Topic: What Computer do you use? (Read 31337 times)

TeddyLoves · « **Reply #60 on:** June 17, 2005, 09:12:16 pm »

hello all
not sure if everybody noticed this, and if it's appropriate for this thread but i'll post anywayz. if admins find it inappropriate, i'll post a new separated thread
================

imagine someday you can run Windows OS and softwares on a G5, or run Mac OS X on a PC...

contributing editor of PC Magazine John C. Dvorak predicted about the fusion of Mac and Intel 2 years ago
How the MacIntell Will Change the Market

.. and it's becoming true
The Mac-Intel Computer, Finally!

running a OS X on a PC or a Windows OS on a G5, which way do you prefer?

BlasR · « **Reply #61 on:** February 04, 2005, 01:04:32 pm »

Sony Vaio, VGC-RA810g series
I think is very good,,I have it for 6 months still working very good.
BlasR

Robert Spoecker · « **Reply #62 on:** February 05, 2005, 10:26:07 pm »

I don't get the mouse issue. While waiting for my Mac G4 I went to Wall Mart and bought a USB digital wheeled mouse for about $20. This is so trivial in comparison to what we all buy in computers, software and digital camera equipment it seems to get lost way deep in the noise.

Quentin · « **Reply #63 on:** February 06, 2005, 07:35:35 am »

Mac's advantage is the tight integration of software and hardware. Windows has to work on goodness knows how many possible combinations of kit.

All my recent PC's have been home built from componets I have selected - which is both a strength (user choice, price competition, value etc) and a disadvantage (I might trigger a hidden incompatibility).

Windows gets the blame when things go wrong, but it's almost always a hardware issue. I chose quality components and thus I have a stable and reliable system.

Incidentally, when considering Mac suitablilty for imaging work, I have read of a number of problems with drivers and RIPs involved in recent changes to the Mac OS - so the evolution of OSX has not been problem free for all Mac users.

Its also very interesting that on a photo related board like this, PC users still significantly outnumber Mac users. That probably would not have been the case 5 years ago.

Quentin

llama · « **Reply #64 on:** February 09, 2005, 10:04:25 am »

Quick and dirty rules of thumb:

Macs:
- tight hardware/software integration and control enable (not necessarily deliver) cleaner coding and less variability in the computing environment
- limited software options unless running PC emulator
- historical "best for graphics" label is just that historical
- limited hardware choices & very limited user upgradability
- very slick look and feel, except the freaking mouse
- consider it to be, more or less, an integrated system with hardware matched to software.

PC:
- huge choice
- huge variability in quality: consumer control equals consumer responsibility for what they buy, whichi inevitably ends in the classic "Windows sucks" story.
- more flexible - one PC can be a cutting edge graphics, video editing, gaming, and coding platform
- lower prices driven be higher level of competition among hardware vendors (always 2 producers of each component)
- maximizes choice for altenative operating systems - Linux, FreeBSD, etc. Your discontentment with Microsoft shouldn't lead you away from the PC platform, just another OS.
- AMD-Intel Battle? Read reputable reviews, consider each companies product roadmap and equate both your needs. Then, buy the best value product for your needs. Current winner AMD64.

My computing history:

1997: Compaq 4508 (Pentium 200MMX, 48MB RAM, 2MB on-board video)

1999: Home built (the Compaq was my "buyer beware" lesson) AOpen AX6BC Pro Gold, Intel Celeron 366, 128MB RAM, Matrox G400Max

- upgraded to Pentium III 700

- upgraded to MSI KT2 turbo with Duron 700

- upgraded to Abit KR7A133 with Athlon Thunderbird 1000 & 512MB RAM

- upgraded to Athlon XP 1700+ & ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

2004 - upgraded to MSI K8N Neo Platinum with AMD64 3200+ with 1GB of RAM

Home server system still running that PIII 700 on a used Asus CUSL-2. Other motherboard/cpu combinations have been sold, given away, traded-in.

N

61Dynamic · « **Reply #65 on:** February 09, 2005, 07:33:49 pm »

Quote

Not true. If you're not constantly installing new games and crap like that there's no reason to periodically reinstall the OS.

Yes thats right I lied. Not! "That's not fully accruate" or something along those lines would be more diplomatic...

What I said was accurate giving the typical situation where people install and remove software on their PC (thus the reference to DLLs).

Yes of course, if you don't install many apps the possable need for a re-install is reduced or removed. I was speaking in generalities and not everyone is going to fit into that; especially your situation with a file server.

_--

I too would like to see some PS benchmarking. I remember some sites used to do that but it's not really seen anymore.

61Dynamic · « **Reply #66 on:** February 21, 2005, 03:22:03 am »

Quote

Here we see a true Mac zealot.
...

