Jamie Jukosky
New member
When we were in high school my friend asked this really hot French foreign exchange student if she liked Mac or PC. We quickly slapped him upside the head. 
PC or Mac for recording?
- Thread starter hrn
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itsme1234
New member
Macs are too expensive. If you think about it, its kinda like a car. Sure...you can buy a Mercedez. You might get a smoother ride, but youre gonna pay out the ass for it. And if you need a part replaced you better be ready to shell out some extra cash. But you can still own a nissan or a kia (PC) and it will get you to your destination.....unless you get have a blow out or your battery dies, but then again thats what AAA is for. And even sitll you can always get a cab or public transportation if you are really stuck.....whoa, i totally lost track of my point....yea, youll get where your goin. Proud PC user and abuser. 
dgatwood
is out. Leave a message.
itsme1234 said:Macs are too expensive. If you think about it, its kinda like a car. Sure...you can buy a Mercedez. You might get a smoother ride, but youre gonna pay out the ass for it. And if you need a part replaced you better be ready to shell out some extra cash. But you can still own a nissan or a kia (PC) and it will get you to your destination.....unless you get have a blow out or your battery dies, but then again thats what AAA is for. And even sitll you can always get a cab or public transportation if you are really stuck.....whoa, i totally lost track of my point....yea, youll get where your goin. Proud PC user and abuser.
Except that Apple isn't expensive and hasn't been for a long time. Configure any Dell and any Apple with identical configurations and look at the price difference. For most hardware, you'll find it within about $50 or so, and the biggest difference I could find was only about $150.
So to go with your car analogy, the new Mercedez costs $100 more than the Ford Pinto. Alternately, you could build the Pinto from parts for a lot less.
wheelema
Boner-obo
Personally, I think you're nuts. And I set out to prove it. The problem is that if I let Apple drive the hardware configuration, it is impossible to do. Because the Xeon is on it's way out. The Mac fanatics may not want to hear this... I got into a pissing contest with Altitude909 over this. He stated that the Xeon Woodcrest are over $800 each. Actually they're down to $269 a pop. And there are no (okay, practically no) motherboards for the Xeon any more. I found only three... all Intel. And the problem with that is that they are all server mobos, not a desktop with decent video among them.dgatwood said:Except that Apple isn't expensive and hasn't been for a long time. Configure any Dell and any Apple with identical configurations and look at the price difference. For most hardware, you'll find it within about $50 or so, and the biggest difference I could find was only about $150.
So to go with your car analogy, the new Mercedez costs $100 more than the Ford Pinto. Alternately, you could build the Pinto from parts for a lot less.
So, I had to back off comparing the Mac Pro to anything because no matter how hard I try I can't duplicate the Mac Pro due to product obsolescence.
However, the iMac is a 'nuther kettle of fish.
For $2,810 this is the iMac I came up with...
Now, since we have to let Apple drive the hardware config, let's see what we get... all of this was configured on www.mwave.com. The cost includes having Mwave build it for you for $80 extra.
For $2,560 this is the PC I came up with...
Now, there were a LOT of corners that I could cut. For example, the case is a superb super cool super quiet case... I could saved $80 easy there. The ASUS mobo is the absolute best mobo ASUS makes... I could have shaved an easy $100 there. Likewise the OCZ memory is super high performance... I overspent by another $150 on that. The DVD drive is an easy $30 overkill, and the power supply is a bitch'n 550 watt CoolerMaster... no skimping there either.
And of course, this comes to you assembled, tested, and ready to roll... just like a Mac.
Is the Mac still a better buy? Well, I know that manufacturers... as opposed to me... have a heavy profit motive. Furthermore, they enjoy economies of scale and volume discounts that I do not. So no, I do not believe that the Mac is a better buy... even if it came in $250 dollars cheaper.
And, of course, the beautiful thing about roll-your-own is that you can adapt to improved technology much much much faster than Apple can.
I know this won't put the debate to bed, but maybe it will provide some cud to chew.
dgatwood
is out. Leave a message.
wheelema said:
My exact words were "configure any Dell", not "configure any random bunch of parts". I stand by my assertion that Apple is cost competitive with the reputable name brand PC vendors. Of course you can configure a PC from random parts for less than a name brand computer, and I said that in my previous post. There's a reason for that. You get far less when you build a machine yourself.
Here's what you didn't get by building a machine from parts:
1. Compatibility testing: Reputable computer makers choose their components and test every configuration thoroughly to make sure it works. It takes weeks of testing every time a new config rolls out. In many cases, this actually results in the parts manufacturer changing their manufacturing process to fix flaws in the part. For example, the video cards in Macs have to meet certain standards for maximum noise level, and thus may use different cooler hardware.
