Have macs stabilized the bits?

[-Ghost9-]

I read in a post earlier today about macs:
"Final Cut Pro 6, Shake 4.1 and Logic Pro 7 IMHO are considerably more effective video/audio composition packages than anything available for Windows and they use 64bit OS with no 4GB RAM limit like you have in 32bit flavor of WinXP and Vista and you get much better 4 CPU and now 8 CPU performance than you do on bloated WinXP or Vista systems."

Now, are macs really running stable at 64bits with more than 4g of ram? I was of the belief that both the 64 bit versions of windows and linux do not run very well do to most programs being written for a 32bit os. Have macs achieved something that other OS's have not? Or was the poster simply referring to those specific programs that run at 64 bits, but other programs may not run as effectively?

[igknighted]

I read in a post earlier today about macs:
"Final Cut Pro 6, Shake 4.1 and Logic Pro 7 IMHO are considerably more effective video/audio composition packages than anything available for Windows and they use 64bit OS with no 4GB RAM limit like you have in 32bit flavor of WinXP and Vista and you get much better 4 CPU and now 8 CPU performance than you do on bloated WinXP or Vista systems."

Now, are macs really running stable at 64bits with more than 4g of ram? I was of the belief that both the 64 bit versions of windows and linux do not run very well do to most programs being written for a 32bit os. Have macs achieved something that other OS's have not? Or was the poster simply referring to those specific programs that run at 64 bits, but other programs may not run as effectively?

I cannot speak for windows (XP 64 bit, ick), but linux' 64 bit offerings are perfectly stable, using more than 4gb ram. The issue is with software. You won't run into issues on the 64bit linux with A/V software, but with flash and such other things. These issues are just as applicable to the mac as they are to linux. Apple has no magic cure, they just trick you into thinking they do and then over charge you for it. Then again, thats the american way now...

[blah blah blah]

I read in a post earlier today about macs:
Now, are macs really running stable at 64bits with more than 4g of ram? I was of the belief that both the 64 bit versions of windows and linux do not run very well do to most programs being written for a 32bit os. Have macs achieved something that other OS's have not? Or was the poster simply referring to those specific programs that run at 64 bits, but other programs may not run as effectively?

All 3 seem to run 32bit okay.

[-Ghost9-]

so is the idea that a 64bit system improves the performance of 32bit programs bogus or real?

[igknighted]

so is the idea that a 64bit system improves the performance of 32bit programs bogus or real?

Bogus. Anything 64bit that is a cpu intensive task (A/V editing for example) will see a noticable difference, but that is about it. Most things see no noticable change, and 32bit programs should see no change at all.

Well, there is one slight catch... I think 32bit apps can use more than 4gb of ram on a 64bit OS (unlike a 32bit OS), so that might improve 32bit performance as well... but you need more than 4gb of ram for that.

[insane_alien]

64-bit excells itself when it is required to work with instructions and date that don't fit in 32-bit registers. this would take a 32-bit processor a few clock cycles to do while a 64-bit processor can do it in one (well, depends on the process but lets assume its a one cycle operation under optimal conditions)

[-Ghost9-]

thanks! i'm looking at upgrading, and I'm thinking about going mac as I hate vista, but i want to get all my facts straight. I'd go linux, but at the moment I need to be able to work on adobe software. Linux is for fun at the moment.

[igknighted]

thanks! i'm looking at upgrading, and I'm thinking about going mac as I hate vista, but i want to get all my facts straight. I'd go linux, but at the moment I need to be able to work on adobe software. Linux is for fun at the moment.

I honestly don't think the Macs are worth it unless you want to spend a lot of money. At the high end they are a good value over their windows counterparts, but unless you want to spend $1,500+ then stick with windows, its much more cost effective. Since it sounds like you have windows already, I would recommend you stay with it. Consider that Photoshop alone costs $900 and Dreamweaver runs around $400, you could transfer your current license from a windows machine to another, but you would need to buy new licenses for a Mac.

[Adamant1988]

I read in a post earlier today about macs:
"Final Cut Pro 6, Shake 4.1 and Logic Pro 7 IMHO are considerably more effective video/audio composition packages than anything available for Windows and they use 64bit OS with no 4GB RAM limit like you have in 32bit flavor of WinXP and Vista and you get much better 4 CPU and now 8 CPU performance than you do on bloated WinXP or Vista systems."

Now, are macs really running stable at 64bits with more than 4g of ram? I was of the belief that both the 64 bit versions of windows and linux do not run very well do to most programs being written for a 32bit os. Have macs achieved something that other OS's have not? Or was the poster simply referring to those specific programs that run at 64 bits, but other programs may not run as effectively?

