Windows for the Past 13 Yrs...

Boy oh boy what was I thinking for the past 13 years, I just got my Macbook pro and both desktop PC's in the house has been abandoned. My $2,500 water cooled PC has been just collecting dust for the past 3 days now. Both me, my brother and my sister is fighting to use the laptop.

First thing that caught my eye was the reaction times of the system; how fast the system boots up and how easy everything was to set-up. I used to be the typical windows guy who thought mac is just a 'cute' looking operating system for people who can't handle windows.

Some of you lurkers might ask whats the point of my thread. I use to doubt buying a mac, but after using the system I am considering replacing my water-cooled desktop with the Mac Pro especially after researching the Apple RAID card. Putting windows in the Mac was a bar done, sealing the deal breaker for me. Sadly I don't even want to install windows on this beautiful machine.

So for the guys out there who are lurking the forum trying to decide on the windows brand vs a macbook, I'd say go with the mac!

k.thanx.bye

 

The Mac Pro is fast but overpriced for the hardware. My friend's new Mac Pro cost him $7000 dollars and it comes with an average video card. I would only get the Mac Pro if you need it for work.

 

K...
If you used MacOS like 10 years ago, you'd be banging your head on the table right now. Things changes and you should always go with the best choice, not the best brand.

I'm sure when you figure out you can run Mac OSX (illegal thus not being discussed here), you'll find yourself back to your water cooled computer (assuming the hardware is better).

 

Let's not turn this into another one of those flame threads ok?
kthxbye.

Same goes for you too jackluo.

 

Welcome to the party, I switched this year as well. I have never been happier with a system in my life. You may feel the need to defend your purchase when you see posts like above but try to resist.

 

It is a nice machine, no doubt. That Apple says "it's the most advanced operating system in the world" is a bunch of crap laugh , but it's still nice. I like that it's very fast. The first time I used OS X, I was really surprised and kept thinking "wow, they thought of that too???" in some of the included software. Unlike Microsoft bundled software, Apple really put a lot of thought into theirs and they seemed to really think of everything.

 

I have a Unibody 17" 2.66ghz MBP, and OS X takes as long to boot on this as Vista x64 SP2 takes to boot on my Sager 2.53Ghz laptop. They both have Seagate 7200rpm hard drives, and the one in the MBP is newer. I've been meaning to time it one day, maybe I will this weekend.

I love OS X, but I jump to Windows a lot for my application needs. I really wish MSN Messenger had more feature parity to the Windows version, and wish there was a Hotmail client that could talk over HTTP. Entourage is also a terrible Exchange web client, so just to check my work email with a better than web interface I have to boot to Windows for Outlook. RELEASE EXCHANGE WEB SERVICES FOR ENTOURAGE DANGIT

 

I have known angry for about 2years, and trust me he WAS a major winows fan. but im gla u have sen the light at the end of the tunnel. nor mac or windows do anything perfect, but they both have there own shine. I have never owned a windows based computer my hole life (until they made bootcamp ) and iv always been upto date with the latest games, and everything tech. apple has come a FAR way in its time an i think its DAMN nice to see them finaly getting the reputation they deserve

 

Thank you jervis, talin and subzero for you well put inputs. Of course both OS's have their ups and downs; but it blows me away seeing the osx file systems (i.e. the way programs are installed (easy to drag n drop them to the trash can to unload the whole program)). I'm a EE major and do have to switch to windows to use some of the programs. I bootcamped (if thats a proper way of using the term ) windows 7 but wasn't interested in further exploring it but I wanted to get back to osx. So I do plan to do a reformat with snow leopard and just install windows xp for my school/on-the-road gaming needs.

I went to best buy and for the most part didn't see well built laptops like a macbook and the innovations apple incorporated into the unibody structure was incredible. Yeah it does have it's downs; usb ports being close together, folders and files not being sorted separately in directories within osx (can anyone tell me if this was changed in the beta of snow leopard; thanks).

Then again I didn't have to spend time downloading drivers for my creative fatality's but it was all plug n play and NOT plug and pray..

For people who are still insisting on getting that asus with the 2 yr warranty (plus accidental); I say get the macbook pro. I was so close on pulling the tab on a asus.

EDIT: quickshot = A gaming friend who guided me through OSX..lmao i was showing him the thread didn't know he was gonna post.

 

hey bud try third party apps for msn. the offical MSN for mac sucks, there are MUCH better third party software for msn that have 100% of the features but n macos

 

I found the exact opposite to be true. My Mac and my ThinkPad were almost the same machine, but I always found the Mac more laggy when doing stuff, even when my R60 was running the dreaded Vista.

