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Old 02-16-2009, 11:53 PM
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Question Computer Hunting


Ye Ol' desk-top is on it's last legs ... 6+ years old and slower than mooolaaassssseeesss.

I've been looking at Dells, HP, Compaq, etc., for a while, but for the last few days I've turned my eye to some of the faster Gateway models. Of interest is the Gateway FX6800-xxx. I don't do much of any gaming, but I have other high-end applications that would benefit from a machine like this; http://www.gateway.com/programs/fxseries/index.php

This is the version I'm considering -



Has anyone had any recent experience with Gateway products? Any other related comments/suggestions would also be appreciated.

Much thanks for the help and advice!

TF

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Old 02-17-2009, 12:06 AM
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I bought a Mac about 2 months ago and I will never go back to a pc. It is diff to use but after a few days WOW I like it.
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Old 02-17-2009, 08:57 AM
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thats alot of computer for someone who doesnt game...

unless your high end apps that you use are 3d modeling with 500+ parts.

and im still not convinced on the quad core processors (let alone the i7 which is more or less 8 core processors). they are alot of money for the little speed increase. generate a ton of heat and use even more power.

dell now owns Alienware they are where i would go for a high end PC
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Old 02-17-2009, 12:59 PM
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Thanks for your thoughts folks!

It's my son that's the 'gamer', and I'm into the higher end graphics/CAD/etc. . . . hence the need for a fairly fast machine.

We have looked at Alienware and Mac as well, but we're looking at the Gateway product(s) right now.

Any thoughts on the 'Gateway' brand? Does anyone have any experience with 'Gateway' products?

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Old 02-17-2009, 04:13 PM
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Once you use a Mac you'll never look back
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Old 02-17-2009, 04:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 222rem View Post
Once you use a Mac you'll never look back
x2
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Old 02-17-2009, 05:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 222rem View Post
Once you use a Mac you'll never look back
Well...ummm....I went back. I did graphic design for a few years, used Macs in school then the places I worked used 'em too. To keep the post short, I don't use 'em anymore 100% PC for me! BUT I've got a 3rd gen. iBook that's been sitting in a drawer for a few years if anybody wants to buy it

I ordered a Gateway machine for my Aunt last year, customer service was good and the computer has been problem-free. Gateway and Dell are both good options; and Alienware wouldn't be a bad choice either. There's also a company called WidowPC who are supposedly pretty good.
http://www.widowpc.com/2005/06/gaming_desktops.php

Have you considered getting a custom PC from a local dealer? Sometimes you can get a solid setup at a cheaper price than from the larger-scale companies; plus you get the bonus of local service.
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Old 02-17-2009, 05:20 PM
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Dell's customer service is horrible from my experience....I bought one of their upper end laptops to do my photo editing on ($3000) and the first one had a problem with the screen the day I received it....then it took them 8 weeks to send me the replacement which lasted a week before it would not even start up....then I had to fight for 2 months to get my money refunded. I have gone to a 2nd generation apple macbook pro and love it....I will never own another PC
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Old 02-17-2009, 05:32 PM
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My 1 yr old IMAC is at the Dr. as we speek. The laser in the disk drive went on it. I hardly use that drive so it could have been on the way out before it got to me. Took it to the warranty drop off Thursday and it was done today. I gulped hard when I saw the volume of mac's he had in his shop though.
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Old 02-17-2009, 08:25 PM
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I'm another Mac convert, though I did it years ago. I won't buy another PC, but the mice thing about the current crop running on Intel is that I can run Winblows without an emulation layer.

I know: why buy a Mac to run Windows? My accountant has me on a bookkeeping app that is way better on Win, so I bit the bullet, took the tax write-off and boot into Win once in a while.

...and buy *way* more games than I shold ever be allowed to buy.

But back to the original question, gateway's name seems okay, though I've heard that if you have a problem, you'll end up wanting to throttle someone.

If you're not buying a laptop, then Dell's still a pretty safe bet. They ain't what they used to be, but they're far from the worst out there.

Have you looked at Lenovo? Some people have a weird issue with he Chinese, but they were building IBM's PCs and laptops for years before they bought the division, so there was no quality change when the company took over the operation.
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Old 02-18-2009, 12:34 AM
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Thumbs up Thanks!


Thanks to All ... even for the short comments like; "Once you use a Mac you'll never look back". For a while there, I thought I was under a 'Mac Attack'!

A special thanks to posts #3,7,8,9,&10 (so far) for the information & detail provided. My son and I will be adding your input to our 'data base'. MUCH THANKS!

Of note is the number of 'Mac Folks' that have responded so far. Although I'm a die-hard PC'er, it's good to know that there is a healthy/viable alternative out there. I think it would be a very bad thing if we only had one choice.

