Anand wants to know how you feel about Apple...

[JYDog]

The G5 is just too awesome, the only thing on the PC side that can touch it IMO is a dual Opteron system.

 

[Ardan]

In the future, when I have money (and I really mean it--I have $90 in checking and $100 in savings--paid for my tuition without help this year!), I *am* going to get a MAC and it will probably be a laptop, but it could be a desktop PC as well. I am planning on buying an iPod this summer as well, because I really love the quality of my friend's iPod. I am thinking of it for maybe next year or so and i'm not to worried about the cost because I have a good job, and I will be able to do monthly installments if I have to.

Do you even bother to look at what you can configure them with? For roughly $2500, you can get a Dual 1.8Ghz/900Mhz FSB G5 with a radeon 9600 Pro, 512Mb DDR400, 160GB SATA drive, DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive and it also has 3 PCI-X slots. So don't go on here and say the technology lags behind PCs, unless PC makers give you the option of having a FibreChannel card with your system, include 3 PCI-X slots, a DVD-R/CD-RW combo and some of the best displays. I love the PCs I built but COME ON do not say they lag behind with technology...if anything they are ahead of the PC makers in that respect. Yes, I *have* used the G5 and their latest laptops and they are very fast. A room-mate of my buddy's at SJU (www.csbsju.edu for the curious) uses iTunes for his music and connected some Klipsch ProMedia GMX D-5.1 Speakers to it so that he can fill the room (more like ROOMS lol) with great sound. Oh yea, you can add that or the Z680's to your system configuration.

I also like the OS because it is easy, but I could still use my terminal from linux (which I primarily use) if I wanted to. I would use the ease of use as a detractor because an OS should be easy to use, yet powerful....not difficult like XP can be. I don't know anything regarding games but like another person said about his life, I am too busy to play games as much as some of you probably do. To be realistic, PC Gamers don't make up 90% of who buys computer anyways. Most of the people I advise what to buy are not avid gamers, just casual PC users (that does NOT mean they are not tech savvy) who don't care if they can't *GASP* play Call of Duty or try out the Far Cry demo. Since you can run X apps on the mac, I would say it has a MUCH larger application base than windows now and at least some of you should realize that those linux programs are not poorly written. I prefer PCs, but I do like the MAC because I always keep an open mind and ubiased look at computers. Around me, people ask me what machine I would suggest for their use because they can tell that I am not biased towards one or the other. It is a great way to look at things, and I suggest that we should all not be 'fanboys' to one maker or the other .

Those are my 2 cents, and i'm not subscribed to the thread so don't bother flaming me back especially since I stated some obvious facts, heh.
have a good day everyone

 

[beachbreeze]

Originally posted by: Cerb
One small piece of software written for one small area, sure. That's nothing new.
It's a question of common applications on all platforms.
How does the GIMP compare? Apache? Photoshop? The dozen games out for the Mac? Etc.
Any niche application can be made to do infinitely well on a single platform, even on the x86 side of things.

I found some PCMag figures for Photoshop comparing an Apple Dual 2.0GHz G5 with a Dell Precision 650 workstation with Dual 3.06-GHz Intel Xeon processors, 512K Cache & an Apple Dual 1.4GHz Power Mac G4:

Apple Power Mac G5: Neck-and-Neck with Intel PCs

I quote from the second page:

"Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is a popular image editing program used extensively on both OSes. We tested using version 7.01, the latest available for both Windows and Macintosh, and we used Adobe's G5 Processor plug-in update for Mac OS X, which lets the program take advantage of the system's additional memory and special instructions. We started with a 59.5 MB test image, but many operations completed too quickly to time, so we quadrupled the size to 238MB.
At these larger image sizes, although the Wintel test times were quite good, both the G4 and G5 computers proved more adept at distort functions like wave and pinch. Moreover, on the Windows system, loading the controls often took a minute or more. If these times are added back to the actual test times, both Macintosh computers would have clearly outperformed the Windows-based computer."

This is very surprising - real world use of Photoshop, of course, includes loading controls. So they have a dual 1.4-GHz Power Mac G4 outcompeting a Dell Precision 650 workstation with dual 3.06-GHz Intel Xeon processors in Photoshop! Of course, this will not be repeated in other apps. Benchmarks show the Dual G5 2.0GHz to usually be between 50 and 200% faster than the Dual G4 1.4GHz.

