PC Says to Mac: Yeah, well, I'm CHEAP!

[geoffs]

Powersworder wrote:
Actually its you who has completely missed the point. This is a hardware enthusiast website, and is meant to be catering to enthusiasts.

I didn't miss a thing, I stated several time that most readers of this site are hardware enthusiasts. There is nothing inconsistent with covering systems which might not appeal directly to enthusiasts if those systems have a notable impact on the industry, and clearly Apple has a notable impact on the personal computer industry.

I'm more than happy that people who dont know anything about computers love Macs, how nice for them. Just because they love their equivalent of a Fisher price 'my first computer', it doesnt mean we should be getting a deluge of pro-mac articles on what is meant to be an enthusiast site. Even this article has a pro-Mac bias to it.

It's not a "pro-Mac" or even a "Mac" article, it's an article about a Microsoft Windows ad where MS is comparing the price of Windows PCs (not even Windows itself) to a Mac. You didn't bash the article, you bashed Macs and Mac users, that is inappropriate and immature. If you can't see the difference between an article that mentions a Mac and "Pro-Mac" article, then you need to seriously reconsider your priorities.

I just dont understand how journalists on a hardware enthusiasts site can be so pro-Mac, when Apple is the antithesis of everything hardware enthusiasts and gamers stands for.

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's not valid. I'm a hardware enthusiast and I enjoy reading articles like this one.

While you clearly think Apple is the antithesis of everything YOU stand for, it's not the antithesis of what enthusiasts and gamers stand for. Apple encouraged enthusiasts and games when PC companies and users mocked Apple IIs and Macs as being "cute" or "game" machines, not "serious business computers". Study your computer history and look at how long it took to even get color graphics on PCs. Now you want to claim PCs are superior because they're better for games.

The world and this site don't revolve around you and your interests and you do not speak for all computer hardware enthusiasts. Get over yourself.

 

[geoffs]

Dell, Core i7 920, 6gigs of ddr3, 512MB ATI hd 4670,16x dvd, 19in1 card reader, Vista Home Premium, 2 year warranty, 24" Full HD 2048 x 1152 LCD. Pick one up today at Costco.

All this for $1199.00 No need to list a comparable Mac is there?

No. The only thing similar is the Mac Pro, and that's at least 2x the price.

BTW, if you haven't tried an I7 yet, it is awesome. Cut down my DVD encoding and (media center ) by about 40%-50%

I would love to have a Core i7 (or i5), it looks like an excellent CPU. It's not a priority for me because I have plenty of computer power for what I do now. Of course, faster is always welcome.

While I have desktop/server machines, my primary machine is a laptop, so what I'm really interested in is a CPU that delivers performance comparable to or better than my current C2D T7500 (quad core would be nice) AND uses less power. I don't want to step back to a slower CPU, but I do want more battery life (at least 4 hours of heavy use and 8+ hours of light use), and I want that in a machine that weighs under 6 pounds including battery and optical drive.

 

[Powersworder]

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]I didn't miss a thing, I stated several time that most readers of this site are hardware enthusiasts. There is nothing inconsistent with covering systems which might not appeal directly to enthusiasts.[/citation]

Of course there is. You dont go to a performance car website and expect to see numerous articles about a Ford Escort. There are plenty of other Mac-only sites, whats the point of covering Macs on a hardware enthusiast site?

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]
While you clearly think Apple is the antithesis of everything YOU stand for, it's not the antithesis of what enthusiasts and gamers stand for.[/citation]

So what kind of hardware enthusiasts enjoy tinkering with a computer that cant be upgraded in any kind of meaningful way? Certainly none that Ive ever met. Its hard to get excited about being able to add a bit more Ram.

With regard to gaming, you are honestly trying to say that a gamer would buy an Apple Mac when the only way they can play modern games is by dual booting to windows? The graphics card support for Apple is a joke. Macs as a gaming platform are a joke.

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]
Apple encouraged enthusiasts and games when PC companies and users mocked Apple IIs and Macs as being "cute" or "game" machines, not "serious business computers". Study your computer history and look at how long it took to even get color graphics on PCs.[/citation]

This would be a good point... more than 30 years ago! I dont need to study computer gaming history, I was there. I was playing Indy 500 on a CGA monitor in 1989. Ive been playing PC games for over 20 years now and PC's have always been a better gaming platform in that time than Apple.

