Unfortunately, the updated BIOS caused the computer to not turn on correctly. I would press the power switch and the computer would come on for a fraction of a second and then turn off. I waited a bit and then pressed it again to find the computer booting with default BIOS settings, which I had to update (since the CAS and voltage settings were always wrong). That quickly became tiring, so I even tried the latest beta version of the BIOS with the same problem.

When that didn’t work, I decided to order a new motherboard, opting for the one brand I have always trusted for motherboards: ASUS. I went with the Rampage III Formula.

I was rather concerned with how Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7 would handle the motherboard change. The northbridge and southbridge chipsets were the same, but the audio chipset, SATA controllers, etc. were all different. With my important data backed up, I swapped out the motherboards and booted into Ubuntu. It worked! Everything worked just fine (video, audio, drives, USB devices, etc.). I was impressed! Not long ago, this would have been a several-hour adventure in Linux.

Feeling lucky, I booted into Windows 7. The login screen was the wrong resolution, but I logged in successfully to be immediately greeted by a message telling me that the computer needed to restart. I waited a little while and another dialog came up that listed the various drivers necessary for the motherboard with indicators to the side showing they were updating. It took about five minutes, but they all updated, so I restarted the computer and booted back into Windows. It worked!

I’m thoroughly impressed with the ability of both Windows 7 and Ubuntu to automatically recover from such a significant hardware change. It wasn’t long ago that I wouldn’t have even tried booting into each OS; I would have simply reinstalled each OS (possibly after formatting the hard drive).

A few weeks ago, I build a new computer. I hadn’t built a computer for myself since 2004 when I built the one I have replaced with this new one. In that time, I have upgraded the RAM, added another hard drive, and changed from the original 17″ LCD screen to two 19″ screens. Other than that, it remained the same for all these years and served me well as an Ubuntu box. Unfortunately, the need for increased processing power always develops.

When I purchased a Canon 7D in fall of last year, I quickly realized how limited my desktop was in terms of processing power (and the 2.5GB of RAM was a bit underwhelming). My laptop was better in many respects (Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, 1GB video card, etc.), but it didn’t have the screen real estate. Of course I could hook up an external monitor, but that just wasn’t cutting it for me and I started to heavily consider a new computer.

Despite its allure, I eventually decided not to buy a 27″ iMac, largely due to glare issues. That machine had seemed pretty impressive, especially to someone who hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to hardware in recent years. Apple offered no matte option, so I looked at various matte films and other solutions only to decide I wasn’t willing to give them a try. Eventually, I opted to build my own computer.

I couldn’t help but be continually surprised at what I could build for far less than an iMac. I eventually went with a system that is designed for good performance now and expandability in the future. Though it’s not possible to fairly compare a built (all-in-one) computer with an Apple product, I couldn’t help but find myself noting the differences.

The lower-end comparable iMac is $2199 before Washington State sales tax (Apple estimates $2,407.91 after); the higher end is $3849 before taxes. The total cost for my system, including tax and shipping and the Windows 7 disc (though I use Linux 99% of the time, there are those occasional times when I have to deal with Windows for something like Cisco TFTP), was $1750.74.

Some benefits to the iMac: bigger screen; OS X Snow Leopard; video card (I believe this is better than the 240 but with a higher power consumption; politely show me otherwise if that’s not the case); built-in SD card slot, webcam, Bluetooth, and WiFi; all-in-one enclosure.

Some benefits to the built system: more screen real estate; matte screens; more/faster RAM; LGA 1366 chipset; two USB 3.0 ports; two 6GB/s SATA ports; two eSATA ports; BluRay drive; significant expandability.

The biggest and most prominent difference is the two 23″ monitors vs. one 27″ monitor. Personally, I like the two 23″ monitors, but I could have gone with a Dell U2711 27″ monitor instead. It would have increased the cost to $2490.74. Dell also has an excellent replacement policy (a single dead pixel and you get a new one!), so that would have been a good option if the larger screen were important. (BTW, anyone know what Apple’s dead pixel policy is on the 27″ iMac?)

