MacBreak Tech > Buying a new Mac

13 Responses to “Buying a new Mac”

1. SaltyFrog on December 11th, 2007 at 8:58 pm says:

   Excellent episode guys.

   I esp. loved when John quipped: “by buying the machine that says ‘Pro’ on it, you’re just checkboxing the ego.”

   That explains my work environment to the letter. The most intensive task anyone does is in that office is sorting email, yet all the Mac users (including myself) have either 24″ iMacs or 17″ MacBook Pros with an additional 30″ monitor! NO ONE does graphic design or photography, except myself, and I rarely use the 30″ sitting on my desk. The whole thing is ridiculous—I’d rather have proper networking equipment (good crimper, spool of Cat6, etc.) than a 17″ MBP w/ 30″ Cinema Display!
   …end rant

   Anyway, great episode; very insightful.

2. Tom Mahady on December 11th, 2007 at 10:59 pm says:

   CompUSA is going out of Business so you might not want to buy the extended warranty.
   Plus the new imovie uses the gpu as well. The newer santa rosa will perform better than the first intel macbooks.

   Nice show.

3. Steve on December 12th, 2007 at 4:57 pm says:

   My personal experience and testing has my MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz (Core 2 duo – but prior to Santa Rosa), is comparable in speed to my Dual Core G5 2.5 GHz for processing intensive tasks. I found each a little faster than the other depending upon what task is being measured. So, it took about 2.5 years to get a portable “G5″. Neither is fast enough for me now. Make mine a quad Penryn 3.4 (or more) GHz Mac Pro when available.

   Thanks for the great show!

4. Stephan on December 12th, 2007 at 6:52 pm says:

   I’m a big fan of Apple refurbs. Great way to save a few bucks and still get a machine with full warranty. I bought a 20″ iMac (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo – white) for the family from Apple’s refurb store. Except for the packaging, you couldn’t tell it was used. Was in pristine condition. Same for a nano I bought for my teenage daughter.

   One thing I disagreed with you guys on was the extended warranty. I think you’re better off to take that cash and put it in a 5% money market/savings acct in case the machine breaks. Apple has smart people figure out how much to charge for the extended warranty so that it’s still a money maker for Apple. Just take what they charge and set it aside and self-insure in case you need a repair done.

5. Simon Smith on December 13th, 2007 at 5:27 am says:

   Replacing a Macbook hard drive is now as easy as adding RAM.

   apple.com has instructions. The pdf is at:

   http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf

   It begins: “Follow the instructions in this document carefully. Failure to follow these instructions could damage your equipment and void its warranty.”

6. Jason on December 13th, 2007 at 1:57 pm says:

   I may have the option to upgrade to a new Mac Pro in the very near future in order to work with HD. But the bump I am running up against is the options for a graphics card. Apple has 5-6 to choose from and I am not well versed in the topic yet. It would be interesting if you all can talk about that little spot in the Apple store on a future show (or if you already have, please let me know). These are the options currently. What do they all mean. Pros. Cons.

   NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI)
   2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB [Add $134]
   ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI) [Add $224]
   3 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB [Add $269]
   4 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB [Add $404]
   NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI) [Add $1484]

   Hope that’s not too pedestrian a questions. Thanks.

7. Tom Mahady on December 14th, 2007 at 11:28 pm says:

   I would wait to see what they bring out at Macworld. If it’s a choice between getting a Macpro NOW or not at all. Then I would go with the stock card and upgrade as soon as a new one gets released(Hopefully an 8800gt or the like).

8. macbreaktech on December 14th, 2007 at 11:51 pm says:

   Here’s my take on the video card question. Because you are working with HD, presumably using Final Cut Studio, you want to have a sweet spot video card for that task. Because you aren’t doing 3D the FX 4500 shouldn’t be considered. Or if you were, use it’s extreme cost to purchase additional RAM, hard drives or a 30″ display. Given that you are likely to use Motion at some point I’d recommend the ATI X1900 as it has the most VRAM for the least additional cost. Motion works better with more VRAM.

   There is nothing wrong with the GeForce 7300 from a Photoshop, Illustrator, page layout point of view. And if you were only editing video you’d be happy. It’s the motion graphics tasks that will take that card to task.

   But like Tom pointed out the 8800GT is a sweet card and saving your money for that in the likelihood that it comes out in the next few months would be a good move.

9. Gandalf on December 15th, 2007 at 8:08 pm says:

   Maybe a bit catty… but see the pronunciation

   http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/von_Neumann.html

10. macbreaktech on December 16th, 2007 at 2:04 am says:

    Yeah? Well I pronounce GIF with a hard G even though the guy that made the format said it was with a J sound. I suppose that I should have caught that because those microphones use the zact same spelling.

11. Tom Mahady on December 16th, 2007 at 10:30 am says:

    Thats something that your not going to get me to change either.
    Otherwise everyone thinks I’m talking about peanut butter.

12. Jose Aragon on January 8th, 2008 at 11:49 pm says:

    I like peanut butter.

13. Steve on January 12th, 2008 at 4:20 pm says:

    Nice hardware overview show…

    To follow up on Jason’s comment above, it would be nice to have a show (shows?) that addresses hardware for types of work (e.g. video editing, music mixing, etc.)

    I think a number of the listeners have come to the show from “this week in media” or the Pixelcorps and would appreciate a detailed explanation of what is useful for different purposes.

    For example, how would you configure a MacPro for video editing? Minimal config, target config, optimal config ….

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