Mac vs PC

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bdemenil

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A friend of mine just got a Mac 933Hz G4. He uses protools LE (with digi 001). I have a PC with dual AMD XP1600s. We both have the Waves RVerb plug-in (a notorious CPU hog), and so we decided to compare CPU power. His Mac was only able to run 2 RVerb plugins simultaneously. My PC can run 7-8. So, even if you half the number that my PC can run to take into account the dual procs, my PC still has a significant performance advantage.

To put things into perspective, when I was running an AMD thunderbird 1.2 GHz machine, I was not able to run more than 1 RVerb at a time. So the G4 933MHz is significantly more powerful per clock cycle than the original AMD athalon series. However, it looks like the G4 is slightly inferior to the AMD XP series - on a per clock cycle basis. Consider then that the fastest G4 is 1GHz, and the fastest AMD XP is 1.67GHz(XP 2000), and you have a very significant speed gap.

So I have already established that AMD's top processors are in the neighborhood of twice the speed of Apple's. Now, let's take price into consideration. The following is the spec from Apple's online store for a basic 933MHz G4 :

Price : $2,299.00

933MHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache
& 2MB L3 cache
256MB SDRAM memory
60GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive (this is a DVDR drive)
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX
56K internal modem
Mac OS 9

------------------------------------
Here is a price quote from http://www.goroyalpc.com/ for a pre-built PC with an AMD XP1900 chip - I chose only good name brand components. Otherwise, I could probably shave $150 off this price.

ASUS A7M266 DDR Motherboard
AMD XP 1900 Palomino CPU (1.6GHz)
Volcano 6cu+ 7000RPM CPU Fan
Mid-Tower Case w/ 300W power supply
Kingston 256MB 266MHz DDR RAM
IBM 60GB 7200rpm HD
ATI Radeon VE 32MB DDR Video
TEAC 1.4 MB Floppy
Sony 52X IDE CD ROM
Generic 56K Modem
105 Key AT or PS/2 Keyboard
Standard Serial or PS/2 Mouse
Windows XP Home
Assembled and Tested
1 year Warranty
-
Your total: $977.00

Add to that a DVDR drive (because apple forces you to purchase 1 with their G4) - $ 359 for the PIONEER DVR-103 (records DVD at 2X - I think better than apple's superdrive).

Grand Total : $1336

(Note that neither the apple nor the pc above ship with a monitor)


So the the apple G4 above costs 72% more than an equivalent PC which is about twice as powerful. The Apple does not ship with OSX (that would cost more), nor is it capable of using DDR ram.

I'm not going to get into detailed O.S. comparison right now, but from my experience, Windows, especially 2K and XP, hold a strong advantage over Mac OS in stability and versatility.

Come to your own conclusions.


Note : RVerb on the G4 was running as a protools RTAS plug-in, while the RVerb running on my PC (winXP) was running on ntrack as a directX plug-in. There is probably some difference in efficiency between the 2 versions of the plug-in. However, my guess is that whatever differences there are pale in comparison to the huge discrepancies in performance. Also, all instances of RVerb were running in their default setup.
 
I won't argue bang for the buck, because you have got me there. No question!

But, I find the Mac to be MUCH more stable. I run both platforms...so I do have the experience to back this up. Since Digi is not ready for XP yet, this COULD change.

Just my $0.0000002 worth of thought

Later,
C
 
I agree with the Griz....

As far a cost their is no comarison but....................

Here's the pisser.....................

Apple has a twin processor 1gz G4 that does come with the Unix based OSX.

No argument on the price though! Apple HAS to lower the prices on their high end machines in order to comete

But I am sure that machine WILL smoke any AMD or P-4 since OSX does support multiprocessing.

I use NT4.0 at work a 1.5Gz P-4 at home running W2K and an old Mac with a 160mhz 604e processor running OS 8.1 that I will NEVER get rid of.

Also the PC that was quoted came with the "home" version of XP, I'm sure if you wanted XP PRO it would also be more money.
 
There are some cpu benchmarks that show that OSX does not scale well with dual cpu's. Performance with SMP does not scale linearly by any means anyway, but I think Apple has some work to do with their SMP implementation in X. Take a look at these benchmarks:

Dual 1Ghz:
FINAL SCORE: INT: 237 FP: 197 CACHE: 187 SIMD: 0
PEAK SCORE: INT: 238 FP: 198 CACHE: 188 SIMD: 0

Single 867Mhz
FINAL SCORE: INT: 190 FP: 159 CACHE: 153 SIMD: 0
PEAK SCORE: INT: 194 FP: 163 CACHE: 155 SIMD: 0

For the sake of comparison:

Athlon XP1600
FINAL SCORE: INT: 288 FP: 261 CACHE: 147 SIMD: 0
PEAK SCORE: INT: 291 FP: 280 CACHE: 148 SIMD: 0

Athlon XP2000
FINAL SCORE: INT: 319 FP: 314 CACHE: 167 SIMD: 0
PEAK SCORE: INT: 321 FP: 316 CACHE: 168 SIMD: 0

It should also be known that neither of these Athlons are the fastest CPU possible. 2.0Ghz P4's can easily be overclocked to 2.6Ghz (the new Celeron 300A, if you will). This really shows that the P4 will ramp up to incredible speeds.