Prices TODAY 16th Feb 2004:
Apple G4 Dual 1.4GHz - $1400 (secondhand estimate)
Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 - $2,999.00 ($2,699 - education)
Dell Precision?Workstation 650 Dual Xeon 3.06GHz 512K cache - $3,896


Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 - $2,999.00 ($2,699 - education)
Panther Mac OS X 10.3
1GHz frontside bus/processor
512K L2 cache/processor
512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM
Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA
SuperDrive Pioneer A06 4 x DVD-R/RW +R/RW
Three PCI-X Slots
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with 64MB DDR video memory
No Monitor
Anti-Virus software not needed
56K internal modem

Dell Precision?Workstation 650 - $3,896
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
Dual Intel® Xeon? Processor, 3.06GHz 512K cache
512MB,DDR266 SDRAM Memory
120GB SATA, 7200 RPM Hard Drive
4X DVD+RW/+R with Roxio® Easy CD Creator and DVD decode
ATI, FIRE GL? X1,128MB,1-2 VGA/DVI
No Monitor Option
McAfee? VirusScan® 8 retail ReadyWare
No DVD mastering software

 

[Skibby9]

I have been reading AT for a very long time, at least two years before I registered on the forums. I appreciate all the news and tips posted by the staff and the forum members, as they have helped me a great deal in selecting pc components, particularly in regards to compatibility issues. I have read many threads where someone bought a (usually bleeding edge) motherboard, and for some reason, it didn't work well with a given sound card. Or maybe there was a new graphics card out there that was supposed to rule the world, but for some reason the manufacturer couldn't/wouldn't release quality drivers. The drama continues....

Reading all these tales of success and disaster (mostly disaster) helped me pick out the right parts, and I am still very happy with my machine. However, it seems that there is always something else to tweak to squeeze a bit more performance/eliminate annoyances (see MS software), and you never know what the results will be. I try to keep up, but there are more important things to do, so I find myself wanting to actually use it for productivity, rather than for the sake of tinkering.

With that in mind, I am seriously considering (eventually) buying a Mac. When I return to school this fall after 10 years in the USAF, I am going to need something that *I trust*. Sure, my pc works great now, but who knows what will happen after installing the next patch for XP, and worse, what about all the stuff that is wrong with XP that MS has yet to fix? That, compounded by the subtle variances introduced by different hardware OEMs and then multiplied by the inherent security (read: root access) issues explains why so many people have huge problems with their machines.

Now, for the most part, people here seem to have a great deal in common:
- They enjoy bleeding edge performance, specifically seeing competitors duke it out, with rapid advances
- They enjoy problem-solving
- They don't depend on stability (the ones that have something crucial on their pc howl the loudest when the fit hits the shan)
- They have time and motivation to maintain their machines
- They play games on their computers

Maybe I am getting old, but I have come to realize:
- I love high performance gear, but my oldish system still runs everything I want just great. I can't justify replacing major parts for small performance increases. That said, as we are getting to the point where actual performance (not MHz) is twice what I have, upgrading would be nice, but, still not necesssary)
- I still enjoy problem-solving, but would rather spend my time on more important things (that is, away from the computer)
- I expect that I won't have time to have to re-write reports due to XP crashing/freezing on me. Not that this is a problem for me at this time, but I stated my take on the future of XP's reliability above. Oh, and with the leak of NT source code, esp. Internet Explorer (which is so integral to the OS that MS cannot remove it) I expect to see a great deal of malware targetting XP's vulnerabillities in the near future.
- I rarely game on the PC anymore, which is a shame because my 9700 Pro is incredible. But, really, we have been waiting for Doom 3 and HL2 for quite a while... are there really any compelling games for the PC right now? My GCN and Xbox are much better suited to quick games,and don't crash when I run a game for hours continuously-- could you imagine Metroid Prime crashing on you like you know it would on a PC?

I don't consider price to be a factor here-- if someone wants something badly enough, they will pay for it. They can buy pre-order and pay a lot, or wait a year or buy used for a lot less. This applies to both camps.

My point is, there are diverging paths here-- the PC is suited to the majority of ATers for given set of reasons, arguably the most important being that with the vast number of PC OEMs there is bound to be exciting news on a frequent basis. What would AT be without content, and what would we all talk about if the hardware was locked down? Meanwhile, the Mac is attractive for other people, who are probably too busy actually doing things to read AT. In any case, technophiles on either side would be foolish to completely discount advances made by the other.

As for me, I am happy with what I have, and will continue to check with AT for detailed hardware reviews. But I'll also have a broader perspective on news by reading slashdot as well. Tom's Hardware is right out. And I'll continue to consider whether I actually need a notebook for school....