PC vs. Mac Pro?

[linuxcooldude]

So, you admit that

• some applications scale linearly with increasing core counts
• Apple doesn't care about those applications

• 
  
  It depends on how Apple thinks most people use workstations. Usually a few key applications. Usually one at a time.
  
  ----------
  
  

  And why would you not want more cores to do this?

  
  Amdahl's Law, which we already mentioned. Every time you increase the amount of cores, you get a diminished rate of return each time.
  
  

  I do think that the truth is coming....

  
  Yes, the truth can hurt. But if you learn to accept it, it will get easier.

 

[beaker7]

This is really weird. Have a dual CPU machine here with E5-2697v2's and a nMP 12 core. When I render, it's twice as fast. Clearly it can't be due to this law?

 

[lemonade-maker]

Four plus pages and nothing. This has gone nowhere like it always does, like it always has.

 

[snouter]

Four plus pages and nothing. This has gone nowhere like it always does, like it always has.

Like it always will.

 

[stjames70]

Better Components? Maybe

Are the parts all the manufacturers sell to Apple to assemble different than the ones they sell to everyone else? CPUs, GPUs, RAM, etc?

Actually, I think so. I cannot verify this of course, but most of what I buy from Apple tends to work for many years without a problem, I can't quite say the same of other manufacturers. I believe Apple's pricing strategy of charging higher prices than the competition arises because Apple does choose better grade components than their competitors. That being said, I believe that if you did buy a similar non-Apple product at the same price as Apple charges, it would probably have the same components and last as long.

In short, I do believe (and that is highly subjective as I said from the outset) that you get exactly what you pay for with an Apple product. You are not paying for just the name if you are a fan boy. You are actually paying for a superior product.

 

[stjames70]

OS 8 and OS 9? Really?!?!?

Tell that to the malware programmers having written actual viruses in public circulation affecting Mac OS 8 and 9 and even earlier systems, which had a much smaller market share in the 1990s than Mac OS X / OS X had in the past decade.

Ok, now I used to own quite a few Dells, and lots of Macs in my office.

I have had to 'clean slate' the Dells twice (in an office with four Dells running XP Pro) quite a few times because the systems would get slower and slower due to malware, spyware, viruses or what have you. If you have had to reformat and reload a PC, you know how much of a pain that is.

The Macs? Yeah, I had to do that because the mechanical HD failed. Once (in an office with 8 iMacs and two MacPros). Not ever did they ever get infected with anything malicious in the six years we have had them (they are all vintage 2008 machines). So yeah, I really think you are much safer with a Mac just because there are fewer viruses targeting OSX. OSX may not be any better than XP, 7, or 8, but at least, OSX never gave me the blue screen of death.

----------

I hope that you're comparing Dell Latitudes and Precisions to the Apples, not $300 to $400 Inspirons.

Eh, actually it was a Latitude laptop I was referring to. The price for the Apple version was the same as the Latitude, but boy, the Apple still exists and turn on (albeit it is unreasonably slow now) while the Latitude is probably getting scrapped right now somewhere in India or China for whatever precious metals can be scrapped from its remains. RIP Dell -- you were Ok when alive, but you were just falling apart at the end (literally)

 

[tuxon86]

Actually, I think so. I cannot verify this of course, but most of what I buy from Apple tends to work for many years without a problem, I can't quite say the same of other manufacturers. I believe Apple's pricing strategy of charging higher prices than the competition arises because Apple does choose better grade components than their competitors. That being said, I believe that if you did buy a similar non-Apple product at the same price as Apple charges, it would probably have the same components and last as long.

In short, I do believe (and that is highly subjective as I said from the outset) that you get exactly what you pay for with an Apple product. You are not paying for just the name if you are a fan boy. You are actually paying for a superior product.

You may think so but it isn't the reality.

All the parts are made by the same super-manuf plant like Foxcon or other in china, taiwan and korea, and then they are graded/binned. Apple and other big name brand buy A+ or A grade parts while lesser brand get the A- and cheap brands get the B+ & B-.

You don't get any better than what Dell or HP offers unless you go for their cheaply price series. If you buy a top of the line HP or Dell you get the same A+ parts that you get in your Mac and for less money too due to economy of scale.

Beside people tends to keep Mac longer BECAUSE they are more expensive! I can afford to buy two Dell XPS and a Crossover 27" for the price of a single comparable iMac. I don't care what happens to it in 3 years since it will be replaced in 2. This is why I upgrade my mac only every 4 to 5 years. I'm still on a 2010 21" i3 iMac because I can't afford to replace it like I do with my PC.

