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PC vs. Mac G5 (pg. 5)
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| dnt |
Can we get one thing straight from the things I've read in the last 4 pages.
This is not a Hardware debate, you posters are comparing operating systems. With that in mind I much prefer OSX over Windows. I have been a repair technician for over 8 years now mostly on PC(Windows).
Yes windows has made alot of progress yes in some cases it stills need work I'm sorry if you can't admit that. Windows has been great for me and I have no problems with it other than when its pushed to hard.
OSX was my dream come true. Terminal interaction (which feels second nature to me vs a gui from the MUD programming days). OSX has only given way on me once during CPU intensive, I/O operations, but at the time DP4.1 was a very unstable beast.
The reason Apple is going intel, and seperating from IBM is because Apple is trying to push their OSX and Server OSX. Since IBM develops a server platform they really wouldnt mesh well.
To compare performance of a PC Windows based machine and the G5s completely depends on the setup of the PC. A quality built machine with quality parts is still going to cost you pretty close to the same amount of money as a MAC. Apple just doesnt catter to a lower end user, they provide quailty performance parts (SATA, PCIe, Matched Batch RAM, ect)
Currently this revision of MACs run Dual- Dual Core Processors. Their 2.7 model is quite a beast indeed. I currently run a 2.0 model with 2.5 of RAM.
I like OSX as a OS, I have not been disapointed with the performance of the G5 compared to the 4200 X2.
But AMD has something great with this X2 and it is a shame Apple didnt go their route. Even now the full potential cant really be taken from the X2 until Vista makes its release, but it is the way of the future. While these PCs will continue to outpower a mac as they grow, I would much rather have OSX as the OS than I would windows.
Now unfortunately alot of the MAC community shatters its image when it proclaims its OSX the best and the others just suck and go on with various other false facts and wont admit Windows XP is a much better product than everyone bashes it to be.
But so then does it turn around to the mighty Windows user who has a hard time believing anything other than PC can be had. Both parties seem to have a hard time bringing up good evidence; not that one is better than the other, but that one is so much worse overall.
The artsy stereotype, inept user ect does not fly and I still don't see why this keeps being used. Someone spending 2k plus on a PC is "leet" while those who spend 3k on something maybe a bit faster and with the same quality parts (in a sense yes yes the motherboards cpus different.. go with me here).
Such will always be and its a shame. No good discussions can or will ever happen. |
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| Storyteller |
| quote: | Originally posted by stefanoc
also, is athlon 64 good for multi-tasking?
is it reliable? is the athlon 64 better than pentium 4 or are they about the same? i dont care about saving a few hundred bucks, i care about getting something more reliable.
thanks |
There's no diffence in stability. AMD offers a bit more ghz than pentium for the same amount of money though. |
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| Storyteller |
| quote: | Originally posted by stefanoc
theres no trick to saving money, you just dont spend it. i make $1,000 month and i sometimes save it. back in the days, i saved 700-800 a month (i know, its crazy), now im happy if i save 200.
i dont pay rent, but i pay for everything else (car insurancce, cell phone, credit card bill...)
i have a great credit score. u just have to know the right way to spend your money and amount you should spend. never spend more than you have, thats just plain wrong in this case.
storyteller:
how do you set windows in a way to perform better? is there a guide or anything, or does anyone know how?
im going with a PC because i figured a good mac would cost me high.
with the money ill be saving buying a PC, i can atleast get a decent soundcard, synth, etc... |
Use your OS only for music and NOTHING else, turn off all visual effects, do not connect it to the internet to avoid crap, tell windows to improve performance on background services (audio is a background service in windows). Also there are programs which can change chipset latencies, this way you can improve you soundcards performance a bit too sometimes.
This only improves the performance a bit though. It's is easier to make a mess of your pc so it won't perform well. Best thing is to make sure you stay away from crap like spyware and stuff... it well massively decrease the pc performance. |
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| fr0st |
| quote: | Originally posted by Storyteller
Use your OS only for music and NOTHING else, turn off all visual effects, do not connect it to the internet to avoid crap, tell windows to improve performance on background services (audio is a background service in windows). Also there are programs which can change chipset latencies, this way you can improve you soundcards performance a bit too sometimes.