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]
Now you want to claim PCs are superior because they're better for games.
[/citation]

You would have to be retarded to dispute otherwise. When both systems can do everything that the other can, except the MS platform machine can also be an awesome gaming computer, what possible incentive is there to buy an Apple? If a person is too much of a novice user to understand how to use MS windows and prefers Macs for their 'user friendliness' great, but a complete computer-novice is hardly the target reader of Tomshardware is it?

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]
The world and this site don't revolve around you and your interests and you do not speak for all computer hardware enthusiasts.[/citation]

Whats the world got to do with it? We are discussing this site, please dont go off-topic.

This site always used to cover PC hardware with reviews and comprehensive performance comparisons, especially how hardware was able to perform with regard to the latest, most demanding computer games. What was up with all those performance Benchmarks from Quake through to Crysis, if this site wasnt trying to show useful hardware comparisons to enthusiasts, particularly gamers? Just an FYI, most people who are into high performance hardware *are* gamers, because theres very little else that demands that kind of high cost, high performance rigs.

When a site like this starts wasting more and more time producing articles about Macs, a strictly non-gaming platform, I start to grow concerned. If I am no longer the target audience and this site intends to just focus on various tech gadgets, instead of PC hardware, please let me know. I would also recommend renaming the site, as it would be quite misleading if it retained the same name.

 

[geoffs]

When a site like this starts wasting more and more time producing articles about Macs, a strictly non-gaming platform, I start to grow concerned. If I am no longer the target audience and this site intends to just focus on various tech gadgets, instead of PC hardware, please let me know. I would also recommend renaming the site, as it would be quite misleading if it retained the same name.

Apparently you didn't notice, the name of this site is and always has been "Tom's Hardware", not Wintel hardware, or Wintel games, or gamer hardware, or any such thing. This site has NEVER been dedicated to just PC gaming hardware. If it were dedicated to PC gaming, all the reviews of motherboards with integrated video, laptops, 2.5" laptop hard drives, "netbooks", etc.

By your definition of enthusiast, how does coverage of netbooks, the Intel Atom, VIA Nano, and Nvidia ION support the "enthusiast"? What about the articles on low power/energy efficient machines? What about articles on HTPC machines? What about articles on the Wii (clearly not a "gamer" machine), PS3, or Xbox 360, you can't build those yourself, can't upgrade them, etc? None of those fit what you claim an "enthusiast" is interested in, but you don't complain about the articles on those (which significantly outnumber the articles on Apple/Mac).

Since you don't complain about Tom's covering all those things, I conclude that you're simply anti-Apple/Mac, and that your complaints have NOTHING to do with being an "enthusiast".

Tom's has always covered hardware related to personal computers (not just Wintel machines), and some coverage of other hardware. However, since Apple switched the Mac to Intel based CPUs and chipsets, Apple get more mention because they're now using the same hardware that was getting 95% of the coverage.

If you're looking strictly for PC gaming hardware info, I suggest you find another site. There are several dedicated to just that, but they're not called "Tom's Hardware".

 

[KyleSTL]

Anyone know of a comparison of programs (Illustrator, Premiere, etc) in identically-equipped PC vs. Mac? I think that would go a long way in silencing this argument of superiority.

 

[geoffs]

Anyone know of a comparison of programs (Illustrator, Premiere, etc) in identically-equipped PC vs. Mac?

Here's one comparison, Photoshop CS3 running under Mac OS X and Windows XP Pro on the same hardware. Even though one OS (Mac) solidly beats the other, I don't expect this to convince anyone of the "superiority" of anything.

 

[geoffs]

This would be a good point... more than 30 years ago! I dont need to study computer gaming history, I was there. I was playing Indy 500 on a CGA monitor in 1989. Ive been playing PC games for over 20 years now and PC's have always been a better gaming platform in that time than Apple.

Apparently you need to review your computer history and refresh your memory. In 1989, PC gaming pretty much sucked, limited by the DOS 640k limit, the speed of the ISA bus, and the speed of CGA/EGA/VGA adapters available at the time. Macintosh, Apple //gs, Atari ST, and Amiga all had better gaming than PCs at the time, as well as more titles available for them.


It wasn't until the PCI bus and PCI graphics cards started becoming popular in 1994-1995, that PC gaming started getting decent, and it wasn't until the AGP bus and AGP cards were introduced in 1997 that a PC could compete with those other system.

