[WinTard]

You guys are funny. We've already got a PS3, and two Xbox 360, and all the other goodies. Doh! And no, like it or not, a $300 device can't compete with the graphical power in a PC. You don't have to believe it. Who cares? Many others do. Actually, I believe the game consoles are dying. Believe what you want.

Your arguments are totally empty.

Oh, and I wouldn't want a 3 yr old Apple, or PC for that matter. Ever heard of Moore's law? Just google it, and learn something new today. ROFLMAO!

And I would be ashamed to sell such an old and useless piece of equipment to my worst enemy.

When today, you can get:


Selling even a used Mac for $200 would be obscene!

[asiafish]

WinTard said:

My point is building your own machine, is as valid as buying a pre-built branded machine. In terms of dollars, performance, quality, technology, flexibility, you name the parameter. If they make it, I feel I can do better. And so can anyone of you!

:)

You or I can only build it better if we want to run Windows or Linux. If we want a Mac, legally, with support for software update and compatibility with Apple's patches and next few OS versions then you can't build it at all. It is retail or nothing. Every Mac user was faced with that choice, and like everyone who chose to buy an Apple, I decided that the compromises I made to buy one of Apple's machines is worth it to use what I consider to be a superior OS.

Back in 1999 I made the opposite decision, switching from Mac OS 9 even though I like Apple hardware better to Windows 2000 which was a more stable OS. 2003 I moved back to the Mac platform when Apple released a version of OS X (Panther) that was compelling enough to leave Windows XP for. A year earlier, Jaguar was not good enough.

Apple builds a very limited selection of machines, and so if you do not fit or come close to one of its choices, you are out of luck. This is a real compromise issue. I wanted a mid-range desktop tower system and Apple doesn't make one. As you correctly point out, I could easily build a very powerful system for less than half of what I paid for my Mac Pro and with what I do I would not likely notice a measurable speed difference. So what, I don't want to use Windows as my OS. Windows doesn't look or feel nice to me. I don't like the way that Windows handles multiple video cards, which is important for the way I use a desktop. It works, but its just not very elegant. I want elegant, and I was willing to pay for it. I didn't even need the Mac Pro as my 10-year-old G4 was still doing a wonderful job. Its two video cards were handled just as elegantly as the Mac Pro does, and while it was getting a bit sluggish, it wasn't holding me up yet.

Laptops are an easier case though. Windows has never handled suspend and resume as well as Mac OS has. Even in the old System 7 days my PowerBook would sleep instantly when I closed the lid, and wake instantly when I hit any key. In the 16 years I've used Apple laptops I have never had one that slept and woke slower than 3 or 4 seconds, and only once has a Mac laptop ever failed to wake up for me.

I've also used ThinkPads for 10 years (I almost always have one Mac and one ThinkPad laptop) and actually like IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad hardware better than Apple's. If OS X was licensed for ThinkPads and supported for updates, I would buy one instantly. In Windows, however, even superior-quality ThinkPad laptops take a few seconds more to suspend, and take considerably longer to resume. Suspend to RAM has always been problematic in Windows, with many resume failures over the years in 2000, XP and Vista (none yet in 7). Hibernate has been absolutely totally reliable since Windows 2000 for me, but is much slower. Windows 7 suspend to RAM is faster than Vista's too, but still nowhere near the speed in OS X, or even System 7.1.

Sleep may not seem like that big of a deal, but when you are traveling, opening and closing your laptop as you move from courtroom to courtroom, it makes a huge difference. When I carried a ThinkPad to court (X41 and then T60p) I had to configure Windows (XP and Vista) to just not do anything when I closed the lid and lived with vastly reduced battery life. With OS X (12" PowerBook, back MacBook and now unibody MacBook Pro 15") I just open the lid when I want to check something, close it when I'm done, and nobody ever has to wait for my computer to resume.

[WinTard]

Hey, it's perfectly legal to purchase OS X and attempt to load it onto anything. If they sell it to you. That's it. That's all. Working or not. That's none of your or Apple's business.

What is the significance of google: Results 1 - 10 of about 4,590,000 for boot os x on a pc. (0.23 seconds)

What may be illegal is for Apple to attempt to go against a US Supreme Court legal precedent in their EULA... You should know which one?

