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A prob with Mac Vs Pc (old comparisons)

K

Kurt Cobain

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 26, 2003
41
0
CA
Short bg (as possible):

Sorry to resurruct the dead again, however I may consider getting a "brand new" dual 1.25ghz G4 with a bunch of ram I have (which prolly wont fit since its pc3200). well, I cant afford a G5 atm, and being a digital painter/animator freelancer isnt that profitable nowadays. I am, though, in a need for a photoshop/motion graphics machine, pretty much desperately. So I got my 3ghz Pc with 2gigz of pc3200. Was doing good till it went fried cause of some power problems any machine wouldnt have bared. If there is no pain, there is no game - it would be total financial and time waste for the replacement process of the mobo, cpu and power supply. So i gave up. That, along with my mac-wannbe me, I decided to look up some comparisons.

I bumped into some old stuff (I apologise if these articles have been grinded already). I considered the adobe software comparisons A LOT MORE than games which dont concern me as much anymore (although they could be on a linear graph with the art apps).

I would love to hear some explainations to these comparisons.
Thanks everyone, and dont bash me if these topics were already discussed since I was trying to search for one already.

LINK1
LINK2
 
do you really care that much bout speed?


also think about the time u'll be saving just by having a mac in the first place.
 
I have a Dual 3ghz PC (which was the fastest aviliable at the time) and a Dual 2ghz G5 at work and the G5 is much faster than the PC when it comes to After Effects..Although the PC is faster when dealing with 3D apps like Cinema 4d... But if your looking at G4 Dual 1.25 system vs Pentium 3.2ghz with hyperthreading I would say the PC is going to win that race but not by much.. But if it was my money i'd go with the Mac I find that AE 6 works much smoother in OS X than XP and your going to be spending more time tweaking than you will making final renders. AE does wierd things in XP..
 
Just the numbers...

Hey, this test is dead on. I'll admit it. The largest difference I have found in the mac-pc competition has little to do with clock speed, however. It has more to do with reliability and ease of use. For example, mac os x tends to crash MUCH less often than windows machines. Macs also tend to work better with peripherals and software, very seldom having driver conflicts that plague the windows world.
It is for these last two reasons I go mac every time. A much more accurate test would be to actually time people working on their macs or pcs over a period of several weeks to see who gets more done.
I mean, come on, what would you rather have, a really, really fast car with bad handling that breaks down all the time; or, a fast car with great handling that only needs it normal oil change type service?
 
It's an interesting comparison but bear in mind;

- People could just well show the same machines running different tests and the PC getting hammered, i.e. benchmarks are useless.

You have to remember, like others have said, you're more likely to get more work done on the Mac.

You'll find while your PC crunches that 50MB Photoshop file moving the mouse will be a task in itself. Windows will re-draw frighteningly slowly, they'll jump and become non-responsive etc etc. If you did the same thing on the Mac you'd find you could open and use other apps no problem, perhaps read and reply to all your e-mail while you wait. With the PC you're gonna have to go and make a drink or watch tele!

AppleMatt
 
AppleMatt said:
It's an interesting comparison but bear in mind;

- People could just well show the same machines running different tests and the PC getting hammered, i.e. benchmarks are useless.

You have to remember, like others have said, you're more likely to get more work done on the Mac.

You'll find while your PC crunches that 50MB Photoshop file moving the mouse will be a task in itself. Windows will re-draw frighteningly slowly, they'll jump and become non-responsive etc etc. If you did the same thing on the Mac you'd find you could open and use other apps no problem, perhaps read and reply to all your e-mail while you wait. With the PC you're gonna have to go and make a drink or watch tele!

AppleMatt
Click to expand...

I agree with all of you, Macs are simply stable and trustful.

@AppleMatt:
Well I had a PC 3Ghz HT with 800fsb, 2gigz ram, and things went surprisingly well; AE and PS ran VERY VERY fast, I used super high def imagery I'm drawing with a wacom tablet (WAAY more than 50mb) and I remember scrolling around zooming as if it was a 100x100 px 75dpi image or a top notch G5. Games flew like there is not tomorrow.

