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PCs CAN be faster if you build your own and to a lot of research on what better then what, and they have more programs.
I personalluy use pcs and happy of it ecause i find that everything for apple costs money and on pcs you can have a 100% free system! (though for a starting user i recommend windows)
goto www.tomshardware.com fro banchmarks.
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"PCs have more programs."
What a load of junk. I'm so TIRED of ignorant users making this argument. (Not to call you out, Josh, but you just happened to be the person posting at the time. Nothing personal, at any rate.)
PCs have more games. Period. Anything that *matters* can be had on either platform, and in most cases, the Mac version is substantially better.
Apple has even begun addressing this issue themselves:
http://www.apple.com/myths/
As someone recently wrote - I forget who it was, and this is a rough paraphrase - "It doesn't matter if there are 80 million applications for Windoze if all but 1000 of them suck." My general experience on both platforms is that Mac shareware is typically far superior to PC shareware, and the reason there isn't any Mac software in the $5 bargain bin at CompUSA is because no company would write Mac software as crappy as the $5 "commercial" PC software in that bin.
There *is* one area besides gaming where PCs have a definite "advantage": there are (depending on who's counting, and how) anywhere from 80 to 800 viruses on the PC for every one on the Mac. Sophos (a major PC antivirus software publisher) now claims to protect against somewhere near 80,000 pieces of malicious code. There might be 1,000 viruses on the Mac if you count every macro virus, but if not, there are fewer than 100.
OK, now to address Josh's particular points:
While building your own PC is certainly a good idea - and if I were going to be buying a new PC, that's what I'd do - Linux or *BSD is HARDLY the system I'd choose to set up if I were a reasonably new computer user. Unix and associated variants are operating systems for people with too much time on their hands.
Windoze is so full of security holes you might as well not even THINK about broadband unless you also buy a firewall and rigorously maintain your system with the latest updates.
The Mac OS has none of the above problems. It is, to paraphrase several industry pundits, "Unix done right." The classic Mac OS (9.x and earlier) is similarly well-done, though it doesn't have the stability of BSD Unix underneath it.
Sure, a PC can be faster for certain tasks *if you can get around all its problems first*. But out of the box, as-configured-from-the-factory, a Mac will be the superior system every time.
p
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Hi
I thought I would add my own 2 cents.
I am a pc user but have alot of exposure to macs at work. I work in the technical support field and I generally find the mac to be much easier for both myself and the customer to troubleshoot.
The mac platform has something that the pc world will never have and that is standardization.
As far as programs go I wonder if the developers out there place more of an emphasis on getting the product to market and recouping their investments. The pc holds the market share as far as software sales go so maybe there is not enough emphasis in some cases put on fine tuning for the mac platform . However, I have heard of several apps leaving Windows eating dust. In particular on some of the newer G4's.
I think a major stumbling block for the Mac was its' high price compared to pc's. However, like most things you generally get what you pay for. The introduction of the imac did allow a larger customer base to buy into a mac solution.
Macs are also less prone to viruses ( not a reason to not have antivirus s/w though ). The problem that plagues the pc in this area is that they do not change the OS architecture in newer releases of the Windows OS. What was a issue in 95 continued with 98, ME and ..... . This makes it easy for virus writers to exploit the OS.
Gee sounds like I should be going out to buy a mac tomorrow. ;).
IMHO if all you do is play games then a pc has it advantages in some areas. If you use your computer for other purposes then a mac will do you well.
One last comment... there is an old saying that still holds true... if you walk into a business that deals with graphics or desktop publishing and there are no macs there then you are best off turning around and walking out the door.
If you read this far thanks for reading my own 2 cents worth.
Dale
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They say that if you want games, buy a PC. You know how many games I play on my PC? One, Diablo II. Ya know why? Because it requires no debugging. Every other game I've ever bought for PC has been an exercise in torment. Patches, downloads. My god, it's terrible.
