No, he was indicating that his argument was evidently so conclusive, there's little need for this thread now.

I suspect it was somewhat sarcastic. You probably missed it because you were busy "thinking differently".

It's rather telling when someone decides to use the "Think Differently" argument in a coversation about Apple. Rather ironically, it's those with a strong desire to "belong" (and therefore, think alike) who are quickest to bring this up. Anyone else would consider it madness to try to say that your purchase choice in PCs would suggest anything (other than possibly your priorities when purchasing such hardware) about how you think.

I'm concerned about your ability to perceive facts too. They range from simple factual errors (AMD Processors don't come with fans - Retail packaged CPUs always have and always will, only OEM-packaged CPUs do not, much the same with Intel) to flat out denial of valid comparisons (I tried to compare the relative prices of an AMD-powered PC and a lower-end Intel-powered Mac Pro, with similar performance. You deny this is valid on account of the Intel is more expensive. That was my point - to get the same performance, costs significantly more with a Mac).

I just replied him what I mean is the right understanding of that motto.




>I wonder
>I wonder

Not stating facts as you said, but rather, wondering.

No, AMD and Intel performance is different, http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1 ... hmark.html. (lower is better, seconds)


OK, anyway, that will be another war, about Intel and AMD, so we'll just leave this.

In specific tasks (and I was personally comparing a lower-end Intel with a higher-end AMD), but I was comparing it to a PC so much higher-spec'd (but importantly, still cheaper) that it'd make up for the CPU deficit in the vast majority of real-world use cases. My point is not that AMD is better than Intel, or vice-versa, but that the design decisions they make are driven by a desire for profit rather than a desire to build a better product, and their higher prices reflect this in particular.

Oh, should I say about OEM PC bloatware and pixelated boot splash screens again? I think that explains well,
what company wants their profit -or- what company actually gets appreciation from what it is doing.

Also, read the post where I virtually "built" a PC Mac Pro alternative. The price was more or less $3000 (with 2 Intel Xeons, each is $1000 with discount). And you bought your AMD machine for less than 1000 pounds. I'm saying about Mac Pro, because you compared your PC with a Mac Pro.

Hi pwned, I'd like to point out that a 2500k sandy bridge has a MUCH higher IPC and is optimized for more consumer workloads, than 2 6-core core westmere xeons. So really unless you are doing extremely intensive workloads. The 2500k would come on top in almost every bench. Now you could say that the Mac Pro is intended for Professionals who have intensive workloads, and that is a fine arguement except it makes me think, If like you say macs are better than pcs, so suppose us power users migrate to a mac, which mac desktop would be suitable for us? I.e. DOES NOT have a Xeon processor, and has a decent graphics card(no mobile chips), and an SSD? There is none. The mac range seems only to cater for general users and has no options to customise for the power user or a gamer. Also I agree that mac's have gorgeous monitors, the only problem is you can buy am an even more gorgeous monitor's for cheaper and at a higher res of 2560x1600. Also you say that macs don't get updated frequently in terms of hardware, well that's Apple's problem, and quite frankly if they're no bothered to update their products well you can't say it's not fair. I have nothing against macs, but I prefer pc's because they are much better value in terms of performance, Although I think the design and construction of mac's are imo superior to any OEM pc company out their in general (Not Custom Built).

Not all Mac Pros come with 2x6 core Xeons. They start with a single quad-core. Which is what I compared my PC to. That costs £2,050. For just four cores, 3GB RAM, a 1TB HDD and one 5770. I think it's perfectly legitimate to compare my PC to that and suggest that the Mac is incredibly overpriced. My PC certainly cost less than £800, excluding peripherals.

@laser23,

I honestly agree with some of your points. A regular user who wants to get a desktop Mac, should get an iMac. Yes, it has a mobile card, but it performs better than on the laptops, including MacBooks. Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjLQ1dZIU7E, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1l2WmNKzh8
Not bad, right?

If you are an extreme gamer, you should get either a game console or a PC, like compgeke said.

@hounsell,

Oh wait. You are comparing a Bulldozer with a Xeon. If you insist again:

Your processor:


Cheapest available Mac Pro processor:

I don't understand something here. Are you saying that just because hounsell and Apple chose to use processors from two different companies means all his arguments are invalid? I generally despise AMD but if the point is to build a PC with performance equivalent to the lowest-end Mac Pro for far less money then AMD is certainly a viable option.

Unless your counter-argument is that "Mac OS X can't run on AMD processors, therefore you must use Intel processors in your build".

Yes, his arguments are invalid. He is trying to compare his computer to a Mac Pro, with "processors from two different companies", when obviously, the price differs.

And Apple doesn't build your average "el-cheapo" rigs.

