Defending the Mac

So i was talking about the MacPro and how it was amazing and then someone showed me this...


my only come back was

"what warranty and customer service does that custom build come with?"

I don't understand.

Some one showed you a shopping parts for a mediocre computer, a cheap monitor, a TV, and a PS3?

For $1700 I built a killer game rig and for another $1000 I picked up a 30" monitor.

These threads never end well...

Let the fun begin!

Again...?

Really appleXcore? Really?

It's pointless discussing the finer points of computers with someone like that.
Doubtful the guy knows the difference between RAM and hard drive,
much less the difference between that E6600 and one of today's Core i7's or the latest quad core Xeons.

And if they don't get it, let them keep using whatever works for them.
I have no need to justify my purchases to anyone but myself. If someone wants to know what led to my decision, ok. If not, that's ok also.

bobtomay said:

I have no need to justify my purchases to anyone but myself. If someone wants to know what led to my decision, ok. If not, that's ok also.

Click to expand...

+1 million and plus rep, this is exactly what I wanted to say.

dude his shopping list actually sucked pretty hard, I mean a Micro ATX board come on...

LogicBox said:

dude his shopping list actually sucked pretty hard, I mean a Micro ATX board come on...

Click to expand...

I really like the DFI micro atx boards ;D

Did you see that LogicBox Hot Dog. How cool is that.

Just used a micro ATX board in the HTPC I put in this month running Win 7 and puts out 7.1 over HDMI.

Only had it for 3 weeks now, but so far this thing has played every type of video I've thrown at it flawlessly; from HD-DVD, BluRay, to streaming across the net and from my own server.

Why do you need to defend anything? If you like it, find it to be worthwhile and consider it a smart purchase amongst the other options, what does it matter what someone else thinks of it?

Apples to Oranges comparison there (if you'll excuse the pun). Custom built machines are ALMOST ALWAYS cheaper then name brand machines. Those are always the dumbest comparisons to make (custom vs name brand) - no offense (the only exception *can be* (but not always) server custom systems, because if you get true server motherboards with xeon cpus and buffered ram, etc. it gets real expensive real fast). Plus that image is way old with old pricing, 1TB drives @7200rpm are <$100, and 500Gig drives are <~70

The closest comparison that can logically be made is between the Mac Pro and the Dell Precision, and once you start adding stuff to the Dell Precision to make it a similar build (especially if you create a 8 core 2.66GHz machine) it gets more expensive then the Mac Pro.

Mac SK said:

Did you see that LogicBox Hot Dog. How cool is that.

Click to expand...

what??


Im not saything the microATX board sucked, but when ur compairing the pc to what he bought, it looked more like he was making a HTPC, i dunno im just ganna go to my corner now.

bobtomay said:

It's pointless discussing the finer points of computers with someone like that.
Doubtful the guy knows the difference between RAM and hard drive,
much less the difference between that E6600 and one of today's Core i7's or the latest quad core Xeons.

And if they don't get it, let them keep using whatever works for them.
I have no need to justify my purchases to anyone but myself. If someone wants to know what led to my decision, ok. If not, that's ok also.

Click to expand...

AHEM. Aren't you married?

<snickers>

HAHa ouch...

The most important difference between custom-made and brand-name machines is not the purchase price anyway. The way I see it, it's the TCO that counts. It's up to each person to summarize each and every part of the costs (in time and money) for set-up, usage and troubleshooting when making the comparison to figure out which buy would be better.

Example: A major advantage for custom-built machines is that you can upgrade them "forever". But if you often get problems with hardware components, sometimes not even knowing which one of them is troublesome, the computer will only be cheap if your time is worthless.

A Mac (of any kind) doesn't need to be defended - it defends itself. Those who buy it, know that they need one and why they need it.

uh-huh...

torbjoern said:

The most important difference between custom-made and brand-name machines is not the purchase price anyway. The way I see it, it's the TCO that counts. It's up to each person to summarize each and every part of the costs (in time and money) for set-up, usage and troubleshooting when making the comparison to figure out which buy would be better.

Example: A major advantage for custom-built machines is that you can upgrade them "forever". But if you often get problems with hardware components, sometimes not even knowing which one of them is troublesome, the computer will only be cheap if your time is worthless.

A Mac (of any kind) doesn't need to be defended - it defends itself. Those who buy it, know that they need one and why they need it.

Click to expand...

Usually when people have enough knowledge to build their own machines, they have the intelligence to spot problem parts if some defect were to occur.

Computers don't really have that many parts. Troubleshooting them is generally extremely easy when you know what you're doing.

But then again, some one could by a pre-assembled computer or laptop and if they have no idea what they're doing and some breaks, then they're going to have greater frustrations.

Agreed. We mac users all buy essentially pre-assembled computers. But that's what these forums are for. To ease all those greater frustrations.