Mac Pro vs. pc

I have owned both pcs and Macs and eventually went the Mac route and haven't looked back. Apple uses intelligence and forethought when building their hardware. I am not a fan of the 6.1 "ashtray can" Mac pros as I have several 5.1 12 and 8 cores (Mid 2012). They run 24 hours a day and only get switched off when they need a clean (once every 2 months). The OS is clean and logical and isn't resource heavy like Windows. I agree that they are becoming increasingly overpriced and Apple is throttling people by not allowing self upgrades etc which is why the last generation of Mac Pros are, to me the best machines ever built. Yes, you can build a Windows machine that will outrun and outperform a Mac Pro but for reliability and longevity I doubt any pc can stand its ground against a Mac Pro. With building a super pc you need extra cooling, extra fans, bigger PSU's etc. Apple made the Mac Pro out of aluminum. It absorbs heat, It has just 3 fans and a 1100W PSU. So heating has never ever been problematic. Yes they are a little long in the tooth now but I work on them for huge visual effects projects for film and tv and they have never let me down.

If I build a pc again it all be for games, hey but thats where a PS4 comes in lol

As for Windows, well, let me not say anything besides "Windows 7 you were and always will be king of Microsofts OS"

And the point being...?  A bloated computer is just a bloated computer, that has nothing to do with the Windows OS - which is a very lean and efficient package.

BTW, isn't it ironic that the once "hippie" company is now among the three most profitable corporations in the world - the very symbol of a faceless monster corporation:

"In December 2014, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights published a report which documented inhumane conditions for the 15,000 workers at a Zhen Ding Technology factory in Shenzhen, China, which serves as a major supplier of circuit boards for Apple's iPhone and iPad. According to the report, workers are pressured into 65-hour work weeks which leaves them so exhausted that they often sleep during lunch breaks. They are also made to reside in "primitive, dark and filthy dorms" where they sleep "on plywood, with six to ten workers in each crowded room." Omnipresent security personnel also routinely harass and beat the workers."

And this is what they charge those, er...bloated prices for?

mithra_sr  wrote Agreed with you updating in pain in Mac but design is a class apart. You should try have both. Its completely depend upon to you on when you use what.

Had a Mac for a couple of years.

Mac computer are made no better than any other computer. Apple uses the same hardware, even less quality hardware most of the time, as all other computer makers.

If you don't believe me just head over to the Apple forums.

Design? If you want a computer you can't upgrade in any way or replace any part that might fail, including the battery, then sure Apple has some nice designs.

Have you considered a refurbished mac? Any new macbook pro will require adapters to accommodate usb's/peripherals... it's a pain for now... soon everything will be in the cloud. Even the new pen in development writes in the air!

Did anyone say Windows is more "secure" than Mac OS? Nobody said anything about security. Obviously Windows is much more vulnerable because of higher market saturation. In any case the answer to that is simply "use your head" and don't click on anything that pops up.

But there is an issue with reliability and stability. Historically, Apple used to have the upper hand here, but in later years that seems to have changed. Based on posts in the Photoshop/Lightroom forums, Mac users generally seem to experience more issues and more bugs.

A lot of this seems to be down to deliberate Apple policies, like the way the OS governs and overrides functions that Windows just leaves to the application. Like color management, which has been a source for much grief for Mac users lately. The Windows model is much simpler and perhaps less sophisticated, but also a lot more reliable.

Another Apple problem is their, again deliberate, total disregard for backwards compatibility. A new OS version, or a new hardware generation, frequently changes the rules totally in some area, so that users are suddenly faced with having to upgrade a whole ecosystem along with the OS/hardware. Again this is very different from the Windows model, where you can generally run ten years old software and devices without any issues.

These are all things the user needs to consider.

brianchaffee  wrote -Build a Windows machine faster than a full blown Mac Pro 12-core for under $1K...please

I have:

12 cores running at 3.33 GHz

72 GB of RAM

2 NVIDIA Quadro 4000 cards

2 SSDs (one is 256 and the other is 512 GB)

2 "Regular" hard drives (4 TB each)

And I spent right around $1,000.00

The best you can get with Mac is:

12 cores running at 2.7 GHz

64 GB of RAM

2 AMD FirePro D700 cards

1 SSD (up to 1 TB, but still)

That'll cost you nearly $10,000 ($9,547.00, to be precise)

Granted, the Quadro cards aren't the greatest compared to the Dual AMD cards, but I don't do much that relies on the GPU. And there is some question about whether or not you can really compare AMD and NVIDIA cards that easily.

Now, my parts aren't all brand new. The reason my machine was so cheap is that a lot of businesses upgrade their machines every certain number of years. They tell their IT provider to "recycle" the old machines and the parts just end up on eBay. Supply and demand means the prices are really low because there are SO MANY Dell parts on there. Most of them are gently used or almost new because many businesses barely use the hardware they do have. Now, some of my stuff (the SSDs) are brand new, but I just got really good deals on Amazon, Best Buy, Tiger Direct, or Newegg.

It really helps to have a significant other who LOVES shopping for great deals and who works in IT. It's kind of the perfect combination.