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[Kevin Wood]

You buy a Mac and your buying into a locked-down computing environment where everything is massively overpriced, underpowered, but looks oh so pretty.

Same with Windows except the above only applies to the software.

Kevin

[MaxV6]

Re: Bloody Windows Vista!!
Reply #59 - Today at 9:53am  
 You buy a Mac and your buying into a locked-down computing environment where everything is massively overpriced, underpowered, but looks oh so pretty.

ohh really please...  now there's an open mind.

How exactly is an 8 core Mac pro either under powered or Over priced.

an equivalent , like for like Dell, for example, is nearly 50% more expensive.,

and the Mac runs both OS X & Windows natively, and better yet, you can run Whinedoze in a virtualisation app like Parallels, at the same time as OSX.  and communicate between the two.  if there's something you HAVE to do in Whinedoze, it can do it...  no problem.

Where Apple ARE a rip off, is their memory or Drive prices...  always buy a std off the shelf spec machine, NOT a build to order package, and add them afterwards from Crucial , or whoever else is selling appropriate memory at a good price...

who gives a flying opps if it's pretty, it's powerful, stable, and effective, and the longer term cost of ownership is lower overall.
(including support costs, maintenance costs,  resale values, down time costs, etc etc the Mac always comes out ahead of ANY reputable Brand name Pc )

[maria]

Are you happy now max now you have had your rant

[MaxV6]

Are you happy now max now you have had your rant

A rant a day keeps the Angina at Bay


(not that I have it....  just seemed appropriate )

[Marks DTM Calib]

I feel that Apple have lost there one advantage they had by ditching the RISC processors....and graphics will suffer as a result (which was always a plus on them) coz a fair chunk of any graphics is processed on the core CPU.

I guess its because its easier and cheaper to produce software for non RISC devices.

[supermop]

You buy a Mac and your buying into a locked-down computing environment where everything is massively overpriced, underpowered, but looks oh so pretty.

Same with Windows except the above only applies to the software.

Kevin

hehe, not quite the same. You can use any hardware with Windows and install pretty much any compatible application (which is a LOT). You also get the added bonus that there are more games than just Tomb Raider available for it if you're into that sort of thing (thats the only Mac game I've ever seen).

Doesn't look as nice though, but as a selling point that comes in at the low end.

Yeah Macs have their plus points, so do windows boxes. I don't like getting into debates over whats better, since there isn't a clear winner.

[cem_devecioglu]

I feel that Apple have lost there one advantage they had by ditching the RISC processors....and graphics will suffer as a result (which was always a plus on them) coz a fair chunk of any graphics is processed on the core CPU.

I guess its because its easier and cheaper to produce software for non RISC devices.

true..RISC architecture mostly is special for the type of application the CPU is designed for ..  

Although the internal command set is more limited (by design) its hard to find programmers at that level as their environment is special and they differ from model to model...

[Kevin Wood]

I feel that Apple have lost there one advantage they had by ditching the RISC processors....and graphics will suffer as a result (which was always a plus on them) coz a fair chunk of any graphics is processed on the core CPU.

I guess its because its easier and cheaper to produce software for non RISC devices.

true..RISC architecture mostly is special for the type of application the CPU is designed for ..  

Although the internal command set is more limited (by design) its hard to find programmers at that level as their environment is special and they differ from model to model...

Most code is developed in higher level languages now anyway. I thought that was the main driver behind RISC. Why make the chip slower by building in lots of complex, human-useable instructions when you can make it more lean and quicker and rely on a compiler to build your floating point operations, etc. from simple building blocks? On a CISC CPU compiler generated code doesn't often use more than a subset of the simplest instructions anyway.

My guess that Apple's defection to Intel is more down to the desire to capitalise on the savings that arise from the volume of Wintel boxes that turn over as compared to any other architecture.

Kevin

[cem_devecioglu]

Nowadays RISC Cpus are mostly focused on Industrial applications..

for the PCs RISC cpus lost the war..

Actually Microsoft change the picture with the decision..

[MaxV6]

Apple's move to Intel was at least in part, due to ego's in negotiation with IBM...  

IBM hit a bit of a hiccup with the PPC G5 roadmap at the 90nm stage...   apple were being awkward about commitment to quantity manufacture...    and IBM told them to stuff it... so they pretty much had to go to intel (or it could have gone to AMD) interestingly, the PPC G5 type chips then got  better and faster and refocused,  and are now powering certain games consoles , which sell in larger numbers, sufficient to keep IBM production line management happy.

or that's at least how it appeared from this side of the Apple tree.

I much prefer PPC as a platform, but times move on and one has to work with intel now instead....  

Oh well.

Not everything Apple do is right, or even sensible....    

but they are the Mr Kipling of the Computer world....

making exceedingly good.......     cakes  

[supermop]

Not everything Apple do is right, or even sensible....    

but they are the Mr Kipling of the Computer world....

making exceedingly good.......     cakes  

DRM + iTunes comes to mind.

But yes, I will admit. It's nice when a piece of hardware just 'works' out the box. The iPhone and iPod for example have the most responsive and smooth interfaces I've seen, as well as being gorgeous pieces of kit. If it wasn't for iTunes, I'd own one!

[Marks DTM Calib]

Not everything Apple do is right, or even sensible....    

but they are the Mr Kipling of the Computer world....

making exceedingly good.......     cakes  

DRM + iTunes comes to mind.

But yes, I will admit. It's nice when a piece of hardware just 'works' out the box. The iPhone and iPod for example have the most responsive and smooth interfaces I've seen, as well as being gorgeous pieces of kit. If it wasn't for iTunes, I'd own one!

....and the fact that the bluetooth is crap, its not 3G, the battery life aint great and the camera is on a par with that used by fisher price in thier 'my first' range.

Plus Wimax is now loosing out on the mobile broadband front....which is no great surprise

Its a great interface but, a bloody rubbish comms device!

[smoothomega]

So there you go Loo Knee, ditch all systems and tie a bit of string between two bean cans and use a calculator  

[MaxV6]

yeah, but don;t forget the cake !    

it's important to have cake you know !

[TheBoy]

MS are bringing out a new operating system in Q2 of 2009. You all might as well bypass Vista entirely and wait for that (like myself and my company are doing).

TB: You do realise that there is a dual-core patch for XP and dual-core optimiser software for AMD X2's?

Dual-core fix for XP
AMD dual core optimizer

The performance increase after installing the multi-cpu fix is amazing. Partcularly in apps/games that heavily utilise CPU (obviously).

Yes, aware of those patches, but thanks for posting, as others may not be

Trouble is, the XP architecture is not geared too well to the current multiprocessor architecture used by Intel or AMD (though why anyone would want an AMD (desktop) chip now is beyond me ).

Also, you get into issues with processor limitations under XP.  When XP was built, virtual processors didn't exist, so was never built for them. Nor for multicore chips.  Most variants of XP Home can only deal with 1 'processor', XP Pro, 2 'processors'.  MS did loosen licencing restrictions to overcome the ludicrous restriction that a P4 HT chip may perform badly (esp if the BIOS did a poor job in reporting CPUs).  But the kernel was built with these restrictions in place, and optimised around it.  No amount of patching will truely sort that.

Quad core, forget it

Vista's kernel is optimised for multicore, and the threading model is more robust.


One of the big perceived Vista performance problems is filecopy.  Its actually mostly as good or better than XP, but has been further tweaked for SP1.


TheBoy
Laying in bath with a Core2 Duo 2Ghz, 2G RAM laptop, running Vista Business