Leapord has been designed to be completely 64-bit, but it will allow you to run 32-bit applications side by side with 64-bit applications with no problem (I saw this demoed). I'm supposing that Apple has done something that everyone else should have done, and that I've had other developers tell me they'd like to do with a version of Debian. They just created a way for 32-bit applications to live in a 64-bit world with no problem. I don't know enough about how to do it to say how I think they did, but I did discuss this with a developer who wished to do that to Debian.

Concerning the price of the Macs, I can't find a justification for the price of the MacBook Pro right now (over $700 over a similarly configured MacBook) but other than that most Macs are reasonable for the price and for the hardware they offer, unless you custom build. In terms of pre-built PCs I don't think you can find a PC that will match a Mac feature for feature for less money. Now, you can shove the same processor, graphics card, HD, and all that into a PC and call it a Macs performance equal but you're still missing out on functionality that the Mac offers. IF you're looking at getting a desktop Mac, you should probably wait for a while. The iMac line is overdue for an upgrade so that should be happening shortly.

[igknighted]

Leapord has been designed to be completely 64-bit, but it will allow you to run 32-bit applications side by side with 64-bit applications with no problem (I saw this demoed). I'm supposing that Apple has done something that everyone else should have done, and that I've had other developers tell me they'd like to do with a version of Debian. They just created a way for 32-bit applications to live in a 64-bit world with no problem. I don't know enough about how to do it to say how I think they did, but I did discuss this with a developer who wished to do that to Debian.

Concerning the price of the Macs, I can't find a justification for the price of the MacBook Pro right now (over $700 over a similarly configured MacBook) but other than that most Macs are reasonable for the price and for the hardware they offer, unless you custom build. In terms of pre-built PCs I don't think you can find a PC that will match a Mac feature for feature for less money. Now, you can shove the same processor, graphics card, HD, and all that into a PC and call it a Macs performance equal but you're still missing out on functionality that the Mac offers. IF you're looking at getting a desktop Mac, you should probably wait for a while. The iMac line is overdue for an upgrade so that should be happening shortly.

I agree that for equivelent hardware the Mac's prices are reasonable... the issue is that you have to be buying a high end system to make that worthwhile. I would love to buy a macbook with modest hardware specs for $500-$700 because honestly it will be a long time before I need anything more. However I don't have that option. So my choices are to spend $1300 on a macbook with WAY more than I need or get a cheap windows-based PC that does what I need. I may prefer the Mac, but I refuse to pay for more HW than I need. Plus in the case above where I would need to spend thousands on new licenses for my adobe products, there is no way in hell I would switch.

[Adamant1988]

I agree that for equivelent hardware the Mac's prices are reasonable... the issue is that you have to be buying a high end system to make that worthwhile. I would love to buy a macbook with modest hardware specs for $500-$700 because honestly it will be a long time before I need anything more. However I don't have that option. So my choices are to spend $1300 on a macbook with WAY more than I need or get a cheap windows-based PC that does what I need. I may prefer the Mac, but I refuse to pay for more HW than I need. Plus in the case above where I would need to spend thousands on new licenses for my adobe products, there is no way in hell I would switch.

Well, the thing about Macs is that they're ALL high end, that's just the way they work. Even the lowest of the lowest Macbooks available right now is still a real monster in comparison to other laptops. The quality, I think, in Macs is how long they last, and how long they're good for. Leopard is going to run on G4 processors, I believe... how old are those again? I know people who end up getting a new laptop every 2 years because the ones they get are cheap pieces of junk and fall apart. This isn't counting all the discounts you can get if you're a student and all that.

You are absolutely right though, Macs are high end systems and will always be high end systems. Apple doesn't do the budget market (although this did help them a LOT with their iPod products) very well. For me, it's worth the price because I typically place some serious demands on my hardware... right now if it's not at least 1 GB of RAM, with a decent video card and a fairly potent processor, I'm not happy. So a mac appeals to me.

[-Ghost9-]

Well before vista totally rubbed me the wrong way, I was planning on building the rig myself. I have a pretty good handle on parts, and for the same amount of money as a mac pro I could build a kick *** gaming rig. Now that mac pro will probably be awesome for my design software, but will have a limited amount of games. Plus I don't like the limited way you can upgrade macs. I've heard it's a lot easier to swap parts now, but it's my understanding that when you really want to upgrade you're have to buy a whole new system. dunno how true that is anymore.

I was asking about the 64bit thing because if macs will truly run the programs better, then it'd be a viable option. From what I've read, adobe will not be releasing 64bit version of the cs3 products. The cost of licenses is not too big of an issue as my work will pay for it and i'm due for an upgrade. But i've also had to consider that all the fonts etc would have to be rebought.