 

[krye]

I've seen several sites spec out the Mac Pro against the likes of Dell, etc. You do pay more for the high end PC hardware. There is no Apple tax. It's a popular misconception.

People think Apple hardware is expensive, but they're not looking at a good comparison. People say, "Why spend $3000 on a Mac when you can get a Dell for $1000"? It's literary Apple's an oranges. That's like saying why buy a BMW when you can buy a Ford.

As far as Apple-to-Dell hardware side-by-side comparisons, you come close, but no OS X or Thunderbolt. Not to mention the ugly plastic box. As far as the Mac Pro, I don't thin you'll find a $3000 equivalent from Dell, and you'll have to use Windows. (Unless you're into the hackintosh thing.)

 

[tuxon86]

I've seen several sites spec out the Mac Pro against the likes of Dell, etc. You do pay more for the high end PC hardware. There is no Apple tax. It's a popular misconception.

People think Apple hardware is expensive, but they're not looking at a good comparison. People say, "Why spend $3000 on a Mac when you can get a Dell for $1000"? It's literary Apple's an oranges. That's like saying why buy a BMW when you can buy a Ford.

As far as Apple-to-Dell hardware side-by-side comparisons, you come close, but no OS X or Thunderbolt. Not to mention the ugly plastic box. As far as the Mac Pro, I don't thin you'll find a $3000 equivalent from Dell, and you'll have to use Windows. (Unless you're into the hackintosh thing.)

OS X is good but is not without flaws...

I'm personnaly OS agnostic using OSX, Linux and windows. Each has its strength and weakness. Many windows detractors are people who jumped ship with XP or before. Windows 7 or 8 is an entirely different beast.

For the record, my Dell XPS8500SE (bought last year) that is presently my main computer at home has a very stilish case with 4x USB 3.0 and 6x USB 2.0, can accomodate 4 HDD and 2 optical drives (I still use those), an i7 3770 cpu, an HD7870Ghz ed, 16 gig of ram and a 256gig/2tb hybrid drive, which is way more useful to me than TB. All that for $1k... Something close to that on an iMac is $2.5k and a lot of external boxes.

When I upgrade my iMac later this year, TB won't even be a factor in my decision.

 

[stjames70]

Yes, You are right. I do think so.

You may think so but it isn't the reality.

All the parts are made by the same super-manuf plant like Foxcon or other in china, taiwan and korea, and then they are graded/binned. Apple and other big name brand buy A+ or A grade parts while lesser brand get the A- and cheap brands get the B+ & B-.

You don't get any better than what Dell or HP offers unless you go for their cheaply price series. If you buy a top of the line HP or Dell you get the same A+ parts that you get in your Mac and for less money too due to economy of scale.

Beside people tends to keep Mac longer BECAUSE they are more expensive! I can afford to buy two Dell XPS and a Crossover 27" for the price of a single comparable iMac. I don't care what happens to it in 3 years since it will be replaced in 2. This is why I upgrade my mac only every 4 to 5 years. I'm still on a 2010 21" i3 iMac because I can't afford to replace it like I do with my PC.

Would your four year old PC still be able to function as smoothly as a four year old Mac? I think the answer is absolutely no. If you read my previous posts, all of our computer are 2008 vintage, and as you said, yeah, I would have had to replace PCs probably at the three year mark because:

1) they have broken down
2) they slow down to the point they are no longer functional
3) if they are serviceable, they are not worth the cost of servicing

So I see you still have your 2010 iMac. Bet that you can still put in Mavericks on it. Bet you it still works smoothly. Bet you that it would be just as fast as any new computer if you upgraded memory or put in a cheap SSD. I know. I have done one or the other with my various Macs to great success. You know that the main reason computers are slow is the system drive. It has always been the limiting factor. With SSDs, that limiting factor has been reduced to a great extent.

And I would buy more Macs in a heart beat if/when they are no longer functional. And BTW, you can keep that excellent 2010 iMac and use it as a monitor for your new Mac Mini when you get tired of its internals.

We run Fusion in our machines in order to run Windows 8 or XP Pro, so I work in both Mac and PC environments. I like both. Neither is bad. But if I am going to plunk money down for hardware, I am not buying anything but an Apple. They are much more easy to manage remotely, and running VMs is great since if they have a problem, they can be simply put in the trash and restarted from any other computer.

I don't need bleeding edge speed. Just stability so perhaps that is why I don't need a new computer every two-three years and I can extend their life five+ years.

