the real reason wintel boxes are inferior to Macs...

[hm_murdock]

Well, I've had a Quadra 840av for ages now. Yes, the cool old one with the 40MHz 68040. The one that has the 66MHz DSP in it for video and audio processing.

The one that was seven grand new.

Yeah. I've got one.

But anyway, I was at a friend's house and... for some reason, I had it and my Power Mac 7200 (beloved machine) out in the car. My friend's dad is a moron and just got a POS new Hell, I mean Dell.

What a turd. The plastic case is so fucking cheap that I cracked it by leaning too hard against it.

So, knowing that I use Macs, he looks at me and says "Hey, bet you can't do THIS on any of your Apples!"

He then plays a short video clip.

I look over at my friend, we go outside, bring in the 840av along with a mouse and my trusty VGA adaptor. We plug his dad's shitty Dell screen into the Quadra (I'm still apologizing to my baby) and I plug a VCR into the Quadra via the RCA video in, and the sound via an RCA to 1/8" adaptor to the mic in port of the Mac.

I fire it up, plug the cable TV into the tape player and we watch tv shows on the Quadra.

Then I look at the imbecile dad and say "No, you're wrong! But the real question is... why would I waste my time with a music video when I could watch TV on a Mac from 1993?"

Wintel boxes get so old and so decrepid so quickly that it hurts. That Quadra shames anything my dad has (older P2 Dells and Compaq boxes from 300 to 500MHz). Running OS 8.1, it's more reliable than windoze 2000.

There's just no comparison to the useful life between Macs and x86 boxen. I put Mac OS 9.1 on my 7200... a 120MHz Power Mac with 112MB of RAM is running the highest version OS available for it. 9.1 was released in 2001. The 7200 came out in 1995. Would you dream of installing Windows Me or 2000 on an x86 box that hit the streets in 1995? Never.

Oh yeah, I popped a USB/Firewire combo card as well as a Radeon Mac Edition video card in the 7200. A G3-on-a-PCI-card upgrade might be next.

Or maybe it's getting close to time to retire it?

Nah.

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by Jimmy James: Mac Commando:
Well, I've had a Quadra 840av for ages now. Yes, the cool old one with the 40MHz 68040. The one that has the 66MHz DSP in it for video and audio processing.

The one that was seven grand new.

Yeah. I've got one.

But anyway, I was at a friend's house and... for some reason, I had it and my Power Mac 7200 (beloved machine) out in the car. My friend's dad is a moron and just got a POS new Hell, I mean Dell.

What a turd. The plastic case is so fucking cheap that I cracked it by leaning too hard against it.

So, knowing that I use Macs, he looks at me and says "Hey, bet you can't do THIS on any of your Apples!"

He then plays a short video clip.

I look over at my friend, we go outside, bring in the 840av along with a mouse and my trusty VGA adaptor. We plug his dad's shitty Dell screen into the Quadra (I'm still apologizing to my baby) and I plug a VCR into the Quadra via the RCA video in, and the sound via an RCA to 1/8" adaptor to the mic in port of the Mac.

I fire it up, plug the cable TV into the tape player and we watch tv shows on the Quadra.

Then I look at the imbecile dad and say "No, you're wrong! But the real question is... why would I waste my time with a music video when I could watch TV on a Mac from 1993?"

Wintel boxes get so old and so decrepid so quickly that it hurts. That Quadra shames anything my dad has (older P2 Dells and Compaq boxes from 300 to 500MHz). Running OS 8.1, it's more reliable than windoze 2000.

There's just no comparison to the useful life between Macs and x86 boxen. I put Mac OS 9.1 on my 7200... a 120MHz Power Mac with 112MB of RAM is running the highest version OS available for it. 9.1 was released in 2001. The 7200 came out in 1995. Would you dream of installing Windows Me or 2000 on an x86 box that hit the streets in 1995? Never.

Oh yeah, I popped a USB/Firewire combo card as well as a Radeon Mac Edition video card in the 7200. A G3-on-a-PCI-card upgrade might be next.

Or maybe it's getting close to time to retire it?

Nah.

I bet my 2.53ghz P4 Northwood w/1GB of 1,200mhz RDRAM, 120GB 7,200 RPM ATA-133 IDE drive(I am going to be moving to SCSI storage soon)beats the piss out of any Mac on the market right now. IT is fast....devilishly fast.


