Comparison Mac & PC Question ...?

[LmAnimator]

Hi,

Please could someone help me with a question I have..

I have a Dell Precision 690 Workstation an don't find it very reliable. The spec is:

Dual Quad core 2.8 Xeon Processors.
8mb cache
XP pro 64bit
8 GIGs Ram
2X 320 GIG SCSI Hard drives
Nvidia 5800 Graphics card
Soundblaster audigy Falality

What would the equivalent be as an Apple Mac ?

I want to move to Mac but don't know what would have the equivalent speed and procesing power ?

I want speed and reliability and Mac's seem to get less viruses. I don't know much about hardware. I use the computer to Animate and want it to work fast and be reliable.

Are Mac's faster in general and do they work more efficiently ?

I use these programs and normally have really quite big files :
Autodesk Maya 2008, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, Pixologic Zbrush,
Alias Sketchbook Pro 2, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Audition and a few other art type packages and plugins for Maya.

 

[rockyjohn]

I would expect Macs to be very reliable - but much more costly than non-Apple.

Are their Mac versions for all your software? Will the versions you have work on Mac or will you have to replace a lot of it?

What about building your own server or buying from another vendor? HP and comes to mind.

 

[benjaminl111]

Summary

$3,399.00
Get same-as-cash financing for 12 months.
Ships: 2-4 business days
Free Shipping
Next business day delivery available

Specifications
Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
8GB (4x2GB)
640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
One 18x SuperDrive
Apple Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User's Guide

 

[benjaminl111]

With 2.66 ghz processors
Summary

$4,799.00
Get same-as-cash financing for 12 months.
Ships: 2-4 business days
Free Shipping
Next business day delivery available

Specifications
Two 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
8GB (4x2GB)
640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
One 18x SuperDrive
Apple Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User's Guide

 

[rockyjohn]

HP System - HP Z800 Workstation - this is there top of the line - they have less expensive models

Review of HP Z800 Line:

http://workstations.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=700889&afterinter=true

Link to this configuration and price - $11,214

http://workstations.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=700889&afterinter=true

Configuration:

Configurable- HP Z800 Workstation
FF825AV
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
HP Z800 850W 85% Efficient Chassis
HP Z800 Localization Kit
Intel® Xeon® X5560 2.80 8MB/1333 QC CPU (LOWPWR)
Intel® Xeon® X5560 2.80 8MB/1333 QC CPU-2 LOWPWR
HP 2x High Perf Heatsink Thermal Kit
NVIDIA Quadro FX5800 4GB Graphics (Only supported with 1110W chassis)
HP 8GB (8x1GB) DDR3-1333 ECC RAM (Supported only with Dual Processor. ESTAR=DP)
HP 300GB SAS 15K 1st HDD
HP 300GB SAS 15K 2nd HDD
HP 16X DVD+-RW SuperMulti SATA 1st Drive
HP PS/2 Standard Keyboard
HP PS/2 Optical Scroll Mouse
Creative X-Fi Titanium PCIe Audio Card
3 years parts, labor and onsite service (3/3/3) standard warranty. Certain restrictions and exclusions apply.

[Edit: I see a mistake above, needs 1110w chassis for FX5800 card not 850w]

HP Workstations in general:

http://www.hp.com/sbso/busproducts-workstations.html

So how much did your Dell cost?

 

[itadakimasu]

what do you find unreliable about your precision 690? I bought a 690 for the office and am very happy with it.

I got a great deal on it off ebay for around $600, 2x 3ghz 5160's, 4gb, 4x 750gb sata on a perc card in raid 5... we have 2 poweredge servers w\ the same cpu / ram configuration that we spent $4000+ on a couple years ago.

as far as price, a mac with equivalent specs to your 690 system is going to be probably 200% more. Now, you may ask... what will I get for this $200 more? well.. you'll get the nice feeling of being able to brag to people that you own a $4,000 mac.

as far as viruses go.. mac's don't get them because they don't have as much market share, and so people haven't in the past spent time writing them... this could change in the future though, as the mac trend continues to snow ball.



One thing I notice is that you have XP-64 which I've used for a long time at home and there are alot of things that don't work with xp 64 and sometimes there aren't drivers for things compatible w\ xp64.