These are the results of Ars Testbench. Details can be found here and here. It's basically the combined efforts of PC and Mac geeks to come up with a worthwhile cpu benchmark (in lieu of all the Photoshop bakeoffs Steve Jobs is so fond of - which actually don't work in his favor anymore).

In addition to more cpu power, another going for PC's is the memory bandwidth advantage. This is especially true with the P4 and its RDRAM memory feeding it 3.2GB/s. And this will jump to a whopping 4.2GB/s when Intel moves to 533mhz memory clock speed.
 
AMD cheaper than Macintosh?!?!?!

Are you the same guy they hire for all those government studies like "Why do people escape from prison?" or "Why are we losing the war drugs?"

Sorry. Just being a dick.

The benchmark is interesting but I have to wonder if Protools running the verb doesnt sound a lot better than Ntrack? Did you get to listen to both?
 
The benchmark is interesting but I have to wonder if Protools running the verb doesnt sound a lot better than Ntrack? Did you get to listen to both?
Click to expand...

Actually, which multi-track mixing software you choose to use has very little impact on sound quality. Most serious software will mix internally at 32bit. The quality of the sound being fed to your software(mic,pre-amp,converter...ect) and that of your plugins is what will determine what sound quality your rig is capable of (leaving out of course the big human factor).
So the first anser is no, there is no difference in sound quality. Next take into consideration that I am using delta 1010, and the comparable protools rig uses the digi 001, and you will have to admit that my sound quality is potentially better.


--------------------------

Also the PC that was quoted came with the "home" version of XP, I'm sure if you wanted XP PRO it would also be more money.
Click to expand...

XP proffessional is about $50 more, and totaly un-nescessary for this application.
------------------------------

But, I find the Mac to be MUCH more stable. I run both platforms...so I do have the experience to back this up. Since Digi is not ready for XP yet, this COULD change.
Click to expand...

A couple days ago, I set up a digi001 with protools on a PC running winME. You are right that this set-up is not terribly stable. The fault for this lies not so much with windows, but with Digi - they have not put much effort into their windows implementation of protools LE. Besides that, it is hard to understand why they haven't yet made an win2K compatible version. Personaly, I would prefer not to use win9X,Me for anything - even browsing the internet. On the other hand, I'd take it over Mac OS 9 any day.

---------------------------------------

But I am sure that machine [dual G4 1Ghz] WILL smoke any AMD or P-4 since OSX does support multiprocessing.
Click to expand...

WinNT,2K, and XP all support multiprocessing. My Dual AMD rig runs very quickly. It even seems to me to be faster than the sum of its parts. As has allready been pointed out in this thread, OSX does not have good multiprocessing support. Also, protools LE will not run on OSX. An extension of my comparison, as well as the bench marks elevate listed indicate that a dual AMD MP 1600 should easily out-perform the G4 with dual 1Ghz procs.

--------------------------------------

The only compelling arguement for using a Mac for music is that proTools was tailored for it, and does not run as well on PC. Apple cannot possibly continue to compete with Intel and AMD in chip speed. Their market is far smaller, and so they have fewer resources to invest in development. For the same reason, it is also difficult for them to compete in price.
 
excellent.

just a note... didnt I hear that only XP PRO really optimised multiprocessors??

xox
 
for the love of god....

please no more. it's another coke vs. pepsi, atheist vs. believer argument that will never be resolved!


p.s. ALL new macs come with OSX
p.p.s. the "speed" depends on whether or not the software is optimised for a mac or a dualie. in other words, for a program like photoshop (or digital performer), macs will burn the ass hair off of the AMD. peace, suckas!!!
 
camn said:
just a note... didnt I hear that only XP PRO really optimised multiprocessors??
Click to expand...

XP (non Pro) offers no support for dual processors. If you have two, it will only see (and use) one.

Orinally posted by RecTechMin
a program like photoshop (or digital performer), macs will burn the ass hair off of the AMD. peace, suckas!!!
Click to expand...

Actually, you are wrong. Click here. As you can see, these aren't very recent Photoshop results, but both the Athlon XP1700 and XP1533 easily outperform a dual 800Mhz G4. I'm confident the latest batch of P4 chips will also outperform the G4 rig as well. The most interesting thing about this is that, while the G4 has the advantage of Altivec optimizations in Photoshop, the Athlon only has SSE optimizations, which really don't amount to much of anything.
 
Yep,... Remember back when the only thing that was available for the PC was a beautiful black screen with lovely white fonts, at that same time Apple already had a GUI.... with.... get this,,,
COLORS!!!!!!!!!:D
Since Jobs left back in 1985 the technology came to a halt and through the years Microsloth kept upgrading their OS while Apple literally sat on their As_!

The new Mac OSX is much more intuitive, user friendly and advanced, But no matter what you use the BOTTOM LINE is that computers are TOOLS, it doesn't matter if you use SNAP ON or MAC TOOLS it is really just a matter of preference.


