Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Computer Advice

Agreed. I currently only have Macs around here and prefer the OS by a wide margin. But, I wanted to learn a bit more about computers and thought that building my own would be a good way to do that. The other thing is that Macs are nearly impossible up upgrade over time and cannot game in any serious manner. So, I'll try a winbox for the first time in a long time.

It's because of this that I'm thinking that I will be ok with the 64 bit version - don't have any software to move over and I'm buying every component new. Also, I figure that there will be a slow gravitation towards the 64 and really don't want to be stuck with the 32 bit if that is the case.

Speaking of driver problems, I might try a dual boot with linux onboard. We'll see.

I'm thinking the Asus 8800GT is what I will end up going with.

Thanks guys.

And my guess is that this standard will not be Vista 64 but something else; well at least I hope so...

My guess is it will still be Microsoft with the 64bit standard but not Vista, it will take a completely new O/S and the public will have to be told upfront that anything not bought within the last 2 years of its existence will never work with it. Wait that is Vista.

Huh? ever since the Mac Pro has come out, it has been able to be updated to the latest processor simply by swapping them out as the intels have had the same pin configuration. You could upgrade from a dual core chip to the latest quad core by simply swapping out the processor.

the Macbook Pro, on the other hand, has it's processor soldered to the motherboard.

yup, and the latest Mac Pros come with bootcamp drivers for 64 bit MS OSes

OS X 10.5.2 is shaping up to be a nice little update:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/..._5_2_build.html


also, Nvidia working on GPGPU for the Mac:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/24/nvidia_working_on_first_gpgpus_for_apple_macs.html

Yes, I'm well aware that the MacPro can be upgraded but I suppose my unspoken caveat was that I was referring to systems that the average go an afford. Given that the MacPro starts at just under $3000 without monitor I'm thinking that it is disqualified. Besides, if I dropped ~$3000 I would hope that I wouldn't have to upgrade for some time.

But yes, you are technically correct.

The base config is actually $2299 now, but you have to give up one of the quad-core processors to get that price.

I wasn't suggesting you look at a Mac Pro, I was just pointing out that they can be upgraded by the user. The Mac Pro is well out of your budget