With a built-it-yourself company, they may or may not have ever even built that exact machine configuration before, and I guarantee that they can't get changes made to the design of a component when/if it doesn't work correctly. All they can do is replace it or use a different brand of part.
Reputable computer makers specify vendors all the way down to the capacitor brands used in the power supply. This can and frequently does make a difference in terms of longevity.
2. Burn-in testing: Reputable vendors do 1-2 days of testing on each machine that ships out. During burn-in testing, all of the hardware goes through stress tests---the CPU, the GPU, RAM, every port, wireless networking, slots, optical drive, hard drive, etc. If anything fails, the machine gets pulled and a new one gets built for you. For build-it-yourself companies, even if they test the hardware, you'll be lucky if the testing is more than superficial (installing Windows and running a handful of basic tests).
3. Failure analysis and continuation engineering: Reputable vendors get machines serviced in larger numbers than companies that just build a handful of machines. The information about part failures gets collected, and if, for example, WD has a high failure rate in a series of drives, a reputable company would know it and would either force WD to fix their manufacturing process or use a different drive vendor. Build-it-yourself vendors don't know the failure rate of individual components, generally (DOA parts and failures during that 30-day return period notwithstanding)
4. Form factor: The iMac doesn't have a bulky box lurking under your desk. In total, it takes up about the same space as the flat panel you bought. That may or may not matter, depending on where you're deploying the box, but with the iMac you are paying for the form factor and the hours of engineering it takes to be able to cool such a powerful machine in such a small enclosure.
5. Warranty and technical support: Buying the iMac gets you a year of hardware support ant 90 days of software technical support. You can extend that to three years. If something goes wrong, you take the thing to an Apple store, drop it off, and a few days later, your machine is back in your hands, working.
Buying the build-your-own machine gets you a machine with a 30 day return period, with 15% restocking for anything that isn't bad. You get to figure out which part failed yourself. After the first 30 days, if anything fails, you have a separate warranty for each part in the system and have to deal with the individual part vendor. And if there's a compatibility problem, those vendors will all blame each other.
6. Mac OS X: Whether you want to admit it or not, CoreAudio eats ASIO for breakfast. Multiple audio interfaces with multiple drivers? No problem. Multiple audio apps talking to the interface? No problem. Most USB and FireWire devices don't even require a driver in Mac OS X---have to use your friend's machine? No problem. No driver installation and configuration needed.
7. iLife: The imac comes with a bunch of bundled software. Yours just comes with Windows XP Pro.
8. iSight: The iMac has a built-in video camera and microphone. Your machine does not.
wheelema
Boner-obo
dgatwood said:
Uh... cough cough... bullshit! As a bench tech (intially working on machines coming off lease) I started assembling boxes from parts two years after IBM released the 64K IBM PC and have been doing it, off and on, for approx. twenty years. The ONLY thing that has changed is that the component manufacturers have multiplied like flies on shit.
I loved the phrase 'reputable computer makers', like there is this humongous investment in infrastructure and facilities so as to 'test every configuration thoroughly to make sure it work'. I really loved ' In many cases, this actually results in the parts manufacturer changing their manufacturing process to fix flaws in the part'. Uh... no. One of my friend's brothers was Attorney General of Texas when Michael Dell was first starting off. He was a one-off system builder assembling custom boxes when customer complaints came in to the AG's office because he wasn't delivering them fast enough. No infrastructure, no facilities, just Mike and his coffee table.dgatwood said:
I guess NewEgg and MWave... not to mention a hundred other component suppliers... must really be putting on a brave front prior to declaring bankruptcy since none of the components they sell work together and thus no one is buying them!
Lastly, in that deluge of misinformation, the phrase '...reputable computer makers specify vendors all the way down to the capacitor brands used in the power supply. This can and frequently does make a difference in terms of longevity.' is suitable for growing vegetables and not much else. For example, Dell doesn't spec out a non standard power supply for the purpose of 'longevity', it does it to force people to have their boxes repaired by Dell instead of by their neighbor.
Ah, we're back to the FUD term 'reputable vendors'. Anyway, all of those 'reputable' folks do 'burn in' do they? With 'stress tests' on just every single little component? Whereas with 'build-it-yourself' companies you will be lucky if the testing is more than 'superficial'.dgatwood said:
Wow. Stress testing. So tell me, how do you 'stress test' a computer? Ever seen it done? 'Stress testing' is a manufacturer marketing term to give you the misapprehension that they are doing something special. They're not. You set the system up on a bench turn it on, and let it run through a routine for two days so as to minimize the chance you'll have to honor the warranty.
