# MAC or PC



## wchen64572 (Dec 29, 2007)

I cannot decide what is better mac or pc. The commerical don't help


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

it really depends on what you are doing....

what is it you plan to do with it?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

yes, it depends on what you plan to do with the computer. tell us what you need it for, and then we can give recommendations.


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## wonderhorse (Dec 29, 2007)

I use both - as the others have said, it really depends on what your requirements are and how you will collaborate with others.


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## wchen64572 (Dec 29, 2007)

well i want to edit photos, for typing papers, web surfing, and possibly write some programs, create web sites, or flash. Also the price really matter on a budget.


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

thats a macs work


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

I do all those things on a PC, so they're not exclusively for Mac.

What's your price limit? Will you be using Photoshop (approx $500) or freeware for photo editing?


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

Personally I'd go with the Mac. Since it's a Unix-like OS, it's great for writing programs and basically anything else. Apple includes great developer tools with Macs. Macs have always been good for multimedia, like photo editing, etc. I don't see a way to go wrong with a nice new Mac.

If you have specific questions or want to hear some of my favorite aspects of Macs (some of the reasons I'd go with a Mac over a Windows-based machine), feel free to ask.


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## zaknafein72 (Jan 8, 2008)

I would echo shuuhen and adivise you to go with a mac. Macs have the best consumer-level multimedia suite in the world, in iLife '08. This package gives you a good photo organizer/editor, 2 movie-making programs, a fantastic audio suite, and a web page creator. If you need something more in-depth, Aperture is an extremely full featured photo suite. Basically, Apple has created high-quality consumer-level and professional quality software for nearly every multimedia necessity. And as far as productivity software, Microsoft Office OSX easily runs on any mac and interacts with documents and files from windows machines.

To top it off, macs can run windows in parallel or dual-boot modes....given Apple's extremely high reliability and support, there is really no reason to not go for a mac. Just as an example, the hard drive in our MacBook recently died, and the machine was no longer under warranty. We went to the Apple store to get a free evaluation, and they gave as a free new hard drive and installed it in the machine. You can't beat that kind of service.


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## scathe30 (Jan 10, 2007)

I prefer Macs, because Macs "contain" both Mac and PC in them. The main advantage for me is that I can use Windows natively on Macs since they support x86 processors. Be it Parallels or Boot Camp, Windows works for me much better than it would on a PC (apps I use: Outlook, MsOffice, IE, Quicken - rarely, and some other less vital things)

[edit] When I say that windows works much better for me on Macs I mean that I use it only when needed, and not always


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## FredT (Nov 16, 2007)

I would definitely say Mac, only problem being the budget... The least expensive model is the mac mini - $600 (not including display/keyboard/mouse)

But it is well worth it to go with Apple. A+++++ Customer support, especially if you have an Apple store near you. They stand behind their products 100%.

In my opinion Mac OS X is a lot less glitchy than Windows and overall is a more solid operating system.

And lastly, as the others have said, Macs are definitely for the creative work you are looking to do. Whether you are using Adobe CS3 or iLife (iLife is fantastic and it comes with every computer) its just better on a Mac.


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## scathe30 (Jan 10, 2007)

The budget may really be a problem. But I'm sure that you should pay generously for the tools of your trade. If you want stability and quality, get ready to pay for a good computer.


> They stand behind their products 100%.


This is a very good feature. In fact, I dislike Windows support a lot.
Windows (especially Vista) is much more buggy than Mac OS. The main drawback of PC is unavailability of Mac OS on them. And vice versa Mac OS runs both popular OSes easily with virtualization tools/Boot Camp.


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## kolevich (Jan 16, 2008)

Definitely Mac! :smile: I recognized it 2 months ago. Mac is a universal machine while PC is not. 
I've purchased Mac not long ago and now I'm taking advantage from Mac itself and also I'm taking advantage using my old friend Windows running Parallels Desktop. 
I am convinced that time will pass and Mac will get more and more users overtaking PC. Thanks to Virtualization tools! :wink:


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

Only if you buy mac do not plan on playing games


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

1 g0t 0wn3d said:


> Only if you buy mac do not plan on playing games


Macs can be used for gaming. The only problem is that DirectX games are hard to port to non-Microsoft operating systems. With a Mac they could play WoW, Doom 3, and all the other OpenGL games available for Mac, then boot into a Boot Camp partition for games like Guild Wars (that are DirectX only).

