mac 970 chip?
 

if apple comes out with dual 2ghz running on the 970 ibm chip on Monday do any webmasters plan on switching?

They'll just bitch and cry like usual about how mac isn't any better and bla bla bla. Mac pimpin isn't for everyone.

i think macs are cool and i'm thinking about buying one, but nobody has yet to give me a real difinitive answer why i should switch.

Have never really tried a Mac much.

There was a interesting article about Apple I read the other day by a mac person. How Apple shouldnt be announcing G5 but that they came up with a manufactoring process to reduce the price of a mac to make it compatible to a winbox in price. That he feels that only will save Apple in the future. He also talked about with now a lindows box at $149 ,winboxes are going to get even cheaper and that how this model of being so expensive doesnt work anymore. I had to agree with him, I would love to get a mac system but the cost is so high its a turn off.

Alright already, just got get one and use it for a few weeks and you'll see why. There is no magic answer that anyone is going to give you. See what happens on Monday when they make the big announcements, maybe there were bill something that will help move you into getting one.

Can you tell me offhand Tony, how much is the cheapest mac system out there?

It takes a while to get used to a mac if you are alread familiar with Microsoft. I would personaly say mac's are to expensive and a waist of time. Buy a Pentium 4 and save the hassel.

apple.com - $1500 for a g4 1ghz.



when getting something i don't really know if i'll be liking enough to use though, and not knowing if i'll be happy with the performance, why spend more on a base model than i could spend on a top-line PC that i know will do what i want.

i'm not bashing macs... i think they're fine equipment, it's just the pricing makes me not really want to get into one just to try it out. plus, the concern about a single-proc 3.06 HT p4 is beating out a dual g4 1.25 in real-world photoshop (and similar) tests is rather disconcerting.

if their pricing became more competitive and/or their performance fell more inline with their pricing, i'd buy 3.


i'm very impressed so far with what i've learned about OSX.. it seems to be very much a FreeBSD knock-off that's a little more friendly and can run adobe & macromedia projects. hell, you can even install X11 on it. i think mac laptops are very top-notch, and are probably a lot closer to competitive pricing for what you get than the desktops. their laptop design is extremely impressive.

Price price price, you guys you should be smart enough to know that you get what you pay for. The cheapest G4 you can get is $799 not $1500, the eMac has a G4 in it and does more than most people need. However you guys feel like you're powerusers, so I wonder how can someone be a poweruser and not be able to afford $1500. Either you're not a poweruser or you're not a successful businessman.

$1500 is not expensive to get what you get with a powermac, including the software that's free on it and the hardware. Sure it's more than if you go and build your own PC, but you get what you pay for , you get quality and dependability.

No one needs to convince you guys to buy macs' those of us that you use them are happy and doing well, and if others can see the use and benefits then welcome to the macworld, you won't regret switching.

i use enough stuff that drags down a 2000+ with 512mb ram.

it's not just the box... then you have to buy the new software in some cases, which is not always cheap (a mac doesn't come with studio mx, $900), plus monitor adapters or a new monitor, stuff like that. add in a little downtime for the learning curve.

i'm not talking about cheap computer-show type hardware in a pc either. stuff like abit, corsair, ati, etc.

you're also talking about a base-model mac. i have a lot of extras in my machine, including 300gb of hard drive space (of which i'm using most of). yeah, right now i have over $2000 worth of crap in my computer, including the monitor, speakers, etc.

i just customized a machine that would be very comparable in perfomance and storage, with monitor, and it comes up to $4778. and that's not using their most expensive display, just the closest one they offer that's similar to mine (g4 desktop).

you're correct about the emacs, excuse me for that, i never really looked into the emac. a somewhat comparable emac would be $1800... which isn't bad at all, although it is missing a few things that would be kindof essential.. like storage, so figure in a couple hundred for a firewire hdd. it didn't specify the video, but i'm sure it would be adequate. how is the upgradability of an emac, just out of curiosity?

yeah, you do get what you pay for, that's why i always buy nice, name-brand high-end pc parts. and i rarely have something fail... except for my old kenwood 72x cdrom. that sucked, i loved that drive. oh yeah, that and my razer boomslang, those are the only things i've ever had that actually failed.

