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Downspinning

Until 2 weeks ago, I was the proud owner of a Dual 1.8 G5 tower. Not anymore. I decided to rationalise my computing experience, as I’ve realised something:

Relative silence is golden.

Backtracking for a minute: I love the idea of a computer with grunt and room to expand. All my life I’ve lived a World of Warcraft-like existence; slowly grinding my way to upgraded components like RAM, hard disk, graphics card … anything to maximise the performance/experience. But you don’t get something for nothing, and in this cliched equation ‘nothing’ equals increased heat. increased heat means faster fans … and faster fans mean louder fans.

So, back at the equation metaphor:

Something (performance) + nothing (Heat) = Loud.

given that;

Loud + me = computing experience I can no longer handle.

I’m talking about a home computing experience by the way. I have a big, noisy Quad core tower at work, whose fan noise gets lost in the hum of office life.

At home … I want a computer that won’t cook the house. That won’t keep my girlfriend up with the whirring. That I don’t notice when I’m drawing with the oldé Wacom, or watching a DVD.

For those reasons and more*, you’re now looking at the newest member of the 24″ iMac club. Maxed out with 4 gig of RAM (yeah, old habits die hard), I can easily forget the machine is on. It runs apps well, gives me back the space under the desk, and doesn’t compete with Jandakot Airport for ‘world’s loudest take-off’ each night.

So, thanks Apple, for my first quiet Mac … well, ever.

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*H.264 Encoding without an Intel chip is a bloody nightmare. What’s the point of having a video iPod if I can’t watch my DVD collection on it?