Computing
So I’ve been thinking, which is never really a good thing, because it tends to result in novel-length blog posts for you to have to wade through…
Anyway, I’ve been pondering an upgrade to my PowerMac G5 for some time now. Now, while I could easily shove a couple more gigs of RAM into the G5 and get at least another year out of it, I feel like the more effective upgrade would be to box the old girl and trade it in for some new hotness, given the increasing atmosphere of Intel-targeted development in the Mac community (and the no doubt impending EOL-ing of OS X’s support for the PowerPC line). Most of the productivity software devs are still releasing UniBi apps, but the gaming scene is definitely moving to Intel on the quick-fast. So, trade-ins it is then.
Initially, I was drooling over the new Mac Pros and their utterly absurd base specs. I even priced one out versus an Alienware box, and with the exact same specs, the Mac Pro came out cheaper. However, I think it can easily be argued that a Mac Pro has more power behind it than I’ll likely ever need, and the upgradability isn’t really a huge deal for me, because frankly, I’ve never upgraded the G5 beyond cramming an extra 512 megs of RAM into the thing the day I bought it almost 3 years ago (cruising on a gig of RAM is cool, but quickly becoming inadequate). The deciding factor against just going out and throwing my G5 up on eBay, Craigslist, or the local Mac reseller’s trade-in program for a new Mac Pro has been price. Even discounting the percentage cut that the reseller would take for handling the transaction and finding a buyer for me, I’d still only be walking away with $1700 or $1800 by using Craigslist or eBay, which is considerably short of a new Mac Pro at $2299. If I took it to the reseller, I’d see even less of that.
Recently, I’ve started looking at getting an iMac instead. I don’t really deal with the sort of projects that require a behemoth of a machine like the Mac Pro… mostly I deal with Pages, iPhoto, and some light design / touch-up work in Photoshop. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to sell my 23″ Cinema Display along with the G5 for some bonus cash to put towards the new system. Seeing as how they still sell them new for $900 (refurbs are $500), I imagine I could get at least $300 out of selling it on top of the asking price for the G5. The only consideration for me at this point is one of desktop worthiness, since the desk I have may not be ideally suited for an all-in-one machine (such are the perils of buying furniture that fits your needs at the time, I know…). I really don’t see many downsides to getting an iMac over a Mac Pro though… it’s a simple matter of fact and technology that anything I buy is going to be leagues better than the G5, even if it is a dual 2.3 GHz machine. Plus, a 24″ iMac recoups the loss of my Cinema Display plus some, and still obviously bests the crappy-ass Dell boxes we bought last year. Finally, as I said, I just don’t need 4-8 cores worth of Xeon muscle for what I do with my computer.
Running on the assumption that I could sell the G5 for $1799 (which, if I go through the reseller, nets me $1199 back), and also running on the assumption that I could sell the Cinema Display for $300 (which gets me $210 back through the reseller), I could pick up a refurbished current-gen 24″ dual-core iMac for about $100 out of pocket (plus tax). If I sold everything myself, I could get a new dual-core iMac and actually make money on the deal, or even get a refurbed quad-core machine and still come out about $40 ahead. The challenge would be making sure I had everything on the G5 backed up to either the external hard drive or the Dell doubling as a crappy-ass media center / crappy-ass gaming console before wiping the drive and re-installing Leopard (which, incidentally, I might be able to charge a little more for, though I’ll be sad to lose the cool little box it came in). Pretty much everything I’d need to take with me lives in my user folder, though, so that shouldn’t be a terribly huge issue.
I’m contemplating heading down to the reseller tonight and having a conversation with them about anything special they can do for me that might sweeten the deal with them handling the transaction for me. There’s also the rumor that there’s new iMac spec bumps due next week, so I may even be able to get in on the ground floor of a brand new Mac for a bit cheaper by buying a show unit if that ends up being the case. I’m inclined to go through them in any case, since it feels a bit safer than selling the thing through Craigslist (which I infinitely prefer over eBay, especially since we recently threw out the monstrous box the G5 came in), even if they do take a fairly steep 30% comission fee.
The final advantage to having an Intel Mac, of course, is the ability to run Windows on it, which would be great with VMWare or Parallels so that I don’t have to bounce between machines or try using RDC to do 3D modeling work for games and sundry the way I do now (which honestly hinders productivity). Since I’ve already got a copy of XP Pro that’s no longer in use after giving Oscy’s old PC to her dad (at least, I think we kept the disc…), I don’t even have to worry about spending money on a Windows lisence, I can just get VMWare or Parallels and rock out.