So because the two entities use processors from different companies and because their prices are different yet the performance is the same, means all of hounsell's arguments are invalid.

What an interesting way your mind works.

Yes. Because if Apple used AMD, Mac Pro price would be lower. And performance wise not the same. http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1 ... hmark.html

The performance difference is nothing like approaching the cost difference that we're talking about though:

Comparison between an X6 1100T and an i7 950

You'll even notice on that link that the AMD even manages to best the Intel on a key real-world use test that a Mac Pro might face - Cinebench (3D Rendering). Now sure, the Intel in the Mac Pro will nudge it, but enough to make it well over double the cost? You could buy two of my systems for the same price, and use network rendering across the two for 3D modelling, blowing the Mac Pro away, and it's not even designed with 3D modelling in mind.

No-one's disputing that if Apple used cheaper parts, the price would be cheaper. The point we're making is why don't they, considering that the performance loss will be negligable?

Oh that link you have there. I did some counting (ignoring Power Consumption using Prime95 and Power Consumption System Idle for both CPUs, because Intel ignored them for some reason):


Seems like that i7 wins by 6627.11.
And 3D rendering nowadays (since like 90s?) are done by the Graphical Unit (GPU), which is what both your PC and a Mac Pro does.

EDIT:
I noticed that some parts were measured in Time (mm:ss), but I can't be bothered. Find a proper test with results at least...

EDIT2:
And look at this chart, http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
A lot of Xeons are scored better than a highest-end Bulldozer.



EDIT3:

Then we shouldn't compare Bulldozers to Xeons anyway.

Just look at how expensive is a 2011 highest-end Xeon (but trust me, its performance is AWESOME):

herp derp macz are better guyz.

I was going to try and compare a Mac Pro to a workstation PC but I can't find any vendors that still list Westmere and Nehalem chips. Apple is a little behind...

Holy [censored]...

BREAKING NEWS! PROCESSOR THAT'S 10x MORE EXPENSIVE THAN ANOTHER PROCESSOR IS 40% FASTER!

You are an intelligent person.

Wow. You must be joking. I thought not!!!!! I didn't know that Mac Pros have Xeons!!!!! I thought they have AMD FX-8150s in them!
You amazed me. That's something new to me.
[/sarcasm]

EDIT:
And before someone says that i7 and Xeon are the exact same thing, and


Sorry to tell you - that is NOT the reason. Read this (StackExchange seems to be much more knowledgeable by the way): http://superuser.com/questions/122914/w ... -processor

Let me tell you a funny mac story.

Several years ago, at this middle school I was at, this school had a ton of iMac g3s and eMacs. Basically they were all connected to an xServe which used a domain like setup where all the files were on the server, and the computer had to access the server to use them.

So one day the server goes down, and all the macs in the building kernel paniced when they tried to access the server, resetting did nothing, and everyone managed to leave early because the server went down.....

OS X is very overrated, it's not magic. Same with the hardware.

Yes, fails happen. Same with Windows and Linux. You get less fails if you bother update your system, doesn't matter what is the type of the computer.

Yes, OS X is not magic, but it's not overrated. Take time to read why people prefer Macs or read compgeke's post here:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=24913&p=297111#p297111

First of all, I have to say that I perfectly agree with hounsell here. After saying that, I have to say this. SRSLY? Pixelated boot screens? OEM Bloat? How dare they! Those cheap-ass morons! Death to all PC OEMs! /sarcasm

If it is to pay 2000€ for a "perfect" bootsplash (which is not perfect, as we saw earlier) and no OEM bloat (which, in fact, even exists in Apple products, with all that iStuff and other weird software and on the other hand, can be removed pretty easily in PCs with a very basic knowledge of computers.),and have otherwise a medium-high end computer like all the others I can get for 500€, then hell with those. I can be pretty happy with my cheap and pixelated bootsplash, since I only see it for, like, miliseconds.

And as for those hideous Mac vs PC advertisements, they were full of blatant lies and biased accusations.

I know it's not -that- big of a deal, but it really is disappointing that OEM's can't even give us a high resolution splash screen in 2012. What happened to quality products, or little innovations? I know you only see t for seconds, but a nice splash screen really would make a difference in showing that OEM's care about quality. Cutting corners is never a good thing.

Going back to the NT can't unload drivers, it actually is somewhat possible. I've had the nVidia drivers crash on me before "The nVidia display driver has stopped responding and has been restarted" message when trying to overclock my GeForce 6800 when I was using it as my main GPU, but I've also had a lot of "The nVidia OpenGL drivers has unexpectedly quit" messages with the nVidia Forceware 290 drivers (I believe beta drivers as Source games wouldn't load with the stable drivers). Updated to the latest beta and no problems so far though.

