New custom Computer: Need advice- Windows7 64bit

[Village Idiot]

Once you try Mac you'll never go back.

Yeah because you'll likely end up shooting yourself.

But seriously re-read the OP's requirements and you'll see Mac's are just totally not suited for his needs. No one buys a mac to play videogames and run Windows 7.

i disagree, i have 27" iMac with i7 processor 1gb graphics card, and app store started releasing more and more games like call of duty 4 and the quality is amazing. I have windows 7 professional running on it as well. Cant go wrong with a mac.

I have a 2 year old computer that, unless you bought refurbed, didn't cost as much as your iMac, has an OC'ed i7 running easily at 3.8ghz that can be bumped up to 4.2, a 1.8GB GPU, and has destroyed everything thrown at it but Crysis running at full tilt at 2560x1600 resolution.

Oh, and all the games you're just getting have been on PC, not to mention the games you'll never get. Macs are second rate citizens when it comes to gaming. End of story.

Saying that it's a waste of money is a narrow minded onion.

As opposed to a broad minded pepper.

****ing typos.

It may be a narrow minded opinion but lets face it - it's just a machine! All it does is sit there and compute. So Windows opens up 14 seconds faster or IE, Photoshop or whatever is 2 seconds faster, I don't see the big deal. Upgrading to a newer, faster computer is something that I agree with but having an I7 vs I5 or getting 32 Gb of ram when most times you don't use anywhere near that much is useless and of course it is just my opinion.

I'm not a gamer so I don't need a expensive GPU; I'm not a professional photographer so I don't need a ton of memory to shave seconds off of Photoshop processing; I don't need to compete with Cray or IBM for the fastest and most powerful computer as I'm sure that most people don't. Yes, going from a 2.4 GHz Celeron processor with 1.25 Gb shared memory to the 2.8 GHz I5 processor which can get to 3.33 GHz if it needs to with 6 Gb memory and a 512 Mb video card is a huge difference. 6 years from now I'll buy the next middle of the road computer and probably be amazed at how speedy it is then as well.

Lets face it for what most people use their computers for you don't need a WOW computer.

Building a super computer is a waste of money IMO. In a couple of months all the components will be replaced by something else. I have an I5-760 processor thats 6 months old tops and it has been replaced by I5-2300 with slightly better specs.

My new computer has 6 Gb memory and a 512M video card. Although I don't use it for extreme anything it's plenty fast for me even using Photoshop. Everything I've read is that you need more than 4 Gb for Photoshop to run faster, I would load it with at least 8 Gb if you have the money (and obviously you do) and for gaming you need a good video card with a fast processor and a lot of memory.

As far as finding life somewhere, whatever you buy will be more powerful than what you had 3 years ago.

I have an i7-920 OC'ed to 3.8ghz and a 1gb gpu that's over two years old. It's still a lot faster than most computers out there. Those parts were basically new when I purchased them. Saying that it's a waste of money is a narrow minded onion.

If I didn't play games and didn't need the power, then it would have been a waste of money. But coming from a 2.4 C2D MBP with 4GB RAM it took about 45 minutes to run 85 images through LR3 with just resize and convert from RAW to JPG. With my machine, it took 15 minutes for 100 images.

I also convert videos. With Nvidia you can use the cuda tech to use the video card to share processing power. It takes about an hour to covert a 1080p movie as opposed to two on OS X with just using the processor.

I also do a lot of other stuff. It's just a machine to you, but that's because you don't obviously use it for much.

I have to ask this.

I understand being a MAC fan but what I never understood is why Apple people load Windows onto their machines - why? I would think that most if not all applications are available for both platforms.

Yeah because you'll likely end up shooting yourself.

But seriously re-read the OP's requirements and you'll see Mac's are just totally not suited for his needs. No one buys a mac to play videogames and run Windows 7.

i disagree, i have 27" iMac with i7 processor and app store started releasing more and more games like call of duty 4 and the quality is amazing. I have windows 7 professional running on it as well. Cant go wrong with a mac.

MAC = Media Access Control
Mac = Apple Computer

People will put Windows on their Macs because sometimes there are programs that aren't available on OS X. I have OS X on my Windows computer.

Where do you get your information from? Just because there are becoming less and less Pc Games on the Shelfs dosent mean there arent any games being made for pc. The Companys out there that are producing games found that us pc gamers prefer to download the games,meaning,when we format our drives or build a new Pc we can download the games over night,and they'll auto install.Not only that,i prefer the higher quality graphics you get on a pc comapred to your Xbox or playstaion.