We have three MacPro 3,1s running in our office, and they are nice. Quiet, stable, fast -- what else do you need for a computer? Bleeding edge speed for games? Geez, get a game console or yeah, a PC. For business or work, I say definitely a Mac.

If Dell or HP are such great computer companies for the general consumer, how is it they cannot manage to have a physical presence in the ground for us?

For servers and services, yeah Dell or HP. For the consumer, I think not.

 

[Phonzoxd]

Boy do people completely overestimate Apple hardware and underestimate PC hardware.

Ive had my Ivy bridge built computer for 2 years now, with a SSD. Everything is just as super fast as it was when I bought it, but I guess i only got another year left. It MUST literally fall apart at the 3 year mark.

 

[NOTNlCE]

People don't understand the concept that "things last when you take care of them." Regardless of whether you have a Mac or a PC, if you gradually upgrade hardware and you take care of your machine, they will last as long as you need them to. On newer Macs, this isn't quite as easy as it might be on some PCs, which I see some of you have made the argument for, but a computer is a computer. My laptop will be 5 years old this summer, and it still runs flawlessly because I have taken care of it. On the other hand, my dad still uses a Pentium 4 desktop that runs just as well as a new computer, because he has taken care of it and upgraded it.

 

[tuxon86]

Would your four year old PC still be able to function as smoothly as a four year old Mac? I think the answer is absolutely no. If you read my previous posts, all of our computer are 2008 vintage, and as you said, yeah, I would have had to replace PCs probably at the three year mark because:

1) they have broken down
2) they slow down to the point they are no longer functional
3) if they are serviceable, they are not worth the cost of servicing

So I see you still have your 2010 iMac. Bet that you can still put in Mavericks on it. Bet you it still works smoothly. Bet you that it would be just as fast as any new computer if you upgraded memory or put in a cheap SSD. I know. I have done one or the other with my various Macs to great success. You know that the main reason computers are slow is the system drive. It has always been the limiting factor. With SSDs, that limiting factor has been reduced to a great extent.

And I would buy more Macs in a heart beat if/when they are no longer functional. And BTW, you can keep that excellent 2010 iMac and use it as a monitor for your new Mac Mini when you get tired of its internals.

We run Fusion in our machines in order to run Windows 8 or XP Pro, so I work in both Mac and PC environments. I like both. Neither is bad. But if I am going to plunk money down for hardware, I am not buying anything but an Apple. They are much more easy to manage remotely, and running VMs is great since if they have a problem, they can be simply put in the trash and restarted from any other computer.

I don't need bleeding edge speed. Just stability so perhaps that is why I don't need a new computer every two-three years and I can extend their life five+ years.

We have three MacPro 3,1s running in our office, and they are nice. Quiet, stable, fast -- what else do you need for a computer? Bleeding edge speed for games? Geez, get a game console or yeah, a PC. For business or work, I say definitely a Mac.

If Dell or HP are such great computer companies for the general consumer, how is it they cannot manage to have a physical presence in the ground for us?

For servers and services, yeah Dell or HP. For the consumer, I think not.

I have PCs (Dell Core2Duo with 8gig of ram) that are older than 4 year old and they still run as smooth as my iMac, which incidently has a bad optical drive since last week and the screen is begining to yellow... Both of those problem can be easilly fixed on the Dell but not so on the iMac.

What you're failing to realise is that those apple computer are using the exact same chinese made components as every other computer on the planet.

Apple doesn't make their own components. The CPU are from Intel, the graphic card from AMD or NVidia, their HDD are from Samsung or other company, their screen use LG or Samsung panel and circuits... And all is assemble by Foxcon, except for the nMP.

 

[blanka]

It is always nice to see people demanding you to built an equivalent PC with ECC and Xeon processors. It is not more reliable and it does not differ other than the stamp on the processor and maybe a bit more extensive testing.

Apple plays a smart game here: they go to intel and say: we want Xeon labelled processors, yet we pay consumer grade prices. Eat it or walk to hell. Apple is the only party capable of asking that. Intel swallows it, and delivers what they ask. Same trick with AMD. Fire pro is not much difference than top HDxxxx cards. Check those tricks to change firmware on a Radeon card to make it act as a Firepro. So Apple just play's a nice brain game with us. In the end Xeon and Firepro is 100% the same silicon as normal i7 and Radeon chips. You won't be 1% more productive with it.

