Thanks to a CUNO Foundation grant, Team 228 just received three of the very first 27" iMacs to find their way into Connecticut! This should make the Animation and CAD groups very happy. Couple these with our older macs and rendering should be sped up a little.
i wouldn’t think it would make the CAD team very happy… considering how much more performance per dollar you could get off a PC…
Heading this one off at the pass, even as a Mac fan:
GUS made their call–judging from the description, they’ve been using Apple hardware in the past. If that’s how they work best, and have found it advantageous to continue that purchasing decision, more power to them. If your team finds itself with the money to buy new computers, your decision-making process may yield different results. Both, however, are valid decisions.
The money was from a grant. Grant money = fun money, they can spend it how they want and on what they’re used to. Also, I’m almost positive Arthur Dutra is used to using Macs for designing.
Awesome stuff 228! Can’t wait to see what you turn out this year.
Not every FRC team has the resources to support a network of Windows computers. Performance per dollar up front has to be weighed against the ongoing cost of maintaining it.
Besides, doesn’t the CAD team just care about performance? The cost part shouldn’t enter into their happiness. I know I would be very happy to be doing my work on such beautiful and powerful systems.
I’m not sure this is the place to question a team’s decision on how they spend their money or the place to start a Mac vs PC debate.
Those the Core i5/i7 models? If so I can see them being really helpful.
Also with Maya this year as autodesk provided software the necessity for windows goes down (unless im mistaken and for some odd reason you can’t use it for the awards)
Running a 15" Macbook Pro myself, the new iMacs are incredible if not for just the 2560x1440 screen in the 27"er (I am looking at a 24" 1920x1200 for my own laptop) I just can’t see myself getting one incase it were to keel over since I would have spent so much on a unusable screen, the ability to “displayport” into the screen may change that in the future.
Not wanting to start another flame war thread here, but our team made the decision the same way we make any other business decision. Break down the problem into parts, evaluate each, then find the best possible solution.
Many of our students and mentors have always used Macs. We like them. The iMacs take up very little space, and since we work in the school’s wood shop (and thus must store our team computers in a closet between meetings) the space savings and ease of setting them up/putting them away during meetings saves a lot of time.
The separate tower and monitor typical of custom-built PCs typically adds an additional two minutes per computer to set up at a meeting (which is what we’ve been doing for years with a 2002-vintage Compaq PC owned by our team). 3 computers x 2 minutes x 2 (for setup and tear down) x 60 meetings per year x 5 years = 3600 minutes or 60 hours wasted carrying towers/monitors and plugging in cables.
Also, with the announcement of the ability to use Maya, we only need Windows for three things: Solidworks, programming the FRC robot, and programming Vex robots. In OSX, we’ll now use Maya, academic Adobe CS4 Suite, academic Final Cut Studio, and use iPhoto to organize our team’s 80+ Gb of team pictures from over the years. And because we bought Macs, we can do all this on the same computer.
Besides, using general prices from Newegg for basically idential hardware to what was shipped in our iMacs we get:
$40 for case
$250 for decent motherboard
$80 for decent power supply
$100 for 4Gb of DDR3 RAM
$100 for 1Tb HDD
$400 for 27" LCD Monitor (practically a necessity for Solidworks or Final Cut)
$250 for Intel i5 Quad Core Processor
$130 for decent video card
$30 for DVD/CD Burner
$20 for SDHC Card Reader
$50 for Wireless N PCI card
$30 for USB Bluetooth dongle
$50 for decent keyboard
$25 for decent mouse
$175 for Windows 7 Ultimate OEM
Grand total: $1730, which is pretty much the price we would have paid for the iMacs had we not gotten the 3-year Apple Care warranty. Add in at least an hour or two to build each computer, then several more hours to install Windows and get all the drivers in working order, and it’s just a pain that’s not really worth our time (which could be better spent actually using the computers and helping teach and inspire our students).
They’re still sick.
on a side note that a cool plywood table i bit wider and that be a awsome work table
The cost breakdown on them is good, also you would need a closer to 1000 dollar screen, the only screens with comparable resolution I know of are 30"ers and none of them are LED backlit either.
As for performance per dollar, PC would probably win only on the graphics card front for the price bracket since you could go workstation over gaming graphics.
