You know I have never been a mac fan but I will put credit were its due... mac's have always been faster in video editing, but in the last few years pc's are picking up the pace and slowly gaining ground on the mac in that area. For that agruement, the well known fact is that Star Wars Episode 3 special effects are made on an AMD Althon 64's.

The PC for all its faults will beat a mac with the right OS, for example Linux a very powerful OS but has very little in the terms of programs. Windows... its Windows, but for all of its issues, I dont know of program that you cant find for the PC. Mac, your limited by the number of programs and some programs dont work on an updated OS.

So if you like Mac's more power to you.

I think Brian Stewart's post really nails things down. I have worked with computers since the days of punch cards on mainframes. I am a psychologist/statistician and now a university bean counter but I build my own PC's and used to know how to write simple programs. For three years, I worked as the dean of a school of communications and computer science. The communication faculty were almost all MAC folks and they knew very little to absolutely nothing about computers. If they could plug in an LCD projector, they were ahead of the curve. A few of them (who were doing video editing -- and these are the folks who were teaching video) knew a little about technology but mostly they only knew how to use very specific programs.

The computer science folks used mainly Intel based boxes but were running Linux. They would use Windows when they had to and a few had MACS. Surprising, the computer scientists were not very technically sophisticated (they could write proofs demonstrating that an algorithm would produce the correct result but knew very little about CPU's, RAM, etc.). I was also surprised that almost none of the computer science folks knew about reverse Polish notation (RPN) or other things that I could not live without (at least when I taught).

The other folks on campus who like MACS are technical writers (English faculty), some chemists (esp. for chemometrics), music faculty, art faculty, and a few old timers who started with Apples and who are never going to switch to a PC.

If our IT department had its way they would ban MACS because no one writes software to support the functions used to interface with our "mainframe" which really isn't a mainframe as far as I can tell (even though we call it a mainframe) and consequently those units cannot access a number of legacy systems.

I was forced to use a MAC for a couple of years (c. 1998 machine) and came close to throwing it out the real window. Neither I nor the IT Mac specialists could ever stop it from freezing up, locking down, and generally causing me to do the same work twice. Maybe it sensed my disdain. I do wish I had purchased some Apple stock a year ago!

I also would like to point out that I am not a big fan of Microsoft or Gates. XP has been generally stable but ME was a disaster. Except for games and graphics, I prefer a DOS type environment or better yet CPM (nothing like archaic commands where the syntax doesn't follow the rules of English to make you actually read the OS manual).

By the way, I am sure MAX PC will do a real test of the G-5 against INTEL and AMD boxes using consistent benchmarks. I think the last test (about 2 or 3 years ago) showed that the G-4 dual processor box was operating at about 1/2 the speed of the INTEL and AMD machines on almost all applications. In a couple of applications, the MAC was faster. If you don't know anything about computers and don't plan to ever learn anything then a MAC is a better bet and they are sure pretty.

Michael,

My sentiments for the most part are almost parallel to yours. I bought my 25 year old son an Apple for Christmas. It was the 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 E-MAC
256MB DDR333 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive

Having been involved with computers since the mid 70's, I knew that if I built him a screaming PC based machine, he'd have one heck of a machine with lots of software.
He insisted that Apple is superior in design, performance and usability; (Wrong again, son), but said for me not to bother buying a computer if it was a PC.

I relented, realizing that diplomacy is the best part of valor. He is so happy with his little inferior E-Mac, that I'm glad I didn't press the logical issues. BTW his grade school was full of MACs. Apple's greatest strategic move of all time was putting free MACS in schools in the 80's.
On a related subject, the arts and music people in larger cities prefer MACs in their social circles. That's great. That's what makes free enterprise so interesting and fun....Passion!

Keep in mind there are also Windows users who are novices. I've met plenty. I say, "What version of Windows are you running?" They say, "I have a Dell". I say, "I use Macs." They say, "Oh, it's too bad they went out of business." I say, "Yeah, it's too bad."

