PC vs. Mac

[Semo_Adms]

Let's make this the ultimate discussion. Go.

[DinoT1985]

PC. Why? Because you can get the hardware cheap as hell, upgrade it yourself and they can run any OS. While so can a Mac, it would cost more to get the foundations started.

One huge plus for Windows is the gaming community.

PC running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx here.

[Punisher1012]

PC. Why? Because you can get the hardware cheap as hell, upgrade it yourself and they can run any OS. While so can a Mac, it would cost more to get the foundations started.

One huge plus for Windows is the gaming community.

PC running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx here.

this. running Fedora and windows on mine

[RambJoe]

A Mac is a PC.

So I'm guessing you mean closed hardware vs hardware which you can do what you want with.

And my Arch Linux > OS X.

[airemout]

Mac has a great offense but we all know pitching wins championships so in the end PC wins.

[someeh]

Mac has a great offense but we all know pitching wins championships so in the end PC wins.

I'm with PC.. the gaming community for PC outshines MAC anyday!!

[Boatski]

Can I play?

[reyalp]

Can I play?

An ARM-based OSX device... sure, why not.

[ppself]

I wish these kind of threads can be closed on sight.


Dumb circular argument that has no clear winner.

[JustAnotherUser]

PC.

Because that's what I own mother****ers.

[GrokTheCube]

Apple has awesome marketing, they look pretty, and they run as well (or better) for people that only use it for internet/music. I find the OS much less intuitive.

For gaming, PCs are indubitably better.

Correction: I built a PC for under 1k that works better than anything Apple makes for my purposes (gaming).

I prefer being able to customize what I buy, and not being as limited in hardware/software choices.

For me, PCs are the better choice.

[reyalp]

I built a sub-1k computer that is superior to the most expensive desktop Apple offers (at over $4k...) in all regards, and by a large margin.

Cool!

Well in that case build me an eight-core PC with 32GB of RAM, 8TB of drive space, two DVD-RWs, a Radeon 4870, and one Quad 4GB FC card for <$1000.

[cbad7676]

i have both.

so do i win??

-sony vaio with new windows 7

-new macbook pro (got hefty discount from manager who works at apple)
- and got free ipod

[boast]

laptops - mac
everything else - PC

[GrokTheCube]

Cool!

Well in that case build me an eight-core PC with 32GB of RAM, 8TB of drive space, two DVD-RWs, a Radeon 4870, and one Quad 4GB FC card for <$1000.

That was not offered on Apple's website for consumer computers, so I assume it's a commercial/professional deal, but I could build you one for 4 grand or so. Regardless, those video cards aren't really optimized for gaming, they're designed for high-end video and 3D animation applications.

[reyalp]

That was not offered on Apple's website for consumer computers, so I assume it's a commercial/professional deal, but I could build you one for 4 grand or so. Regardless, those video cards aren't really optimized for gaming, they're designed for high-end video and 3D animation applications.

It's a Mac Pro, not a commerical/professional deal.
And no you couldn't build one for 4 grand, even if you stole half the parts
The quad 4Gbps FC card alone is $900.


video gaming != "in all regards"

[GrokTheCube]

It's a Mac Pro, not a commerical/professional deal.
And no you couldn't build one for 4 grand, even if you stole half the parts
The quad 4Gbps FC card alone is $900.


video gaming != "in all regards"

Yeah, I just checked, more like 5.2k assuming you want DDR5 and DX11 support for the graphics cards, and dual double GPU cars utilizing two PCI-E x16 slots rather than a single quad GPU.

I also assumed 1600mhz RAM (50% faster than the Mac you mentioned), it'd be a good 300 bucks less if you wanted slower memory.

The Mac's cores are about .5mhz slower per core, but I think Macs generally run faster at a given processor speed, due to more limited software compatibility that allows for better optimization.

I didn't see that computer when I was pricing, because I wasn't looking at workstations. I did price it out to the full $12k as you suggested, but I didn't see an option for a single quad GPU workstation card, or two dual GPU workstation graphics cards, to that'd add another 2 grand or so to the cost, assuming your don't pay more than what they retail for PC compatible. I'd imagine probably more like 5Gs more, given what apple usually charges for things.

