are PC faster than Macs?

[Pez D Spencer]

This might be slightly off the topic of the post but I have to say it.

People always claim that Apple's are so "user friendly". I'll just say this, I have never owned an Apple or really used one much. I was considering getting Applecare certified for a prospective tech job some time ago and had use of a friends Apple running OS X. Well the damn thing was so user friendly it made me want to gouge my eyes out with the one button mouse. Come one people a one button mouse? WTF? And thats just the tip of the iceberg for me.

Apple computers blow and always will blow as far as Im concerned. I wouldnt take one if you gave it to me. Thats the truth. Well, I take that back. I would take it, take it and THROW IT IN THE DUMPSTER WHERE IT BELONGS.

 

[Commodus]

Originally posted by: HurleyBird
Commodus:

Yeah, those dual dual core macs are actually a great value for the power that you get. If gaming performance was better on macs I would snap one up in a secound.

Also, you used DDR2 memory on your opteron...

Good call - I can tell I was pricing up the RAM for the G5 first. On Newegg, the matching RAM on the Kingston ValueRAM brand is $105.50 US. That means that a pair is $211, and that the price of the Opteron system actually went up $35.50.

 

[Commodus]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
That price comparison is a bit flawed if you are going to charge retail price for XP. An OEM will not pay nearly this much for an OS license. Moreover, you used high-end heatsinks when stock opteron heatsinks would be fine with an OEM system. Firewire adapters are like $20 if you don't buy overpriced crap like adaptec.

You pretty much picked the most expensive example for each component you could find. An OEM would be paying a fraction of these costs for similarly-peforming components.

Those are fair points, but ones I've addressed. You didn't read closely enough, either: it's Firewire 800. I've done some searching, and the minimum barrier for entry on those seems to be just shy of $70. You need that kind of bandwidth if you're going to run some types of external hard drives at full speed... like, say, a 1 TB LaCie drive, which runs in a RAID stripe for quicker drive access. It's exactly the kind of drive a workstation user would run.

Also, it should be noted that while the OEM heatsink may keep the Opteron from melting through the Earth's crust, it may not keep the Opteron quiet. This means that using the stock heatsink might not be suitable in, say, an audio recording environment. If the environment is just particularly quiet (or hot), you may want higher-end cooling so that you don't go stir-crazy from the fans spinning at full bore for hours on end.

 

[Commodus]

Originally posted by: Pez D Spencer
This might be slightly off the topic of the post but I have to say it.

People always claim that Apple's are so "user friendly". I'll just say this, I have never owned an Apple or really used one much. I was considering getting Applecare certified for a prospective tech job some time ago and had use of a friends Apple running OS X. Well the damn thing was so user friendly it made me want to gouge my eyes out with the one button mouse. Come one people a one button mouse? WTF? And thats just the tip of the iceberg for me.

Apple computers blow and always will blow as far as Im concerned. I wouldnt take one if you gave it to me. Thats the truth. Well, I take that back. I would take it, take it and THROW IT IN THE DUMPSTER WHERE IT BELONGS.

You know, if you hold Ctrl while you click, even a one-button mouse will do the equivalent of a right-click. You can Cmd-click (Cmd is the other name for the Apple key) to open up links in new tabs with Firefox or Safari.

And if you don't like a one-button mouse? You can plug in any standard USB mouse and the first 3 buttons (plus scroll wheel) will work without drivers. Additionally, Apple has this little thing you might be interested in. It's standard on the iMac and Power Mac, and you can put one in the shopping cart when you get a Mac mini.

Why is it that every Mac basher seems to live in 1995?

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Commodus

Originally posted by: aka1nas
That price comparison is a bit flawed if you are going to charge retail price for XP. An OEM will not pay nearly this much for an OS license. Moreover, you used high-end heatsinks when stock opteron heatsinks would be fine with an OEM system. Firewire adapters are like $20 if you don't buy overpriced crap like adaptec.

You pretty much picked the most expensive example for each component you could find. An OEM would be paying a fraction of these costs for similarly-peforming components.

