PC Users Switching to Apple Silicon

[pshufd]

It had that much hardware in 2008 and only $580? Or are all of those after market upgrades? I prefer to build my own Windows PC too. I built one recently but had to put in an old GPU while I wait for AMD or NVIDIA cards to be available, if they ever will.

I added the RAM, SSD and PCIe card as those are all modern components. USB 3.0 wasn't around back then. The system has a listed max of 24 GB of RAM because 8 GB DDR3 didn't exist back then, at least not at the retail level. SSDs were pretty uncommon back then asa well. The thing is that all of the components, years down the road, are really cheap now.

I thought that it was a fantastic deal back in 2008 - it originally had a Hard Disk Drive and 9 GB of RAM (triple-channel memory). They were sold more as server desktops than consumer desktops. I wouldn't touch the newer XPS desktops - I don't like the new hinge design as it could be a long-term reliability problem and everything is too compact so maybe thermal issues.

 

[lapino]

One thing is sure, it's almost ridiculous to see how performant these tiny laptops have become over the years. I remember a lot of years back using a 5kg Dell laptop which had almost trouble running Baldur's Gate. And things will only get better. Intel will need to wake up, with two competitors being extremely hard on them now (amd and apple). I just love seeing all these things happening. Typing this on my Macbook just brings joy to me, fifteen years back having a laptop with a very good keyboard, 18 hours battery life, a pin sharp screen, almost unlimited bandwidth, online storage, streaming of movies in 4K (it's not that long ago we all bought DVDs which were hardly 720p at best). Great times when it comes to this.

 

[rui no onna]

The problem is, low priced PCs tend to not last more than a couple of years. Yet my parents are still using the base 2013 21.5" iMac with SSD, and my brother is still using the base 2015 21.5" iMac fusion drive upgrade. Those were both around $1,100 at the time of purchase, 2013 iMac might have been a little more with the SSD upgrade. And the oldest one is going on 7 years now and it is NO slower today than it was the day it was purchased. They have no reason to upgrade. Now can you say the same thing about a $499 Dell desktop from 2013? Very doubtful.

Its better to spend a bit more to have a computer last longer than get a new one every couple of years, which would add up to be the same cost or maybe more in the long run.

Why not? My Dell Optiplex desktop at the office is circa 2011 (Core i5-2500) and still performs fine. Granted, it got an SSD upgrade a while back. Not quite $499, but our contract pricing was ~$600, iirc, and that was a couple years earlier.

2013 is Haswell and even the Pentiums and Celerons based on Ivy Bridge/Haswell to be found on ultra-budget builds work quite nicely. Intel has been moving at a glacial pace so barring HEVC playback, 2nd-4th gen Intel Core based machines aren't that much slower than current Intel PCs for typical workloads (office, web, etc) as long as they're paired with at least 8GB RAM and a decent SSD.

Indeed, almost all the PCs at the office are circa 2013 (i5-4570 Haswell) upgraded to Win 10+16GB RAM+500GB SATA3 SSD and they work well (much better than when they had 4GB+HDD). Our IT just upgraded storage, RAM and OS to save money instead of buying new PCs when Win 7 extended support ended.

I have a 2008 Dell XPS Studio with Core i7 that I bought refurbished for $580 in 2008. It has a 240 GB SSD, USB 3.0 PCIe card and 48 GB of RAM. It has had a lot of jobs over the years as a Windows Trading station, development box running Oracle Enterprise Linux, and File Server. It's Geekbench 5 Multicore is about 2,000 which is usable for a lot of things. It's also built like a tank.

This is one of the reasons I prefer Dell when it comes to Windows systems. Of course the best is to just buy the parts and build it yourself. Someone in the Alternatives forum bought a bunch of parts on Black Friday and built a quite powerful Hackintosh for $500.

Did you mean purchased in 2009 by any chance? Nehalem was only released November 2008.

 

[pshufd]

One thing is sure, it's almost ridiculous to see how performant these tiny laptops have become over the years. I remember a lot of years back using a 5kg Dell laptop which had almost trouble running Baldur's Gate. And things will only get better. Intel will need to wake up, with two competitors being extremely hard on them now (amd and apple). I just love seeing all these things happening. Typing this on my Macbook just brings joy to me, fifteen years back having a laptop with a very good keyboard, 18 hours battery life, a pin sharp screen, almost unlimited bandwidth, online storage, streaming of movies in 4K (it's not that long ago we all bought DVDs which were hardly 720p at best). Great times when it comes to this.

