MK-2 Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 All this neg rep'ing over personal opinion is really quite pathetic - if you're going to do it at least have the balls to own up to it! i was going to neg rep you for commenting on a post about neg rep, but then i thought does 2 x neg rep = a pos rep? do two wrongs make a right? what is the square root of a cubed number? so instead ill just post this..... http://www.ooblick.com/weblog/files/2009/08/bunny_pancake1.jpg 2
tech_guy Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 The burning question is that a pikelet or a pancake on the rabbits head?
dwhyte85 Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 The real issues at hand are: Who'd win in a fight: Pirate vs Ninja Monkey with a knife vs a lion with steel teeth Terminator vs RoboCop Prince Charles vs Gordon Brown ... roll on 3.30. 1
LosOjos Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 The real issues at hand are: Who'd win in a fight: Pirate vs Ninja Monkey with a knife vs a lion with steel teeth Terminator vs RoboCop Prince Charles vs Gordon Brown ... roll on 3.30. Clearly you're a fan of the TV show Deadliest Warrior (or you soon will be). I love that somebody, somewhere is actually getting paid to answer questions like that and make a TV show out of it.
dwhyte85 Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 I do watch it BUT they've not approached animals, robots or well known people... yet!
Dos_Box Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 I am pretty sure I am right in saying this ( appologise if I am wrong and am welcome to corrections ) but I doubt apple would do this as they would lose money in there hardware sales and not to mention I think the whole reason behind having a set of pre determined hardware is that you can then build the OS around the hardware and not the other way around because then you know exactly what drivers are required for said hardware, how to program the OS around the said hardware because of the type of CPU's used, etc, etc. Which in my opinion is what helps make the apple OS to a certain degree more stable on there own hardware along with the fact that it is a *nix / BSD type OS as apposed to being like windows OS with all of its weaknesses ie registry, explorer process etc etc Anyway not too fussed about the whole PC vs Mac anymore as they both have there pro's and cons depending on the work flow / type of work or what said person wants to use and purchase for the said persons needs / requirements. Macs are slow on the hardware side ref graphics cards at least and do agree ref the hard drive capacity comment above and also the RAM direct from apple is over priced ( which is why I normally go with crucial for mac ram ) After seeing how woeful WoW was on Shauns MacBook Pro at LWF I have severe doubts about Apples ability to match hardware with drivers. Once he'd booted into Windows (Bootcamp) all was well. 1
difinity Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 (edited) In reply to those wondering if Macs are better at design than PCs. It's a myth, my friend runs his own design agency, him on his pc and his wife as project manager. He made an absolutely obscene amount of money last year and will make even more this year. He never has and will never touch a Mac (his words not mine). No he doesn't do much video editing, but lots of 3d and web. Edited January 18, 2011 by difinity
ZeroHour Posted January 18, 2011 Posted January 18, 2011 This thread is getting derailed badly, I may clear all these rep posts out tbh. Regarding rep, its all logged and if your seen to be abusing it or putting nasty comments your ability to give rep will be removed, period! For those rep hunters, its only rep, it really REALLY doesnt matter much if you get a little negative from time to time, every thanked post gives you positive rep so it usually always balances out. 2
Popular Post Norphy Posted January 18, 2011 Popular Post Posted January 18, 2011 (edited) This is now the third time I've tried to post in this thread! I keep on posting this huge long reply, the browser refreshes itself and boom, post gone. H'anyway... In September I'll be buying a 27" iMac, or whatever the latest offering from Mr. Jobs is, for home use as I can't be ar$ed with Windows anymore. I spend too much time faffing around with the spawn of the devil from Redmond at work and I want to be able to go home and just use something that works. These were pretty much my thoughts when I bought my first iMac three years ago. All day at work, I have to support and deal with Windows problems. Then after a long day at work, I'd come home and have to deal with the same crap! I started the job that I'm doing at the moment and not long afterwards, a new Mac was bought to go with our existing ones. My colleague asked me to set the Mac up as I had very little experience with OS X at that point so I had a look at it. Pretty much immediately, I noticed just how nice an experience it was to use the machine. The more I used it, the more I grew to like it. In the end I saved up some money, went down to the Brent Cross Apple Store with my staff ID in my hand and got a new iMac at a 12% discount. It sounds trite but I find using OS X is so much more... pleasant than using Windows. This feeling was amplified quite a lot after six months of using Vista. It feels a lot faster than Windows. I find the UI is nicer looking and more logically laid out. I like the level of integration between all the Apple apps. The built in applications such as Mail.app and Calendar are actually useful. The iLife suite is a nice bonus and I found iPhoto to be an absolute revelation although if you don't take many photos I suppose that's moot. GUI elements such as Exposé and Quick Look make navigating and managing your stuff