Minus screen and windows 7 you have about 900 to match the imac.
First off I’m not a life-long apple user. In my professional career I’ve spent far more time using windows machines and networks, and fixing their problems. I can also tell you that back in the day, I spent a heck of a lot less time fixing problems when we ran Novell networks and GIS/CAD clients running OS/2 (how many of you remember that! :eek: ).
In business, up front cost is not the only justification for Return On Investment. One must look at operating cost over the life of the equipment. We still have G3s and G4s which are usable, slow but usable. Can’t quite say the same for similar vintage Windows machines. We tend to get much more life out of our macs. Not just hardware robustness, but the aging machines will run software and operating systems far longer than windows machines. How many of you have groaned loudly at the bloated minimum operating requirements for each successive version of windows?
Art04 did a great job of justifying the labor savings setting up and putting away our equipment for meetings. Anyone want to start adding up lost time reloading windows and all of your other software after auto update has fragged your machine? How many times have you had to reload windows during the life of a machine? How many times have you hunted down bad or defunct registry entries? This all adds to the overall cost of the equipment. If the machine is not up and running, its costing you money.
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They’ve stated that they boot Windows to run those programs.
And if your response is partitioning and running windows, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of getting mac’s?
A lot of the justification is based on more reliable / robust hardware, as well as the option to use Mac OS for animation.
[quote=;883715]I think your all over looking the fact that Autodesk products DON’T run on mac’s…
And if your response is partitioning and running windows, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of getting mac’s?[/quote]
I think you are trying to start a debate, 228 made their decision because it was their decision to make. I think they have been more than willing to explain their thought process. In doing so they demonstrated that they clearly thought through this purchase and didn’t use their grant money as “fun money” which shows responsibility and is the mark of a established team. When your team goes through the hoops to get a grant to purchase machines for CAD and Animation you may make a different decision and there is nothing wrong with that, different teams have different criteria.
I also think you are making arguments with a limited amount of facts, http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=13583877 There are Autodesk products that DO run on a Mac. And they run WELL, my last Computer Graphics class included a short section on Maya, wonderful program.
Additionally, I have found that either virtualizing Windows on my Mac or doing a full blown install of Windows is a viable solution. Plus, the iMacs are actually surprisingly cost efficient. Refer back to Art’s cost break down but instead consider a monitor that is more equivalent resolution wise http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824176071
Maya does.
And if your response is partitioning and running windows, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of getting mac’s?
Not at all! If you want high quality Windows-only hardware, you’re going to pay as much as or more than a Macintosh costs anyway, so why not choose the platform that gives you the most flexibility?
Our team goes for the cheap solution that more people are familiar with, including refurbished eMachines desktops running Windows for CAD. I’d be ecstatic if we had a generous sponsor that could provide us with Macintoshes instead.
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Part of what you may be experiencing is the level of quality and experience some of the posters bring to a discussion in ChiefDelphi. They enjoy a discussion that creates an opportunity for exchanging viewpoints, ideas, and suggestions.
Another part of what you may be experiencing is the popularity of this topic in the ChiefDelphi forums. This is an example of a thread that was created in 2002. In the upper right hand corner of that post, you can find the title of that thread and it will lead you to the entire discussion in 2002. If you do a search for other threads, you will find them leading up to current day.
What is rare about this photo is that a team took the time to share information about a purchase that they made, using a well thought out process of pros and cons to validate their purchase and its use, as a team and for the team. The other part of this that is so excellent is that GUS members took the time to explain what the Macs will be used for. They will be used in a wonderful way that will create challenges and fun for the team members that will be involved. In their way, they are showing the value and importance that CAD and animation have in FRC 228. They are also recognizing that the purchases were a result of the CUNO Foundation grant monies. A lot of recognition in a lot of ways in one photograph.
It’s very cool, really.
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@ the Screen comment, admittedly even I looked at the imacs and went a bit overpriced
But i5 power for 2k with 27" screen of which a similar res (those 2048x1152 aren’t close enough, 500 pixels too narrow and 300 pixels to short) being unattainable for under 1k makes it a very good deal, especially given the compactness, included wireless mouse and keybord
/envy