Trying to decide....

I have saved up enough money to buy an eMac, the one with the DVD burner, with a student discount, this is 900 dollars. So now, I am thinking, my current primary PC, is well, ****ty. It is REALLY old, running a 1.4 ghz Celeron, 384 MB of RAM, and a crappy e-gforce2 PCI, because for some reason, my mobo doesn't have AGP slots. Hard drives are a non issue. Everything I do currently is PC based, and I thought it would be nice to be able to go Mac for somethings. I have nothing of mine, Mac based, even my iPod is formatted to PC. So, now when it comes time to decide, I don't know what to do. If you guys have any input or comments either way, I'm more than willing to listen. Basically, I need advice. I am not looking to start a Mac/PC war, I am looking for unbaised suggestions. And, if you were to suggest building a PC, do you have any advice on what to put in it, I am thinking an Albatron mobo, and a 3.2 ghz Intel processor. Also, another big thing, cases. I am looking for something that I can shove a lot of hard drives into, because right now, I have a 40, and two 80s, and I want even more for the new machine because I want more space for my boot disk. I don't need anything fancy either. Well, thanks.

Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.

Im confused you are asking us to help you decide whether to spend the 900 on the eMac or on the PC? From what I take it this is what you mean, if this is true, I would go with the pc. The real reason it seems why you want the mac is just to play around with it, and see if you like it. I own both and love them both, but a good computer is a great thing to have. Sure the eMac is a great computer but if you are just starting out just because you want to try it isnt the best idea to me. Once you have a good stable computer that you are happy with, go on to other places, you may end up not liking your eMac (although I doubt that) and you are stuck with a "hated" eMac and a very slow pc, where you could have a brand new super sweet PC. That said, I would go with asus or abit rather than albatron for the motherboard. The processor is fine, people will probably say go with AMD 64 which is fine too, both will get the job done perfectly fine. A case is a personal thing, I cant really suggest one, just go look at the many cases at newegg and scope the photos. Cases are subjective and one that someone loves you could hate. Alot of the new cases have plenty of space for Hard drives so that probably wont become a factor in the decision. Hope that helps.

I use albatron. Ive had it for over a year and had only 1 problem with it (the PWR LED didnt match the pins on the board, i just had to modify the wire a bit). I def. recommend them though. Prices are good, they're fast boards (good for overclocking) and usually only come with onboard Lan and Audio (no other bloated features). Also connector placement is good (except the FDD which is at the bottom of my board......i dont use it though). Size wise...well mine is small. Its bright blue and no bigger than an 8x10 sheet of paper. It allows for a lot of extra space in the case. (mine is PX845PEV PRO btw. On the down side, some support and such is lacking (being a fairly new company), but the boards are so simple you shouldnt even need support.

As to the case..again its personal thing......but i like antec. Good colors, roomy, removable drive cage (which you can fit 4 drives, atleast 2 if you use the 3.5 bays). Cheap too. Also i got a nice door on mine.....so i dont have to look at the drives. Only down side is certain things like fan controllers and such wont fit with the door closed. You could always push them farther into the bay though.

Allright, thanks guys! And redeye, I use Macs frequently, I mean, my whole school is Mac based and we are switching every old iMac over to eMacs this summer and upping to OSX. We were running on 9.2 with something called MacManager and PowerSchool. And I think I will go PC, because mine is just garbage now.

I just have to decide what to put in the new PC now.

[QUOTE=msz070]I just have to decide what to put in the new PC now.[/QUOTE]

RAM. Lots of it. But your decision is good, now that I finally have a secure and good PC, I am gonna be looking outside the box, but definatly get a PC you want before you go and expirement with others.

Please enjoy those continued Windows/I.E. security alerts, Pal!

I only used to be simply smug about running the Mac OS, knowing that my system is dead secure against all the alerts I see every week or every day. Now, I'm getting sick to death and tired and really pissed off at the worrisome alerts and the REAL damage the trojans, worms and viruses do and the people who (wittingly or unwittingly) propagate them, because they hog bandwidth, suck the resources and energy of all users, and generally much up the works for those of us (Mac users) who have no part in the mess.

If I was a die hard Windows fanatic, I'd be thinking about some way of bringing a class action suit against Microsft for their continued wanton disregard for the security of computing and communications ops as a whole. It's bloody criminal, I tell ya!

THAT's what pi$$es me off, and part of what makes me dig in my heels even deeper and harder as an avowed Macintosh evangelist.

There is no argument about this. The sorry state of affairs regarding Windows' security clusterf*ck is a pox on ALL of us, whether we choose to bring a Windows system into our homes and places of business or not.

I hope you're able to enjoy your decision to stay with Windows, MSZ. Really, I do.

Well in an effort to avoid another OS war.....i'll say you know how well you run your system...so you'll know how much security you'll need and what decision to make. In my case, i run a tight system. Never once have I downloaded a patch or fix, read a secruity alert completely or was infected with anything in my 6-7 years w/ my pc's. Turns out i dont even have my virus scanner installed which is atleast 4 years outdated.

I recently invested some money itno Norton secruity products, because I was trying out a version and it was really doing its job for me, well. So now I haev SystemWorks, AntiSpam and Personall Firewall. On my computer, trying to do the maitnence stuff takes forever, because, well it sucks. And for some reason the SystemWroks activation won't go through, but I can mess with that more later. Other than that, no complaints. :D

If I was a die hard Windows fanatic, I'd be thinking about some way of bringing a class action suit against Microsft for their continued wanton disregard for the security of computing and communications ops as a whole. It's bloody criminal, I tell ya!

I have thought that exact same thing. For all the time and effort admins and IT people spend using time and money from company resources, there should be a class action lawsuit against M$. I am sure somewhere in the fine print they have this covered.

I would maybe just keep saving and get a real Mac. I am a pc user as well and once I get working full time again, I will save to buy a G5 and only use my pc's for non-windows. Screw M$. I am tired of their B$.

you may want to hang on for a few days, apple's WWDC is starting today (i think) and there's rumors of potential new eMac's or iMac's. might make your decision a bit more challenging...

chris