Or, I meet an expert Windows user. I say, "Yeah, I love my Macs." He says, "Oh, they're good for graphics. but Windows has caught up and surpassed Apples." I say, "Oh. What's your experience with the Mac?" They say, "Well, I used one back in 1996. It crashed a lot." I say, "Really. You owned a Mac and you couldn't stop it from crashing?" They say, "No. They're too expensive. I used it for 15 minutes [or two weeks] in the university computer lab." I say, "Oh, a Mac in a computer lab staffed with Windows experts, huh? They couldn't figure out how to configure it. Strange. I can't believe it" (that's sarcasm guys).

Or, "Oh, you use Apples? I could never do that. They're too expensive and there're no games." I say, "Yeah, like what do you want to play exactly?" "WOW, Unreal Tournie 2004, Doom 3, Splinter Cell, Minesweeper." I say, "Yeah. Stay with Windows. I mean. Wait. That's what I'm playing on my Mac right now." Yes, we can't play Half Life 2 and others. But we have a decent selection.

Do you see how frustrating it can be for a Mac user to talk to anyone else about computing? Lots of misconceptions. Lots.

I prefer my Macs. It's no handicap. Why the strange looks?

Peace.

Doug

I like Macs a little better than PCs for the sole reason that Apple is not inundated with viruses like Windows based machines. Not to mention, that they do drive the music industry on the professional level. As far as games and all that kind of poop Apples where not designed or engineered to have people brag about their 180 FPS super duper spazzy video card that blows everyone else’s card away when they play Doom. When I have played with them when I was young I use to play Leisure Suit Larry on my friend's father's computer. I though it was neat when I was 13 and 14 years old. The other thing that is interesting is that Bill Gates is a large investor in Apple and that is one of the reasons that they have Internet Explorer preinstalled on all of the new OSes. The other thing about the Macs, not that I was a heavy Mac user, but I am not aware of them having a lot of crashing problems that where spread across the user base not just some dysfunctional users settings.

Aie thats the problem too many mac users who dont know PCs and PC users who dont know macs....

The one thing to always remeber is that you should use the machine that makes you the happiest. If your favorite kind of computer is a Texas Instruments TI-99 then let that be your machine.

thumbs up from here....no-one can diss me playing pheonix on my ti-83 plus....

i would just have to say that 2 of the only reasons that pc beets mac is that is has way more software for it, mainly games. and you can replace parts alot easier and customize it. costomisation is why the pc is better, and worse.

Sure you can play game with mac but I doubt the performance will be equal to PC. You need a
good dual G5 2.5Ghz to play DOOM3 with decent fps (40fps?), but even that it is still way to slow as
compared to high end PC. Mac always claimed that a G4 is superior than P4 3.06 HT, but you will sick seeing a G4 running DOOM3 (and P4 3.06HT shine when running game). Whether you like it or not, in gaming Athlon64 first, Intel then come to G5. It all come down to the code optimization and developer
just won't speed too much resources on Mac platform. Go to apple-x to check it out!

yeh have you seen the 6800 ultra ade specifically for macs? its crazy the things like 50 cm long....makes me wonde if you have to buy a new g5 front panel t accomodate the gfx card's extra length:p

mac mini comes with 256mb ddr333 if you upgrade to 512mb it costs as much as a stick of 512 ddr400 from corsair...ok fair enough...but then if you upgrade to 1 gig? it would be 3 times as cheap to sell the sxisting stick of 256 and put in a stick of ddr333 1 gig in yourself :p and were talking about normal 184pin dims here!

I just want to point out that the folks who could not fix my MAC were not Windows people. They were MAC techs with many years of experience (maybe they were not any good but they were experienced). To be fair, I must admit that some the IT staff don't seem to know much about WIN boxes either.

you know how apple is, they are not good with numbers, they just know how to look good. this is, of course, if you dont look behind what they are doing to look good.

Chen Hui: I wouldn't claim that Macs equal Win PCs as game machines. We don't have the huge game library. And performance, especially on the newest games, is not equal to PCs. What I was saying was that I have a decent selection of today's top games, and I can enjoy my Mac too.

