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ScifiterX wrote:

Pariah wrote:

Czachorski wrote:

You know, if the price drop curve is that steep, it kinda kills the arugment of iMac users paying more for external burners.  More like wait 2-3 months until the external drops below $100 too.

And we are back to the "elegant" rats nest of peripherals.

You act like there aren't ways to prevent and reduce rat's nesting when using peripherals.

Yeah, but the beauty of the imac is that it's just this simple one piece wonder. Once you start adding peripherals to it, it loses whatever aesthetic edge that it has over the tower.

DukeofNuke wrote:

Towers live in a rats nest of peripherals, too.

Yes they do cause mine is smack in the middle of one but there is one huge difference.......

Put your iMac under a desk to hide all those wires and then and get back to me

DukeofNuke wrote:

Towers live in a rats nest of peripherals, too.
Even among all the wires, and power bricks and USB hubs, ect., people still look at the iMac and say, "Where's the rest of it ?"

Yeah, and the one thing Pariah keeps ignoring - there is no CPU taking up space any more.  I could put 10 externa devices in a big "rats nest" stack connected to a hub with 1 line going to my iMac in place of where my CPU is now, and still have less space taken up by the iMac.

DukeofNuke wrote:

Mr. T wrote:

That's probably true now, but it might not be true in a few years.

What? You make decisions based on what you think might happen "in a few years"?
Are you saying that when considering a computer purchase, you look for a machine that will be upgradeable to whatever technology is available "in a few years"?
Are you walking to work, 'cause you think Ford will be selling flying cars "in a few years"?
No matter what technology is on the horizon, or what applications are just over the hill, or what light there is at the end of the tunnel, the computer you buy today will be shackled by todays technology, at some point, no matter how upgradeable it is. No matter how many bays its got, or ZIFs ,or boards, or wires, eventually, you will run into an incompatibility.  Even if you upgrade that, something else will need to be upgraded, untill the only part you've got left of your original computer is the wire that plugs into the wall. By that time, you've spent enough money, time ,and effort that you could have gotten a whole new computer.

First, off you don't need to replace every component in your computer if you want to add one thing.  Why would you even think that?  Anyway, I'll explain some of the reasons I don't like the iMac, so maybe it'll help clear up some of your misconceptions:

(1) Graphics cards: A low-end GPU (which the iMac has) will remain compatible with new games for a period of about 1.5 years (I'm being generous here).  OTOH, a good mid-range CPU (which the iMac has) will stay current with games for the next 4 years.  Obviously, you'll need to buy at least two new iMacs to play the latest games over a 4-year period.  However, if the iMac were expandable, you'd only need to spend an extra $150 on a graphics card.

(2) Monitor: I usually keep my monitors for at least two upgrade cycles (or 8 years). With an iMac, you have to buy a new monitor every upgrade cycle.  Compared to the 24" model, that's at least $700 in savings over the course of two upgrade cycles.

(3) Other cards: I like RAID.  I can't add RAID to an iMac.  I like getting HD video sources into my machine.  I can't add that to an iMac either.  Say I want to use eSATA devices.  Can't do that.  I want to transfer my digital movie archive from HDD to Blu-Ray media.  I can't do that with an iMac.  These devices have a common denominator: They are all designed to expand the capabilities of the machine today.

Second, how many files of humongous size do you have that will require archiving on BR/HD, and could you not just, you know, use two CDs.

that's about 70 CDs (or 10 DVDs) in the case of Blu Ray.

If you plan on creating content/media that is to be distributed on BR/HD, then you are a pro user and should not even consider an AIO.

What if you're a pro user who doesn't need workstation-class processing power?

I thought that, should software come out that I had to have, and it was released only on DVD, than I would by an external DVD player at that time. So far, the only software I have on DVD is the OS that came with my new computer six years later.

Most of the games I have are on DVD, and it's been that way for a few years.

Last edited by Mr. T (2007-09-07 5:37 pm)

Czachorski wrote:

Pariah wrote:

DukeofNuke wrote:

Towers live in a rats nest of peripherals, too.
Even among all the wires, and power bricks and USB hubs, ect., people still look at the iMac and say, "Where's the rest of it ?"

Yeah, not that is a great reason to choose one computer over another.

Czachorski- I dunno man. I have a pretty modest size house and I just don't seem to have the space constraints you do.

Everything seems to fit nicely in its place with my current rig.  I'm just wondering what I am going to put in that big slot where the PowerMac is now, once I get my iMac.



http://homepage.mac.com/czachorski/fun/cza_mac_rig.jpg

Let me know when you decide to sell that Tower



Seriously.