Windowzzzzzzz....

[LovelyCrap]

rizzix wrote:

c'mon man... everyone says that.. just buy a 2-button mouse.. both buttons will work!!

in a one button mouse, the equivalent of a right click is control+click.

just buy a 2 button!

LoL. Thats the first time I've ever heard of anyone using that as an excuse to not get a mac.

"Real geeks have 5+ buttons on their mouse."

[Tony]

well my excuse is that all the software I got is for PC

[Mazer]

i don't see how 3d would help an operating system's interface. i mean, say you really want to have 3 dimensions... isn't that what life is for?

[Homer_simpson]

the more life like it is... the easier to use it becomes...
but i still think that 2d interface would look more pro... but nice 3d looking buttons or windows would be kinda nice...

[rizzix]

LovelyCrap wrote:

rizzix wrote:

c'mon man... everyone says that.. just buy a 2-button mouse.. both buttons will work!!

in a one button mouse, the equivalent of a right click is control+click.

just buy a 2 button!

LoL. Thats the first time I've ever heard of anyone using that as an excuse to not get a mac.

"Real geeks have 5+ buttons on their mouse."

yep but i've heard a lot of folks say that to me.. specially in those mac vs pc flame wars.. yea nice excuse!

[rizzix]

tony wrote:

well my excuse is that all the software I got is for PC

well tony there's something called VirtualPC for mac that let's you run windows inside osx. It was a product by connectix, but now m$ bought it off, and they did promise to continue make that product. so you might wanna check that out! and by a mac!

[Tony]

rizzix wrote:

VirtualPC

I know of VirtualPC, but the whole point of owning a Mac (from my perspective) is its superiour handling of Adobe Products. Now wouldn't be much of a point if software would have to run through a 3rd party program just to communicate with the OS, eh?

And after I spend all of my money on G5, I wouldn't have those $$$ neccesary for PhotoShop + Illustrator.

[rizzix]

i know about the greed for power and everthing.. but why waste cash on a G5, it is way too expensive right now.. The G4s r not bad.. get a powerbook (or ibook). then later on when the prices drop go for a G5 desktop

[Tony]

that still doesn't change the fact that I would be required to purchase all of the software.

[rizzix]

now u know why we need Java heh

[LovelyCrap]

My excuse for not buying a mac is because of the limited power of Apple computers in general. Add on the fact that you can't upgrade a Mac's CPU or motherboard and you can bet that my wallet will go no where near a Mac.

You might argue that the G5 is pretty powerful with it's dual 64-bit processors, but the standard G5 is only 2Ghz per CPU and having two processors doesn't mean it will perform doubly fast. Actually, you won't notice a difference at all unless you are using programs designed to support multiple processors or if your multitasking. But even then, the best you can hope for is a 30%-45% increase over a single processor system. So technically the G5 is just a glorified 2.4Ghz 64-bit computer that happens to cost a whole lot and use Mac OS. For the price of a G5, I could build myself a decked out Athlon 64 3200+ system which would kill the G5 then defecate on it's dead body.

IMO, the only thing Apple has going for them is their OS's and their sweet ass G4 cases. My long time dream has been to acquire a G4, gut it, then stick a PC in it.




Ohh yeah.... iPods are pretty cool too.

[Tony]

heh yeah, Macs can get preaty expensive.

Just wondering - how good of a laptop can I get for a reasonable price? I mean I want a new machine to play around by the time uni comes, but I also want it to be a laptop, seeing as I'm gonna be majoring in CS and would probly carry my work around.

[rizzix]

actually the whole os was originally designed in a way to support multiple processors. It is designed from the ground up with multiple processors in mind. Thus having one processor is a limiting factor here, but the results are not so bad. Thus the dual G5 is really an ideal designed hardware for the mac. You don't need to write special software to take advantage of both processors, it is automatically done for you. At first when OSX was just born you had to keep this in mind.. but apple saw the fault and fixed it.

Secondly, I wouldn't recommend judging the speed of the processor by it's mhz. Mhz is not the only deciding factor on how fast a processor is. you might wanna take a look into the Megahertz Myth (hey and some dude also made a cartoon on it, hehe). For now all i can say that the number of tetra-flops is a better judgment on how fast a processor really is.

a single 2ghz g5 is really faster than a single 2ghz xeon or amd. It's all in the megahertz myth.

