Originally Posted by Superkid11
How noisy do macs tend to be? My HP Media Center is pretty quiet, much quieter than the pc I had before it. I want to make sure I don't have something that makes me turn up my TV volume.  |
Very, very, very, very,
very quiet. Perhaps unreasonably so.
For example, my MacBook Pro came from the factory with the fans set not to go above 2000 RPM (the lowest possible setting) unless the temperature inside the machine got extremely high. After a week or two, I was almost unable to use the machine because of how hot it was getting. I thought something was wrong with it, until I found that Apple had just capped the fans so that the machine would just be super-silent. I've downloaded a program that allows me to set my own presets for fan power, and I now have it running at 6000 RPM (the max) when plugged in, and 4500 RPM while on battery power (to save some battery power).
(For the record, this did NOT put the machine in any kind of danger. It was just uncomfortable to have on my lap for long periods, and this will not affect you at all on an iMac.)
Originally Posted by Superkid11
I think I heard you can burn an XP installation disk from an XP computer. That would really come in handy, because I don't want to spend money on a whole XP disk just for Parallels. Is it true, if so how can I do it?
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Sorry, this is untrue. You need an existing XP CD, or you'll need to download one from Demonoid or some other place online. Just head for any BitTorrent site and look for a Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (SP2) CD -- make sure it is a
Corporate or
Volume License CD so that it will not require activation.
Originally Posted by Superkid11
I think I'll be more specific as far as speed goes. My current computer has an 820 Intel Pentium D processor t(I think that mark is a t). I'm leaning towards the iMac, is it as fast as that? The Mac Pro is way too expensive(so far as I know. My parents might astonish me and actually consider it), not even my current computer was that much.
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The speed in GHz would be more helpful than the processor model. But having researched it, the Pentium D 820's run at 2.8 GHz.
Therefore, the answer to your question is a complicated one.
Technically, the processors in the iMacs are not as fast as that.
However (and please pay attention here), all Apple computers use Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and Intel has revolutionized the processor industry with the architecture of a Core 2 processor. Because of the way that a Core 2 processor works, the actual clock speed doesn't matter as much in comparison to other processors that technically have higher clock speeds. I have heard that a low-end Core 2 Duo processor can outperform a significantly "faster" processor from another line, such as the Pentium D.
I would not worry about processor speed -- suffice it to say that an iMac with Core 2 Duo will perform very, very well.