Finally switching

Hi all, i am a LOOOOONG time windows user with some old school IIg's experiance. I mainly use my pc's for administration, web design, photos, music, movies, and so on and so forth. My main server on the network is a dual core 3.8 gighz, 1gig ram, 256 meg nvidea 5600 xt, 450 gigs of storage,windows 2003 server enterprise edition, on a 600 watt power supply. costs way too much to use this computer. about 150 a month just to run this computer. i want to give it the boot. for what i can shell out for loot i was looking at a new i mac. only 180 watts and 64 bit performance. any opionions?

any appreciated.... thanx a bunch,

dave

the iMac G5 is a wonderful computer and I can't recommend them enough. The G5 is a lovely fast processor, good graphics in the form of the ATI Radeon X600 with 128MB VRAM, good size hard drive, airport + wireless, built in iSight cam, FrontRow, SuperDrive (DVD±R/RW DL drive) and up to 2.5GB RAM capacity, 512MB as standard which you'd want to slap another 512 in there, it's standard DDR-2 memory.

All in all an excellent system which for all the things you listed you do, you will find the iMac serves you brilliantly, I'd definitely recommend the 20" model if you can get it as the resolution 1,680x1,050 is wonderful and it has a fanastic wide viewing angle, ideal for people to crowd around or sit in front of and not have the LCD display going all fun house horror on you if you are sat at an angle to it.

All I'd say is -- what are you waiting for :flower:

Vicky

Hi there

I fully agree with Vicky. I have just sold my 64bit super speed PC. After years of tinkering and what i can now see was wasted time I have switched to a Imac G5 but the 17inch version. I have only had it 3 days but I can honestly say so far so good, though there are some issues that might come as a surprise as a windows only user. I have only ever used PCs for the last 12-14 years and there is a bit of culture shock in the way the OSX works but its a nice shock. I have found myself laughing out loud a few times during these 3 days of exploring at how easy the Mac's take on various things is. I find myself saying "can it be that simple?" and to be completly honest in the main I find myself saying yes.

I treated myself to some extras such as an extra 512mb of ram ( i am so used ot my pc having 1GB I felt i had too- must be the PC owner in me) and a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. I do have to admit that whilst the keyboard is very intuitive my mouse skills are still somewhat hap hazard but I am getting there.

The one problem I have had is in moving music over, since i still have a work PC laptop what i did was to get an external drive and put all of my music onto it. The problem was over the years I had accumulated a good mix of music formats be them mp3, wma and vog. Now itunes on the Mac does not support wma files in any form or shape, what i have had to do is put itunes on my pc which thankfully does support wma converting and leave it for about a day converting all of my wma files. Then I had to connec tthe external drive to my new Mac. This was my only minor ball ache, and was self inflicted really for using wma lossless music format in the first place.

Honestly take the plunge, the last time i was this excited about computing i was 10 and my Amiga 500 had just been unwrapped under the Christmas tree. Though depending on your social circumstances let me give you some ideas in damage limitation- I bought my wife a Apple Video Ipod a few days before the Imac turned up as I knew she would be upset about the switch, this made her more open to the power of Apple!

Matt

Thems were the days unwrapping that big box under the tree, woah the Cartoon Classics pack :flower:

Those Commodore-Amiga bundles were a lot of fun. Perhaps that's how Apple could package their Mac Mini, actually show all the stuff you get with it on the box. Though customers were always perplexed at me popping the Mac Mini they just bought in the store carrier bags :flower:

Vicky

I tihnk if my memory serves me right my Amiga came with the Screen Gems pack comprising of Nightbreed and the Simpsons and something else.

I remember when i bought from my uncle a 386 toshiba laptop 3 years later so that i could play monkey island 2....oh those were the days....

Done and Done

well i drove 3 hours to richmond and 3 back... but i have a g5 imac and could not be happier... all i have to say is beautifull... everything just works on it.. i even got a student discount.. anyone still using m$ should seriously give apple a chance.. it truely is superior. end

Where did you find a 3.8Ghz dual core processor?

That seems like an weird jump to go from a rather high-end PC server to a low-end Apple desktop. Did your needs change recently or did you just over buy when you got the PC?

Ivan901™ said:

well i drove 3 hours to richmond and 3 back... but i have a g5 imac and could not be happier... all i have to say is beautifull... everything just works on it.. i even got a student discount.. anyone still using m$ should seriously give apple a chance.. it truely is superior. end

Click to expand...

you will want M$ office for mac if you dont have it already. unless you are willing to tinker with several other options, M$ Office is the way to go.

high end

yea. i did kinda overbuild it when i put it all together, but it DID run everything i needed it to flawlessly. basically it was just a media center that i ran ftp off of. but it used ALOT of electricity to keep running... the imac is rated at 180watts. and i wouldnt call the imac low end... it is a great contender. i'm not planing on hosting again so this will be more than sufficient for what i will be doing now.

dave