Does windows run faster on a mac?!

Those upgrades are expensive and so is the base machine about twice the price of a similar specification computer without the Apple badge. The MBP is a very nice laptop, and as fast a laptop as any other, but it's not a better 'tool', and it is much more expensive.
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I've only found that to be true if you look solely at the processor, RAM, hard drive and graphics. If you also consider the physical size, build quality, trackpad, keyboard, battery life and screen too, I don't think there's any Windows laptop that can outdo a MBP in those respects. They are all part of the spec, so I don't know why they should be excluded from the comparison.

I still say it’s about fashion and perception, not about better hardware. I don’t think anybody is wrong to buy one, I just think it’s wrong to justify the purchase as something technically superior.
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As above, my MBP purchase was because of it's technical superiority over a Windows laptop. There was no other laptop that had the same spec in the same size body, with the same quality trackpad, keyboard, screen and battery life. In that respect it was technically superior to the Windows based offerings, hence I bought it! So you can clearly see why it's not wrong to justify a Mac purchase as technically superior.
 
There's nothing wrong with buying a mac for technical superiority. It's when people say it ha technical superiority simply because of the OS or the logo!
 
mrochester said:
I've only found that to be true if you look solely at the processor, RAM, hard drive and graphics. If you also consider the physical size, build quality, trackpad, keyboard, battery life and screen too, I don't think there's any Windows laptop that can outdo a MBP in those respects. They are all part of the spec, so I don't know why they should be excluded from the comparison.



As above, my MBP purchase was because of it's technical superiority over a Windows laptop. There was no other laptop that had the same spec in the same size body, with the same quality trackpad, keyboard, screen and battery life. In that respect it was technically superior to the Windows based offerings, hence I bought it! So you can clearly see why it's not wrong to justify a Mac purchase as technically superior.
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I think you are talking about perception again though, at that price point plenty of other laptops share the same build quality, especially since the latest generation of MBP, I find those very plasticy, the original aluminium MBP (manufactured by ASUS iirc) was sturdy but now? As to the track pad, I haven't used a track pad, except in cases of desperation, for years, so I'm sure it is the best in the world, again it's a question of taste as to it's superiority. Screen? Quite a few IPS screens these days, and if like me you don't like shiny screens? I can't give you a technical reason why matt is better than gloss, it's just a question of taste, IPS is better than TN, sure, but it isn't apple specific.

It's about taste, and I will happily agree that for you a Mac is better.

I like the Air, but I'd still buy an Asus ZEN if I needed that kind of machine, because I use windows and without OSX a mac makes no financial or technical sense.


If Apple ever release a workstation that can compete on price, or for me, more importantly performance I'll buy it, hell I'll buy two, but right now I'd have to be insane, or just really really like Apple.


We could argue this all day, and as I'm trying to get enough posts for the MM, I happily will! But I've had this same conversation with studio heads, designers, editors and apple sales guys for going on 20 years now and I have yet to see anything to convince me that apple have anything over a different brand of PC unless you buy into their software, and since it doesn't do what I need, I can't.
 
Guys, need a hand again. Still Saying macs are better than my computer!

What's the best mac pro and what price is it please? Not at a computer at the moment an want to lay this to rest ASAP
 
The basic spec Dual chip Mac Pro with 2 stock speed Hex core xeons and a sinle 1tb drive 6gb of ram and a single Radeon 1gb 5770 is £4083.00 including VAT & Delivery.

They don't have anything to match a Sandybridge-E yet but their basic Quad core mac pro which is a 2.8ghz Xeon (Nehalem) with a Radeon 5770 and 3Gb of ram is £2041.00 including VAT & Delivery, almost makes the Dual chip machine look like a bargain. Almost.
 
Cleeecooo said:
Guys, need a hand again. Still Saying macs are better than my computer!

