Mac vs. PC and no, this is not a poll, kinda

[scrambledeggs]

Mac Hardware is the only hardware that can stably run Mac OSX for an extended time.

That is completely untrue... at least in a broad sense. In a narrow sense, with a stock kernel, you are correct. With a properly modified kernel... well, lets just say I've had an AMD/NVIDIA machine running Snow Leopard in my LAN party room for over two years now with nary a hiccup.

Oops I totally forgot to add that part, I wrote most of it and then was going to edit. It all falls back to the fact that out of the box for a noobish computer user a Mac will run easily. I guess thats what I was trying to say.

 

[infohippie]

Macs are okay, I just dislike OSX because it's too shiny and tries to hide away all the plumbing of the system. I also don't like the idea of paying so much money for the same hardware I could get for far less cost if it was for a PC.

 

[Bearjing]

Yep, US. And thank you for providing that link even though you didn't have to. Thanks a ton.

And just to put this information on the table, I have a friend who suggests I build my computer from scratch, but I'll defiantly check out the link.

You will usually save a few hundred bucks that way. I would suggest the website www.newegg.com

It isnt always the cheapest, but it will be close, it's cheapest shipping option will still get to your house in 2-3 days and they have best customer service I have ever seen.

 

[Shirokurou]

I've had a PC since wa-a-ay back, so I just never saw a reason to change ships.
Not easily influenced by fashion either.

 

[RastaBadger]

*cough* Macs are PCs what you mean is a Windows PC *cough*
Sorry about that.
Any way I think that both Windows and Macs (and linux) are equal but they do some things better and some things worse. Windows does gaming much better so I use that.

 

[Zac Smith]

For music and film production, Mac
everything else there's MasterCard (Erm...I mean PC's)

Pretty much how it is for me. Did media and film studies at school and macs are so much easier to use for editing

 

[Dys]

I don't do Apple.
Mac OS has some benefets over windows 7, and generally has better compatibility than debian based linux distros, but from my experience is inferior to both.

Most linux distros have a similar look and feel to Mac OS, but in general linux is prettier (compiz is rather nice), more stable and is every actually more capable of performing tasks given a level of know how (or the ability to consult google)-especially once WINE is running and configured.

Windows is a different visual style, and at this point has ripped off most of the best visual features of Mac OS without changing too much. While windows is often criticized for it's recycled code and general lack of innovation, it has by far the best application support and, of late, seems to be pushing graphics rendering further through directX. It is generally stable (assuming the system was put together with someone with some basic knowledge)-my windows 7 laptop crashes far less frequently than my girlfriends Mac book.

The apple hardware supplied by Apple is ungodly expensive compared to all but the most ridiculous OEMs and, worse still, feels cheap. A friend of mine bought a macbook pro around the same time as I bought my laptop, and her keyboard is worn to shit and generally feels horrible whereas mine still has its nice finish (I'd estimate, as well, that my keyboard gets more of a workout as I'm constantly using my laptop, however she somewhat lives on facebook so usage is probably fairly even). Another friend, who is more on the tech savvy side, has a habit of constantly upgrading to the latest 17" macbook pro, and it's nothing short of disgusting how many problems he's had with them (hard disks and wireless cards dying). The hardware is often well underspecced for the price range, which given the system demands of Mac OS are far less is reasonable, however macbooks have no cooling and, frankly, abysmally small HDDs. For the cost of the machines I'd almost be expecting HDDs that small to be solid state...

Then there's the way apple treats their customers. They weld the CPU to the motherboard on their desktops (so a big fuck you to anyone who would rather upgrade a cpu than their whole damn machine), they manufacture their laptops so a special tool is needed to open them (forcing users to go to the mac store and have them install new HDDs/RAM) and they make shitty, useless 'mini' DVI/HDMI ports so you need to buy and carry around a shitty cable to plug your laptop into a screen.

So yeah, I feel that Apple are insulting with how they treat their customers. My amazing (and painfully obvious) hatred of Apple was born when I was researching what computer to buy, and came to fully understand just how controlling and overpriced they are.

With multitouch gestures, I meant. Not clicking on other tabs or other stuff. Two finger swipes left and right switch between tabs, three fingers up and down raises and lowers volume, etc. Mainly this is bred from laziness, as I now can do most of my internet browsing with only minimal mouse movements.

Multitouch gestures are supported by most modern synaptics touchpads. While it is true that Mac OS and Apple hardware were the first to do this, it's been fairly common in all systems for some time.

 

[Jimbo1212]

Answer

General day-to-day : PC
Gaming : PC

Server/specific industry software : Mac


It is that simple.

 

[OutofMind634]

Shouldn't flame bait, vs threads like this be locked and forgotten about?

They serve no real purpose, I thought this website was better than this, eh?

