PC Vs iMac (Which to go for?) - Page 3

Halcyon · 08-03-2009, 13:32

Cost is my main limiter. If I had the money I'd buy one tomorrow as the OS is great and the design of having everything in one that works straight out the box is a good thing.

Sadly, I may have to put off this purchase and put the money towards a car instead.

DocDutch · 08-03-2009, 13:45

go for a mini and get a monitor cheaper that way

Stuart · 08-03-2009, 13:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by alferret

Mac=Doorstop

What I don't understand, and this may be my ignorance buy why pay twice the price for good styling? Is it really worth paying all that extra just to have something that looks nice sitting in your home rather than a grands worth of PC in a vanilla box
Look at the rip off prices at the apple store for component upgrades, they want to charge Ã‚Â£240 for a 1tb SATA II drive, that's a whopping Ã‚Â£160 more than the street price. 8gb ram is Ã‚Â£200 extra over the 3gb installed and the street price is, Ã‚Â£104. Ã‚Â£80 for a slot loading dvd writer, that's Ã‚Â£60 more than the street price.
I could go on but fear retribution from Mac fan-boys

In all honesty can anyone really warrant spending the best part of 2 grand on a mac?

On the other hand, for the 98% of the population who wouldn't know were to start when upgrading, and have no interest in learning, Macs are perfect. As they are for people who want to edit video or sound/music.

It's swings and roundabouts. Yes, the PC is more readily and cheaply expandable, but depending on the quality of drivers, it may or may not be easy to upgrade. Even if the device is marked as Windows compatible, the drivers may not work reliably or be for a different version of Windows.

The mac on the other hand is a lot easier. Nine times out of ten, you just plug the device in and it works. OK, so you may need to run an installation program, but that can be a case of double clicking an icon and possibly going through a wizard.

And yes, I am an experienced user of *both* platforms. In fact, both desktops I have are entirely self built, and the one I am on now has been rebuilt several times (I actually don't know how many because I did it bit by bit, but I know it's had at lease two power supplies, 3 cpus, several memory upgrades, 3 graphics cards, 3 motherboards and God knows how many storage devices).

admars · 10-03-2009, 18:22

somewhat interesting article about the price difference between PC and mac
Analysts: Mac buyers still pay more than PC buyers for same hardware 'guts'
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...&taxonomyId=64

dilli-theclaw · 10-03-2009, 18:25

I find the accesibility in mac's much better than windows.

I tend to play my games on windows and use the mac for my surfing and text to speech / screen reading / zooming.

Halcyon · 10-03-2009, 22:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by DocDutch

go for a mini and get a monitor cheaper that way

Not a bad idea but the spec of Mac Mini's are pretty basic.

I think I will go for the option of upgrading my PC at the moment.
Going to save up for a Quadcore motherboard and new CPU and then maybe in the future have an IMac as some form of media system. But I'l have to pass on the great design for the moment and instead start looking for a nice new monitor for my PC.

The Jackal · 10-03-2009, 23:23

Get an imac - nothing wrong with 'em. You can even try installing windows on them :|

Love the new mac pros - 8 core i7 xeons. Nothing comes close as there appear to be no cheap dual i7 boards.... excellent value for money.

Only downside is that you can't overclock em

danielf · 10-03-2009, 23:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jackal

Get an imac - nothing wrong with 'em. You can even try installing windows on them :|

Love the new mac pros - 8 core i7 xeons. Nothing comes close as there appear to be no cheap dual i7 boards.... excellent value for money.

Only downside is that you can't overclock em

What software do you have that can actually utilise 8 cores?

The Jackal · 11-03-2009, 07:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

What software do you have that can actually utilise 8 cores?

Are you serious ? Don't waste my time, use google.

I don't have a single core that is not being used over any 24 hour period.

edit : ps Forgot to add that not only are the cores used, I ensure that the GPU is used too. Thanks

**Chris** · 11-03-2009, 08:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

What software do you have that can actually utilise 8 cores?