What's the best mac pro and what price is it please? Not at a computer at the moment an want to lay this to rest ASAP
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I think we should refuse to comment anymore until you post picture evidence of yourself branding the word "IDIOT" into your mates backside.
 
flippant said:
I couldn't agree more on the tool vs. fashion statment, it just isn't a valid argument when Apple are involved. Apple are almost the definition of style over substance.

If it’s a tool, why pay two or three thousand pounds over the odds for a less useful one?

£1,174.00 for an SSD, £360.00 for 6gb of ram, a 1gb Radeon 5870? £178.00 for you sir.

I can't imagine how anybody with any technical knowledge would believe that those items are somehow 'better' simply because they cost more.

So it must clearly be a matter of fashion, and that’s fine, if people want to spend money on a Mac because they like the look, the feel, the ambience or even the smell, go ahead, but don’t pretend it’s an informed technical decision, when it’s just good marketing.
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I've been using Macs for the last 15 years, leaving Apple to go to windows would involve so much hassle and having to use (in my daily use opinion) a worse OS means that actually paying £500+ more on a Mac Pro to me is worth it.

Besides, nobody buys Apple disks or RAM. Mine are all 3rd party bits apart from the 4870 which was a BTO. But that was when the MP was released, so it wasn't half as 'overpriced' as it is now.

It's not simply a case of performance per £. If that was the case then I wouldn't have a mac...




Cleeecooo said:
Guys, need a hand again. Still Saying macs are better than my computer!

What's the best mac pro and what price is it please? Not at a computer at the moment an want to lay this to rest ASAP
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Absolutely no point in comparing it now. Apple are waiting for Intel to release the C2 stepping SB-E chips to them.
 
Cleeecooo said:
Guys, need a hand again. Still Saying macs are better than my computer!

What's the best mac pro and what price is it please? Not at a computer at the moment an want to lay this to rest ASAP
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Apple don't make a computer that competes against enthusiast desktops. The closest is the Mac Pro, but that's a workstation and hence has the hardware (Dual Xeons, ECC RAM) and price tag to match. It's really not at all comparable to a custom built PC, it should be compared to the Dell Precision workstations, where it actually competes fairly well on price (I don't have exact figures but IIRC it's only a couple hundred more, which isn't that much when spending £4k+).

Edit: BTW the Pro (and the Precision too) will destroy your computer in anything heavily threaded (i.e. what their designed for), but will lose out in (comparatively) lightly threaded and graphics intensive stuff (i.e. what yours is designed for).
 
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Surely it'd be exactly the same?! Same hardware and same OS.

Mac Pro or a Dell Precision T7500 with 2x Xeon X5670, 8 x 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC R-DIMM SDRAM, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB. = Same.
 
ng93 said:
Apple don't make a computer that competes against enthusiast desktops. The closest is the Mac Pro, but that's a workstation and hence has the hardware (Dual Xeons, ECC RAM) and price tag to match. It's really not at all comparable to a custom built PC, it should be compared to the Dell Precision workstations, where it actually competes fairly well on price (I don't have exact figures but IIRC it's only a couple hundred more, which isn't that much when spending £4k+).

Edit: BTW the Pro (and the Precision too) will destroy your computer in anything heavily threaded (i.e. what their designed for), but will lose out in (comparatively) lightly threaded and graphics intensive stuff (i.e. what yours is designed for).
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I have to say I hadn't priced up a Dell for a while and there really isn't much in it between Dell and Apple, I think that says more about Dell, I wouldn't pay that much for an Apple and I certainly wouldn't pay it for a Dell!

I think you will find though that Cleeecooo's Sandy-bridge E i7 will hold it's own against the Mac Pros and then some, only the dual hex cores will beat it, unless of course he gets a significant overclock on there, and it may well give them a run for their money with it's newer architecture and better memory controllers, especially with the Apple stuck at stock speeds.
 
flippant said:
I have to say I hadn't priced up a Dell for a while and there really isn't much in it between Dell and Apple, I think that says more about Dell, I wouldn't pay that much for an Apple and I certainly wouldn't pay it for a Dell!

