x86 or Mac?

[TheQuirk]

I'm about to get myself a new computer, and I'm kind of in a middle of a dilema -- an x86 PC or a Mac?
It'd appreciate your opinions..!

[ahri]

I would definitly get a mac. I'm going to buy one myslelft this summer. A mac will cost a little more, but you  get what you pay for.

[TheQuirk]

I know. I didn't really concider getting a Mac until I read this site about ha;f a year ago  

[ravuya]

I have four Macs, so you can tell what I'd go for.

But really, if DEC was still making boxes, I'd recommend that everyone on earth pick up an Alpha-based workstation -- it'd make the world a lot better if everyone was running 64-bit UNIX. But unfortunately DEC is no longer.

So pick up a Mac.

[Chooco]

i personaly would get the PC because i have more experience with Linux and Wine than i do with MacOS and whatever emulator thing they have. it's just that PC seems more upgradable in that you can just bust it open and put a new GeForce4 in and it's as easy as that but i'm too sure about Mac. Mac also requires it's special ram or whatever but it's rated at the same bandwidth speed and it costs more for some reason....

i would like to try a mac but i'd be in the dark so i say PC with Linux (DDR RAM!)

[slave]

Allow me to suggest something different from all these other people.  Sure, you could buy a Mac and end up spending twice as much for equivalent hardware.  The Mac OS may be appealing, but you tread a fine line with a Mac in terms of software compatibility, and you must be careful not to give people the wrong image if you are a Mac user.  Some people see them as snobs that won't let go of the past.  Apple used to be a big company back in the day, and far more people had Apple computers then, but Microsoft forged a better solution that reigns supreme to this day.  Apple may have revived the Mac somewhat with the introduction of the iMac and OS X, but it still holds a niche market due to their hardware inflexability.

Personally, if I were getting a new computer I would build myself a powerful PC - it's fun and very, very cost effective.  You can assemble a quality PC with a GeForce 4 Ti4600, 512 MB RAM, a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, and a fast Athlon XP 2200+ processor for $1500 or less.  Of course, you have to have something to power that new computer, and that's where Microsoft comes in.  You can get the OEM version of Windows XP Home Edition for only $80.  You can also dual-boot with Linux if you so choose.

[ June 09, 2002: Message edited by: Windows XP User #5225982375 ]

[pkd_lives]

Personnally my choice is x86. You have the benefits on putting on completely open source software, and you can choose your hardware. (os's available for couple of dollars - some daft buggers pay $80 dollars before they have installed it and decided it's what they want)

I think the real choices between mac and an x86 system is how much control you want and need. If you want something that runs out of the box, and you don't really want to get right into the hardware, then mac is proably your best option. Also consider your apps. Graphical applications seem to be phenominal compared to the x86, and of course games may take a while yet to catch up running Linux. If you want more number crunching and programming type stuff then my choice is x86.

Of course that's not what I want, but th

[pkd_lives]

Oh shit, that's why I hate FUCKING WINDOWS, it's jumping me all over the show, fuck this NEVER happens when I'm running the Linux stuff.

[psyjax]

quote:Originally posted by Chooco:
i personaly would get the PC because i have more experience with Linux and Wine than i do with MacOS and whatever emulator thing they have. it's just that PC seems more upgradable in that you can just bust it open and put a new GeForce4 in and it's as easy as that but i'm too sure about Mac. Mac also requires it's special ram or whatever but it's rated at the same bandwidth speed and it costs more for some reason....

i would like to try a mac but i'd be in the dark so i say PC with Linux (DDR RAM!)

Hey Choco, just wanted to set you straight on a few things.

Modern Mac's use many standard parts and are very easely upgraded and customized. The same standard PC RAM is used on Mac's. HardDrives, Monitors, Video cards, and pretty much all other normaly upgraded parts are standard, PC interchangable, parts on the Mac.

A G4 tower is opend by simply pulling the latch and easing the case open, to change the videocard, yank it pop in a new one. Just like a PC, but I find the Mac Mobo to be laid out a bit more intuatively.

I'm conisdering upgrading mine from a GeForce III toa GeForce IV sometime in he future.

AS far as RAM prices, Apple has been rather newtorious for overcharging at their store. May I recommend corsair memory for cheep RAM at a life-time warrenty.

I would recomend getting a Mac. If you have been using PC's all your life, go ahead and grab a G4 to round out your collection! What's the loss?

You might find that you like Mac's better in the end.

Oh, and BTW, you can easely install Linux and much open source on a Mac if you so choose. Don't forgert that Darwin is UNIX, and Open source at that. The Darwin community is growing by leaps and bounds makeing it a wonderfull "alternative" techy environment to work with.

Oh yes, and you will be able to use OSX    

That IMHO is worth the price alone.

[ June 09, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax ]

[Heru]

Macs use RISC hardware which is more advanced than x86 hardware.
I'd go with a Mac.
You can get an excellent Mac for about $1100, it is called the Emac, and is available to anyone who wants one, and has a G4 processor in it that outperforms most Pentium 4's and most AMD chips.

MacOSX is excellent from what I've seen and from my limited experience with it.  It is based on BSD unix and is very compatible.  It will fit in nicely on any network and connects to the internet easily.  Many Linux progrmas run in it natively, and Mandrake has a PPC version available as well.  It follows industry standards and everything you could need is available on it(MS Office, Open Office, Adobe Photoshop, The GIMP, Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla, and Blizzard releases Mac versions of all of their games on the same disks as the Windows version).

the only downside is that if you want a floppy drive, you need to buy one seperately, and connect it to a USB port.

[psyjax]

Hehe... nice Heru  

But don't use a floppy. Get an external Zip!! (not internal waste of a port)

Seriously, I thought Apple was crazy when they canned the floppy. But I never have needed one since, don't even miss it.

[Chooco]

quote:Personnally my choice is x86. You have the benefits on putting on completely open source software

actually there ARE Linux distros for Mac
i can't find any right now though, i'm pretty sure that there is.....
i bet Slackware has one

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Chooco ]

[voidmain]

Yellow Dog Linux...

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/ydl_home.shtml

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Heru]

Mandrake has released a PPC port of their distro.  It is optimized for the G3 and runs even better on a G4.  It is sometimes considered to be the best PPC distro.
Info here:  http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ppc.php3
Download here: this link should work

Here is a useful feature of Mandrake PPC:
"Mac-on-Linux 0.9.6 lets you run the MacOS in Linux! Supports MacOS 7.5.2 through 9.2.2. Please note that MacOS is not included"
Since all new Macs come with OSX and OS9.2.2, you'll be golden.

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Heru ]

[choasforages]

i would say go for a mac cuase x86 is is not the best platform around, only 32 bit, need i say more,its mis engernerd, come on, why is it that they are trying to make faster processors instead of say 64bit extensions (wait, amd is doing that) mayve alta-vec, faster bus speeds, besides cisc processors  bother me anyway, also macs hardware seems to be built better then most x86 junk sorry if i sound pissed but another one of my lintel boxes died.