Those are fair points, but ones I've addressed. You didn't read closely enough, either: it's Firewire 800. I've done some searching, and the minimum barrier for entry on those seems to be just shy of $70. You need that kind of bandwidth if you're going to run some types of external hard drives at full speed... like, say, a 1 TB LaCie drive, which runs in a RAID stripe for quicker drive access. It's exactly the kind of drive a workstation user would run.

Also, it should be noted that while the OEM heatsink may keep the Opteron from melting through the Earth's crust, it may not keep the Opteron quiet. This means that using the stock heatsink might not be suitable in, say, an audio recording environment. If the environment is just particularly quiet (or hot), you may want higher-end cooling so that you don't go stir-crazy from the fans spinning at full bore for hours on end.

Those Lacie drives do NOT need firewire 800 to work at full speed. I have the 500GB striped model and those drives can barely push 40MB/s with write cache enabled.

 

[canoneos1d]

I have used both since 1986 (pc long before this, but this is when I moved up from the apple IIe to the mac), and one thing I have learned over time-Each one has it's place. If you are doing video editing, final cut/g5 make a good combination. The OSX 10.4 is fast on my Dual G5 at work, but you got to love the pinwheels. Lack of jumbo frame support kills me (unless you spend extra for the apple provided card or the $500 aftermarket cards) as does the lack of affordable link aggregation. I get both of these on my windows workstations (x4000 2gz dual xeon and opteron 165 workstation) that I use at home. Photoshop works the same on either system, mac or pc. If the clients that I worked with used opentype fonts, it would be a harder choice to make. But since they still use type 1 postscript fonts (and not wanting to spend weeks with fontographer or fontlab) the mac is the only answer for a designer. Sometimes it does not boil down to which is faster, often times it all comes down to which is going to get the job delivered on time and get you paid.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

You can't really compare Wintel (or WinAMD) PC prices to Mac prices, because it presupposes identical cost of ownership. If you're a grandma-type user who rushes your PC to Best Buy every time something goes wrong, then a Mac might be your best bet. If you're a grandma-type user who lives with/near family/friends who can help you, then a PC is probably best.

But that's not why most of us are here. Most of us know how to build, repair and troubleshoot at least to some extent. We use open-source, shared & pirated software. For many of us to migrate to Mac would be idiotic at best, disasterous at worst.

For example, I frequently use my PC to record and mix music. I use *ahem* free software capable of doing that very well on the PC platform. If I were to go Mac, I'd need to buy $300 worth of software just for that task alone. Add another $300 for video editing software, and maybe $100 for photo editing. That's $700 I wouldn't ever have to spend if I just stuck to the PC.

 

[NewBlackDak]

Originally posted by: canoneos1d
I have used both since 1986 (pc long before this, but this is when I moved up from the apple IIe to the mac), and one thing I have learned over time-Each one has it's place. If you are doing video editing, final cut/g5 make a good combination. The OSX 10.4 is fast on my Dual G5 at work, but you got to love the pinwheels. Lack of jumbo frame support kills me (unless you spend extra for the apple provided card or the $500 aftermarket cards) as does the lack of affordable link aggregation. I get both of these on my windows workstations (x4000 2gz dual xeon and opteron 165 workstation) that I use at home. Photoshop works the same on either system, mac or pc. If the clients that I worked with used opentype fonts, it would be a harder choice to make. But since they still use type 1 postscript fonts (and not wanting to spend weeks with fontographer or fontlab) the mac is the only answer for a designer. Sometimes it does not boil down to which is faster, often times it all comes down to which is going to get the job delivered on time and get you paid.

Crossfont is your friend. Look into it. It's cheap for a license.

The one griping about the mouse has obviously never used a mighty mouse(or a mac for any extended length of time). It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do it's a great mouse. OSX is incredibly simple at first glance, but once you get your hands dirty you learn that it's as versatile and powerful as any unix system. I'd run OSX on my machine if I could legally. I've all but ditched windows except for playing HL2, and Doom3.