So I guess only 2.5x the cost for a full-blown workstation with vastly inferior graphics cards. That isn't so bad... I guess...

Did I miss something? Was there a better workstation somewhere on their site with better graphics cards available?

[GrokTheCube]

PS: At any rate, there's little use arguing over it. I know plenty of people that have macs and love them, there just isn't one that suits my needs, or that even offers graphic cards adequate to run a lot of games. Hell, they don't offer ANY DX11 support, which immediately makes them useless for MY purposes.

My GF was trained to use both in school for graphics design, and generally prefers the Macs for high-end video and 3D animation, but prefers PCs for more simplistic programs like photoshop, just because she prefers the interface.

[reyalp]

Yeah, I just checked, more like 5.2k assuming you want DDR5 and DX11 support for the graphics cards, and dual double GPU cars utilizing two PCI-E x16 slots rather than a single quad GPU.

So it's not <$1000?

But you just said...


I built a sub-1k computer that is superior to the most expensive desktop Apple offers (at over $4k...) in all regards, and by a large margin.

[GrokTheCube]

So it's not <$1000?

But you just said...

I did not price a workstation, so I was not aware of the computer.

And it is inferior for my purposes, because it does not support the graphics API needed to run some games that I play.

You are correct though, I was wrong :-)

Edit: And corrected the factual error in my posts.

[kenonator]

laptops - mac
everything else - PC

truth

[MissBliss14]

its easier to get a virus with a PC

[reyalp]

I did not price a workstation, so I was not aware of the computer.


Did you price a mac mini?

Just wondering, the Mac Pro is the only real desktop they have...

[GrokTheCube]

Did you price a mac mini?

Just wondering, the Mac Pro is the only real desktop they have...

That and the iMac.

The mini actually looks like it'd be great for your average home user, pretty competitively priced with Dell and whatnot.

But like I said, for my uses, no DX-11 compatible 1GB+ graphics card = no go for my uses.

I did think about buying one of the mini's for my GF, so she'd have something small/portable/reliable to do basic graphics design work with. No SSD available though :-/.

She just got a near free upgrade to CS5 because Adobe screwed up big time on support for a CS3 issue she had (5 year old HDD finally quit, Adobe would not decertify it to allow her to reinstall, and wouldn't sell her a new licence, so she contacted BBB), and she really wanted to install it on an SDD to avoid the issues she had last time.

That actually would have been the ideal solution if an SSD was available, as she could have run that and the "big" computer she uses for games at the same time.

IMHO, if Apple dropped the pricing on most of their computers by ~33%, offered an SSD option and better graphics cards, they'd gain market share. If they didn't have locked hardware (so people could self-assemble), they'd likely have a market share equal to, or larger than MS.

[reyalp]

SSDs can fail, too.
If you're concerned about your data you set up a mirror anyway.

The Mini is basically a laptop with the keyboard and screen cut out. I never did get why people paid so much money for them. :P

[Mtguy8787]

Cool!

Well in that case build me an eight-core PC


First off -- you seem to be listing the Max options for a G5, which actually has a retail tag upwards of $12,000. So even if it took you $2500 for a custom built (which you can get pretty much the best of everything, for, unless you wanna pay like $4000 more for around 3-4% increase in performance) --- that is still, for cost-benefit, kicking Apple out of the ball park.

Apple way overcharges for the same hardware. This is indisputable.

The ONLY real issue is the OS. And if you want the benefits of Unix-based system, you can install Linux for free. You can also install Mac OS on a x86 architecture, as well.

1.) Core i7 920, esp one overclocked to around 3.5 ghz (which is a pretty conservative, for that particular CPU), can go neck and neck with or outpace any of the *** cpus Apples used, that cost around 6-8 times more. Its important to realize that the difference between high end CPUs are marginal.

Second, Xeons, which are far more expensive (due to lower demand, in part), are a horrible bang-for-buck for the needs of just about every layperson. A top of the line intel Xeon is going to cost many times more than the corei7 architecture, and any performance gains are going to be marginal (think 5-10%, which is "alot" in the computting world, but horrible for a cost-benefit POV) Furthermore, the Xeon architecuture is very specialized and is really meant to be used for certain purposes.