I saw leaked Geekbench 5 Benchmarks of the 11700k. It beats AMD in single core by about 5%. PL1 is 125 Watts. PL2 is 255 Watts. I guess we know how Intel is trying to beat AMD. AMD wins easily on multicore. I think that there may have been some early Alder Lake leaks too; which didn't look that promising.

 

[mgymnop]

I am a PC/Windows user for almost all my professional life who has little Mac experience (wrote my PhD thesis on a G4 and hated it). But now I am ready to switch to MacOS and the MBP M1. I am fed up with Windows laptops. The constant driver issues and bugs with windows even on surface products are annoying. I have at the moment a $2500 surface book which has for 5 months a severe driver bug that Microsoft apparently cannot fix: Screen goes blank for 10-15 sec several times a day without reason. Battery life is mediocre and windows feels just like patchwork between new UI elements introduced with windows 8 and the old legacy UI from windows XP upwards. Looking forward to something fresh and don't mind the learning curve. All software that I need to run has either their Mac versions or a similar or better counterpart. I also cut cord with most apps from Google and switched from Android to IOS last year and never regretted it.

 

[ipponrg]

Looking forward to something fresh and don't mind the learning curve. All software that I need to run has either their Mac versions or a similar or better counterpart.

The learning curve should be not too bad. Just swap your ALT key with the COMMAND key. The mac's "control panel" is much easier to figure out than a Window's control panel. Drivers usually are a thing of the past unless you want to be on the latest OS version(s) or are working with unsupported devices.

 

[Jouls]

Just swap your ALT key with the COMMAND key.

You mean CTRL with CMD.

 

[Argon_]

I saw leaked Geekbench 5 Benchmarks of the 11700k. It beats AMD in single core by about 5%. PL1 is 125 Watts. PL2 is 255 Watts. I guess we know how Intel is trying to beat AMD. AMD wins easily on multicore. I think that there may have been some early Alder Lake leaks too; which didn't look that promising.

255W! ????

 

[pshufd]

255W! ????

That's all Intel has on 14 nm. That's why they can't compete on multicore. They obviously can't run all the cores at high frequencies.

 

[Argon_]

That's all Intel has on 14 nm. That's why they can't compete on multicore. They obviously can't run all the cores at high frequencies.

Well they can, if you're willing to add a second power supply. But it just becomes impractical. You end up needing a cooler that's half the size of a cinderblock to keep temps under control.

The Intel solution. Maximum roast. Copied from AMD FX.

 

[pshufd]

Well they can, if you're willing to add a second power supply. But it just becomes impractical. You end up needing a cooler that's half the size of a cinderblock to keep temps under control.

The Intel solution. Maximum roast. Copied from AMD FX.

Intel's saving grace is that there are shortages of AMD Zen 3 chips and there's price gouging for what few chips are available. People are buying Intel chips because they can't get AMD chips. The leaked stuff is Rocket Lake, due out in Q1.

 

[firewood]

I think another thing we need is new Fabs. Right now everyone is using TSMC for chips, except Intel who uses its own.

Yes and no. They built on top of ARM, which is quite mature.

Apple built on top of Arm for some of their their 32-but A chips. But Apple finished their arm64 A7 before Arm, so it has nothing to do with Arm’s implementation except ISA compatibility.

And, IIRC, the supercomputer Power 9/10 and Mainframe Z series chips are still being fabbed at GlobalFoundaries. It’s possible they might be or jump past Intel in capability.

 

[pshufd]

Samsung has Fabs too. AMD had a Fab in East Germany which they sold over 10 years ago.

 

[lightfire]

I have a 2008 Dell XPS Studio with Core i7 that I bought refurbished for $580 in 2008. It has a 240 GB SSD, USB 3.0 PCIe card and 48 GB of RAM. It has had a lot of jobs over the years as a Windows Trading station, development box running Oracle Enterprise Linux, and File Server. It's Geekbench 5 Multicore is about 2,000 which is usable for a lot of things. It's also built like a tank.

This is one of the reasons I prefer Dell when it comes to Windows systems. Of course the best is to just buy the parts and build it yourself. Someone in the Alternatives forum bought a bunch of parts on Black Friday and built a quite powerful Hackintosh for $500.