a lot easier. iTunes and Quicktime even make sense on the platform. The UI in general is very polished and it's clear that a lot of thought has gone into it. Time machine makes backing up to disk very easy and while Windows has the same functionality built into it with Shadow Volume Copies, the UI in Time Machine makes life a lot easier. In terms of hardware, I was also pretty pleased. At first I was a bit put out by the graphics cards used by Apple but by that point the amount of time I spent playing games was minimal I decided it wasn't a huge issue any more. The iMac was compact, almost silent and took up a lot less room on the desk than my PC did. It was more or less the same in terms of hardware spec as my old PC too. I won't pretend that it's a perfect platform. It isn't by any stretch of the imagination. I find the Finder file manager to be pretty poor. Inbuilt codec support is pretty poor and it's not the easiest thing in the world to extend although Perian does a good job there. The amount of audio and video containers that iTunes supports is pitiful. It will support any codec that's registered with Quicktime but come on, MP4, M4V, MP3 and AAC only Apple? That's ludicrous. There was a pretty steep learning curve coming from Windows and it took a long time to get used to the differences in UI. Expandability of the machine is obviously limited. The only Apple sanctioned upgrade is the RAM which I maxed out although I did also upgrade the hard drive in there after a couple of years too. There's no denying that the Mac Pro is a bloody expensive platform, albeit comparable in price to the Dell Precision and HP Z series lines. OEM upgrades are stupidly expensive in all of their lines, you'd be certifiably mad if you bought any of them! But the same could be said about Dell and HP too, albeit not to the same extent. And while we're on hardware, the input peripherals that Apple provide are awful. I gave up with them pretty much immediately and stuck with the Microsoft ones that I've been using for years. The only decent input peripheral that Apple have made recently is the Magic Touchpad, that thing is great! That said, I think that some of the iMac line is relatively good value, at least with the educational discount. Taking for example the base Quad Core 27" iMac, that costs £1481.92 with the 12% educational discount. Taking into account the 2560x1440 IPS screen which would cost in the region of £850 if you bought it separately, you're looking at around £630 for the rest of the hardware. A Dell Inspiron 580 with Windows 7 Pro costs £604, that has more or less the same spec as the iMac albeit a bit more RAM and a weaker graphics card. Plus you'd have to buy speakers, webcam and microphone if you wanted identical functionality. Admittedly you don't need an educational discount to get that price but being as we're all educators here, who cares about that? The Genius bar is probably worth a mention too. It's nice to be able to take your computer or iDevice into an Apple store and get it checked over if you think there's something wrong with it. You can't do that with a Dell, you'd either have to take it to another shop who would probably charge you for looking at it or phone the technical support line and we all know what a crapshoot that can be! With a BYOC of course, you're on your own. Not a problem for some but even when it isn't, it's good to have the safety net! It's been mentioned briefly on this thread already but I'll mention it too. Macs hold their value remarkably well. A couple of months ago, I sold the iMac that I bought three years ago. I paid about £950 for it I think. It sold on eBay for £600 and looking around eBay, that seems to be a fairly typical price for the spec! Whereas you'd have trouble giving away a three year old Dell let alone selling it for 2/3rds of its original price! So finally (Hurray!), if you were ask me why I use a Mac instead of buying an OEM Windows PC or a using a BYOC I think the answer would be simply this: Because I like them. I like the OS, I like the software, I like the hardware, I like the integration between the OS, software and hardware and I like the support. I think that all of these things are worth the price that I paid for them. But hey, this is my opinion. You might agree. You might think that this post is the biggest load of bovine excrement you have ever read. That's your right and your privilege. Frankly, I don't care one way or the other. What bothers me is how people on both sides of the fence get so, I don't know, militant about the whole Mac vs PC argument. For christ's sake, they're computers. They're tools. Some people like one type of tool, other people like others. Arguing over which is better is like arguing over whether serrated knifes are better than non serrated knifes, i.e. downright stupid. Edited January 18, 2011 by Norphy 5
SYNACK Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 (edited) He never has and will never touch a Mac (his words not mine). No he doesn't do much video editing, but lots of 3d and web. 3D (creation for movies etc) on Macs is awful as none of the major tools support it. It is one area they are rather behind on and have never had much domination in. Edited January 19, 2011 by SYNACK
Arthur Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 anyone have a side by side comparison of workstation machines based on the apple spec? I must have been really bored, because here's one I did earlier. As you can see, when you do a proper like-for-like comparison there isn't much between the latest Mac Pro and a HP Z600 Workstation (just £196.52!). Click image to make it bigger. http://db.tt/E6BwTR0 For what Mac's are, that picture is a great argument. It's surprising what you can make people believe when you do biased comparisons.