As much as it was sky rocketing, XP pro had a problem with "not digitally signed devices" and out of the blue around 50 days after the purchase, the computer dropped dead, prior to which I had a hal.dll (hardware DLhell) corruption as well.
So after tons of tests and lab time, I realized the prob is external. So anyway I'll get to the point -

Yes I am concerned about speed and consistancy after touching these specs. I dont feel like spending MORE money initially, to get a choppier working feeling essentially, compared to what I've had so far (unless I'm dead wrong and it'll be way faster on adobe stuff). At work I am on a dual 800mhz G4 and suprisingly that machine isnt slow AT ALL, and in fact, it surpasses the PC I had in certain functions. Yes, the GUI is addicting and so appealing it actually got down on my list of reasons. Same thing goes for my tiredness of maintaining windows and my pc all the time, a conpect that rarely exists on a mac. And lastly and most significantly, Macs are a lot more competible and reliable with what you install on it, both software and hardware.

@all:
I'll try to be more specific and detailed with my situation:

1) Is it worth buying a dual 1.25 g4 now, and probably be able to run 125MB hd psd files just OK compared to what I had (or is it as good/better?) or to go for a refurb G5?
2) If I am going for a refurb / NEW G5, should I go for the duals or sp?
Thanks everybody, once again - I truly appreciate your time and efforts to help.
 
AppleMatt said:
It's an interesting comparison but bear in mind;

- People could just well show the same machines running different tests and the PC getting hammered, i.e. benchmarks are useless.

You have to remember, like others have said, you're more likely to get more work done on the Mac.

You'll find while your PC crunches that 50MB Photoshop file moving the mouse will be a task in itself. Windows will re-draw frighteningly slowly, they'll jump and become non-responsive etc etc. If you did the same thing on the Mac you'd find you could open and use other apps no problem, perhaps read and reply to all your e-mail while you wait. With the PC you're gonna have to go and make a drink or watch tele!

AppleMatt
Click to expand...

im typing this while photoshop cs runs a series of filters on a 57mb file on my 2yr old 2300mhz p4 w 1gb ram. my mouse is working fine and everything is responsive.

ok, just tried it with a 188.5mb file and everything is still responsive. tried random filters and none have monopolized my machine. windows regenerate the same, no pauses, nothing. even launched autocad while applying a filter. took about 15 secs (normal : 4secs)

so i guess it slows down quite a bit launching apps during 100% cpu utilization, but its still usable

to the original poster: if you want a mac, get it. computer platforms have nothing to do with creativity
 
Forevercoolin said:
I have a Dual 3ghz PC (which was the fastest aviliable at the time) and a Dual 2ghz G5 at work and the G5 is much faster than the PC when it comes to After Effects..Although the PC is faster when dealing with 3D apps like Cinema 4d... But if your looking at G4 Dual 1.25 system vs Pentium 3.2ghz with hyperthreading I would say the PC is going to win that race but not by much.. But if it was my money i'd go with the Mac I find that AE 6 works much smoother in OS X than XP and your going to be spending more time tweaking than you will making final renders. AE does wierd things in XP..
Click to expand...

I take it that you have Dual 3.0 GHz XEON processors then? Its not physically possible to put 2 Pentium 4's together in the same machine. Intel limits you from doing that.
 
Personally i'd wait for a Dual 1.8 G5, unless you can get the Dual G4 for a really good price. If if its out of your price range, then just wait until the new line of Powermacs are released, and then the prices on the current ones should drop a good bit.
 
Apple //e said:
if you want a mac, get it. computer platforms have nothing to do with creativity
Click to expand...

I agree, OS X or XP has nothing to do with my skills utilization, however I'll definitely feel a lot more comfortable and satisfied working on a MAC then on a PC in my own place (Unsurpassed GUI, competability and reliablility), and Im even willing to pay a price of a small speed reduction compromise if there is one. My question is, how much am I going to "pay" if I decided to go for a dual 1.25ghz or will I actually even benefit from it in terms of working specs.
 