I just got a Dell monitor; like it so far. Had a Dell laptop for several years ad it did OK. I usually build all my desktops and have since the PC was born. I did buy a Lenovo laptop as a desktop replacement when I was having desktop issues, as I couldnt afford down time (since repaired). It has a ryzen processor and is fast. And I upgraded it to 64gb ram and 3 TB of NVME disk and it cost less than a MacBook Pro 16gb/1TB. However, I am a techie type intrigued and did purchase a mobile MacBook Pro. I originally got an Air M1 but I like the Pro M1 better. Some of it is very good and parts of MacOS and Apple policy I do not like. I have run Unix/CPM/Msdos/Linux/Windows/MacOS and all of them have some type of issue. Windows beats Mac all to heck with software availability. I like that MacOS MAY be more secure and I wouldnt keep the MacBook Pro if I didnt use it and like it. BEST software so far? I really am impressed with softmaker office. I run it on my PCs as well. And they have a native M1 version.

 

[BackBlast]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching.

I'm switching to Mac. I've used them on and off as I've been given Macs here and there for development systems by various employers - mostly I do web development. My tools are available more or less equally on all platforms. I use Linux as my primary platform. Apple has produced an incredible overall value prospect and so I'm on board and I'm switching. In recent history I haven't found them particularly enticing but the new hardware is exactly the style I like, fast and low power/cool. I've never liked the trend of using space heaters as computers.

I suspect that much of the higher end professionals (and not just the creative segment) will be on the platform in the coming years, leaving the PC vendors with mostly the budget market and gamers.

 

[JouniS]

I suspect that much of the higher end professionals (and not just the creative segment) will be on the platform in the coming years, leaving the PC vendors with mostly the budget market and gamers.

There is a constant flow in both directions. For example, many people in science and technology started using Macs after the Intel transition, which probably killed Linux as a mainstream desktop OS. macOS delivered a more polished user experience than Linux while being mostly compatible with the same tools. Since then, many of those people have switched to Windows, as Microsoft embraced Linux while macOS became more restrictive every year. Snow Leopard was probably the best macOS version as a Linux replacement.

 

[Argon_]

There is a constant flow in both directions. For example, many people in science and technology started using Macs after the Intel transition, which probably killed Linux as a mainstream desktop OS. macOS delivered a more polished user experience than Linux while being mostly compatible with the same tools. Since then, many of those people have switched to Windows, as Microsoft embraced Linux while macOS became more restrictive every year. Snow Leopard was probably the best macOS version as a Linux replacement.

The whole time, a custom built Linux PC would offer better performance per dollar than Macs. Until Apple silicon. The ASi Mac Pro might perform strongly enough to build serious workstation market share. Without having to pay stacks to Intel for Xeons.

 

[JouniS]

The whole time, a custom built Linux PC would offer better performance per dollar than Macs. Until Apple silicon. The ASi Mac Pro might perform strongly enough to build serious workstation market share. Without having to pay stacks to Intel for Xeons.

It depends on what you were in the market for. Mac laptops were usually good value for money, as long as you didn't pay Apple tax for upgrades. Early 27" iMacs were very good value, because comparable displays were expensive. And if you were affiliated with a university, you got a nice discount without any effort.

Of course Apple was never interested in selling high-performance desktops without a workstation price tag, but I don't see Apple Silicon changing that.

 

[Argon_]

It depends on what you were in the market for. Mac laptops were usually good value for money, as long as you didn't pay Apple tax for upgrades. Early 27" iMacs were very good value, because comparable displays were expensive. And if you were affiliated with a university, you got a nice discount without any effort.

Of course Apple was never interested in selling high-performance desktops without a workstation price tag, but I don't see Apple Silicon changing that.

The perf per dollar will be incomparable. The ASi Air is trading blows with gaming laptops. Imagine what 'll happen when they toss on a 100W heatsink and crank up the juice.

An M1 at 4.5 GHz would put up 2250 in single threaded Cinebench, which is insane.

 

[TrueBlou]

The problem is, low priced PCs tend to not last more than a couple of years. Yet my parents are still using the base 2013 21.5" iMac with SSD, and my brother is still using the base 2015 21.5" iMac fusion drive upgrade. Those were both around $1,100 at the time of purchase, 2013 iMac might have been a little more with the SSD upgrade. And the oldest one is going on 7 years now and it is NO slower today than it was the day it was purchased. They have no reason to upgrade. Now can you say the same thing about a $499 Dell desktop from 2013? Very doubtful.

Its better to spend a bit more to have a computer last longer than get a new one every couple of years, which would add up to be the same cost or maybe more in the long run.

I suppose it depends on the people, what they do with it, whether they upgrade operating systems, and so on and so on.

A Dell from 2013? No I couldn’t specifically say that, but I can specifically say that I know people who are still using Windows PCs older than that. My neighbour being one of them. It does what she needs, so she doesn’t see the point of buying a new one. A sentiment I can’t argue with.