mac_shinobi Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 (edited) @ Norphy - ref supported playback I know you mentioned perian which I already have and use and also that these media players do not add more support to quicktime but VLC and MPlayer are pretty darned good on OS X which I use both - Also with the macs on Intel type hardware as apposed to PPC ie G4 / G5 etc you can virtualise ie VMWare / Parallels so if there is still windows software that you want to use then this is still not really an issue. Ref the 3D material / video editing / creation on macs - whether or not you can do this on a normal PC ( non mac ) am not sure but either way I honestly don't know any users yet ( as this could change , might get a reply from this ) that go home and create 3D footage / edit 3D footage etc ?? So don't see this as an issue not being able to do this on the mac platform - additionaly I don't own any 3D equipment ie projector / TV etc so again still not an issue for me. Have to agree with Norphy on this as it all adds up so well ref the OS, hardware, support , genius bar / apple care etc etc that at least myself from experience have really enjoyed it - I do understand that apple are behind on a number of things ie graphics cards, memory prices being higher ( RAM, Hard drives ) and also higher on graphics card prices as you can compare the same / similar graphics card models and the mac version will be a lot higher in cost then the equivelant PC version but obviously the mac ones have a specific firmware on them to get them to work with the mac ( obviously ). Edited January 19, 2011 by mac_shinobi
SYNACK Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 The 3D I was talking about was more 3D rendering, stuff like Maya that is used to generate the 3D modeling and animation stuff that is used in movies. The main platforms are really Windows and Linux for that kind of stuff most of it runs slow is not compatible or bombs out from all reports.
mthomas08 Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 @Arthur, great research Although are you not paying for the tag "HP", what if you did a comparison with some one like NovaTech. That does seem a high price for a PC and even alienware doesnt get that high unless its a laptop. Maybe I just don't go completely all out on the spending. I am not afraid to admit MACs are more reliable and do turn on and away you go very quickly (almost instant) compared to a PC. Then on the other hand if we all switched over to MACs exactly how long till we have serious problems occuring with them? Comparing to our MACs we have had for a year and 5 months and PCs we have had for that length of time, we have had same amount of issues really. The PCs we purchased last year are for basic use "Internet, Office" and they have been far more reliable then other PCs which have a load of things installed and have fancy cards in them. Personally I just wouldnt spend so much on a PC let alone a MAC, when I go home I dont want to worry about dual boot, I want to turn on and everything be able to work that I ever need to install. Work wise I have yet to see the benefit except the fact that its a turn on and get on with it. In fact some of our staff who are in control of the MACs like that little bit of power and the people who seem to like MACs are not usually IT people. If I am wrong then so be it but that is my experience but I am only 27.
featured_spectre Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 Arthur, what was in the picture is true, Dell, HP etc do not charge $700 for a 400mhz upgrade, whereas apple do. Also in your picture, the warranties arent the same, for Apple to do 3 year on site warranty, you would need to add another couple hundred!
MK-2 Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 Apparently the Apple store near me was broken into last night and £30,000 worth of equipment stolen. Police have said they are confident they will recover both laptops though........... WHAT??!!?? you know you laughed so shut up!!!! 3
localzuk Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 @mthomas - the point is, the Mac Pro is not a cheap PC. It is a high end workstation, as is the Z600. A company like Novatech don't make such a system, and a comparison with a homebuild is not a fair one. Also, you and others seem quite dismissive of the whole 'turn on and go' thing. This is a hugely important factor to normal home users. Why do you think Linux has had so much trouble getting into the home market? Up until recently, it was 'install, spend 7 hours tweaking text files in a console, and go'. Windows was 'receive computer, follow initial setup instructions, notice that 40% of your processing power is being taken up by junk software, do windows updates 3 times, as each set requires a reboot, and go' until Vista/7 came out. Having a system so integrated and smooth that it just does things for you is what consumers want, even if they have to pay more for it. As I said in a blog post ages ago - we live in the 'Lazy age'. Convenience is at the top of the pile. 1
mac_shinobi Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 The 3D I was talking about was more 3D rendering, stuff like Maya that is used to generate the 3D modeling and animation stuff that is used in movies. The main platforms are really Windows and Linux for that kind of stuff most of it runs slow is not compatible or bombs out from all reports. blender.org - Mac OS X I don't do much of that sort of thing either so at least to me - not an issue but there are work arounds ie using boot camp ( using windows on bare metal ) as the macs although possibly slightly slower hardware can still run directly on windows, also VM's as the vm software is getting better and more efficient , I mean they can play 3D games a lot better in a Vm then they used to be able to. Vmware fusion / parallels etc
