Really naive questions regarding Macs.

[Nebben]

I know very little about Apple/Macintosh systems. I've briefly used them, mostly during high school, and from what I can gather the reasons they are used are 1) Graphics/Video editing 2) the OS is really stable.

Now, my question... what's the difference between PC and Apple hardware? Why isn't it possible to run MacOS on a PC? (Or if it is, why have I never heard of this being done?)

It seems to me that for an inexperienced user, a Mac would be far more user friendly for your basic Internet/Email functions. But the price tag of Macs seems quite steep...

I really haven't ever cared much about Apple's stuff, but I was wondering about it just now. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Also, am I wrong, or does it seem that Mac hardware performs significantly better than comparable PC components of equivalent speeds? I remember reading something a LONG time ago about how lower clock speeds in Macs can compete with higher ones in your average PC.


If any of the above is completely moronic, please let me know. I won't be offended

I admittedly know almost nothing about Macs. I haven't actually touched one since around the time that the first iMacs were released.

My brother is into video editing and he's thinking of selling his PC / buying a G4 or G5 and I'm just a little curious about all of this business...

 

[imported_Kensai]

Good question.

 

[shoRunner]

a quick google found this. more or less mac hardware is all made or individually approved of by apple so OSX will only support the approved hardware. IIRC macs use IBM processors that are designed similar to AMD in that more IPC, less clockspeed. because the only manufacturer for mac hardware is apple they get to charge what they want so prices are generally higher than similar performing PC conterparts.

 

[bob4432]

for easy web/email duty use mepis linux or mandrake on cheap pc hardware. if you all you are doing is webmai, then with mepis it can run directly from the cd, which is kind of slow compared to a hdd, but still nice. also, look at the amd cpus, the a64 3000 is only 1.8GHz or around their and still outperforms most intel cpus at the same speed or even higher depending on what you are using it for.

macs are "so stable" because Apple controls everything form hardware to software, total control makes it easy for stability, but the lack of competition has the price way up.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Regarding your brother selling his PC for a G4 or G5, if his PC is fast enough, then I don't think he should sell it. IMO, PC's are way ahead of Mac's. PC's are using better technologies. Apple isn't even using PCI-E (still on AGP) and the G5's are still on DDR 400. Intel and AMD are already using Dual Core processors. Apple isn't. I dont know much about PC's, but I know a lot of people may agree with me on that. The G5 isn't very expandable when it comes to adding extra hard drives. I believe only 1 or 2 hard drives are able to fit. If you wanted to add extra HD's, it required some sort of bracket(s). I wouldn't recommend a G4 because those are even slower than the G5's. My main computer is a Powermac G4 400mhz. If I wanted to get a new computer, it would be a G5. Reason is, I am pretty much a Mac user, not a Mac fanboy though.

Yes, Mac's are expensive, but it really doesn't matter to me. I guess I am one of those guys willing to spend lots of money for a G5 and the 23'' plus extra RAM, better video card, etc. I have the money, but my 400mhz Powermac is perfect for what I do, so spending $3500 for a new G5 isn't necessary at the moment.

 

[bjc112]

Regarding your brother selling his PC for a G4 or G5, if his PC is fast enough, then I don't think he should sell it. IMO, PC's are way ahead of Mac's. PC's are using better technologies. Apple isn't even using PCI-E (still on AGP) and the G5's are still on DDR 400. Intel and AMD are already using Dual Core processors

While I definitely like the PC side.. And have a Mac mini..

Basing the claims off DDR 400 and PCI-E is next to nothing..

YOu gain little or no performance in PCI-E cards, DDR 400 is still the standard for ALL a64's and P4's... (unless 1066FSB or DDR2 )

Dual Core is coming, and they are ahead on that.. But the rest means nothing./

 

[bob4432]

although pci-e is making for cheaper video cards, i don't think we fully utilize the bandwidth of agp 8x but i am a pc guy, i like choices

 

[hopejr]

Macs are good for development these days. That's what I use mine for.
To the OP: The macs you would've used at school were probably using OS 9 or earlier which was really crap and unstable imho. OS X is really stable and I really like it. I'm not saying that Windows isn't stable though (disclaimer ). I recently switched and have never regretted it. I know of a couple of people who've switched and regretted it, but the majority I know are very happy with their Macs. I don't think Macs are too expensive for that they come with - style and a nice stable architecture/OS combination, as well as some nice bundled software. Contrary to common belief, Mac software is cheaper than it's Windows counter parts. The hardware itself is getting cheaper with better features. I priced a similar PC to the iMac G5 Rev. B, and found the PC to be more expensive (not exactly the same, but it was a fair comparison).
I must say though that Macs are not for everyone. Neither are Wintel boxes for that matter.