Microsoft got caught pants down on that one. Their EULA was denied legally by the DOJ lawsuit. Who says something like this can't happen to Apple?

[asiafish]

WinTard said:

Ok I'll end it here. You want it to be different. So be it. To me there is are NO differences except as I stated in the ECC memory controller. And as confirmed in my prior post by two mac forums as well. Performance wise, the processors are identical. The Ram isn't however. Those overclockable ram from 1333 to 2000MHz make one HUGE difference in memory transfer rate bandwidth. But I agree overclocking is a foreign concept to Apple fans. Even though it works...

And BTW, all you have done is to find problems. Whereas I proposed possible solutions, including a server-motherboard supporting ECC, with 16GB more RAM than the Apple Mac Pro souped up to the hilt. For much less.

My point is made. I can outperform any brand name for the same amount of money. That fact is clear. And I can procure anything they can, just by looking for it. Because a PC is a PC, no more, no less. And I have MORE choices, than a manufacturer has, because they limit themselves...

The term I also applies to any true PC enthusiast as well, desiring to do their own. Easy!

Peace!

But you don't have the choice of OS X. That may not matter to you, but it matters to me. It was the same valid argument that many people used to make about PowerPC Macs that couldn't run Windows or Linux. I HAD to have a second laptop in the Power PC days because there are things that I like to do that require Windows. I still own a ThinkPad, but now that my MacBook Pro runs Windows natively I probably won't buy another.

[WinTard]

Listen I respect your choices, just don't say end users don't have the choice of OS X. Please.

[Vader]

Oh yeah I bet that your MAC can play Crysis at all High settings @1280X1024 resolution... (oh wait I forgot its not even compatible with your MAC lol)! Or any other games at high settings for that matter... And besides once you buy the $600 MAC mini and the $400 PS3 you just spent 1K congratulations you idiot. And just in case you didn't know PC games have better graphics and often times have better game play then console games. Look up Far Cry 2 for instance and Crysis which is a PC exclusive because consoles don't have the power to run it. And since you must have the specs here they are:

AMD Phenom™ 8450 Triple-Core Processor, MMX, 3DNow (3 CPUs), ~2.1GHz=6.3GHz
Memory:
4 GB
Hard Drive:
500 GB RAID 0
Video Card:
VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 3870 Over-Clocked Edition 512MB GDDR4 Memory
Operating System:
Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpspsp3gdr.080814-1236)

Those specs kill your MAC mini. And when it comes time to upgrade I will just get new components and put them in the PC unlike with a MAC where I need to go and purchase and entirely new computer.

[bub9001]

TechieXP - "Even if I bought Windows
Ultimate at full retail price of 399.99 and added it to a modest laptop
or desktop, I will still spend less for it then buying a Mac" Really? The mac Mini starts ate $599. So you would have a $200 PC with a $399 OS that doesn't work? Sounds PC related. LOL

But seriously to each person here there are strong convictions of PC or Mac. I work on PC's all day long, and haven't met a IT person that will say Honestly that PC's are great to deal with on a IT level. Mac's aren't anybetter in Business settings, but they are less likely to get a Virus or Maliware. That's the facts, no what if's included. I have heard for years that Mac's are in trouble. So far they have weathered the storm better then PC has. Hype, I don't think so at least so far Mac has been doing pretty good.

One of the biggest reason Apple won't sell you a Mac at a PC's Price is because they stand behind what they make. If you have never experienced a Mac, Man you are missing out. My favorite part about being a Mac owner, is the fact that Apple support is really support. Unlike going to Microsoft and trying to get their attention, been there done that for way too long.

Either way PC or Mac at least you get what needs to be done. I prefer to use a Mac at home and forced to use a PC at work.

[asiafish]

WinTard said:

Hey, it's perfectly legal to purchase OS X and attempt to load it onto anything. If they sell it to you. That's it. That's all. Working or not. That's none of your or Apple's business.

What is the significance of google: Results 1 - 10 of about 4,590,000 for boot os x on a pc. (0.23 seconds)

What may be illegal is for Apple to attempt to go against a US Supreme Court legal precedent in their EULA... You should know which one?

Microsoft got caught pants down on that one. Their EULA was denied legally by the DOJ lawsuit. Who says something like this can't happen to Apple?