As for mac drivers, I've had the Airport drop out on me a couple times after restarting from sleep on my G5, which goes to prove that Macs also aren't 100% perfect, neither is Windows or Linux or Unix or DOS or CP/M or Basic or MP/M or anything really. Everything has some problems, sometimes big, sometimes small.

As for splash screen quality, there was a time when you could start up your computer and see C>, C:\, *** Commodore Basic 4.0 ***, login:, etc so splash screens really aren't needed, I would love if Windows had a startup thing like Verbose mode instead of having to use a debugger to find problems with startup (similar to what Unix\Linux\BSD\Mac OS has). Windows 9x did have something similar though, as it was made on a DOS base.

Here are my two pence on this topic:

It all comes down to choice. If you need a general computer that can perform video editing easily and can do it quicker, then go for a Mac. Whereas I would buy a Windows PC anyday if i was a programmer. Windows is better for hardcore technical tasks. All of this "mind is better" rubbish is very tiring. It is down to personal preference. I for one own a pc and a mac and like them both for different things.

The arguement about the hardware and pricing i agree with however. Although Apple does come up with great designs and build products like tanks, the hardware is mediocre on the portable line. IMHO the price isn't justified. The desktops are more sensibly priced though. You can get the same hardware on a Windows PC for much cheaper.

Notice how I don't use the Mac and PC stereotype. A PC is a personal computer and last time I checked, a Macintosh is a personal computer, not a calculator!

That's my opinion, take it or leave it!

When you buy a mac, you're buying the name. I honestly don't know why you pay $1,200 dollars for a 13.3 inch Macbook pro with the specs of a $300-400 dollar Windows PC.

Honestly, a dual core i5 and 4GB's of ram, decent, but Intel HD Graphics for that price? Hell no.

I do however love OSX and want a Hackintosh system instead of my 10.6.0 VM.

If I was ever to buy an actual Macintosh system I would either get a Mac Mini or a used Macbook. Just me.

So, The price for what you get = Horrible

The OS: Desirable.

Ok guys I guess I'll chime in again.

When you guy an AMD your looking for a cheap product that can give about the same performance as an Intel chip. The Intel chip will win most of the time because its 10 times more expensive. Overall I would go with an Intel chip any day of the week however that being said you can guy a PC for the same price as one of those chips. Intel's are great the overclock well as a whole and everything my AMD phenom X6 1090T only manages to overclock to 4 Ghz where as you can easily hit 5 on the Intel chips.

However its time to get back on topic there is no justification for the pricing that apple gives when it sells you the product. There desktop machines are overrated as well as laptops price wise. The only reason you get a MAC is for the simplicity because the users don't want anything overly complicated. I would not get an apple because I want to be able to customize the machine and edit it in various ways. The illusion as to why a 1000 dollar chip is better simply because of the price eludes me. the bench marks will prove you right however the cost per performance will just body slam you.

If you can give me a rationale explanation as to why my 170 dollar CPU with about the same if not a tiny bit less in performance than your Xeon then please go ahead sir. However for those of us who are cheaper in the wallet we will stick with AMD chips as a whole as well as PC's (because Macs are also PCs.)

Yes, Apple does indeed make stuff that looks pretty. Though I do have to take a small issue with your "built like tanks" statement.

I've never physically touched a Mac Pro, so I don't know how the build quality is. Probably good, however...

Macbook Air: You can bend these things in your hands because they're so thin and made out of aluminium, one of the more pliable metals in existence.

iPhone: Right, let's take a phone, something that is small, expensive, and easily slips out of the hand, and make not just one, but both flat surfaces out of glass. That's going to go over GREAT. Thus ruining their awesome design by everyone putting them in HUMONGOUS cases to keep their gorgeous design from being seen. Smart. Not really sure how that could be fixed, but still.

iPod Touch: Same thing as the iPhone. Not both sides are glass, but it's so bloody thing the slightest drop bends the whole thing enough to shatter the screen. nearly 70% of all 4th-gen iDevices I've seen have had cracked screens.

iPad: No complaints here, though the Retina display was a bit premature, considering Apple doesn't yet have a GPU/CPU combo that can handle all those extra pixels, meaning the 3rd-gen iPad actually plays games worse than a 2nd-gen.

iMac: The glass screen. I forgot to put this in the macbook category, but it applies here too. Why on earth wouldn't you use plastic like everyone else if the screen isn't going to be touchable? Putting a huge slab of GLASS over the front of the whole bugger is just yet another thing that can go wrong and break, and the only upside I can tell is that you can see your reflection in the screen while you work (PCs have glossy screens, too, but they're not the same glass, and I can actually flex them quite a bit without breaking one. Matte screen fo lyfe)


Ok, that's all for now.