Thanks Again,

TF

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Old 02-18-2009, 07:15 AM
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You aren't converted yet?

(posted from a Mac)
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Old 02-18-2009, 07:30 AM
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You can ask 10 people and all will tell you something different. I've had excellent luck with Dell's and HP's, bad with IBM's.

I generally build my own though. I'd stay away from Alienware and the like unless you want to pay a lot of money, if you want to pay that kind of money have someone locally build one.

If you are just going to be on the internet and a few things the cheapest you can find should work ok.
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Old 02-18-2009, 08:21 AM
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macs are great if thats all you want to use. id rather have a pc and replace it twice as much then pay twice as much for a mac. for the specs you get (side to side) macs are horriable value. i understand that mac use good components where alot of pc assesemblers used cheap crap. but my hard drive has lasted 5 years in my pc and that is 2 years longer then i expected for the life of the system.

and even if you did want to run AutoCAD or pretty much any other software that isnt MS Office, you still have to run a copy of Windows anyways. so any advantage is lost.

i would buy a mac for a home pc for internet, music, pictures and movies, but not if i wanted to do much of anything else. but i think that is a pretty pricy internet surfer when i gould get an Asus EEE for $300 (those are pretty neat)
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Old 02-18-2009, 10:41 AM
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I just got the wife an APple Mac for christmas. She loves it way mor than this piece of crap PC of ours that gets a virus every day it seems like. We have had nothing but problems with this Compaq and will probably buy an APPLe product for home use next time. Don't have to worry about viruses that way and they have so many more options on them that are easy to use.
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Old 02-18-2009, 02:00 PM
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Virus thing is huge when you dont have to worry about them on a Mac...also Windows is such a memory pig...I can open a all my photo editing programs on my Mac and it doesn't even bog down unlike the PC I had that worked for a week.....
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Old 02-18-2009, 05:25 PM
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Hey nube, what kind of Anti-virus does your PC have? If it's getting viruses that much there's something seriously wrong. And I hate to tell this to the mac fans out there, but they're great unless you're a gamer. And as Trigger said, his son's a gamer.

Wherabouts do you live TriggerFinger? I know a guy who custom builds computers and does a very good job of it.
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Old 02-18-2009, 06:15 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nube View Post
I just got the wife an APple Mac for christmas. She loves it way mor than this piece of crap PC of ours that gets a virus every day it seems like. We have had nothing but problems with this Compaq and will probably buy an APPLe product for home use next time. Don't have to worry about viruses that way and they have so many more options on them that are easy to use.
well, yes and no. While a MAC is inherently more secure against viruses, they can get them. And, hypothetically speaking, if you were someone who wrote malicious programming, would you target PC's that make up over 95% of the computers around the world, or Mac's? More bang for your buck to target the PC's.
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Old 02-18-2009, 11:58 PM
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Thumbs up Thanks Matt!


Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt L. View Post

" . . . Wherabouts do you live TriggerFinger? I know a guy who custom builds computers and does a very good job of it."
My 'Location' reads: "North of the Highwood, South of the Red Deer, East of the Kananaskis, West of the Bow". That would be the Calgary area.

Davis made that same suggestion (re custom built). I'll be checking out a few local custom builders in the next few days. Thanks for the suggestion!


Quote:
Originally Posted by pdfish View Post

"well, yes and no. While a MAC is inherently more secure against viruses, they can get them . . . if you were someone who wrote malicious programming, would you target PC's that make up over 95% of the computers around the world, or Mac's? . . . "
Tis true ... Macs aren't targeted anywhere near as much for viruses as PC's are, but as Macs become more popular, that will change. I understand it's already starting to happen. I've read recently that there are over twice as many Mac viruses out there, as there were only just a 6 months ago.

I may be a PC'er at heart, but I don't really hate Macs. It would be a real shame if those *&^%$#@! virus jerks made it as bad for Macs as they have made it for PC's.

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Old 02-19-2009, 06:54 AM
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Computers **** me off Computers and cell phones, it seems are obsolete so fast it's not even funny.

Next time I'm hunting for a computer, I think I'll pick a 12 guage and alternate between slugs and SSG.

Thats how this one will meet it's end when its time comes.
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Old 02-19-2009, 07:26 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TriggerFinger View Post
Tis true ... Macs aren't targeted anywhere near as much for viruses as PC's are, but as Macs become more popular, that will change. I understand it's already starting to happen. I've read recently that there are over twice as many Mac viruses out there, as there were only just a 6 months ago.

I may be a PC'er at heart, but I don't really hate Macs. It would be a real shame if those *&^%$#@! virus jerks made it as bad for Macs as they have made it for PC's.
Yeah. It takes a certain panache to write a virus for the Mac, partly due to the low number of them worldwide, but also due to the fact that MacOS X is essentially made up of a fancy GUI over a BSD core (I *think* they based it on FreeBSD, but I can't go to bat for that info).

