another mac vs pc compare
- Thread starter Esquire
- Start date
Apple should abandon the Power PC architechture causes it is clearly crippling Apples sales. I do think that going x86 is a somewhat good idea. Apples powered by dual Opterons would be probaly just as expensive if not cheaper than current macs. Also wheres this new IBM 64 bit chip? I thought this was going to be the new Mac arch of the future. Its almost like Apple doesnt even want to try to compete. If you could run OS X on a PC setup I would be one of the first to switch.
Stupid MAC hardware is so awful.
I'm all for being able to run OSX or newer on a PC, but their crappy overpriced hardware makes me sick.
I'm all for being able to run OSX or newer on a PC, but their crappy overpriced hardware makes me sick.
CrazyHelloDeli
Platinum Member
- Jun 24, 2001
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How many of you guys have actually used OSX? I have been using it for about six months now, and my impressions have been that its buggy, Dog slow (on the latest IMAC's) , and the driver support is absolutely the worst I have dealt with since windows 98. Everyone here acts as if OSX is the second coming of god, In my opinion it is more on par with with something between windows ME and windows 2000, and nowhere near as good as XP. Sure Iphoto and Ichat is great for computer newbs, but I have yet to understand what makes people her act as if OSX is the greatest thing since sliced bread?
Just my 2 cents, flame on.
Eug
Lifer
- Mar 11, 2000
- 24,050
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I use it on a G4 Titanium 1 GHz with Radeon 9000. The speed is very good.
It is my favourite OS, with XP coming in a distant second.
My Unix geek friends love it too, simply because OS X is Unix with an excellent GUI.
By the way, while Ron Galbraith is a smart photo guy, he's not a computer guy. Remember, he's using an Alienware, which is a joke in the laptop world. No self-respecting photographer would touch that machine with a 10 foot pole. It uses a DESKTOP processor, and requires a forklift to carry it.
The results are hard to dispute though, when even the 1.8 GHz with 512 MB RAM is beating the dual 1.25 with 1 GB in half the tests -- something very affordable like a 2.4 - 2.53 GHz P4 with 1 GB should beat the Mac in most of the rest.Originally posted by: Eug
By the way, while Ron Galbraith is a smart photo guy, he's not a computer guy. Remember, he's using an Alienware, which is a joke in the laptop world. No self-respecting photographer would touch that machine with a 10 foot pole. It uses a DESKTOP processor, and requires a forklift to carry it.And it essentially has no battery life. By the way, the Mac laptop he tested has been discontinued for months.
For the one test the Mac did well at (unsharp mask) anyone know whether it's floating-point-heavy? If so, it would be interesting to see whether an AMD 2100+ - 2400+ would pull ahead of the mac given its better FP performance than P4.
Eug
Lifer
- Mar 11, 2000
- 24,050
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In terms of raw performance, actually, I'm not surprised. It's obvious why Apple is using dual designs now, because of the lack of speed of the current G4 chips. (It should be noted that some other apps make better use of the two processors.) I'd be lying if I said Macs are faster. They overall are slower, and hence I'm not as much of a PowerMac desktop fan (except for the OS).Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
The results are hard to dispute though, when even the 1.8 GHz with 512 MB RAM is beating the dual 1.25 with 1 GB in half the tests -- something very affordable like a 2.4 - 2.53 GHz P4 with 1 GB should beat the Mac in most of the rest.Originally posted by: Eug
By the way, while Ron Galbraith is a smart photo guy, he's not a computer guy. Remember, he's using an Alienware, which is a joke in the laptop world. No self-respecting photographer would touch that machine with a 10 foot pole. It uses a DESKTOP processor, and requires a forklift to carry it.And it essentially has no battery life. By the way, the Mac laptop he tested has been discontinued for months.
For the one test the Mac did well at (unsharp mask) anyone know whether it's floating-point-heavy? If so, it would be interesting to see whether an AMD 2100+ - 2400+ would pull ahead of the mac given its better FP performance than P4.
The notebook market is completely different though. Raw speed is not the only consideration obviously. Not only do you get adequate (but not top end) speed, but you get the OS, and an ultra cool (and ultrausable) lightweight laptop design with Macs.
EDIT:
I've just been playing around with some Unix apps. Interesting. Just installed Xwindows and GIMP. This Mac is opening a whole new world to me.
Why do pc users want OSX?
We already have hundreds of different distributions of linux, freebsd, several variations of unix.