NUFF SAID!! :mad:
 
p.s. ALL new macs come with OSX
Click to expand...

OK, I am mistaken. I just checked the Apple website, and the new G4s do indeed ship with OSX (dual boot OS9, OSX). But Protools LE will not run on OSX.

just a note... didnt I hear that only XP PRO really optimised multiprocessors??
Click to expand...

This is true, but the PC I listed in my initial post is single processor, so I packaged it with XP Home. In any case, add $50 for XP Pro, and the price comparison doesn't change much.


Elevate, are you saying the stats show that a PC with a SINGLE XP 1533 chip out performs a Dual G4 800?
 
...no matter what you use the BOTTOM LINE is that computers are TOOLS, it doesn't matter if you use SNAP ON or MAC TOOLS it is really just a matter of preference.
Click to expand...

This is true when talking about the OS. WindowsXP and OSX are both stable and their feature sets are approximately equal. They are both fairly intuitive for the novice, yet provide enough functionality to satisfty the geek.

That said, when you compare the hardware that both of these operating systems run on, the comparison is a lot different. It would be like comparing a cold-forged stainless steel tool to one made of pig iron. One of these tools will objectively perform better than the other.

Elevate, are you saying the stats show that a PC with a SINGLE XP 1533 chip out performs a Dual G4 800?
Click to expand...

I'm not saying it, I'm just referring to benchmarks. That particular benchmark which showed an Athlon XP1533 outperforming a dual G5 800 was a Photoshop benchmark, and only a Photoshop benchmark. That said, if you look at other benchmarks, you'll notice that Photoshop is an app where the performance gap is not as great, so that seems to indicate that an XP1533 will outperform a dual G4 800 in almost any task. The only exception to this is if you have an app that is heavily optimized for Altivec, and even then in some cases the Athlon's raw power may pull it ahead.
 
Was there a question about which machine was faster? I thought that debate was put to rest a year ago when Power PC chips froze in clock speed and Intel/AMD ramped up.

Yes OSX is pretty slick. but so is Windows XP.

To me the only reason to buy a Mac at this point is if you are going to be using digidesign products. The fact that digidesign is so blatantly a develop on Mac first then port to PC company pretty much guarantee's that most of the bugs are going to be on the PC side of things. Also that they seem to refuse to develop for any Microsoft OS's that have come out in the last 4 years is a bit of a mystery. All in all if you want to use PT you should probably do it on a Mac.

I'm curious to see Mac's future Hardware development. Supposedly there is a new Power PC chip coming out that will go much faster clock speeds, but similar to the P4 will be adding more pipelines that actually slow the chip down clock per clock. This should give them that marketing edge of a "faster" CPU.

Ultimately though I have heard rumblings that Motorola desparately wants out of the chip game. It's far to expensive to develop, update and manufacture these things because you need to stay on the bleeding edge to stay competitive. Interesting also is how platform/processor portable OSX is (Unix core could be tweaked very easily to support the x86 platform). What would happen if Motorola canned it's chip division? Would apple be forced into the x86 world?
 
What would happen if Motorola canned it's chip division? Would apple be forced into the x86 world?
Click to expand...

There is the slight possibility that IBM could build chips for them, but that seems rather unlikely as IBM is far more concerned with their Power line of chips. There have been some rumors on Mac sites that Apple might switch to the Power line of processors, but that would raise the price of your average Mac by about $15,000.

The problems with Apple moving to the x86 world is that Apple makes most of their revenue off of hardware sales. x86 is cheap, so how can Apple continue to sell Mac boxes when someone could then build their own Mac? Apple needs a fairly closed hardware platform to remain economically viable.

I believe Apple has definitely considered x86; they already have an x86 version of Darwin (OSX sans GUI), so that basically proves that OSX on x86 can be done, but the more difficult steps will be to figure out an economic model that works for Apple, and then to convince developers that they have to recode their apps for OSX again, which might be too much.
 
It isn't suprising that digidesign is collaborating closely with Apple. The two companies have a similar business approach - selling hardware and software as an interdependent package.

The real pull of both companies is their software. Mac hardware is inferior, but people continue to buy it so that they can run the Mac OS. ProTools will only run on Digi's hardware, but Digi's hardware is sub-standard for the money you pay.

I wish I could use ProTools with my Delta. I'd like to try out OSX on my PC...
 
Mac vs PC? God damn, has this not been excerised to death? Give it up!

APPLES AND ORANGES people!... tell me whats better!.
 
Mac hardware is inferior,
Click to expand...


Hey BDE,...
Where do you get that Mac hardware is inferior???
Inferior in what sence???
Please explain, I always thought Mac had excellent hardware??:confused:??
 
Inferior in what sence???
Click to expand...

Inferior in the performance sense, which nowadays is the only metric needed. Hardware is at the point where it can be rock solid, as far as stability is concerned. The only time issues arise is when drivers are crap (hello ATI and Creative Labs!) or when you are assembling your own system and don't do any research to figure out which components work best. The latter isn't an issue with Apple, which can be perceived as a plus.
 
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