Its like getting a super expensive graphics card for high end video processing. The architecture really isnt radically different, and while its great for specialized purposes, for gaming, it actually fails compared to a $200-300 GPU,

$280 for a core i7




2.) with 32GB of RAM

First, thats completely useless to have, for any PC, even for pretty much every server purpose. Second, your typical G5 doesnt come by default with that much RAM -- not at all, so its not like youre getting $500 for ram in the price tag.

Finally, having a motherboard that supports 32 gb of RAM isnt anything special, in terms of price. Any server motherboard (i.e. 1-2 Xeon sockets, more RAM slots).... which is dumb to use for 99% of people's needs, aside from bragging rights.

Finally, more RAM isnt something unique to Apple -- it would be retarded to use "My Apple has top notch RAM" as an argument for why its better. You can buy this for any Mobo.

And youre not going to pay $100 per gigabyte of RAM, either...

P.S. -- the "super high performance low latency RAM" that it uses... first of all, this isn't unique to Apple by any means. Second of all, as with most additional hardware that you get, youll be paying about 5 times more for this hardware than if you bought it yourself... by getting an Apple. And finally, low latency RAM while it can improve performance, its marginal, and for your bang for the buck, its terrible.

Benchmark tests show that for gaming, you can expect to increase performance by 2-5%, reasonably, by using expensive low latency RAM, vs. regular.



8TB of drive space

Again, this:

a.) Isn't something unique to Apple. Pretty much any Mobo you get, aside from a micro-ATX or ultra-budget one is going to have at least 4 SATA expansion slots. Many have more.The ability to have 4 HDDs is nothign special, and you dont need to pay thousands of dollars extra to Apple ( an absurd $550 per additonal 2TB HDD)... to get it

a.) HDD space is cheap -- youre essentially paying 3-5 times as much to Apple to get the exact same hard drive you could



b.) You, two DVD-RWs, a Radeon 4870, and one Quad 4GB FC card for <$1000.


high quality DVD RW -- $35

Radeon 4870 (didnt you know that the 4000 series is now not the leading generation) -- like, $150

FC card -- serves no important purpose for most people's needs, including gaming. And if you think youre going to get a $700 FC card from Apple for a $4000 price tag, look again. Youll be out another $1000 if you get it from Apple.

[GrokTheCube]

SSDs can fail, too.
If you're concerned about your data you set up a mirror anyway.

The Mini is basically a laptop with the keyboard and screen cut out. I never did get why people paid so much money for them. :P

Comparable (or lower) pricing in a smaller package.

SSDs do fail, but the failure rate is much lower than an HDD.

[Mtguy8787]

its easier to get a virus with a PC

1.) You can just as easily install Linux (both mac and linux are based on the unix core) on a "PC" -- notice the heavy emphasis on PC.

Most people dont realize that most of the hardware in the two are the exact same thing -- the intel CPU in an Apple is the same in a "PC", believe it or not. Most peopel dont seem to grasp the difference between hardware and software

And if you really want to run a Mac OS on your x86 CPU, you can do that as well...

2.) With the default settings in Windows, yes this is true. And the unix structure is inherently more secure. But by taking a few basic steps, your risk in Windows is greatly decreased.

Furthermore (although I have not seen any empircal data to compare the efficacy of the two... theory is different from practical efficacy here) -- Win Vista/7 has the built in UAP which serves a similar practical function as unix permissions, to some degree.


The bottom line is that with a small amount of savviness, Windows can easily be hardened via a simple combo of regular AV, real time registry monitor, and outgoing connections monitor to a great deal to the point where the "virus" issue isnt even that big of a deal unless youre working with super sensitive info... in which case... install freaking linux, for free.


And again, OS is different from Hardware. Yes, there are pros and cons to Mac OS.

No, most people do not have a couple grand to throw around

No, you are not getting a more powerful computer for the money with ANY apple computer

No, if most people knew more about the real differences between the two, spending an extra couple grand would not be worth it.

To the average middle class, are you seriously going to tell me that, when youre just getting by on your car payments, its worth shelling out for an Mac to have a "more intuitive interface".

