AGAIN I will say build a hackinstosh! Install OSX on a PC if you're somewhat computer handy, the process has gotten so much easier.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN IMO, stay away from Asus laptops. they;re not the company they once were. My Gf's new asus laptop is a real pain and even though the build quality is good, it's quite flakey as a system and just randomly freaks out every so often.

Really now? Thats interesting. I'm not very keen on the toshiba stuff since my current laptop basically packed it in a year ago when it was only two years old. HP and acer are supposed to be unreliable at the best of times, and I've heard dell are renowned for their shoddy components. I was hoping the asus had a longer life than that, but maybe not...

I just don't really think that macs are a viable option right now though, I'm in the market for a new laptop and the best option they can give me has an incredibly outdated graphics card and a core2duo processor, and it would cost near to 4000 AUD - thats near to a sixth of what I would earn in a year if I wasn't at uni. The closest ASUS alternative looks just as good, has similar build quality, a quad core (!!!) processor, far superior graphics card and costs less than 1500.

I like macs, and I'd buy one, but nothing justifies a $2500 price difference for a far inferior spec IMO.

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Originally posted by Eric J Precisely. Or just reformat and reinstall your operating system. If your machine is truly 10 years old, then you may benefit from a hardware upgrade. Windows 7 is indeed very, very stable and very, very good. Personally, if I were on PC I'd stick with XP just a little bit longer simply because driver support for WIndows 7 might not quite be there depending on what external gear you have. However, if all your hardware (audio interface, etc.) has WIndows 7 drivers and they are stable, then I would see no problem jumping to WIndows 7 right away. If you are truly committed to producing, and you want to use application only available on the Apple platform (i.e. Logic), or you have hardware that is better/only supported on Mac (MOTU, Apogee, etc.). Otherwise, stability is not a property natively inherent to either platform. WIndows can be jut as stable as Mac if properly taken care of. Mac can be just as unstable as Windows if junked up with garbage. Save early, save often. Turn on Auto-Save in your DAW software package. Reinstalling your OS may help, but you may need to look into a hardware upgrade if you machine is that old. I would not take this as any type of absolute measurement. 20 applications open at the same time can be just a stable on a WIndows machine. OK, here is the thing. One of the reasons that Mac's are generally more expensive than PC's on average is because Apple computers almost always have higher quality components as part of the package. Notice how DELL or HP will have many different models of the same PC line. Usually an entry level, a mid range, and a high end. The high end model PC is almost always fairly expensive and on par with the Apple offerings. For example, the Mac Pro is in the same price range as a high end HP Pavilion Elite stocked up with all the options or a Dell Precision workstation. PC manufacturers make these $500 PC's because not everyone can afford a $2,000+ computer, but in order to get the machine down to that price point, they must cut some corners. Slower processors, cheaper motherboards, crappy video cards (or IGP's), slower RAM, etc. You get the idea. Apple on the other hand, offers basically one model in their desktop line: HIgh end. Period. If you want affordable, go with the iMac, but you lose the expansion capability in terms of extra internal hard disks and PCI expansion. When it comes to music production, the more ITB you are, the more you need these more expensive features. High end processors, server-class motherboards, fast RAM. All these things combine to make the Mac perform better overall than a cheap $500 PC. However, you can achieve the same effect by getting a high performance PC. That being said, you aren't going to get a high performance PC for $500. It is going to cost you in the $2,000 range. The processors are more expensive, the RAM is more expensive, and the motherboard is more expensive (to support the processors and RAM), all because these components are higher performance. And having said all that, if the primary reason for upgrading is high performance, then you need to be looking at getting a desktop. This is true no matter which platform you choose. Pound for pound, nothing is going to offer high performance components. So, if you want to buy a Mac, do it because you want or need to operate on the Apple platform and for no other reason. High Performance machines are available on both platforms.

I have to disagree. The Mac Pro for example uses the 3500 xeon series which are identical to the desktop core i7 cpu's also at the same price. So the mac pro are really overpiced. Same also holds true when buying Ram, HDD, GPU's and so on from Apple.

