Quote:
Originally Posted by ComradeNikolai
I'm going to address these point by point.
First, ease of use. Macs have a definite improvement in ease of use; one may not notice it right away because one is used to Windows, but after adjustment, it is definitely easier to use. I'll address speed later.
Second, security. Sure, you have your system completely locked down, but you require three programs PLUS a firewall to keep it secured; most Mac users I've talked to have no issues, even with torrenting, and they run absolutely no security software.
Now onto speed: I found this very interesting test. On the desktop test, they found that all their different program launches (especially the stress test) were faster on the Mac. Start up times were significantly different: it was the difference between 28.7 seconds (Mac) and 1 minute 13 seconds (MS). Shutdown was the difference was 4.0 seconds (Mac) and 44.3 seconds. These differences persisted for both laptops and desktops and the computers had similar specs. The Macs even ran Vista more quickly than the PCs.
Note: in that benchmark test, the Macs were paired against equally priced or more expensive PCs.
Now please explain: why do you feel there is significantly worse performance in Macs? |
I will debate that by simply saying who in their right mind would buy a PC for 1800 dollars with a e6600 processor, 3 gigs of ram and a super subpar video card? What Gateway was doing was trying to appeal to the pro-mac users by coming up with an iMac... in black. Thusly they succeeded in imitating it by making it grossly overpriced, and underperforming. So I won't be bias in that regard, buy the Mac if you are into wasting your money like that, it'll sure as hell beat buying the wannabe Mac PC.
That isn't the arguement i'm trying to convey here, thats an absurd choice of a PC to put against a Mac just because its whole goal for that PC is to be a "sleek artistic design" instead of being a work horse PC. Infact i'd go as far to say that PC is incredibly overpriced, incredibly retarded, and just tries to copy the Mac in all of its worst ways. I can say it succeeded in imitating the Mac, for the worse.
heres what i'd benchmark against that Mac....
Coolermaster Centurion 5 case - 55
Q6600 (quad core 2.4ghz) - 190
Asus p5k Pro motherboard - 102
Patriot 4 gig set of DDR2-1066 Ram - 112
WD 300gb Hard Drive - 70
NEC 8x DVD RW drive - 20
Nvidia GTX260 video card - 180
Enermax Liberty 620w PSU - 75
Vista 64 bit home basic - 90
Total - 894 before shipping, call it 935 after shipping. All prices from Newegg or remembered from the "hot deals" section at hardforum.com
That PC will obliterate any game out there, show incredible muscle in all processor intensive applications, and will just demolish inventor, cad, 3dsmax, solidworks, maya, Unreal Editor, ect. Not to mention the capability of slapping on a 50 dollar aftermarket heatsink (like the Thermalright 120 Ultra) and be capable of clocking that processor to atleast 3.2ghz easy on that motherboard. Heat would be the only limiting factor really, especially with 1066mhz RAM. (Asus boards are quite robust at overclocking, easily one of the best boards out there, probably only behind DFI).
It doesn't try to imitate the mac, it just beats it. Flat out, period, end of discussion. This whole performance thing isn't truly "Mac vs PC" its whats inside the box, not what OS you're using. You can only buy the cookie cutter builds Apple offer you, but I can build whatever I please using Windows. I can put whatever I want in there, and come out leaps and bounds ahead in just the choice of components. You cannot argue a e6600 vs a q6600, or 1 gig of RAM vs 4, or a hd2600(rofl) vs a GTX260. The selections are so vastly different in performance. The fact that I would of saved 550 dollars by building the PC listed above is just sprinkles on top of the added performance.
Maybe i'm on an anti-overpriced anything crusade, not just an anti-apple crusade. It's just that Apple gives the face of overpriced components. That gateway listed in that little Mac vs PC review is LAUGHABLE. I highly dislike that PC just as much as I dislike the Mac. It swindles users by offering an "oooh shiney yaaay" type of appeal instead of putting the components first.