I am into editing video and photos and I was thinkng of getting a mac but I dont know much about them. Should I look at the specs on a mac as if it were a normal pc or are there differences? It seems to be way more expensive for macs that have specs that arent that good. Is it just because they are expensive?
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How do macs compare to normal pc
- Thread starter akanathan
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Comparing a Mac to a PC just by viewing the specs isn't a fair deal. You really have to use a Mac for yourself and see if you like it. As far as video editing and photo management goes, the Mac is the mainstream computer for these uses, including graphic design. Every Mac comes installed with iLife '05, Apple's media suite. You get iMovie (video editing, but nothing compared to Final Cut Pro which is the grand daddy), iPhoto (photo management software, as well as photo-editing), iTunes (I'm sure you know what this is), iDVD (DVD creating software; very awesome and fun to show your family and friends) and finally GarageBand (music creation software; tons of people love this). I officially sound like a commercial, so you might as well go here: http://www.apple.com/ilife/
Any other questions, just ask!
Any other questions, just ask!
Apple's computers use processors from different manufacturers than mainstream PCs so they are, as mentioned, difficult to compare.
One very important thing is that OS X is designed specifically for Apple's hardware (and vice versa) by people with intimate knowledge of both.
One very important thing is that OS X is designed specifically for Apple's hardware (and vice versa) by people with intimate knowledge of both.
Have a look on these forums - people here tend to be biased because of the nature of the site, but there are some pretty balanced discussions.
Best thing to do would be to go to an Apple shop and try one out.
Give yourself at least an hour, because there are some small differences in the way the interface works that some people find irritating for the first few minutes. Take some of your unprocessed photos and videos on a cd, and see what you think.
If you are using it for personal photos & videos, then the iLife s/w is a very good starting point - very well integrated.
As in the Windows world there are also some very good 3rd party products - I use Photoshop Elements 3, Comiclife, disclabel, rapidweaver, among other stuff. They all tend to be very well integrated with Apple's iLife programs, which makes life very easy.
Good luck.
Best thing to do would be to go to an Apple shop and try one out.
Give yourself at least an hour, because there are some small differences in the way the interface works that some people find irritating for the first few minutes. Take some of your unprocessed photos and videos on a cd, and see what you think.
If you are using it for personal photos & videos, then the iLife s/w is a very good starting point - very well integrated.
As in the Windows world there are also some very good 3rd party products - I use Photoshop Elements 3, Comiclife, disclabel, rapidweaver, among other stuff. They all tend to be very well integrated with Apple's iLife programs, which makes life very easy.
Good luck.
It is rather obvious that when such question were posted here, you will get pro-Mac responses.
With iLife '05 (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes & GarageBand) designed and integrated as one complete media suite by the same great team, you wouldn't believe its synergy of use. I wouldn't recommend PC over Mac for sure. Seeing is believing.
With iLife '05 (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes & GarageBand) designed and integrated as one complete media suite by the same great team, you wouldn't believe its synergy of use. I wouldn't recommend PC over Mac for sure. Seeing is believing.
A few things.
GHz is a measurement of one billion clock cycles per second. How much work is done per clock cycle? Depends on the type of processor.
You can be sure, for example, that every Pentium 4 does the same amount of calculations per clock cycle as every other Pentium 4. So GHz is fine when comparing two Pentium 4's. But when comparing a Pentium 4 to an Athlon 64, or a Pentium 4 to a G5 in a Mac, it's almost useless.
How do you get real performance?
It depends on:
1) The GHz (clock speed).
2) The work done per clock cycle (depends on the type of processor)
3) The bus speed
4) The size of the cache
5) The speed of the RAM
6) The amount of RAM
7) How well the software is written
and many other factors.
Frankly, it's almost impossible to compare a Mac to a PC.
The PowerPC processors in Macs have a lower clock speed, do more work per clock cycle, have a higher bus speed, and the OS is much better optimized because it only needs to run on Apple hardware. So just try the machine and see how it feels.
GHz is a measurement of one billion clock cycles per second. How much work is done per clock cycle? Depends on the type of processor.
You can be sure, for example, that every Pentium 4 does the same amount of calculations per clock cycle as every other Pentium 4. So GHz is fine when comparing two Pentium 4's. But when comparing a Pentium 4 to an Athlon 64, or a Pentium 4 to a G5 in a Mac, it's almost useless.
How do you get real performance?
It depends on:
1) The GHz (clock speed).
2) The work done per clock cycle (depends on the type of processor)
3) The bus speed
4) The size of the cache
5) The speed of the RAM
6) The amount of RAM
7) How well the software is written
and many other factors.
Frankly, it's almost impossible to compare a Mac to a PC.
The PowerPC processors in Macs have a lower clock speed, do more work per clock cycle, have a higher bus speed, and the OS is much better optimized because it only needs to run on Apple hardware. So just try the machine and see how it feels.
akanathan said:
Good idea, but you might want to drop the "normal PC" thing before you get there.