 

[Powersworder]

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]Apparently you need to review your computer history and refresh your memory. In 1989, PC gaming pretty much sucked, limited by the DOS 640k limit, the speed of the ISA bus, and the speed of CGA/EGA/VGA adapters available at the time. Macintosh, Apple //gs, Atari ST, and Amiga all had better gaming than PCs at the time, as well as more titles available for them.It wasn't until the PCI bus and PCI graphics cards started becoming popular in 1994-1995, that PC gaming started getting decent, and it wasn't until the AGP bus and AGP cards were introduced in 1997 that a PC could compete with those other system.[/citation]

lol you really are trying to claim that apple has a better history as a gaming platform now? See my previous comments that you must be retarded...

Since when were we talking about Atari ST and Amiga? I had an Atari ST and also had friends who had Amigas, so I clocked up hundreds of hours playing games on both. They were both amazing gaming systems for the time, but I never even mentioned them in my post, so where did that come from? We were talking about Macs and PCs...

I merely mentioned 1989 as that was the year indy 500 came out on the pc and It was one of the first pc games I remember playing with friends and having a lot of fun with it.

Your claim that PCs only became a viable gaming platform from 1994-1995 onwards is also complete nonsense. There was also loads of brilliant PC games before 1994, most of which have been acknowledged as being some of the best and innovative games in gaming history. In 1990 Wing Commander 1 came out on the PC which was really the start to a long list of amazing titles:

Ultima 6 - 1990
Eye of the Beholder - 1990
Ultima 7 The Black gate - 1992
Ultima Underworld - 1992
Wolfenstein 3D - 1993
Xcom (ufo enemy unknown) - 1993
X-Wing - 1993
Ultima Underworld 2 - 1993
Doom - 1993
Doom 2 - 1994

Thats just a quick list off the top of my head. There are many others, but you get the point (that you are totally wrong).
As to your claim about 1997 being the year that pcs could compete with consoles... thats incorrect too. Consoles and PC's have always had radically different genres of games that dont necessarily appeal to all gamers. Nintendo produce a lot of the cutesy stuff, and there was a long history of platformers and beat em ups etc on the other consoles. For as long as there has been gaming (in any meaningful sense), PCs has dominated the market for rpgs, strategy and flight sims etc. From Doom onwards PCs became the platform of choice for fps gaming, and when AGP cards became commonplace it was the death knell for Macs, as any decent game couldnt even be ported to the platform any more (years after the PC release, if at all).

 

[geoffs]

Since when were we talking about Atari ST and Amiga? ... We were talking about Macs and PCs...

And I merely mentioned that they had better gaming than your sacred PC.

Your claim that PCs only became a viable gaming platform from 1994-1995 onwards is also complete nonsense. There was also loads of brilliant PC games before 1994, most of which have been acknowledged as being some of the best and innovative games in gaming history.

As usual, you've completely misconstrued what I said.

As to your claim about 1997 being the year that pcs could compete with consoles... thats incorrect too.

My post didn't even mention consoles, so how you came up with that distortion of what I said is a mystery to all.

Stop being a troll, you've lost the argument by repeatedly calling me names, by asserting that I said things I didn't say, and by repeatedly making statements that I've discredited. You are clearly anti-Mac and/or anti-Apple and nothing anyone says will change your mind. I won't confuse you with any more facts.

 

[Powersworder]

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]And I merely mentioned that they had better gaming than your sacred PC.[/citation]
As we were only discussing PC and Mac, it is totally irrelevant to bring up Atari/Amiga. Either way, as I said earlier, I owned an Atari ST and had several friends who had Amigas. They both had a lot of great games, but in the same time period, there were still some excellent PC-only titles. What about trying to defend your original statement about Macs being a better gaming platform than PCs until 1994?

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]
As usual, you've completely misconstrued what I said.[/citation]

You stated the following:
"It wasn't until the PCI bus and PCI graphics cards started becoming popular in 1994-1995, that PC gaming started getting decent, and it wasn't until the AGP bus and AGP cards were introduced in 1997 that a PC could compete with those other system."

I merely proved you didnt know what you were talking about. My quick list of ground breaking PC games all came out before 1994. Another I forgot to mention was Dune 2... the game that started the RTS genre. When did that come out? 1992.

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]
My post didn't even mention consoles, so how you came up with that distortion of what I said is a mystery to all.[/citation]

You said that it was only until 1997 that PC's could compete with those other systems. I gave you some credit and assumed you were talking about the competing gaming platforms at the time (ie consoles). The Mac continued to be a joke as a gaming platform, The Atari ST was discontinued in 1993 and the Amiga 500 was discontinued in 1991. Were you honestly trying to say that the PC still couldnt compete with the Atari ST and Amiga over 4 years after they were discontinued?! The first playstation came out in 1994, Atari and Amiga were old news by that time.

