[azariah007]

buy a recliner!! I will have to the screen is bigger than our TV's like 7 inches bigger . Unfortunately for me my Mum and Dad think that 2500 or rather 2800 for the i7 is way to much for a new PC but personally that's the bare minimum you should be paying if you want something that works for the next 2-4 years. My Dad's was out of date from the time he bought it. Hmm. Tells you a lot. And he still needed to buy a graphics card for it and that didn't work either and he wonders why the computer takes so long to start up. I don't want to make that mistake.

[azariah007]

but this just occurred to me with a PC it's very easy to walk out the door and spend a lot of money on it. a Mac? not so easy you can't upgrade the graphics card (that I know of), processor? no, RAM? yes but you get so much to start with it's unlikely you'll need any for a long time, HD? yes but a 1TB hard drive should last for a very long time even splitting it fifty-fifty with the windows dual boot.

One last question regarding those hardware upgrades with the RAM I would only buy direct from apple but for an extra HD can I just go out get a Seagate or Western Digital HD from my computer store and whack it in?

[aka Brett]

For that much green I would have to have a pc with raid setup
Huge dual core or a quad core processor
a nice card for video and a nice big monitor can be bought later..and always tossed if it goes bad.

I dont even know how much trouble it is putting in a hard drive in an imac...the interface will be the same though.
How much trouble is it to clean the psu and heat sinks?
I can have my old dell desktop out on the tailgate remove the side cover and blast it with shop air..in a few minutes..If the monitor goes there is a spare...I am not to crazy about the all in one setups....they are cool granted...but I suspect that putting in a hard drive is a bigger task than with a tower...heck i have one in my old desk top hanging by a shoelace.
Will you be taking advantage of the apple software final cut studio?

[azariah007]

Probably would actually take advantage of final cut studio that's one reason why I'm having so many conflicts over wether to stay with the familiar windows pc which I know almost all there is to know about the hardware side of things to a Mac where I'll probably be toting it down to special re-pare center in the CBD about a 20 minute train trip 30-40 minutes drive due to atrocious traffic management. In comparison to a 3-6 minute walk to my computer store which happens to be where I'll be working from January! When I have something go seriously wrong. ARGH!!!

Is so annoying!

On the Mac side I can wait until I'm at UNI probably around 2011, one and a bit years away, and get one of their student deals or on the windows side buy when I'm ready and pay the same amount especially when I need Windows 7 to make it worth my while. GRR! (

[aka Brett]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+p6230...rd119100050006

[azariah007]

This is an unbeatable deal in Australia but these guy's don't ship to Australia unfortunately. And from my experience there isn't any store in Australia that offers prebuilt computers at this price. I'm going to investigate some of the "freak stores" I've used when assisting my friends with PC upgrades. (see http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/8...ion-ports.html) as an example. So well see if I can find parts that I can put together myself for a similar price because I have been avoiding AMD due to prejudices against their classification system. Intel's Ghz rating is understandably and gives you a scale to work to, AMD? I still have got no idea!

[aka Brett]

can you purchase from newegg or tiger direct

[azariah007]

checking right now

[azariah007]

check this out
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...920&CatId=3508
I'm going to check if I can Buy online not now obviously but maybe there's i7 kit in the pipeline!

[azariah007]

well it accepted my zip cade and said I qualified for free shipping on the 3-7 day mail plan so looks like I can!

[aka Brett]

Cool

[azariah007]

I found something else!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229147

[azariah007]

what was I saying regarding core i7 kits
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229147

[azariah007]

Well this post has sort of gotten off topic. However the result is for me at least I'm sticking with the PC for a while longer. Windows 7 has one the day and reclaimed some ground lost by Vista.
That being said I do not dis-condone the Mac they are good machines for their purposes. Depending on one's budget.
So this hasn't really helped me in the long run but it's made up my mind in the short term hope someone else finds the post helpful.

Special thanks to aka Brett who seems to have hogged the limelight but hay non the less done an excellent job assisting me. Thanks to the others who put in their part. As well.

All is well in love, war, and computers!
plagiarized from unknown source.

[aka Brett]

For what its worth I will buy me a mac mini when the time is right.
About 600 american,,,,decent enough specs and affordable