[Mtguy8787]

Comparable (or lower) pricing in a smaller package.

SSDs do fail, but the failure rate is much lower than an HDD.

Yea, and 30-50% faster read/write speed than a 10000 RPM SATA. Woohoo!

Although not worth it if youre on a budget, for most people.... better to put money into CPU and GPU.

[rockkilic]

pc.

[reyalp]

First off -- you seem to be listing the Max options for a G5, which actually has a retail tag upwards of $12,000. So even if it took you $2500 for a custom built (which you can get pretty much the best of everything, for, unless you wanna pay like $4000 more for around 3-4% increase in performance) --- that is still, for cost-benefit, kicking Apple out of the ball park.

Apple way overcharges for the same hardware. This is indisputable.

The ONLY real issue is the OS. And if you want the benefits of Unix-based system, you can install Linux for free. You can also install Mac OS on a x86 architecture, as well.

1.) Core i7 920, esp one overclocked to around 3.5 ghz (which is a pretty conservative, for that particular CPU), can go neck and neck with or outpace any of the *** cpus Apples used, that cost around 6-8 times more. Its important to realize that the difference between high end CPUs are marginal.

Second, Xeons, which are far more expensive (due to lower demand, in part), are a horrible bang-for-buck for the needs of just about every layperson. A top of the line intel Xeon is going to cost many times more than the corei7 architecture, and any performance gains are going to be marginal (think 5-10%, which is "alot" in the computting world, but horrible for a cost-benefit POV) Furthermore, the Xeon architecuture is very specialized and is really meant to be used for certain purposes.

Its like getting a super expensive graphics card for high end video processing. The architecture really isnt radically different, and while its great for specialized purposes, for gaming, it actually fails compared to a $200-300 GPU,

$280 for a core i7



First, thats completely useless to have, for any PC, even for pretty much every server purpose. Second, your typical G5 doesnt come by default with that much RAM -- not at all, so its not like youre getting $500 for ram in the price tag.

Finally, having a motherboard that supports 32 gb of RAM isnt anything special, in terms of price. Any server motherboard (i.e. 1-2 Xeon sockets, more RAM slots).... which is dumb to use for 99% of people's needs, aside from bragging rights.

Finally, more RAM isnt something unique to Apple -- it would be retarded to use "My Apple has top notch RAM" as an argument for why its better. You can buy this for any Mobo.

And youre not going to pay $100 per gigabyte of RAM, either...

P.S. -- the "super high performance low latency RAM" that it uses... first of all, this isn't unique to Apple by any means. Second of all, as with most additional hardware that you get, youll be paying about 5 times more for this hardware than if you bought it yourself... by getting an Apple. And finally, low latency RAM while it can improve performance, its marginal, and for your bang for the buck, its terrible.

Benchmark tests show that for gaming, you can expect to increase performance by 2-5%, reasonably, by using expensive low latency RAM, vs. regular.



Again, this:

a.) Isn't something unique to Apple. Pretty much any Mobo you get, aside from a micro-ATX or ultra-budget one is going to have at least 4 SATA expansion slots. Many have more.The ability to have 4 HDDs is nothign special, and you dont need to pay thousands of dollars extra to Apple ( an absurd $550 per additonal 2TB HDD)... to get it

a.) HDD space is cheap -- youre essentially paying 3-5 times as much to Apple to get the exact same hard drive you could




high quality DVD RW -- $35

Radeon 4870 (didnt you know that the 4000 series is now not the leading generation) -- like, $150

FC card -- serves no important purpose for most people's needs, including gaming. And if you think youre going to get a $700 FC card from Apple for a $4000 price tag, look again. Youll be out another $1000 if you get it from Apple.

blah blah blah

you didn't read the post i was responding to... kind of embarrassing for you

[reyalp]

Comparable (or lower) pricing in a smaller package.

SSDs do fail, but the failure rate is much lower than an HDD.

if a FS error eats the whole disk you're still screwed either way.

that's why it's important to have mirrors, onsite backups, and offsite backups for your most important data.

