apple mac or pc?

[Monkey Allen]

You can't really get under the hood of a Mac, that's why I like PC's.

 

[foreverain4]

You can't really get under the hood of a Mac, that's why I like PC's.

you have to get under the hood of pcs, that is why i like macs...

 

[timthetortoise]

you have to understand, you really dont have to do anything to "setup" a mac. THAT is the biggest difference. not performance, not price.....

If that's the biggest difference then I wouldn't recommend a Mac at all. When something goes wrong (and trust me, though you may not think anything will ever go wrong, it will), you have no clue what goes into your system because you never had to understand what's in it (which manually setting a system up gives you a glimpse of). Also, I highly doubt that your system came with every single thing that you need and that all hardware came pre-attached. I knew that Mac users were somewhat retarded (besides, that's basically what Apple says in their marketing right? "PCs were so confusing, with a Mac I didn't have to do anything"), but I didn't know it was to that extent.
All things aside, ease of setup, price, none of that really matters. It's about what system will do what you want it to, which is why no one can tell you what you need. Researching what will do what you want is the key to finding the right system for you.

 

[brzilian]

Just get a Mac - they run XP and Vista now anyways...

I picked up my first Mac (a 1.66 Core Duo Mac Mini, 1 Gb of RAM) last month and screams with XP SP2 installed via Boot Camp. Its faster than my Gateway Athlon-64 M 4000+ laptop. Logic Express runs flawlessly as well as the Mac versions of all my soft synths (FM8, Korg Legacy Collection - DE and AE 2007)

I've said this a couple of times already - when the Gateway kicks the bucket, it will be replaced by a MacBook.

I've been a PC guy for 19 years and have built several of my own systems and bought ones off the shelf along the way as well. It will be Macs for me from now on...

 

[timthetortoise]

So you say that a Mac is better, yet you're using one that's essentially running a PC architecture? Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.

 

[dgatwood]

So you say that a Mac is better, yet you're using one that's essentially running a PC architecture? Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.

I recently talked to one of my friends who knows an Intel engineer. He said that Apple worked closely with Intel to add various features into the chipsets that they're using. Those features can improve the efficiency of operating systems that take advantage of them. The Intel guy reportedly said that they "learned a lot" from the Apple folks.

While everybody gets any improvements that Apple requests, I have reason to believe that Intel chipsets have improved as a result of Apple's involvement with them. Of course, that comes as no surprise to me, since Apple is one of only a few companies that made custom chipsets (1984) before Intel did (1992).

 

[brzilian]

So you say that a Mac is better, yet you're using one that's essentially running a PC architecture? Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.

Ok, you just look like an idiot when its pretty darn obvious you're just reaching for excuses to bash Macs. Its funny how PC guys called Mac people "zealots" in the PPC days, but now that we all run the same hardware, its the PC guys come off as the "zealots" saying Windows is better than OS X.

Lets see - stick with a PC and run only Windows or get a Mac which runs OS X and Windows faster than a PC would? Hmmm....tough choice...

And for the record, I simply installed XP to see how it ran. I spend 90% of my time in OS X now running Logic and all my existing plugins and softsynths which are UB.

 

[Mindset]

I recently talked to one of my friends who knows an Intel engineer. He said that Apple worked closely with Intel to add various features into the chipsets that they're using. Those features can improve the efficiency of operating systems that take advantage of them. The Intel guy reportedly said that they "learned a lot" from the Apple folks.

While everybody gets any improvements that Apple requests, I have reason to believe that Intel chipsets have improved as a result of Apple's involvement with them. Of course, that comes as no surprise to me, since Apple is one of only a few companies that made custom chipsets (1984) before Intel did (1992).

Yeah that's correct, I have a few friends at Intel that say the same thing...

I just don't see WHY people bash Mac's, or PC's and really don't know WHY. What's wrong with a Mac? What's wrong with a PC? Both have their share of problems, Mac's have great hardware that works together. PC's have great hardware that you can make work together. Both have their flaws & great features on the OS. Price issue, isn't really an issue any longer. $1099 for a mac book with intel core 2 duo 2.16ghz 200gb HD & 1gb ram? My Toshiba notebook cost me $1399 and is only a 1.66ghz core 2 duo.
$2499 for a mac pro w/ dual xeons, stock, costs less than a equivalent PC around $150-200 less than a PC

 

[timthetortoise]

Ok, you just look like an idiot when its pretty darn obvious you're just reaching for excuses to bash Macs. Its funny how PC guys called Mac people "zealots" in the PPC days, but now that we all run the same hardware, its the PC guys come off as the "zealots" saying Windows is better than OS X.