Kurt Cobain said:
2) If I am going for a refurb / NEW G5, should I go for the duals or sp?
Click to expand...



If your using AE then I would definetly go for a refurb dual G5.. Here are some links to benchmarks that might help "After Effects Benchmarks by Brian Maffit" and heres a linkhttp://barefeats.com/g5op.html to a "Dual G5 vs a Dual Opteron AMD 64 bit" scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll also see that when compared Apples to Apples a Mac is the better buy right now.


Oops i did mean Dual Xeon..
 
Kurt Cobain said:
I agree, OS X or XP has nothing to do with my skills utilization, however I'll definitely feel a lot more comfortable and satisfied working on a MAC then on a PC in my own place (Unsurpassed GUI, competability and reliablility), and Im even willing to pay a price of a small speed reduction compromise if there is one. My question is, how much am I going to "pay" if I decided to go for a dual 1.25ghz or will I actually even benefit from it in terms of working specs.
Click to expand...

cant you go to an apple store and try out different machines?
 
Apple //e said:
cant you go to an apple store and try out different machines?
Click to expand...

I could, and I know a dual 1.25 with 2gigz ram for example will be a REAL great performance, however, I cant just bring my work over there and copy my PSD stuff in without anybody saying anything, maybe macmall woudlnt care since they have a lot less spying workers, who mostly play halo, making faces when a customer needs a service.
But anyway, I think i'll use the links provided above with the comparisons of apple vs amd.

thx all
 
The eternal question~

The eternal answer.

Are you an artist or a computer technician?

Your an artist! Damn it Jim~

I completely understand your situation.

I spent years on a Pcheese, till one day I got sick of wasting my time dealing with drivers, data corruption of drivers and windoze updates that crashed my system.

I realized that the amount of time that I spent working on fixing the computer had lost its satisfaction for me, and that I had LOST my way~

I had not gotten the work that I wanted to get done, done.
I made a difficult choice to switch a few years ago before there was the hope of a G5. I knew that there was going to be a speed difference, and that it might be a heavy hit.

Here is what i found out after I switched.
I got twice as much work done and enjoyed doing it more on a MAC.

I never think about drivers and updates anymore!
Unless its in system update.

I just do my work.

When i have meetings in LA with producers etc.
They are always on a APPLE LAPTOP and thats what they want to see me on. The grunts in the basement are all sweating on cheap Dells.
While the executives live in an APPLE world.

Your productivity will increase dramatically. This will make up for the
loss of seconds or minutes that they show on speed charts.

Finally, < sorry for the diatribe > get the G5 whatever one you can, because that is where you want to be for a while since its out.
Everything is better with a G5!

Consider yourself a lucky man! That it exists at this moment when you are moving to it.

#Enough said.
 
As for new/refurb, many people like refurbs because of the extra testing they've been through, rather than going from factory to home. In the case of the G5's, which are currently Rev. A, I think it would be a good idea. At the very least I would hope you should get a Rev. E power-supply in there.
Also of course, you're able to get a better machine for the same price. The anodized aluminum doesn't scratch like the plastic did and the G5's are mostly treated well, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference after a couple of weeks of use.

I think perhaps my earlier example was a little weak for todays machines, what I was trying to get across was you'll find that people do a heck of a lot on their Macs at the same time. On average I'd say I have 11 programs running at once, and I never notice a slow-down. On a PC, this just isn't possible (in my experience). At the least I'll experience slowdown and often frustration as the hard-drive thrashes trying to keep up with my demands.

As a side note, all of my friends think it's "funny" to start every single program on my dock at once to see the comp die. It struggles loading them all but once they're loaded, it's fine again. Winds them up no end!

AppleMatt
 
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/cpu.html

The above site is actually a very good one for understanding the differences between the two types of CPUs (x86 and G4). It's a good read for anyone who has had undergrad study in computer architecture.

Hope that helps in clearing up this issue. Trying to compare two totally different CPUs is like comparing apples to oranges...you just really can't do it. Speed means nothing in this case, the site will explain better.
 
Grokgod, you just hit the spot dude. Even PA's dont have PC laptops.