Pickle really shocked me by being so 'anti-piracy', and I think I understand why now. The main reason I ever use pirated software is because I have so little faith that the programs will work right, I don't want to be stuck paying for a buggy piece of code that most people have the good sense not to pay for. If I find a program that works right that I got pirated, I usually make a concerted effort to buy the next version. An example is Acid Pro. The first time I used this program has been AP2. If I can debug the rest of my PC, which is in a sorry state after a few reinstalls of 98 and XP, I will actually buy AP3. The Acid Pro line has proven itself to be very un-bug ridden...and I know that any crashes I've had with it have had to do with Windows itself, rather than Acid Pro.
I have a general feeling that although there is less software for Mac, most of that simply means that there is little redundancy and there are fewer crappy programs to fall through the cracks and annoy the consumer. Most of the posts about OS X I've listened in on are people just asking how to do something they used to do in OS 9 but can't figure out how to do in X, or from newbies who are trying to apply the 'windows way' to Macs. It feels like you Mac users aren't fighting with your computers or software as much.As for the game argument, the new Unix based OS should bring more developers online...but I think most serious gamers would reduce their frustration factor if they used their computers for creativity and productivity and their Xbox or PS2 for pure gaming. You never have to reboot or get patches for a dedicated console (No, not even for the Xbox, LOL).
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Uhm, i have a friend who says when he plays a few of his Xbox games for a long period of time, he has to restart the system because the performance seems bad, and in order for any other game to run right.
Says he could swear there are memory leaks in some of those games....
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For all the MAC fan's:
If MAC is so good, for which reason do they have only 5 to 10% of the market?
Are the other 90 to 95% customers stupid?
Personally i prefer a system which is compatible with others, maybe with security holes or other problems, than a isolated system that will never be a credible challenger for market. See the Steve Job strategy: He can sold MAC's only with a superb design but not with high tech features.
NB: i work with both systems at home and for professional uses, but finally i have more difficulties with the uncompatibility of MAC systems with their offline technology.
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As for speed, the Winodws box will be
marginally faster in most cases.IE will open in 2.9 seconds on a PC, and
3 seconds on a Mac. Word will open in 2
on a PC and 4 on a Mac.Some things will exaggerate the reverse.
DVD authoring on a Mac is much faster
than a PC. Photoshop users can save 3
hours a work week by using a Mac.That said, the marginal differences in
actual speed are nullified by upkeep time.
A Windows box will need an average of
46 hours of support time per annum.
This is a full work week which will not
happen. The Mac avaerages about 11
hours.Take all this into account (even the lost
seconds), and a Mac is about 34 hour per
year faster.The application arguement above is very
valid. Windows has 100 fold the number
of software titles available for Mac OS, but
99 times out of 100, the app is a high
school project, security's answer to swiss
cheese, or a bloated memory leaker.The Windows security foibles cost
billions annually. I can't begin to address
my displeasure that a new Wintel box
comes preconfigured with every door
open. I'll surmise by saying that a new
Windows installation has an enabled
open port to communcate with
appliances. How many of you have
ethernet enabled intelligent toasters?The two of you that do should have to
enable this protocol yourselves.For those out there arguing about
compatibility, my Mac can handle all
things sent at it, with the notable
exception of .exes. Do you guys in Wintel
land receive a lot of exe attachments that
are NOT virii?If I find something that cannot be done
under the MacOS directly, my Mac runs
the following OSes (I challenge anyone to
top this list on one machine):
Mac OSX
Mac OS9
Linux PPC
Yellowdog Linux
GNU-Darwin
Windows 98 (via Virtual PC)
Windows NT (via Virtual PC)
Windows ME (via Virtual PC)
Windows 2000 (via Virtual PC)
Windows XP (via Virtual PC)
Debian Linux (via Virtual PC)
Mandrake Linux (via Virtual PC)
RedHat Linux (via Virtual PC)
SuSELinux (via Virtual PC)The primary stumbling bllock in wider
Mac acceptance are people like the
previous poster, who perceives a
compatability gap, when there isn't one.Another sheep in the M$ flock....
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Excuse my horrible spelling and
grammer in the above post. I've been up
all night writing code...
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a clear answer cant be said about this but in my opinion macs are by far superior machines. in fact, i use a dell optiplex computer at school (1.6 Ghz, 256Mb ram) and my old PowerMac 7100 (66 Mhz, 56Mb ram) boots faster than that piece of garbage. Also, every 5 minutes the computer freezes or wont start up at all. so if you want quality, dish out the money for a nice mac, you will thank yourself, but if you just want something that will get the job done (although annoyingly) buy a PC, or better yet, build yourself one, it will only cost you a couple hundred dollars.