Lets see - stick with a PC and run only Windows or get a Mac which runs OS X and Windows faster than a PC would? Hmmm....tough choice...

And for the record, I simply installed XP to see how it ran. I spend 90% of my time in OS X now running Logic and all my existing plugins and softsynths which are UB.

Sorry, I don't run Windows for anything other than games either. Pretty much all Linux on my side (and couldn't be happier). I'm not reaching for excuses, I just find it kind of funny that they switched from a truly great RISC architecture to x86. Really, I don't care about Macs. I tried using one and it was the most clunky experience of my life (then again I was asked to fix it and ended up doing so 99% through shell). And congratulations on being sold misinformation by Apple. Windows is not the only thing that will run on a "PC" (by the way, a Mac is actually a PC. PC != Windows). In fact, you can now run PPC versions of OSwhatever on x86 platforms (though I don't know why you'd want to). If you really want to do a speed comparison, let's put up a 300MHz RISC machine with 64 megs of RAM running a bare Slackware install with X Windows and no window manager against a new Mac.

Oh, and *steps out of thread politely*

 

[brzilian]

Ok, time to get out the 90's and into the 21st century...

RISC doesn't mean anything anymore. Current Intel processors have very little in common with the x86/Pentium processors. All current Intel chips are offshoots from the P4-M processor which marked the end of the x86 era.

A CISC processor can still be faster and more efficient than a RISC processor if it has more and wider pipes and special instruction sets (i.e. 64bit, SSE, multi-core processors). Oh yeah, they consume less power and run cooler too!! Imagine that...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I just don't see WHY people bash Mac's, or PC's and really don't know WHY. What's wrong with a Mac? What's wrong with a PC?

Well said, Mindset .

Mac/PC, Ford/GM, Fender/Gibson...it's all the same "my brand is better than your brand" chest-beating when any of them will get the job done just fine.

Either way, there's not a computer that's made in the last 5 years by either company that isn't far more than powerful and fast and reliable enough than what is needed for your average multitrack audio work.

Just pick the one that "feels" best for your own tastes and sensibilities.

G.

 

[Hard2Hear]

And for the record I agree. I build PCs, but 2 of my favorite studios I work out of are Mac studios and they are great also. I'm actually a huge digital performer fan, which is Mac only.

 

[timthetortoise]

All current Intel chips are offshoots from the P4-M processor which marked the end of the x86 era.

...Are you kidding? An x86-based processor marked the end of the x86 era? Yeah, that makes sense.

 

[brzilian]

...Are you kidding? An x86-based processor marked the end of the x86 era? Yeah, that makes sense.

Exactly how much do you even know about processor architecture?

Do you happen to have studied Computer Engineering (like I have)?

 

[timthetortoise]

Enough to know that a 7th-gen Intel processor is x86-based.

 

[christiaan]

Woohoo, it ended up in a fight again!!

 

[timthetortoise]

I'm done with the Mac vs. whatever debate, just pointing out that a P4 is in fact an x86 processor. Dude doesn't seem to want to accept that it's true.

 

[dgatwood]

I'm done with the Mac vs. whatever debate, just pointing out that a P4 is in fact an x86 processor. Dude doesn't seem to want to accept that it's true.

Not by the historical CISC definition, which I assume is what was meant. The Pentium M and Pentium IV aren't natively CISC designs. They are RISC cores with an instruction cracking front end. While they use the x86 ISA, they don't look anything like an x86 CPU under the hood.

Also, the current Core 2 architecture (Pentium-M-derived) is technically x86_64, not x86.

 

[brzilian]

Not by the historical CISC definition, which I assume is what was meant. The Pentium M and Pentium IV aren't natively CISC designs. They are RISC cores with an instruction cracking front end. While they use the x86 ISA, they don't look anything like an x86 CPU under the hood.

Also, the current Core 2 architecture (Pentium-M-derived) is technically x86_64, not x86.

Thank you dgatwood. That is where I was going.

 

[timthetortoise]

Not by the historical CISC definition, which I assume is what was meant. The Pentium M and Pentium IV aren't natively CISC designs. They are RISC cores with an instruction cracking front end. While they use the x86 ISA, they don't look anything like an x86 CPU under the hood.

Also, the current Core 2 architecture (Pentium-M-derived) is technically x86_64, not x86.

Eh, a neck is a neck. I guess my view of a different architecture is if it takes some hacking to get it to run. Since pretty much any x86 app will run on a P4, P4M, Athlon 64, or whatever else, I'll continue to call them x86.