Whats so special about Macs?

[Dillinger4]

What would justify prices like the following?
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...tore?family=G4

And how are processors made by different companies compared in terms of speed? I noticed that the G4's mostly run around 1Ghz. Would that be the same as a 1Ghz Intel pIII? Thanks for the help.

[Rick Bull]

I can't claim to know all the much about Macs, and this is just what I've heard. The CPU clock speed isn't the be all and end all. Programs that are written for the mac usually take advantage of their architechure and are pretty much as fast as PCs. Macs are usually favoured by people who want to do a lot of multimedia too, like DVD editing, Photoshop etc. If I could afford it I'd definately have one, just for the beautiful operating system! It really puts Windows to shame.

[siyan]

OSX is too fluffy IMHO, but it goes with the whole "Easy to use" Mac ideology.

Macs have always been more expensive than they should be, also in part due to the fact that they don't sell nearly as well.

[Sastraxi]

And, they don't have any competition selling computers that can run Mac software, so that's another factor for the prices. But, Macs are a load of garbage IMO. Windows 2000 any day...

[Zaei]

Id rather have an OS that blue screens, instead of putting up a message box that says "An Error has occured. Your computer will now restart".

Z.

[Sastraxi]

But Win2k doesn't blue screen... ... at least not until you've REALLY buggered something up (reinstall time!).

[Dillinger4]

Yeah ive heard the same about OSx in that it is way to easy to use. I guess us windows users like to do things the hard way.

[alex_read]

Yeah it is pretty easy to use & looks 1/2 decent, & I've never seen one crash (though I've tried )

Only problem is all the software's really basic as well, windows explorer & mspaint equivalents haven't got 1/2 the options the MS versions have.

I like it - nice & simple & you don't have many users come up with any problems like you do with windows users, think Mac's should be 1/2 the price of pc's though for what they offer.

Oh, & the mouse only has 1 button, so god knows how you'd have a decent game of quake on 'em....

[JoshT]

Regardless of what Apple claims about clock speed, a Mac underperforms compared to similarly priced PCs. And the G3's one button round mouse is horrible and the keys on the keyboard are too small. And they slowdown or lock up if you run a couple of the multimedia apps (Adobe, Macromedia) at once that Macs are supposedly better at.

[Sastraxi]

Originally posted by Dilenger4
I guess us windows users like to do things the hard way.

You are SOOOO getting quoted on a Linux board

[siyan]

Originally posted by Sastraxi
You are SOOOO getting quoted on a Linux board

heh..its like a food chain

PUNCH CARDS ALL THE WAY!

[poopyman67]

The processor speed doesn't really matter for Macs. The processor speed just denotes how many processes each logic chip can make in a second. However, what Pentium doesn't tell you is that although their chips are faster, the Mac chips do more in each load. Think of it like this, Pentiums are shovels, and you can go really fast with a shovel right? Well, G4s are like a bulldozer, takes a bit longer, but it gets more dirt, so its like even, but, the Macs are faster, and theyre much more suited for people who do video editing, etc. Oh, and by the way, the newest G4s will outperform any new P4 out there.(that one guy said that a similarly priced mac and pc would be different, and it probably would, since you can buy a 10,000 dollar pc, but you hve to remember, macs are a LOT more reliable, they have great customer service, and they last for a very long time. My friend has one that is 10 yrs old, and still works fine, unlike his 3 yr old pc which is already going bad.) So, my suggestion is, if you have the money, GET A MAC, and if you have even more money, BUY A MAC AND A PC!

[JoshT]

Originally posted by poopyman67
The processor speed doesn't really matter for Macs. The processor speed just denotes how many processes each logic chip can make in a second. However, what Pentium doesn't tell you is that although their chips are faster, the Mac chips do more in each load. Think of it like this, Pentiums are shovels, and you can go really fast with a shovel right? Well, G4s are like a bulldozer, takes a bit longer, but it gets more dirt, so its like even, but, the Macs are faster, and theyre much more suited for people who do video editing, etc. Oh, and by the way, the newest G4s will outperform any new P4 out there.(that one guy said that a similarly priced mac and pc would be different, and it probably would, since you can buy a 10,000 dollar pc, but you hve to remember, macs are a LOT more reliable, they have great customer service, and they last for a very long time. My friend has one that is 10 yrs old, and still works fine, unlike his 3 yr old pc which is already going bad.) So, my suggestion is, if you have the money, GET A MAC, and if you have even more money, BUY A MAC AND A PC!

Maximum PC Magazine did some benchmarking and the PC still outperformed the Mac - while it might be Biased, they said they even expected the Mac to do better than it did. And if Processer speed doesn't matter for the Macs, then one one I got in my attic should be just as good as a P4? It was replaced by a 486 at the time it retired.

[siyan]

Remember why the Playstation dominated? Certainly not because it had the best hardware, because it really was technically inferior. However, it had games, and thats the point.

PCs (windows specifically) has bsacilly every type of software imaginable in vast quantities. macs can not say the same.

as for which one is acutally faster....meh...

[parksie]

Now that Apple have moved to OSX (Unix), it's looking a lot more promising for stability.

[poopyman67]

What I meant by saying that processor speed doesn't really matter for Macs is that a Mac with a 1.25Ghz processor could perform equally as well as a 3.06Ghz P4. I didn't say that a old pre-486 mac could outperform a new p4, about 9/10 of the programs running on the p4 couldn't run on the mac anyways. I meant that if you compare a mac and a pc that came out at around the same time, they would be just as good as one another, or at least that that the mac would win. I don't know how anyone could the impression that I meant otherwise, oh well.

[Sastraxi]

Yes, I agree with your outlook on it. Also, their open-source initiatives (like Darwin which you can get for x86) are showing them maturing as a software company =). One thing I've always liked Apple for is Quicktime and their Darwin Streaming Server... but not their Macs.

[JoshT]

Originally posted by poopyman67
What I meant by saying that processor speed doesn't really matter for Macs is that a Mac with a 1.25Ghz processor could perform equally as well as a 3.06Ghz P4. I didn't say that a old pre-486 mac could outperform a new p4, about 9/10 of the programs running on the p4 couldn't run on the mac anyways. I meant that if you compare a mac and a pc that came out at around the same time, they would be just as good as one another, or at least that that the mac would win. I don't know how anyone could the impression that I meant otherwise, oh well.

Right, or so Apple's marketing people say. But seriously, the only place I've seen this actually tested was in that magazine article I mentioned, and they found it to be untrue. Do you have any links to any other independent benchmarks or anything that refutes them?