Btw, server components are not build for performance, it won't perform any better than desktop parts, they are build for reliability. ( but who has their computer on 24/7 for 5+ years? And most people upgrade or buy a new computer after so many year :P )

Pound for pound, you need to custom build rigs. PC builders like Apple, Dell and HP overprice. ( Unless he really want to use MAC OSX or a laptop )

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Last edited by Timothy on Jan-22-2010 at 08:34

Ive always used PC for producing, having said that i always build my own so i know exactly whats going into them.
Last year i bought a Macbook pro as my old laptop was finished, fell in love with the operating system and actually thought about buying a Mac Pro for producing!!!
But i came to my senses as my pc runs great, never crashes at all. Only time its connected to the internet is for VST updates or e-licenser authorisations. Its on its own partition so no extra bloatware, virus scanners etc

In short if going for a new PC, build it yourself and keep it off the net and it should be as stable as any Mac....but you wont be able to run Logic on it

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quote:

Originally posted by Timothy I have to disagree. The Mac Pro for example uses the 3500 xeon series which are identical to the desktop core i7 cpu's also at the same price. So the mac pro are really overpiced. Same also holds true when buying Ram, HDD, GPU's and so on from Apple.

You can't just price the CPU and then determine that the Mac is overpriced. There cost of any machine is more than the cost of the CPU alone. If you build a PC with identical specs as the Mac Pro, I think you'll find a fairly comparable cost. CPU, MB, RAM, HD, Power Supply, External Expansion Ports, all these things add up to determine the total cost of the machine.

Is there a bit of a premium built in? Of course, but its really no worse that any other OEM. In addition, the Apple product has some "nice to have features" such as a SATA backplane and RAM on riser cards, etc. In addition, Apple support is really good (and NOT outsourced to India), so that's as bonus for people who aren't technical or who are not as familiar with Apple hardware and software.

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Originally posted by Timothy Btw, server components are not build for performance, it won't perform any better than desktop parts, they are build for reliability. ( but who has their computer on 24/7 for 5+ years? And most people upgrade or buy a new computer after so many year :P )

Server class components in workstation class machines is only a recent phenomenon. Until recently, you had to buy the highest end workstations to get Xeon processors or FB DIMMS simply because the costs were too high and the average computer user did not need that and it would push up the cost. They are also reliable, but the point I was making is that server class machines generally cut fewer corners than workstation class machines.

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Originally posted by Timothy Pound for pound, you need to custom build rigs. PC builders like Apple, Dell and HP overprice. ( Unless he really want to use MAC OSX or a laptop )

That is one way to go, and certainly an option some may consider. However, there are plenty of people out there who would just a soon pay a little bit extra for a machine already built and ready to go and the support that comes along with it.

I totally understand where you are coming from. I've been building machines for 20 years, from back when you still had to put an ISA IDE card in the machine if you wanted floppy and hard drive support. However, after many years of building, the cost of OEM machines dropped to a point where it became less cost effective to build custom machines, and it was just easier to buy OEM.

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However, after many years of building, the cost of OEM machines dropped to a point where it became less cost effective to build custom machines, and it was just easier to buy OEM.

This is very true of the UK

I've only been building machines for about a decade...

But wheras the price difference used to be maybe 20-30% it's now virtually zero.

As for the choice of Mac over a PC? It really depends whether you want to use Logic I guess. I really can't see any other reason to go Mac. They're not even as bullet proof as they used to be either.

As for the OPs post about a Mac for the stated budget my own personal advice would be to get a relatively powerful PC, some DSP and the DAW of preference (apart from Logic of course)

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I want to preface this with the fact I've been a PC owner since I was 7 (and thats two decades ago), including building Audio specific PC's for major UK Pro audio retailer.

I think the difference is very little (depending on territory) in terem sof quality when assessed properly.

For instance (and this has been done so many times before on here), an entry level imac.

Now go buy the same processor, same (high quality) ram, superb motherboard (because the imacs are nearly flawless in terms of build quality), ultra quiet PSU, good graphics card, and an incredible quality screen (i have yet to see a screen under $500 that matches the imac, not to mention the new LED imacs).

I guarantee you that you will end up to the same money, if not more, than the imac, but it won't be in a nicely designed format, with a tiny footprint. And you won;t have OSX or Logic.