[citation][nom]geoffs[/nom]
Stop being a troll, you've lost the argument by repeatedly calling me names, by asserting that I said things I didn't say, and by repeatedly making statements that I've discredited. You are clearly anti-Mac and/or anti-Apple and nothing anyone says will change your mind. I won't confuse you with any more facts.[/citation]

I merely proved that your "facts" were complete garbage. Gaming is my hobby, its been a big part of my life for over 20 years now. Just man up and admit I know far more about it than you do and that i crushed you in this argument. Your defence of the Mac as a gaming platform has been to ramble on about Amiga and Atari being superior to PC's. I havent heard a single Mac-only game title from you yet.

If anyone is trolling its you, remember you picked the argument with me, not vice versa.

 

[KyleSTL]

Anyone know of a comparison of programs (Illustrator, Premiere, etc) in identically-equipped PC vs. Mac?

Here's one comparison, Photoshop CS3 running under Mac OS X and Windows XP Pro on the same hardware. Even though one OS (Mac) solidly beats the other, I don't expect this to convince anyone of the "superiority" of anything.

I'm sceptically, what explains the massive increase of processing time during the Retest of the Mac? Something smells fishy.

Also, he's running Windows XP through bootcamp. A more controlled experiment would have loaded a fresh version of windows onto a separate system (identically appointed).

 

[keither5150]

Try CS4 64bit with a very large file...... Oh wait...... Nevermind.

 

[razzb3d]

Ok... i never owned a Apple laptop, but i did own a G5. It was a present from a relative, a few years ago.

Frankly, i don't see the diffence between windows and macOS. Actually, MAC OS bugged the crap out of me. It's EXTREMELY LIMITED compared to microsoft widows, just as windows is limited compared to linux.

Practicly, mac os is a version of BSD (or FREE BSD).

Another fact you may not know about Apple's standardized specs: a 2ghz "core 2 duo" procesor on a macbook is actually a T5800, the most basic core 2 duo out there.

For 1300$ you get a 13" display, 2GHz C2D T5800 CPU (2MB cache), 2GB of ram, 160GB hdd and nvidia 9400gs VGA card.
Now in the PC world, for 1300$, you can gat a fully loaded ACER Aspire 7730G, 17" Display, C2D 7600 (2,4GHz, 4MB cache), 500GB HDD, 4GB of ram and a Nvidia 9800GT - a TRUE vga card that allows you to play video games in decent quality settings. - oh wait - there are no games for MAC (actually there are only very few titles avadible for mac)

- so i guess the quote:
"It does everithing a PC does only better" - is bull.

 

[razzb3d]

P.S. I don't have anything against apple computers. It's just that i don't see why i wold buy a mac at half-specs (compared to a PC) for twice the money just because it's "pretty" or "kewl".

Also, i am a "do it your self-er). I built my own PC, bought a laptop barebone and populated it with components of my likeing (MXMII VGA cards are EXTREMLY hard to find if you don't live in the US), also completly rebuilt my car (1990 BMW M30 former 316s coupe, now 320i cope )

Maybe if you don't game on it? Mabe you prefer playing games on a console (witch for me, using a console controller in a FPS game makes me feel like a one leged man at a butt kicking contest). Maybe you prefer style over substance? Who knows - a Mac fan knows .

 

[raclimja]

sorry for my bad English!

people should not compare apple and pc's because apple are pioneers! why?

look at the pointing device you are using right now, who do you think invented it?

the color in your screen or gui should i say, who do you think invented it?

look at windows vista, where do you think they got the design, features, looks from it?

look at nokia 5800, black berry, when do you think they COPY it?

apple SPEND billions of dollars from RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT EVERY YEAR (R&D) just for the sake of their products!!!

while other people out their just COPY their design, and idea's

now tell me WHY DO YOU THINK PC's are less priced!!! because they just steal the design and ideas from apple PERIOD.

 

[DjEaZy]

... may be apple is more expensive... but... how much would a PC cost, when you put all the licensed software, that can do tha same, that haz the MAC in-a-box already? On tha other hand, there iz lots of opensource software...

 

[DjEaZy]

... may be apple is more expensive... but... how much would a PC cost, when you put all the licensed software, that can do tha same, that haz the MAC in-a-box already? On tha other hand, there iz lots of opensource software... i don't use a MAC becouse there iz no AMD option...

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]raclimja[/nom]look at the pointing device you are using right now, who do you think invented it?[/citation]
Douglas Engelbart

 

[Powersworder]

[citation][nom]raclimja[/nom]the color in your screen... [/citation]

IBM...