This only improves the performance a bit though. It's is easier to make a mess of your pc so it won't perform well. Best thing is to make sure you stay away from crap like spyware and stuff... it well massively decrease the pc performance. |
I surf the net, download programs on my mac etc even play some WOW and i have no decreases in performance, that was my point.. Windows require maintenence, macs dont... |
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| DannyO |
Stefanoc, do some research about the Opteron chip, I have heard that its very good when it comes to multitasking.
Storyteller, keeping a pc of the net would help out windows problems alot, but it shouldn't have to do that to avoid problems, BUT I have tried out windows Vista and one thing they are doing with the OS is that IE will run in a kind of shell, trying to make it seperate from the OS, this way it will block alot more trying to get threw to infect the system, but then again Firefox can do this.
Oh yea, the other day I went looking for some of the information that I talked about in my previous posts, I don't have all of it or the same info, but close enough, if anyone wants to see them, I can post them up. |
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| Storyteller |
| quote: | Originally posted by fr0st
I surf the net, download programs on my mac etc even play some WOW and i have no decreases in performance, that was my point.. Windows require maintenence, macs dont... |
Since I got rid of my audigy soundcard which caused instant crashes I never had to do any maintenance actaully.. That is about a year now. As I said, you need to know what you're doing :) (My audio only partition is actually connected to the internet too, I download & surf a lot, actually I'm typing this on my audio partition right now:))
+ you're lucky macs aren't targetted that much when it comes to spyware and virusses :) |
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| DigiNut |
Multitasking isn't really up to the CPU, it's up to the OS, and every single OS today uses some form of preemptive multitasking. Windows XP has something like 30 priority levels (6 process priorities * 5 thread priorities), which is more than enough for just about any configuration. I don't know if Linux/OSX have more but it won't really make a difference.
The main difference (not the only difference of course) between the Opteron and the Athlon 64 is that the Opteron is designed for SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processor) while the Athlon 64 is designed to be used in a uniprocessor environment. So if you have the money to blow, you can shove 4 Opterons in your PC and watch it fly. Having more CPUs obviously means better multitasking, but again, it's up to not only the OS but the program itself (i.e. Cubase or Logic) to take advantage of the SMP capabilities.
| quote: | Originally posted by fr0st
Mac
Pros
Much more stable the windows, yes you can get windows to behave nicely, but not without a lot of work. |
No.
| quote: | | OS is very efficient at multitasking(for programs that are optimized for this, live sucks on my g5) |
That is really more a function of the programs themselves than the OS, and most people find Cubase to be about the same efficiency as Logic.
| quote: | PC
Cons
Windows is bloated and needs to be rewritten, i have constant crashes on my pc while not OS crashes(i rarely have those) but program crashes.
system needs regular maintenance to run properly. |
No.
| quote: | | pc does not read mac files(my mac can read a ntfs drive but windows cant read a mac drive) |
Sure, but if you have a PC, why would you care about reading Mac files? It always makes me laugh when the Mac's ability to read Windows filesystems is touted as a selling point.
| quote: | Pros
Pentium M kicks major as in the portable market(a powerbook can not compete with a similary priced pc, in performance) |
No. In the mobile market, Powerbooks win hands-down. That is the one and only time when I will go right ahead and say that Macs are flat-out better than PCs (and not just Windows PCs). |
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| fr0st |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
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Yeah what ever man your right im wrong you can run a windows machine on the net without any maintenence and it will be fine for production. And god forbid some idiot would want to share files with his buddy on a pc they all should just have the same OS, idiots. And lastly what type of idiot would want a extremely powerfull pentium M when they could have a dated g4 that cost much more and runs on the best OS availible. Your right your knowlege far surpasses mine... |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by fr0st
Yeah what ever man your right im wrong you can run a windows machine on the net without any maintenence and it will be fine for production. And god forbid some idiot would want to share files with his buddy on a pc they all should just have the same OS, idiots. And lastly what type of idiot would want a extremely powerfull pentium M when they could have a dated g4 that cost much more and runs on the best OS availible. Your right your knowlege far surpasses mine... |
Yes, assuming you install a firewall and don't run any unnecessary insecure services, you can run a Windows machine on the 'net without any maintenance. If you start running additional services like NetBIOS (or Samba on Linux/OSX) or web servers then you have to take additional steps to lock it down, but that is true of any OS.