 

[DeadMilkman]

And you don't think you can pirate mac software? Yarr, lad try lookin over that thar bay, yee mi come cross doe bloody torrent gems.

 

[coomar]

can't you get a 6600gt for 135?

i paid less than that for that seagate drive in canadian 4 months ago retail

986

1039

 

[coomar]

still the apple is compeitively priced

 

[NewBlackDak]

Notice I said legally.

Part of what I do for a living is writing software. I won't steal software.

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: Commodus
Did you read what I just said about going on myth and speculation? You've just made a blanket assumption about Apple hardware without proving it.

But let's do an even comparison. Let's compare a dual-dual Opteron 275 workstation with specs that match Apple's as closely as possible, in US dollars. The Opteron rig here comes from GamePC's custom configuration unless noted:

-blah blah-

$140 - Seasonic PS-S12-600
$168 - Cooler Master RC-810-SSN1

$2100 - 2x OAMD OSA275CBBOX
$413 - Tyan S2895A2NRF
$256 - 4x Corsair CM72SD512RLP-3200
$135 - XFX PVT43GNDF3

$200 - Western Digital WD4000KD
$70 - Plextor 740A

$22 - Keytronic E03600QLPS2B-C
$25 - Logitech 930928-0403
$130 - Microsoft E85-03013

$3659

Superior hardware every step of the way, three to five year and lifetime warranties, twice the memory bandwidth, larger faster hard drive, and an untouchable motherboard.

 

[Zebo]

Macs suck and I hate thier cultish idiotic users even more who pay double for junk that won't run 90% of the programs out there.

 

[Elfear]

I've always wondered about the real differences between Mac and PCs. At least with the people I talk with up at the university I go to, there's always been this mythical advantage that Macs have over PCs in anything related to audio or video software. The graphic designers always justified the high price of their Macs (high compared to the average PC) by saying that PC's just can't compare in that realm and that a Mac was a must. After reading through this post it seems like that advantage is mostly nullified with software being written for PC's that is comparable to that made for Macs. I don't know much about the graphic design business, so maybe I'm wrong in my assumption but I always cring everytime one of those guys would tell me how much he paid for his G5.

I think the biggest thing I have against Macs is the fact that it's almost impossible to find deals on them. If you go look in the Hot Deals section there are tons of posts about hardware you can buy very cheaply and make your own PC. If you want a nice monitor, wait for a Dell deal to come along. Want a screaming fast processor for cheap, buy an Opteron (or a lot of other cheap processors) and overclock the stink out of it. The market just isn't there for Macs and you generally always end up paying retail (or possibly 10% off if you're lucky and the moons of Jupiter are in alignment). For the budget conscious builder it's almost wrong to pay full retail for something.

That's just my take on it though. I'm sure there are apps where a Mac is superior to a PC but it seems like for the average enthusiast/gamer/user you end up paying a lot of money for something that performs on par with or slower than a PC that's half the price. Case in point, my buddy, who dabbles in graphic design according to him, just bought a G5 with a 23" monitor and a 7800GTX. He plans on gaming with it, surfing the net, and dabbling. He paid $5000 for it and had to take out a loan. Ouch.

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: Commodus

* 2x Zalman 7700-series AlCu CPU coolers ($98)

Dont need that. Use the stock HSF, its heatpiped and will do excellent on the opterons, even if you overclock them a little.

Edit: I just saw you think that the stock HSF wont keep this baby quiet. It will. At 2.2GHz you wont hear it at all with both of them at full load. Even at 2.4GHz it will be silent. I'm sticking to my stock HSF for a reason (see sig). All you need is good airflow in your case.

* Lian-Li V1000 aluminum mid-tower case ($220)

I know, you want to use a case that looks like the G5 case, but theres cheaper cases that are just as good or better.

The opteron machine would still be more expensive, but hey, lets not waste money just for arguments sake.

 

[tribbles]

Obviously "quiet" and "silent" are completely relative.

