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Your Next Desktop Purchase
When the only thing that can get the job done is a desktop the size of a Ferrari.
When the processing power of a laptop just isn’t getting the job done, there truly is no substitute for a powerhouse desktop computer. RAM, hard drive space, processors, video cards, and ports can be maxed out, overclocked, and customized to dizzying performance heights. For enthusiasts looking for the biggest, baddest, and fastest silicon money can buy, buying or building a custom desktop is the way to go.
Start gazing into the seamy underbelly of PC building and you’ll find a fervent community of speed chasing maniacs. For these folks, building a computer is not unlike building a race car. Picking up components from a variety of manufacturers, trading secrets about build, price, vendors. Customizing settings, water cooling processors, and generally pushing every limit the hardware will allow without catching fire to get clockspeeds up spiking power through the roof. A lot of these people are gamers chasing high frame rates in their favorite titles, but custom PCs also extend to the world of video editing, motion graphics and 3D rendering.
The first choice of course is between Mac or PC. The easier, albeit much more expensive route is to go with a Mac Pro. Mac Pros are powerhouse machines and allow a fair amount of customization. You can get them with up to 12 processor cores (2 6 core processors working in unison), outfit them with solid state drives, and load them with more RAM sticks than Steve Jobs can count. The problem is of course, the price starts to skyrocket very quickly. If you’re looking to REALLY bump up the specs on a Mac Pro, you can get up to 10K very easily. If you’re a private buyer, that’s usually pretty out of the question.
I do, however, know that there is a large contingent of people who will buy a Mac Pro without maxed out hardware, then buy parts after market from 3rd parties and customize their spec accordingly. There’s a lot of support online in this matter, so if you plan on going this route, you aren’t alone and probably will find somebody who can answer the questions that you’ll have. It will take some tinkering, there will be some headaches, but if you don’t mind taking on a project this is a good way to stay Mac while keeping the price down.
If you want to build a Windows machine, well, your life just got easier. Not only are there countless boutique PC dealers who will customize a machine to your liking soliciting their services online, but there’s also a ton of vendors who sell PC components separately for discount prices. Sites like newegg.com for instance. The biggest problem you’ll have will be deciding between your options.
The cheapest option is building your own machine, but that requires a fair amount of technical knowledge. It’s true that setting up a Windows PC is now easier than it has ever been before, but it’s still a good challenge, and if you don’t know what you’re doing you could fry your expensive hardware or at the very least get lackluster performance in applications. Assuming you know what you’re doing, you can save a mint by building yourself. Consider the fact that Best Buy will charge you 45 bucks to install RAM in your PC, while anybody who can work a Phillips head screwdriver can get in there and swap out the DIMMs in under 5 minutes. Yes, they’re crooks, NO, I DON’T WANT YOUR STUPID EXTENDED WARRANTY BEST BUY...ahem.
If you don’t have the technical gusto or perhaps you just want to err on the side of caution and put your PC in the hands of an experienced builder, there are lots of ways to do that as well. Companies like Dell and HP immediately spring to mind, but you can also find boutique PC builders who can customize your PC to a razor point and squeeze out a ridiculous amount of performance for your dollar. A few of those builders I would recommend are Origin PC, Falcon Northwest, and Cyberpower. You can also get a super-high-end system from builders like Silverado Systems and Boxx Technology, but these are really high cost systems for special tasks like 3D rendering and video editing. At first glance I know that some of these sites look like they strictly cater to the gaming crowd, but truth be told, the gaming crowd is only after high-performance hardware. It’s safe to buy one of these machines even if you never intend to play games on it, just stay away from overclocking and water cooling and other things aimed more directly at the gaming audience. Overclocking your hardware can yield better performance, but you’ll get fewer years out of it.
So those are the basics you’ll need to be mindful of when making your PC desktop purchase. It all comes down to your price point, and your technical knowledge. I’ve always been far and away pro-Mac when it comes to laptops, but for my desktop work machine, I’m admittedly a PC. It’s an open platform, meaning customization, repair, and upgrading are all easier and cheaper than on a Mac Pro. Of course the Cult of Mac will scoff at my advice, but once you start customizing your dream machine on Apple’s site and see the damage it will do to your bank account, you’ll have a hard time arguing the contrary. The “hackintosh” (buying your own components and swapping them into a Mac Pro, concept is a dicey one. And although I know there are users who have experienced little to no problems with that kind of configuration, it’s still a dice roll, and Apple won’t help you out if you transplant 3rd party components into your system and run into hardware issues. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, and best of luck with your buying experience!
