I just think a desktop should be upgradeable. If you want to change your videocard, you should be able to. If you want to add a second hard drive, you should be able too. All my music is stored on my computer in FLAC. Its eating up hard drive space fast. So much so that I had to install a new hard drive a couple of months ago. It was all straightforward on my PC. Now, if I had a iMac I would have had to buy an external hard drive. Did I mention that I also have an external hard drive for backup puposes? So that would mean two external hard drives...

NOOOOOOO!!!!

Didn't you read my post? Anyone who can follow instructions can replace an iMac's hard drive. I did on my old iMac, and I wouldn't describe myself as a techie. For the new ones, you basically lie it down face first on a towel, take off the case and insert the new drive in place of the old one. Apple has a downloadable manual on how to do this IIRC (at least they did for the G5 iMacs, which have the same form factor, as a quick Google shows). They even colour the screws, so you know which ones to take out.

Instructions..

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/imacG5_17inch_harddrive.pdf

Look, macs aren't for everyone, particularly gamers. But a lot of things said about them are untrue and unfair.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by nostromo
About the upgradeability of the new iMacs. From the Ars Technica review of the iMac:

You can do it. I've seen instructions.

But why not just take it to a service provider and get them to do it? If you buy the hard drive from them, installation is usually free.