WestEastMountGuy Posted May 24, 2009 Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 This should do the trick: Sager NP9280 17" WUXGA 1920 X 1200 Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M 1GB DDR3 Video Memory Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Quad 3.20GHz 6GB (6144MB) DDR3 Triple Channel Memory 320GB 7200RPM SATA II & 2nd 320GB 7200 RPM (yes, that's two hard drives) Raid Config 0 Vista Ultimate 64bit 1 HDMI output Port 1 DVI output Port (no HDCP support) 1 eSATA Port (VISTA only) 4 USB 2.0 Ports 4 Audio Jacks 1 RJ-45 LAN (10/100/1000Mbps) 1 RJ-11 Modem 1 IEEE-1394a Fire Wire Built-in 3.0M Digital Video Camera Holy Overkill Batman. They weren't kidding about "Desktop Replacement". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted May 24, 2009 Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 Holy Overkill Batman. They weren't kidding about "Desktop Replacement". bloody thing costs about 4 Grand. Now that is one use for your LOC I suppose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 From what I understand, macs use little isolated packets of memory for each program running, while a PC just doles out parts of the same memory. I'm sure I've screwed that up royally, but the end result is that PCs freeze completely if one program crashes (at least mine certainly does! ctrl-alt-delete my ass, never works), but you can force quit a crashed program on your mac and the rest of your computer continues to work perfectly. I don't know much about the Vista filing system (NTFS?), but I don't understand what you mean here. Bringing up the Task Manager allows me to see every application and proces using system resources, and I can terminate any of them by clicking the "End Process" or "End Task" button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whale.of.a.time Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 Mine too, theoretically. But doesn't the total freeze ever happen to you? i.e. You have a bunch of big programs open (matlab running, photoshop, Cool Edit Pro, etc.) and the whole damn thing just freezes completely??? I can't open the task manager when that happens. Ctrl-alt-delete doesn't do anything either, the whole friggin' thing is frozen. The only thing to do is restart the computer by holding the power button down. And it's not just this particular computer. Every PC I've ever owned, this has happened on. Also, the blue screen of death, though not with Windows XP. I don't know much about the Vista filing system (NTFS?), but I don't understand what you mean here. Bringing up the Task Manager allows me to see every application and proces using system resources, and I can terminate any of them by clicking the "End Process" or "End Task" button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WestEastMountGuy Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 It's a memory allocation thing. To the best of my understanding, Mac sets aside blocks of memory for each program (I think its referred to as "protected"), while most other Operating Systems assign memory on a first come first serve basis. I still remember being yelled at in middle school for crashing my school PC by running "too many programs". I was running 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skvangs Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 My opinion, buy a mac. Whatever you do buy, make sure it has skell check... jks. Hey, I'm thinking of replacing my PC for next september as I will be going into first year of med...Currently, I have a toshiba laptop which I bought 3 years ago....I don't really like it because it gave me a lot of problems...for instance, the screen had a lot of issues with it (the screen was only visible at certain angles and at other angles, it would completely dissapear). At one point, the powercord stopped working so that had to be replaced. Another time, the adaptor broke down so I had to buy a new one, and I think I've had viruses/ spyware infections a couple of times as well...at this point, the screen is fine (i got it fixed) but I have to continuously keep the laptop plugged in for it to work (the battery does not charge anymore) yeah....so not happy with my computer right now :S....anyway, I'm not that great with technology so I'm looking for a laptop which is easy to use, light (as I do a lot of traveling), and will allow me to avoid all the hassel that I had to go through with the toshiba....my brother suggested a mac but I just want your input...and if i do go with the mac...which model would you guys suggest? Again...I really don't know that much about computers so if you guys just keep that in mind while making suggestions...that would be awesome! Thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 Mine too, theoretically. But doesn't the total freeze ever happen to you? i.e. You have a bunch of big programs open (matlab running, photoshop, Cool Edit Pro, etc.) and the whole damn thing just freezes completely??? I can't open the task manager when that happens. Ctrl-alt-delete doesn't do anything either, the whole friggin' thing is frozen. The only thing to do is restart the computer by holding the power button down. And it's not just this particular computer. Every PC I've ever owned, this has happened on. Also, the blue screen of death, though not with Windows XP. I'm quite sure that even a Mac would lockup while running those three simultaneously, short of some kind of parallel setup. Matlab especially gobbles memory *and* CPU resources. I haven't a total freeze in a long, long time, though, despite running multi-hour routines back in the summer. On the other hand, I can have six browser windows, Word, Mail, stuff in the system tray, background processes, Excel, Acrobat, and more all running at once without any problems. Your problem is that you're attempting to run several computationally intensive applications all at once. You might try not doing that or otherwise turning off background processes/system tray stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrendanJ Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 I support mac. I like pretty things, I like things that work well, and I don't care how they work in most cases. It's like a really reliable blood biomarker. If it works I don't care why, it just helps diagnose. Medical scientists exist to figure out why, just like computer scientists exist to make me a computer that works good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WestEastMountGuy Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 I'm quite sure that even a Mac would lockup while running those three simultaneously, short of some kind of parallel setup. Once again, Macs allocate memory more efficiently and information for each program is grouped rather than allocated first come first serve, so its not as much of a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeman101 Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 The newest Mac OS hasn't been the most stable imo. From the Macs in our lab (which has ~30 Macs) there has been one machine randomly crash every month. And they just don't seem as generally stable as the older OS's that I used to use. Meanwhile Vista is definitely more stable than XP and provided the hardware is there it easily keeps up / outpaces the new macs. I'd go PC. IBM notebooks are the most reliable with the best support. IMO HP comes in second for price / reliability / support (their support is REALLY good), provided you aren't a computer murderer and you know how to take care of it. Macs are like benzes; overpriced, not the greatest hardware, expensive as hell to repair, and mostly for posers that ride the brand cachet . And the viruses / bugs comment is stupid. Macs have viruses and bugs too. And they're becoming more common, so if you are naive enough to run without antivirus/firewall you're just asking for it. Finally, to the one random person that tried to tout Linux. Its just a ghetto operating system thats been clumsily fiddled with by way too many people. Its like a tuned-up really fast Honda Civic. On an objective level its the best, but really I'd rather go with something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whale.of.a.time Posted May 26, 2009 Report Share Posted May 26, 2009 Oh computers...! I guess the lesson here is the ol' different strokes for different folks thing. Whatever works for you is what you should buy! The endless Mac-PC debate, always goes round and round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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