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Originally posted by kitphillips Thats what I keep saying though, its not just a slightly better PC, its a whole new generation of processors with 2 MORE CORES! And PC are several generations ahead in terms of graphics too. Its not just a small differenece, its vast. There was a thread on the ableton forums where they compared the performance of various computers using ableton in a standardised benchmark. So this directly translates into audio processing improvement. The general score for macbook pros was around 47-70%(!!!) CPU usage with the average being around 60% or so. My computer (3 years old, toshiba laptop with a core2duo and a 4200 RPM disk) scored about 60-65. A new Core i7 scored something like 20-30 (mostly around 20%). Thats a huge increase in performance, and thats why I'm obsessing about it. To say that mac hardware can compete in the current climate is quite simply wrong, the PC will probably perform around three times faster. http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic....111880&start=15 look at the figures on the macbooks yourself and tell me they're a good buy.

That forum test is pretty darn subjective and in my eyes completely useless for a scientific benchmark or analysis.

It doesn't take the following in to account:

1, Different soundcards/interfaces are better or worse (due to th effieciency of both their hardware and software) at handling audio, and therefore essentially taking the strain off the cpu. You've got people putting RMS's against onboars sound cards (WTF?).

2, The efficiency of the platform - you can't compare 21% on OSX to 21% win. It's meaningless.

3, The CPU % will have different implications based on the platform, soundcard, FSB, whatever, etc. For instance on my PC laptop anything above 75% makes it completely stutter and unusable, whereas on particularly heavy projects my imac copes fine well above 80%.

4, The prices of some of those computers vary incredibly - for instance some of those XPS laptops get in relative terms terrible scores as do the mac pros in relation to how much they cost.

I could go on and on as to why that thread is useless but I think you get the point.

I actually think mac pro's, while extremely powerful are terrible value for money, especially when you compare them to upper spec PC's or the relation of CPU power to price with an imac.

I do concur that mactops (especially MBP's) don't offer huge processing power to price ratio but I don't think it's really it's a big issue as people are making out, and they do offer good value if you're looking for a robust nicely designed laptop with decent processing power, a superb screen and amazing battery life.

If your just after CPU cycles and bus speeds then PC laptops are better for you.

I do think however, that for a desktop, you're a muppet if you don't consider imacs - you simply can't get that power, with those screens in such a well designed unit for that money. Seriously, I've tried speccing a PC system that competes with them and it doesn't exist.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN I do think however, that for a desktop, you're a muppet if you don't consider imacs - you simply can't get that power, with those screens in such a well designed unit for that money. Seriously, I've tried speccing a PC system that competes with them and it doesn't exist.

Were you looking at a complete system or individual parts? To use a nice word that you just used, you're a muppet if you don't buy separate components and build your own desktop because it makes a massive difference in pricing, at least in this country.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN That forum test is pretty darn subjective and in my eyes completely useless for a scientific benchmark or analysis. It doesn't take the following in to account: 1, Different soundcards/interfaces are better or worse (due to th effieciency of both their hardware and software) at handling audio, and therefore essentially taking the strain off the cpu. You've got people putting RMS's against onboars sound cards (WTF?). 2, The efficiency of the platform - you can't compare 21% on OSX to 21% win. It's meaningless. 3, The CPU % will have different implications based on the platform, soundcard, FSB, whatever, etc. For instance on my PC laptop anything above 75% makes it completely stutter and unusable, whereas on particularly heavy projects my imac copes fine well above 80%. 4, The prices of some of those computers vary incredibly - for instance some of those XPS laptops get in relative terms terrible scores as do the mac pros in relation to how much they cost. I could go on and on as to why that thread is useless but I think you get the point. I actually think mac pro's, while extremely powerful are terrible value for money, especially when you compare them to upper spec PC's or the relation of CPU power to price with an imac. I do concur that mactops (especially MBP's) don't offer huge processing power to price ratio but I don't think it's really it's a big issue as people are making out, and they do offer good value if you're looking for a robust nicely designed laptop with decent processing power, a superb screen and amazing battery life. If your just after CPU cycles and bus speeds then PC laptops are better for you. I do think however, that for a desktop, you're a muppet if you don't consider imacs - you simply can't get that power, with those screens in such a well designed unit for that money. Seriously, I've tried speccing a PC system that competes with them and it doesn't exist.