As for Doom . . . On the Mac, my dual 1.8 G5 with a Radeon 9800 would be a decent Doom 3 machine. With an X800 it would be better. My Power Mac is hardly top-of-the-line. By the way, top of the line is dual-2.7. Not 2.5. And preliminary results with the newest operating system and Doom 3 suggest significant improvement (in the 30-40% area).

And I hope no one leaves a message that says, "You have to pay $129 for a minor point release. How pathetic!!?!" Sorry. That's ignorant. I'd gladly pay $100 (at Amazon) for a significant overhaul of the os. There are real improvements from the kernel on up. Actually, I paid $70 educational price. That's even better. And, yes, 10.4 is amazing.

And thermalfreak: Where do you get your information? The 6800 is a monster. It fits lengthwise in the Power Macs just fine. The problem is that its huge heat sink and fan block a PCI slot. That's why I'd pick ATI's X800. Still, the Mac's 6800 will drive _two_ 30" Apple monitors at 2550x19whatever. The X800 will only drive one.

Doug

Doug, thanks for the input. When I saw that review, their were refering to dual G5 2.5GHz. Apple just released dual G5 2.7GHz a couple days ago.

I like OSX, for the nice looking Aqua interface. My friend has an apple and I always play around with it. I will be getting an ibook as soon as graduated. However, I will still kept my Athlon64 as primary machine, which I had DIY it from scratch.

PC modding to some people, is just as fun as iLife in apple.

Macs suck, tell me one good thing. There latest chip cant even beat a 3400. Yes thats a fact i have looked it up. also there are about 50 times more programs for editing stuff. So what if mac can give higher performance for top of the line movies. When was the last time you made a Star Wars movie lol

Though the only thing i do like about mac is its control over whats made. Like its all in one spot and they have it. You can go to their store and its all their. If u want a lamp for ur laptop its there. Not like pc were either its linux or windows or whatever and windows doesnt control it. Though they influsince it its not there market directly, only indirectly

Well thats asuming you got a hard time finding a store with evrything....here theres one building and anything thats PC related youll find it there.....6 floors of PC goodness....take that apple store.....(its doing pretty badly in singapore....ipod...thats the ONLY thing thats successul in singapore really....and the shuffle cuz more wannabes are joining the i revolution :p

the only advantage i see is that yeah....almost everything is in one place....though ive never heard of a usb lamp that worked depending on if you had linus or windows installed

I was not impressed by apple, their browser didnt even take up the whole monitor screen and it was not as easy. And yeah it took forever to load. I would not want one. After all, hypertransport was developed at AMD and you can get higher than 1.25 and the soi process that IBM uses was AMD involved too, so why the hell pay thousands more? What counts is what people will notice not the numbers and then look at would it be worth it to spend that much more for the increase? And yeah, just liike statistics, people lie with statistics and they lie with benchmarks the exact way by skewing the numbers or the hardware and software. I saw a benchmark that listed the hardware (i forgot what site) the amd athlon64 had ddr400ram and the pentium 4e had ddr2533 ram and amd only lost as a whole by like 1% and won on some marks. wow, i thought to myself, that is pretty good for amd to only lose by 1% when they have ddr1 ram against ddr2 and as well 133mhz slower!!!! for 1 percent lol.

AMD will not benefit from DDR2 simply because DDR2 has higher latency than DDR. Because of Athlon64's unique architecture i.e. the interated memory controller, it will benefit most from low latency RAM such as TCCD and BH5, rather than the bandwidth which DDR2 offered. Traditionally (G5, intel, Athlon XP) the FSB is used to transfer data from memory and IO to the CPU, it is however, does not apply to Athlon64. Athlon64 has it dedicated memory bus to tranfer data from memory to CPU. This speed of this bus is depend on the CPU clock. Hypertransport bus (HTT) is the bus in which the CPU used to communicate with others devices i.e. HDD, network, PCIe etc. Clearly HTT does not link to memory or whatsoever. It is true that HTT may run at very high speed i.e. 1GHz, but is real world application, this bus will never be saturated. Benchmarking has shown that a 600Hz is more than adequate for most application, unless for high performance SCSI.