why are macs so goddam expensive???

Post by **Snakey** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:45 pm 0

pogo wrote: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.

Same could be said for Opteron / Itanium though, couldn't it, hmmm ?

Ahchay wrote: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.

Well said that man

I don't care either, but it does do my head in when people blindly accept apples (obviously rigged) benchmarks and speeches

matt303 · Post by **matt303** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:47 pm 0

Your all wrong, the future is wearable computers:

For her

and for him

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:49 pm 0

I don't care either, but it does do my head in when people blindly accept apples (obviously rigged) benchmarks and speeches

*nods vigorously*

How is it that everyone and his brother knows that PC benchmarks are a load of shite, and to never, ever believe a hardware manufacturer's benchmarks... but Apple would never lie, ooOOoooh, nooo!

*shakes head sadly*

Zealotry. Just Say No, Kids. It's not big - and it's not clever.

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:52 pm 0

Ahchay wrote: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.

Mine were only in response to some fairly provocative claims the other way. But I do agree - I've never bought any of my Macs because they are faster than PCs, and if speed were all that mattered I would not be typing this on a 600MHz G3 iBook.

matt303 · Post by **matt303** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:55 pm 0

Bog wrote:Zealotry. Just Say No, Kids. It's not big - and it's not clever.

Thats not to say don't buy a Mac if you want but please don't ram it down everyones throat, the last thing I want to see is YakYak turn into yet another forum full of people slagging each others computers off.

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:55 pm 0

Bog wrote: *nods vigorously*

How is it that everyone and his brother knows that PC benchmarks are a load of shite, and to never, ever believe a hardware manufacturer's benchmarks... but Apple would never lie, ooOOoooh, nooo!

I say this as a fully paid up Mac fan, Apple are just the worst offender
when it comes to dodgy benchmarks, even MS doesn't stoop as low.
To be honest I wish they'd not bother, it ultimately makes them look
bad when there are lots of positive reasons for going Mac.

Fast enough, shiny shiny, OS X, and hopefully lower prices, should
be more than enough to persuade switchers.

... but the Opteron is faster than the G5.

GeeZa · Post by **GeeZa** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:01 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.

But the keyboard on my Powerbook glows and the lid latch LED pulses when in sleep mode. I therefore argue this laptop is better than say, a Thinkpad.

The arguments about CPUs are dead because CPUs are dead. It's all just about commodity cheapness and Intel look to have won that one. Grid computing means if you're the cheapest you're the fastest. End of story pretty much. I would not buy a dual G5 on the strength of its CPU benchmarks or IBMs fabrication techniques. I'd buy one because it's a desirable complete package, a computer you *want* to use. Apple's G5 performance marketing was a bit of a cock-up and they probably realise that now.

Anyway, the PB's also got precision engineered rounded edges and is a nice cool aluminium colour. And it makes no noise. But seriously, f*ck horsepower, f*ck work, and f*ck Microsoft. Apples are beautiful pieces of machinery with an emphasis on design and aesthetic pleasure. Did you read Jonanthan Ive's in-depth explanation for the design of the G5? Fascinating, a real genius. For fun things, and day-to-day use, I want something that isn't a f**ing beige breeze block and am prepared to shell out a premium for that. When I'm at work, I'm ssh'ing from a bland piece of shit Compaq into bland Linux nodes and using Dell laptops. Boring, cheap, and functional which is *ideal* for the corporate office. I want something at home that makes me realise that computing isn't about Compaq and gives me enjoyment I don't get a work.

Everything that is ugly in the world tends to be man-made, and computers are terrible offenders. Oh how I enjoy these Mac threads.

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:02 pm 0

Bog wrote: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.

from http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html

Edit :

*Testing conducted by Apple in May 2004 using preproduction dual 1.8GHz, 2GHz, and 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 units; all other systems were production units. Benchmark scene = Skull_Head_Newest. For PC systems, cache sizes were:Dell Dimension XPS = 512K L2; Dell Precision 650 = 512K L2 per processor and 2MB L3 per processor; Alienware Aurora = 1MB L2.