 

[DanDaMan315]

Originally posted by: hopejr
style

Desktop Ornament?

 

[theprodigalrebel]

I think the reasons the G5 has been so highly acclaimed for video editing and overall system stability is because I've never read a review that WASN'T dual-processor! Obviously, a dual-processor G5 would be great, as recent previews for the Athlon64 X2 and Intel 840D have shown (although its LOOONG been possible to run dual Xeon or Opterons....)

I would DEFINITELY like to see a comparision between a Mac and PC using the same applications, at both the Hi-End and Mid-End price points...and anyone here with a lot of video-editing experience? Is Final Cut Pro REALLY that amazing? I heard some people actually get a new Mac JUST to run that one application....

 

[WackyDan]

MAC and PC hardware are essentially the same. Apple has a healthy third party hardware market that provides essentially the same hardware as we have for PC's. ie; The same ATI/Nvidia cards will work in a Mac as in a PC provided there is driver support for the OS. So, while Apple has distinct control over their design, and main board development... They have little to no control over the other components and merely pick from the third party hardware that which they want to integrate into their systems, and support.

MAC's and PC's use the same bus technology, video cards, storage, memory, etc......

The real difference between the two is in their processor architecture. PC's use CISC (AMD/INtel) while MAC's use RISC (IBM Power PC). This difference in processor tech is the main reason you can't run Windows natively on a MAC or OS-X on a PC. Well... that's the simple explaination anyway.

You can run Windows on a MAC and OS-X on a PC using EMULATION... Which kills performance. On the MAC you would use Virtual PC from Microsoft, and on the PC you would use the open source Pear PC software to do so. Emulation is great for users that need windows apps to run on their MAC, and EMulation to run OS-X on the PC sucks at this point - there is no commercial product available as far as I know at this point.

So, the Hardware is essentially the same... The only things different are the processor architectures, and OS. Because Apple doesn't allow a clone or "white box" market for Macs (they used to), they are the only source for a desktop or notebook that will run their OS. Hence, they can command a higher price.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
I think the reasons the G5 has been so highly acclaimed for video editing and overall system stability is because I've never read a review that WASN'T dual-processor! Obviously, a dual-processor G5 would be great, as recent previews for the Athlon64 X2 and Intel 840D have shown (although its LOOONG been possible to run dual Xeon or Opterons....)

I would DEFINITELY like to see a comparision between a Mac and PC using the same applications, at both the Hi-End and Mid-End price points...and anyone here with a lot of video-editing experience? Is Final Cut Pro REALLY that amazing? I heard some people actually get a new Mac JUST to run that one application....

Well, i dont do any video editing, but i do use Adobe products alot (Pshop and Illustrator) along with heavy computation in Matlab. My 3500+ Winnie significantly outperforms the dual G5 with 512MB more ram at work. Not to mention my mac is brought to its knees when dealing with large amounts of data in Finder (i usually just drop to command line). Also, the OS is only marginally more stable than XP sp2. I have found no redeeming qualties with the G5. In fact, my advisor kinda gives me sh!t because i work at home so much.

 

[gobucks]

Apple and PC aren't compatible because their chips have different architectures. PCs use x86 - both AMD and Intel design their chips to execute x86 code. Apple uses a PowerPC chip, which used to be from Motorola but is now from IBM. They have completely different assembly language instructions. Someone could write Windows for Mac, or MacOS for Intel/AMD, but it would require a LOT of work. Besides, the only interest would be running MacOS on PC, since people who shell out $3000 for a Mac don't want anything to do with windows. Porting MacOS to PC is apparently being considered according to the Wall Street Journal, but it will be a pain if it happens at all. The biggest hurdle is the Velocity Engine, which Apple renders most 3d aspects of its GUI with. It would have to be completely be rewritten, to run on x86's closest analogue, SSE3, which is not all that similar.

