[Minto Took]

So after three years with my current machine (P4 2.2Ghz running Fedora 3), I'm looking to upgrade to a PowerMac. Regarding budget, I'm looking to go for around $1500. I would like a dual processor machine. It's use would be the typical writing papers, email, etc... with some Matlab and C development as well. Other programs would be stuff like SETI@home, roms, and Quake through X11. For the total system, I'm looking at just the computer. I already have some monitors and a USB mouse and keyboard. So what kind of machine should I look into getting? As far as purchase time, I'm thinking about this time next year.

[UnixMac]

get a used dual 1.8.... that's gonna be your best bet for $1500... That's kind of a limited budget for a PM... even the new single 1.8 (with the slower bus, and only 256MB RAM and a crap graphics card is $1500)...

Being a student, you can probably get a brand new dual 1.8 for $1799 (save a little harder).. but the key to a PM having some power is RAM... and you'll need to budget at least $400 for another 2 GIG's of RAM... then you'll have a great engineering rig.

good luck.

Time to work a few overtime hours at the job.,

[The Godfather]

Advice for engineering student:
Any G5 Mac will be fine, but bring your PC to the dorm too. Remove the network card from the PC (a spayed PC is a happy PC).

[SafariX]

dual 1.8 is what i would purchase, with a 9600xt upgrade and as much ram as you can buy.