Im also an XSI and MAX animator, however since I'm constantly around those programs at work I gladly keep up with the joneses (no normal human, not even a geek, would be able to stare all day throughout tons of wireframes then color correcting its render, come back home and do 3d again.. ;) ).

AppleMatt, TDT and the rest, thanks a lot for the tips and detailed info that took all my doubts away. I guess I'll probably go for a G5, and that will be in a lil while, although I realized its worth it. I easily get tempted by a top notch pc with a ridiculous price. Line has to be drawn, no more of the "good enough" for me bs.

Last question, I got four 512MB DDR pc3200 ram chips wrapped sitting and waiting for their next computer in my drawer. Two of which are Corsair and the others are just another brand I cant seem to recall. Will they work on a G5 as I understood it uses pc3200 based chips. THANKS again everyone!
 
Kurt Cobain said:
Grokgod, you just hit the spot dude. Even PA's dont have PC laptops.

Im also an XSI and MAX animator, however since I'm constantly around those programs at work I gladly keep up with the joneses (no normal human, not even a geek, would be able to stare all day throughout tons of wireframes then color correcting its render, come back home and do 3d again.. ;) ).

AppleMatt, TDT and the rest, thanks a lot for the tips and detailed info that took all my doubts away. I guess I'll probably go for a G5, and that will be in a lil while, although I realized its worth it. I easily get tempted by a top notch pc with a ridiculous price. Line has to be drawn, no more of the "good enough" for me bs.

Last question, I got four 512MB DDR pc3200 ram chips wrapped sitting and waiting for their next computer in my drawer. Two of which are Corsair and the others are just another brand I cant seem to recall. Will they work on a G5 as I understood it uses pc3200 based chips. THANKS again everyone!
Click to expand...

The speed of your ram, and brand of it really don't matter too much in the long run. I'll illustrate on an example. Lets say you have PC3200, and PC2700 in the same computer. If the BIOS is programmed right (and most are), the speed of both pieces of RAM will drop to 2700. So in your case, you said you had two 3200 pieces of RAM. Since they are both 3200 rated, it will enable it at the that speed (assuming the G5 can handle 3200 ram, if not, then the G5 will throttle the RAM to the highest the BIOS can handle).

As far as brands, that really means nothing. All ram is basically the same general base brands - just with a sticker saying who it came from. So most likely you will not run into problems with more than one brand of RAM in your computer.
 
TDT said:
The speed of your ram, and brand of it really don't matter too much in the long run. I'll illustrate on an example. Lets say you have PC3200, and PC2700 in the same computer. If the BIOS is programmed right (and most are), the speed of both pieces of RAM will drop to 2700. So in your case, you said you had two 3200 pieces of RAM. Since they are both 3200 rated, it will enable it at the that speed (assuming the G5 can handle 3200 ram, if not, then the G5 will throttle the RAM to the highest the BIOS can handle).

As far as brands, that really means nothing. All ram is basically the same general base brands - just with a sticker saying who it came from. So most likely you will not run into problems with more than one brand of RAM in your computer.
Click to expand...

Glad to know that, I've got 2 gigz 3200 worth of money waiting to be placed along with the existing ram that will be shipped with the mac. THANK YOU :D
 
The right choice

There is no doubt in my mind that you are making the right choice in going with the mac. You seem like a good guy and you will find great rewards in the path, I know that I did!

I am interested in your work, any demo reels or examples?
I am working on a personal project that i have great hopes for.
Its in the script process, but may be looking for animators in 3d to jump on board, if they are interested in getting on a project on the ground floor level.

I am going to get a G5 also when they move to the new speed bumps which whoudl happen very soon hopefully. These chips should have the .90 process so they should run cooler.

I currently work on a Ti Laptop that has never let me down.
Been waiting for the G5 to switch over.

Now your not the REAL Kurt? are you ? We all wish that he faked his death!
 
Grokgod said:
Now your not the REAL Kurt? are you ? We all wish that he faked his death!
Click to expand...

Nope, he is dead alright.
A fallen angel. :(

We'll talk Grokgod, keep n touch.
 
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