Why do you think there are millions of unattended Windows servers out in production inside locked and secured datacentres worldwide? Do you think that all those businesses just have braindead IT departments? Why do most reputable web hosting companies offer the choice of both UNIX or Windows hosting? Why is it that despite all these reports of "security holes" and "reliability problems", the downtime rates and amount of "hacking" associated with mission-critical Windows servers is just about on par with any other OS? And once again, if OS X is such a rock-solid and secure system compared to Windows, why is it never, EVER used on servers?
When it comes to sharing files between Windows and Mac OS, there are actually several utilities available to do this, including but not limited to MacDisk and MacDrive. Even if those utilities didn't exist, there are *many* options for file transfer that do not require reading the other's file system directly.
Actually, I can think of very few cases where you'd need a Mac to read NTFS or Windows to read HFS+. When you're in a networked environment, file transfers are always going to be performed under some well-known protocol (HTTP, FTP, SMB, NFS, Bluetooth, etc.). CDs (ISO 9660) are also readable by both systems and virtually every CD burning software on the market can burn hybrid discs. USB keys, CompactFlash, Secure Digital, and other removable media technologies all use their own proprietary file systems and, presuming the manufacturer has taken the time to write drivers, can be readable by both systems as well.
In fact, pretty much the only real-life scenario I can think of where one would want one OS to read the other's file system is in the case of an external hard disk, and in that case, you'd just format it as NTFS because both Mac OS and Windows can read it. Simple, no? And it makes no difference which OS *you* use. It seems to me that the real "match point" here goes to Windows, because you know that if you format a disk as NTFS then it will be readable by pretty much any other OS, whereas if you use a Mac to format it as HFS+, portability is quite limited (even Linux can't read that).
As for the world of laptops, Pentium M chips are not "extremely powerful", and the CPU is not the only component inside a computer. When you buy a laptop, you're always cutting several corners with respect to the CPU, video, audio, memory bandwidth, hard disk size/speed, and so on. Everything is optimized to save physical space and conserve power, so you're getting much less bang for the buck than with a desktop PC. For whatever reason, Apple seems to have done a better job reaching these compromises with their PowerBooks. A Pentium M chip might have a slightly higher clock speed than a G4 but once you get past 1.5 GHz or so, most of the performance bottleneck is not attributable to the CPU anyway.
Any other sarcastic comments containing multiple uses of the word "idiot" that you'd like to contribute? |
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| TVG |
| Macs are for gay people and gramas. Yes, BT is gay if you haven't figured that out yet. |
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| /I\ |
| jeez go and make some music guys ... erm ok amiga or atari which is the best :toothless |
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| Diginerd |
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Troll...
I'm going to chime in here and respectfully disagree with Diginut on the laptop issue.
Blow for blow my IBM ThinkPad T42 lets me handle about 50-70% more plugins without bouncing than my Apple Powerbook G4, both of similar vintage and price. It also has at least 2x the battery life and a higher resolution screen.
http://duc.digidesign.com has some great info on laptops (and desktops oo). Right now the Pentium M devices are slaying Apple, as are antyhing current from AMD killing everything else in desktop land (Yes that includes those shiny "quad" G5s). Really..
In terms of build quality and flexability the IBM is more than a match to the PowerBook (and in serveral areas substanitally better).
As to which I take on stage, it's the powerbook every time...
Why? Comfort factor is a big one, (maybe based in part on old Windows horror stories though!). I's never puked on me at an in-opportune time, but then again neither has my ThinkPad, but I haven't given it chance. also there is something to be said for a glowy apple up on stage. looks so much colr than a plain black lid.
Wow, now I write this I realise how shallow I can be!
Ultimately this is all as pointless as arguing if right hand drive cars are better than left hand drive ones. It all depends on what you do with it, and to a lesser extent what environment you are in.
The moral of the story is buy the biggest and nastiest computer you can afford, but be prepared for it to be worth next to nothing in 12 months, and be half the speed of the computers available then. Those super fast computers don't invalidate your purchase, your computer will still do the same things it could when you bought it... |
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