Detailed Notes about IBM 970

[scem0]

Originally posted by ddtlm
reyesmac:

I can see reason for a certain amount of pessimism, but perhaps you have taken it too far...

No - ive taken it too far. I just bought a PC. I totally recognize what he is saying. As of now, I think anyone who is willing to spend 3,000+ to get a powermac that is slow compared to the top PC and has old hardware to go with it, is crazy. I bought a 2.4 GHz pent4 with 6 USB2 ports, CDRW drive (40x-12x-XXx), WinXP Home, GeForce 2 MX, and everything else I need, for $600 . I think that it is crazy that the low end mac users get stuck with crap too. Imagine trying to shop for a mac with $600. Anything you buy is gunna be so slow, and so outdated, that it is already obsolete. Right now, apple computers are going down the drain, but luckily they switched to IBM who can, hopefully, save their arses. I am saving my money to buy the overpriced apple machine coming out in, hopefully, a year and a couple months.

Rant over

 

[allpar]

He's right...

I hate to say it, but he is. There's no way I'd buy a new Mac right now. The emac is the only one that has a reasonable price, and that comes iwth a monitor that I don't need. What I really need is a cheap minitower with a fast bus and hard drive. I'd buy a used blue and white G3 and upgrade the processor (I already have a 450 MHz G4 upgrade I got for my beige G3 for $150), but THOSE cost as much as a 1.8 GHz Dell...USED. Best price I can find on a B&W seems to be over $500.

What I'd love to see is something like the Cube, only not so artsy. Or a beige G4 in a nice cheap case. I don't care about what it looks like on the outside, I want something quick that runs OS 9 and OS X... a speed boost for my beige G3... at a reasonable price. (I know they make better processor upgrades, but my G3's problem is not the procesosr or the 7200 rpm hard drive, it's the system bus, video card, and slow IDE, and I'm not going to be able to upgrade those very easily or cheaply.) Lots of people at this point would - or are - simply buy one of those fast Dells we see on TV, and get a three year on-site warranty along with the deal, for less than a used G4-450.

Boy, I'd love a Cube about now...! Except I don't think I could shove my DVD-RAM (for backup) into it. Let me rephrase that. I'd love a stripped B&W G3 about now...!

But I think Apple starts to consider those who are UPGRADING from older computers and already own a monitor, but can't spend $1,600 for their cheapest machine. I think the time has finally come for another $900 monitor-free G4...perhaps an 800 MHz single-processor model without the fancy blue case.

 

[allpar]

Waiting

There is [sic] a lot of reasons to wait, and rumors is one of them.
[/B]

Agreed. I remember waiting just a little longer to get a new Mac, years ago, and was able to get a Plus at a $400 lower price...then when retiring the Plus, waited just a little (instead of getting an LC III) and the Quadra 605 came out...at about the same price...then the beige G3 replaced the expensive 604e... now I suspect I could either buy one of Apple's current machines, or wait until February and get either the current crop a LOT cheaper, or something that is to the beige G3 what that was to the Quadra...

(which by the way still works, as does the Mac Plus, whicih I have in my basement now; and both were loaned out to people after I stopped using them. My laptop is a 1994 Duo 280...in frequent use!)

 

[tucker]

waiting!!!1 for the new power mac

First I do not believe there will be a G5 Moto as such,( for the Mac) they will up-date the G4's and Apple will be using them for a while maybe two years or so before the 970 starts to trickle down to the consumer level.(doesn't matter who produces them Moto, Hatachi,etc.)

I have seen time and time again even as well built as the Mac's are that there are problems with first generation products and people always say wait for the second generation. This will be well into 2004, this supports thoses that say if you need a new computer get it, if you don't then you do risk wasting your money just so you can have the latest greatest, (and this is fine if you can afford it) but don't complain if something comes out faster, it always does.

The next year or so will be very exciting, lets hope all these predictions come true, and yes I do believe in Santa Clause.

 

[MacBandit]

I'm not disagreeing that rumors can be a valuble tool. I too have used them when I was getting ready to buy. Just this time I did. I wanted a new computer but I knew that a new model would be out in no more then 6 weeks so I waited.

