why are macs so goddam expensive???

matt303 · Post by **matt303** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:20 pm 0

Xav wrote: 2) I'd like to have a more PC-like keyboard layout. I have to move between my laptop and a PC far more than I have to move between my laptop and a Mac, so playing hunt-and-peck for some of the keys gets painful. And as for hiding the # key like that....

Considering that I've been using PCs for donkeys years and my Mac for about 6 months it's surprising how much I like the US layout of my Apple Pro keyboard over UK keyboards. Maybe it's my small hands but the placement of a few keys just feels nicer. The use of the Apple key instead of ctrl really feels better for me too, might have to try a day at work with the apple keyboard on my PC (shame I'll still have to use ctrl). Must admit the # key is a mess, why they don't print it on the key like the â‚¬ symbol I don't know.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:28 pm 0

Because happiness isn't free. Some of us simply drive expensive cars (though that isn't a totally accurate analogy, but it is close).

I hate to bang on about it, but your analogy is like somone buying a brand-new Ferrari.... with a top speed of 38MPH.

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:57 pm 0

Bog wrote:I hate to bang on about it, but your analogy is like somone buying a brand-new Ferrari.... with a top speed of 38MPH.

But the Mac is faster ! The current G5s with dual 64 bit processors at speeds of up to 2.5GHz, FSB at up to 10GB per processor, up to 8GB of RAM, SATA and AGP 8x outperforms any mainstream PC platform available today. Combine it with an OS designed to take full advantage of the hardware, in particular the two processors, and you have a very powerful platform.

skab · Post by **skab** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:58 pm 0

Bog wrote:I hate to bang on about it, but your analogy is like somone buying a brand-new Ferrari.... with a top speed of 38MPH.

Big cars are all throttled nowadays, not that the top speed acually matters in countries with a speed limit.

But if I had to drive all day I'd rather drive a luxorious and comfy car than a cheap tin box, regardless of the top speed.

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:03 pm 0

pogo wrote:
Bog wrote:I hate to bang on about it, but your analogy is like somone buying a brand-new Ferrari.... with a top speed of 38MPH.
But the Mac is faster ! The current G5s with dual 64 bit processors at speeds of up to 2.5GHz, FSB at up to 10GB per processor, up to 8GB of RAM, SATA and AGP 8x outperforms any mainstream PC platform available today. Combine it with an OS designed to take full advantage of the hardware, in particular the two processors, and you have a very powerful platform.

Nah a dual Opteron or dual Xeon IS faster. That's not to say that the
G5 is slow, it's not, but a dual Opteron is currently king of the hill.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:07 pm 0

Nah a dual Opteron or dual Xeon IS faster.

And, to hammer the point with a big, steel-headed sledge, cheaper.

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:11 pm 0

Bog wrote:
Nah a dual Opteron or dual Xeon IS faster.

And, to hammer the point with a big, steel-headed sledge, cheaper.

They are somewhat cheaper comparing low-end to low-end G5,
at the high-end the Mac probably has it , particularly if you buy
a system rather than assemble it yourself, such as the IBM
Intellistation A Series.

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:00 pm 0

Kemper_Boyd wrote:Nah a dual Opteron or dual Xeon IS faster. That's not to say that the G5 is slow, it's not, but a dual Opteron is currently king of the hill.

By what measure ? Apple's tests with different productivity apps have been verified by others. The Virginia tech G5 supercomputer beats Opteron and Xeon based supercomputers with more or faster processors (and which cost a lot more).

The only thing people have been quoting as faster is SPEC, but these are vendor run tests typically manipulated by companies, especially by processor vendors, to show their wares in the best possible light. And even here the results vary wildly with different results and so winners depending who does the test. About what you'd expect with benchmarks that have little to do with the real world.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:12 pm 0

By what measure ?

LightWave 7.5c, using the benchmark scenes "Radiosity_Reflective_things.lws", "raytrace.lws" and "tracer-no-radiosity.lws"

YMMV, of course.

