Windows or Mac??

[RichSnyder]

Just opened up the latest issue of "Linux Magazine". Inside the front cover there is a two page ad stating "It sends other UNIX boxes to dev/null". It has a large picture of a Ti Powerbook and shows the output of "top" command in a terminal window which shows various apps running. You have PhotoShop, Powerpoint, a DVD movie, iTunes, a 198MB perl program, etc. It was beautiful. I still love linux for a server. But for the desktop, OS X is the linux I've always wanted.

I think Apple may have won me with that ad. They've always been damn good at marketing.

Glenn, I think most machines are fast enough anymore. Do you really notice the difference between a 3 second filter apply versus a 4 second? It's more about the user experience. For me, OS X, fits the way I work. No dual-boots needed.

Good luck with the overclocking. I've never been that adventurous. Always liked the certified clock speed. I leave my machine on 24 hours a day and never thought the price difference was worth that nagging feeling like I left the iron on.

Thanks for the advice!

Cheers,
Rich

Just wanted to thank everyone for their opinions.

Basically, being as non commital as ever, I've decided to wait
until July's MacWorld Expo to give my final answer.

Right now, I would probably go with an XP based Wintel box.
Piecing together the components I want, it would cost around $1300.
Certainly not the cheapest PC I could buy, but one with a lot of
horsepower.

Now, if Apple comes out with a faster processor and a faster memory
bus in a Power PC G4 tower for less than $2k, I think I'll go OS X.
That will be enough to tip the scales in Apple's favor.

Again, thanks for all the input. Greatly appreciated!

Hi

I just built a very-very fast machine for under $700

Use a Pentium 4 1.6 A (512 cache) and a Asus P4S533 motherboard
with the fast DDR333 memory and the 533 Front/Side bus. The Asus
will very simply allow you to run the 1.6 at 2.1 GZ very stable
(2.4 with a little more work). You can put the high speed memory
(PC2700 256MB), the P4, and the board together for less than $400
(I did $380).

Then you can find a very good 64MB GeForce2 MX400 for 60-80 bucks.

The Asus supports ATA133 on board so you can get a hell of a ATA133
7200rpm 80GB maxtor for $150 bucks.

Add a case ($50) , floppy, and CD/DVD stuff from your old machine
and away you go.

If you want to Go with A Geforce 3 - its about $90 more.

No mac can touch this thing.

I still like the way photoshop looks and works on OSX - but a dual
1Gz Mac is $3000 - and nowhere near as fast. I do mpeg-2 encoding
on this beast and its hot.

By the way - I'd stick with W2k Pro for a while.

 

[Glenn Barber]

Just opened up the latest issue of "Linux Magazine". Inside the
front cover there is a two page ad stating "It sends other UNIX
boxes to dev/null". It has a large picture of a Ti Powerbook and
shows the output of "top" command in a terminal window which shows
various apps running. You have PhotoShop, Powerpoint, a DVD movie,
iTunes, a 198MB perl program, etc. It was beautiful. I still love
linux for a server. But for the desktop, OS X is the linux I've
always wanted.

I think Apple may have won me with that ad. They've always been
damn good at marketing.

Glenn, I think most machines are fast enough anymore. Do you
really notice the difference between a 3 second filter apply versus
a 4 second? It's more about the user experience. For me, OS X,
fits the way I work. No dual-boots needed.

Good luck with the overclocking. I've never been that adventurous.
Always liked the certified clock speed. I leave my machine on 24
hours a day and never thought the price difference was worth that
nagging feeling like I left the iron on.

Thanks for the advice!

Cheers,
Rich

Having spent many years on a unix workstation - I also find OSX very attractive - but the cost of the hardware and cost of the software ($1000 bucks for DVD creation stuff I can get an equivalent for $98 for on the PC) made it too big a reach.

I also do a lot of custom MPEG encoding (and all this software comes optimized for the P4 instruction set) and you need a lot of horsepower. To do a really good job on one hour of video can take 24 hours of processing at 2.1gz. This is why many of my friends in the graphics/video business are transitioning from the mac to get the hoursepower they need.

Overclocking is much easier than you think - especially with the P4 1.6A which is probably different from the 2.0A by the stamp on the outside. Its really an issue of the stability of the board - especially if you don't have to increase the proccessor voltage. In the case of the Asus P4S533 - it was made to do just this and the overclocking doesnt even warm the chip. I have been running it a full load for a week without problems.

 

[Tom May]

Perhaps the any current mac isn't fast enough for your needs. Fair enough.

I would note, however, that there is high quality Video software for the Mac, and this is, in fact, the other part of the equation.

Buy any Macintosh with a DVD-R, and get:

idvd http://www.apple.com/idvd/
imovie http://www.apple.com/imovie/

Not enough power?

DVD Studio http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/
FinalCutPro http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

Shake http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0203/22.hollywood.php

Hardware performance may always be behind the PC world, but Apple should get close to parity. In the meantime, there's plenty of stuff that the current hardware will do quite adequately for most of us, of course with a bit higher cost.

 

[Glenn Barber]

Perhaps the any current mac isn't fast enough for your needs. Fair
enough.

I would note, however, that there is high quality Video software
for the Mac, and this is, in fact, the other part of the equation.

Buy any Macintosh with a DVD-R, and get:

idvd http://www.apple.com/idvd/
imovie http://www.apple.com/imovie/

Not enough power?

DVD Studio http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/
FinalCutPro http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

Shake http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0203/22.hollywood.php

Hardware performance may always be behind the PC world, but Apple
should get close to parity. In the meantime, there's plenty of
stuff that the current hardware will do quite adequately for most
of us, of course with a bit higher cost.

We have a huge Apple store 1 block away from us - and at lunch I sometimews go over there to play with the new Apple gear. (I think the new g4 laptop is sexy as hell. I have yet to get anyone to be able to tell me how long it takes to do a high quality Variable Compression Rate MPEG encoding on the Dual G4. So sometime next week I am going to drag some equipment over there and test it out.

I have thought for some time that it is a loosing proposition for Apple to try to make money on proprietary hardware. If their O/S can run on intel processors, they could still sell their OS and applications at a premium - but to a much larger market. If something significant doesn't change in the PowerPC line-up they may be forced to this.

 

[Tom May]

Based on Apple's profitability, I wouldn't say they are losing. I've made the argument before, and here again, that hardware would need to take a back seat to OSX development. OSX seems to be stable enough to put more resources into hardware, as the Xserve demonstrates.

Look for more robust hardware development from here on. But not with Intel. Nor AMD. True, OSX is portable, but its also true that it has been optimised for the PPC, and Altivec. I wouldn't expect that to change under the current circumstances.

I'm interested to see what codec you use for the OSX test. Find one that uses Altivec, as it really is an equalizer.

 

[Tom May]

Glenn

Here's another mac resource

http://www.lafcpug.org/

I'm pretty sure that someone could answer any questions that you might have on codec's in the forums.

 

[Glenn Barber]

Glenn

Here's another mac resource

http://www.lafcpug.org/

I'm pretty sure that someone could answer any questions that you
might have on codec's in the forums.

--

I am going to Email this link to the guys at the Apple store (they didn't know about it). Thanks this is a big help.

 

[Tom May]

Glenn,

Since you know this business (I know only enough to be confused), and even if you don't go with a mac, keep us updated on how things turn out, though best to do this in the mac forum.

Tom