I might have missed the point of this thread, if so, I apologize. Other than that, we are supposed to post why PC is better than Mac, eh?

sigh

Just because I feel a need to clear this up, to be honest this is sorta the case. I've always been told Macs are superior for no reason at all so I decided to use the forum to ask what others had to say on the subject. I'm sorry if you think this thread is below this website but because of all the comments I've learned alot. I didn't want to start any flame war, just hear other's opinions on the subject and see what could be gained from the conversation.

EDIT: And to be fair, I could have chosen a more fitting title for the thread.

 

[senobit]

I love my Mac, why because it's Mac. No other reason, any Mac user will (probably) agree with me that a Mac... It just feels right. I still use windows for gaming, but other than that I do everything with my Overpowered 12 Core rendering beast of a Mac.

That makes about as much sense as a religious fanatic.
You can set up rocketdock to make your PC look like a Mac. Macs are more expensive and less powerful and compatible than a PC.
Unless you use terminal, there is no need for a Mac. Can you go into further detail about why it "feels right"? What does that exactly mean? The build quality? The lack of functions?

Why do we like anything? Personal preferences, what I like you might not like and what you like I might not like. To me a Mac feels right and to you a PC feels right, wether that's because of Quality or whatever doesn't even really matter.

I asked you why that is your personal preference. Why is that hard to answer?
I never said a PC feels right. I have no need for terminal and prefer compatibility, power and value for money over fashion, therefore I prefer PC's over Macs.
Your turn to explain yourself.

We can argue all day about how PC is more bang for the buck and better in a lot of ways (which I can easily admit). Just like I love my dog, if I would be asked to turn it in for a more healthy dog with a family tree of epicness. I wouldn't do it I have grown attached to it and love it for what it is.

So you are just going to refuse to state why you prefer Macs over PCs?
You tend to love a pet. If you love your Mac, that shows a disturbing attachment to an item that is actually worthy of seeing a shrink over.

I already stated why and the dog was an example you could replace that with anything you like. I will state it one more time, I like a Mac because IT FEELS RIGHT. I can admit that a PC is 'better' just not to me.

You love an animal.
You do not love inanimate objects.
Your example is useless as a Mac is an inanimate object. I guess you do not know why it feels right? Does that not concern you that you do not know why you feel a certain way about a product? It feels right because it will be doing X, Y and Z differently to anything else you have handled. Are you not going to say what X, Y and Z are?

I don't get why you have such issue with someone just prefering one thing over another, an O/S is just a way to interact with your computer, so if you don't have any special hard or software requirments, it just comes down to what interface your most comfortable with.

 

[MercurySteam]

I love my Mac, why because it's Mac. No other reason, any Mac user will (probably) agree with me that a Mac... It just feels right. I still use windows for gaming, but other than that I do everything with my Overpowered 12 Core rendering beast of a Mac. (Very soon 16 Core)

The 1st gen Intel i7s HAVE a max of 6 cores with 12 threads. Even with Hyperthreading, people usually only get 10 virtual cores so I don't now how you got 12 cores or how you plan to add more.

Oh, most important, the card, its about 1/3 of the PC when it comes to games, maybe more, ATI seem to be the kids on the block these days, but as long as you can afford the card, it has Direct X 11 and DDR5, oh and 1GB of VRAM (maybe 1.5GB minimum, not sure), you should be alright.

ATI cards are pretty good and people tend to find that CrossFire/CrossFireX performs better than SLI, plus they perform better at higher resolutions and anti-aliasing levels and are usually cheaper. Though Nvidia has CUDA and PhysX which is absolutely stunning:


The standard memory nowadays is usually 1GB GDDR5. Nvidia goes up to 3GB while ATI goes all the way up to 4GB.

 

[AtillaBosma]

I have VMWare patched so I can go on the Mac OS while I'm on Windows 7.
Therefor I don't have to reply to this thread.

 

[Connor Mulhern]

I feel like you get more gaming power for your money with a PC. I bought a $800 laptop, can play almost any modern game on medium. If I had to buy a mac for the same specs, it would cost me more, maybe $400. That's why I am a PC user. Although in the far off future, if I am rich and want a very quality OS, and most games work for both, I am going with mac and getting dual boot to play old games

 

[Henkie36]

The main reson I don't like Mac is because they are simply too expensive. You can buy a pc with the same insides for 500 euro less then a Mac. That is including the replacement of the worst, most RSI inducing mouse ever designed by mankind and the stupidest keyboard made yet, by a Roccat Kone gaming mouse and G11 keyboard.

 

[Arehexes]

I love my Mac, why because it's Mac. No other reason, any Mac user will (probably) agree with me that a Mac... It just feels right. I still use windows for gaming, but other than that I do everything with my Overpowered 12 Core rendering beast of a Mac.

That makes about as much sense as a religious fanatic.
You can set up rocketdock to make your PC look like a Mac. Macs are more expensive and less powerful and compatible than a PC.
Unless you use terminal, there is no need for a Mac. Can you go into further detail about why it "feels right"? What does that exactly mean? The build quality? The lack of functions?