Start gazing into the seamy underbelly of PC building and you’ll find a fervent community of speed chasing maniacs. For these folks, building a computer is not unlike building a race car. Picking up components from a variety of manufacturers, trading secrets about build, price, vendors. Customizing settings, water cooling processors, and generally pushing every limit the hardware will allow without catching fire to get clockspeeds up spiking power through the roof. A lot of these people are gamers chasing high frame rates in their favorite titles, but custom PCs also extend to the world of video editing, motion graphics and 3D rendering.
The first choice of course is between Mac or PC. The easier, albeit much more expensive route is to go with a Mac Pro. Mac Pros are powerhouse machines and allow a fair amount of customization. You can get them with up to 12 processor cores (2 6 core processors working in unison), outfit them with solid state drives, and load them with more RAM sticks than Steve Jobs can count. The problem is of course, the price starts to skyrocket very quickly. If you’re looking to REALLY bump up the specs on a Mac Pro, you can get up to 10K very easily. If you’re a private buyer, that’s usually pretty out of the question.
I do, however, know that there is a large contingent of people who will buy a Mac Pro without maxed out hardware, then buy parts after market from 3rd parties and customize their spec accordingly. There’s a lot of support online in this matter, so if you plan on going this route, you aren’t alone and probably will find somebody who can answer the questions that you’ll have. It will take some tinkering, there will be some headaches, but if you don’t mind taking on a project this is a good way to stay Mac while keeping the price down.
If you want to build a Windows machine, well, your life just got easier. Not only are there countless boutique PC dealers who will customize a machine to your liking soliciting their services online, but there’s also a ton of vendors who sell PC components separately for discount prices. Sites like newegg.com for instance. The biggest problem you’ll have will be deciding between your options.
The cheapest option is building your own machine, but that requires a fair amount of technical knowledge. It’s true that setting up a Windows PC is now easier than it has ever been before, but it’s still a good challenge, and if you don’t know what you’re doing you could fry your expensive hardware or at the very least get lackluster performance in applications. Assuming you know what you’re doing, you can save a mint by building yourself. Consider the fact that Best Buy will charge you 45 bucks to install RAM in your PC, while anybody who can work a Phillips head screwdriver can get in there and swap out the DIMMs in under 5 minutes. Yes, they’re crooks, NO, I DON’T WANT YOUR STUPID EXTENDED WARRANTY BEST BUY...ahem.
If you don’t have the technical gusto or perhaps you just want to err on the side of caution and put your PC in the hands of an experienced builder, there are lots of ways to do that as well. Companies like Dell and HP immediately spring to mind, but you can also find boutique PC builders who can customize your PC to a razor point and squeeze out a ridiculous amount of performance for your dollar. A few of those builders I would recommend are Origin PC, Falcon Northwest, and Cyberpower. You can also get a super-high-end system from builders like Silverado Systems and Boxx Technology, but these are really high cost systems for special tasks like 3D rendering and video editing. At first glance I know that some of these sites look like they strictly cater to the gaming crowd, but truth be told, the gaming crowd is only after high-performance hardware. It’s safe to buy one of these machines even if you never intend to play games on it, just stay away from overclocking and water cooling and other things aimed more directly at the gaming audience. Overclocking your hardware can yield better performance, but you’ll get fewer years out of it.
So those are the basics you’ll need to be mindful of when making your PC desktop purchase. It all comes down to your price point, and your technical knowledge. I’ve always been far and away pro-Mac when it comes to laptops, but for my desktop work machine, I’m admittedly a PC. It’s an open platform, meaning customization, repair, and upgrading are all easier and cheaper than on a Mac Pro. Of course the Cult of Mac will scoff at my advice, but once you start customizing your dream machine on Apple’s site and see the damage it will do to your bank account, you’ll have a hard time arguing the contrary. The “hackintosh” (buying your own components and swapping them into a Mac Pro, concept is a dicey one. And although I know there are users who have experienced little to no problems with that kind of configuration, it’s still a dice roll, and Apple won’t help you out if you transplant 3rd party components into your system and run into hardware issues. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, and best of luck with your buying experience!
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