Waiting a year to a year and a half on rumor at this point though is utterly rediculous. Rumors hold very little accuracy even as little as the week before an announcement. If you need something get it now. There will not be any revisions to towers for almost 6 months to come and when they do come I don't think your getting a 64 bit chip at that time.

The people who need a 64bit processor might have a point for waiting but it still seems a little far fetched to wait a year based on a rumor that may have little truth in reality.

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by scem0


No - ive taken it too far. I just bought a PC. I totally recognize what he is saying. As of now, I think anyone who is willing to spend 3,000+ to get a powermac that is slow compared to the top PC and has old hardware to go with it, is crazy. I bought a 2.4 GHz pent4 with 6 USB2 ports, CDRW drive (40x-12x-XXx), WinXP Home, GeForce 2 MX, and everything else I need, for $600 . I think that it is crazy that the low end mac users get stuck with crap too. Imagine trying to shop for a mac with $600. Anything you buy is gunna be so slow, and so outdated, that it is already obsolete. Right now, apple computers are going down the drain, but luckily they switched to IBM who can, hopefully, save their arses. I am saving my money to buy the overpriced apple machine coming out in, hopefully, a year and a couple months.

Rant over

I'm sorry Scem but I disagree completely. Yes you have a fast processor but overall you did not get what I would consider a comparable machine. Geforce2mx talking about old hardware as you put it. Also no firewire, superdrive or anything else. What kind of ram does it have and what speed bus?

Buying a Mac is about so much more then simply looking at the hardware. It's about the system as a whole and the OS. It's about the community and about simply having a mac. No it's not always simply logical but you get what you pay for in my oppinion.

 

[ryan]

Originally posted by Tue12
This leaking news is going to hurt Apple sales. Everyone is gonna wait for one of these bad boys. 🙂

While I know that Apple isn't the only one to blame for the lackluster performance of their current Mac's and don't want to see them "hurt," I do think think that in this case these sorts of rumors can be of some benefit. Assuming that we only see speed bumps of the current G4 before the 970 PowerPC makes its debut Apple may be forced to lower prices and/or greatly increase the features in their next round of machine revisions that we'll probably see in the next 3-4 months.

I'm planning on replacing my current iBook in 12-18 months, hopefully I'll be able to buy a 970 PowerPC PowerBook then.

 

[Tue12]

The US computer market is saturated. In particular, firms are not upgrading their hardware, since the vast majority of the machines are used for administrative tasks that are easily handled by computers made as far back as 1995 or more.

It's just a brutal market for all computer companies. Some of them will have to die out. Gateway comes to mind. 🙂

If IBM delivers, then before we realize it, in a few months from now Apple's hardware problems will be on the way to recovery.

 

[groovebuster]

Originally posted by MacBandit


I'm sorry Scem but I disagree completely. Yes you have a fast processor but overall you did not get what I would consider a comparable machine. Geforce2mx talking about old hardware as you put it. Also no firewire, superdrive or anything else. What kind of ram does it have and what speed bus?

Buying a Mac is about so much more then simply looking at the hardware. It's about the system as a whole and the OS. It's about the community and about simply having a mac. No it's not always simply logical but you get what you pay for in my oppinion.

So tell me one thing that you can do with a Mac that you can't do with Windows machine these days as a pro user? Same standard apps, same experience within the apps. The OS normally makes just a little bit of the daily work, and the differences are minimal and both sides have their pros and cons.

Your point of view is totally acceptable if you are a consumer, but not when you make money with the machine.

Apple is losing it's pro users, because there isn't a real argument anymore to better use a Mac than a PC. The only reason I could think of is to not use a M$-based machine. When you have to budget your hardware you couldn't care less if there is an Apple logo on your machines or anything else. Best productivity for lowest price. That's how the economy works.

I work with Macs and PCs and since W2000 I never had some of those horror problems again mac addicts like to refer to. On my W2000 machine I never had a system crash since I purchased it almost 2 years ago. So is that stable or what?

On the other hand I had several sessions to fix my Macs once in a while because of things like a corrupted file system or some drivers or apps wouldn't work anymore after I updated the OS...

