Mac vs PC - Do the specs really match?

SuperJ

SuperJ

SuperJ

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90
Ok,

2 of the main things holding me back from getting a mac are

1. Graphics power
2. CPU power for video rendering


If I was to go today and drop £1149 on a 24" iMAC, it would have a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU and a HD2600Pro GPU. And more to the point it will still have that in 5 years time.

Whereas today I could go and drop £170 on a Q6600 Quad Core Chip for my PC.

So really consumer Mac's can't keep up with PC's in terms of power.

How would you as mac owners' debate that point?
 
Upgradability is a potential problem but I've had my macbook pro for 18 months now and I've never really felt the need to upgrade it. Still does everything it did when I bought it. I think there's an extent that OS X makes you less bothered about upgrading.

Then again is could be bad example as it's a laptop and I can't upgrade by windows laptop either.

The quad core problem is a big one though, for £1000 there is no quad core option on the imac line and that rules out buying one for me.
 
No need to debate. Homebuilt PCs and All-In-One offerings serve differing niches and only one of these, the iMac will have Mac OS X.

If you need or foresee a need for a more powerful CPU you either wait for Apple to release it, go self built PC, or step up to a Mac Pro. No choice is 'better' in an objective sense, but one choice might be better for you. Just because the apple product matrix does not fit you doesn't mean it is off kilter. This has been done to death here http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/208009973831/p/161

161 pages of people asking for an xMac - with slots and CPU replaceable.



*Disclaimer - self built desktop PC for gaming, Macbook for nigh on everything else.
 
You're comparing a PC tower to a sealed all-in-one unit.

You're also assuming that you already have the other PC components.

You're forgetting the Mac Pro.. a system built for rendering.
 
Sure you can drop a Quad Core CPU in you PC but it certainly won't be the super sleek all in one unit that the iMac is.

No PC manufacturer comes close to making a unified computing experience that using an iMac is.

There is a reason I will be replacing my PC with an iMac in the near future. Oh and if anybody dare bleat the line "But Macs are overpriced" have you seen what they have managed to squeeze into an iMac? Again, the PC equivalents (think Sony) are bulky and ugly and do not come with the joy that is OS X Leopard and are equally as expensive.

The most used computer in our house is our MacBook.
 
LordSplodge said:
Sure you can drop a Quad Core CPU in you PC but it certainly won't be the super sleek all in one unit that the iMac is.

No PC manufacturer comes close to making a unified computing experience that using an iMac is.

There is a reason I will be replacing my PC with an iMac in the near future. Oh and if anybody dare bleat the line "But Macs are overpriced" have you seen what they have managed to squeeze into an iMac? Again, the PC equivalents (think Sony) are bulky and ugly and do not come with the joy that is OS X Leopard and are equally as expensive.

The most used computer in our house is our MacBook.
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I'm a big mac fan and I think this is a problem. I do a lot of encoding work and as such I want a quad core processor, but I don't want to spend £1500 on a mac pro but there's no choice and I can't help feeling thats a major flaw!

Sure the mac pro is good value (I speced up a qx9650 with decent RAM, motherboard, case and equivilent graphics to a mac pro and it cost much the same while being much slower in processor terms) but there needs to be a lower end quad core offering.
 
bigredshark said:
I'm a big mac fan
Click to expand...

Mmm... Big Mac.

Anyways, if you want raw power on a budget then the words "Apple" and "Mac" shouldnt even enter ones head. And thats pretty much always been true.

'orses for courses!

As someone said, its been done to death. Mac fans want PC hardware, and PC fans want OSX. Or something like that. :)
 
bigredshark said:
I'm a big mac fan and I think this is a problem. I do a lot of encoding work and as such I want a quad core processor, but I don't want to spend £1500 on a mac pro but there's no choice and I can't help feeling thats a major flaw!

Sure the mac pro is good value (I speced up a qx9650 with decent RAM, motherboard, case and equivilent graphics to a mac pro and it cost much the same while being much slower in processor terms) but there needs to be a lower end quad core offering.
Click to expand...

Cheapest MacPro (single Quad Core) is 1429, most expensive iMac 2.8EE Dual Core is 1459... there seems to be at least continuity in cost versus oomph list. I don't see the huge gap.

The quads will be in the iMacs soon eventually, and then the lowest end MacPro will all be 8 cores...
 
We're missing an important point here. Most people that buy Macs are not computer hardware experts such as you find more commonly on forums like this. Most serious Mac users are more artistic/creative (eg graphic designers) and think about how to get the end result they want not the electronic gubbins inside and how they tick. They like Macs because they are more intuitive to use and just work. As such creative types are usually happy to splash the cash on a Mac Pro for serious work and use iMacs elsewhere.

Macs are a closed system which makes them much easier to support as all the hardware and system software is a known quantity. No tinkering with the latest beta nVidia drivers and hacking the registry required to fix an obscure error message.

The other main customer base for Apple are the home users via the retail shops. They've gone and bought iPods and now want the funky looking iMac to go with it and sit in the corner of the living room or a MacBook so they can surf the web and doing all the funky stuff the Mac guy does in the adverts.

