PC or MAC ? performance 1

[realflavor]

Question what would perform better below. use for Audio/Web/Video applications... What system would perfom faster and better

MAC G3:::
• 1.25GHz w/ 1MB L3 Cache
• 512MB DDR333 SDRAM (PC2700) -1 DIMM
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive
• Optical 1 - Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
• Optical 2 - None
• ATI Radeon 9000 Pro dual-display w/64MB DDR
• 56K internal modem
• Apple Pro Keyboard - U.S. English
• Mac OS - U.S. English
• Apple Pro Speakers
Subtotal = $1,433.00

----------------------------------------------

PC AMD 64 3000+ System:::
• Windows XP Pro
• AMD ATHLON64 3000+ Processor
• NEW ASUS K8V SE Deluxe VIA K8T800 Chipset AGP8X w/LAN,USB2,IEEE,
• 1024 MB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY (Kingston)
• Seagate 120GB 7200RPM Serial ATA 150 8MB Cache
• nVidia GeForce FX 5900 128MB 8x AGP w/ TVO, & DVI
Price: $1280.00

 

[realflavor]

sorry i meant a MAC G4

 

[Tarwn]

I couldn't tell you how much the OS would impact it, not being a Mac user, but straight hardware to hardware I would say your Windows box there ought to do better...
Better CPU, Better graphics card, probably better RAM but faster and more capacity also, larger and faster hard drive...Your missing a DVD/CD-RW on the windows one though.

I guess basically it would come down to three things:
1) If the better hardware could still outdo the not as good hardware with Windows XP vs MacOS
2) Which one has the better software to fit your needs
3) When you pln on next upgrading (ie, put new parts in the indows box vs buy a new MacOS box)

The other things you need to consider (which may have been priced but I don't see them) for the Windows system is a DVD/CD-RW drive, case, monitor, keyboard, etc. If you haven't already figured them in you may want to as those could jack the price up another $400-$500 or more.

-T

_{01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101 00111111}
The never-completed website:

http://www.tiernok.com/

 

[realflavor]

well,.. i'm planing to get me the AMD 64 since it has a goodprice ..a P4 sound good to but the AMD 64 perform better for the same price.

I was just wondering if i should put my money in a mac. I used to work on mac and its a great computer.

All my softwares for PC. so thats another thought.

Is the Macs new G5 Dual Processer really that good in performance?

 

[realflavor]

the complete AMD 64 System would cost $1500 (no monitor) under

http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/home.htm

... 120 GB Serial ATA, DVD player, CD burner, 480 Watt power supplie, Win XP Pro, 2 years warrante,AMD ATHLON64 3000+ Processor, NEW ASUS K8V SE Deluxe VIA K8T800 Chipset AGP8X w/LAN,USB2,IEEE,1024 MB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY (Kingston), mouse keyboard, floppy, 3 case fan, speakers 600Watt, and some other stuff,..

I plan to get me 2 screens, and set it up that both screens work as one big screen, probly 2 17" screens

 

[BadBigBen]

Hi there,

let me throw in a few things...

both systems are fine for what you plan on doing! but the MAC is a better performer when it comes to DTP, CAD, and TV-Video editing, it's built to do this kinda stuff... whereas the PC (actually a misnomer since all computers that stand at home are PCs even the old and venerable C64's) are build to be either office machines, allround machines, or gaming machines, even if they have caught up slightly to the MACs in quite a few areas...

about the G5 duals, well yes and NO, it again depends on what you wanna use the system for, if you are planning to go into Professional VIDEO and Desk Top Publishing then the MAC should be your choice, if you just wanna do this as a hobby then I would suggest that you get yourself a PC...

to TARWN, you are mislead about quite a few things here, a G4 processor at 800mhz will out perform a P4 or AMD at 1600mhz, why you ask, simply the arcitecture of the chips... they use less power aswell! another misconception that MACs have slow HDDs is not TRUE! they use the same interfaces and speeds that PCs use (and yes I read what he said the box is for)... MACs are as expandable as their counterparts needless to say, it depends on which version of a mac you get...

