unispherephoto said:
wow. that was helpful.
you told me the ONE thing i asked specifically not to bother mentioning.
i need to buy a new computer _now_ and i cant afford the 20" intel.
Look, I simply cut through the bullshit to give you my first response, I'll be more specific with this response.
1) Let's look at some prices at
www.apple.com as of 01/20/2006:
- Intel 17" iMac: $1299
- Intel 20" iMac: $1699
- PPC 17" iMac: $1299
- PPC 20" iMac: $1699
So, what is your problem again? The 20" models of each iMac are the same identical price, as are the 17" models. There is no financial difference between a PPC and an Intel.
2) If you are so broke you cannot afford the $400 difference between the 17" and 20" model, then fix what you have, and wait until you have a job before spending any more money.
3) Unlike what posters such as ElDiabloConCaca think in his post immediately following mine, I am not telling you that you should pick the Intel over the PPC because of "bragging rights" or "buy the 2006 model because the 2005 is setting yourself up for obsolecense" or any other crap like that. Look, if you cannot afford the $400 price difference today, there is no indication you will be able to afford the $400 price difference 2-3 years from now either. And computers are not automobiles, they are computers. Software companies only have limited resources at their disposal for making software/drivers/etc. Therefore, new developers will start on Intel, existing developers will move to Universal, and very quickly most existing developers will move to the Intel platform exclusively due to limited development time and resources. And anyone who says that it is easy or quick to make Universal binaries of large, complicated existing PPC-only products hasn't got the first clue in the world what they are talking about. You can look at the industry today to see how quickly and easily companies like Adobe and Microsoft have simply "targeted both platforms". By the time their products come out in Universal format, they will have spent over one year on the conversion. There are other factors involved, such as the switch the XCode, but the point is made nonetheless. It is %100 gauranteed now that PPC is a dead-end, so why would any new or existing company pour resources into Universal binaries for no reason? Which brings me back to my main point, if you are forward thinking, then by buying the Intel iMac now will allow you to be able to run your existing PPC applications now as well as all Intel applications and hardware now and in the future. If you buy PPC, you are gauranteed into obsolecense. Are you going to be able to afford buying a new computer now which is PPC and then trying to dump it in 2-3 years for an Intel based Mac, especially when no major developer in the market is going to care anymore about the PPC platform? Or just buy an Intel now and future-proof any more computer purchases for the forseeable future?
4) The Intel hardware is ridiculously better than the PPC hardware, excluding the difference in CPU.
5) And for ElDiabloConCaca, it is SubaruWRC, not SubaruWRX. WRC as in "World Rally Championship". Rally is the greatest motorsport in the world, one of the oldest motorsports in the world, the most popular live motorsport in the world along with Formula 1 (i.e. 2003 WRC had more live viewers per event than Formula 1), and Rally is catching on very quickly in the US (Canada is already huge into Rally and Mexico already has an official FIA WRC event). The Subaru WRX exists in the US because of Rally, so to pay homage and attention to the WRX's true roots, I specifically chose WRC as part of my handle on this forum.
... Otherwise, those displays are quite nice.