Anything a Mac can do, a Windows machine can do as fast or faster for the same hardware investment. But the Windows box and OS GUI won't look as cool.

Calling the guy a zealot is a bit rash. He's certainly ignorant but did not type anything that would indicate zealot status. Spyware and viruses do exist on the mac but they are much more rare than on the PC and thus gives the illusion the mac does not suffer from that when in fact it can.

It is certainly not wise to run any PC or Mac without antivirus software and common sence.

...

There is more to the Mac OS than just good looks. There is alot of common-sence functionality and stability that just plainly does not exist in Windows. OSX as it stands today is a far better designed OS than Windows XP is hands down. Longhorn (the next version of windows) is susposed to get MS caught up in OS design and looks prommising, but it was susposed to have been released last year and keeps getting delayed. Once Longhorn comes out (mid 2006 mabye) then this issue of stability/useability/functionality between the OSs can be argued but untill then OSX is in the lead. Anyone who says otherwise really hasn't bothered to sit down and use a mac recently or at all for that matter (briefly poking around a display model doesn't count).

If looks were all the mac had over the PC I would not be considering the switch. Programs like ThemeXP and WindowsBlinds easilly make the PC look as good or better than OSX.

...

That test at Rob Galbriath would have been interesting a year ago but holds no relevance today unless you plan on processing images on a Mac Mini. It is comparing G4 systems. The G5 is a significant improvement over the G4. It not only is able of 64-bit processing (which unlike the WinPC can actually be used and more fully with Tiger), has a much better architecture than the G4, but it also got rid of the G4s very pathetic 167MHz FSB limit.

A top of the line dual-G5 system runs $3k and a top of the line dual Opteron system runs almost $4K with as much being equal as possable. That's a performance comparison I'd like to see. But then agian, how do you measure convenince, stability, security and useability along with shear performance?

djgarcia · « **Reply #67 on:** February 24, 2005, 08:32:57 pm »

Hmmm, can't we all just get along?

I will state up-front that I love technology and enjoy playing with it. A slight lack of stability I can avoid by being sensible and knowledgeable is fine by me. My system is a Frankenstein assembled from parts I upgrade every year or two as technology mutates. I have recently been through some heavy upgrading.

Here's what I have currently:

- A Supermicro SCR-830 server chassis w/ 550W PS on top of which are
- Two Viewsonic P225f CRTs displaying 1792x1344 resolution each, calibrated via Pantone Spyder2

- Supermicro X6DA8 motherboard
- Dual Xeon 3GHz / 800MHz FS bus
- 4GB DDR2-400 memory (XP only sees 3GB)
- Gigabyte/ATI X600 XT PC-Express graphics card (to be upgraded)
- 68GB (effective) SCSI U320 RAID 10 array (system) on Adaptec 2120 controller
- 580GB (effective) SATA RAID 10 array (user) on Adaptec 2410 controller
- 400GB SATA lonely drive
- The usual floppy & DVD/CD-ROM drive stuff
- lots of USB-2 and Firewire ports

- Windows XP Pro / SP2
- Zone Labs Zone Alarm Pro firewall
- Norton Antivirus & eTrust PetPatrol

I will say I have never had real bad problems, other than by my own stupidity, and have never lost data. OTOH, I have been a computer professional all my life, including programming patch-wired systems - anybody remember drum memory . I have used tape back-up but no more. That's what all that redundant, swapable storage is for, and I use Ghost to backup the file systems across storage subsystems.

Yes, Windows can be improved lots. It also works well for me. I used to own Amigas (500, 3000 & 4000) and a Unix-based system (Zilog S-8000/110).

Not that anybody really cares, but you did ask "What computer do you use" .

Cheers, and happy image processing!

DJ

etmpasadena · « **Reply #68 on:** February 07, 2005, 05:10:27 pm »

That's silly. Almost all Mac users have to use a PC at work (myself included), and have no trouble working on either system.

On a slightly related note, most all Mac users (as I said) use PCs at work an Mac's at home and hence have all the normal experiences with a PC. Most PC users either don't use a modern Mac or haven't used one at all. So it's actually the Mac users that are a bit more (though not entirely) objective about the performance of both platforms, since they use both platforms on a daily basis.

Jonathan Wienke · « **Reply #69 on:** February 08, 2005, 09:25:56 pm »

Quote

Now, at least at the high end, performance of both Windows PCs and Mac is good. Hey, it's better than that, it's excellent. So choosing on other factors (availability, support, familiarity, style, application availability, ...) ahead of price/performance is quite reasonable.

Not when you shoot 1500+ RAWs at a concert or sporting event and want to get a color web gallery (with correct white balance and other tweaked conversion settings) posted in a reasonable time frame. The fastest available hardware is none too sppedy for such things.