So basically it boils down to what he wants to do with it...

Ben

PS - AMD64 without the correct WinXP 64bit version will just slightly outperform a P4 at the same rated performance speed... with the 64bit OS you also would need the 64bit Drivers etc... you could always go with LINUX like SuSE 9.1 which has the 64bit drivers on board etc...

 

[Tarwn]

I would be surprised indeed if a Mac Ultra ATA drive was as fast as a SATA drive under load. I agree that MacOS can make better use of the CPU then Windows since MacOS is built with the one specific processor/motherboard/etc in mind whereas Windows is built to support a large variety of hardware configurations. The less specific the build the more overhead that is compiled into it to handle the variability (not to mention that Windows is rather bloatd compared to, say , Linux). Plus the G4 processor (Motorola) is a good processor, partly due to the internal bus, so take a good processor, add a specialized OS and you will get a lot of good performance out of it.

As good as the Motorola CPU is, though, I still have difficulty believing the 800Mhz CPU will outperform processors at 1600Mhz. I have seen test results where a 1.4Ghz would occasionally outperform an AMD 2.4 or Intel 3ghz, but even in those tests it wasn't consistent, with only a couple of the tests going to the G4. I would be very surprised to see an 800Mhz version outperform an AMD 1.6Ghz chip.

-T

_{01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101 00111111}
The never-completed website:

http://www.tiernok.com/

 

[ceh4702]

So are you going to use 10,000rmp DRIVES?

Could consider a RAID Array, and a Dual Processor motherboard.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[jurgen36]

Well the Motorola chips are Risc processors (Reduced instruction set). A Risc processor with a speed of 800 Mhz will always outperform an AMD or Intel chip running at 3+ Ghz. The reason is that every instruction only takes one (1) clock cycle. With AMD or Intel chips one instruction might take up to 128 clock cycles. I have seen Mac systems of 1Ghz outperforming Intel or Amd chips running at 3Ghz. This was in emulation mode running windows programs. The only objection is that there is not really enough software available for the Mac os. You probaly will have to run a lot in windows emulation mode. Well the choice is yours. Good luck. Regards

Jurgen

 

[realflavor]

hmm,.. ok... i would love to get me a MAC. I will do prof. webdesign, videodevelopment for internet use, audio editing and CAD animation.

All my softwares for windows. Is there a way to run those softwares on the MAC? or du i have to get me everything on software new in order to install/run them on a mac?

AMD is what i would like to get, cause of the money. But will I have enough power to do my work without get slowed down or system errors?

P4 i hear is good but for less money i get a AMd with almost same performance?

 

[realflavor]

ps: if i get AMD64, I never heard of wind operating system 64? If i have win xp pro? does it makes a different?

if i run linux? can i use my windows softwares?

 

[realflavor]

Question::::

I've checked the net for "used Mac" and i found sites with PowerMacs Dual Pro/1000mhz, 80GB HD, 256MB RAM and cd and so on,.. for prices like $1499....

whats ur opinion to get a used mac?

 

[fitzjj]

Although the motorola chips may be RISC, AMD and Intel's chips are not an entirely CISC architecture and do have some clever technology to really speed up processing. And although a RISC processor may carry out instructions in one clock cycle it'll often have to carry out far more instructions to complete the equivalent CISC instruction, which'll take up more clock cycles. So although a RISC chip is often faster i would be extremely surprised if a RISC chip @ 800Mhz could outperform an Intel or AMD running @ 3Ghz, perhaps 1.5Ghz at a push.