Don't get me wrong, I like to work with the mac a lot, but at the moment there are no rational arguments at all to shell out a lot more money for a mac to do exactly the same work as on the PC. The pro users are starting to switch because since a while you get your work done as good as on a Mac and if it needs a beefy CPU even faster than on a Mac in a lot of cases.

Emotions are OK for the consumer, but are not such a big deal for pro users. In business it's cold numbers to certain extend and the Mac looks worse than bad considering that.

Maybe that's why Apple is focussing so much on the consumers... but without a remarkable pro user base Apple could die an unexpected fast death.

groovebuster

P.S.: You were referring to all the stuff build into the Mac already when you buy it... Hey, but a lot of people don't need that stuff! For what do you need all the little gadgets, when you need just a machine to surf the net and to do office work? And that's what the most PCs are used for... just office work! The only thing they need is an ethernet port a CD-ROM, an onboard graphics chipset and a HD... If Apple could just get that a lot of people would buy a cheap Mac like that right away if it would be available. A little G4 minitower in a cheap enclosure and for about 600$! That would be the top seller! You could even use it for little tasks in Phototshop 'n stuff when you are not in need to crunch numbers all the time... But Apple prefers to die in grace... like a swan!

 

[allpar]

Agreed!

Originally posted by groovebuster
The only thing they need is an ethernet port a CD-ROM, an onboard graphics chipset and a HD... If Apple could just get that a lot of people would buy a cheap Mac like that right away if it would be available. A little G4 minitower in a cheap enclosure and for about 600$! That would be the top seller! You could even use it for little tasks in Phototshop 'n stuff when you are not in need to crunch numbers all the time... But Apple prefers to die in grace... like a swan!

I'd be quite happy to get a cheap box without all the crap. Frankly, I have most of the components I need already. In the PC world I could buy a box, a good motherboard, and a processor, and use all the other stuff I already own. I have for years wished Apple would start selling motherboards to us at reasonable prices with the undertsanding that we have the brains to shove a CPU and RAM on, and then put a case around it ourselves. But then they'd need to increase their market share to keep sales up! Because most of us would not upgrade to a totally new machine...

Apple doesn't seem to realize that they need to double their market share, and to do that, they need prices to come down. I think most investors would go for a "temporary losses to boost market share" strategy even in this economy. Especially if it was accompanied by a lower Jobs expense account.

 

[SonnyCA]

Everyone is different

Here's my deal, and maybe some of you fall into this category...

I am a freelance designer. I love my Dual 500, it does everything I want, and a new Radeon card and some more RAM will zap any remaining performance issues I have. My total software investment is close to equal with my initial hardware investment -- about $3,000.

I listen to everyone talk about how slow Macs are compared to PCs, and how Macs use outdated hardware, and this, and that. But do I need anything to go faster on my Mac that requires raw CPU performance? Not really. And if I were to get the fastest PC on the planet, I'd need to add $3,000 to its price tag in order to purchase all new software. This is not an attractive option to me, sorry.

I have worked in plenty of creative houses. Do you know what most of them use for day-to-day work? G4 450s and 500s, single CPU systems with maxed-out RAM. Hmmm... they should all have 2.4 GHz PCs because they need speed, right? I work on poster-size PhotoShop files and I should upgrade everything (hardware and software) to the fastest PC just because it's the fastest, right?

I think a good 75% of the complaints you read about Mac performance have to do with men and their need to compete for the biggest p*nis. It doesn't have much to do with reality.

I can understand that if you need to do a lot of 3D rendering, you need a fast CPU. Cool, so go get that 2.4 GHz $600 rendering box. Awesome investment! But you'll still want a Mac, with all of its niceties, to put everything together and to do other types of work.

Serious professionals, who get serious work done, are not swayed by the performance arguments I read in here and on other boards. There is little justification in moving to an entirely different computing platform, with all of its requisite software re-investment costs. We're doing just fine.

🙂

 

[jettredmont]

Re: Everyone is different

Originally posted by SonnyCA
Here's my deal, and maybe some of you fall into this category...

