Advice on desktop.

Ok well I am in the market for a new desktop, currently I have a black MacBook 2.4ghz with only 2gb of ram. This computer is a great portable machine however I’d like something with more power and I need a desktop machine.

I was leaning toward the 27” imac because I love the display however, there are certain problems. I don’t have room on my desk for a 27” display and adding another desk or using a bigger one causes cluster in my room. So the price of the imac I was going to buy was $2080. The Mac Pro is $2300(buying the next one, upcoming might be a little more expensive). So I considered the mac pro, even though I don’t need that much power all the time.

What I need my computer for is programming, web site development, moderate gaming, a little bit of video editing. A mac pro would be great because it has a PCI-X card that allows a card I want to use(Blackmagic Intensity pro). For this card I’d also need to build a raid array. I have two 22 inch monitors that I can use with the mac pro. If I somehow decide to buy the 27” imac, I will use an older hp desktop for the BMI pro, and edit on the imac.

Now the other thing is, I could also build a hackintosh for about 1200 that would also do all of this.

For the past several days I’ve been thinking it over, however can’t make up my mind. I need some people who know what they are talking about to advise me and not just because they have a certain computer and not the other.

Well, for one thing no one here is going to give you any advice on building a hackintosh - so forget about that.

As for buying a Mac Pro, it sounds like that's what you need. I don't know why you would want to limit yourself by buying a 27" iMac. The display is nice but you can certainly get a better one for a new Mac Pro. You might want to hang on for awhile anyway to see if Apple is going to release a new Mac Pro model in the near future.

Anyway, that's what I would do if I had the $$$.

Regards.

Well, I would say you are the best person to make the decision however, here's my two cents.

1. Hackintosh: As mentioned we are not allowed to discuss those here due to the Apples' EULA. However, I wouldn't sugest these as a way to run OS X full-time. You need to be extra careful over product selection, updates could really mess up your system too.

2. iMac: Would be enough for your needs minus the BlackMagic card.

3. Mac Pro: Definitely capable of more than your needs at the moment and is highly upgradable (GPU, PCI-e, HDD (even RAID card), processors etc) for future tasks.

However, PCI-X cards (your BMI Pro) will not work with new Mac Pros only PCI-e cards - both totally different interfaces. So you may need to upgrade this.

Hope that helps.

martyp said:

Well, I would say you are the best person to make the decision however, here's my two cents.

1. Hackintosh: As mentioned we are not allowed to discuss those here due to the Apples' EULA. However, I wouldn't sugest these as a way to run OS X full-time. You need to be extra careful over product selection, updates could really mess up your system too.

2. iMac: Would be enough for your needs minus the BlackMagic card.

3. Mac Pro: Definitely capable of more than your needs at the moment and is highly upgradable (GPU, PCI-e, HDD (even RAID card), processors etc) for future tasks.

However, PCI-X cards (your BMI Pro) will not work with new Mac Pros only PCI-e cards - both totally different interfaces. So you may need to upgrade this.

Hope that helps.

Click to expand...

Thanks for helping, and sorry the BMI Pro is a PCI-e 1,8,16 card so it would work. Also I didn’t know a hackintosh was against the EULA so sorry guys, anyways I wasn’t asking for build advice, just if it was a good option.

Also to the other guy, I’m not planning on buying a separate monitor, just using the one I have.