Macs vs. PCs

HelloTman16 · Post by **HelloTman16** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:39 pm

lmao, why didn't I come across this forum post earlier!
Anyway, my OPINION of the week for mac vs. pc
I use both, although at home all I have is a dell laptop, IBM laptop, gateway, an HP, and 3 homebuilts. I use macs at school...and although I realize those are lower-end models, they suck. Ya....they suck pretty bad. I like my XP 3000+, and you want to know why? Because I paid 800 dollars last May for this:
19" KDS Flat Screen
XP 3000+ 512mb pc2700 ata 133 76gb maxtor, Biostar mobo, Gainward Geforce fx5200
Please tell me where I can find as good a mac for a deal like that, with as good a monitor, and then maybe I will change my mind about macs. And yes, I did look at macs in the mac store.....hahaha, for whatever it was like 800 mhz or somethin like that, the thing cost $800.

The other reason for going PC....a part breaks you fix it....even the mobo. Just about anything breaks on a mac...ur friggen screwed (I've seen the difference at school where we have IBM's and macs)

Calus · Post by **Calus** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:12 am

Check out what Europe thinks about Mas.

peter-griffin · Post by **peter-griffin** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:57 pm

Mac has dual 2ghz machines. The PC world has dual 3.06ghz machines.

Mac has combined 1000mhz FSB for their CPUs. If I'm not mistaken, that's 500mhz for each processor. For PCs, you have 800mhz of FSB for each processor, and that's easily overclockable. Overclocking on a Mac is hell.

For PCs, you have a vast variety of software. For Mac, it's limited. And for all of you that say Mac's are better for editting and design, I beg to differ. If you *gasp* defragment your computer and don't live a hundred million icons lying around, your PC will run better than any Mac in any design program.

My computer is fucked up now because I did something stupid. Hopefully, I'll be able to go out and swap a harddrive. With a Mac, you have to call Mac, get the parts shipped out, blah blah, and end up paying more. Gg.

billf · Post by **billf** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 6:00 pm

I'd like to point out that peter-griffin has no idea what he's talking about.

first off, you cannot compare processor speeds between Mac and PC that easily, hell, you can't even compare the hz between Intel and AMD that easily.

Next, There is plenty of software for the Mac. About the only thing they are lacking is games, everything else you can find for Mac.

Don't even get me started on graphics. I WORK in the graphics industry. There's a reason why when we do our post job reviews (so that we can give the customers recomendations for the next time and not have so much trouble doing the job) we always tell our sales rep that the PC user should get a Mac. Windows is a nightmare when it comes to desktop publishing. Trust me, I know.

You did something stupid to your PC, that's your own fault. Most companies void the warrenty if you mess with the HD, so you have to *GASP* send it to the manufacturer. And I can pick up a harddrive for a Mac anywhere I can pick up a HD for a PC. Why? Because they are the exact same thing.

jaxbrokenheart · Post by **jaxbrokenheart** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 8:51 pm

[quote="peter-griffin";p="145899"]Mac has dual 2ghz machines. The PC world has dual 3.06ghz machines.

Mac has combined 1000mhz FSB for their CPUs. If I'm not mistaken, that's 500mhz for each processor. For PCs, you have 800mhz of FSB for each processor, and that's easily overclockable. Overclocking on a Mac is hell.
[/quote]
ok, this will be an add-on to billf's post...
it's not combined, it's a 1ghz FSB PER PROCESSOR. now, not to mention that we're comparing x86 to PPC processors, we're also comparing a 64-bit to 32-bit processors. so, PPC already did more per clock cycle, but with 64 bits, it does way more per clock cycle. you can overclock a mac, but you don't hear about any mac-users doing it because they quite simply don't need to.

[quote="peter-griffin";p="145899"]If you *gasp* defragment your computer and don't live a hundred million icons lying around[/quote]
since OS X is based on UNIX, it's file-system is kept more efficiently, therefore, it doesn't need you to defragment it often. since it's best to clean install your OS about every 6 months (for PC's and macs), you should never worry about defragmenting a mac.

TheScaryOne · Post by **TheScaryOne** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:04 pm

[quote="jaxbrokenheart";p="146150"]
since OS X is based on UNIX, it's file-system is kept more efficiently, therefore, it doesn't need you to defragment it often. since it's best to clean install your OS about every 6 months (for PC's and macs), you should never worry about defragmenting a mac.[/quote]

I could care LESS if it is a Mac or a PC, but you do NOT reinstall your OS every six months. That is plain stupidity. Who has the time to back up everything they have on their computer every six months? And with the MSBLAST worm, reinstalling XP opens you up to MANY MANY holes that you can't get patched before they are attacked. Reinstalling at all is unessacery and you should be smited, and then castrated with a blunt pair of hedge clippers for doing that. Amen.

billf · Post by **billf** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 10:39 pm

Reinstalling your OS isn't a bad idea every once in a while. I used to do it every six months or so years back, but now I've had my current computer up and running for a little over a year and just now am I really starting to see that I should format and start over. As far as worms and viruses go, just be smart. Don't download anything, including emails until you have patched everything. With a high speed connection this shouldn't take more than 2 hours to get all the anti-virus and Microsoft updates.