You used to work for IBM, didn't you? If not, you have a future there... consider it.dgatwood said:
Many many (many) moons ago this crap might actually have a grain of truth in it, but not today. Certain components have a relatively low MTBF... hard disk drives for example... but this is intrinsic in their operation and not reflective of the manufacturing process. Furthermore, when a turkey does occassionally surface... for example RDRAM, the system builder community spreads the word pretty fast. It was the system builder community that put the kibosh on RDRAM and promoted DDR and DDR2 RAM... not Apple, not Dell.
One of the things that I really hated about the iMac was it's utter lack of expandability. At least the Mac Pro... dinosaur though it may be... allowed you additional HDD! But to hear you talk, it's a freaking benefit! Who knew!?! And to think that you are paying for the hours of engineering it takes to be able to cool such a 'powerful' machine in such a small enclosure!gdatwood said:4. Form factor: The iMac doesn't have a bulky box lurking under your desk. In total, it takes up about the same space as the flat panel you bought. That may or may not matter, depending on where you're deploying the box, but with the iMac you are paying for the form factor and the hours of engineering it takes to be able to cool such a powerful machine in such a small enclosure.
In the PC get-what-you-need-without-a-monolithic-enitity-dictating world, you have MicroATX, ATX, and EATX form factors. You get what you want, what you need. If you want a case that is tiny and not expandable, fine. If you want a, what was your term?? oh yeah, 'bulky box lurking' that you can actually expand, then you can have that too.
Hey! A valid point! YES, this is true! You pay for this too. But you know, the warranty on components is often much longer than what the 'reputable company' provides you. For example, Intel's warranty on their processors is three years. So, if you climb the (modest) learning curve and can roll-your-own, you get much better warranty coverage.dgatwood said:
What vendor are you dealing with, or is that 30 day/15% restocking fee an industry standard that my vendors don't know about? And, not to cause you to spasm out or anything, but even 'reputable manufactures' don't always get it right. They're human too. Really!!!gdatwood said:
Oh, and 'compatibility problems'???? More FUD. Nowadays all parts are plug and play to well known and universal standards. Nobody is trying to plug a MicroChannel board into a EGA slot or hook a RLL HDD to a MFM controller.
I cannot speak to the CoreAudio vs. ASIO issue, though ASIO has never bitten me personally. But I did love your codicil 'Most USB and FireWire devices...'. I guess not all hmmm? Kind of like a PC, maybe??dgatwood said:
Well, no longer being in the Mac world I cannot speak to what Apple bundles. I can strip out that ridiculously fast and expensive RAM and down grade the box to Mac standards... that would provide plenty of money for software.dgatwood said:
Well, you are sure not ending this on the strongest note, are you? Wow, camera and microphone. Selling your own porn? Okay, toss about $50 bucks on the system price and, voila!dgatwood said:
For all of those who are not in the business the phrase FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It was invented by IBM to put fear into a customer who was considering going with a vendor other than IBM. Oh ooh! Better think again! It's not IBM, it may not work, the warranty service many not be up to par! You COULD LOSE YOUR JOB!
Over time this truth was expressed with the phrase 'no one ever lost their job buying IBM'.
It's has taken a long long time for people to overcome FUD and learn that IBM is just another vendor. In the PC world (and I include Apple in that) components have evolved into a truly wonderful diverse collection of choices that allow you to have 110% certainty that whatever you buy will work. Apple, for example, has adopted the PCI buss, the PCI-E buss, DDR2 RAM, and IDE interface from the IBM Compat world. These standards were not developed by Apple, or Dell, or even IBM. These are standards that have evolved as system builders of all size, from the largest to the smallest, have wrestled against each other and manufacturers to create something that has never existed before... a cohesive interchangeble system of building almost any kind of computer you can concieve of... from multi-processor super computers running Linux, to server farms, all the way down to the most minimal of boxes for surfing the web... all using the same interchangeble components from any manufacturer you care to name.
Yes, there is a learning curve, and no, you don't have to climb it. Building PCs may not be what you do, it may not be what you WANT to do. If you want to buy from a 'reputable manufacturer', fan-tas-tic. But DON'T go into that decision from ignorance, or fear, uncertainty, or doubt.
Luck all.
dgatwood
is out. Leave a message.
wheelema said:
There's a several month build cycle from when the manufacturers start seeing first silicon to when products start shipping. What do you think the manufacturers are doing during that time? Give you a hint. They're testing the bajeezus out of the prototype hardware. And yes, this applies to companies like ASUS, too, but they can't test every possible configuration of hardware that somebody might throw at it. A vendor that builds a few configurations can (not counting some extremely minor configuration differences like the amount of RAM).
wheelema said:
Well, Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I in a garage. No infrastructure, no facilities, no keyboard. That hardly means that this is still the way Apple computers are made!
