I have fried the northbridge chip on my motherboard. I can only find a dell 4600 motherboard on ebay, for too high of a price. I don't see any point in getting a new CPU, Motherboard, and case, since then my computer would not be that much better. I am considering getting a new iMac, because I need desk space, and it seems like a pretty good deal. OSX 10.4 seems alot better then Windoze, especially since it is based off of Unix. An iMac with Raedon x1600 GPU is only $1200. If I did get an iMac, the only thing I could upgrade is the ram. Is it worth getting an iMac, or should I just build my own computer (I wanted to build a computer for $900 using my old DVD burner, power supply, and video capture card.. My dad thinks that is too much money). Or, I will see if I can build a computer equal to the iMac for cheaper. Feel free to give me your opinion(s). Thanks.

What is the box supposed to do?
"Better" should always be replaced with "better for ..."

Vain

Well, as long as you don't buy it as a "gaming rig"...

Just like the iPhone... advertised as amazingly superior stuff, but just average and neither new nor revolutionary (and with a girlish design).
But some people pay twice the money just because they think its "ALL NEW, OMG TEH REVOLUTIONARYNESS!!!!!11"

One of my mates got a notebook from his uni, a crappy Dell. So he put an Apple logo sticker onto it, and all of a sudden everyone thought it was a super high end multimadia experience platform

Quote from AndroidXP :

Well, as long as you don't buy it as a "gaming rig"...

Why not? It'll still run Windows.

but it won't be that quick

Quote from Jakg :

but it won't be that quick

it would be perfectly capable of playing LFS at a decent rate of pace though, especially with a c2d aswell. a x1600 is a pretty nifty piece of hardware, its very fast as long as you dont expect 1900x1200 with 300xaa.

This seems cheap:

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16819115013, can OC to 2Ghz with stock heatsink even (maybe?)

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16813186103

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16814142085

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16811148030

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16820145566

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16822144701

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16832116169

I could also use the existing DVD +/- RW DL burner from my old computer, and the video capture card. This is faster then a iMac, and alot less. I want to be able to run LFS at 1280x1024 with 16xAF and 6xAA.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

http://www.newegg.com/product/ ... .asp?item=N82E16819115013, can OC to 2Ghz with stock heatsink even (maybe?)

do you know how an iMac's mobo works? or how much airflow it's got?

one of them could go to 3 GHz on a stock heatsink, but not if the mobo won't let you overclock

Imac is plenty good.




Though any computer costing around 1500-2000 euros is plenty good.

If you were destined to get a mac you wouldn't be asking this question. So my answr is no.

Quote from Jakg :

do you know how an iMac's mobo works? or how much airflow it's got?

one of them could go to 3 GHz on a stock heatsink, but not if the mobo won't let you overclock

I dont understand your post. Do you mean that CPU I linked to can go to 3 GHz? Or that the iMac can be overclocked that high? Because on some article I read they did get That specific CPU to 2.9Ghz.

EDIT: From what I've read, the E6300 is a better CPU at the same clock speed as the E4300.

the CPU (taking a base E6300 here) will get to 3 GHz on the stock cooler with a decent mobo easy BUT i certainly don't think that the iMac's mobo let's you overclock, or that there is much airflow in the case to facilitate this.

lol @ overclock imac

I made a newegg wishlist: http://secure.newegg.com/NewVe ... mp;WishListNumber=5424927

I would like to build a computer for under $700, I don't want to spend too much money. The only games I really plan to play is LFS, Wolfenstein:ET, and maybe War Rock, with decent FPS. Does AMD have any processors with the same performance as the E6300, but for less? I read some articles on overclocking Macs, and its possible, but it just requires soldering some resistors in.

BTW, It turns out I didnt fry my Northbridge. I got a different heatsink for it, and I didnt allow the heatsink compound to dry long enough! It's been running stable for the past 15+min, it used to BSOD after 5min.

Core 2 Duo E6300 is THE way to go

Why have you put two gfx card's on the list?

If i were you i would wait for the 8600 series, same price, MUCH better performance

Going back to your original question, the iMac is a surprisingly good gaming machine. I do all my gaming on a 17" 2.0 C2D iMac with only 1GB of RAM. I can have everything in LFS turned to max, and it runs GTL and GTR2 great (not that I ever play them).

Quote from Jakg :

Why have you put two gfx card's on the list?

I added one, and forgot to take the other off the list. My computer works now, so I'm going to wait a while until I build one. In 3-6 months, all the parts will be much cheaper!