Originally posted by: ViRGE
Because unlike all of those *nix varients, this one comes with a GUI that's worth using.
yep. and support from a big commercial vendor. OSX users can trade in for linux the same day windows XP users trade in for windows 3.1.
btw, this is NO SURPRISE. the horse is long dead and is a bloody pulp. stop beating him
everyone knows macs are slower, and everyone that "gets it" realizes that macs arent about speed.
yawn.
why do you shout the word "Mac"? or is your shift key broken?? seriously curious as to why the hell everyone capitalizes it....
My MAC was really fast, but then I got transferred out of the Gaussian Blur department
-Maximum PC quote
-Maximum PC quote
I agree with Eug and ViRGE. As I myself have stated before in other various Mac threads, Macs aren't about speed at all. They're about elegance and user interface. These are completely different worlds we're talking about here. You think I'd use a Mac as a gaming rig? Heck no. They're too slow, availability of add-on gaming hardware is limited to say the least, and there are simply not enough games ported to Mac. Hence, I use the PC for gaming and my aging 300 MHz G3 tower for work. The reason for that is simple. As an operating system, I like Mac OS better.
My answers to common, mindless anti-Mac statements:
1. They're too expensive. Of course they are. I won't even dispute that. People are quick to point out that Apple has been afraid of competition for years (this is what makes PCs so affordable.....there are literally THOUSANDS of companies that manufacture x86 machines). Remember in the early to mid 90s when Mac-compatible machines started surfacing? That didn't last too long at all. Part of Apple's philosophy has been to maintain a closed architecture, which is why Mac-compatibles don't exist right now. By keeping a closed architecture, hardware compatibility is maximized and software problems are kept to a minimum because the OS is designed by the same company that makes the core hardware. Higher prices unfortunately are a afterproduct of this, which is why Apple's market share is next to nothing compared to the PC. Apple depends a lot on loyal customers for the majority of their business.
2. Apple enthusiasts are snobs. Some are, but not all. Some people just like an elegant machine that's intuitive and requires minimal maintenance; and they don't have to be "newbs" to demand these qualities. Just about every audio and video producer I know won't touch a PC with a 10-foot pole. Why? The quality of sofware in this area makes the Mac a very attractive purchase. Example: Final Cut Pro puts Adobe Premiere to shame. Simple facts.
3. They'd sell a lot more machines if they moved to x86 architecture. No they wouldn't. Do you know how many years even the PC market has been trying to venture off from x86? x86 is an obsolete technology. But it still works for the PC market for a couple of reasons: it's a proven platform that performs reasonably well, and it's easy to keep pumping up the horsepower. All you need is a bigger die and more transistors. There will eventually be a point where you can only tinker an x86 so much before it really starts showing its age. There's nothing wrong with G4 processors. But the only way they're going to be competitive with Athlons and P4s raw speed-wise is if they start growing some cojones and bump up the clock speed a couple of notches. But that might just require them to start using heatsinks and fans on their chips (oh no!!). The FASTEST consumer G4 you can get your hands on right now runs at 1.25 GHz. The PC has recently broken the 3 GHz barrier. This is why every G4 tower comes standard with dual processors now. As pointed out earlier, they're forced to make up for architectural deficiencies somehow. Only recently has DDR memory become an option on a Mac. Getting back to the point though, as much as Apple likes to market their G4 chip as being vastly superior to the P4, many forget why people purchase Macs in the first place. Bleeding-edge performance isn't a major reason. It's the complete package, silly.
My answers to common, mindless anti-Mac statements:
1. They're too expensive. Of course they are. I won't even dispute that. People are quick to point out that Apple has been afraid of competition for years (this is what makes PCs so affordable.....there are literally THOUSANDS of companies that manufacture x86 machines). Remember in the early to mid 90s when Mac-compatible machines started surfacing? That didn't last too long at all. Part of Apple's philosophy has been to maintain a closed architecture, which is why Mac-compatibles don't exist right now. By keeping a closed architecture, hardware compatibility is maximized and software problems are kept to a minimum because the OS is designed by the same company that makes the core hardware. Higher prices unfortunately are a afterproduct of this, which is why Apple's market share is next to nothing compared to the PC. Apple depends a lot on loyal customers for the majority of their business.
2. Apple enthusiasts are snobs. Some are, but not all. Some people just like an elegant machine that's intuitive and requires minimal maintenance; and they don't have to be "newbs" to demand these qualities. Just about every audio and video producer I know won't touch a PC with a 10-foot pole. Why? The quality of sofware in this area makes the Mac a very attractive purchase. Example: Final Cut Pro puts Adobe Premiere to shame. Simple facts.
