Are Macs faster than PC's

[Optikal]

Whenever I get into arguments with my friends about Macs vs. PC's the argument has always been that PC's have far better (and more) software, but macs are faster. Is it still true that macs are faster than PC's. I have never actually seen any benchmarks of PC performance vs. Mac performance. Another argument is that Macs are far better if your doing any kind of proffesional graphics, such as Photoshop or any CAD software. Is this true. I know that in the last year or so PC's have gotten WAY more powerful, I don't know what the Mac situation is but they must be falling behind if they were in fact more powerful in the past... I would appreciate it if anyone who knows more about this would enlighten me.

 

[velvtelvis]

Well, by the time I got linuxPPC on my gf's G3-imac it was kicking some ass.

I suppose macOS has it's uses, but if you're not running huge adobe packages, I don't see the point.

 

[Rigoletto]

I saw on Aces Hardware a comparison between Dual PIIIs at 1GHz and various mac G4 configs at the current 500MHz. On most of the benches the PIIIs do decidedly better.

 

[Dulanic]

G4 is hella fast clock for clock compared to any AMD or Intel. But its gotten caught on speed and is falling back now and fast. They cant seem to get the Mhz any faster right now.

 

[Looney]

You can't really compare the two because you can't use the same benchmarks for them. What people often do to bench is to load up photoshop on Windows and photoshop on MacOS, then bench the two... but the Photoshop for Mac always wins because it's more optimize for it. If they were both using the exact same software with the exact same coding, then it may be fair. Run Quake3 on the Mac and Quake3 on a Window machine, and i think the story would be more inclined towards the Window machine (i don't know for sure, just guessing).

But dollar for dollar, i think AMD/Intel is superior. For a $3000 G4, i could use that $3000 and build a AMD/P3 1000mhz at least, GF2 Ultra, 512mb ram, 15000rpm SCSI drives, etc, etc. Only thing a G4 has going for itself is the design. But it's not like i parade people through my house just to have a look at my case, so what do i care what it looks like? I probably get more 'holy sh1t', what's with all those open computers, why the hell do you have water tubings in your computer?! and people questioning what's in my systems than i would with a G4 or Cube... they'll probably just say 'cool... real shiny,' then go their merry way. That's what i've always done when i've seen a G4 or Cube.

 

[interchange]

To rephrase the question:

Are apples tastier than oranges?

 

[CalebTG]

Yes, oranges are rounder than apples!

 

[Pyro]

Mac are good for mainstream graphics use and for dummies that are too dumb to operate a PC (sorrie if thats an insult, but its true)

1. If you do low end graphics, the Duron with its incredible price/performance will kick any mac.
2. If you do mainstream graphics and nothing more, then the photoshop+g4 is a nice combo
3. If you do high end graphics, mac sucks. you need SGI, Sun etc.
4. If you are into 3d apps like 3d studio max, an athlon will whip both the g4 and the pentium
5. On PCs, if you are doing high end 3d graphics, you can put in a amazing graphics card. I am not talking geforce, but wildfire 4000 series. They can give you nearly 7 GLOPS(!!!!) purely for graphics. You'd need 10 G4s running in parallel to get that kinda speed.
6. games? obviously a geforce ultra 64m DDR will whip any old rage 16mb or even the "new ultrafast" mac radeon 32MB.
7. Expandability and customizability....on the mac? forget a bout it. Just look at that cube.
8. Office work? Duron's price/performance and window's many apps are clearly an advantage.
9. if you want your computer to match with your curtains - well, apples got that niché covered.
10. If you want an expensive doorstop. Well, that got that niché market covered too

 

[chiwawa626]

I dont think macs are very good, because u cant find lots of software for em, cant OVERCLOCK them, and they just suck....

 

[Zucchini]

Steve jobs is god.. so whatever he sez hehehe

 

[IvoryGrail]

Just a correction Pyro, that's Wildcat not Wildfire.....and a GloriaIII will stomp it

 

[JimMc]

G4's rock in RC5, admittedly something of a specialized application.

 

[Pyro]

hehe, my bad, I'm not much into highend 3D.

But just take a look at this baby
http://www.intense3d.com/4210/4210data.html
maybe I should just go to mac forums and tease the hell outta them



btw, care to give me a link to the gloriaIII product page? Elsa has just the gloriaII and it doesnt look at good as that baby up there.

 

[BFG10K]

Clock for clock CPU-wise they are, but for total system performance (ie real world perfomance) a P3/Athlon will kick a similarly clocked G4s butt and cost half the price. Ignore the theoretical CPU benchmarks like SETI and RC5, and the selectively picked Photoshop filters Jobs runs. And don't even get me started on that POS Mac OS.

 

[RagingGuardian]

Too bad they're stuck at 500MHz because the processors, clock for clock, are pretty fast. I'd love to have one just for RC5.

 

[skemlawn]

this is similar to: if a tree falls in the woods with no one around does it make a sound?

apples and oranges imho.

 

[Optikal]

everyone keeps saying clock for clock macs are faster, but what if you took the fastest available Athlon/Pentium and compared it to the fastest available mac. Comparing it using something like Quake 3, or RC5/Seti, encoding MPEG-4 or any other CPU intensive benchmark style application, which one would be faster? I'd think it would be the PC, but I'm just guessing...

 

[dew042]

but then there is the issue of how many mac owners are using their rigs for games? do they care about how fast their hard drive is? do they aspire to 'control' their processor's clock speed? do they benchmark??? i mean how many mac-heads run quake 3 on their $3000 G4's??? I mean really...

its really a class division. the people who buy macs are quite different then the average pentium/amd owner.... they buy them cause they do the things they need to have done quickly, easily and concisely... the G4 processor acrhitecture is good, the system is simple. THATS what thise people are about... IMHO, the comparision of windows based versus mac is really not of any particular relavance...

 

[troubledshooter]

Anyone who bashes Mac OS had better be using an NON 9X kernel :/

I would take ANY mac os with from 6.04-9.04 with the exception of 7.6 over any contemporary windows 9X kernel for good reason.

 

[JonJon]

i heard OS10 was pretty cool and that it finally makes use of the g4's dual processors...

 

[noxipoo]

thats because OS10 is BSD with crap added on top of it. BSD/Unix always had SMP support. and BSD is free and runs on virtually all x86 machines.

edit: BTW i used MacOS 8-9.x and they suck! talk about crashing problems. and no software support.

 

[BFG10K]

I would take ANY mac os with from 6.04-9.04 with the exception of 7.6 over any contemporary windows 9X kernel for good reason.

Oh really? And what reason might that be? Windows 9x/ME is a modern OS while Mac OS is a 1980s dinosaur relic with basically the same technical level as Windows 3.11. And don't give me any of that "Windows 9x/ME is DOS + GUI" bullsh*t.

 

[PlatinumGold]

BFG10K

Really now, I'm a diehard PC guy myself, but comon, win 3.11?? Have you forgotten how crappy that sh!t was?

Truth is Mac OS is superior to Win9x and anyone who refuses to admit it has his head stuck so far Bill Gates @ss they can see his eyeballs.

Comon, you can argue that PC's are superior for many reasons, but arguing that PC's are superior because they have a superior OS?? That's just plain stupid.

PC's have always had the Worst OS available. At any given point in the history of PC's there has always been an OS superior to the PC OS.

 

[Zucchini]

I think he's refering to multitasking i've heard that the mac o/s is lacking in some areas.

 

[Sunner]

Win9x and MacOS x.x both suck.

I used to love Mac's once back in the good ole days, but since they've lost so much of what they had then.