Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Which Mac is comparable to my current PC system?
- Thread starter Gary King
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
minimax said:
Did it occur to you that Gary did not say he does any video encoding or rendering? How does that have any relevancy at all to this discussion? If he is doing simply email/word processing/browsing, then honestly that kind of performance does not matter. He certainly didn't put that out in his first post.
Regarding GUI "responsiveness", I strongly suggest he used Tiger though. It is significantly more responsive than Panther and especially Jaguar. Areas such as resizing windows, moving with the scrollbar, very basic here...
That said...while a G4 is nice, I'm certain those who have used a G5 can certainly agree with me that if given the option, you would not go back to the G4. Using my iBook at home is an extremely painful experience, you might imagine (coming from my PC). **However...if he simply wants to get a comparable (not an upgrade) to his current system, then yes a G4 will suffice**
I just don't think that he should be using that when G5's are so much more affordable than they were 2 years ago since its launch.
zach said:
That's a weird discussion.. what does 'beats the pants off' mean? I've had a PB 1.33GHz (12") and I'm did some computational stuff on it (compiling programs, model checking) and it was definitely NOT faster than my 1.8 GHz P4 at work (the P4 had 1GB of RAM, the PB had 768MB). I have updated to a PB 1.5 12" last week, but I haven't worked on it much yet (well, I'm writing this post on my new Powerbook).
I can't talk about video processing.. however, if the G4 is faster than the P4 depends very much on the application, don't you think?
The G4 is a decent processor.. but it definitely doesn't 'beat the pants off' a x86 P4 1.8GHz.
I find that using my 1.67 GHz PowerBook (granted, slightly faster than the 1.42 GHz I talked about) is ::much:: snappier than my father's 2.6 GHz P4 (with a gig of RAM in both machines).
I probably shouldn't have jumped to conclusions so fast, nor used that phrase.
Statement retracted
I probably shouldn't have jumped to conclusions so fast, nor used that phrase.
Statement retracted
Mav451 said:
Excuse me? The original question is about Mac performance versus PC performance. How can the performance of a computer, which is best benchmarked by heavy applications like rendering and encoding, not be relevant to this discussion?
If he actually uses these applications is not relevant, but in order to compare the performance of two different systems, it is.
Besides that your point would only remotely be valid if Gary explicitly mentioned he was expecting to do only very light work on his computer, which he didnt. Now you are just making that assumption to hold your argument together.
Best by far: iMac G5 or PowerMac (costs more, but upgradable GPU etc).
Second-best: eMac but you can't keep the monitor.
A good match for your current machine... but with a better OS and worse graphics board: Mac Mini.
Whatever you get, keep your old drives... they'll mount up on Mac without reformatting. Just get an external USB2 drive case from eshop.macsales.com and you can shuttle stuff back and forth between your two computers easily.
Second-best: eMac but you can't keep the monitor.
A good match for your current machine... but with a better OS and worse graphics board: Mac Mini.
Whatever you get, keep your old drives... they'll mount up on Mac without reformatting. Just get an external USB2 drive case from eshop.macsales.com and you can shuttle stuff back and forth between your two computers easily.
Gary King said:
Yes he is. In fact...it may actually be easier to get a new HD for your Mac, since OSX can read NTFS/FAT32 (but it cannot write to it). This way, you can have a backup drive after you move over your files (media, movies/photos, that sort of thing). The only problem I foresee is files that have extensions with Windows only software. Photoshop/MS Office files should have no problem going from Windows to Mac. Ditto to .mp3, .mpg, .mp4, .avi (you get the picture)
So yes, he does mean an external drive enclosure. They usually have a small fan inside to provide cooling, not to mention that this makes your HD's surprisingly mobile (move them from room-to-room, or even take them with you).
Gary King said:Which Mac is comparable to my current PC system? Because I don't want to move to a Mac and suddenly feel as though the Mac is slower
I know you've said you only have a bit of money but if I was you I'd just save up a bit more cash and get one of the new Rev B iMac G5s they are amazing machines. Why go for something comparable to 3 year old hardware when most of the Macs available today will beat the pants off it??
Or as is suggested above the Rev A iMac G5 1.6 GHz my GF has one of them it's an amazing machine I couldn't really compare it to anything I use at work because the OSes are completely different but it sure seems to run a lot faster than the Pentium 4 2.4 GHz I use at work.
risc said:
This is, I think, an unfair comparison. Playing devil's advocate, b/c I know the G5's are nice, but at my mother's workplace for example (government), they load those computers with so much AV/Firewall/keylogging "security" junk, that it really eats up the RAM. Most of these machines only have 512MB, and some are worse with only 384 or god forbid 256MB.
I'd bet that if those PC's didn't have to load that junk, they'd perform much faster. My friend had a P4 2.8 since my freshmen year, 2002, and that thing was, and is still top of the line. I think one of the Mini's biggest weaknesses is the I/O disadvantage of its laptop drives. If the Mini was slightly bigger, it would be able to natively house a standard size, ATA drive. Yes, you can do FW400/800 but if we are talking about switchers, how many do you know have a FW enclosure? Hmmm?
Hell, I know a few Mac users, and none of them have FW enclosures either, which makes the chances of PC switchers having one even less. Had the Mini had a standard 7200RPM ATA HD (e.g. 160GB), this would not be an issue.
What are the [2] most important factors in "responsiveness" (besides using Tiger of course)?
- HD speed (interface: ATA/SATA/SCSI/RAID; rotational speed: 4200/5400/7200/10k; and size).
-All 3 of those are commonly lower on laptop drives - RAM size
-default of 256MB, SO-DIMM's only. This makes your existing DIMM's useless here. More money spent.
Both of these are negatively impacted by using laptop sized components. While, in general, the "headless iMac" need has been satisfied...I see it as only being fully satisfied when we see desktop-sized components in a slightly bigger version.
But maybe I'm in the minority here =D.
OS X can read and write to FAT32. You can even format a disk as FAT in Disk Utility.Mav451 said:
risc said:
Yeah, I know that Macs are lagging a bit behind with this kind of applications (spyware, etc.), but believe me: Once Macs reach a market share of 10% someone will take care of this... Macs DO have security leaks as well (or do you really think that Apple is providing these updates just for fun?).
weg said:Yeah.. meaning it hits the floor earlier than the PC when you throw both out of a window?
Well actually the PC would hit the floor faster = more wight
But I know that a 1.42Ghz G4 is faster than a P4
The G4 is a very good CPU in terms of efficiency...even better than the G5
my 800mhz felt comparable to my Athlon XP 1800+ it felt slower than my Athlon XP 2400+ system.
my 1.25 Mac mini with stock ram felt comparable to the XP 2400+ with 1GB of ram though it feels faster.
I recently got a 3100+ processor and now my PC feels a little bit faster again
my 1.25 Mac mini with stock ram felt comparable to the XP 2400+ with 1GB of ram though it feels faster.
I recently got a 3100+ processor and now my PC feels a little bit faster again
You want to argue with the law of gravity? Go ahead, but you will lose.
The feather falls slower than the stone because of wind resistance mate. Drop two stones of different weights and *they will hit the ground at the same time*.
As Bill Hicks said, "Not a physics major"
The feather falls slower than the stone because of wind resistance mate. Drop two stones of different weights and *they will hit the ground at the same time*.
As Bill Hicks said, "Not a physics major"
deebster said:You want to argue with the law of gravity? Go ahead, but you will lose.
The feather falls slower than the stone because of wind resistance mate. Drop two stones of different weights and *they will hit the ground at the same time*.
As Bill Hicks said, "Not a physics major"
That is what I'm saying