I liked my Mac as something different, but I didn't find it mind blowing, or think it was significantly better than Windows or Linux.

That's because most of the notebooks sold at BestBuy fall into the $500-1,000 price range, which I'm guessing is a fair bit less than you paid for your MBP. A ThinkPad or a Latitude, both of which are not sold at BestBuy, would probably be a better example of well built PCs.


Congrats on the machine. I hope it gives you years of faithful service.

 

That was not a flame. Just the truth. Mac Pros are very expensive due to the dual Xeons Nehalems, workstation motherboard, expensive memory and general Apple expensiveness. It is a good machine though!

 

Not every app uninstalls cleanly when this is done, and many of these don't tell you what's left behind. See: AppCleaner

The ones I have tried failed to impress me. Adium is close, but even that is quirky and doesn't always seem to work the way I expect.

 

Then i must either be a kid without a brain or a windows users without any knowhow lol. cause just going a third party app search i found over 50 mac ports.4 of which run perfect an have 100% of all features

 

Thank you ZaZ for your well put comments; I'll just stop right here and not start any e-arguments as to contrast your statements.

Thanks subzero, I'll surly download that app. So far I've only installed big time applications (i.e. microsoft office, acrobat pro, cs4) and I'm pretty sure they will have one click and drop.

Well I just wanted to share my experience with people who are on the ledge on getting a macbook vs another manufacturer which I have done with this thread.

NOW LET THE THREAD DIEEEE!!!

 

They're not cheap, I can't argue with that. I also can't argue with that they are nice machines.

 

Loved the clean looks of the Mac Pro, especially on the inside. No cables hanging around (I have very bad cable management skills on my desktop pc) and those hard drive trays..

 

play any cool games lately?

 

Oooh burn.

But yeah, in all honesty, I personally don't game all to often - and when I do, I play older games like TF2 and CSS. Idk if the same goes for the OP.

 

I mostly play cod4, simcity 4, testdrive.u, aoe3; other than that I havn't had time for games since school has been keeping me busy.

@ darth: Hows your g50 holding up? I was planning on waiting for the new G-series, but decided I didn't 'need' all that power for a on-the-go laptop.

 

If you feel there's some way I was in error, please feel at liberty to point it out. It can be done in a courteous and respectful way, which does no start a flame war. I was only pointing out my experience with my Mac, which seemed to differ from yours. Choice is always a good thing. If you like your MBP, I think that's great and does not take anything away from me.

 

Well I don't use MSN, but someone said that Mercury Messenger client that works with MSN has more features.... no idea though

as for Outlook, why don't you just run Outlook? Much better that way.... I don't use it but I heard it works decently using Crossover Mac... and its an officially supported Crossover app, along with the rest of MS Office for Windows.

Why yes, I have, quite often, and its a rarity I game in Windows.

 

I agree with some of the OP's comments to some extent.

I think Mac laptops are superb, but the Mac Pro's, I think they're only ok.

Dual Quad Xenons rock, but the freakin blasted propriety graphics card kills it for me. Because you drop about $3-5k on a cool Mac Pro, but what if your graphics card dies? Good luck finding one that works for the Mac 3-5 years down the road. Its almost non existent!

Desktops I always stick with windows, as for laptops, I think macbooks are awesome.

 

I don't do Desktops anymore at all... although I still have a couple thats only a few years old I built in my closet... maybe I should sell them, or trade them for a milkshake....

I'm pretty much stuck with laptops only and my iPhone (which is just a pocket computer)... no need to ever have a desktop again.

 

If you need a fast computer, whether it be for gaming/video/Cad/DCC, desktops are the way to go. You could buy the fasted notebook: Alienware m17x with QX9300 - twin 280m, and you wouldn't even be close to a $1000 desktop. If you do light gaming playing old games then yes a laptop is good. However for me, I'm selling my clevo and mac, and upgrading my desktop and monitor. For $2200 I'm getting a water cooled AMD x4 black ed, with 2x285s, and a $300 HP mini for my portable needs. Thats $2500 total, the same price as a nice gaming notebook or the 17inch mac and the mini is more portable, and the desktop more powerful, more upgradable, and more customizable. But if you can't build one don't bother, retail desktops are a pile of . The mac pro is a computer that has no real point, other than to earn apple money. You pay $4000+ just for 2 i7s, when you could build a 4xfaster pc with a server board and 4 opteron 2431s (6core 2.4Ghz) for same price...

 

That's so expensive.
You could probably get the water cooled desktop with 2 "super clocked nvidia geforce 285" for under $1500 easily.

For the price of mac Pro, you can get like quad-quadcore amd processor setup (16cores in total) with a server board for about the same money.