I know someone who works for Dell currently. There is a -lot- of testing going on before new products ship....
wheelema said:
You're putting words in my mouth. I never said any such thing. I said when you buy one from a traditional manufacturer, you have assurance that everything has been thoroughly tested and is known to work together. If you spec out your own system with arbitrary components, you are taking pot luck. 99.5% of the time it will work. The other 0.5% of the time, you end up with issues like the infamous ASUS NForce SATA data corruption problem a few months back.
wheelema said:
Now why would Dell do that? Frankly, during the warranty period, I'm sure Dell would rather your neighbor do it because then Dell doesn't have to pay for the part.
wheelema said:
This is NOT the same thing as burn-in testing on machines that ship to customers. In fact, it is completely different.
And no, I haven't seen it personally, but I do have a pretty good idea what major manufacturers do from talking to people who have seen it. In their labs, they have machines that beat the ever living you-know-what out of a computer. It gets tested for long periods of time at extreme temperatures, various drop tests, "stomper" tests, torquing tests, etc. A product line doesn't ship until the machines live through this.
Then, after all the parts meet their specifications, they turn up the controls and see what breaks.
wheelema said:
You would be amazed how much the manufacturing process matters even today. Hard drives do not intrinsically have a low MTBF. Cheap hard drives and/or drives without adequate cooling have a low MTBF. I have a Seagate SCSI drive still running in a server that is almost 10 years old....
wheelema said:
By that logic, I should haul around a tower and a display everywhere I go instead of using a laptop. After all, the big tower case is a benefit. Who knew?
I can hook up an external FireWire hard drive very easily, and it is likely to run cooler than a drive inside a computer, so it will last longer. Also, I heard a statistic once that the average computer has something like 0.3 (non-video) cards in it. That means most people never even add one card.
Based on that, it seems like the big box is a huge waste of space for most people.... The mere fact that the ability to throw hard drives and cards in the machine is useful to you does not mean that it is useful for everyone.
wheelema said:
Most OEM parts have a warranty of a year. The Intel warranty is great and all, but it's also the part that is probably the least likely thing to fail (DOA parts notwithstanding) in a modern computer.
wheelema said:
I'm talking about the vendor linked to in your previous post (mwave). Have you not read their return policy?
wheelema said:
From http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=8171
robman341 said:
The mere fact that two devices support the same standard does not necessarily guarantee that they will work correctly together. There are countless examples of this on a regular basis. Eventually, people figure out the compatibility problems and stop building systems with those combinations, but in the meantime, people end up with machines that don't work properly. Those same incompatible configurations would almost certainly never have shipped in a prebuilt configuration from a major vendor.
wheelema said:
Anything class compliant for USB, or anything that does FireWire AVC for FireWire. That's all but a handful. I wasn't aware that Windows provided built-in drivers for those, but if you say so, I'll believe you.
wheelema
Boner-obo
This has, perhaps inevitably, devolved into a pissing contest. Yes, you do have to match up video interface components and memory components correctly, but as with all things worth doing, there is a learning curve.
I hope, sometime before next Spring, for Apple to introduce a eight way processor Mac Pro using two Intel 4-way processors. The iMac can supposedly use a Intel 4-way beta processor right now, which means that for the Mac Pro to continue it must go somewhere beyond that... and the Mac Pro is too much of a cash cow for Apple to just walk away from it.
I believe that the truths expoused in my closing argument... which you did not quote... continue to hold true.
I know that the Mac Pro... as it exists today... is overpriced and nearly obsolete. I know that the most powefull iMac uses a middle-of-the-road Intel dual core processor and cannot be expanded. I personally think that Mac OS kicks Microsoft butt... I just wish I didn't have to be locked into their crappy hardware configurations!
I hope, sometime before next Spring, for Apple to introduce a eight way processor Mac Pro using two Intel 4-way processors. The iMac can supposedly use a Intel 4-way beta processor right now, which means that for the Mac Pro to continue it must go somewhere beyond that... and the Mac Pro is too much of a cash cow for Apple to just walk away from it.
I believe that the truths expoused in my closing argument... which you did not quote... continue to hold true.
- That innovation is driven by the system builder community and open technical committees... not IBM, Apple, or Dell.
- That these innovations include PCI and PCI-Extended, IDE and SATA, DDR and DDR2.
- That any 'reputable company' that wants to stay in the game adopts and supports these innovations... which is exactly why Apple iMacs use PCI, PCI-E, IDE, SATA, DDR and DDR2.
