kray

Dell Inspiron laptop, with 4gb RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 320 GB memory

AlienWare is overpriced but good if you don't mind paying for it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I have two PC's. One for general tasks and web surfing and the other for gaming and photo editing.

General tasks PC:
CyberPower Inc.
AMD Athlon XP3200+
2.16 GHz
1.5 GB RAM
ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition Graphics card w/ 256MB DDR3 RAM

Gaming System:
Digital Storm PC
Intel Core 2 Duo
E6850 3.0 GHz with DS stage 3 cooling
4GB Corsair RAM with HS and LED display
NVidia GForce 8800Ultra Vid card 612 MHz 768MB RAM
Dell 26 WS LCD
Creative Labs X-Fi Gamer Sound card
Logitech 5.1 surround speakers
1GB striped RAID
500GB Barracuda HD
CMT Stacker case


It's a couple years old now but still plays all my games fine and allows me to set settings at max. ALso use as my music media center.

Dell Inspiron

While, as previously noted, there are more Macs than I expected, it sounds like Dells are very popular.

Most of my computers have been "Frankensteins"; companies like Noah's Computers (built as a side business by a fellow who's son was named Noah) or Digirex: you pick components from a list of options, and they assemble them. I don't recall that big name-brand computer companies used to have competitive prices on good consumer systems -- they seemed to focus on basic business models which lacked many features I wanted, or like AlienWare, on bleeding-edge high-end game systems that cost at least $1000 more than I was willing to pay. Dell appears to have been quite successful at moving into the middle-tier consumer home computer market.

My gaming niche used to be real-time strategy, with an occasional turn-based strategy game, or single-player FPS (mainly the Delta Force series). For the most part, I think PC games have gone the route of MMORPGs and fast-paced multi-player FPSs, which don't appeal to me, so I no longer need high-end sound or graphics cards. My new computer cost about half what I spent for the basic computer I'm using (I've performed a few upgrades on it). However, USB was still fairly new when I bought it and even after adding an internal SIIG 5-port (USB 2.0) hub, it remains somewhat unreliable -- I'd probably have to replace the motherboard to address USB issues. I'm also running out of disk space and could use more memory, but at some point, its just makes more sense to start over rather than band-aiding an obsolete computer.

Me too. It's a good machine. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

I would say I run a Mac for very different reasons than you artistic types. I need access to low-level programming, LaTeX typesetting for scientific journal articles, and UNIX command line utilities. Graphics performance and sound editing are almost completely meaningless to me.

Before switching to Mac, which has all of the UNIX/Linux utilities I need, I was a full-time Linux guy. I ran Linux exclusively, and only touched Windows when I was using others' computers, for almost a decade. I started running Linux on a Packard Bell Pentium 60, and then a series of computers I built myself out of parts ordered over the internet. Until I bought my first Mac four or five years ago, I hadn't bought a commercially produced computer in a long time.


And my first computer was a Tandy Color Computer 2, which was basically a rebranded TRS-80, with a whopping 1.7 megahertz processor. It booted directly into a BASIC interpreter, and I learned to write my first code before junior high school. Those were fun days, saving programs I wrote to an audio cassette deck <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 9 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz

It also has around 5TB of storage.

I have several computers at home, but I primarily use my laptop for everything. The rest of the family gets to use the other computers.

It's a Gateway, with Intel Core 2 Duo (2.00 GHz), 320 GB hard drive, 4 GB ram, running 64 bit Windows Vista.

I have a broadband internet connection (cable modem), and a Netgear wireless router.

My desktop is a couple years old now (late 2007), but-
Gateway GM5457
AMD Athlon 64 X 2 Dual core 6000 3.0 Ghz
4 Ghz RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT
Vista 32
640 Gig HD
Blue Ray disc player/CD/RW burner
23.5" Acer Wide Screen/HD monitor
Logitech 518MX gaming mouse

The box keeps chugging along and plays all my games and does everything I ask it to. It was fast, cheap, and like my gaming buddy who recommended it to a non-computer builder like me said, easy to work on. Vista's run great, actually.

The other computer is my laptop-
HP/Compaq Presario CQ70-120US
17.0-inch Diagonal WXGA plus High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display, 1440 x 900 resolution
2.00 Ghz Intel Pentium Dual-Core Mobile Processor T3200 with 1MB L2 Cache
3072MB DDR2 System Memory
250GB (5400RPM) Hard Drive
LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN

Big bright screen....Very nice.

I still have my original computer from 1992. Heck, I even still have the box it came in! A Packard Bell 386 20 mhz, with 2 MB of RAM. [/quote]








That was also my first computer !