As for the clockspeed, it depends. The PowerPC is definitely more efficient than an equivalently clocked Pentium 4. But by the same token, an Athlon 64 is about 50-60% faster than an equivalently clocked P4. That is why PowerPC and Athlon 64 are over 1GHz behind Intel - the first 2 optimized for efficiency in architecture, while Intel just decided to ratchet up clockspeed, even if it had to sacrifice efficiency per clock cycle. And while Apple used to often have a performance advantage, it has pretty much evaporated due to the slow progress of IBM to increase speeds (2.5GHz was supposed to be hit over a year ago) and improvements in x86 architecture, especially from AMD. The assumption that Apple is the be-all-end-all for photoshop, video editing, etc. is just no longer true. They may have the best software for that particular task, but the hardware is lagging.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

The way I see it, Mac and PC's have their own areas of expertise, but one thing that the Mac can't compare with is the variety of software. Even my Mac friend admits that (most of the time).
Tas.

EDIT: Or was this more questioning the specs, in which case, it might better be asked in the highly technical forum....

 

[chcarnage]

The main difference is the CPU architecture. It was discussed in this thread, too. In short: Different instruction sets, little vs. big endian, SSE vs. Altivec.

It is possible to emulate OS X (a G3 PPC CPU to be precise) on x86 with already linked PearPC. However the performance is weak (lowered by a factor of 40). There are some x86 emulators for the PPC CPUs of the mac but the translation of the instruction needs also power this way (around factor 4 or 5 for Microsoft VirtualPC with Win2k if i remember correctly).

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

You're not likely to get a fair and balanced response to that question in a PC forum. Macs have their strengths and weaknesses, just like PCs. There is no definitive "better" platform.

One thing is certain, though: OS X is indeed more stable than Windows XP.

EDIT: By the way, Macs aren't always more expensive than PCs. It depends on what you need, and how long before you upgrade.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: hurtstotalktoyou
You're not likely to get a fair and balanced response to that question in a PC forum. Macs have their strengths and weaknesses, just like PCs. There is no definitive "better" platform.

One thing is certain, though: OS X is indeed more stable than Windows XP.

EDIT: By the way, Macs aren't always more expensive than PCs. It depends on what you need, and how long before you upgrade.

XP is pretty damned stablle. Where is your difinitive proof?

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: hurtstotalktoyou
You're not likely to get a fair and balanced response to that question in a PC forum. Macs have their strengths and weaknesses, just like PCs. There is no definitive "better" platform.

One thing is certain, though: OS X is indeed more stable than Windows XP.

EDIT: By the way, Macs aren't always more expensive than PCs. It depends on what you need, and how long before you upgrade.

minus the new mini mac, could you get a mac for less than $1200?

 

[Oyeve]

I need to butt in here as I use both platforms. Mac OSx is not more stable than WinXP. The reason, IMO, that Winxp may seem to crash more is because there is MORE software installed on your average Winxp system than on a mac OSx system. As far as graphic apps are concerened the only thing macs are better for is digital video editing (Final Cut Pro HD is the best damned software!). Many tests have been done with CAD apps, Photoshop and Illustrator between the latest macs and not even the latest in PC hardware and the PC spanks the mac. there is no reason, other than for proffesional video editing, for a mac. Ever recover from a serious OSX crash? Rarely does force-quit work properly. When macs crash, they crash BIG. While I love both I can say there is really no reason to choose a mac over a good (broad statement) PC. Even the old mac hold out software, like Quark, has made the switch to PC. This is just my opinion.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
I need to butt in here as I use both platforms. Mac OSx is not more stable than WinXP. The reason, IMO, that Winxp may seem to crash more is because there is MORE software installed on your average Winxp system than on a mac OSx system. As far as graphic apps are concerened the only thing macs are better for is digital video editing (Final Cut Pro HD is the best damned software!). Many tests have been done with CAD apps, Photoshop and Illustrator between the latest macs and not even the latest in PC hardware and the PC spanks the mac. there is no reason, other than for proffesional video editing, for a mac. Ever recover from a serious OSX crash? Rarely does force-quit work properly. When macs crash, they crash BIG. While I love both I can say there is really no reason to choose a mac over a good (broad statement) PC. Even the old mac hold out software, like Quark, has made the switch to PC. This is just my opinion.

what about avid? i thought they were the top for professional video editing, or is apple taking that away?

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: hurtstotalktoyou
You're not likely to get a fair and balanced response to that question in a PC forum. Macs have their strengths and weaknesses, just like PCs. There is no definitive "better" platform.

One thing is certain, though: OS X is indeed more stable than Windows XP.

EDIT: By the way, Macs aren't always more expensive than PCs. It depends on what you need, and how long before you upgrade.

minus the new mini mac, could you get a mac for less than $1200?