 

If you dont mind keeping gaming at home, (or have a spare copy of XP laying around) I would go for it. For me its a matter of budget, I would go both if I had the money. If your looking for bang for the buck hardware, windows intended hardware for sure. If your in the market for the MacBook and you have the money, go for it.

 

Thats just brand loyalty, the Phenom II 955 is a 3.2Ghz and is about the same speed stock as the 2.66Ghz i7 920, however its only $245, the i7 is $290, not to mention you save $100 on the motherboard. And there are AMD motherboards with 3 PCIEx16. And contrary to popular belief the Phenom 955 is faster than the i7 920 because its mult is unlocked so I can overclock it beyond the i7. Tripple channel memory isn't that much, the i7 isn't all that its made up to be. My amd overclocked will easily out preform the i7, and I don't have $1000 to spend on the unlocked i7. The i7 has 8 treads but that's useless and any program designed to make us of that would in the near future support cuda, and use the 2x285s which are far faster than both cpus. AMD is also more future proof because you can upgrade your cpu type without having to buy a new motherboard like you do with intel. Intel's high ends are better than AMD, but for under $1000 your paying for the brand name on an intel cpu and could of got a much faster AMD.

Intel owns the notebook market tho, turions are .

 

The two GTX 285s alone are $700, +$250 cpu, $250 motherboard, already $1300, not sure how you could buy the psu, case, cooling system, ram, two HDs, monitor, speakers, for $200.

 

A decent chunk of the 775 pin motherboards (i forgot which chipsets) lasted from single core to quad core with nothing more than a bios update. ALso DDR2 has been around the block for a time as well, pretty sure you could have gone through the last 2 generations of intel without changing ram if you made the right choices. AM2 to AM3 on the same board is nice but its not like AMD has not switched any slower than intel. Brisbane systems are still on the shelf.

The switch to i7 should have an entire platform update. Its not like intel should hold back performance so you dont have to replace your motherboard, their not amd.

Kinda not the point at handthough.

To make that statement you would also want to equally overclock the i7, the 955 definitly beats it for the price and with the overclock its bang for the buck. But it is also a black edition. The unlocked i7's of course are outrageous but you can still overclock the i7. Personally i would take the i7, but I am building an amd desktop due to budget.

 

I'm pretty sure the Mac Pro doesn't have i7s.

 

The mac pro uses Xenon processors, which are the server versions of the Core i7's. So you can't compare the two.

On the flip side, you can build a Dual Quad Xenon processor PC that would be cheaper than the Mac Pro.

 

Intel is phasing out the current Core i7 Nehalem CPUs. They are also not going to make any more CPUs for the current i7 socket (LGA1366). The newer Lynnfield & Clarksdale CPUs will use newer sockets, so those with existing Core i7 motherboards have a dead upgrade path. If you want a newer Intel CPU, you will need another motherboard as well (and that's a lot of money).

The Mac Pros do not use i7. They use dual Xeon (Nehalem).

 

Hmm did not know the mac pro used the xeons, weird.

I thought the new i5s(Lynnfield & Clarksdale) where just budget i7s, and that the socket LGA 1366 would be used on the higher end still.

 

actually they use Xeon processors...

Xenons are in Xboxs

 

Sucks to hear that, that for me is a bit unexpected but the upgrade to i7 is entirely understandable. However consider the amount of people wanting to go for the new i7 coming out that never made the switch. Most of us laptop goers have to make a price change every step of the way, desktop world usually isnt as bad depending on what your on.

This change in motherboard would only affect current i7 users wanting to upgrade, not the larger majority who haven't. Early adopters pay a price, but that is admittedly not cool either.

 

Are you referring to Core i5? If so, I don't think Core i7's are being phased out. Motherboards are and will always be dead upgrade paths. I have not used the same motherboard twice before.

My bad

 

Well, being that I do not like most all FPSes its not too hard... since those are usually the hardest to get to work.
It doesn't bother me if I have to run at the lowest graphics settings, or that running something in OSX runs slightly slower than natively in Windows, as long as its playable.... but thats how most gaming of Windows games in OSX is, so if it bothers you, best to reboot into Windows to play.
I also do not care about graphics detail, I started gaming on monochrome
lately I've been playing back through some RPGs, most oldies... Baldurs gate 1 and 2.. Icewind Dale 1 and 2... and Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2... all of which on those I use the Windows versions, hacked into a stand-alone port either using Crossover/Wine or Cider. Waiting for some good games to come out sometime soon, theres no games i don't have that I really want to play right now.

Steam and Left 4 Dead actually work in Crossover Games, but thats not my type of game... so haven't tried it personally.