 

[flat five]

This is really weird. Have a dual CPU machine here with E5-2697v2's and a nMP 12 core. When I render, it's twice as fast. Clearly it can't be due to this law?

you had to add 12 cores to double the speed.

if you start with a quad then you only have to add 4 cores to double the speed..

imagine doubling your dual 12 core's speed..

law of diminishing returns is very noticeable in the cpu game.

----------

Trying to use a large amount of multiple cores to render a single video file will eventually max out the speed, even when adding more cores, in some cases slowing it down. It has to be broken down into multiple threads, finish rendering then reassembled.

And why would you not want more cores to do this?

you hit a point where adding up all the info being created in the various threads --which is a single threaded process-- becomes the bottleneck.. put as many cpu (or gpu) cores as you want in there but it's not going to speed up anymore..

faster clock is the answer.. it's basically the only way to speed up the addition of all the individual calculations into one whole.. (not 'THE' answer.. but it's a lot better of a solution than more cores.. apparently, it's not actually a feasible or possible solution.. better programming will help though)

 

[beaker7]

you had to add 12 cores to double the speed.

if you start with a quad then you only have to add 4 cores to double the speed..

imagine doubling your dual 12 core's speed..

Yeah. Double the cores, double the speed. That isn't diminishing returns.

Doubling the cores and NOT getting a double of speed, THAT would be diminishing returns.

 

[Phonzoxd]

you had to add 12 cores to double the speed.

if you start with a quad then you only have to add 4 cores to double the speed..

imagine doubling your dual 12 core's speed..

law of diminishing returns is very noticeable in the cpu game.

----------

I don't think you know what diminishing return means.....

 

[ClassObject]

It is always nice to see people demanding you to built an equivalent PC with ECC and Xeon processors. It is not more reliable and it does not differ other than the stamp on the processor and maybe a bit more extensive testing.

Apple plays a smart game here: they go to intel and say: we want Xeon labelled processors, yet we pay consumer grade prices. Eat it or walk to hell. Apple is the only party capable of asking that. Intel swallows it, and delivers what they ask. Same trick with AMD. Fire pro is not much difference than top HDxxxx cards. Check those tricks to change firmware on a Radeon card to make it act as a Firepro. So Apple just play's a nice brain game with us. In the end Xeon and Firepro is 100% the same silicon as normal i7 and Radeon chips. You won't be 1% more productive with it.

You seem bitter. Need a hug?

 

[flat five]

I don't think you know what diminishing return means.....

hmm. why not. ?
what does it mean?

1 core = 2 minute
2 core = 1 minute
4 core = 30 sec
8 core = 15 sec

if it weren't diminishing, it would be

1 core = 2 minute
2 core = 1 minute
3 core = 30 sec
4 core = 15 sec

(not to mention- as core count goes up, GHz drops.. and cost increases exponentially as well.. so reality is actually a lot worse than this simple example.

 

[beaker7]

hmm. why not. ?
what does it mean?

1 core = 2 minute
2 core = 1 minute
4 core = 30 sec
8 core = 15 sec

if it weren't diminishing, it would be

1 core = 2 minute
2 core = 1 minute
3 core = 30 sec
4 core = 15 sec

math is hard

 

[flat five]

math is hard

but at least you can't argue with it.

(well, you can try but.... )

 

[beaker7]

but at least you can't argue with it.

(well, you can try but.... )

meant hard for you, apparently

honestly - just try to work through your logic again. You're little chart actually illustrates quite well the exact opposite of what you think it does.

 

[flat five]

meant hard for you, apparently

honestly - just try to work through your logic again. You're little chart actually illustrates quite well the exact opposite of what you think it does.

haha. ok.

 

[xlp]

It is always nice to see people demanding you to built an equivalent PC with ECC and Xeon processors. It is not more reliable and it does not differ other than the stamp on the processor and maybe a bit more extensive testing.

Apple plays a smart game here: they go to intel and say: we want Xeon labelled processors, yet we pay consumer grade prices. Eat it or walk to hell. Apple is the only party capable of asking that. Intel swallows it, and delivers what they ask. Same trick with AMD. Fire pro is not much difference than top HDxxxx cards. Check those tricks to change firmware on a Radeon card to make it act as a Firepro. So Apple just play's a nice brain game with us. In the end Xeon and Firepro is 100% the same silicon as normal i7 and Radeon chips. You won't be 1% more productive with it.

Thanks for being so mad, need a tissue?

Best thread on MacRumors. Everything makes so much sense.

 

[flat five]

(but just make sure you realize: this is a question of logic.. not one of opinion..
how you go about dealing with a logic problem will reflect on your opinions and either lend them weight or lighten them.)

(@beaker)