Post by **Snakey** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:18 pm 0

skab wrote:Ah, the CISC vs. RISC myth. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no CISC anymore. Even your x86 CPUs are now RISC inside. They interpret the CISC instructions and translate them into microcode, and that's the code that's put into those pipelines.

Partially. But a large chunk of the instruction set doesn't work that way. For example you can still say MOV register,immediate-32bit-value in one instruction, one cycle, one microcode. You can't on any pure RISC system I know of, including PPC. I know how this thing works, and my point still stands

The idea that x86 have RISC-like cores is a myth. They use the same techniques but the cores of x86 CPUs require a great deal more hardware to deal with the complexities of the original instruction set and architecture.

Just to add some fuel to the fire of the people who still aren't convinced...

http://homepage.mac.com/nopea1/benchmark/

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:28 pm 0

pogo wrote: Apple's tests with different productivity apps have been verified by others.

There's a distinct lack of dual Opterons in those benchmarks,
and last time round Apple couldn't find a better compiler for x86
than gcc.

pogo wrote: The Virginia tech G5 supercomputer
beats Opteron and Xeon based supercomputers with more or faster processors (and which cost a lot more).

Ah that'll be the G5 super that was dismantled whilst they wait on the
Xserve G5 upgrade. You may like to study the number of new Xeon,
Opteron and Itanium supers in the Top 500. I guess all the people
who specced/designed them fell for evil Intel marketing tricks, right?

pogo wrote: The only thing people have been quoting as faster is SPEC, but these are vendor run tests typically manipulated by companies, especially by processor vendors, to show their wares in the best possible light. And even here the results vary wildly with different results and so winners depending who does the test. About what you'd expect with benchmarks that have little to do with the real world.

Sorry but goto somewhere like arstechnica.com and look at all
the endless arguing about benchmarks there. There are plenty
of cases where the PowerMac G5 gets soundly beaten. I can tell
if someone is serious about benchmarking by the way the talk
about SPEC, if they dismiss it generally it means they aren't serious.
All the CPU designers take SPEC seriously, so do all the compiler
writers, all the system people and OS people too. I fucking 100%
guarantee you that if Apple ever come out on top it'll be their new
favourite benchmark.

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:35 pm 0

Bog wrote:
By what measure ?
LightWave 7.5c, using the benchmark scenes "Radiosity_Reflective_things.lws", "raytrace.lws" and "tracer-no-radiosity.lws"

I think version 8 is the first version optimised for the G5, which will make a world of difference - the G5 runs old code quite handily but it's 64 bittedness and quite different architecture mean you really need to recompile code to take advantage of it. Will be interesting to see what difference it makes when it's released.

Ahchay · Post by **Ahchay** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:35 pm 0

I don't care whether macs are faster than PC's or vice versa. No-one posting in this thread (except for Bog - and his needs are rather specialised

) cares about raw horsepower.

Some (a lot) of you like macs. Great. I'm really happy for you. Truly. But don't try reeling out a bunch of figures in an attempt to 'prove' that macs are better. You can't do that for the very simple reason that macs aren't 'better'. It's a purely subjective thing.

Green is not inherently better than Blue. Tomatoes are not better than Grapes. Gamecube is not better than PS/2. Boys are not better than Girls. And Apple is not better than Microsoft.

Cheers
Chris

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:42 pm 0

Ahchay wrote:Green is not inherently better than Blue. Tomatoes are not better than Grapes. Gamecube is not better than PS/2. Boys are not better than Girls. And Apple is not better than Microsoft.

I beg to differ. Girls are definitely better than boys. They have bumps.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:43 pm 0

I think version 8 is the first version optimised for the G5, which will make a world of difference - the G5 runs old code quite handily but it's 64 bittedness and quite different architecture mean you really need to recompile code to take advantage of it. Will be interesting to see what difference it makes when it's released.

I shall have to organise a re-match, because you see if the G5 is *faster* than an equivalent pile of PCs - or at the very least is sufficiently fast to warrant the price-tag - then I'll start buying Macs. It's as simple as that.

PS: LW8.0 was shipped to pre-orderers as long as 2 months ago. It's been on general release for a couple of weeks.

Ahchay:

You're lovely, you are. *hug*