Sorry, dude, I'm not trying to give you shit personally, but did you actually read the thread?

1/ Soundcards: totally agree, thats why the type and make of soundcard is listed. If your that bothered then compare system with the same sound card against one another.

2/ Silly statement, the number of tracks and effects you can run is the definition of the effectiveness of the platform (OS and all) as a music production solution. Thats exactly what we're talking about, how much power you can leverage with a certain system.

3/% is incredibly important, what are you talking about? System utilisation is the total usage of system resources i.e. how much time the system has to process the audio -how much time its taking. If it exceeds 100% then you get a buffer underrun. So this takes into account hard disk speed, RAM speed, FSB, everything. What you said simply isn't true. If you get a discrepancy of 5% thats fine, its still acceptable error IMO. Its a decent (not perfect, but decent) measure. I'm not going into why because it'll make this post bloated, but if you really want to debate then I'm happy to.

4/ What does price have to do with it, your argument is failing
we're simply looking at what computers offer value for money, the ones with core i7s in them are killing the MBPs. You can get a core i7 in a PC lappy for a decent price, much less than an MBP.

So nah, I don't really get the point.

Sorry if I'm coming across as bitchy, I'm not truing to be a dick, and I don't have anything really against mac as a solution. If you wanna run OSX and logic then I think its fair enough to pay extra for it. But I don't think its fair to pay extra and then have to put up with a very sub par system.

Fair enough about the imacs, or even mac pro's, I can see why it'd be good from a music perspective to have server class hardware in them, and all that power and expandability, you can spec them as fast as a PC desktop. But for MBPs, you CANNOT put together a solution as fast as a PC laptop. And that translates DIRECTLY, to them being weaker for music production.

EDIT: of course, if you can show me some solid data showing that quad core i7s are only equal to core2duos in terms of music production, then I'm happy to be proven wrong. But as it is, I'm convinced by this data that the i7s are stronger...

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quote:

Originally posted by Lunar Phase 7 Who is the crazy fuck trying to produce on a netbook? Did he succeed? Did he die? Did he ********?

haha ********

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Originally posted by kitphillips Sorry, dude, I'm not trying to give you shit personally, but did you actually read the thread? 1/ Soundcards: totally agree, thats why the type and make of soundcard is listed. If your that bothered then compare system with the same sound card against one another. 2/ Silly statement, the number of tracks and effects you can run is the definition of the effectiveness of the platform (OS and all) as a music production solution. Thats exactly what we're talking about, how much power you can leverage with a certain system. 3/% is incredibly important, what are you talking about? System utilisation is the total usage of system resources i.e. how much time the system has to process the audio -how much time its taking. If it exceeds 100% then you get a buffer underrun. So this takes into account hard disk speed, RAM speed, FSB, everything. What you said simply isn't true. If you get a discrepancy of 5% thats fine, its still acceptable error IMO. Its a decent (not perfect, but decent) measure. I'm not going into why because it'll make this post bloated, but if you really want to debate then I'm happy to. 4/ What does price have to do with it, your argument is failing we're simply looking at what computers offer value for money, the ones with core i7s in them are killing the MBPs. You can get a core i7 in a PC lappy for a decent price, much less than an MBP. So nah, I don't really get the point. Sorry if I'm coming across as bitchy, I'm not truing to be a dick, and I don't have anything really against mac as a solution. If you wanna run OSX and logic then I think its fair enough to pay extra for it. But I don't think its fair to pay extra and then have to put up with a very sub par system. Fair enough about the imacs, or even mac pro's, I can see why it'd be good from a music perspective to have server class hardware in them, and all that power and expandability, you can spec them as fast as a PC desktop. But for MBPs, you CANNOT put together a solution as fast as a PC laptop. And that translates DIRECTLY, to them being weaker for music production. EDIT: of course, if you can show me some solid data showing that quad core i7s are only equal to core2duos in terms of music production, then I'm happy to be proven wrong. But as it is, I'm convinced by this data that the i7s are stronger...

You missed the points completely Kit - I'm not being a dick or argumentative for the sake of it, just that dumb test is worse than comparing apples and oranges - it's like comparing fruit salads to each other.

1, I know you agree but the full problem is soundcards effect overall system performance (at least for the purposes of this test) meaning unless all of them have the same card the benchmarks listed are fucking meaningless.