- That the infrastructure that supports system builders empowers those who are willing to build far far far faster, cooler, better computers than those available from any 'reputable builder'.
I know that the Mac Pro... as it exists today... is overpriced and nearly obsolete. I know that the most powefull iMac uses a middle-of-the-road Intel dual core processor and cannot be expanded. I personally think that Mac OS kicks Microsoft butt... I just wish I didn't have to be locked into their crappy hardware configurations!
wheelema said:
You gotta look at it like this though, ALL computers released yesterday, are nearly obsolete lol...
BUT the new mac pro's running the xeon processors, are not overly priced... if that's the mac your talking about.... I went to Dell, and tried to 'mock' my system to see how much it would cost, and it's up there near $1,600 dollars, the new mac pro's are definently way faster than my system. And the price of that is what... $2,500? The Xeon processors alone are each $700 dollars each... That's $1,400 dollars for just the processors alone... Any competitor with the same system configuration will be about that same price, give or take a hundred.
I see valid points in both of yall's statements lol. Good read
altitude909
Best Advice Ever: RTFM
http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/992844-1.htm
mac pro use 5160's, not that old ass 3.0E.
Research, do some.
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2811&p=2
It's pretty funny that your WHOLE argument is based on a premise that is plain wrong. Despite I tried to explain this to you last time, you keep persisting. The Mac Pro uses a dual core Xeon, the 51xx series. This is NOT THE P4 BASED XEON OF 1-2 YEARS AGO, it is a BRAND NEW CHIP release this summer of 06, it has very little to do with P4 and EVERYTHING to do with the Core 2 Duo
mac pro use 5160's, not that old ass 3.0E.
Research, do some.
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2811&p=2
It's pretty funny that your WHOLE argument is based on a premise that is plain wrong. Despite I tried to explain this to you last time, you keep persisting. The Mac Pro uses a dual core Xeon, the 51xx series. This is NOT THE P4 BASED XEON OF 1-2 YEARS AGO, it is a BRAND NEW CHIP release this summer of 06, it has very little to do with P4 and EVERYTHING to do with the Core 2 Duo
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cephus
Slow Children Playing
My wife's cousin is a DJ and wads up his XP-home PC about once a year. This year, he was all mad and said "I'm just gonna buy a Mac." Usually, I am offended and take up the battle of why a PC is better. But this is like the 4th time i have had to bail him out, so I agreed with him. He's too much of an idiot to use and maintain a PC.
Unfortunately, he's also too much of an idiot to configure his wireless, so I had to go oever there and help him with that, too.
He bought, what I assume is an imac. it was just a monitor, a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse that looks like a bar of soap.
I'm not saying you mac guys aren't smart. It's just pretty obvious that you guys are lacking in a certain area of screwdriver logic that is required to keep windows PCs running. Without exception, every ubergeek picks windows over mac (unless you give them the chance to pick *nix).
Unfortunately, he's also too much of an idiot to configure his wireless, so I had to go oever there and help him with that, too.
He bought, what I assume is an imac. it was just a monitor, a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse that looks like a bar of soap.
I'm not saying you mac guys aren't smart. It's just pretty obvious that you guys are lacking in a certain area of screwdriver logic that is required to keep windows PCs running. Without exception, every ubergeek picks windows over mac (unless you give them the chance to pick *nix).
altitude909
Best Advice Ever: RTFM
no doubt, i'm one of them and my nice shiney E6600 is purring in the studio right now. But at the same time, I cant deny that the mac pro is a very nice well spec'd machine thats a great value.
studiomaster
New member
I just installed Mac OSX 10.4.6 on my PC! Man, is it sweet or what?! It's blazing fast and stable. Kind of expected that from Mac anyways...
Softwares are working flawlessly but I can't get my MOTU to be detected yet..still working on that...
Softwares are working flawlessly but I can't get my MOTU to be detected yet..still working on that...
wheelema
Boner-obo
Apologies, missed that dual core designation. Now, you do some research and learn about economies of scale. The Mac Pro is a cash cow and the only box in the apple line that you can expand without relying solely on FireWire.altitude909 said:
Did you miss my comment? I like MacOS, I just hate their crappy hardware configurations.
We just agree to disagree. Leave it at that.
Matt123 said:
agreed , we have a PC in the store that has been running for almost 36 months with no reboot on linux redhat shrike.
Id say PC's when built properly are completely stable.
Ohh and we have a server running windows server 2000 that has not seen a reeboot in almost 18 months
PC's run unstable when people that don't know enough about them build them
its all in the parts selection and build.