Mac freaks...advice.

[Sincraft]

Heya all you Mac geeks out there.  Been awhile since I've used and networked macs.  Aka Appletalk.

What is a DECENT mac to get that will run OSX Tiger??  With some decent speed.

I liked the IMacs when I played around with them but was able to get them to crash MANY times or lock up while beta testing a NAS drive.  

Any suggestions?  I'd like to 'expand my horizons' so to speak

S

[Sancho]

Depends on your definition of "decent".  With all Macs these days shipping with dual core Intel CPUs, any new Mac these days will be a good workstation.  Just make sure you get at least 1 GB RAM.  I cannot stress that enough.  If you want to play games, stay away from a Mac that has GMA 950 graphics, and get one with an ATI or Nvidia video chip.

[Sincraft]

someone else told me that too.  1 gig of ram minimum?  Geesh.
I was looking to get into this on the cheap, just something to piddle with from time to time really.  No, real use - at this time.  Would be nice to play a game on it or two, but nothing up to date or even that horribly fun honestly.

I've also been told to NOT go with the intel versions as they are not backwards compatible with software?  

They are very expensive machines in comparison to PCs...what's all the mac hype about then...esp when you throw in backwards compat issues and the need for huge amount of ram because rosetta uses SO much memory to be able to run apps that ran previously on 256 megs.

???

Enlighten me, I know nothing!

Thanks

[MrRiplEy[H]]

You cant buy any low end hardware for gaming, thats why the 1 gig.

An Intel based Apple is just a more expensive version of a regular pc - laptop with the exception that the apple will likely burn around 1 motherboard per month and eat a harddrive or two in a year.

Judging from the experience of my business partner who recently upgraded to the new Intel based apple laptop. Still for some weird reason he refuses to go back to pc.

[Sincraft]

Yea I played around today.
I like the old processors better.  Cleaner and smoother running it seems.
The Duo Core's were glitching and flinching whenever I would open an application.

It definetely DID NOT have an apple feel.

Hey I'm not an expert in business.  I do know PC based systems.  You know how it is.  You have an 'idea' of what something takes to do something, but you need real world input from real users to find out what's ...what.



Thanks for your input guys.  So far the thing I have learned is at least 1 gig of ram if I do anything.  Check.
I have another friend that thinks I should go Intel also as I could put xp on it if I wanted.

???

So why not just run a mac sim on my pc then?? lol.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Originally posted by Sincraft
Yea I played around today.
I like the old processors better.  Cleaner and smoother running it seems.
The Duo Core's were glitching and flinching whenever I would open an application.

It definetely DID NOT have an apple feel.

Hey I'm not an expert in business.  I do know PC based systems.  You know how it is.  You have an 'idea' of what something takes to do something, but you need real world input from real users to find out what's ...what.



Thanks for your input guys.  So far the thing I have learned is at least 1 gig of ram if I do anything.  Check.
I have another friend that thinks I should go Intel also as I could put xp on it if I wanted.

???

So why not just run a mac sim on my pc then?? lol.

Check for http://crystalxp.net for that mac / linux / vista feel if you need eye candy.