Possibly, but it isn't easy and it isn't supported. You can buy a Hackintosh from Psystar right now, but when 10.5.7 comes out in the next month or so you will have to hunt for a hack or use some USB dongle to get it installed. On a real Mac, it will all work and have been extensively tested. I won't have to hunt for drivers or modify kext files to make my wifi card work in the next OS version because Apple will do all of that for me.

I am a hobbyist too and got the Windows 7 beta on the day it was posted. I'm always playing around with my ThinkPad and have it configured quite nicely even though its a few years old now. I've upgraded the processor form a 2GHz CoreDuo to a 2.2 GHz Core2Duo. Its got a 320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive and while not upgradable, its ATI FireGL 5200 graphics card with 512 MB of VRAM is still adequate for most games. Window 7 flies (64 bit with 4 GB of RAM) on it and at the drop of a hat I could put it to work in place of my MacBook Pro (all of my business apps exist on both platforms with identical file formats). I even installed OS X on it (10.5.3) a while back, but it is not a real Mac. The eraserhead mouse (which I love more than any touchpad) won't scroll in OS X. Sound won't come out of headphones, only the speakers. The microphone doesn't work, nor does the jack (no Skype). It won't resume from sleep unless an external monitor is connected.

Those limitations on using the T60p as a Mac are real, and I only got that far after hours of research and experimentation (it was fun). Initially, I couldn't get any resolution on the LCD except for 1024X768. Originally I had no sound and bluetooth didn't work. Initially I had no sound. Having to hunt for solutions and struggle to enable features reminded me of Linux circa 1998, and even though reasonably stable, I wouldn't consider using OS X on the ThinkPad as a Hackintosh for business use, its just not stable enough. Mac users wouldn't tolerate this on a retail Mac and Windows users wouldn't tolerate this on a retail PC.

[asiafish]

Hackintosh is not OS X, it is far more geeky and difficult than Linux and is not a viable option for home or business use by non-geeks.

[bub9001]

Moore's Law - Yep Learn about it in College, also found out that most PC users are blind to the fact that Mac's outlast PC's because they use better components. That Mobo for that $400 Gaming rig is crap. The Integrated Graphics on that Board is older then my socks I am wearing. LOL The ram is more then likely PC 5300, and Quad Cores are pretty much use less in most games. And that Quad Core is a old AMD, really would you buy that over a Mac???? I was starting to believe you had some brains.

[asiafish]

Vader said:

Oh yeah I bet that your MAC can play Crysis at all High settings @1280X1024 resolution... (oh wait I forgot its not even compatible with your MAC lol)! Or any other games at high settings for that matter... And besides once you buy the $600 MAC mini and the $400 PS3 you just spent 1K congratulations you idiot. And just in case you didn't know PC games have better graphics and often times have better game play then console games. Look up Far Cry 2 for instance and Crysis which is a PC exclusive because consoles don't have the power to run it. And since you must have the specs here they are:

AMD Phenom™ 8450 Triple-Core Processor, MMX, 3DNow (3 CPUs), ~2.1GHz=6.3GHz
Memory:
4 GB
Hard Drive:
500 GB RAID 0
Video Card:
VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 3870 Over-Clocked Edition 512MB GDDR4 Memory
Operating System:
Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpspsp3gdr.080814-1236)

Those specs kill your MAC mini. And when it comes time to upgrade I will just get new components and put them in the PC unlike with a MAC where I need to go and purchase and entirely new computer.

I played Mass Effect at native 1440X900 resolution on my MacBook Pro. I also played Fallout 3 at native resolution and just installed Crysis. All run smoothly at high detail and are a joy to play ON MY MAC, booted natively into Windows Vista with full support from Apple.

Specs are adequate for the task.

