At a crossroad - new PC or my old Mac?

[caudor]

Thanks to my brother , I now have an Athlon 64 3200+, 1 GB RAM, GeForce FX 5900 Ultra video card and a new boxed Windows XP Pro, and a new MS Office 2003. It's got a DVD burner...pretty loaded.

Up to now, I've been running a PowerMac G4 1Ghz (mirror Mac) with 1 GB Ram, Radeon 9600. I have not invested a lot of money into software. I typically use MS Office 2004 Mac, Quicken 2005, surf with Safari, and eTools in Virtual PC. I use iTunes for music and spend lots of time playing World of Warcraft. I'm interested in games, especially the upcoming D&D Online.

Currently, all my important data (receipts, email, photos...everything) is on my Mac. I'm thinking I could makes some money to buy new PC software if I sold my old Mac, but I'm not so sure if it would be worth it considering all the bad stuff I've read about Windows.

If you were in my situation, would you abandon OS X and switch to the Windows XP, or would you stick with your Mac?

 

[IronWolf]

It can be a tough decision. My wife uses an iBook and I tend to use a laptop with Windows Xp or occasionally some flavor of Linux on it depending on my mood. The iBook has some cool things about it, I personally am a big fan of the full Unix shell just a click away. Makes it really nice for some things. You do avoid most of the security flaws that are associated with Windows too, that can be a nice thing.

Being that you seem pretty used to your Mac I would be tempted to keep it and then use the new Windows machine you acquired for any games that you are interested in that won't run on your Mac or are too slow. You end up with the Mac for your day to day work and important docs and a dedicated gaming machine with the new computer you just picked up.

 

[drothgery]

A few things here
1) Your PowerMac is pretty old; I'm not sure you'd get all that much for it.
2) The PC is a much, much better gaming box than the Mac, both because it's a much higher-spec box, and because of a bigger library.
3) I don't know how Office:Mac runs on a G4, but I suspect it's more than fast enough.

If you only want to deal with one computer, and you want to play relatively new games, there's no choice involved; you've got to use the PC. If you really love OS X, and gaming is the only demanding thing you'd do with either machine, then just use the Windows box for games and use your Mac for everything else.

 

[cr0w]

Your Mac may be "old" by PC standards, but by Mac standards its pretty new yet. I know plenty of people still using old G3 desktops just fine. Considering every release of OS X tends to get faster you are in pretty good shape. If you haven't yet, upgrade to Tiger and you will most likely notice a speed boost.
If you really want to the PC because you are an avid gamer make sure you keep it clean. Having to deal with viruses and other Windows only garbage would be reason enough to stick with the Mac if I were in your shoes. Also remember that if you plan on playing games that PC will need to be upgraded every 12-18 months to keep up.

I'm a Mac guy so my recommendation would be to sell the PC, not the Mac.

 

[dvvega]

Personally I would stick to the Mac for all your day to day software needs. It has ease of use, no stupid Registry and you're familiar with it.

I'd keep the PC as a dedicated games machine. You only need to buy the games you wish to play, no need to buy all the software you need.

Warcraft can be played on your PC and I'm sure the CD is dual format so you will not have to rebuy that.

D

 

[Mercule]

Personally I would stick to the Mac for all your day to day software needs. It has ease of use, no stupid Registry and you're familiar with it.

I'd keep the PC as a dedicated games machine. You only need to buy the games you wish to play, no need to buy all the software you need.

Warcraft can be played on your PC and I'm sure the CD is dual format so you will not have to rebuy that.

Well, my standard advice would be to stop using a Mac and starting using a computer.

But, I think the above is actually pretty good advice if you're a Mac fan.

 

[Rackhir]

Well, my standard advice would be to stop using a Mac and starting using a computer. .

What a droll and original sense of humor you have...

 

[Mercule]

What a droll and original sense of humor you have...

Yes, yes. But at least I included some actual advice in my post, too. Let me rephrase:

While I generally feel that PCs are a better choice than Macintosh, if you are comfortable with your Mac and don't want to worry about buying new software, then you should, by all means, continue to use your Mac for day-to-day activities, while reserving the PC for games, for which it is much better suited than your old Mac. All this was nicely summed up by dvvega, but I wanted to show my agreement, and do so without any humor or irony.

 

[Rackhir]

Yes, yes. But at least I included some actual advice in my post, too. Let me rephrase:

While I generally feel that PCs are a better choice than Macintosh, if you are comfortable with your Mac and don't want to worry about buying new software, then you should, by all means, continue to use your Mac for day-to-day activities, while reserving the PC for games, for which it is much better suited than your old Mac. All this was nicely summed up by dvvega, but I wanted to show my agreement, and do so without any humor or irony.

I'm not sure that "What he said" actually qualifies as advice, but your post was definitely humor free.

 

[Mercule]

Caudor, I apologize for the inadvertant hijack of your thread.