Macs are not marketed at the computer geeks who overclock to STAR OUT YOUR SWEARIES for an extra 2fps in Crysis. I'm sure if they want to buy one then that's just fine tho! Just remember - Apple do accessible computing for normal people. For the performance crowd build your own or buy a Dell XPS etc, just don't complain about the design.
 
MagicBoy said:
Macs are not marketed at the computer geeks who overclock to **** for an extra 2fps in Crysis. I'm sure if they want to buy one then that's just fine tho! Just remember - Apple do accessible computing for normal people. For the performance crowd build your own or buy a Dell XPS etc, just don't complain about the design.
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Lol that's a great post, probably spot on...the last bit made me giggle...and mainly because that is true too (I had flashback to me squeezing every last FPS out of my hardware for the crysis benchmark thread in the PC section of the forum).

Oh and I am not a Mac owner by the way....but am becoming increasingly tempted to try a macbook pro to compliment my desktop.

Now if they could make a MBP with a penryn, an 8800m GPU (which presumably would run bootcamp XP/Vista games without any loss).....they would be on to a winner as i could imagine a lot of PC'ers migrating and using Mac OS For most stuff and Windows for gaming....oh wait I am turning back into the very person you describe in your post MagicBoy...
 
SuperJ said:
Ok,

2 of the main things holding me back from getting a mac are

1. Graphics power
2. CPU power for video rendering


If I was to go today and drop £1149 on a 24" iMAC, it would have a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU and a HD2600Pro GPU. And more to the point it will still have that in 5 years time.

Whereas today I could go and drop £170 on a Q6600 Quad Core Chip for my PC.

So really consumer Mac's can't keep up with PC's in terms of power.

How would you as mac owners' debate that point?
Click to expand...
As pointed out, you totally ignored the Mac Pro. You cannot compare a PC tower to an iMac which has a 24" screen built-in, a slot-loading disc drive, keyboard and mouse and many other additions to the £170 Quad Processor you're thinking of. The Mac Pro goes to eight cores as far as I know, plenty of graphics cards and upgradeability for whatever it is you want to do, and it works straight out of the box with no fiddling. It's why I'm denouncing all forms of PCs when I get into my new place at the end of the year and going solely to an iMac, perhaps a Mac Pro as well if I'm doing high-end work, maybe a 12" PowerBook or a MacBook (and one for the partner too), all linked into a Time Capsule.
 
artaxerxes said:
Cheapest MacPro (single Quad Core) is 1429, most expensive iMac 2.8EE Dual Core is 1459... there seems to be at least continuity in cost versus oomph list. I don't see the huge gap.

The quads will be in the iMacs soon eventually, and then the lowest end MacPro will all be 8 cores...
Click to expand...

Dell will sell me a Q6600 based system for £600. Whichever way you put it, apple don't have anything to compete. Half my encoding is changing video format the resolution for my ipod touch so it's pretty relevant and a lot of people must do that sort of thing.

There will be quad cores in the imac eventually I know but this is where using mobile chips hurts them...
 
I might be poking fun at the PC owners out there, but I've got one sat in the spare room for playing the odd game on. It's a self build because I can't stand the substandard bits in most mass produced PCs. It doesn't get used for much else as the Mac just works and does everyday stuff better.

I've had the MBP for very nearly two years, and at the time the spec had everything else beaten. I was looking at the IBM T60 but there was no stock around and ended up in the Florida Mall Apple Store when a mate bought an iPod. The MBP was sat there all shiny and new with the same spec for less money... As an impulse purchase I've got no regrets :D
 
bigredshark said:
Dell will sell me a Q6600 based system for £600. Whichever way you put it, apple don't have anything to compete. Half my encoding is changing video format the resolution for my ipod touch so it's pretty relevant and a lot of people must do that sort of thing.

There will be quad cores in the imac eventually I know but this is where using mobile chips hurts them...
Click to expand...
Half the stuff you do is changing video for an iPod? Why Quad Core then?
 
bigredshark said:
Dell will sell me a Q6600 based system for £600. Whichever way you put it, apple don't have anything to compete. Half my encoding is changing video format the resolution for my ipod touch so it's pretty relevant and a lot of people must do that sort of thing.

There will be quad cores in the imac eventually I know but this is where using mobile chips hurts them...
Click to expand...

Apple are not trying to compete. They are quite happy with the product range they have. Go buy the Dell!
 
Mr Spew said:
Half the stuff you do is changing video for an iPod? Why Quad Core then?
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Because I'd like it to do it faster, I'm converting 2 hour DVD titles to watch on flights and such, yeah it does it as is but I don't want to have to leave it for 30 minutes to do it. I want to be able to convert in and throw it on my ipod in 15 minutes at most.

I'd also like to be able to export images from aperture a little bit faster.
 
bigredshark said:
Because I'd like it to do it faster, I'm converting 2 hour DVD titles to watch on flights and such, yeah it does it as is but I don't want to have to leave it for 30 minutes to do it. I want to be able to convert in and throw it on my ipod in 15 minutes at most.

I'd also like to be able to export images from aperture a little bit faster.
Click to expand...
Get an iMac then? Core2Duo is more than enough for what you need.
 
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