[...]

I listen to everyone talk about how slow Macs are compared to PCs, and how Macs use outdated hardware, and this, and that. But do I need anything to go faster on my Mac that requires raw CPU performance? Not really. And if I were to get the fastest PC on the planet, I'd need to add $3,000 to its price tag in order to purchase all new software. This is not an attractive option to me, sorry.

[...]

I think a good 75% of the complaints you read about Mac performance have to do with men and their need to compete for the biggest p*nis. It doesn't have much to do with reality.

[...]

Serious professionals, who get serious work done, are not swayed by the performance arguments I read in here and on other boards. There is little justification in moving to an entirely different computing platform, with all of its requisite software re-investment costs. We're doing just fine.

🙂

First, let me say that it's one thing to bitch and moan about Mac performance, and a wholly other thing to actually "reverse switch" (Microsoft style) to Windows.

Secondly, as for myself, I get incredibly sick of waiting for 30-45 minutes for the project I am working on to compile for my Mac when it takes <5 minutes for a complete ground-up rebuild on a 1.5GHz P4 Windows box. Granted, MS's compiler is fast, but 6-9x as fast? A faster Mac would be greatly appreciated by the development community. And spending $3000 more to reduce that compile time by, say, 50%? That's a damned bargain!

But you are correct. For the "average" user out there, raw performance is not the usability bottleneck: overall system stability and design are the bottlenecks. Macs address these issues while Wintel machines largely ignore them. A $300 eMachine will get your email just as fast as a $1299 iMac, but the $300 eMachine will never run an operating system with the grace and design of OS X (not to mention it will likely fizzle and die within the first six months).

Which is, of course, why I put up with 30 minute compiles before I can test my latest changes. But I'm still gonna bitch about how slow it is! 🙂

 

[reyesmac]

Since this has moved from talking about the IBM chip and turned into some anti-Apple thing, I want to add some more points the the bad Apple column.😀 First let me say that when I bash Apple it is because I see it as the best computer hardware/software manufacturer and I hold them to a much higher level of accountability. I would never switch to the dark side, but I will not lie to myself about it being the answer to everyones computing problems.

1.) Apples "affordable" computers are not processor/video card upgradable.

2.) Anything but the top-of-the-line $3,000+ Powermac is based on old technology.

3.) The Powermac line is not marketed to people who just want a regular computer, yet it is the only computer Apple sells that has PCI slots and in a tower shape. (PC's always come with PCI slots and you dont have to pay a premium to use Firewire, internal 40x CDRW $50, external 16x cdrw $120)

4.) Apple cripples every machine but the fastest Powermac so they are slower than the most expensive.

5.) Apple only offers bleeding edge video connectivity and wanted to do the same with audio. (There is no cheap way to get high quality RCA jack VCR video into a mac, only firewire DV signals)

6.) If Apple made a Mac out of standard PC parts (exept the motherboard) it would have a Mac that is cheaper, more expandable, as reliable, and faster than ANY Powermac sold today.
(It would be faster because it would use faster CD-rw's and video cards and USB2. It would be more expandable because firewire/usb and ethernet would be on its own PCI slots giving it around 6 available PCI slots.)
You might be able to make some arguments about reliability, but that is only if you chose really cheap hardware, which they wouldnt do.

Apple is in a transition phase right now and this is probably as bad as its going to get as far as speed/price gaps are concerned. Next year will be better than this year.

Also, for the price of one powermac without monitor, you could get an eMac and a nice PC that would do everything you could ever want for the next few years if you used both to get your work done. Thats kind of sad really that I can buy the slowest Mac and a PC around the speed of the lowest powermac for the price of a Powermac.

Even with all that said, I will still stick with Apple, they must be doing something right for to say that.

 

[springscansing]

Originally posted by groovebuster


So tell me one thing that you can do with a Mac that you can't do with Windows machine these days as a pro user?

Pro audio work with Digital Performer, Logic, or MAX/MSP? 🙂

- Springs

 

[springscansing]

Originally posted by reyesmac

2.) Anything but the top-of-the-line $3,000+ Powermac is based on old technology.