2, Platforms perform differently at different loads because of the intrinsic nature of their programming. that's what i was getting at - for instance I've witnessed first hand that cubase on a mac vs. cubase on a PC behave differently at max loads. I know this becuase my tells Steinberg what's going to be in the next version and headaches it causes them between platforms. So no it's not silly as you can't accurately compare to the two platforms in this way.

3, that % is an incredibly esoteric way of getting some form of statistic. I don't think the accuracy is anywhere close to what you think it is. What about if they haven't defragmented their PC drive ever? What about if they've got tons of background tasks running such as antivirus, spyware or killers, or haven't repaired dik permissions ever. You should be getting my point soon about how shite this test really is.

4, The price of laptops is how you making your assumptions on value vs. performance. You wouldn't say it's fair to slag of a cheap netbook when put up against a top spec MBP so it has everything to do with it. The laptops (mac or PC) that score well in the test are not cheap by any means.


I'm just making the overall point that unless you compare newly formatted machines, both with exactly the sound card and software (etc), the test is going to be so inaccurate it's not worth paying attention to (as that thread is).

Anyway, we can round in circles but IMO that test isn't worth the server space it's stored on.

I honestly couldn't give a shit about the Mac vs PC debate - I think the macbooks are good value if raw processing power isn't your top concern and PC laptops are good value if that's your primary concern with the other factors I mentioned being secondary (screen battery life etc).

The MBP are over priced (period), as are the Mac pros but at least they offer blistering performance and stability if you do have the coin.

@fledz - I'm only ever talking about custom built PC's - I've never owned and would never buy (apart from Mac) a preconfigured PC.

I hold to the statement that you're going to have a very hard time buying components that are better than an imac and come in for less cash.

I think you can compensate for the effects of soundcards given that that information is provided. Its not that hard to analyse that data in your head and personally it drives me to the conclusion that the MBPs are very underpowered.

I take your point about formatting of disks etc, but honestly, for me, it still drives me to the same conclusion. Most of us who are home producers do have background tasks running like antivirus, etc all the time, and few of us get to defrag often, so they probably give good real world performance figures.

But yeah, this is going in circles already, so I'll just say that I agree that the MBPs are overpriced and mac pros can be well equipped.

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quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN I do think however, that for a desktop, you're a muppet if you don't consider imacs - you simply can't get that power, with those screens in such a well designed unit for that money. Seriously, I've tried speccing a PC system that competes with them and it doesn't exist.

21" iMac @ $1,599

• 3.06GHz dual core Core2Duo CPU
  
• 21" IPS monitor
  
• 4GB DDR2 memory
  
• 500GB hard drive
  
• 8x DVD burner
  
• 128MB GeForce 9400M video card
  

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quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I've never had a problem with FLs tech support till this day. (I've actually never used it till this day)

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Originally posted by floyd741 i think echosystm is a pretty cool guy. eh pwns robby rox and doesn't afraid of anything.

Last edited by echosystm on Mar-17-2010 at 09:27

except that the PC dont have a working operating system. and have lots of cables, and needs lots of space. makes lots of noise, heat and dust. and its ugly.

Last edited by Zak McKracken on Mar-17-2010 at 12:10

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Originally posted by palm except that the PC dont have a working operating system. and have lots of cables, and needs lots of space. makes lots of noise, heat and dust. and its ugly.

bingo.

That PC system will sound like a jet engine most of the time, which is well useful in a studio environment.

And that screen is a peice of shite compared to the new LED imacs. Fuck dell don't even guarantee no dead pixels. If you want to compare you'd need to go for the Dell ultrasharp HD 24inch which is $599 (and doesn't have a built in webcam).

Also, the entry level imac (the one you specced) is only $1199 (or about $1050 if you know where to look ) - must suck to live in aus

lol, it's easier to pirate stuff on a MAC than a PC you fucking gobshite.

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Originally posted by RichieV I said that or you are a big gaming nerd. Those are the only possible reasons one would chose windows over osx. That or you are a sadist. Why get slapped by a fat girl in leather when you can just let windows do the damage pro bono.

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Originally posted by Aesthetic lol, it's easier to pirate stuff on a MAC than a PC you fucking gobshite.

Really. If you can find a copy of DSP quattro I'll give you my first born.