The OS can. It is perfectly well able to allocate different processes to different cores and keep all of them busy if required. The only limitation at the moment is that applications themselves can't split between the cores. But the notion that there's no benefit in having an 8-core Mac at the moment is just another piece of internet guff.

Stuart · 11-03-2009, 08:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jackal

Are you serious ? Don't waste my time, use google.

I don't have a single core that is not being used over any 24 hour period.

edit : ps Forgot to add that not only are the cores used, I ensure that the GPU is used too. Thanks

Actually, most software doesn't use much more than 2 cores. Scaling software to 2 cores is difficult (especially for games which don't always adapt easily to the threading requirements). Scaling further is a *lot* harder. And that comes from a friend who designs massively parallel software for a living.

**Chris** · 11-03-2009, 08:15

Stu, you don't need software designed to run on multi-cores in order to keep all the cores busy. The OS does a lot of the work. There is a story floating about the 'net, enthusiastically spread by Mac hat3rz, that half the cores in an eight-core Mac are redundant due to lack of software. This is simply not true.

The Jackal · 11-03-2009, 08:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Actually, most software doesn't use much more than 2 cores. Scaling software to 2 cores is difficult (especially for games which don't always adapt easily to the threading requirements). Scaling further is a *lot* harder. And that comes from a friend who designs massively parallel software for a living.

Apparently GTAIV is multicore enabled. I haven't tried it though. Will google for you

What about 3d rendering using Maya, 3dsmax, Photoshop etc etc. All use the cores efficiently.

And we all know about BOINC right ?

Listen to Chris ... It appears he has more 'upto date' information for you as it appears he's using an OS that is more recent than windows 95.

---------- Post added at 09:37 ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jackal

Apparently GTAIV is multicore enabled. I haven't tried it though. Will google for you

I take that back ... Apparently it is multicore enabled but doesn't appear to be very efficient. Either that or there is not enough work to offload on to the cpu.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==

Stuart · 11-03-2009, 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jackal

Apparently GTAIV is multicore enabled. I haven't tried it though. Will google for you

What about 3d rendering using Maya, 3dsmax, Photoshop etc etc. All use the cores efficiently.

And we all know about BOINC right ?

Listen to Chris ... It appears he has more 'upto date' information for you as it appears he's using an OS that is more recent than windows 95.

As am I... Currently using Windows 7 at home and Vista, OSX (both client and server), Windows Server and XP at work. Oh yes, and I also support Maya, 3ds Max (although these do not use multi cores if you use the wrong renderer) and photoshop.

I am not saying Multicore software doesn't exist: It does. I am just saying it is not as prevalent as you appear to think.

---------- Post added at 09:45 ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

Stu, you don't need software designed to run on multi-cores in order to keep all the cores busy. The OS does a lot of the work. There is a story floating about the 'net, enthusiastically spread by Mac hat3rz, that half the cores in an eight-core Mac are redundant due to lack of software. This is simply not true.

Chris, I do know all that. I also understand that OSX actually makes more efficient use of multiple cores than some versions of Windows (don't know about Vista or 7).

danielf · 11-03-2009, 09:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

The OS can. It is perfectly well able to allocate different processes to different cores and keep all of them busy if required. The only limitation at the moment is that applications themselves can't split between the cores. But the notion that there's no benefit in having an 8-core Mac at the moment is just another piece of internet guff.

True. But that's the issue. It is very unlikely that someone will be using 8 power-hungry applications at the same time, and therefore the benefits of having 8 cores are minimal (imo), unless you are lucky enough to use software that does support multiple cores. The real potential of multiple cores is in multi-threading. At present however, there are fewer applications that support multi-threading than there are cores in the top of the line Mac pro. I would be in the market for one if the software I use supported multi-threading. That's likely to remain a pipe dream for a couple of years though.