Core2Duo Penryn at 2.4 GHz
nVidia GeForce 9600M GT with 256MB discreet DDR3
4GB DDR3 RAM
500 GB 5400 RPM hard drive with 16MB cache (I could upgrade to 7200 RPM)

OS X 10.5.6 and Vista Business 64 BIT dual boot

[acerman1]

What an important article! $1,000 usd is worthy in this economy. Until Windows can come out with a better OS than "Vista", I will not hesitate to get me a white Macbook for a solid $1G. No matter how you look at it, any new computer w/ Vista install is worth the pain of waiting to boot, waiting for hours of updating the OS. I hate it....
I owned several laptop w/ Vista installed and I just want to close the lid. On the other hands, I also owned
Imac, macbook and Power Mac, I always love the experiences of booting real fast, get the job done and no time wasted on updating the OSX's software.
A white macbook or a refurnished macbook is still a big winner over the Windowns, because it is simple to use, simple to operate and anybody can just sit back and enjoy the experience of simplicity while running mac. While Pc or Vista, on the other hand, you will be watching all the busy signals coming the right corner of your screen telling you that the system is too busy getting rid of all the virus that about to hack your system :0. In the long run, you will be smiling typing your note on a mac than on a windows. Trust me I did it!

[bub9001]

Oh hear we go, Crysis at Super Duper Ultra uber Higher then the Heavens High. ROFLOL I have no intrest getting back into a loosing battle called High End PC gaming. I am completely happy with the Mini's ability to play Medium Graphics Games. If there is one thing the is the biggest waste of Time and money it's High End PC gaming. I was using the PS3 and Xbox as an example of how you can play games on a Console and save some money rather then building a PC that will be pretty much usless to game on in 3 year. At least with a PS3 or Xbox you can buy games that will run on them after 3 year. Also you won't upgrade your Current PC in three years Since the new AMD chips came out the MOBO's will start to move that direction and you will pore another $800 into a gaming rig that just starts the cycle all over again.

Also the Mini is a ultra small form factor, it isn't build to compete with ton of metal you have sitting under your desk. I think a lot of PC user would be suprised on how small yet snappy the Mini is in XP, Vista and Windows 7. I forgot to mention that it also has OSX 10.5 and coming soon 10.6.

[Vader]

Thats nice now lets hear how much you spent for that MAC? Im going to start my guess at $1,500. And 1440X900 is a pretty low resolution. And the only reason that you are able to play those games is because you have Windows on your MAC... I was actually referring to playing games in OS X. However my PC was still a better deal I can almost bet money that you spent more than 1K on that machine and my PC's stats are far better than yours for a lower price... and both of my hard drives run at 7200 RPM with 32 MB caches in a RAID 0 array means i probably get 100X the performance that you are getting with that drive. The only place that your MAC is better than my PC is the DDR 3 RAM. But by the time you get the data off that hard drive onto the RAM my PC is still probably a million times faster than your MAC.

[Vader]

How is high end PC gaming a loosing battle? It wont cost me $800 to upgrade my PC and even if it did that would mean I spent $1800 on my PC in total meaning that i still am close to most MAC pricing. And my PC should be able to run games at least 6 years into the future maybe longer. And if I can't run a game all that I need to do is go and buy a $150-200 video card and I am set for 3-6 more years depending on the games. And who cares about size when it comes do a desktop? It doesn't really matter to me how big my desktop is, its not a laptop so it doesn't matter I don't need to move it around very often. Unless you like to use your desktop in your car that is (which would not surprise me since you can't afford a MAC laptop) And Windows XP, Vista and 7 are just as snappy on my machine. And your mini has half the performance of my machine for over half the price lol.

[Mike47]

One issue not mentioned in the article is stability of pricing. Apple's prices may be high, but you can buy with confidence that they're not likely to have a sale the next day and slash prices.
At the other extreme, Dell seems to have adopted a Byzantine pricing structure that makes it hard to know whether you are getting the best price available. Two examples:
I logged in to their "education store" through our IT website, and checked the prices of two items. To my surprise, both the prices were higher than those quoted on the general website the same day.
A few days later I looked at a basic configuation of the XPS Studio 16 laptop. Just for fun, I built the same configuration from a different starting point (just using a different column in the configuration screen), and came up with a different price by $50.
I'll probably still buy from Dell, but I'll waste hours of time tracking prices and testing different configurations. Apple makes it much simpler.

[asiafish]

Vader said:

Thats nice now lets hear how much you spent for that MAC? Im going to start my guess at $1,500. And 1440X900 is a pretty low resolution. And the only reason that you are able to play those games is because you have Windows on your MAC... I was actually referring to playing games in OS X. However my PC was still a better deal I can almost bet money that you spent more than 1K on that machine and my PC's stats are far better than yours for a lower price... and both of my hard drives run at 7200 RPM with 32 MB caches in a RAID 0 array means i probably get 100X the performance that you are getting with that drive. The only place that your MAC is better than my PC is the DDR 3 RAM. But by the time you get the data off that hard drive onto the RAM my PC is still probably a million times faster than your MAC.

