[dwd3885]

So the refurbed PowerMac Dual 2ghz G5 I bought a few weeks ago is acting up. Just those annoying chirps, crickets, etc sounds that is all too regular in these machines.

The NAP thing is a possibility, but I feel like I shouldn't have to do that to get a computer without flaws like this. And it cannot be fixed with power supply, etc, so I am either going to return it or sell it on ebay to a user who doesn't mind the chirping.

Which means I am back in the market. It is either the Dual Core 2ghz PowerMac or the latest 20" iMac with iSight. Now, with edu discount it is only a $200 difference in price, but I already have the Dell 2005FPW monitor. I could keep it, or sell it if i get the iMac and save $300 more dollars. So the difference between machines is roughly $500. I am upgrading the RAM in both machines by purchasing a gig aftermarket.

I love the possibility of upgradability in the PowerMac and the dual core. In the iMac I would get a cheaper system and a bigger hard drive, bluetooth and Airport Extreme, which the latter two don't really matter to me. I don't care about the isight or front row.

I am a student in the digital media field that does web design, photo editing, lots of audio mixing and editing. And just a bit of video things like encoding and such. I am not a professional obviously, but it'd be nice to have a better system.

I also want this one to last a while. By a while, I am meaning 3-4 years. That probably has a big influence on what I get. I can't go around making $2000 purchases every year!

Thanks for the help and I understand if this gets not much response, being Christmas and all.

Merry Christmas! God Bless!

[Jason Bourne]

I'd get the DC. You already have the screen, and the imacs just seem too limited from an upgrade standpoint. I thought my 23" apple cinema display was plenty large when I got it and I could never possibly want anything bigger. Now a year later I'm getting the 30" version and using terms like "the little one" when talking about the 23". The difference in price is too small if you really want to keep the machine for that long.

Then again, I've always bought at the high-end so it could be just a personal bias. I just got a G5 quad with 5GB RAM, the 7800GT and a 30" ACD and I mostly use it for websurfing so that may be overkill - but my previous machine was a Sawtooth G4/500 that I kept for ~5 years (with upgrades, 1.4GHz processor, 1GB RAM, new vid card, etc...). So I like getting the top of the line and keeping it for longer periods of time than the average user.