61Dynamic · « **Reply #70 on:** March 01, 2005, 05:17:13 pm »

Quote

I feel sorry for all the mac people that converted because of so many problem with virii, crashes, etc. - because when mac virii become more popular (give it a little time) you will be back to square one with excuses

To assume people are making "excuses" just because they are happy with the Mac platform is just absurd. It's like saying people are making excuses when they are happy with their old 67 Mustang instead of buying a cheaper 67 Camaro because there are more performance parts available for the Chevy and they're generally less expensive.

Being a power user, I know if you had actually spent some time using a Mac objectively you'd be wanting much of the functionality found in OSX for the PC. We'll just have to hope MS delivers with Longhorn... But like dbell said, Mac vs PC flamewars are silly along with stupid and immature.

Is it Fast Only Rolling Downhill or is it Can Hear Every Valve Rap On Long Extended Trips?

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #71 on:** April 07, 2005, 07:41:17 pm »

Thanks Daniel, that is re-assuring.

61Dynamic · « **Reply #72 on:** April 27, 2005, 02:47:56 pm »

Quote

...except I am hearing murmurs from the Adobe rep that PS CS 3 may actually show up on the Linux platform. One can hope he is not pandering to us as he knows very well that we have Opteron-based Pro/E Wildfire workstations now.

One thing is certain, however, he says that Adobe now develops for Windows as it's "prime" platform. Odd to hear him say that, as there has to be more Mac based GD's out in the world than PC.

Sonds like he's pandering to you and talking out his back-end.

Why would adobe develop for Linux (and what flavor, PPC or x86?)? They would only do so if there was a market for it and at this time the market for Linux in the design field is rather small. Not to say that's not possable, but I'll believe it when I see evidence that it's the case.

As to the PC being the "prime" platform is bunk. I bet he's constriving that "fact" from the time when Adobe announced that PS runs faster on the PC. When they announced that, that was the case. There is no evedence that Adobe develops PS on the PC and then converts it to the mac. Any talk to the contrary is just pure speculation.

Adobe has gone a long way to seperate their programs operation from the peculiarities of the operating system. This way the program behaves the same no matter what platform you are on and it's not limited by the operating system.

As to your comparison:
Since you don't list the specs I was curious to how you got the prices. So... here is the comparison I did:

Dell:
OptiPlex GX280
P4 570 (3.8Ghz )
XP Pro w/media center
1GB RAM (2x512)
80GB HD
16X DVD+/-RW
128MB ATI Radeon X300 (w/DVI and VGA)
Dell UltraSharp™2001FP flat panel
1394 Controller Card
Total: $2,372

Apple:
1.8Ghz PowerMac
1GB RAM (2x512)
80GB HD
8x SuperDrive
128MB ATI Radeon 9600XT
20" Apple Cinema Display
No 56k modem
Total: $2,494

The mac is almost $100 exaclty more expensive. Of course the PC will have more sheer processing power so that difference is greater. If you move one step up in the Mac line you get a dual 2.0GHz machine for $2,800 and the PC to compare needs a bigger HD which only adds $40 to the price. However, at this point the performance difference is not so great as the mac gets a slight speed bump but mroe importantly, it gets two processors. As we all know, PS is a multi-threaded app and benefits quite a bit from that. How closely these systems will compare in speed will only be known with a test.

I know that once the PC gets into the dual-proc range, prices jump up and PCs no longer have any price benefit over Macs. Agian, speed needs to be tested but I haven't seen anything out there that suggest that today's current dual-CPU workstations can outperform today's top-end dual G5 Macs when it comes to Photoshop.

IMHO once we get into the $2.5k and up range it's more about useability than performance when considering Mac vs PCs.

All this will change quite a bit in the next month or two though. PCs will have a definate performance advantage with multi-core (Intel) and dual-core (AMD) chips coming out but once the IBM PowerPC 970MP CELL chips become available for the Mac (perhaps by Christmas I hope) things may not be so clear-cut once agian. *Speculation* Currently the Mac line is going to see a minor update which indicates to me based off how long the current line has been up and the direction of the market, a much bigger update is comming up next. We'll just have to wait and see.

Ray · « **Reply #73 on:** July 05, 2005, 11:05:36 pm »

. Intel Pentium D 830 3.0GHz Dual Core S775 64 bit CPU
. Asus P5LD2 Deluxe motherboard
. 4GB Kingmax DDR2 533MHz RAM
. Matrox P650 PCIe 128 video card
. 16x Pioneer DVD burner
. 2x WD 36GB Raptor SATA hard drives (10,000 rpm)
. 2x WD 200GB SATA hard drives (7200 rpm)
. Win XP Professional X64

Budget system! Being built!