(EDITED because of a typo)

[ January 21, 2003: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

[xyle_one]

quote: I bet my 2.53ghz P4 w/1GB of 1,200mhz RDRAM, 120GB 7,200 RPM ATA-133 IDE drive(I am going to be moving to SCSI storage soon)beats the piss out of any Mac on the market right now. IT is fast....devilishly fast.

i dont know about that. my dual 1ghz mac rocks every PC i have used. i guess it also depends on what the test will be. if its buring a dvd while working on a couple HUGE (300+mbs) images, uploading shit to my website, and listening to iTunes play mp3 off of my firewire drive. maybe we can play amovie in quicktime also. I dont think your (or anyones) pc can do that. maybe one at a time, but not all at once, flawlessly.
i have seen some pc vs mac benchmarks, but they were all single tasks. and the pc barely wins. when was the last time you worked on one thing at a time? my mac multi-tasks like a champ. where as i cant move a window in windows without winamp or whatever skipping like fuck.

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by Xyle: iGeek...:

i dont know about that. my dual 1ghz mac rocks every PC i have used. i guess it also depends on what the test will be. if its buring a dvd while working on a couple HUGE (300+mbs) images, uploading shit to my website, and listening to iTunes play mp3 off of my firewire drive. maybe we can play amovie in quicktime also. I dont think your (or anyones) pc can do that. maybe one at a time, but not all at once, flawlessly.
i have seen some pc vs mac benchmarks, but they were all single tasks. and the pc barely wins. when was the last time you worked on one thing at a time? my mac multi-tasks like a champ. where as i cant move a window in windows without winamp or whatever skipping like fuck.

There is something wrong with your PC then. My system(s) can multitask like a champ. Right now I'm burning a CD, playing a 630MB MPEG in WMP9, surfing the net, uploading some files to my FTP space and I have Project 64(N64 emulator) running with a 60MB ROM loaded(Conkers Bad Fur Day) and the system isn't hiccuping at all. As a matter of fact, I still have 54% of my CPU cycles left according to my CPU meter. Now, if I were burning a CD with a burner that works only in PIO mode there would be some troubles. Gotta love DMA transfer modes on storage devices.

Your problem with the PC could be your OS(Win9x can't multitask for shit if you are using 9x), you could have a PIO hard drive(or your BIOS has DMA disabled)), you have a small amount of RAM, you have a crappy video card or something has your OS installation bum-fucked or it could be a combination of more than 1 of the above.

If this was a Dual CPU or a Hyperthread enabled system, I would only be using like 8-12% of my CPU cycles.

[ January 21, 2003: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

[xyle_one]

my pc is a dual athlon with 1gig ddr. 2 40gig ibm 7200 rpm drives, 2 18gig ibm scsi drives, geforce 3 64mb, running windows 2k. its runs really cold    . so heating is not a problem. xp ran like shit, so i upgraded to 2000 (i should have just used radHat, but, until autodesk & discreet produce their software for other os, i will have windows in my house). all of the hardware works fine together. i have scoured the web for info about my system and it just comes down to the fact that it is inferior to my mac.

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by Xyle: iGeek...:
my pc is a dual athlon with 1gig ddr. 2 40gig ibm 7200 rpm drives, 2 18gig ibm scsi drives, geforce 3 64mb, running windows 2k. its runs really cold        . so heating is not a problem. xp ran like shit, so i upgraded to 2000 (i should have just used radHat, but, until autodesk & discreet produce their software for other os, i will have windows in my house). all of the hardware works fine together. i have scoured the web for info about my system and it just comes down to the fact that it is inferior to my mac.

There is definatley something wrong with the way your software or/and BIOS configuration then. For starters, go to your device manager and make sure that your IDE controller has UDMA enabled for all of the  IDE channels. I'm assuming that you have a VIA chipset on the motherboard of your PC. Well, Via chipsets are plauged with issues so technically your PC is inferior to your Mac. AMD CPU's and the motherboards for AMD CPU's are fucking junk. The chipsets for AMD have nothing but emulation for Intel patented technology(AMD boards do not have a real AGP bus...the AGP bus is emulated via AGP driving strength, Intel invented and holds patents to the real AGP technology, AMD CPU's are nothing more than an emulation of Ix86 and AMD chipsets tend to have IDE issues).

Try building a modern PC with quality parts instead of trying to save some $$$ then you will have something comparable to your Mac.

[ January 21, 2003: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

[xyle_one]

the pc is very "modern". and i see no reason to run out and spend $3300 on a system that will be "un"modern in about 6 months. fuck that. since i have moved almost my entire production to mac, the pc isnt that important. since i am only using it for 1-2 things, the setup is fine for now. someday, i might consider upgrading my pc. ill probably just wait until redhat9 or 10.
some people are mac people. some people like pcs. its too bad we have to continualy fight over who we think is better. if you can get your work done on time and make it look good on a pc, then by all means use it. i am more productive on a mac. i like mac better. doesnt mean i think im better. doesnt mean that the mac IS better. its just a preference.

[cocoamix]

Fast? Who gives a shit if it runs Windoze?

[xyle_one]

quote: Fast? Who gives a shit if it runs Windoze?