[LovelyCrap]

rizzix wrote:

actually the whole os was originally designed in a way to support multiple processors. It is designed from the ground up with multiple processors in mind. Thus having one processor is a limiting factor here, but the results are not so bad. Thus the dual G5 is really an ideal designed hardware for the mac. You don't need to write special software to take advantage of both processors, it is automatically done for you. At first when OSX was just born you had to keep this in mind.. but apple saw the fault and fixed it.

Secondly, I wouldn't recommend judging the speed of the processor by it's mhz. Mhz is not the only deciding factor on how fast a processor is. you might wanna take a look into the Megahertz Myth (hey and some dude also made a cartoon on it, hehe). For now all i can say that the number of tetra-flops is a better judgment on how fast a processor really is.

a single 2ghz g5 is really faster than a single 2ghz xeon or amd. It's all in the megahertz myth.

I know all about the Mhz myth.
I've been preaching it for years.

In my previous post, I pointed out that a AMD would be able to beat the G5 in most applications. I did not mention Mhz as being a factor. The only time i mentioned Mhz at all was when I said that the dual 2Ghz G5 is about as good as a single 2.4Ghz G5 (if it existed) for most applications. Sorry if there was any confusion.


First of all, a single G5 is not faster than a single AMD of equal speed. Mhz for Mhz, AMD is faster than Intel and Mac. AMD is also cheaper Mhz for Mhz than Intel and Mac (at stock speed), which is why they are my preferred brand of processor. The reason I don't own one myself is because the P4C 2.4Ghz is the best overcklocker money can buy right now and it also happens to be pretty cheap. Second of all, dual processors of the same speed can never be 100% more efficient than a single processor of equal speed. This is because of the clock cycles spent communicating between the two processors, the time spent in que waiting to access the memory (doubles with two processors), as well as the various inefficiencies caused by software. Third of all, Mac's OS does not make all programs magically support multiple processors. It actually just adds a couple simple optimizations so when you are running several programs at once, you gain a considerable performance boost. However, if you are only running one program, you will receive more or less the same performance on a dual processor as on a single processor computer (unless the application specifically supports multiple processors).
Last of all, don't trust the benchmarks posted on the Apple website which makes the G5 appear that it is faster than anything else out there. Notice that all the benchmarks used are synthetic and there was not a single real-world bench on there?

Why the G5 sucks:
- The ridiculous $3000USD price tag.
- It uses PC2100 RAM. You can purchase RAM twice as fast for the PC.
- A 32x 16x 10x CDRW? WTF? When I can buy a 52X32X52 CDRW for a mere $60?
- Crappy Radeon 9600. The 9600 is actually a great video card, but for a $3000USD computer, you deserve much better.
- You could build a PC with identical/better performance for around $2000USD.

I suppose if you are a long time Mac user, the G5 would be a logical upgrade. But if you are a PC user, the G5 isn't the best incentive to make you switch to Macs.



Now just to prove my point and show that I'm not making this crap up, this lengthy article by PCWorld supports my arguments. If you don't feel like reading it all then just go straight to the benchmarks.

Here is another article from a less credible source.

[LovelyCrap]

tony wrote:

heh yeah, Macs can get preaty expensive.

Just wondering - how good of a laptop can I get for a reasonable price? I mean I want a new machine to play around by the time uni comes, but I also want it to be a laptop, seeing as I'm gonna be majoring in CS and would probly carry my work around.

What type of applications do you intend on using? I would imagine that you will be using it for programming.... music maybe? some gaming?

You could get a pretty decent laptop for under $1500CDN, unless you want to game on it, in which case a decent laptop would cost around $3000CDN. Most of the sub $2000CDN laptops use ancient video cards that are completely worthless for rendering 3D unless the only game you want to play is Quake 2.
The pricer laptops either use a Radeon mobility 9000/9600 or a nVidia Go! Out of the two, Radeon mobility is head and shoulders above the current nVidia offerings.

When searching for a laptop/desktop, Celeron = bad. I cannot stress that enough. A AMD Athlon 1.5Ghz beats a Celeron 2.2Ghz in almost all applications.

BTW, sorry for the double post but I wanted to seperate the two posts from each other and double posting seemed like a good idea.