The other big difference is the all-in-one approach. Honestly I think Apple does this for three reasons: it’s aesthetically pleasing, it’s extremely easy for even a computer-illiterate person to set up, and it’s not expandable. That means Apple’s only line of products that is really expandable is the Mac Pro series which is basically 2-3x the cost. If needed, I can throw 24GB of RAM in my computer, swap out the processor with better LGA 1366-based chips, add multiple hard drives or optical drives, add video cards. I even put a Corsair 650W power supply into my system just in case. Sure, you can buy 16GB of RAM for the iMac for ~$750 (or pay twice as much to have Apple do it for you), but you can’t do much about the other issues like single hard drive, single video card, etc. Further, if your screen goes out, your computer is useless. A non-all-in-one (is there a word for that?) can just have the bad monitor swapped out.

Here are the parts I bought:

• GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $209.99
• Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor $288.99
• CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) $339.99
• ASUS ENGT240/DI/1GD3/A GeForce GT 240 1GB 128-bit DDR3 $89.99
• Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EARS 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive $109.99
• LITE-ON Black BD-COMBO SATA Model ihes108-29 – OEM $99.99
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders – OEM $104.99
• CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W Power Supply $99.99
• COOLER MASTER ELITE 335 RC-335-KKN1-GP Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $49.99
• LG W2343T-PF Black 23″ 5ms Widescreen Full HD 1080p LCD Monitor x2 $359.90

It even came with a voucher that I used to get Resident Evil 5 for free. For some people, the iMac might be the right decision, but I’m absolutely pleased with my decision to build my own computer. I hope it continues to be useful for 5.5 years like my last one.

(Note: If you added up the prices listed for my system, you probably see that the numbers are slightly off. The motherboard and processor combo gave a $20 discount. Shipping was $3.45 for 3-day delivery. I also bought a DVI adapter that I included in the price, but I didn’t end up using it and some fresh Arctic Silver 5).

Unfortunately, I found out a few issues that have convinced me to hold off. The biggest issue is that Apple seems to cover their products in a ridiculous gloss coating. It looks great until you realize your monitor is behaving more like a mirror than like a screen. I had that issue with my previous laptop, feeling excited about how amazing the screen looked until I tried using it with a decent amount of natural light. Clearly, many of the expected users are going to be photographers, videographers, graphic designers, and others who need excellent color quality and thus prefer natural light. I see this problem on the 24″ iMac I use at work, and reviews suggest it is even worse on the 27″ version. This reason alone makes me hesitate.

The next big issue is price. You have to expect to pay a premium for an Apple product; they’re in the business of selling hardware. However, you also pay more for the product to be an all-in-one solution (i.e., the hardware components reside in the screen). This is really great and leaves your computer setup very clean, but it’s not one of my reasons for wanting the computer, so I would be paying more for something I don’t care a whole lot about, and that always gets me looking at how ridiculous of a system I could build. Apple needs to make a system between the Mini and the Mac Pro and then let me buy it with a 27″ monitor (or two).

I also dislike the way Apple leaves out some specs on their site. How good is the webcam? What’s the contrast ratio? How fast is the refresh rate? Does it smell like a green apple or a red one? Some questions are clearly more important than others, but the tech specs page ought to give me all the details I want, and it doesn’t.

And why does it not have some of the basic ports that are common on crappy $300 systems? For instance, there’s no external SATA port, so my 1tb external SATA drive that I use for backing up my laptop and desktop becomes a lot less useful (though at least my laptop has an e-SATA port… and an HDMI port for that matter). Every non-Apple computer I’ve seen in the past 5-10 years has had an all-in-one card reader, but Apple’s iMac is just now coming with a single SD card slot. Sure, I can connect an external card reader that costs $10 and can read a billion different types of memory cards, but why should I have to do that on a computer that seems designed for people who will be using various types of memory cards from their electronic equipment?

You can’t even get this with a BluRay drive. I guess Apple’s desire to make you use iTunes is stronger than the logic of including a good optical drive in a computer that would clearly make a good entertainment machine.

And the thing that really gets me is the keyboard. WTF, mate? Seriously, I think they purposely try to hide the full-size shots of it so you don’t realize they took the regular keyboard and chopped off everything to the right of the return key (yes, the home, end, page up, etc. keys are gone). Then they squished the arrow keys into the space where the right control key was. A crappy keyboard for such a nice system… how terrible.

Maybe I’ll get one at some point, but these issues are definitely significant enough to keep me from buying one now. I can build an incredibly nice system for the cost of the iMac….