Honestly tossing out the entire OS and starting again for MacOS X was the best thing they could have done. It's the most stable mass-market OS available right now, and anyone who has any experience with a UNIX/BSD/Linux command-line can do all the same stuff on the Mac.

I'm not a high-octane user by any stretch, but every now and again I dive into the command line for something arcane or security-based.

For a guy who switched to the Mac during the dark days before MacOS X, the current incarnation of Apple's machines are still like a beath of fresh air. In the last days of MacOS 9, a first-time computer buyer had the choice of a lacklustre Windows or a *digusting* Mac OS. windows is still lacklustre as hell, but XP at least works. I just finished editing a book on Vista and find it to be unforgivable. I have high hopes for Windows 7.

What was said above about the comparative pricing is only partly true. The pro-level towers get dizzyingly pricey fast, but the iMacs are about the same (or, at least within the ballpark) of similar-level PCs. It's just that Apple doesn't offer rock-bottom machines. So for working in Office and maybe a little surfing, you can go cheaper on the PC side.

On the software side, it almost doesn't matter which platform you use these days. Aside from specialised apps, you can get the same apps on both. I have XP on my system specifically for Quickbooks, but I also game on Windows and am trying out Google's Chrome browser. I think that dual-booting like that gives me the best of both worlds. For anything mission-critical, I use the Mac (aside from the afore-mentioned accounting app). For toys and giggles, I use Windows -- or my PS3.

A side effect of Apple's recent-ish change from PowerPC to Intel is that Mac customers get the new chips before PC users (like the Core Duo and Core 2 Duo, for instance). It doesn't mean anything for the buyer. It's just an interesting byproduct of the deal between Apple and Intel.

Anyway, I'm not trying to sway you to the Mac side. I just haven't had a chance to talk computers in a while, but I used to be in tech (first retail and repairs, then GUI design, and finally a department head at a network security company), and not everything being said here, vis-a-vis the Mac/PC fence is still true to-day.
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Old 02-19-2009, 08:21 AM
rhuntley12 rhuntley12 is offline
 
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If you are getting virus's and such, stop going to porn sites and clicking on questionable things.

Keep windows upto date, run mozilla firefox and run spybot everyonce in awhile and you should be fine.
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Old 02-19-2009, 01:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roadkill View Post

"Yeah. It takes a certain panache to write a virus for the Mac, partly due to the low number of them worldwide . . . "
Thanks for the in-depth/informed analysis Roadkill ... much appriciated! It's always good to get some unbiased feed-back from someone who is truly knowledgeable in the field. Your post made my day!

Thanks again,

TF

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Old 02-19-2009, 07:51 PM
roadkill roadkill is offline
 
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No charge.

Full disclosure: I also have a crappy old Dell laptop that I run Ubuntu Linux on.

I can't remember the freeware anti-virus app I use at the mo, and I'm not booted into Windows, but I'll note it next time I'm in Windows. It's pretty good.
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Old 02-19-2009, 08:50 PM
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my next computer will be a mac, for a couple of reasons....the virus thing is one...but not a huge one....the biggest difference for me is that when you buy a mac..yes you pay more..but you get software that works and lasts.....a PC is cheaper...but you get nasty MS programs that crash themselves on purpose and then expire after 6 months of activation so that you have to buy an upgrade package.....nickel and dime you to death if you want to keep your good programs current and running. i hate that kind of crap.

however, i don't know much about computers etc...i just know that i am sick of my pc and ready to try something new...and that all my family are mac users and have none of the problems i have.
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Old 02-19-2009, 10:28 PM
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Okay, I booted into Windows earlier on to do some 'work' on Ghost Recon. The anti-virus package I uase on the Windows side is AVG Anti-virus. The free version.
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Last edited by roadkill; 02-19-2009 at 11:08 PM.
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Old 02-19-2009, 10:40 PM
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I don't know where this comes from that Macs are more expensive.

The last two times I bought computers they were comparable.
When I bought this here MacBookPro two years ago a PC Notebook of comparable performance would have been about the same.

The Mac is just better quality and more reliable and has Unix underneath
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Old 02-20-2009, 02:09 AM
whitetail160 whitetail160 is offline
 
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Default mac rules

way easier to run a mac wife works @ My Mac Dealer she wouldn't let me touch a pc
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Old 02-20-2009, 03:20 AM
uglyelk uglyelk is offline
 
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I think computer hunting is a great past time, I just wish we could get more tags.
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Old 02-20-2009, 03:52 AM
uglyelk uglyelk is offline
 
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Default nice trophy!

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