PC for work, Mac for Lifestyle, Console for games

[Gomff]

Hi Everyone
Up until 5 years ago, I used to be a PC guy exclusively, and did all my work, gaming and lifestyle stuff like email, casual music creation and MP3 playback on a PC.

Then Apple switched to Intel, Macs could run windows and were competitively priced so I thought I'd give one a go. I quickly grew to like the Mac envronment and the reliability, freedom from scareware virus programs and better perceived value when it came to software and being productive.

3 or 4 golden years went by, during which time I made my home in OS X, I bought an Xbox to play games on and used Windows only when I absolutely had to.

Then Apple brought out Lion. Suddenly, Logic Pro 8 wouldn't work without a hack which depended on it being installed on Snow Lepard first and then upgrading to Lion, then some further hackery to get it to run. 2 of my 3D programs of choice which I depend on to earn a living became very unstable, whilst Apple's OpenGL support within OS X has fallen behind Windows dramatically.

Meanwhile a decent chunk of work turned up that required some extra rendering muscle and the current Mac Pro offerings were (a) Poor value and (b) Lion only. So I bought a PC to carry the load of 2 week's worth of rendering. Not only has it performed well, but it is now sat next to my Mac in the office, rather than being hidden away in the cellar as a rendering machine which was the original plan. I am much more productive again since the speed difference between an i7 2600K system and a 2008 Mac Pro is immense. This is not just down to the hardware, but also the fact that Windows 7 is responsive and generally fine to work in, whilst for me Lion has gone backwards.

Having this beast of a PC then prompted me to look round for some decent games to really see what it could do but alas, it seems for commercial reason relating to piracy and sheer sales volumes, the consoles are getting most of the love and few games available on the PC are really pushing the hardware like they used to.

So now I'm reconciled to the idea that for 3D work, PC's make the most sense. For Lifestyle, synching my phone and iPad to iTunes, email, managing my business with iWork and social things, the Mac is nice and well suited. For gaming, it seems the Xbox is a good choice....No cutting edge GPU technology to be found but at least there's lots of choice.

But when my Mac comes to the end of its life, I doubt I shall be rushing out to buy something with a bit of beef to it. I think it's now more likely that I'll downgrade to a far less powerful machine, maybe even just a Macbook so that I can service my iDevices and do rudimentary admin. WHen that time comes, I think I will effectively have conceeded that the Mac is no longer a platform for serious work....At least for me.

 

[miles01110]

Great. Start a blog about it.

 

[Gomff]

Great. Start a blog about it.

I'm so sorry. I thought this was a forum for discussion by members of the Apple community. I didn't realize I'd posted in the low brow sarcasm area but thanks for putting me straight.

 

[likemyorbs]

tbh, i have no issues with lion. i think it's a beautiful lightweight os. i have no software that won't run on it. so still a devoted mac user here.

 

[macsmurf]

My productivity is closely related to the applications I use - not the speed of the hardware (within limits, of course).

I use a PC for games. I think there are quite a few games out there that pushes the GPU. The games come out first on the consoles but a lot of them come out later for PCs.

Anyway, I use Win 7 exclusively for gaming. For everything else, I use Lion. That's not to say that Lion is perfect. Not by a long shot.

I find this obsession with CPU speed a little strange unless one does a lot of CPU bound work which 95% of consumers don't.

 

[AAPLaday]

How about PC for work/gaming and mac Mini for lifestyle. You could use your PC equipment for the Mini and it is low cost and powerful enough for everyday use

 

[Gomff]

I find this obsession with CPU speed a little strange unless one does a lot of CPU bound work which 95% of consumers don't.

I'd agree, except for the fact that CPU speed is hugely important in 3D graphics, especially when rendering.

 

[macsmurf]

I'd agree, except for the fact that CPU speed is hugely important in 3D graphics, especially when rendering.

True. In that particular case the OS is pretty much irrelevant. I don't think the mac has ever been the logical first choice for that scenario.

 

[roadbloc]

i think it's a beautiful lightweight os.

With Core2Duo and 2GB of RAM minimum, I'm unsure how you justify this.

As for the topic, I'm unsure why you need a computer for lifestyle. I have a computer to do a job, if I didn't need one, I wouldn't have one.

 

[Gomff]

True. In that particular case the OS is pretty much irrelevant. I don't think the mac has ever been the logical first choice for that scenario.

The OS still plays a part funnily enough. I use Modo which has a great flexible license where it can be installed on Windows or Mac because the software is licensed to the owner, not the OS or the machine.

Anyway, Modo renders 10 - 15% quicker in Windows. Just that alone isn't too big a deal in most cases, but coupled with the poor OpenGL performance in OS X, it's more of an issue. It is also Modo that is particularly flaky in Lion but much better in Snow Leopard.

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With Core2Duo and 2GB of RAM minimum, I'm unsure how you justify this.

As for the topic, I'm unsure why you need a computer for lifestyle. I have a computer to do a job, if I didn't need one, I wouldn't have one.

Lifestyle is a catchall expression, meaning the computer is a hub for digital properties such as MP3s, Video, email, documents etc. Not necessarily work or job related but nevertheless a useful aspect of one's modern lifestyle.

Hope that makes it more clear.