I paid $1999 for the Mac, which is about the same that I would pay for a comparable ThinkPad or Vaio. Don't forget, this is a LAPTOP and laptops are more expensive than desktops while lower performance. 1440X900 is low resolution for a large desktop monitor, but is good for a 15" laptop panel and far better than the standard 1280X800 that 15" budget laptops come with.

As far as gaming in Windows, you are correct, I game in Windows because Windows is a better gaming platform. The good thing about using a Mac is that I have that choice. I can boot into Windows with Apple's full blessing and most of the cool Apple touches supported, and when its time to get back to work I still have my choice of OS. I like to work in OS X, and because I use a MacBook Pro, I have that ability. I like to game in Windows, and again I have that ability. In fact, my MacBook Pro is a wonderful Windows computer. By its very nature, ever Windows install on a Mac starts out as a clean install without any crapware or older OS from which you upgraded. My MacBook Pro in Vista is every bit as fast and stable as my ThinkPad in Vista, and that is despite the ThinkPad having a faster 7200 RPM hard drive. I could very easily put a 7200 RPM drive in the MacBook Pro, even the one from the ThinkPad if I want, as they are both the exact same 2.5" SATA format and are even both the same brand (Seagate).

[Vader]

True laptops are more expensive. However you can get a good gaming laptop for around $1500 which is about $500 cheaper then your MAC.

[WinTard]

Thanks for the insult, but it won't work. That quad core 64 bit processor is more powerful than anything you can find at Apple for less than $1000. As a matter of fact the Intel multi-core and 64 bit comes from patents owned by AMD. But you're also studied that in school I suppose? And thus you know that with high-tech, things become obsolete within a period of 18 to 24 months? So a 36 months old system, is a dinosaur. Please also know I wouldn't care about any of your validations, you haven't earned that right yet. Succinctly yes that quad-core 64 bit AMD CPU coupled with 8GB RAM will outperform any core-duo from Apple at any price unless perhaps it also is configured with 8GB RAM. Sorry to burst your iBubble, but you won't find that at Apple for less than $1000, and at the Mac mini is a joke! For serious computing that is. It's great for grandma though.

[asiafish]

Vader said:

True laptops are more expensive. However you can get a good gaming laptop for around $1500 which is about $500 cheaper then your MAC.

How thick is that "good gaming laptop"? 1.5"? 2.0"? My MacBook Pro is .98" thick.

How heavy is that "good gaming laptop"? 6.5 lbs? 8.0 lbs? MacBook Pro is 5.5 lbs.

How long will you "good gaming laptop" run on its batteries? 1 hour? Two perhaps? I can run for three hours with the discreet video enabled or four hours with integrated graphics (Apple claims 4 hours discreet and 5 hours integrated).

Does your gaming laptop have instant sleep and wake that actually works instantly and reliably? Not if its running Windows it doesn't. Does it have a magnetic power cord that will pop out if someone trips on it or does it use a regular plug that will pull your laptop to the floor when someone trips on the cord?

Does your gaming laptop have a smooth, seamless metal enclosure machined from a solid aluminum brick or is it a commodity parts machine with creaky plastic covering, doors and lots of childish blinking and pulsating lights and a glowing blue alien eyes?

No thanks, you can have your oversize and overweight gaming laptop that looks like a teenager's toy. I use my laptop for business, carry it in courtrooms and use it on airplanes. Gaming is not its focus, it is a business tool that just happens to be powerful enough to also play high-end games.

My ThinkPad is also still a decent gaming machine even at 3-years-old. It too, however, was purchased as a business machine first. It is a 14" T60p (non-widescreen) that weighs only 5lbs, runs 3.5 hours on a 6 cell or 5.5 hours on a 9 cell battery and is 1.1" thick at its thickest point. I would take its replacement (the T400) over a "good gaming laptop" any day as well, though of course a T400 spec'd to match my MacBook Pro would cost about $1850 and while an outstanding laptop (as good as Apple's), it can't easily run OS X.