time for a new machine...

sneakyimp

ok....

i've been running my machine ragged for 3 years now and it's starting to show its age. I need a new machine. I expect to develop PHP, Macromedia Flash, and I'm cutting my teeth on C++ now too.

I want to get a new windows box but I don't need any bells or whistles really. I just want a good clean system that's fast and lean so I'm tempted to get a custom built machine from some local shop...i'm leaning toward athlon processor but don't know the first thing about motherboards, etc. just need about 500-1000 mb RAM, approx 3 GHZ speed, 80 GB main drive with a larger 2nd drive, CDRW and maybe DVDRW too, network card.

I also noticed outlet.Dell.com has some good refurbished numbers.

What do you folks do when you need a new machine?

dkruythoff

Last time I needed a new comp I just went to the comp store, got the necessary parts, and pieced the thing together.
Had great fun doing it.

Sgarissta

Originally posted by sneakyimp
ok....
What do you folks do when you need a new machine?

I look up the parts that meet my specs, order them, and start building. But because I build them myself, I haven't done a from-the-scratch rebuild in quite a long while. Now I do more often incremental upgrades.

vaaaska

I goto Apple.com and feel good.

I realized just this morning that my old G4/400 (equivalent to something like a 1.1mhz PC) is seven years old. I've never had any computer this long. It's running all the latest OS's and apps and kicking true ass - it's plenty speedy and powerful.

Actually, it's faster now with OSX 10.3.7 than it was with OS9. Let's see MS do that!

It's not my primary machine any more, but I don't hesitate to use it for anything...

sneakyimp

thanks for the advice....

My pride says I'm capable of putting together a computer from the motherboard up, but experience tells me it would take a few days that would be better spent earning money to pay for it.

As for selecting the constituent pieces, I don't even know where to begin. I need a motherboard...should I go for 64 bit or not? Asus or Intel? as for cpu, athlon or pentium?

do i need a gig of ram or can i get by with 512 megs? my current machine freezes for a few seconds all the time now and i can't tell if it's because of OS corruption or because virtual memory is paging from disk or what.

i tend to run 3 or 4 apps at once (ftp client, flash, notepad2, outlook).

pohopo

check out newegg.com the items are delivered quite fast (next day even when I go with cheapest option). they are also dirt cheap.

motherboards are getting so advanced that they practically set themselves up. all you need to do is plug everything in and make sure you do not short anything while you do this.

davidjam

Originally posted by vaaaska
I goto Apple.com and feel good.

That is, until you see the price-tag...

Originally posted by vaaaska
I realized just this morning that my old G4/400 (equivalent to something like a 1.1mhz PC) is seven years old. I've never had any computer this long. It's running all the latest OS's and apps and kicking true ass - it's plenty speedy and powerful.

My day-job machine is a G4/400 and yes you are right, it is incredibely reliable. I've used it for about 5 years now, never had to re-install the operating system (our PCs get "refreshed" about once every 6 months here) and no other problems of any kind.

BUT, I have one question for you. How do you figure that a G4/400 is equivelent to a 1.1ghz PC?? :bemused:

goldbug

Originally posted by davidjam
That is, until you see the price-tag...

$499 is too pricey for a quality machine? It's hard to piece together a machine that small/quiet (talking mac mini here) for $499 or less. 😃

pohopo

it is $499 with 256 megs of ram and you can't do any real design with that.

to get 1 gig of ram for the new imac mini costs an additional $475 bucks.

and this does not include mouse, keyboard, or monitor.

goldbug

Originally posted by pohopo
it is $499 with 256 megs of ram and you can't do any real design with that.

to get 1 gig of ram for the new imac mini costs an additional $475 bucks.

Only through apple. 512 is about 80, 1GB is about $225 through Crucial.

and this does not include mouse, keyboard, or monitor.

So? Who doesn't have those laying around these days?