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to address the original question, "who is faster MAC or PC",
MAC.
a couple of years ago a study was done on which machine got more "work" done. the mac turned out to be 60% faster. we can argue which machine runs a given task quicker, but if you are talking about which machine will get the work done faster, Mac wins hands down.
from my own experience, I'll give you an example. I worked for a school district that had about 5,000 Macs and about 250 PC, we had 1 repair technician for the Macs, and 15 technicians for the PCs. both machines were being used in both the classroom and the office. given the failure rates of the PC's I'll let you decide which machine was more reliable and hence cost more....
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I own both a PC and a Mac Athlon 900 and Dual G4 533's. The Mac will be good as soon as all of their programs are carbonized or cocoa. OS 9.x is horrible. Windows XP pro is nice for me hasn't ever froze on me. In most appz I would use the PC in graphics work I use the mac. Each is faster than the other in their respected categories. If you can afford the Mac then buy it. It's easier to take care of and less buggy because of it's controlled hardware enviroment and apple makes you pay for quality products where as PC manufacturers let you get off cheap with cheap components.
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Is there any place I can get unbias
documentation,
or a web site I could go to get the specs on the
Mac vs Pc. This would be interesting. I've read
comparisons between G4's & Pentium 4's in the
Mac addict mag stating that the G4 was running
70% faster than that of the P3 in photoshop. What
would like to know what my 600mhz iMac would
be equivilent to what model of Pc in terms of
speed.
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There's no such thing as "unbiased
benchmarking."The major industry publications like
MacAddict, Macworld, PC Magazine, and
the like are the closest you're going to get.p
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unbiased opinions? not totally unbiased, but very informed in a lot of cases:
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?q=Y&a=tpc&s=50009562&f=48409524&m=7760969205&p=1
arstechnica forums' thread on benchmarking Macs and PCs in Photoshop 7. Very little flame wars, lots of solid benchmarking. Visit it to find out which platform wins HANDS DOWN...
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There IS no unbiased reporting. I dislike Macs. I like the customizability and *upgradability* of the PC market. Say you want to capitalize on a new technology in the computer world; DDR400 RAM, for instance.
With a PC, you just buy a new motherboard, swap your components in, and you're done.
Try buying JUST a motherboard from Apple. They keep a stranglehold on hardware so they can make as much money from it as possible.
The PC/Mac debate is really an exercise in capitalism. PC's have hundreds of sources of parts, from the motherboard experts of Taiwan to the monitor experts of Japan, and the software experts here in the U.S. When you buy, or BUILD, a PC, you have thousands of CHOICES. Which parts you want, how you want to build it, and what UPGRADE path you'd like to take as software and hardware continue to evolve.
The AMD / Intel war has only made the PC world better in the past couple years. With AMD nipping at Intel's heels and finally beating them to the 1ghz barrier about two years ago (the 1ghz barrier, by the way, that the Apple G4's are *still* stuck at). You can build a dual Pentium-4 2.53 GHZ system (for a grand total of 5.06 ghz) for less than you can build a Mac dual G4-1000. The G4's may be slightly more efficient PER clock cycle, but nowhere near THAT efficient.
Apple's "Think Different" campaign is actually quite ironic, since ALL THEIR COMPUTERS ARE THE SAME! Case in point; they are non-upgradable. Apple does this on purpose because they want you to buy a NEW one.
Baaa, Mac sheep. When you're ready to take the training wheels off your computer and get a REAL one at half the price, go with a PC. The rest of the world will be waiting for you.
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I was a Mac user. I had a Mac LC. I was big mac fanatic, untill I had to move over to the PC for its low cost. I have never looked back since then. The Mac's price looks totally unrealistic to me. Also, Mac users like to show the PC as a totally unusable machine. One that crashes always, etc, etc. That is totally false. I use PCs & they work just fine.
All in all, the PC is much much better if you want a fast decent machine @ a low cost.
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