Multiple PCs for personal use?

[UNCjigga]

Multiple-PC households are nothing new, but I'm wondering how many of you have more than one PC that are for your OWN personal use--i.e. not used by anyone else in your household?

While computers are becoming more and more functional, they are also becoming more and more specialized (home theater, gaming, thin-and-light, tablet etc.)

I'm asking this because currently I have 2 computers (desktop and laptop) and a palm pda, but if I had my way I'd have a few more. I started thinking about how many computers I'd like to have ideally, and here's a basic list:

- media center PC with MCE 2005, wireless keyboard & mouse, remote, PVR tuner w/cablecard etc.
- tablet PC with windows tablet edition and OneNote...under 4 lbs, low-voltage, long battery life
- MacBook Pro 15" with Core Duo running OS X and Windows XP Pro dual-boot
- general-purpose dualcore SLI/Crossfire-capable PC for productivity, media encoding/transcoding, gaming etc.
- perhaps one more 'cheap' desktop for general server duties (or maybe just network storage device?)

Of the above, the MacBook Pro is most likely as the eventual replacement for my aging Dell 600m. I'll probably end up doing most 'real' work on it too. The media center PC is something I'll only get if cablecard tuner cards work as advertised. My budget for such a system would stay under $1000 though. I probably won't upgrade my desktop until well after Conroe and Vista launches, and I don't do much gaming now, but when I do upgrade I bet everything will come with dual graphics support. The tablet is really wishful thinking, but ideally I'd have one general purpose laptop and one "go anywhere" device that has pen input for quick note-taking.

But is this going overboard? Should you be able to get everything you need in a laptop and desktop (or with Dell XPS, is a laptop all you need??)

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I have my machine, my wife has her machine, and we share the three computers in the garage (2 cores each person). And if you look at my machine, I honestly believe there is no such thing as going overboard, so long as the machines aren't just sitting there. If they fulfill a purpose, then have fun.

EDIT: Forgot the laptop I have just for coding...

Me:
dual Xeon 2.66 (main rig)
P2-266 laptop (for coding)
dual P3 500 (crack-rack)

Wife:
Opty 148 (main rig)
P3-500 (crack-rack)
P3-555 (crack-rack)

 

[Twsmit]

- A64 desktop rig for daily use
- P3 Laptop 1.2ghz for bringing to class and working on the go, use it almost daily for a few hours
- Series 2 Tivo

Thats about it. I have found however that I have been using more and more online programs and software to try and keep both my systems in sych as much as possible, even going as far as having a firefox plugin that synchs my bookmarks with my personal FTP server. lol

 

[Jeff7]

I had two PCs and a laptop. Then I went back to college. Down to 1 PC and my laptop.

Ordinarily I'd use one PC for regular-use stuff, like Internet and gaming, and the other one was my PVR/video editing system. It'd be busy recording or encoding video, leaving my main PC free for whatever else I had in mind. Now the one remaining PC is stuck doing nearly everything - the laptop is for light duty. The slower mobile technology, the sucktacular ATI IGP 340M onboard video, and the single 5400rpm hard drive (main PC has 4 7200rpm drives in RAID 5) - it just feels so unbelievably sluggish. Oh woe is me.

 

[pkme2]

I run 5 machines.
1. Video rig for editing
2. Graphic workstation
3. Linux FC4
4. Linux Ubuntu
5. Win laptop

Running the 2 Linux machines off 1 monitor. Just finished building 3 new AMD 64s, retiring old P4 workstation.

 

[Ctrackstar126]

I have right now Gaming machine and laptop.
Soon HTPC and a server.
then a dedicated linux box
mac mini or imac
perhaps another HTPC
and other computers for the mother or whoever else likes to mess up computers

 

[stevty2889]

5 machines here as well. My X2 and Dothan side by side, play games on one(or sometimes both at the same time) while using the other for web browsing etc. one in my bedroom for recording TV shows. The other 2 run folding@home and also use them for video encoding/dvd burning occasionly if I have multiple projects.

 

[Bobthelost]

3:
Laptop for mobile use (work only)
AMD 2500+ desktop for internet, tv/DVD and work
Gaming system for gaming and numbercrunching apps.

 

[jonesthewine]

Three that I use exclusively;

inspiron 9300 - lappy for work and travel
A64 3000+ rig - in my home office, gaming - music - DVDs
Axim x50v - pocket pc for all occasions

Two more in the house;

a couple of AXP 2500+ Barton rigs, one for the kids and one for the wife.

 

[HannibalX]

Hahah too many. There are six desktops in my house right now and five notebooks!

Not to mention my tower of power. Here is a pick of my tower of power!

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: Trinitron
Hahah too many. There are six desktops in my house right now and five notebooks!

Not to mention my tower of power. Here is a pick of my tower of power!

LOL. Is your 'Tower of Power' for DC crunching???

My crack rack, "Chocobo Farm"

My machine / server, "Fullmetal Chocobo". And the specs for Fullmetal Chocobo.

 

[F1shF4t]

I have 3 comps currently, see sig, the single core i use mostly for net and msn and occasional gaming, my dually is my main rig, use that for video editing, TV and gaming as well as anything else i need it. So i share the 2 comps usage when i need it, sometimes to do completely separate tasks (both are controlled by kvm switch)

My third i got recently from spair parts and cheap stuff, well i havent found a purpose for it yet but eventially it wil be come a media/server pc.

 

[HannibalX]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo

Originally posted by: Trinitron
Hahah too many. There are six desktops in my house right now and five notebooks!

Not to mention my tower of power. Here is a pick of my tower of power!

LOL. Is your 'Tower of Power' for DC crunching???

My crack rack, "Chocobo Farm"

My machine / server, "Fullmetal Chocobo". And the specs for Fullmetal Chocobo.

It was for a while but I got tired of it. All four are clustered at the moment and sometimes run game server.

 

[HannibalX]

I tried selling one of them too but no one wanted one.

 

[Trey22]

Wife has an older P4 desktop, I use my work laptop. We're selling her desktop, getting her a sub-$1000 laptop.

What I'd really like is a nice non-work laptop, a gaming rig, and a video encoding box... just don't have the room for all of them.

Oh, and I have a Treo650 which is my MP3/video playback unit for on the go. Currently carrying around Star wars I, II, III, an Eagles concert, some Firefly & Arrested Development episodes, and Spiderman2 (re-encoding now) on a 2GB SD card.