How about NPD, Tom's Hardware, IGN, Here's a good article from Tony over at Gamers Hell PC Gaming is Dying - ( Review, Preview, Article, Interview, Q&A ) - GamersHell.com

Here's the numbers breakdown.....

U.S. retail sales of video games, which includes portable and console hardware, software and accessories, generated revenues of close to $19.66 billion, an 8 percent decline over the $21.4 billion generated in 2008. Retail sales in the PC game software industry also experienced declines, with revenues down 23 percent, generating $538 million in 2009. The total console, portable and PC game software industry generated $10.5 billion, an 11 percent decline vs. the $11.7 billion generated in 2008.
“December sales broke all industry records and underscores the incredible value consumers find in computer and video games even in a down economy,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, the trade group which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers. “This is a very strong way to transition into 2010. I anticipate these solid sales numbers to continue upward through 2010 with a pipeline full of highly-anticipated titles.”
Aside from portable hardware which experienced a 6 percent increase in revenue in 2009, all video game categories experienced declines, with the largest decline coming from console hardware (-13 percent). Console software and portable software both experienced declines of 10 percent, while video game accessories experienced a 1 percent decline.

"When we started the last decade, video game industry sales, including PC games, totaled $7.98B in 2000," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "In ten years, the industry has changed dramatically in many ways, but most importantly it was grown over those years by more than 250 percent at retail alone. Considering there are many new sources of revenue including subscriptions and digital distribution, industry growth is even more impressive."

$500 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the 10 billion that consoles generated in 2009. GL with that overpriced SLI rig. Been there done that. The ability to download games doesn't change the fact that every year less and less new titles are being released on PC because gaming companies understand that consoles are the better vehicle for making money.

Not dead.

 

[JustAnEngineer]

For many of us, the best way to get PC games is no longer buying them at retail from GameStop. Valve's Steam on-line delivery service is much more convenient. Unfortunately, the monthly and weekly sales reports that you see in the popular media only include retail games sales.

Kudos to Valve for recently adding Macintosh support, too.
Welcome to Steam

 

[Village Idiot]

For many of us, the best way to get PC games is no longer buying them at retail from GameStop. Valve's Steam on-line delivery service is much more convenient. Unfortunately, the monthly and weekly sales reports that you see in the popular media only include retail games sales.

Kudos to Valve for recently adding Macintosh support, too.
Welcome to Steam

Which unfortunately, not all of their games run as well as the do on Windows.

I had L4D2 installed on my Win7 install and my OS X install on the exact same computer and it ran smoothly under Windows 7 with all options at high and at 2560x1600 while lagging horribly under OS X with the same settings and only at 20XX by whatever the max allowable resolution was. Wasn't even an option for the native resolution of my 30" monitor.

 

[usayit]

Is it just me but the title of this thread has

W-I-N-D-O-W-S-7

in the title? or does certain people have a hard time comprehending?

 

[Garbz]

Is it just me but the title of this thread has

W-I-N-D-O-W-S-7

in the title? or does certain people have a hard time comprehending?

Nah comprehension is fine. Some people just troll.

$500 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the 10 billion that consoles generated in 2009. GL with that overpriced SLI rig. Been there done that. The ability to download games doesn't change the fact that every year less and less new titles are being released on PC because gaming companies understand that consoles are the better vehicle for making money.

Get up in front of your share holders and put your hand on your heart and say we couldn't be bothered increasing our profit by 5% because well ... ****it.

The cost of game development is mostly due to media design. The cost of distribution channels is a one off for whatever console your game is made for. Most importantly of all the code basis for the xbox and the PC are almost identical, they use the same underlying graphic calls, and for many games the same underlying engine. The only games that don't get released on PC are games that don't get release on all consoles either due to exclusivity agreements, or PS3 games because they are so bloody hard to port over to DirectX.

Ultimately though the numbers mean nothing. You're quoting revenue numbers not titles. I could just as well say that Windows far outsells OSX and therefor Mac's are essentially dead. See how silly a comment like that is?

PCs sales may be in decline, but the titles are not. Exclusive PC titles exists just as they do on any other platform. So please come back again and tell me that PC gaming is dead when I can no longer play the games I want to.

I mean what more do you want? My girlfriend already complains I spend waaay too much time playing games, yet I don't own a console.