I like how people make comparisons between Hackintoshs and real Macs.
Why shouldn't I. My needs required at least a quad core machine that ran OSX. It would have cost me, at the time, $2300 for an authentic quad core Mac Pro with only 2GBs of RAM, 320GBs of HD space, and a 2600 video card. Instead I paid $1400 for a quad core machine with 8GBs of RAM, 1TB of HD space and an 8800GTX with 768MBs of RAM. It works perfectly fine and spanks the hell out of the base
$2700 Mac Pro.
You still can't make a fair comparison between a Mac Pro vs a Hackintosh, especially if you've OCed it.
Why not? I want to compare the money spent for the performance I get. Since I don't have a need for more than 8GBs of RAM I get a HUGE price/performance benefit by going with a well built Hackintosh. It's simply maths really.
Also, with a Mac Pro, you get SERVER grade parts, not desktop parts. If you were to get the same (or similar) server-grade parts, and built yourself a completely similar machine, it's a guarantee you'd pay much more than a Mac Pro.
I know you think that OCing is "cheating" or whatever, but I've shown several times on this forum that you can get a 2.8GHz octo-core Hackintosh with more RAM, more HD space and a better video card than the bare bones quad core Mac Pro. If I need more than 8GBs of RAM in the future, that's most certainly what I'll be doing.
So in that sense, you're getting a real bargain for a Mac Pro. A Mac Pro also makes an awesome server if you were to use it for that reason.
Mac Pros are a good deal if you compare them to other manufacturers workstations. I'm speaking of manufacturers like Dell and HP. However, their "dealiness" wears of when compared to thoughtful home built machine with decent cooling and an OC. The concept is performance per dollar.
If you're not using a Hackintosh to it's fullest extent (such as After Effects rendering, etc), and built a Hackintosh OCed just to have bragging rights, then you're just wasting electricity at that point. You're just a Geekbench WHORE.
I don't understand the point of wasting time looking at numbers, when you could look at numbers from the money that you COULD be making.
I agree. That's why I use mine for work in Photoshop, Lightwave, Zbrush, and Final Cut. Oh wait, were you trying to imply that I'm just a Geekbench whore?...
BTW my Mac Pro still kicks my Hackintosh's ass in After Effects rendering, even if it's OCed. Why? Because it's got 32GB RAM now, not to mention the extra 4 cores.
Well no DUH. The point is, however, that I could build a 32GB octo-core system that matches or exceeds the clock speeds of yours for less than you paid for that system and in that sense get the same performance for less money or get better performance for less money.
Oh, and just to be smarmy, I'll point out that the first Mac Pro to show up on the top Geekbench 2 score board is 24th. What's worse is all the i7 systems that come before it are quad core systems running 8 threads.
weez999 said:
I plan to at least give Windows 7 a shot.
You really ought to. It's quite impressive. I've been using it for several days now on my laptop and have found that it performs faster than even the sacred Windows XP. Even in this beta stage I'd say it's a better OS than Vista. That's coming from a guy that really hasn't had any trouble with Vista and thinks it's a decent OS (even though I still prefer OSX for usability).