Post by **Snakey** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:07 pm 0

Kemper_Boyd wrote:I say this as a fully paid up Mac fan, Apple are just the worst offender
when it comes to dodgy benchmarks, even MS doesn't stoop as low.
To be honest I wish they'd not bother, it ultimately makes them look
bad when there are lots of positive reasons for going Mac.

I agree with that 100%. In fact its not just that, its some of their advertising. A while ago I went to the Apple site and there was a picture of some bloke with the caption "I couldn't do audio. I couldn't do video. I couldn't do ANYTHING with my PC." - that almost made me scream. Yea? Well, fuck off then, you shouldn't be anywhere near a computer

This sort of stuff must put people off, surely? I mean, people who know better and were actually considering Apple...

About the only ads that wind me up as much are the recent AOL ones.

matt303 · Post by **matt303** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:10 pm 0

Talking of horse power feast your eyes on this

Shame XP-Pro only supports two processors

Still I almost want to build another PC just to play with one of these, I also want a dual G5 so I guess I'm just confused

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:11 pm 0

pogo wrote: from http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html

Okay lets accept that particular Lightwave benchmark.

Two things though. 1) Where's the dual Opteron?

2) Individual render benchmarks can vary wildly due
to render options and scene content. To me it looks like
Apple are cherry picking. A fairer test would be a set
of benchmarks which stress all of Lightwave's capabilities.
Win that and Apple could rightly claim to have the best
platform for Lightwave.

Post by **Snakey** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:13 pm 0

matt303 wrote:Talking of horse power feast your eyes on this

Holy fuck!

matt303 wrote:Still I almost want to build another PC just to play with one of these, I also want a dual G5 so I guess I'm just confused

Far from it, Sir. Everyone else is

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:15 pm 0

matt303 wrote: Still I almost want to build another PC just to play with one of these, I also want a dual G5 so I guess I'm just confused

Exactly! All right thinking geeks should desire a quad Opteron, even if
it does lack an AGP slot, AND a dual G5. Throw in a dual Xeon, plus
a maxed out IBM XSeries, an HP Itanium2 workstation, I'll have an
SGI Tezro, a Sun Blade 2500... err I'll stop now.

Bog · Post by **Bog** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:46 pm 0

*rubs bridge of nose with fingers*

Pogo, they don't mention which scene. Clock for clock, a Palomino-core Athlon is faster to render in LightWave than any equivalent clock speed Pentium chip - except in scenes using raytraced refraction, when the Athlon dogs out and the Pentium storms ahead. Without knowing the scene, the processes and options used, etc etc etc, that benchmark isn't worth the pixels it's displayed on.

I can sit here and come up with graphs showing the G5 kicking a PCs butt all day long, if I only use certain options. I can do exactly the opposite, as well. However, having sat my laptop next to a dual G5 and kicked it's arse from here to Basingstoke with the scenes and rendering options that I use day to day... well suffice it to say, I will pass judgement in my own fuckin' court.

And on that topic - what the fuck possessed you to post Apple-hosted benchmarks when people have just being saying "Hardware manufacturers diddle their benchmarks"? Good Gh0d, man, read the thread!

<edit> Missed out me

pogo · Post by **pogo** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:03 pm 0

The scene's "Skull_Head_Newest" - I quoted the notes from the page to include it.

Bog wrote:And on that topic - what the fuck possessed you to post Apple-hosted benchmarks when people have just being saying "Hardware manufacturers diddle their benchmarks"? Good Gh0d, man, read the thread!

It's synthetic benchmarks like SPEC they diddle - Apple or whoever gets the source, compiles them using whatever non-standard compiler, libs etc. then runs with some special version of the OS that no-one uses, then publishes the figures with little or no background info.

It's worse because you can't download the SPEC benchmarks to check them yourself, unless you're willing to pay SPEC's high (for software you'll only once) fees. And the benchmarks, 'SPEC2000' haven't been updated in four years. Performance apps like Lightwave and Photoshop need to be rewritten for each new processor version, typically annually, making SPEC four generations out of date. So like you I prefer application benchmarks as guides.