[boast]

First off -- you seem to be listing the Max options for a G5, which actually has a retail tag upwards of $12,000. So even if it took you $2500 for a custom built (which you can get pretty much the best of everything, for, unless you wanna pay like $4000 more for around 3-4% increase in performance) --- that is still, for cost-benefit, kicking Apple out of the ball park.

Apple way overcharges for the same hardware. This is indisputable.

The ONLY real issue is the OS. And if you want the benefits of Unix-based system, you can install Linux for free. You can also install Mac OS on a x86 architecture, as well.

1.) Core i7 920, esp one overclocked to around 3.5 ghz (which is a pretty conservative, for that particular CPU), can go neck and neck with or outpace any of the *** cpus Apples used, that cost around 6-8 times more. Its important to realize that the difference between high end CPUs are marginal.

Second, Xeons, which are far more expensive (due to lower demand, in part), are a horrible bang-for-buck for the needs of just about every layperson. A top of the line intel Xeon is going to cost many times more than the corei7 architecture, and any performance gains are going to be marginal (think 5-10%, which is "alot" in the computting world, but horrible for a cost-benefit POV) Furthermore, the Xeon architecuture is very specialized and is really meant to be used for certain purposes.

Its like getting a super expensive graphics card for high end video processing. The architecture really isnt radically different, and while its great for specialized purposes, for gaming, it actually fails compared to a $200-300 GPU,

$280 for a core i7



First, thats completely useless to have, for any PC, even for pretty much every server purpose. Second, your typical G5 doesnt come by default with that much RAM -- not at all, so its not like youre getting $500 for ram in the price tag.

Finally, having a motherboard that supports 32 gb of RAM isnt anything special, in terms of price. Any server motherboard (i.e. 1-2 Xeon sockets, more RAM slots).... which is dumb to use for 99% of people's needs, aside from bragging rights.

Finally, more RAM isnt something unique to Apple -- it would be retarded to use "My Apple has top notch RAM" as an argument for why its better. You can buy this for any Mobo.

And youre not going to pay $100 per gigabyte of RAM, either...

P.S. -- the "super high performance low latency RAM" that it uses... first of all, this isn't unique to Apple by any means. Second of all, as with most additional hardware that you get, youll be paying about 5 times more for this hardware than if you bought it yourself... by getting an Apple. And finally, low latency RAM while it can improve performance, its marginal, and for your bang for the buck, its terrible.

Benchmark tests show that for gaming, you can expect to increase performance by 2-5%, reasonably, by using expensive low latency RAM, vs. regular.



Again, this:

a.) Isn't something unique to Apple. Pretty much any Mobo you get, aside from a micro-ATX or ultra-budget one is going to have at least 4 SATA expansion slots. Many have more.The ability to have 4 HDDs is nothign special, and you dont need to pay thousands of dollars extra to Apple ( an absurd $550 per additonal 2TB HDD)... to get it

a.) HDD space is cheap -- youre essentially paying 3-5 times as much to Apple to get the exact same hard drive you could




high quality DVD RW -- $35

Radeon 4870 (didnt you know that the 4000 series is now not the leading generation) -- like, $150

FC card -- serves no important purpose for most people's needs, including gaming. And if you think youre going to get a $700 FC card from Apple for a $4000 price tag, look again. Youll be out another $1000 if you get it from Apple.

I skimmed most of that. But the Mac Pro uses ECC ram (super expensive), and the only boards that have ECC ram also only use Xeon (super expensive). So thats why it doesn't use i7 stuff

[reyalp]

I skimmed most of that. But the Mac Pro uses ECC ram (super expensive), and the only boards that have ECC ram also only use Xeon (super expensive). So thats why it doesn't use i7 stuff

It's not too bad, 4GB DDR2 ECC FB-DIMMs are under $150 if you shop around.
Of course you only need eight of those to get 32GB.

If you're doing a lot of VMs the Skulltrail platform really is a lot better than the i7 LGA1366 right at the moment. Of course now with the Xeon 3500 series, they're basically i7s with ECC support. It kind of negates the usefulness of Skulltrail today.
I have to LOL at 32gb "not being useful for servers"... tell that to Oracle 10g.

