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I am considering switching to Mac, and I thought I might come and ask a bit of advice from the faithful I read the Buyers' Guide, but it looks to be a bit out of date and I thought I might briefly describe my needs and expectations in a computer and get some feedback.
So...I've been a computer geek since I was 5, when my parents got one of the first IBM PCs. I cut my teeth on DOS and Basic, and I am now a professional engineer.
In recent years, I generally have run home-built systems, with Windows on one partition and some flavor of Linux/BSD (most recently Ubuntu) on another.
I do a fair amount of work from home, and need my machine to be able to run professional-grade development tools. I am also (of course) an avid gamer, and need a machine that is capable of playing games at reasonable display settings.
Between these two things, there has in the past always been something keeping me from buying a Mac. Also, the few times in the past I tried using a Mac (not since the 90s) I found them frustrating and non-intuitive (yeah yeah I know). I have, however, been hearing rumblings for a while about how a Mac might now be able to meet my needs, and I've been hearing good things about usability for a few years now.
I won't say that money is no object in buying a new system, but I am also not broke...I am willing to spend reasonably large amounts of money to get high performance, but I am not willing to spend what is usually an inordinate amount of extra cash to get to the very pinnacle of the performance curve.
As far as peripherals, I already have high-end USB compatible gear for most everything. My monitor is starting to look a bit shabby though, and I would be willing to look into getting a new one if there was something particularly tempting out there.
So, all that being said, can you offer me any advice or suggestions? What hardware and software would be a good fit for me? What kind of cash outlay would I be looking at? What will the biggest shocks/joys/letdowns upon switching? I need to be able to do development work, gaming, use my current peripherals, and get as close to the Cost/Power sweet spot as possible.
So...I've been a computer geek since I was 5, when my parents got one of the first IBM PCs. I cut my teeth on DOS and Basic, and I am now a professional engineer.
In recent years, I generally have run home-built systems, with Windows on one partition and some flavor of Linux/BSD (most recently Ubuntu) on another.
I do a fair amount of work from home, and need my machine to be able to run professional-grade development tools. I am also (of course) an avid gamer, and need a machine that is capable of playing games at reasonable display settings.
Between these two things, there has in the past always been something keeping me from buying a Mac. Also, the few times in the past I tried using a Mac (not since the 90s) I found them frustrating and non-intuitive (yeah yeah I know). I have, however, been hearing rumblings for a while about how a Mac might now be able to meet my needs, and I've been hearing good things about usability for a few years now.
I won't say that money is no object in buying a new system, but I am also not broke...I am willing to spend reasonably large amounts of money to get high performance, but I am not willing to spend what is usually an inordinate amount of extra cash to get to the very pinnacle of the performance curve.
As far as peripherals, I already have high-end USB compatible gear for most everything. My monitor is starting to look a bit shabby though, and I would be willing to look into getting a new one if there was something particularly tempting out there.
So, all that being said, can you offer me any advice or suggestions? What hardware and software would be a good fit for me? What kind of cash outlay would I be looking at? What will the biggest shocks/joys/letdowns upon switching? I need to be able to do development work, gaming, use my current peripherals, and get as close to the Cost/Power sweet spot as possible.