Why do we like anything? Personal preferences, what I like you might not like and what you like I might not like. To me a Mac feels right and to you a PC feels right, wether that's because of Quality or whatever doesn't even really matter.

I asked you why that is your personal preference. Why is that hard to answer?
I never said a PC feels right. I have no need for terminal and prefer compatibility, power and value for money over fashion, therefore I prefer PC's over Macs.
Your turn to explain yourself.

We can argue all day about how PC is more bang for the buck and better in a lot of ways (which I can easily admit). Just like I love my dog, if I would be asked to turn it in for a more healthy dog with a family tree of epicness. I wouldn't do it I have grown attached to it and love it for what it is.

1)He isn't trying to argue with you about why one is better then the other

2)He asked a reasonable question, why do you prefer your Mac over PC?

3)The fact you can say that loving your dog unconditionally is the same as loving a computer is really really creepy dude.

 

[00slash00]

What do you prefer and why?

And a better question:

Why do many people consider that Macs suck and PCs are superior?

i have always been a pc. originally just because thats what my parents use. however, once it was time for me to get my own computer i chose pc for the same reason youre switching, i like games. the reason i dont like macs is that they are over priced and you cant play most games on them. i know you can play games using boot camp but i have no reason to not just buy a pc instead. aside from coming in a pretty box, macs dont do anything my pc cant do, for less price. i know a lot of people say they like macs because they're more user friendly. well not for me. ive been using a windows pc all my life so i cant figure out how to do a damn thing on a mac computer

sorry i got kinda ranty, hopefully it didnt seem like i was attacking you or anything. most of my friends are just mac snobs so ive grown used to having to be on the offensive

 

[bakan]

I use a PC with Windows 7 and Linux, there is nothing Mac could provide which I can't do on my PC.
Except that I would have to pay too much for what I would get - maybe it's the price for the membership in the 'Apple-religion' (/joke)

 

[OutofMind634]

Shouldn't flame bait, vs threads like this be locked and forgotten about?

They serve no real purpose, I thought this website was better than this, eh?

I might have missed the point of this thread, if so, I apologize. Other than that, we are supposed to post why PC is better than Mac, eh?

sigh

To be honest this is sorta the case. I've always been told Macs are superior for no reason at all so I decided to use the forum to ask what others had to say on the subject. I'm sorry if you think this thread is below this website but because of all the comments I've learned alot. I didn't want to start any flame war, just hear other's opinions on the subject and see what could be gained from the conversation.

Who are these people who always told you Macs are superior? What did they say to explain this? Sure, there are reasons one thing can be superior to another if given a proper context. I just figure anyone who has frequented any type of forum had already heard this debate a billion times already.

Also.... not to be a jerk.... but I will be anyways.... please forgive me.... 'alot' is not a word.

: P

This is a funny link. I think so at least: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Cheers!

See. I'm learning a lot.

Sorry. I had to go for it.

 

[Watcheroftrends]

Mac's are more expensive than PC's relative to what hardware you'll get for your buck. This alone should make it impossible for Mac's to be on the market. There's absolutely no difference in the function of either computer - cosmetics and marketing (gotta be cool to own a Mac) are all that separates them...

Actually, Mac's restrict you in terms of usable software. Oh, and you need to buy an entire new computer to upgrade them. Compatibility is also limited on Mac computers. Also, anyone who's knowledgeable with Windows would find Mac OS much more clunky to work with when it comes to being a "power user".

I was going to say that Mac's are for people who are less knowledgeable with computers, but the reality is that neither is really more difficult to use for basic functionality. It's all a mind game - people associate the better looking interface with the computer somehow being more inviting and easier to use, when the actual actions you take are really little different from using a PC.

There is no reason to have a Mac. None.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Macs are PCs, mind blown!
Then again modern day PCs aren't "true" PCs, good old things like the Commadore' and Amiga' were.

Edit: Also Macs often have to havbe better hardware to run the same type of game at the same settings http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=26242

PC Requirements

PC Minimum System Requirements*:

Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c
2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor
128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better
12 GB available HD space
1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)
DVD-ROM drive
Broadband Internet connection
1024X720 minimum display resolution

PC Recommended Specifications:

Windows Vista®/Windows® 7
Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
2 GB RAM
512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better

*Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.
Mac Requirements

Mac Minimum System Requirements:

Mac® OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
Intel® Processor
NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT or ATI Radeon® X1600 or better
12 GB available HD space
2 GB Ram
DVD-ROM drive
Broadband Internet connection
1024X720 minimum display resolution

Mac Recommended Specifications:

Mac® OS X 10.6.5 or newer
Intel® Core 2 Duo processor
4 GB system RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT or ATI Radeon® HD 4670 or better