Yes you can. The Apple eMac.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: bjc112

Regarding your brother selling his PC for a G4 or G5, if his PC is fast enough, then I don't think he should sell it. IMO, PC's are way ahead of Mac's. PC's are using better technologies. Apple isn't even using PCI-E (still on AGP) and the G5's are still on DDR 400. Intel and AMD are already using Dual Core processors

While I definitely like the PC side.. And have a Mac mini..

Basing the claims off DDR 400 and PCI-E is next to nothing..

YOu gain little or no performance in PCI-E cards, DDR 400 is still the standard for ALL a64's and P4's... (unless 1066FSB or DDR2 )

Dual Core is coming, and they are ahead on that.. But the rest means nothing./

I guess I learned something. Thanks!

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Oyeve
I need to butt in here as I use both platforms. Mac OSx is not more stable than WinXP. The reason, IMO, that Winxp may seem to crash more is because there is MORE software installed on your average Winxp system than on a mac OSx system. As far as graphic apps are concerened the only thing macs are better for is digital video editing (Final Cut Pro HD is the best damned software!). Many tests have been done with CAD apps, Photoshop and Illustrator between the latest macs and not even the latest in PC hardware and the PC spanks the mac. there is no reason, other than for proffesional video editing, for a mac. Ever recover from a serious OSX crash? Rarely does force-quit work properly. When macs crash, they crash BIG. While I love both I can say there is really no reason to choose a mac over a good (broad statement) PC. Even the old mac hold out software, like Quark, has made the switch to PC. This is just my opinion.

what about avid? i thought they were the top for professional video editing, or is apple taking that away?

AVID is a great product but Final Cut Pro 4 and now 5 is much better, but harder to use.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
I need to butt in here as I use both platforms. Mac OSx is not more stable than WinXP. The reason, IMO, that Winxp may seem to crash more is because there is MORE software installed on your average Winxp system than on a mac OSx system. As far as graphic apps are concerened the only thing macs are better for is digital video editing (Final Cut Pro HD is the best damned software!). Many tests have been done with CAD apps, Photoshop and Illustrator between the latest macs and not even the latest in PC hardware and the PC spanks the mac. there is no reason, other than for proffesional video editing, for a mac. Ever recover from a serious OSX crash? Rarely does force-quit work properly. When macs crash, they crash BIG. While I love both I can say there is really no reason to choose a mac over a good (broad statement) PC. Even the old mac hold out software, like Quark, has made the switch to PC. This is just my opinion.

I've recovered from serious OS X crashes. I rarely have to use force quit, but when I do it works. kill works too.

There are other reasons for switching to the Mac, but most PC bigots just don't care. I personally prefer the interface when I'm looking for something that "just works."

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

XP is pretty damned stablle. Where is your difinitive proof?

Unfortunately, things like stability cannot be quantified. However, the overwhelming consensus among those who use both platforms extensively is that OS X crashes less. Many even claim that OS X has never been infected by a virus!

As for Windows XP, I'm not sure how you'd consider it stable. The damage to companies that use Windows XP has been well-documented, with hackers being sent to prison for exploiting the OS's flaws. My copy crashes on a daily basis. I've also gotten several virus infections which have required me to re-install the operating system. And, yes, I do use automatic Windows Update, so I always have the latest patches; I also run automated spyware scans every morning at 4am.

This is one of those "Michael Jordan" concepts. There is no mathematical proof, but the truth remains obvious, nonetheless, for anyone willing to take a look.

EDIT: I'm going to add a bit to this post, to explain why the PC suits so many users better than Macs, despite OS X being far superior to Windows XP...

1) People who already use Windows can use all their old software when they upgrade to another Windows system. Not only does that cost less than buying all new software, but it saves the time of re-learning the same tasks. A lot of software for Windows is available freely, through the internet, which saves even more money. The cost of all the software you need for a Mac can sometimes add up to more than that of the hardware itself! This is a serious concern for anyone considering switching to Apple.

2) For budget and mid-range systems, the prices of Wintel hardware can't be beat. You can get a brand new, fully-functional PC with DVD burner and roomy hard disk for less than $350, nowadays, while Macs start at $509 (in the US). Only when your budget is $2,000 or more does Apple start to get competitive with hardware pricing, and even then PCs usually edge them out.

In other words, it all comes down to money. If you can afford it, get a Mac. If not, stick with Wintel.