If gaming is your main focus, you may want to look at what games are available for which operating system. Otherwise, I don't see a reason not to get a Mac. I personally grew up gaming on a Mac and never had a shortage of games.


As far as budget, my low end MacBook Pro cost $300 more than a Windows-based laptop that I had custom ordered, but the Mac had much better specs and hasn't had any of the issues the other one did. I bought the other one because my school's engineering department insisted that their programs do not work on Macs. My MacBook Pro has been working without issues and gave me an advantage in a programming course (real Unix-like OSs are much better than Cygwin).


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## scathe30 (Jan 10, 2007)

1 g0t 0wn3d said:


> Only if you buy mac do not plan on playing games


I'm not a hardcore gamer, but sometimes I play on my Mac in Boot Camp, of course.
Parallels and Fusion are still unfit for games,though I've got some high hopes about virtualization in near future.
I'm sure a gaming Mac will cost a fortune, anyway


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

I use a Windows PC for graphics work, video editing, desktop publishing, gaming, and everything else.

My iBook doesn't do much because it's slow, has older software, and the applications like iPhoto and such don't do what I want to do.


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## kolevich (Jan 16, 2008)

1 g0t 0wn3d said:


> Only if you buy mac do not plan on playing games


Why not? I can do anything I want on Mac, even playing games. Of course PC games better run on PC. :smile: But if you have powerful Mac you can use BootCamp or Parallels. I was surprised when some time ago I found out that I can play games through Parallels. From my experience they run perfectly. So, don't refuse from the opportunity to play PC games on your Mac! :wink:


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## scathe30 (Jan 10, 2007)

Maybe, you are right, but still there's a lot space for improvement of gaming on Macs.
Though Parallels desktop provides users with a list of supported games, I'd still go with Boot Camp. You have to allocate RAM to two OSes in Parallels and that's just not the way.
3d support in Parallels is a bit unstable yet: it allegedly supports DX9, but this support is not full. The newest games will not work. That's why I use Boot Camp for gaming and Parallels for work


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

kolevich said:


> Why not? I can do anything I want on Mac, even playing games. Of course PC games better run on PC. :smile: But if you have powerful Mac you can use BootCamp or Parallels. I was surprised when some time ago I found out that I can play games through Parallels. From my experience they run perfectly. So, don't refuse from the opportunity to play PC games on your Mac! :wink:


But can you run crysis or call of duty 4 on high settings lol? :grin:


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## scathe30 (Jan 10, 2007)

1 g0t 0wn3d said:


> But can you run crysis or call of duty 4 on high settings lol? :grin:


I'm not sure that Macs can do it even in Boot Camp? Or can they?


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

i dont know but pcs have problems with the games so prob not


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

scathe30 said:


> I'm not sure that Macs can do it even in Boot Camp? Or can they?


Yep. Some people play Crysis on their Macs. I don't have Crysis, so I haven't tried it myself. Part of the point behind Boot Camp is to fool Windows into thinking there's a BIOS (Macs use a newer technology called an EFI - 32 bit Windows doesn't work with EFI). Soon as you boot Windows using Boot Camp, you're just running Windows on Apple's hardware.

You should be able to guess at how it will perform based on the specs of the machine itself. The fact that a piece of hardware in a Mac doesn't make it perform different. From what I've heard though, computers built specifically for playing graphically demanding games can have issues with Crysis.

Haven't looked into Call of Duty 4, but some people might play it through Boot Camp. Mac version is coming out in May and I'd personally much prefer to run it in Mac OS X.


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

oh i hope its a cross platform online i want to kill you lol =P


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

1 g0t 0wn3d said:


> oh i hope its a cross platform online i want to kill you lol =P


:grin: Should play Nexuiz then. Pretty sweet considering its engine was developed from the Quake 1 engine. Works on Mac, Linux and Windows. I mainly play it on my Linux tower since my Mac is a laptop.

CoD 4 should be cross platform multiplayer (I expect this since the server's available for Linux). I think any game that connects to a server (Nexuiz, Unreal Tournament, WoW) should be cross platform online. The main problem with cross platform before was getting network timing right between the Mac/Linux and Windows versions. Having a server seems to solve this issue.


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## kolevich (Jan 16, 2008)

1 g0t 0wn3d said:


> But can you run crysis or call of duty 4 on high settings lol? :grin:


Ok, I haven't run New games with Parallels so maybe it is not so perfect. I think I should resort to *scathe30*'s advice if I'm going to run new game with high setting requirements and use BootCamp for it.


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