That's a little harsh. I got a DP 867 with a Radeon 9000 from the apple store on the educational discount (which requires like no proof btw) for 1650. I wouldn't say that's much worse than the 3000 model. Slightly slower ram (no way you can notice it with a G4 anyway) and a slightly slower bus. That's it.

 

[springscansing]

I donno how this went from a 970 thread to a Apple bashing thread, but whatever. 🙄

Eitherway, I know personally that for PRO audio work, macs are still the best, or at least they will be in a few months. Coreaudio and coremidi are GODLIKE, and XP or any other OS can not come ANYWHERE NEAR it. OS X is simply the best pro audio production OS in existance, especially with Logic, Cubse SX, Reason 2, and Protools now. 🙂

If NI would get damned Reaktor out for OS X I could switch back to 10.2.1 instead of this damned OS 9!

- Springs

 

[Dave K]

Originally posted by reyesmac
1.) Apples "affordable" computers are not processor/video card upgradable.

And from a video standpoint, neither are most of your $300-$1000 Intel Integrated PC specials from mainstream manufacturers last I looked.

2.) Anything but the top-of-the-line $3,000+ Powermac is based on old technology.

And one could argue that anything other than a $2000-$2500 PC is based on "old technology", after all, they won't necessarily be running the latest and greatest chipsets, video cards, or media devices on the low end either...

3.) The Powermac line is not marketed to people who just want a regular computer, yet it is the only computer Apple sells that has PCI slots and in a tower shape. (PC's always come with PCI slots and you dont have to pay a premium to use Firewire, internal 40x CDRW $50, external 16x cdrw $120)

That's because I'd be willing to bet 90% of mainstream "regular" computers users never make any changes to their machines from the day they turn it on, until the day they toss it in the bin.

Other than perhaps paying someone else $50 an hour, 1 hour minimum charge, to increase the RAM because their "computer literate" friend told them it would be a good thing to do...

4.) Apple cripples every machine but the fastest Powermac so they are slower than the most expensive.

Yeah. And a Celeron/Duron box has all the Cache and bus Speed of a PIV/Athlon box...

Afterall, Apple's the only company anywhere that has ever played fast and loose with chip features and bus speed to differentiate product ...

5.) Apple only offers bleeding edge video connectivity and wanted to do the same with audio. (There is no cheap way to get high quality RCA jack VCR video into a mac, only firewire DV signals)

http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf_id=VW60933&cat=pc

http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf_id=DRI4410&blind=&view=&cat=pc

6.) If Apple made a Mac out of standard PC parts (exept the motherboard) it would have a Mac that is cheaper, more expandable, as reliable, and faster than ANY Powermac sold today.

The Mac does use standard PC parts, other than the motherboard and processor. There's nothing else inside the Mac that you can't get outta any other PC shop...

(It would be faster because it would use faster CD-rw's and video cards and USB2.

Not really. There's only one card faster than a GF4 Ti or ATI 9000 PRO out there, so it's not like there's a lacking of fast cards (Nor is the 9700 exactly overflowing the shelves at the moment). CD-RW's wouldn't get any faster because Apple's priority is all in ones and that's not likely going to change. Meanwhile, while it's not slow, USB2's merits against FireWire are still up for debate at the moment.

It would be more expandable because firewire/usb and ethernet would be on its own PCI slots giving it around 6 available PCI slots.)

Unhuh, and the sky's green and the ground is blue...

Wanna care to explain to me how you plan to move Firewire, USB, and Ethernet off the motherboard and onto PCI cards, and then proceed to INCREASE the total number of available PCI Slots in a system while maintaining the same form factor?

There's a reason all this stuff is integrated, on both Mac and PC motherboards (even FireWire is becoming more common on the PC side).

 

[allpar]

Reframing

Here's the core issue for me, and I suspect a lot of others.

I need a computer which won't have me falling asleep while Photoshop 7 or GoLive 6 loads... yet, I don't have $1,600 to blow on something that will be obsolete in six months. A PC would cost me about $1,000 if I wanted to go for all-out quality - buying the best case, the best motherboard, a good replaceable processor, etc.