There is no way in hell our recording studio would run Opteron boxes with stock cooling. Every system in this place is water-cooled, whether Macintosh or PC. But the Opterons are on the way out, so I digress.

 

[Targon]

It's under $1080 per boxed Opteron 275 from egghead, which helps quite a bit. As others have said, the case doesn't need to cost that much and doesn't need to look the same as the Apple machine. As others have said, you also don't need to spend $100 for the cooling.

Windows XP Pro OEM is under $135.

I question the need for the firewire since you can run a RAID array in the case depending on if the on-board RAID controller does what you need it to. I'd say the prices end up somewhat close. I'd need to do more research to see if you really need to go Opteron 275 to compete with the G5s. If for your application the Opteron 270 is as fast as the G5 2.5GHz, then that will drop your price as well.

Keep in mind that we assume that the applications will be properly multi-threaded, and that multi-processor performance is comparable. I havn't seen a discussion about the connection between processors in the Mac and how THAT compares to the HyperTransport link(s) between Opteron processors. Is the Apple implementation better at least than the Intel SMP method?

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: tribbles
Obviously "quiet" and "silent" are completely relative.

There is no way in hell our recording studio would run Opteron boxes with stock cooling. Every system in this place is water-cooled, whether Macintosh or PC. But the Opterons are on the way out, so I digress.

Right on, and I'm sure you got some slaves waving palm leaves at the radiator to make it completely silent watercooling. :laugh:

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Griswold

Originally posted by: tribbles
Obviously "quiet" and "silent" are completely relative.

There is no way in hell our recording studio would run Opteron boxes with stock cooling. Every system in this place is water-cooled, whether Macintosh or PC. But the Opterons are on the way out, so I digress.

Right on, and I'm sure you got some slaves waving palm leaves at the radiator to make it completely silent watercooling. :laugh:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8292
(the PSU was the only special mod)

No slaves needed. Just Korean engineers and crazy people willing to mod perfectly good PSU heatsinks.

 

[Commodus]

Originally posted by: ribbon13

$140 - Seasonic PS-S12-600
$168 - Cooler Master RC-810-SSN1

$2100 - 2x OAMD OSA275CBBOX
$413 - Tyan S2895A2NRF
$256 - 4x Corsair CM72SD512RLP-3200
$135 - XFX PVT43GNDF3

$200 - Western Digital WD4000KD
$70 - Plextor 740A

$22 - Keytronic E03600QLPS2B-C
$25 - Logitech 930928-0403
$130 - Microsoft E85-03013

$3659

Superior hardware every step of the way, three to five year and lifetime warranties, twice the memory bandwidth, larger faster hard drive, and an untouchable motherboard.

Every step of the way? Drop the hyperbole. A G5 Quad is going to use high-quality components too, and given your price premium the Mac user could have his 250 GB included drive AND a 400 GB secondary drive. The advantage the Opteron has is memory latency because of the on-die controller, not sheer bandwidth (remember there's a 1.25 GHz data bus per dual-core G5 chip).

 

[Commodus]

Originally posted by: Griswold

Dont need that [Zalman]. Use the stock HSF, its heatpiped and will do excellent on the opterons, even if you overclock them a little.

Edit: I just saw you think that the stock HSF wont keep this baby quiet. It will. At 2.2GHz you wont hear it at all with both of them at full load. Even at 2.4GHz it will be silent. I'm sticking to my stock HSF for a reason (see sig). All you need is good airflow in your case.

That's good to know that it's not essential, and for some people you could drop that from the price. However, the G5 Quad is water-cooled; it still has fans, but they're that less likely to kick in.

I know, you want to use a case that looks like the G5 case, but theres cheaper cases that are just as good or better.

The opteron machine would still be more expensive, but hey, lets not waste money just for arguments sake.

Ah, but is it purely for argument's sake? An aluminum shell is typically either lighter, or sturdier without weighing more than it would in steel. It tends to transfer heat to the outside of the case faster than steel would. The grilled design ensures massive potential airflow, so long as the cooling fans inside do their job.