mac_shinobi Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 (edited) @mthomas - the point is, the Mac Pro is not a cheap PC. It is a high end workstation, as is the Z600. A company like Novatech don't make such a system, and a comparison with a homebuild is not a fair one. Also, you and others seem quite dismissive of the whole 'turn on and go' thing. This is a hugely important factor to normal home users. Why do you think Linux has had so much trouble getting into the home market? Up until recently, it was 'install, spend 7 hours tweaking text files in a console, and go'. Windows was 'receive computer, follow initial setup instructions, notice that 40% of your processing power is being taken up by junk software, do windows updates 3 times, as each set requires a reboot, and go' until Vista/7 came out. Having a system so integrated and smooth that it just does things for you is what consumers want, even if they have to pay more for it. As I said in a blog post ages ago - we live in the 'Lazy age'. Convenience is at the top of the pile. I have to agree with the section high lighted in bold - I just want to come home after dealing with windows, power my apple mac on and it just load and work so I can do what I want, not having to faff around trying to get software to install or remove malware or having my expensive rig wasting resources on firewall / AV / Anti malware software that sits in the system tray running and wasting cpu cycles / RAM etc. I literally come home, press the power button, wait about 20 seconds or so and im at the logon screen and it only takes about 10 seconds to load fully and Im away with loading my apps whether it be firefox / safari or whatever I want to do. Updates ( software updater ) for the most part 90% of the time is install everything, if a reboot is required it advises you, after the reboot its done, no more updates, unless you are doing a complete re install as sometimes with iTunes you run an update to get to the next version and there will be another update to get it from version y to version y.z.x but again this isn't very often as this tends to get intergrated into one update as part of say OS X update 10.X.Z I don't bother running AV / Anti malware very often as I used to and it didn't make any difference aside from obviously it was wasting resources that I could use. I do run a ClamXav now and again but thats it. Firewall is already enabled and running and I have all the options to run everything in secure memory etc, plus am behind a router which has an SPI firewall so am fairly safe - not impossible to hack I wouldn't of thought but either way good enough for me. Edited January 19, 2011 by mac_shinobi
Arthur Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 what was in the picture is true, Dell, HP etc do not charge $700 for a 400mhz upgrade, whereas apple do. A 400MHz upgrade on a Dell Precision T7500 costs £241 ($386.23) A 660MHz upgrade costs £671 ($1,075.34)! http://db.tt/79JMlDm Also in your picture, the warranties arent the same, for Apple to do 3 year on site warranty, you would need to add another couple hundred! Apple's website seems to imply you get that as standard with AppleCare (although I doubt it is NBD). http://db.tt/m0nuTIf
Guest Guest Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 I must have been really bored, because here's one I did earlier. As you can see, when you do a proper like-for-like comparison there isn't much between the latest Mac Pro and a HP Z600 Workstation (just £196.52!). Click image to make it bigger. http://db.tt/E6BwTR0 It's surprising what you can make people believe when you do biased comparisons. The firepro card you have added is pushing £300 where as the HD5770 is £80 so thats £200 ontop of the £200 you already know; £400, its starting to add up. It is "surprising what you can make people believe when you do biased comparisons."
localzuk Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 The firepro card you have added is pushing £300 where as the HD5770 is £80 so thats £200 ontop of the £200 you already know; £400, its starting to add up. It is "surprising what you can make people believe when you do biased comparisons." Did you read the comment? That they both use the same processor? You make do with what manufacturers provide as choices, so it isn't a biased comparison. 1
Guest Guest Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 Did you read the comment? That they both use the same processor? You make do with what manufacturers provide as choices, so it isn't a biased comparison. Yes I read the comment thanks. They arnt the same card though are they? Why exactly do you think one is £80 and the other is £300? So ofcourse its a biased comparison
ZeroHour Posted January 19, 2011 Posted January 19, 2011 You make do with what manufacturers provide as choices, so it isn't a biased comparison. One point to note with that is you can easily get the manufacturer to change the card over the phone generally, the website has more limited choices but I am not sure if the same can be done with apple.
Rydra Posted January 19, 2011 Author Posted January 19, 2011 One of the things i've set store in with all computers that i've built, and i look for in computers that i buy for school, is value for money; Can I do what is needed/wanted, for less somewhere else. The 2nd thing I look for, which has to go hand in hand with the first, is how long will this product last me doing what I want it to do? If the kit i've got will be obscelete within 2 years in not supporting something which is already on the horizon, then it will not be good value for money. The 2 big things in home media right now is Blue rays, and 3D Movies/Games. Neither of which do Apple support, though they are rarely "Pioneers" in this front of technology, so wouldn't expect to see Blue ray support for another year or so, and 3D support for 3-5 years. Personally I hope 3D flops, as I hate the idea of wearing stupid glasses in my own living room. I still have 20/20 vision, I'd like to keep it that way. But BlueRay is undeniably replacing DVD's just as DVD's did to VHS. The reluctance I think stems from the worry that internet enabled TV's and downloadable movie's will take their place before they get a chance to take hold fully. The real crunch point will be when big software/game producers release a big named title for the PC on Blue Ray, or when a movie title only releases in BlueRay.
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