So my mind has been stuck in a I.T. kind of world for the last couple of months or so, which is really sad considering what I do for a living (I work in I.T. for those of you coming in off the Google random link boat). I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing so upgrades at home to the old infrastructure, the last time I really overhauled the the desktop/laptop setup was 2007 which resulted in one shiny Santa Rosa MacBookPro and a hastily built Core2Duo desktop. Both computers have served me well for the last couple of years. As always though at about the three years mark I start to bump up to the upper limits of their capabilities… And when I say bump into the upper limits of their capabilities I’m really talking about games. I know shocker…
Ok so lets talk about the gaming situation first. I have a Xbox which may or may not red ring of death on me at any given time (for the sake of argument lets assume that my xbox is stable) In the grand pantheon of my gaming I tend to go with first person type games (Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Half Life, Battlefield, etc) on the PC I will play them on the xbox but if given the choice 9 times out of 10 I will buy them on the PC (the one time being Call of Duty:Modern Warfare2 and I gotta admit I kind of regret that decision). I always play real time strategy games on the PC (Sins of a solar empire) (I have others but I barely play them so they don’t count). So what games to I tend to play on xbox, more of the long form RPG games and platformer type games. Games that could do well on a PC but I choose to play them on my xbox because if I didn’t I would use my for 2 hours a week on Friday nights (outside of football season) for sci-fi and lets be honest all of those shows are on the internet anyway.
OK with the game front my desktop has a solid year left in it (it’s never to early to start thinking about the next major overhaul) so lets focus on the laptop side of the house. I use as Mac as my primary laptop and I have been beyond pleased with it, I consider the Mac my primary computer for all things that involve web publishing (this blog), photos, music etc…. you know all of the stereotypical Mac type things. I do occasionally play games on my Mac but I tend to choose the desktop PC for two reasons. First it’s a desktop so it has a full sized keyboard for my fat sausage like fingers, second at the end of the day it’s a laptop. I will game on a laptop, but lets be honest given the choice almost everyone is going to go with the bigger screen and keyboard every time. I larger issue with my Mac is I’ve taken it as far as I can in terms of memory and storage. Which shouldn’t be a problem, if I weren’t using VMware for some personal projects that clearly come in the category of “because I can”. I could setup vmware on my desktop too, but that’s just not good for a PC primarily used for gaming.
I know I have a rough life.
So really what I’m looking for is the new Mac book pro’s to see what they have for memory and video cards and take it from there. My guess is they won’t have less then 8GB since that’s where the current models are at and start the transition to a laptop centric life (i.e. the current desktop is the last of it’s kind in my life). The eventual plan is to have a non gaming based “server-esque” computer that could be used as a secondary computer if the need arises, but it’s primary function would be to serve as a media server and test system.
Honestly I’m already about 60% of the way there already… what do you think about the name “Starkiller” for the next mac book? (just for some reference, here is the inspiration for the current mac book pro’s name “Aluminum Falcon“)