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Macs definitely have their prices gouged by Apple. PCs obviously have more competition from all the different vendors (HP, Gateway, Dell, etc.), but Apple is the only one making Macs, so they can jack up the prices. Most people don't even realize the hardware in PCs and Macs is almost entirely identical, save for the casing, so it's really an arbitrary price increase by Apple. Anyway, tl;dr, you definitely get a lot more for your money from a PC, as you seem to have been told by others. Not sure why that other guy said "perhaps"; if you compare identical hardware builds of a Mac and a PC the Mac will pretty much invariably be hundreds of dollars more.

The only thing that you would want a Mac for [IMO] is because you really love the OS or you want to use the exclusive programs - that's all the extra few hundred bucks will be going to (and customer service, I suppose, but I don't think Apple's customer service is anything out of the ordinary). Getting one for the programs is kind of silly, I think, considering the multitude of fantastic programs available for Windows. Logic, for example, is great, but Ableton and Pro Tools are just as great.

Oh, and there's the whole no viruses thing, but as long as you're not a dingus you should be fine with a PC.

Obviously I'm a bit biased, but I think my reasoning is still sound. I would buy a Mac for someone like my grandma or a technologically illiterate friend, but other than that they're hard to recommend.

Ubuntu is kickass as well, as the above poster said. And you aren't gaming, so you wouldn't miss out on that. You might want to consider downloading Ubuntu alongside Windows on your current PC to see how you like it. It's extremely easy to do: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...dows-installer

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Originally Posted by drewinseries

I got a Mac laptop for school and I have loved it. I want to get a desktop and was looking at the iMac. While not the reason, I definitely wanted to try some gaming on it for Skyrim and Battlefield. Through research I was brought to pretty much everything but a Mac for a powerful system, and now I will probably be building my own PC. I love iOS and the look and feel of a Mac, but their prices are outrages, and it seems that if you keep up with upgrading, you system should run and will still probably have saved money. I will miss iOS, but at least I still have my laptop for that.

make it a hackintosh, braski. dual boot

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Originally Posted by drewinseries

I came across that online, I would love that, but maybe its my novice on the subject, but I read that was highly illegal.

i'm no expert myself; i've only done it once. but from my understanding the only illegal thing about (assuming you buy the OS for like 40 bucks and don't pirate it) has to do with a part of the agreement that says something about only installing the OS on apple products. i'm not sure if this is accurate now or has ever been truly legit, but i remember reading that, because of the way they stated that part of the agreement, you could technically just slap an apple logo sticker onto your computer and you wouldn't be contradicting anything.

in any case, i don't think anyone's ever been sued for making a hackintosh. it's pretty commonplace. actually getting one to work is a long process though; you have to enjoy working with computers as a hobby or there's no way you'll have the dedication to get it working.

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^name should be ominous omnibus