Considering leaving Mac

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Hey guys, I've been contemplating selling my Mac and going back to building my own pc's. I wouldn't be going to windows, but linux rather.

I've had zero problems with my mac and have loved it very dearly but I've always kind of felt like something was missing. As dumb as it may sound, I miss having to fix my computer. I was a huge custom pc building before I bought my macbook and loved building an repairing and upgrading my machines.

Some of you may be thinking why not have both worlds and keep the mac? Well I would have to sell my mac in order to finance building a new machine. Just wanted to hear the groups' thought on my ramblings.

-ping
 
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Well, your new PC for sure will out perform Mac if you are building it by the same amount of money of buying a Mac!

:>
 
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Do it. You'll either be happy with it or get frustrated eventually and buy another Mac at some point.

I've done both myself. I was a Mac user from an early age, but a few years ago I built a PC and loved it so much I sold my Mac at the time. Ended up not missing it for about six months but eventually I did go back to Mac.

But then a year ago the same thing happened except this time I didn't go back. I love hardware tinkering, not so much software tinkering, so I use Windows. Haven't had any problems with viruses or spyware.

Building a computer and maintaining it yourself gives you a much better sense of ownership. Not to mention it's cheaper than buying Macs, by a lot.
 

cwa107


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Agreed. I enjoy building PCs and gaming, so I maintain a custom-built desktop rig for that purpose.

My use of the Mac is limited to my MacBook Pro. I use that for more general computing, while the desktop is reserved for high end stuff like games. It's much more balanced that way.
 
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Agreed. I enjoy building PCs and gaming, so I maintain a custom-built desktop rig for that purpose.

My use of the Mac is limited to my MacBook Pro. I use that for more general computing, while the desktop is reserved for high end stuff like games. It's much more balanced that way.

I basically do the same thing.

I really like having my own rig built but for general on the go interwebs stuff, i use my macbook.

If you miss getting your hands deep down in the OS and hardware, then a custom built rig seems to be the way to go.
 
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Remember that if you ever do feel like getting another Mac or just having one around to play with, you can pick up a used Mac Mini for cheap enough that you wouldn't even need to sell your main computer.
 
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I had to laugh when I saw this. I have been thinking about building a Windows gaming machine as well. I am getting bored not having to "fix" anything.
 
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Do it. You'll either be happy with it or get frustrated eventually and buy another Mac at some point.

I've done both myself. I was a Mac user from an early age, but a few years ago I built a PC and loved it so much I sold my Mac at the time. Ended up not missing it for about six months but eventually I did go back to Mac.

But then a year ago the same thing happened except this time I didn't go back. I love hardware tinkering, not so much software tinkering, so I use Windows. Haven't had any problems with viruses or spyware.

Building a computer and maintaining it yourself gives you a much better sense of ownership. Not to mention it's cheaper than buying Macs, by a lot.

Hey if you don't mind, I have PC that I don't use much except for when I want to use Microsoft office, in light of you know a lot about PC, would you be willing to email me to give me a few pointers on how to make my current PC a top notch PC?
 
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I have been thinking of doing something similar. I don't think I would ever get rid of all my Macs, I love their notebooks way too much. But I am starting to think that having a desktop Mac is slightly redundant, since I use my laptop for almost everything. I still do use my iMac, but not as much as I used to, and I think the same functionality could be had with a linux machine. So I might sell the iMac, build an inexpensive linux PC, and have some money left over for something else.
 
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I think Apple is definitely turning into a notebook-centric company anyway. They're updating them a lot more frequently and they're clearly pouring most of their effort into them at the expense of desktops. That's where they can compete the most. Desktops face competition from cheap Dells and do-it-yourself boxes, which are more powerful and cheaper. The iMac is part of a pretty small niche of luxury AIO desktops that sacrifice expandability and low price for a sleek and stylish design. But notebooks are a huge market. A lot of people just buy laptops even if they don't really need the mobility because there's no real reason not to.

Anyway, as far as laptops go, Apple's pretty good. You can get cheaper ones from other companies, but they usually make tradeoffs between mobility (being thin and light), performance, and price. Plus there's no temptation to build your own with a laptop since it can't really be done (I guess it can but it's totally different from building your own desktop).
 
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I don't miss having to continually fix my computer AT ALL!!! I will never be able to buy another Windows machine in good conscience again knowing the continual hassles and headaches that come with it.
 
OP
pingpongitore
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Hearing you guys say this is making me feel a lot better. And another thing to add is, man has it been a LONG time since I built a computer. I was expecting massive amounts of money needed to be shelled out. I spent 400 dollars just a little bit ago and built a pretty incredible machine. I don't need to sell my mac now. Oh and the tax return I saw that i am getting didn't hurt the decision either.

-ping
 
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Yeah my PC was about $600 all told, $800 with my 20" monitor. Got a socket AM2 motherboard, Athlon X2 4800+ processor (dual core 2.5 GHz, now overclocked to 3.0 GHz), Radeon HD3850, 2 GB (now 4 GB) of RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive (later supplemented with a 250 GB one). And I just migrated all the components from a huge steel full-tower case I got from my brother to a lightweight aluminum one by Lian-Li.
 

bobtomay

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I'm almost like homesick after being use to building my own rigs for so many years. Am ready for some tinkering and waiting to find out if I'm going to get enough from tax refund to build one or not. But, I need at least $1300-1500 and preferably about $2k with the parts I'm looking at.
 
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I know exactly how you feel at the moment. I went from a custom built PC to a Sony notebook, missed having something to dismantle, upgrade, tinker in etc.

So I decided to go Mac, purchased a PM G5 tower (so I could open it up and contemplate upgrading) loved OS X, however I never done a thing to the inside of the G5.

Now I've just bought a Mac Pro and I'll be upgrading parts in this one - RAM, HDD, GPU (when updated to GTX2xx). In a way its the best of both worlds and I'll just stick with Apple's workstations to satisfy that craving. :)
 
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It's a good strategy, but an expensive one. I did a similar thing, though, with Power Mac G4s several years back. They were so upgradable - you could flash graphics cards for them, get CPU upgrades, even do a few basic case mods. At one point I had a graphite PMG4 with a flashed GeForce 3, two hard drives, and the plain clear handles from a Quicksilver (the original handles on the graphite G4s were ribbed).

I think you can use any PC graphics card in a Mac Pro but you might have to be booted into Windows for it to work. I don't remember.
 
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Yeah, I could fire in a GTX280 right now but the price to pay is booting up in Windows.

I've still not decided whether or not I'm going to do a boot camp install with XP yet. Depends how many games there are for OS X before I make that decision.

I'm sure you'll be happy when you switch though, totally customizable PC and OS in one box! :)
 
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keep the mac as your backup or as the dark knight in the corner of the room... you will soon come back to it.

....atleast your staying away from Windows..... thats a plus
 

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