State of the Art

So I have been debating for a while now whether I should buy a Mac or not. I see a TON of developers starting to move to that platform and to be honest, I really like how things really just work on a Mac. The problem is that I run triple head, which means that I have three monitors connected to my PC. I really enjoy having three monitors and I feel that the extra cost is actually warranted in terms of my productivity. It's not that there is a tangible gain in lines of code produced, it's just that I am less annoyed or distracted while I work. Since I put in about 55 hours every week minimum, being less annoyed helps me stay more motivated.

The problem with Mac, is that they are crazy expensive. Not like a few hundred or even a thousand dollars, like three times as expensive. Here's the specs on the box I just built:

CPU: Intel E8500 Core 2 Duo @ 3.16 GHz ($200, Great processor, overclocks like a dream)
RAM: Patriot Sli-ready 4GB low-latency DDR2 ($100, Works, what more can you say about RAM?)
HDD: Western Digital VelociRaptor 150GB 10k RPM ($300, but totally worth it)
Video: 2 x BFG GeForce 9800GT 512MB wired for SLi ($360, I wanted EVGA but these seem great)
Motherboard: Asus P5N-T Deluxe ($200, decent board overclocks well)
Case: Antec 900 Series ($100, love it although cable management is kinda wack)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 ($140, totally quiet)

I also bought a copy of Windows XP, because I am an adult now and don't have time to bother cracking that crap. Besides, it doesn't take long at my current rate to mean that not spending the $160 on windows woudl end up actually costing me more in time. The system kicks ass! In SLi with a mere 10% overclock (They got a similar system to 40% overclock on tomshardware.com) I got a 3DMark06 score of 21,306. Well above the average score of 11,000. All for the low-low price of $1560. I know, you could get it a lot cheaper off of NewEgg.com, but they don't ship to Canada. Jerks.

Now, try to get something even remotely similar in a Mac. Even used from Craigslist if you want. I hope you have like 6Gs because you can't buy a Mac etch-a-sketch for less than $3,000. So, long story short I didn't want to throw away money to Apple but I wanted to have a damned shell again. I installed Ubuntu to dual boot with windows and haven't been happier. I can drop back to Windoze to play my First Person Shooters and reboot into Linux for work. By sharing folders for things like Thunderbird, I can keep everything in sync without much hassle. Oh, and you don't mind rebooting when it only takes 46 seconds for windows to go from off and dead cold to fully loaded and ready to play. Did I mention I love my VelociRaptor? I really, really do.