 

[ipponrg]

The perf per dollar will be incomparable. The ASi Air is trading blows with gaming laptops. Imagine what 'll happen when they toss on a 100W heatsink and crank up the juice.

An M1 at 4.5 GHz would put up 2250 in single threaded Cinebench, which is insane.

spec for spec sure, but this is a very moot point in the greater scheme of things.

We really need Apple to market their laptops/iMacs/etc better, and we need platform game developers to also commit to MacOS. In other words, all the game devs that are developing for PC/Xbox/PS should also consider Mac as part of their roadmap. As of today and for the next few years, Mac is excluded from a lot of this.

 

[ipponrg]

You mean CTRL with CMD.

Yeah my bad. At the time I was writing I was thinking about tabbing.

 

[TrueBlou]

spec for spec sure, but this is a very moot point in the greater scheme of things.

We really need Apple to market their laptops/iMacs/etc better, and we need platform game developers to also commit to MacOS. In other words, all the game devs that are developing for PC/Xbox/PS should also consider Mac as part of their roadmap. As of today and for the next few years, Mac is excluded from a lot of this.

If the numbers and profits are anything to go by, they’re not doing too bad with marketing

I know what you mean though, if they want to convince a typically PC buyer to, more than likely for the mass market, spend more on a Mac of some variety. Then yeah, they do need to up their marketing and more specifically target that market.

They definitely need, as you said, to get game developers in particular, to take the Mac market more seriously.

Even these lowly M1 systems can play a game or two. I’ve just been playing Metro 2033 Redux, yeah it’s 6 years old, but I was playing it in a buggy beta of Parallels, virtualising an iffy developer preview of ARM Windows, which in turn was emulating x86. And I was getting smooth gameplay at 1440x900 with pretty high settings. Imagine the possibilities of a native M1 game then.

Even the M1 then is quite capable, imagine what the significantly more powerful desktop versions could be capable of. It’s always a chicken and egg scenario. The mass market Mac buyers are typically less interested in gaming, otherwise it would be much more prolific on the Mac. But now, they’ve got and will have the hardware to make it more feasible, it’s just a matter of attracting the consumers and convincing the developers. Which sounds easier than it is.

 

[pshufd]

If the numbers and profits are anything to go by, they’re not doing too bad with marketing

I know what you mean though, if they want to convince a typically PC buyer to, more than likely for the mass market, spend more on a Mac of some variety. Then yeah, they do need to up their marketing and more specifically target that market.

They definitely need, as you said, to get game developers in particular, to take the Mac market more seriously.

Even these lowly M1 systems can play a game or two. I’ve just been playing Metro 2033 Redux, yeah it’s 6 years old, but I was playing it in a buggy beta of Parallels, virtualising an iffy developer preview of ARM Windows, which in turn was emulating x86. And I was getting smooth gameplay at 1440x900 with pretty high settings. Imagine the possibilities of a native M1 game then.

Even the M1 then is quite capable, imagine what the significantly more powerful desktop versions could be capable of. It’s always a chicken and egg scenario. The mass market Mac buyers are typically less interested in gaming, otherwise it would be much more prolific on the Mac. But now, they’ve got and will have the hardware to make it more feasible, it’s just a matter of attracting the consumers and convincing the developers. Which sounds easier than it is.

I actually don't see any M1 marketing. Apple seems to be selling M1 systems with ease if the inventory turnover at the 15 stores in my area are any indication.

 

[LordeOurMother]

Of you say this you haven’t used spreadsheets in an professional environment.

I have a Excel spreadsheet that certain actions makes computers weep. No macros or scripts, just standard functions and a crap load of data



My old iMac from 2013 it took about 7 min for this action to finish. My work issued pos HP laptop from 2019 also about 7 min, but the system is compleatly unresponsive during that time.

M1, excel under rosetta, 2 min.



I’m getting annoyed with both mac people and PCMR people all the time thinking that the only occupations in the world that stresses their computers are videoeditors.

Hey guys, go outside and ponder who makes the drawings and calculations for every building, bridge, tunnel, powerline etc.

This is very true. I work and study in computational social science/natural language processing.

All of the real work is usually done on Mac (locally) or Linux (locally or distributed computing).

Most people I know who work in actual computer science or adjacent fields (not IT) have a virulent hatred for Windows. I'd say most are on Linux, but Mac is probably the second most common platform. There's also a not insignificant portion with Linux on their Mac, lol.

People don't seem to understand that computers are used for more than making pop songs and Youtube videos.