# Fastest custom PC vs. fastest Mac



## zpert (Jul 10, 2006)

Hey, I've read soooooo much about Macs vs. PCs that I'm just getting overwhelmed. The things that stick out to me are that Macs don't have spyware, viruses, or a registry(which can be corrupted and slow performance). I've been a PC user all my life, but I'm going to get a new computer very soon, and am open minded to getting the best machine I can. What I'm wondering is should I get a Mac or build my own PC. I've read benchmarks on Dells vs. Macs, but I can build a lot faster machine than Dell sells, so that's irrelevent to me. Please give me an unbiased opinion on which one I should go with. I want to know whether the fastest custom built PC is faster than a Mac. I'm talking the best of everything, like 2 Radeon X1900Xts in crossfire, 2 WD 150 raptors in RAID 0, etc. I want the best system for gaming, listening to music, browsing, that kind of stuff. Thanks so much for your help, any is greatly appreciated! 
-Paul


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

zpert said:


> I want the best system for gaming, listening to music, browsing, that kind of stuff.


well it goes like this:
gaming=home built pc
listening to music=both
browsing=mac
that kind of stuff=depends on what stuff is
what you need to do is determine what your main focus is. if you are an all around, than a mac would suit you. if its gaming, as of right now a mac will not due, only a home built pc. that is unless all the games you like to play already have mac versions out. as far as being a media center, the mac is better, unless you want the best sound possible, and that is because the best sound cards are win pc only. so i'm going to go out on a limb with this next statement and say: you are a gamer first (like me), and are lucky enough to have a bottomless computer fund (which you kind do make it sound like). if that is the case, and it were me, i'd build the best gaming computer i could, but not spend all the money, so that i could than get an apple refurbished intel based imac. than i'd use the win pc for all my gaming, and the imac for everything else. in fact that's kinda of what i did. i have the best pc i could afford to build at the time i built it, and then later bought an old used g4 tower. i use the pc for my games, and my mac for everything else. i got a usb kvm so as to only have one monitor, keyboard and mouse on my little desk, and pipe both of them into my home theater receiver. now this recommendation is based off of apple's current line up. if you are not in any hurry for your ultimate computer, then i'd wait until apple converts it's pro-tower mac line to intel cpu. at which point you could get the best that there is, and with boot camp it could dual boot into mac os x and ms win, so when gaming, boot into win. when you do everything else, boot into mac os. and you will only have one awesome tower sitting on your desk.


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## zpert (Jul 10, 2006)

Ok, I have a question for you dealing with the mac and the pc. If I did wait until the Mac switched over to the intel based cpus (I'm guessing its first processor would be Conroe?), then you said you'd use that for gaming too. How do you think the video would compare on a Mac to, say, 2 Nvidia 7950 GX2s in SLI in a PC? Would the gaming be as good? If so, then, in your mind, Mac would be superior in all areas once this switch happens? When are they planning on switching?

My question about the PCs is about Vista. I'm wondering if Vista will make PCs a lot more like Mac's OS X, and even out the advantages OS X has over XP. Do you know much about it, as far as security goes, and performance? Mac's cache a lot of info in RAM to make everything faster, maybe Vista will do this too? So many questions, my mind is packed right now. Thanks for the help.
-Paul


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

as far as vid cards go, i'm not sure. it all depends on if apple moves to allowing dual linked video cards like sli in their pro towers. thay have not said yet. even if they did, there would have to be special mac cards, as they do not use standard pc video cards, they have different roms on the card. but if apple does move that way, then i would feel that the mac is a better computer in gaming too. as far as the timetable, the switch is to be complete by summer of 2007, so any time before that.

as far as vista, what i have seen so far is that its better than xp, but i still prefer os x over it. about sercurity, only time will tell on that one. for performance, it does run slower on my computer than xp, but it also requires far better hardware than xp ever has. i think we'll have to wait on that one too, being i feel that vista is really designed for the next generation of hardware that will be coming out in the next year or so.


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## jgulick48 (Feb 19, 2006)

just as a side note right now the tower macs like the g5 come with a dual link dvi video card with the option to get a nvidia 7800 gt video card witch sould be sufficent for most games. I'm sure that when the intel based towers come out they will probable be available with 2 dual core processors and the option of a sweet video card from nvidia


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## Vohderbul (Aug 3, 2006)

Achtung!!


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

?


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