[Mtguy8787]

I skimmed most of that. But the Mac Pro uses ECC ram (super expensive), and the only boards that have ECC ram also only use Xeon (super expensive). So thats why it doesn't use i7 stuff



eal for people who cant drop and extra 400 bucks like its nothing.

Also EEC is parity -- and is slower, all other things equal, than non parity RAM. Everything is a tradeoff, and you dont go with EEC for max performance.




Scuse me -- EEC is slower for the same reason as parity... its not actually parity.

[Mtguy8787]

I have to LOL at 32gb "not being useful for servers"... tell that to Oracle 10g.

Notice how my post was about "Most" -- can you not read?

Most dedicated servers that you rent are not going to have that much memory -- as for what most are used for, youre not going to come even close to bottlenecking unless you have a very high volume of certain kinds of requests from the server -- i.e. some kinds of high volume demands are going to stress your CPU much more, i.e. parsing a lot of code --

Whereas others are going to eat up way more memory.



Stay on track -- the point was that for the vast, vast majority of people who are like "My Mac is better than your computer because it has 16-32 GB or RAM" -- is absurd... it offers no use to them.

I mentioned servers because EVEN IF youre running a server, which most people arent, it still is a bad deal for most of those cases. Youd be hard pressed to justifying paying 3 times more for a pair of Xeons and Mobo which which you could get identical ones yourself as being a good deal.


the topic of the thread is Mac vs "PC" -- and since you brought up hardware, I was simply showing how buying computer hardware from Apple is not a good deal, no matter how you spin it. The only exception would be a millionaire who couldnt be arsed caring about it being overpriced -- and just wants the best computer.... right now... regardless of the cost.


The whole point was to show how any argument in favor of Apple over anything hardware related is invalid -- the only real factor is the OS. The only unique hardware that Apple ever really used was IBMs, which cost way more, mainly because it was exclusive. Only notable difference is a different instruction set, which doesnt really mean anything.

[reyalp]

Notice how my post was about "Most" -- can you not read?

Most dedicated servers that you rent are not going to have that much memory -- as for what most are used for, youre not going to come even close to bottlenecking unless you have a very high volume of certain kinds of requests from the server -- i.e. some kinds of high volume demands are going to stress your CPU much more, i.e. parsing a lot of code --

Whereas others are going to eat up way more memory.



Stay on track -- the point was that for the vast, vast majority of people who are like "My Mac is better than your computer because it has 16-32 GB or RAM" -- is absurd... it offers no use to them.

I mentioned servers because EVEN IF youre running a server, which most people arent, it still is a bad deal for most of those cases. Youd be hard pressed to justifying paying 3 times more for a pair of Xeons and Mobo which which you could get identical ones yourself as being a good deal.


the topic of the thread is Mac vs "PC" -- and since you brought up hardware, I was simply showing how buying computer hardware from Apple is not a good deal, no matter how you spin it. The only exception would be a millionaire who couldnt be arsed caring about it being overpriced -- and just wants the best computer.... right now... regardless of the cost.


The whole point was to show how any argument in favor of Apple over anything hardware related is invalid -- the only real factor is the OS. The only unique hardware that Apple ever really used was IBMs, which cost way more, mainly because it was exclusive. Only notable difference is a different instruction set, which doesnt really mean anything.

no, i didn't bring up hardware, Grok did. and you totally missed that. The whole point you were trying to make was invalid from the onset. Then you try to make up for your embarrassment by making attacks. Sad, really. you haven't made a single point that could be relevant.

i never said apple was competitively priced, or was a good buy, or anything. the Grok guy said he could build a computer better than anything of apple's for <$1000, so I pointed out that he was wrong. He was right about being able to build it for half of Apple's price, though.

Anyway, if you want to continue to show off your inability to read the whole thread, go right ahead. But you're really not making any cogent points at all and just blabbing incessantly.

Before the advent of KSMd I was paging even with 16GB of RAM on my workstation. The advent of samepage merging cut my needs down quite a bit, I could probably get by with 12 or 8 today with just a minor bump in CPU load. Just because in your very limited experience, most things don't have use for 32GB of RAM, doesn't mean there aren't people who do have a need for it.
I wouldn't order a single server today with less than 32GB of RAM, Oracle, KVM, ESX or otherwise.