You don't absolutely need this for good cooling, but if you were, say, doing constant 3D rendering or audio encoding, you might want to vent heat out as quickly as possible, since the system will be at max load for hours.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Commodus

Originally posted by: Griswold

Dont need that [Zalman]. Use the stock HSF, its heatpiped and will do excellent on the opterons, even if you overclock them a little.

Edit: I just saw you think that the stock HSF wont keep this baby quiet. It will. At 2.2GHz you wont hear it at all with both of them at full load. Even at 2.4GHz it will be silent. I'm sticking to my stock HSF for a reason (see sig). All you need is good airflow in your case.

That's good to know that it's not essential, and for some people you could drop that from the price. However, the G5 Quad is water-cooled; it still has fans, but they're that less likely to kick in.

I know, you want to use a case that looks like the G5 case, but theres cheaper cases that are just as good or better.

The opteron machine would still be more expensive, but hey, lets not waste money just for arguments sake.

Ah, but is it purely for argument's sake? An aluminum shell is typically either lighter, or sturdier without weighing more than it would in steel. It tends to transfer heat to the outside of the case faster than steel would. The grilled design ensures massive potential airflow, so long as the cooling fans inside do their job.

You don't absolutely need this for good cooling, but if you were, say, doing constant 3D rendering or audio encoding, you might want to vent heat out as quickly as possible, since the system will be at max load for hours.

Commodus, you just don't get it. You are comparing RETAIL prices that an individual pays for components to Apple's system price. If Apple surprised everyone tomorrow with an Opteron workstation with the abovementioned specs, it surely would not cost them nearly as much as an individual pays for parts. Likewise, if you could buy all the components that come in the G5 machine as an individual they would likely cost you much more than the system price Apple quotes you. A more fair comparison would be a prebuilt workstation with those specs (to be fair, I don't know if Sun or anyone else is doing dual dual-core Opteron workstations yet).

 

[Commodus]

Originally posted by: Targon
It's under $1080 per boxed Opteron 275 from egghead, which helps quite a bit. As others have said, the case doesn't need to cost that much and doesn't need to look the same as the Apple machine. As others have said, you also don't need to spend $100 for the cooling.

Windows XP Pro OEM is under $135.

Good points (XP OEM has been mentioned earlier), though remember that a workstation buyer won't necessarily buy all his or her parts and assemble by hand. Memory is the one area where one can see someone going 3rd-party, since the markup on installation is often far too high.

I question the need for the firewire since you can run a RAID array in the case depending on if the on-board RAID controller does what you need it to. I'd say the prices end up somewhat close. I'd need to do more research to see if you really need to go Opteron 275 to compete with the G5s. If for your application the Opteron 270 is as fast as the G5 2.5GHz, then that will drop your price as well.

Keep in mind that we assume that the applications will be properly multi-threaded, and that multi-processor performance is comparable. I havn't seen a discussion about the connection between processors in the Mac and how THAT compares to the HyperTransport link(s) between Opteron processors. Is the Apple implementation better at least than the Intel SMP method?

There is a potential incentive for external Firewire drives: if you need off-site backup for your data, you want a way to separate the backup from the computer itself. External drives are particularly good because they not only let this happen, but they can be physically much larger than a typical 3.5" drive. On a side note: the person who claimed that FW800 drives don't use up the extra bandwidth probably hasn't seen some of LaCie's more recent drives. In some past cases, the bridge chip in the external drive wasn't making efficient use of the bandwidth.

On the comparison of processor links, what I know is that G5 systems (even my iMac G5) use Hypertransport as well, so that end of the equation is less of an issue. Each core has its own 1 MB of L2 cache so it doesn't have to go to a unified memory cache per dual-core chip. Apple's technology overview PDF doesn't say much about the specifics, but notes that each processor bus being bi-directional means that the two distinct processors can see each other's caches more quickly.

 

[coomar]

doesn't the mac have HT as well, they're part of the consortium, the opteron only has the advantage of the on-die controller