I just found out that I've been allocated some funds to replace my desktop machine at work. ($2000, to be spent pretty much any way I want, including supplementing it with money from my own budget.) Right now, I've got a recent Core 2 Duo Mac mini, which would be nice to upgrade, but there isn't any particular urgency.

My ideal work machine would probably be the current iMac but with a 30" screen. I rarely slam the CPU, but more screen real-estate would be a feature. The monitor I'm using now (an ancient 23" Apple Cinema HD) is still working, for the most part, but it occasionally glitches. It's ready to be replaced.

Certainly, if I wanted to get a 24" iMac, my work budget pretty much covers it. I can get up to 4GB of RAM and a 2.8 or 3.0GHz Core 2 Duo, which is plenty for my immediate needs, modulo the annoyance that I can't just swap out the computer and keep the monitor. But, if I really want a 30" display, I've got to either get a Mac Pro tower or a MacBook. (*sigh*)

With discount, I can get a stripped Mac Pro tower (2GB of RAM, minimum disk, 2.8 GHz Core Xeon (quad), etc.) for $2149. For contrast, Dell will sell me a loaded "Studio XPS" (Core i7 (2.9GHz, also quad), 12GB of RAM, 750GB disk, and a beefier graphics card) for essentially the same price ($2139). If I strip the Dell down to be more comparable to the stripped Mac Pro tower, it costs $1119 -- half the price, faster CPU, and still with more memory and disk! I'd always thought that, with the Intel transition, Apple's prices were no longer insane. That's clearly not true here and it's quite frustrating.

Buying from what's available today, from Apple, is unattractive. Thus, option #1 is to wait for His Steveness (or His minions) to announce some new hardware. Option #2 is to go the Hackintosh route. Of course, the Hackintosh people like to proclaim that a Hackintosh is not a way to get a cheaper Mac. It's a hobby that will consume your time and so forth.

Ultimately, the question is whether it's worth the investment of my time to deal with running non-Apple hardware. At potentially every software upgrade point, you've got the risk that OS X will fail to run and you'll have to deal with it. And, unless you've got a popular Hackintosh platform, like say the MSI netbook, you don't necessarily have anybody else out there with the same exact configuration as you.

Grumble.

Any thoughts on how I should proceed?