TheScaryOne · Post by **TheScaryOne** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 12:59 am

But when you get slammed by MSBLAST which is still floating around, your computer feels like restarting for no reason... It took forever to get the patch on my grandma's computer. Every time we cleaned the worm, it took roost again within 5 minutes.

Post by **Martin Blank** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 1:02 am

[quote="peter-griffin";p="145899"]For PCs, you have 800mhz of FSB for each processor, and that's easily overclockable.[/quote]
You're mistaken.

Intel MP systems share a single link to the north bridge, meaning if one CPU is using the bus, the other has to wait. This makes for a significant lag, especially since CPU0 will usually be handling most of the OS functions and so using most of the time on the bus.

AMD has an architecture that allows for all chips to access the north bridge through an individual pipeline, removing most of the bottleneck in data I/O.

I'm not sure which of the two ideas the G5 uses, though.

Killer-Rabbit · Post by **Killer-Rabbit** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 1:16 am

you could always have had someone burn the patch to a cd for you so that you could patch it before connecting to the internet...

I find the easiest way to reinstall everything is to just have two hard drives. I have one with everything installed on it and one strictly for storage. I can install everything that was on my computer (including all the little stuff that makes your computer yours) from a few CDs and my storage hard drive. Before you reformat, you just copy what you want (ie My Documents, email). Afterwards its just a quick copy back everything you want and install the other stuff.

So far I've been reformatting at the begining of each school year (and maybe at the semester break if I think it needs it).

But yes, do get the MSBLAST patch on CD if you are going to reformat. It helps out a lot.

Cypher Blade · Post by **Cypher Blade** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 10:19 am

I've seen some people complaining that Windows crashes for them..

Huh. Windows XP Home never crashed for me, except sometimes with my old Graphic card which gave me a mem-dump if I did something to graphic-intensive. Doesn't happen anymore.

And it became much more stable after I got some more RAM.

I've never tried a Mac. I would be interested in a Mac Laptop, but only if I wasn't the one paying. Mainly for Graphic-editing on the go, ya know. For school and such.

Saphid · Post by **Saphid** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 4:26 am

the G5 uses individual paths for each processor

Infin8Cyn · Post by **Infin8Cyn** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 9:18 am

G5 is shit.

Sipheren · Post by **Sipheren** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 10:32 am

why is the G5 shit....It sounds very good to me.....

Felan · Post by **Felan** » Sun Aug 31, 2003 3:17 pm

[quote="Martin Blank";p="146348"]
Intel MP systems share a single link to the north bridge, meaning if one CPU is using the bus, the other has to wait. This makes for a significant lag, especially since CPU0 will usually be handling most of the OS functions and so using most of the time on the bus.

AMD has an architecture that allows for all chips to access the north bridge through an individual pipeline, removing most of the bottleneck in data I/O.

I'm not sure which of the two ideas the G5 uses, though.[/quote]

To answer Martins semi question.

Apple G5 white papers wrote: Industry-Leading 1GHz Frontside Bus
To harness the power of the G5 processor, a 64-bit Double Data Rate (DDR) frontside
bus maximizes throughput between the processor and the rest of the system. Unlike
conventional processor interfaces, which carry data in only one direction at a time, the
PowerPC G5 features two dedicated unidirectional 32-bit data paths (64 bits total): One
travels into the processor and one travels from the processor, with no wait time while
the processor and the system controller negotiate which will use the bus or while the
bus switches direction. In addition, the data streams integrate clock signals along with
the data—allowing the frontside bus to work at speeds up to 1GHz for an astounding
8 GBps of total bandwidth.

In dual PowerPC G5 systems, each processor has its own discrete 1GHz frontside bus.
The result is a maximum aggregate bandwidth of 16 GBps on dual 2GHz Power Mac
G5 systems, well over twice the 6.4-GBps maximum throughput of Pentium 4– or
Xeon-based systems. In addition to providing fast access to main memory, this highperformance
frontside bus architecture enables each PowerPC G5 to discover and
access data in the other processor’s caches—a process called intervention. Cache
intervention is made possible by cache coherency, which ensures that the processor
always fetches the correct data, even if it has been modified and is in L2 cache.

Full Support for Symmetric Multiprocessing

The PowerPC G5 is designed for symmetric multiprocessing—enabling multiple
applications to run independently on different processors or a single multithreaded
application to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. For example, while performing
an edit, Final Cut Pro can decode two pieces of source video, one on each processor,
at the same time.
With dual independent frontside buses and built-in cache coherency, a dual processor
system manages priorities between the two processors for maximum efficiency. And
since Mac OS X was built from the ground up for symmetric multiprocessing, no special
optimization is required for software to take advantage of this powerful capability.

source: white papers

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