I really just want to get the best OS out there for my work, but I don't really want to give up games. Right now I'm think I'll just stick with XP for this time around and maybe the next upgrade I'll think more seriously about mac. I wish linux had everything I needed. I really like ubuntu and would switch in a heartbeat if I was sure I could do all my work and play on it.

right now my home system is about 3 years old: AMD FX-55, 2gig corsair ram, 80g raptor hd, sb audigy 2, ati x850xt pci-e, asus a8v-delux pci-e mobo, and more but you get the idea. I'm thinking of getting the 8800gtx and getting a 30" monitor. It'll be great to have the desktop space for my design work instead of dealing with the small dual screen setup i have going.

i'm curious just how high end macs are. I don't really know much about their hardware. I had heard that their parts can actually be inferior to a high end "pc" part.

[-Ghost9-]

I did a little shopping and found macs to be waaay overpriced. I looked at the parts from the apple store for a mac pro and then created a shopping cart for pc parts at newegg. I can build a better than comparable pc system for about $800 less. I'm not seeing where the "high end" is coming in with macs....

Mac Pro:
Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4GB (4 x 1GB)(667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English

Price Tag: $3,447.00


A pc set up from newegg:
LIAN LI PC-60APLUSII Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Kentsfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562QX6700 - Retail
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX - Retail
Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Logitech Media Elite 967559-0403 Black USB + PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard - Retail
Logitech MX518 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Gaming-Grade Mouse - Retail
Creative X-Fi 30SB073000000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster - OEM
SONY Combo Drive Black IDE Model CRX320EE/B2S W/O SW - OEM
ASUS Striker Extreme LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX The Ultimate Gaming Motherboard - Retail
COOLMAX CUG-700B ATX 12V( V.2.2) 700W Power Supply - Retail
Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2B 1 Pack - OEM

Price Tag: $2,706.37

The pc parts are better and there's more of them. The pc memory is faster, the mouse is better(gaming mouse), there's an x-fi audio card, and the video card is way waaay better. Everything else is fairly the same. To make the systems exactly comparable I'd have to strip a few parts out, but I left the better ones in to demonstrate just how big the price difference is. To build something at the same cost of the mac, I could actually jack up my pc specs to surpass the mac specs by a lot. Plus, I can upgrade any of my parts and even go SLI without any trouble if I want to. In fact, I could actually buy another vid card and make a SLI system for still less than the mac pro.

[Adamant1988]

I did a little shopping and found macs to be waaay overpriced. I looked at the parts from the apple store for a mac pro and then created a shopping cart for pc parts at newegg. I can build a better than comparable pc system for about $800 less. I'm not seeing where the "high end" is coming in with macs....

Mac Pro:
Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4GB (4 x 1GB)(667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)
250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English

Price Tag: $3,447.00


A pc set up from newegg:
LIAN LI PC-60APLUSII Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Kentsfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562QX6700 - Retail
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX - Retail
Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Logitech Media Elite 967559-0403 Black USB + PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard - Retail
Logitech MX518 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Gaming-Grade Mouse - Retail
Creative X-Fi 30SB073000000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster - OEM
SONY Combo Drive Black IDE Model CRX320EE/B2S W/O SW - OEM
ASUS Striker Extreme LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX The Ultimate Gaming Motherboard - Retail
COOLMAX CUG-700B ATX 12V( V.2.2) 700W Power Supply - Retail
Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2B 1 Pack - OEM

Price Tag: $2,706.37

The pc parts are better and there's more of them. The pc memory is faster, the mouse is better(gaming mouse), there's an x-fi audio card, and the video card is way waaay better. Everything else is fairly the same. To make the systems exactly comparable I'd have to strip a few parts out, but I left the better ones in to demonstrate just how big the price difference is. To build something at the same cost of the mac, I could actually jack up my pc specs to surpass the mac specs by a lot. Plus, I can upgrade any of my parts and even go SLI without any trouble if I want to. In fact, I could actually buy another vid card and make a SLI system for still less than the mac pro.

LOL you chose a low-end Mac Pro to base that off? Also, building your own in NewEgg parts will almost ALWAYS be a cheaper solution...

[-Ghost9-]

LOL you chose a low-end Mac Pro to base that off? Also, building your own in NewEgg parts will almost ALWAYS be a cheaper solution...

In what way is that low end? They don't offer any faster ram modules, the vid card is the best vid card they offer, and everything besides the CPU would just be adding on more parts, not increasing their quality. And the parts I chose are comparable parts. If I upped it to whatever you might consider a high end mac pro, I could build an even better pc with even better parts. If a low end mac pro costs 3500 dollars, then that should tell you something as well considering I can build a better pc rig for so much less.

Yes it will be cheaper, but that's the point. You cannot build your own mac system if you wanted to. You are forced to buy from apple, except for some additions to memory and drives, but you still have to initially buy a system from apple.