What are your system specs?

[raytrails]

Even without the spirits I have my vodkaholic moments

It displays everything ...news feeds, computer specs, network stats, emails, movie titles, fan speed display, ect ect..


As I read I think that you have to be rendering video or 3d with ridiculous resolution ...what are you doing with 16 "average" pc's worth of ram

Well, not rendering - but heavy graphic work in a variety of Adobe apps really takes its toll on the rig.

 

[EQnoble]

heavy graphic work in a variety of Adobe apps really takes its toll on the rig.

here here to that

a light day for me...maybe after i finish these 24oz(710mL) of coffee I'll throw something at this

 

[jasetaro]

Oh, I was not aware of that. But my argument still stands, at least half way there. Because the RAM prices from Apple are still horribly high. Oh well, the more RAM, the merrier

True, most things Apple are on the pricey side, but there is some truth to that "You get what you pay for" adage. I've had zero problems with my Macs, but every PC I ever owned has some sort of hardware failure within the first year.

 

[Paul B]

Maybe you bought cheap PCs?
The only thing I've ever had fail on me for 20 odd years is a few hard drives.

 

[jasetaro]

Maybe you bought cheap PCs?
The only thing I've ever had fail on me for 20 odd years is a few hard drives.

I wouldn't call them cheap, they were all HP or Dell Business systems... the oddest failure was a display that wouldn't come out standby and then literally burst into flames. Two weeks after that the computer it was attached suffered MLB failure. Other than that everything else was typical HDD or optical drive failures.

 

[EQnoble]

Maybe you bought cheap PCs?
The only thing I've ever had fail on me for 20 odd years is a few hard drives.

Seconding that..the only pc's I have ever had fail is pre-assembled ones...and that boils down to who put them together(dell...etc) as they all use the same basic components and just buy in bulk and build to suit.

Since compiling my own parts list and building my own I have not had a single component fail.(lost a power supply when either my house or the drop line was hit by lightning) I have never even seen someone with a custom rig have to replace anything they didn't break themselves (overclocking , mineral oil submerging fail, static discharge , not knowing there was a paintball in the hopper and thinking they were dry firing...you know the normal stuff )

 

[jamesyfx]

I have had some failed hardware before, but it has all been bottom of the barrel stuff like Corsair ValueSelect RAM or Hitachi DeskStar hard drives (I know, I know :/). More expensive hardware has... funnily enough, not failed on me yet.

 

[Luke F]

Only things I've ever seen fail are hard disks and power supplies, and the latter is probably the cause of most hardware failures people experience. The PSUs in prebuilt computers are almost always a joke.

 

[Forsaken]

I wouldn't call them cheap, they were all HP or Dell Business systems... the oddest failure was a display that wouldn't come out standby and then literally burst into flames. Two weeks after that the computer it was attached suffered MLB failure. Other than that everything else was typical HDD or optical drive failures.

Comparing Dell/HP computers to Mac isn't a valid comparison. Dell and HP tend to have lower quality parts, or they use generic parts. That goes for their business, and home office systems.

The only failures I've ever had were: HDD failure (4+ years), motherboard failure (6 years), video card failure (7 years), CRT monitor failing (10 years), optical drive failure (8 years).

HDD failures are always high, and the only ones I had fail were made in the early 90's.

Motherboard failure was because it was a Dell and they use crappy motherboards.

Video card failure was because of it being a Dell slim case, and they're annoying to clean so dust built up and it caught fire (Completely my fault, because I didn't want to deal with cleaning it). Still lasted over 7 years in a dusty environment.

Optical drive failed because it was a generic low end in an older dell.

Also, anything that spins tends to heat up, so heat (or cold) and moisture in the air increase the risk of failure. Dust and keeping it clean also can cause issues.

 

[Paul B]

I've been building my own as long as I can remember so I always make sure I choose half decent components.

 

[tafreehm]

everything is good.. except for that keyboard.. I hate that Mac's keyboard

My main system:

Mac Pro (early 2008) running OS X 10.6
Dual quad-core 2.8GHz Xeon
12GB RAM
160GB SSD (Intel G2)
Dual display cards running four displays

View attachment 814

 

[MGSteve]

Here's mine

Custom painted case (Zalman LQ-1000)
Core i7-920 @ 3.6ghz
12GB Ram
2x Crucial 64GB SSD in Raid-0
2x 300Gb Raptor in Raid-0
2x 750GB Samsungs
1x 1TB Samsung
2x Asus 21" Full-HD Monitors
Logitech G19 Keyboard
Logitech wireless mouse!

A few pics of the case (haven't got one of the desk, its too messy!)

Before


After


Oops!

 

[Kier]

everything is good.. except for that keyboard.. I hate that Mac's keyboard

Personally, I think it's the best keyboard I've ever used.

 

[Shelley]

I need to ask because I'm about to recieve my new system this week and thinking about getting a solid state drive.

Are there any benefits in speed? (obviously there must be but I need to ask)
Can they be used as boot drives (with windows installed?)
and if I'm thinking correctly windows should boot up faster and any other applications installed on the solid state drive will load up and perform significantly quicker than standard drives?

 

[raytrails]

everything is good.. except for that keyboard.. I hate that Mac's keyboard

Speaking for me, I love that keyboard. I've really come to like it, almost as much as the venerable Extended Keyboard (mid 90's):

Now, that was a dream to use

 

[Kier]

I need to ask because I'm about to recieve my new system this week and thinking about getting a solid state drive.

Are there any benefits in speed? (obviously there must be but I need to ask)
Can they be used as boot drives (with windows installed?)
and if I'm thinking correctly windows should boot up faster and any other applications installed on the solid state drive will load up and perform significantly quicker than standard drives?

Putting an SSD in my Mac as the boot disk was the best thing I've ever done for it. It boots up to a usable desktop in about ten seconds now.

 

[raytrails]

I'm also considering an SSD later this year, just waiting for the next generation from OWC - it's supposed to be right around the corner.

 

[Slavik]

I need to ask because I'm about to recieve my new system this week and thinking about getting a solid state drive.

Are there any benefits in speed? (obviously there must be but I need to ask)
Can they be used as boot drives (with windows installed?)
and if I'm thinking correctly windows should boot up faster and any other applications installed on the solid state drive will load up and perform significantly quicker than standard drives?

Buying 2 ssd's and putting them in raid0 was the worst choice I ever made...

When im on other peoples PC's and it takes more than half a second to load any program I get wracked off at how "slow" their pc's are... even if they are top spec

 

[Shelley]

Buying 2 ssd's and putting them in raid0 was the worst choice I ever made...

When im on other peoples PC's and it takes more than half a second to load any program I get wracked off at how "slow" their pc's are... even if they are top spec

I'm thinking of buying this model "OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB 3.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive" What else would I need to get this going? Do I need to purchase any extras like a controller card or would this plug straight onto the motherboard itself? And do they come with leads? or are they extras I'll need to purchase. Dumb question but I haven't upgraded in 6 years.

 

[Slavik]

I'm thinking of buying this model "OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB 3.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive" What else would I need to get this going? Do I need to purchase any extras like a controller card or would this plug straight onto the motherboard itself? And do they come with leads? or are they extras I'll need to purchase. Dumb question but I haven't upgraded in 6 years.

Basically they some as any other sata hard drive. So make sure to pick up a sata cable and a power converter if you need it (molex to sata assuming you dont have dedicated sata connectors)

Plug in and off you go... just never run a defrag program.​