Regardless of these "shortcomings", I still challenge you to find any combination of build-your-own parts or any OEM manufacturer that has a machine that with those specs (even sans KVM), near that size, that quiet, for $500 or less. The closest thing in size and noise is stuff from LittlePC, but those things are like $1000 for a P4. Another thing one should factor in: Software. A Mac mini comes loaded with a state-of-the-art OS, and a good deal of high-quality software by default. Regardless if you like Macs or are an Apple-hater...it's hard to argue with the value and quality the new minis provide.

pohopo

I agree that it is a great entry level / student machine for what you get. It is about time that Apple created something more for people with shallow pockets.

I just laughed when I saw the price of a gig of ram on apple.com

goldbug

Originally posted by pohopo
I just laughed when I saw the price of a gig of ram on apple.com

Hehe, yeah. Apple has always had outrageous prices on ram upgrades 😃

Roger_Ramjet

We get all of our from Dell. Originally because their business lease plan suited our cash flow and UK company tax laws. Now after 4 years, I'd go with them anyway. Their latest discounts are amasing, I could not build them any cheaper without using rubish components. A lot of our staff buy them for home use now as well. For your spec, take a siutable base model and customis for the extra ram etc. Leave out the stuff you don't need like speakers etc, and price up additional components like the second HDD from a mail-order supplier.

vaaaska

Originally posted by davidjam
BUT, I have one question for you. How do you figure that a G4/400 is equivelent to a 1.1ghz PC?? :bemused:

Actually, I've overstated this (who me, biased?). It would be more equivalent to a 750 mhz PC or so. Plain and simple, the architecture in Apple computers is faster than PC's. You've never seen the studies?

For gaming and 3D stuff, PC's will handle things better, but I'm still talking about the trusty G4 - the G5 is a different story.

For print design, which is what I used to do exclusively, there is only one way to go.

sneakyimp

i have plenty of respect for the macs. i know i know RISC architecture blah blah. os X also appears to basically be unix with windows. very stable and robust and mature, etc.

that said, if i'm getting into developing C++, i would be shooting myself in the foot writing for macs...they are still only about 5% market share.

Roger_Ramjet

You're shooting your self in the foot anyway, getting into developing C++ now. You're just about a decade too late for that.

sneakyimp

ow my foot!

i'm interested in video game development. can you recommend a better development language? i would love nothing more than to learn some platform-independent tool that would allow me to develop first-person shooters.

Weedpacket

C springs to mind. C++ just seems utterly baroque (mainly in order to be backward compatible with C). The only big advantage C++ has is template metaprogramming (C++'s typing system is computation universal so you can carry out any computation you want at compile time as long as you have all the input data at compile time); if you're not using that you're just doing C with extra overhead.

Another possibility would be a language that is designed for writing FPSs; there are definitely some out there, though their names escape me for the moment.

sneakyimp

most of the projects i've seen (my experience here is extremely limited) are libraries of code begun in C or C++. basically, some developer has created some code objects that support shooter objects (vehicles, guns, flames, etc.) and in order to work with them, i need a C or C++ development environment.

most of the examples here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/downloads/list/directx.asp

are C++ or C#.

the doom engine:
http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/code.php

also mentions C++ and is developed in Visual Studio .NET.

I'm still researching, but most info I've found so far points to C++ and/or visual studio.

Roger_Ramjet

Dot Net, or C# is proprietry MS stuff. Yet another attempt by Bill to lock users into MickeySoft and the endless upgrade cycle, which is the endless upgrade revenue stream that made Bill the richest man in the world. On the other hand, C# is light years beyond C++ in terms of portability and productivity. It also incorporates the memory management that us VB programmers used to cite as the only neccessary justification for being VB developers in the first place.

If you really want to know where you should be headed read this article

And remeber, you are in a PHP forum which is lucky for you. It means that you are at least aware that there are alternatives. ASP will be the next thing to die, it just won't realise it for a decade or so.