 

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by Xyle: iGeek...:
the pc is very "modern". and i see no reason to run out and spend $3300 on a system that will be "un"modern in about 6 months. fuck that. since i have moved almost my entire production to mac, the pc isnt that important. since i am only using it for 1-2 things, the setup is fine for now. someday, i might consider upgrading my pc. ill probably just wait until redhat9 or 10.
some people are mac people. some people like pcs. its too bad we have to continualy fight over who we think is better. if you can get your work done on time and make it look good on a pc, then by all means use it. i am more productive on a mac. i like mac better. doesnt mean i think im better. doesnt mean that the mac IS better. its just a preference.

You know man. You are too right. Maybe PC people and Mac people should like unite and let it become a computer users community instead of Mac user and PC user community. ;P The machine one prefers doesn't make the person who he/she is so why should there be a continuous Mac vs. PC war? Truthfully, I'm starting to like the maturitiy level of most Mac users so I'm not going to even be bothered with trying to compare Apples and Oranges anymore.

BTW, If I had've said anything to compare Windows to Linux the *nix people would've been flaming me and calling me names by now. ;P

[ January 21, 2003: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

[Interscope]

BSD has the best multitasking.
OSX uses BSD.

Windoze does not use BSD

=-)

[cocoamix]

You know Zombie, you used to have quite a bad reputation around here, but messages like the one above makes me think that there's hope for everyone.

[Interscope]

quote:Originally posted by Jimmy James: Mac Commando:
Well, I've had a Quadra 840av for ages now. Yes, the cool old one with the 40MHz 68040. The one that has the 66MHz DSP in it for video and audio processing.

The one that was seven grand new.

Yeah. I've got one.

But anyway, I was at a friend's house and... for some reason, I had it and my Power Mac 7200 (beloved machine) out in the car. My friend's dad is a moron and just got a POS new Hell, I mean Dell.

What a turd. The plastic case is so fucking cheap that I cracked it by leaning too hard against it.

So, knowing that I use Macs, he looks at me and says "Hey, bet you can't do THIS on any of your Apples!"

He then plays a short video clip.

I look over at my friend, we go outside, bring in the 840av along with a mouse and my trusty VGA adaptor. We plug his dad's shitty Dell screen into the Quadra (I'm still apologizing to my baby) and I plug a VCR into the Quadra via the RCA video in, and the sound via an RCA to 1/8" adaptor to the mic in port of the Mac.

I fire it up, plug the cable TV into the tape player and we watch tv shows on the Quadra.

Then I look at the imbecile dad and say "No, you're wrong! But the real question is... why would I waste my time with a music video when I could watch TV on a Mac from 1993?"

Wintel boxes get so old and so decrepid so quickly that it hurts. That Quadra shames anything my dad has (older P2 Dells and Compaq boxes from 300 to 500MHz). Running OS 8.1, it's more reliable than windoze 2000.

I remember my p166 i just dumped a few months ago... It had a tv-card just liked your old mac, it worked like a charm... I used Win95 and Linux.

[xyle_one]

quote: You know man. You are too right. Maybe PC people and Mac people should like unite and let it become a computer users community instead of Mac user and PC user community. ;P The machine one prefers doesn't make the person who he/she is so why should there be a continuous Mac vs. PC war? Truthfully, I'm starting to like the maturitiy level of most Mac users so I'm not going to even be bothered with trying to compare Apples and Oranges anymore.

  :eek:    :eek:  
wow. i really wasnt expecting that response. less trollish, more contributing member. today is def a strange day at the MES  

[hm_murdock]

Wow indeed.

Now, mind you, I didn't make a performance claim. I was simply commenting on system capabilities. A machine built in 1993... completely stock (save for an added HD and RAM upped to 128MB) can do things that a stock PC from this past year could never dream of doing.

I still think that Apple's lost the edge in hardware innovation, and until I see otherwise, I'll go on believing that. They've still got the engineering and industrial design, but they sure ain't got any new "insanely great" ideas.

As for your PC, Zombie, I don't doubt it'll kick most Macs' asses. I'm afraid that Apple's not only fucked up by putting marketing first (sticking with the marginal G4) but also by skimping in other areas, like getting DDR so late in the game, using IMHO, shitty ass Maxtor drives when for the price you pay, you should be getting the best Western Digital drives in the world. That's what the ability to piece together your own box lets you do... make sure you get THE BEST from everything.

Right now, Apple's claim to fame is quality and software. That's why I use Apple computers instead of PCs. I can't run Mac OS and OS X on x86 boxes. And even if I could, I'd have to worry about IBM's shitty static BIOS concept rearing its ugly head and fucking things up, making hardware configuration a true Pain In The Ass(TM)

[ January 21, 2003: Message edited by: Jimmy James: Mac Commando ]