The price comparison is not particularly valid. Macs and PC's are quite compatible... if you want a really cheap box, you can get one for a few hundred bucks on a pc.. then you gotta buy a monitor.... in the end you're only 20-25% cheaper than the cheapest emac.. which you can get for much less than 799 at your local comp usa.

you have to compare apples to apples.

a top of the line g4 with the 23" cinema display.. that'll cost you 5grand.

a top of the line p4 with really good high quality components (not all the shit built on to the motherboard) will cost you around 2k... and then the best possible pc compatible hd lcd display will run you another 2-2.5k..

i am aware that you can build a pc for much less, i'm talking about building a top of the line pc with nothing but the best parts... include your os price and a monitor too.

in the end i just dont see much of a price diff. the one diff i do see though? i dont have to reinstall my mac every 6 months :)

Successful business people dont pay $2000 for something, when there is something out there that will do the same thing for $800. I worked for a company that bought and sold used macs so I know a few things about the mac. The base emac is good for surfing, word processing and not much else.Its $799 dollars with the g4 800mhz ,128mb of sdram and a cd drive. For $100 dollars less I can get a win box with AMD® Athlon XP 2600+ Processor,333MHz Front Side Bus ,512MB PC2700 DDR Memory ,80GB 7200RPM Hard Drive 16x/48x12x48x DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive ,1.44MB Floppy Drive 64MB NVIDIA® GeForce4 MX440 Video Also I dont need a machine that will last forever when we live in a world where technology is constantly changing.

i always use top line parts, hardware quality is not the issue :)

high-line parts, good p4 3.06 with hyperthreading, about $1000-1200.
ViewSonic 23" professional series LCD: about $2000.

yeah, if you go get samsung's new 241mp, 23" widescreen ( i believe this is also an HD device, and it has seperate speakers) is about $4100 on buy.com.

Quote:

in the end i just dont see much of a price diff. the one diff i do see though? i dont have to reinstall my mac every 6 months :)

you really should... it's kinda like changing the oil in your car.

price should not matter i thought everyoe on gfy was makeing at least 30ka month lol

That doesnt still mean you want to piss it away lol

Nothing personal Tony but that is one the dumbest things I have ever heard anyone say in my life. Saying that an eMac is good for surfing, word processing and not much else. Are you kidding me? You do realize that in 98% of applications today processor speed is overstated in importance don't you? Go get yourself a 40ghz amd and shit and it won't do much better than that base model eMac even. You gotta check things out more bro, because with that base model eMac you can photoshop, edit dv, surf, game, and pretty much do anything that you want. Now if you're editing 100 gig dv files and 1 gig psd's then it's going to slow down a bit, but not that much even. And realistically, for 98% of people in the world they'll never do either of those and neither will 98% of the people in this industry even. There are plenty of people still kicking ass, doing DV editing, web design and you name it on G3 processors without trouble so you are a little bit confused bro.

Tony's post was realistic, I don't think you understand the economic factors that contribute to the decision for any company to buy a computer. Some die hard fanatics and childish 'My computer is better than yours' don't usually do it. Price cost, software availability, flexibility etc. that's what matters. Sorry guy but the 'Little engine that could' has been sidelined and will likely stay there. This would be a great time for YOU to switch :thumbsup

I have 6 macs. One of them crashed once. Was kinda my own fault though.

Oh. and i dont have to worry about virri.

Oh. and the network configuration for a new employee is 10x faster with zeroconf rendezvous networking.

Oh. and did i mention that I have 6 macs and one of them crashed once?

Oh. and did i mention that i only have to reboot when i apply security updates?

Oh. and did i mention that not having to fuck with my computer so much has let me be more productive?

There IS a lot that goes into the purchasing decision. I have used windows since version two when it was just a shitty dos application that didnt do much cept lock up....

In the end the decision to switch was a very business decision, based on security, reliability and ease of use. I want to focus on making money, not on defragging, installing system tools, trying to configure firewalls, elminate spyware, block popups etc..etc..etc..etc..etc..

*heavy breathing*

i think i'm done now.

My name isnt really hooper and i'm a marketer.

I switched because i was sick of fucking with my computer all the time and even more sick of fucking with other peoples computers who knew less about them than me.

yeah i agree with hooper on security.I am very paranoind myself when i have to open maila ttachementsor download files from other webmasters.When i do it on my mac i feel more comfortable

Hard to make a point with spelling like this.
Macs are the way to go in my opinion. I have an older Mac Clone 225mhz power computing (circa 1997) and am looking to upgrade to a new machine. I was thinking about getting a PC cause of the great deals on ebay and whatnot. But i was at an apple store today and spent about half a hour fucking around in photoshop on the base model powermac 1ghz and was pretty blown away. Super nice user interface, surprising speed, and i just looks so good. I have to make up my mind once again. hopefully the price will drop considerably when the 970's are introduced on monday. if you want more info about the new macs head to www.macrumors.com

salt

yeah macrumors is a cool site.Some die hard mac people on their boards

1. Quality Hardware. Apple makes computers like IBM and Sony make computers. So, like either of those, for some people they are just better than getting a Dell, Gateway, or whatever. This can be about the visual appeal, but is more about the overall quality of the engineering and components.