Stef_T · « **Reply #74 on:** February 04, 2005, 04:01:54 pm »

Thank you all for your replies,

There has been a general consensus in most books that I have read about digital photography that Macs are slightly better and quite a bit more reliable and steady than PCs. It is mostly for that second reason, and the fact that I am getting fed up with my current computer, that I am considering (still far off) a Mac. I'd like to hear your opinions on the topic.

Please bear in mind that I know most PC users will instantly cry out saying that Mac is just a bunch of hype and that in fact Macs are horrible and way overprised. I'd have said the same thing a few weeks ago 9still agree that it is too expensive) but I realize that they do serve their purposes. So if you plan on saying that Macs are horrible (or that they are great) I'd apreciate some reasons or experiences that make you say so.

Thank you all very much once again, and please add your computer info, if you haven't done so already.

Stefan

giles · « **Reply #75 on:** February 05, 2005, 05:20:17 pm »

Quote

Sorry, I am not aware of this mouse issue? I know that the mouse that comes with the Mac isn't very good (same things goes with anything you get from dell) but you can still attach any USB mouse to a Mac and it would work fine, right?

Yes. Typical two button+wheel USB mice work without problems. Most Mac software even seems to have sensible menus on the right button.

Giles

DaveLon · « **Reply #76 on:** February 06, 2005, 10:37:33 am »

Quote

Its also very interesting that on a photo related board like this, PC users still significantly outnumber Mac users. That probably would not have been the case 5 years ago.

Yes that is interesting. But since PCs running Windows are supposed to have almost 95% of the market...

etmpasadena · « **Reply #77 on:** February 07, 2005, 05:19:08 pm »

>Motherboard = MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
CPU = AMD Athlon 64 (939) FX53 2.4GHz
Ram = 4GB (OCZ PC3200 Perf. DC - 2x1024mb x2)
Operating System = Windows XP Pro

4 SATA ports on motherboard:
Hard Drive = SATA Western Digital 120 GB (boot drive)
Hard Drive = SATA Western Digital 250 GB (current year photo files & PS scratch drive)
CD/DVD Rom = SATA Plextor PX-712SA/SW 12x DVD+RW<

Well, with an old G4 Tower I can place four hard drives in the case if I like. This is standard. But instead I daisy chain 500GB Lacie Firewire 800 drives together.

>I run two monitors (2 x Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 20” CRT), each with it’s own card (both use same driver):
AGP Video Card = MSI/nVidia GeForceFX5200 128MB
PCI Video Card = MSI/nVidia GeForceFX5500 128MB<

Mac Pro towers have always allowed monitor spanning, which is the attachment of two monitors to expand your virtual desktop. This has been standard for years.

Power Supply = Antec Neopower 480W ATX2.0 PCI-E
CPU Cooling = Thermalright XP-90 Heatsink
Case = GlobalWin YCC-61F1 Full-Tower

ps: MAC is a religion. If you believe, you believe. I don't.

Work smarter, not harder

gymell · « **Reply #78 on:** February 09, 2005, 12:23:13 pm »

Hi all, I'm new here and will introduce myself by way of posting in this topic. I'm a computer programmer and have been building my own PCs since 1992 when I got my first 286 with a whopping 1MB of RAM. I've always used AMD processors and have been happy with them. Right now I run Windows 2000 and Redhat Linux at home.

Being a programmer, I've worked in environments where I had to deal with multiple operating systems and platforms on a regular basis and haven't found switching back and forth to be a problem.

Additionally, I spent a long time as a music major (undergrad and graduate degrees), where the Mac is the platform of choice for music software. I believe that was true then because there were simply more tools available, but suspect it's now simply because that's what people have become accustomed to over time. Mac definitely had a head start in the creative arts area, but PCs have caught up. I run a package called Finale which has long been considered the preeminent music notation tool and there are no issues running it under Windows.

Perhaps in the past there were specific reasons why one platform would be advantageous over another for certain types of applications, but these days I think it boils down to personal preference.

Those of you who are looking for an OS that never crashes should check out Linux. Unfortunately there aren't as many popular applications available for it. I use it at work for my desktop development environment with great success. At home, though, I run Windows 2000 specifically for music and digital applications.

Stef_T · « **Reply #79 on:** February 09, 2005, 06:07:43 pm »

llama,

I have looked on anandtech several times to show some head to head benchmark of computers in regards to PS and similar tasks. I have even asked them to make some if they could. To date I haven't seen anything that compares any processors or RAM in regards to photo editing.

Stefan

Poll

What Computer do you use?

Author Topic: What Computer do you use? (Read 31337 times)