My point is PC's are great if you want to custom build and be very careful about what you do with it, but the $1200 I spent on my imac is one of the best purchases I've ever made.

the mac pro's offer slightly less $$ to performance but when you are that level you are getting in to diminishing returns anyway (i.e. adding $500 to a budget of $500 for a PC will give you a huge difference but adding $500 to a $3000 mac pro might be a different video card). The mac pro's are better built than any consumer PC I have ever seen. open one up - they are honestly an genius peice of engineering.

Don't get me wrong, I still love PC's, it's just that for my uses (music/enigneering) macs are so much less hassle and work so well while being cost effective for the components and platform you receive.

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Originally posted by kitphillips Really now? Thats interesting. I'm not very keen on the toshiba stuff since my current laptop basically packed it in a year ago when it was only two years old. HP and acer are supposed to be unreliable at the best of times, and I've heard dell are renowned for their shoddy components. I was hoping the asus had a longer life than that, but maybe not... I just don't really think that macs are a viable option right now though, I'm in the market for a new laptop and the best option they can give me has an incredibly outdated graphics card and a core2duo processor, and it would cost near to 4000 AUD - thats near to a sixth of what I would earn in a year if I wasn't at uni. The closest ASUS alternative looks just as good, has similar build quality, a quad core (!!!) processor, far superior graphics card and costs less than 1500.

Some of the asus laptops are great spec for the money - my brother in law has about two at any time. He takes them to the amazon forest with him and noticed that the previous couple of laptops have not held up to his usual level of abuse.

I don't think it's a big deal though - i would just check reviews the for specific models for any common problems.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN ...and just because of the lack of maintenece and the simplicity of the OS. my workflow increase by I reckon 20%. I spend so little time making the machine work like it;s supposed to and that time is not spent on actually making music.

I'm still mystified when people say this. I spend precisely 0 minutes per week on machine/OS maintenance (well, except when a chassis fan burns out, but fans do that). Even back in the Windows XP days it wasn't really that burdensome. Exactly what maintenance tasks did your iMac free you from?

(P.S. Sorry if that came off as confrontational - I'm genuinely curious as to the answer; it's something I've always scoffed at in the past and never really thought to actually ask).

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Last edited by DigiNut on Jan-22-2010 at 23:25

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Originally posted by DigiNut I'm still mystified when people say this. I spend precisely 0 minutes per week on machine/OS maintenance (well, except when a chassis fan burns out, but fans do that). Even back in the Windows XP days it wasn't really that burdensome. Exactly what maintenance tasks did your iMac free you from? (P.S. Sorry if that came off as confrontational - I'm genuinely curious as to the answer; it's something I've always scoffed at in the past and never really thought to actually ask).

This isn't quite fair. You are a computer wiz. It takes alot of knowledge to keep a PC operational. You either see computers like yours that are maintained or the types owned by normal people with malware popping up and applications running at a fraction of the speed it should run at.

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Originally posted by RichieV This isn't quite fair. You are a computer wiz. It takes alot of knowledge to keep a PC operational. You either see computers like yours that are maintained or the types owned by normal people with malware popping up and applications running at a fraction of the speed it should run at.

But it doesn't take any knowledge. I think I've opened up the control panel here maybe twice, once to set up a second monitor and once to uninstall some program (maybe more than once for that). I hate hardware/OS issues as much as anyone, I don't even bother trying to solve them at work anymore, I just send them off to the sysadmin.

As far as malware goes, I don't think I've ever seen that on a Vista machine, and the primary reason you see it so infrequently (if ever) on a Mac is not because it's more secure or user-friendly but simply because malware authors don't bother targeting the platform.

And Win7 especially, I think it's in the "so easy a caveman could do it" department.

But like I said to DJ RANN... give me an example to the contrary. What knowledge does one need to have in order to keep a Windows PC running that isn't also required to keep a Mac running?

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2009-02-21 - DJ Attention @ I'm So Popular
2009-06-18 - DJ Annoying @ People Need To Know Where I'll Be
2012-11-32 - DJ Insufferable ɸ Or At Least the Stalkers I Complain About
2048-06-66 - Spastic & Whocares ¶ Although I'm Actually Flattered
9999-45-81 - Tweaker Gimp ☼ I Probably Won't Even Go To This But I Have To Make Sure I Fill Up All The Available Space Here