There's no real way to get a fast, cheap Mac that fits my needs. The emac comes with a monitor built in, which makes the form factor untenable for me. The iMac and PowerMacs are too expensive, and again the iMac has its own monitor. I have an excellent 19" monitor already...I need a computer to power it, one where Explorer doesn't hang for absurd lengths of time while drawing pages that a cheap Duron 950 system does in the blink of an eye. I need a computer that will load PS7 or GL6 in the time it took my Mac Plus to load Word... or my G3 to load PS3 and GL3.

I'd LOVE a motherboard upgrade. The PC world is running 200 MHz busses with ATA133 on $700 computers. I'm stuck with 66 bus and ATA33, and to go up to an old-fashioned 100 (or is it 133?) bus and ATA66 (100?) would cost me $1,600?

Yes, I'm whining and moaning. Give me a cheap, reasonably fast computer in a plain box and I'll buy it. By cheap, Steve Jobs, I don't mean $1,400. I mean UNDER $1,000. Or about $1,000... that's what state of the art cost me in 1988 and again in 1993.

 

[DaveGee]

Re: Reframing

Originally posted by allpar
Yes, I'm whining and moaning. Give me a cheap, reasonably fast computer in a plain box and I'll buy it. By cheap, Steve Jobs, I don't mean $1,400. I mean UNDER $1,000. Or about $1,000... that's what state of the art cost me in 1988 and again in 1993.

Dude... sounds like your getting a DELL! 🙄

Sorry but Apple can't sell hardware on the cheap AND provide users with OS X and all of the things Apple is famous for (iApps and the like).

Hardware costs FUND OS DEVELOPMENT... Do you really think Apple could pay the programmers who write the OS on the money from OS SALES alone? Sorry but it can't. Apple prices it's OS where it does because MS does.

Repete after me...

HARDWARE FUNDS SOFTWARE
HARDWARE FUNDS SOFTWARE
HARDWARE FUNDS SOFTWARE

I've said this about a BILLION TIMES but what the heck...

DELL DOESN'T WRITE AN OS IT CAN SELL STUFF ON THE CHEAP
MICROSOFT HAS VOLUME ON ITS SIDE

Apple has to be both MICROSOFT and DELL all with a very small market share. I for one think they are doing a FANTASTIC JOB. Look at Be they failed... Look at Amiga the failed... look at HP they failed... Look at Sun (down for the count)... Look at SGI (down of the count)...

In short you want what Apple provides but don't want to pay of it... Sorry but you'll have to pay if you wanna play.

Dave

 

[scem0]

Originally posted by MacBandit


I'm sorry Scem but I disagree completely. Yes you have a fast processor but overall you did not get what I would consider a comparable machine. Geforce2mx talking about old hardware as you put it. Also no firewire, superdrive or anything else. What kind of ram does it have and what speed bus?

Buying a Mac is about so much more then simply looking at the hardware. It's about the system as a whole and the OS. It's about the community and about simply having a mac. No it's not always simply logical but you get what you pay for in my oppinion.

It has 512 Megs of PC2700 DDR RAM. A lot of good RAM. And yeah, it doesn't come with a superdrive, or a geforce 4 ti, or a radeon 9000, but find a mac for $600 that doesn't have a Rage graphics card... Now who is talking about old technology. Yeah for $2, 200 more I can get a comp with a better graphics card from apple. Or I could spend $350 and buy a good one. I'll go with the latter thank you. You are right that a computer's quality is more then just its speed. But all in all a mac is less quality. Sure it has the looks and the OS, but not much more is going for it. I am just not willing to buy an obsolete mac, when I can get a new PC. I think anyone who would buy a mac with $600 will be very dissapointed.

 

[scem0]

Re: Re: Reframing

Originally posted by DaveGee


Dude... sounds like your getting a DELL! 🙄


Dave

what you say is true, but not completely true. The reason apple overprices it's computers is not to fun their software. It is to make up for their lack of market share. I think that if they took a stab at lowering their prices, then they would gain a lot of market share, and wouldn't have to overprice their computers.