 

[BadBigBen]

Realflavor - I suggest you get yourself the AMD64, due to two facts 1.) you allready have the Software (no more purchasing in that area) which saves you lots of money in the long run; and 2.) the system overall is cheaper... as the MACs strength is really mainly in the Advertising branch and Desk Top Publishing... as for stability these days is good as I have a WinXP system running for close to two years without a major hitch, yes Windows can be stable! as long as you keep it fairly clean, maintanance is a must for all OS's... Both Linux (wine) and MacOS have a Windows Emulator that will run 90% of the software out there.
You can download a version of WinXP 64bit from the Microsoft Website, but beware it is far from complete yet... Beta I believe... but WinXP 32bit will work, albeit will not use the 64bit architecture of the AMD64 chip, thus it will perform just like it's counterpart the P4 or even better...

Basically at this point the AMD64-FX or the P4 EE chips aren't worth their money, as there isn't the software out there that will use them to their fullest potential... so moneywise thinking, you would be better off at this stage with the latest AMD 3200+ or a P4 3.4ghz system, with a mainboard that has the newest CHIPSETS and PCI-EXPRESS Slot (next generation of GFX-Card interface)...

Ben

 

[jurgen36]

:BigBadBen
You are quite correct that the software fore 64 bit processors is not yet available. I myself use multy P4 HT EE processors with 8 Gbytes of ram. In XP mode I can only use 4 Gbytes. But in Sun Solaris I can use the full ram to very good use. I do believe the max ram in Sun Solaris is 2 Terrabytes. I would have to look this up however. Vor Video editing it works extremely fast ompared to XP. Regards

Jurgen

 

[goner]

Note that the Radeon 9000 and Geforce 5900 are not, by any means, even close in the performance area. A radeon 9600 would be a more comparable card. The 9000 is more of a budget card. Based on this, alone, I'd vote for the PC setup.

Doug Castell
Computer Control Corp
(310)396-6811

http://www.ccc24k.com

 

[SkipCox]

It's time for everyone to stop judging a processor by the Ghz rating. For example, with any of the A64 chips, we need to realize it's now a two lane road, not a construction zone where traffic only moves in one direction at a time. PCI express will further remove latency (waiting for something to happen) and simply improve the overall performance of a PC or Mac.

I don't disagree with the above posts, but we need to get away from the "higher Mhz/Ghz is better" thing, and move on with the elimination of nb and sb chips so everything can talk directly to memory and do it all at the same time.

That is where faster is really faster.

Skip

http://home.comcast.net/~skip9/index.html

http://scc.i8.com

 

[BadBigBen]

Jurgen36 - thnx for the Info, I am not familiar with the SUN SOLARIS... albeit I've heard of it within the Professional area (Movie Business and TV-Productions (PIXAR?))... and yes there are, I believe, only two OS's that can handle more than 4gb of MEM at this stage of development...

Skip - yes you are correct... by viewing the GHZ in processors you don't get the correct performance of said system, ie. a P4 3ghz processor running on different mainboards, even with the same chipsets, can have different performance levels...

Goner - for Gaming I would suggest a nVidia 6800 card or ATI X800T, but for Video or CAD or DTP, it doesn't matter if the Card is a Radeon 9000 or a Radeon 9600... and in this case I would even suggest a Matrox Parhelia 750 or above, the best cards for the said options he wants to do... btw GFX cards are exchangeable!

Ben

 

[realflavor]

To BadBigBen:::

>>Linux (wine) and MacOS have a Windows Emulator that will run 90% of the software out there.<<

Question, If i get me a AMd 3200 and put linux on it and get a windows Emulator for my windows software.

How Will the system perform? Will the system/programm perform just like if they would run under windows? or are they a little slower? Would it be "wise" of me to run Linux instead of windows xp pro?

 

[ceh4702]

As an example to the performance issue, I work at a community college and we just started running our Mainframe OS using FLEX-ES emulation software on top of SUSE Linux on an IBM 16 MIPS (Mainframe MIPS), X-server with Dual PIII processors. All the programs run faster than they did on our IBM Multiprise.

They call it a T3 Technologies Server made by T3 Technologies in Florida.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.