3. They'd sell a lot more machines if they moved to x86 architecture. No they wouldn't. Do you know how many years even the PC market has been trying to venture off from x86? x86 is an obsolete technology. But it still works for the PC market for a couple of reasons: it's a proven platform that performs reasonably well, and it's easy to keep pumping up the horsepower. All you need is a bigger die and more transistors. There will eventually be a point where you can only tinker an x86 so much before it really starts showing its age. There's nothing wrong with G4 processors. But the only way they're going to be competitive with Athlons and P4s raw speed-wise is if they start growing some cojones and bump up the clock speed a couple of notches. But that might just require them to start using heatsinks and fans on their chips (oh no!!). The FASTEST consumer G4 you can get your hands on right now runs at 1.25 GHz. The PC has recently broken the 3 GHz barrier. This is why every G4 tower comes standard with dual processors now. As pointed out earlier, they're forced to make up for architectural deficiencies somehow. Only recently has DDR memory become an option on a Mac. Getting back to the point though, as much as Apple likes to market their G4 chip as being vastly superior to the P4, many forget why people purchase Macs in the first place. Bleeding-edge performance isn't a major reason. It's the complete package, silly.
The IBM 64 is still a little away before IBM can perfect the architecture, same reason that the IA64 is crappy compare to the IA32 X86.
Going to x86 will spell the death of Apple because of competition, same reason Apple pull its Mac clone licenses a few year back. Mac isn?t the only company that shipping FreeBSD, therefore it will be hard for Mac to keep a proprietor system for the x86 Mac.
Considering the latest Spec and data transaction benchmarks, IA-64 certainly isn't "crap" compared to IA-32 compatible processors.
Also, just because Apple switches to an x86 processor would not mean they would give up their closed form factor. There is far more to OS compatibility than the ISA of the processor. You could still sell your OS only for your machines, but have a much faster processor.
Also, just because Apple switches to an x86 processor would not mean they would give up their closed form factor. There is far more to OS compatibility than the ISA of the processor. You could still sell your OS only for your machines, but have a much faster processor.
Very much true. Look at the original Motorola 68k lineup of the 80s: Mac, Amiga, AtariST, all had the same 68k processor. But none of them ran each other's OS and each computer had its own strong selling point. Sure, there were even emulator's if you got the ROMs of the system in question, but nobody ever bought an Amiga (even though they were far cheaper) just to run a Mac system, for instance.
lol, the FASTEST dual processor mac DESKTOP system got owned by a laptop which costs less...hahahaha
/me puts flame suit on
Macs are over priced for what they do. For suring the net, reading email and for many "Mac" like professions, their beloved Mac is showing up slower than a similarly priced PC. Sure, you can look at Photosop, for the PC and Mac and say the Mac version is simply a port of the PC, therefore its not a native app, but why then does Apple continually show Photoshop benchmarks of Mac smoking PCs?
Macs aren't going anywhere -- they are a devout bunch of people that aren't willing to change, reguardless of the prices of a PC. But there are the level-headed Mac owners that look at the time they spend on their Macs for rending video, Photoshop, etc and look at the potential upgrade of a dual 1.25ghz box and look at the price compared to a faster PC that would cut their render times lower than what the newer Mac would be.
I'm not a Mac hater, I like the Mac, but I'm unwilling to spend the kind of cash on a new or used system that Apple's machine can demand. Some day I will own a Mac, but not until their prices are competitive to a PC.
/me takes flame suit off.
vash
Macs are over priced for what they do. For suring the net, reading email and for many "Mac" like professions, their beloved Mac is showing up slower than a similarly priced PC. Sure, you can look at Photosop, for the PC and Mac and say the Mac version is simply a port of the PC, therefore its not a native app, but why then does Apple continually show Photoshop benchmarks of Mac smoking PCs?
Macs aren't going anywhere -- they are a devout bunch of people that aren't willing to change, reguardless of the prices of a PC. But there are the level-headed Mac owners that look at the time they spend on their Macs for rending video, Photoshop, etc and look at the potential upgrade of a dual 1.25ghz box and look at the price compared to a faster PC that would cut their render times lower than what the newer Mac would be.
I'm not a Mac hater, I like the Mac, but I'm unwilling to spend the kind of cash on a new or used system that Apple's machine can demand. Some day I will own a Mac, but not until their prices are competitive to a PC.
/me takes flame suit off.
vash
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