I think you will find though that Cleeecooo's Sandy-bridge E i7 will hold it's own against the Mac Pros and then some, only the dual hex cores will beat it, unless of course he gets a significant overclock on there, and it may well give them a run for their money with it's newer architecture and better memory controllers, especially with the Apple stuck at stock speeds.
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It's the dual hex cores which i'm comparing it to (and which cost £4k). You'd have to have one hell of an overclock to beat them with a single 3930K. Although the new SB Mac Pro's should be out soon, and there's no way SB-E can match them.

Edit: price wise all workstations are extremely expensive, HP are even more expensive then Apple :eek:.
 
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ng93 said:
It's the dual hex cores which i'm comparing it to (and which cost £4k). You'd have to have one hell of an overclock to beat them with a single 3930K. Although the new SB Mac Pro's should be out soon, and there's no way SB-E can match two of them.
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You would need a hell of an overclock, but the 3930K is a pretty much a workstation chip and the single westmere Xeons, especially at stock, can't compete,

They might be called Mac Pro, but it's just a name. Saying the next generation of Mac will be better than the last generation of every other computer is pointless, most tech companies are leapfrogging each other in terms of tech, but Apple seem to always be a generation behind, although I believe the marketing boys there call it 'Allowing the technology to mature'.

If I really thought the 3930 (or even the 3960x) could beat two Xeons, I'd get one, as it is I'll wait for the Sandy-bridge E Xeons and get a dual CPU workstation with those, but it won't be an Apple unless they get their prices in line with the real world, if they were a plumbing company they'd find themselves on Watchdog!
 
Get something like 'handbrake' and both encode the same file at the same time with the same settings. That'll tell you which is quicker if you're comparing two machines. That's a test of sheer processing power

The question has changed since the start of the thread.


Bottom line is they're both great operating systems, MacOS being the sleekest looking, by a long shot
/Windows user
 
It has been decided. When mac pros get a refresh with current hardware I will continue this with the idiot. Topic has now changed to which one will be better!!!
 
flippant said:
They might be called Mac Pro, but it's just a name. Saying the next generation of Mac will be better than the last generation of every other computer is pointless, most tech companies are leapfrogging each other in terms of tech, but Apple seem to always be a generation behind, although I believe the marketing boys there call it 'Allowing the technology to mature'.
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I thought all the Macs were using current gen hardware?
 
The Mac Pros have not been updated yet. Saying they're a generation behind implies they update their Macs with older hardware than what is available and they don't seem to be doing that..

iMac: current generation Sandy Bridge
Macbook Pro: current generation Sandy Bridge
Mac Mini: current generation Sandy Bridge
Macbook Air: current generation Sandy Bridge

Mac Pro: Older Xeons, but replacements to that line have not arrived yet.
 
ng93 said:
I thought all the Macs were using current gen hardware?
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Macs rarely use the latest hardware, as they have to source the parts themselves from a manufacture. Its not like that can place the standard mainboard with the lastest chipset and place it straight into an imac like most manufactures can with there base units. Optical drives needs the mac firmware on to support the boot features, even hdd has apple sticker on.

Apple do have a tendency to have hardware on that is new to the mass market like firewire, usb and mouse! but there have been some epic failures too like the apple display connector.
 
But they probably will update the Mac Pro with a Radeon 6xxx series when they refresh to Sandy bridge - E.

I don't argue that they aren't good computers, but they are not better than the same 'unbranded' i.e. not Apple hardware, they are behind the curve on hardware specification and they are massively and I mean massively overpriced, It isn't a position of personal preference, it's simply a fact.

As I've said if you prefer Apple products go ahead and buy them, but don't evangelize them as the 'best' available hardware or a reasonably priced similar alternative, because they clearly aren't.
 
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