 

[MacBandit]

Re: Everyone is different

Originally posted by SonnyCA
Here's my deal, and maybe some of you fall into this category...

I am a freelance designer. I love my Dual 500, it does everything I want, and a new Radeon card and some more RAM will zap any remaining performance issues I have. My total software investment is close to equal with my initial hardware investment -- about $3,000.

I listen to everyone talk about how slow Macs are compared to PCs, and how Macs use outdated hardware, and this, and that. But do I need anything to go faster on my Mac that requires raw CPU performance? Not really. And if I were to get the fastest PC on the planet, I'd need to add $3,000 to its price tag in order to purchase all new software. This is not an attractive option to me, sorry.

I have worked in plenty of creative houses. Do you know what most of them use for day-to-day work? G4 450s and 500s, single CPU systems with maxed-out RAM. Hmmm... they should all have 2.4 GHz PCs because they need speed, right? I work on poster-size PhotoShop files and I should upgrade everything (hardware and software) to the fastest PC just because it's the fastest, right?

I think a good 75% of the complaints you read about Mac performance have to do with men and their need to compete for the biggest p*nis. It doesn't have much to do with reality.

I can understand that if you need to do a lot of 3D rendering, you need a fast CPU. Cool, so go get that 2.4 GHz $600 rendering box. Awesome investment! But you'll still want a Mac, with all of its niceties, to put everything together and to do other types of work.

Serious professionals, who get serious work done, are not swayed by the performance arguments I read in here and on other boards. There is little justification in moving to an entirely different computing platform, with all of its requisite software re-investment costs. We're doing just fine.

🙂

Here here I agree completely. It is ***** envy in most cases. I do agree there are those that need the fastest and in those cases the PC might be the answer.

To previous posts I disagree completely when you say the experience of using a PC as compared to a Mac is very similar.

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by scem0


It has 512 Megs of PC2700 DDR RAM. A lot of good RAM. And yeah, it doesn't come with a superdrive, or a geforce 4 ti, or a radeon 9000, but find a mac for $600 that doesn't have a Rage graphics card... Now who is talking about old technology. Yeah for $2, 200 more I can get a comp with a better graphics card from apple. Or I could spend $350 and buy a good one. I'll go with the latter thank you. You are right that a computer's quality is more then just its speed. But all in all a mac is less quality. Sure it has the looks and the OS, but not much more is going for it. I am just not willing to buy an obsolete mac, when I can get a new PC. I think anyone who would buy a mac with $600 will be very dissapointed.

$2,200? You can get a Dual867 for $1,600 and it is more machine then 99% of all computer users need.

 

[springscansing]

Re: Re: Re: Reframing

+?+3/43/4?]Originally posted by scem0 [/i]


what you say is true, but not completely true. The reason apple overprices it's computers is not to fun their software. It is to make up for their lack of market share. I think that if they took a stab at lowering their prices, then they would gain a lot of market share, and wouldn't have to overprice their computers. [/QUOTE]

You know, Apple DOES have a marketing department who knows a lot more about this subject than you do. And last time I looked, Apple and Dell were the two healthiest computer consumer companies going. They were the only two to even make a profit a couple quarters ago.

I think their pricing scheme does quite nicely, regardless of how much I like it from a consumer standpoint.

- Springs

 

[scem0]

Re: Re: Everyone is different

Originally posted by MacBandit



Here here I agree completely. It is ***** envy in most cases. I do agree there are those that need the fastest and in those cases the PC might be the answer.

To previous posts I disagree completely when you say the experience of using a PC as compared to a Mac is very similar.

I don't think the experience is very similar at all... I don't think you are talking about me, becuase I never said they were similar, but I want to comment on this. They are not similar, and very hard to compare, because they are so different. Macs have a whole mac community, sort of like MacRumors 😀 - and people who use macs generally know more about computers, and enjoy the computer experience more. But PCs have more expandability, more people use them, they are faster in most of everything, and they have more compatibility. Overall (at this moment, I think in a year it will be the opposite) I think the PC experience is better, but that is arguable. It is mostly opinion, but right now, I can't stand to wait 20 seconds just to get on a browser that would browse faster on a similarely priced PC.