to build or buy?

[jeffnvegas]

the new stuff comes out soon and prices should be coming down. not by choice, but out of neccessity i find myself in the market for 2 computers and have to buy at least the one before July. my son starts college in the fall and i need a laptop for him that can handle anything from going to class to gaming to blue ray etc.
my desktop system is old and needs to be handed down to my daughter as she will be a junior next year and needs a PC of her own so she can stay off of mine.
i was thinking of something like an i7 920 or better, a ASUS motherboard (an X58), an Antec 900 case, a 750 watt power supply, a EVGA GTX 260 video card or better, a WD 30000GLFS 300GB SATA, a 10k rpm data drive, a bluray/dvd-rw drive, and because i have lots of old programs i want to keep, windows XP. is there a better for the money/performance route i should go with. are there some ready builts on sale that would give me most or more of what i want or should i build my own anyway? what should this type of setup BP (ballpark) run? i have a budget of about 1500 for the pc and about the same for the laptop. any brand specific recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

[Khalil]

For the Laptop I highly recommend Asus, look them up at newegg.com, you simply can't get a better laptop with a better warranty than an Asus.

I would not recommend building an X58 machine as your first build, they are a challenge to set up to say the least.
Not sure where you live but are there any local reputable system builders in your town?
Nothing can beat local support and its always best to spend your money local if you are going to buy ready made. For $1500 you can build a very capable PC, that can handle most anything you throw at it.

10k Drives are best suited for workstations and hardcore gaming applications use not data storage, for Data you need a large 7200RPM 32MB cache hard drive. Currently your best bet is a western digital like this one.
ATI is leading the way when it comes to Video cards currently and most here will recommend them to you over Nvidia.


What is your main purpose for using this PC? Are you a hardcore gamer? Do you want to use it for multimedia? Or is it going to be a jack of all trades PC? How much experience do you have in system building? Answering these questions will enable me and others here to guide you better!

[Strider]

Just food for thought but MaximumPC (June 2009 issue) on how to build an Hackintosh computer, it wouldn't be a challenging build but a very capable 1st time build. Could install Windows first play around with the computer for a while, then install OS X when you feel like having an apple computer. Like the article states it's fine for building one for the family or close friends, but I wouldn't build a Hackintosh as a business venture.

[notdeadyet]

Originally Posted by Strider Just food for thought but MaximumPC (June 2009 issue) on how to build an Hackintosh computer,... Could install Windows first play around with the computer for a while, then install OS X when you feel like having an apple computer. Like the article states it's fine for building one for the family or close friends, but I wouldn't build a Hackintosh as a business venture.

Please forgive me if this is a stupid question, but where do you get a copy of OS X to install in such a case? Has Apple started selling the OS separately? If not, don't you have to buy an Intel Mac with install disks in order to get OS X? I would love to run OS X on a homemade machine - it would be the best of both worlds from my perspective.

[tomtoon]

Apple has started selling MAC OS X on its own yes.
If you're in the UK you can get it from Play.com

In US, I dont know...

[glc]

I suppose the real question as relates to this forum is this - is that LEGAL?

[Khalil]

Originally Posted by glc I suppose the real question as relates to this forum is this - is that LEGAL?

It is not illegal per government, however in the EULA it says you cannot build a computer for the sole purpose of installing OS-X on it. If you own a PC that has hardware compatible with OS-X and as long as you have another operting system on it, you can add another hard drive or create a seperate partition on your hard drive for it and Apple cannot legally touch you, it cannot however be the primary OS on your computer
System builders who sell PCs with Apple Operating Systems can be sued and lose everything if Apple Lawyers got a hint of it. Steve Jobs and his lawyers are extermely nasty about this and no matter how small the company is they will go after them.
EDIT:
I would like to add, I found this out about a year ago when a company asked me to build them 19 PCs 100% compatible with OS-X. They did not want to pay the insane money Apple charges for their computers.
I had my attorney look into it. I had to turn them down after finding out how it worked, this is how I know. I do not sell, repair or even want to look or touch an Apple computer. Steve Jobs can have them