2. User Experience. Some people just prefer using a mac. I think this one isn't an issue for everyone. If you are just getting started, the Mac paradigm is more intuitive. However, many of the advantages don't count for someone who is already more used to Windows. (Then again, MS changes things every generation too, so maybe its no different than upgrading to XP.)

3. Quality OS. This is different from the issues with the user interface, though some people overlook it. The Mac OS just doesn't crash as much, it isn't as prone to security issues by far, and in many cases it is more efficient with the hardware.

4. Good Business. Frankly, one good reason to buy a Mac is because Microsoft, as a business, are pretty evil. They abuse their monopy all the time, and more often than not, just settle out of court with the money they earned abusing their monoply. Also, Apple treats customers with more respect-- less DRM, less authentication process, fairer licensing, etc.

It might be a rumor but I heard there was a pretty cool site out there for mac webmasters now. That's what I heard at least. :winkwink:

very good reasons.security is a probelm on windows.A lot of holes in the OS

Reason to buy a Macintosh

10. Well designed well integrated hardware that works

9. No more blue screens of death

8. Good technical support

7. Operating system is designed for the hardware

6. Programs work seamlessly

5. Steve Jobs is cooler than Bill Gates

4. OS X is Free BSD with a nice GUI

3. No Spyware

2. Few viruses

1. As in all business investments a true value is when the cost is justified by the increase in productivity. No downtime is a good thing.

How do you all cope with only one mouse button?

A two button mouse works also.

Ahhh! I didn't know that!

Honestly, that's about the only thing I'd miss.

THAT and getting used to new ctrl combos.

It took me about one day to move from Windows 2000 to a Macintosh and I doubt I will ever go back to Windows. It has been a pleasure. The two Windows programs I could not replace run in a virtual windows 2000 machine in the MAC as well as they did on my old Dell Inspiron and they don't crash.

Excellent. I think I'm going to seriously consider the move when they debut the 970 at the developers' conference.

Let's hope sales are good enough next month to remove some of the sting of buying such a high-end workstation :thumbsup

Ok, I agree, A Mac is more expensive to buy at first as a winbox, but consider that :
No more buying Antivirus software (I work with a Mac since 1996 and never had use for it)
No timeloss on running AV software to scan while you are waiting for hours
No hussle if your system might crash, once installed on your main HD, you just copy the bunch to another partition and Mac automaticly runs from that one, if the main appears to be damaged.

Here is a good article on the cost comparison on CPU power consumption.

At the bottom of the article there are calculations that compare a rack of Apple Xserve's using dual g4's versus a rack of Pentium 4's.

I agree 100%. My only complaint is that the Window's machines are faster browsing the net, email etc... but not by much.


Mitch

1. i build my own stuff, and use top-notch stuff. maybe you've heard of some of the things used in macs as well such as ati or western digital.

i also use a lot of stuff like yamaha, abit, amd/intel, sony, that kinda stuff. i don't buy crap, so it doesn't break.

2. i've been on pcs as long as i can remember, they make me pretty happy.

3. os issues... this is my primary concern leaving the pc platform. i agree, that while xp is a pretty solid setup, the best one in a while, there are still some issues i'm not exactly elated about.

4. microsoft may not have good business practices, i agree. but part of this is also the hardware, and that you can't complain about. besides, a pc runs a mean FreeBSD. however, the hardware companies i deal with i think are pretty fair about things.

Reason to buy a Macintosh

10. Well designed well integrated hardware that works -- my hardware works fine

9. No more blue screens of death -- these are a rarity with xp, i've gotten 3 in the last few months, due to my overclock

8. Good technical support -- i do that.

7. Operating system is designed for the hardware -- again, built in. most objects will now run by themselves in xp.

6. Programs work seamlessly -- this is pretty good in windows as well, a lot of the programs work well together. too bad people use microsoft software on macs, eh?

5. Steve Jobs is cooler than Bill Gates -- i wouldn;'t know about this

4. OS X is Free BSD with a nice GUI -- agreed, pimpness.

3. No Spyware -- don't download crap :)

2. Few viruses -- don't download crap. you know i've never had a virus, and rarely run virus scans? i do now, but i didn't used to and no virii.

1. As in all business investments a true value is when the cost is justified by the increase in productivity. No downtime is a good thing. -- rarely down so i'm not productive, generally i reinstall at my leisure, when it just feels icky. i'd do this on a mac as well.

is the netbilling office full of macs?

Nah, Linux all the way :) (Yes, I do realize I could run Linux on a Mac, but I don't see any advantages of runnin Mac hardware if I'm just going to throw the OS away anyway)