buying new equipment what do you recommend pc or mac?

[Owen Lees]

Hi Robert

I have worked with both in my capacity as a designer for exhibition companies, and as a web designer etc etc etc.

I love the Mac, I love the interface, the nice look and feel and all that – its a great machine and I have owned several.

But I don’t use one for my business on a day to day basis .. and yes I do an awful lot of straight print work as well as lfdp and sign stuff so its fairly across the board usage.

I do have one sat in the corner for “those jobs where it comes in as a Mac file” – but to be honest it hasnt been switched on for a year now as the applications on the PC’s move more and more mainstream and cross compatible.
Couple that with the undeniable cost implications and its easy to see why the Mac is still a select beast, power on a PC is cheaper to achieve, video cards, memory, components are all cheap and theres a huge amount available (as you will no doubt be aware).

I have had this conversation with more than one printer who I deal with and they all have said that more and more people like me are moving (or staying with) their PC’s against Macs when it comes to buying new equipment, at the end of the day I can go and buy a stonking setup from my local trade PC parts dealer (NOT PC World) and probably get 3 PCs for the price of 1 Mac.

You could use a Mac screen on a PC anyway if you are turned on by them, as they use (I am pretty sure) a DVI connector which is becoming common on higher end PC video cards.

Now move across to software and in particular the net – theres a wealth of shareware and apps built for the net user which simply is not available for the PC, yes there are apps and loads of them for the Mac but simply not the vast amount that is available for the PC. Having said that System 10 upwards should change things I hope because I for one would still like to go back to a Mac – but only if I can do things as easily and as cheaply as on my PC.

I am now about to be flamed to death and beaten verbally by the zillions of Mac lovers on here….

Owen

[Nicola McIntosh]

hi rob

i agree with owen, macs are the business..in every aspect of designing.
the g5 dual processor and the 30″ screen very nice!! and pricey!! 😛 (the graphics card to run the monitor is £400) 😮

but if you have never used a mac for your day to day work, it gets annoying having to learn the different interface, you lose valuable time!! 😀
you can get just as good dual chip pc’s sample below;

[CPU] Dual AMD® Opteron™ 250
[Memory] Centon® 8GB (Custom DDR)
[Tyan] Thunder K8W (Dual Socket 940)
[Video Adapter] nVidia® GeForce™ 6800
[Hard Disk] Dual Seagate® Cheetah Ultra320 SCSI (18 GB)
[Hard Disk] Dual Seagate® Cheetah Ultra320 SCSI (146 GB)
loads of memory & as much storage as you like 😀

reliability of coarse is the mac without a doubt!!
if it was me i would go with the pc!! 😛 even though i would dearly love to own a G5 😀 (but not for work)

nik

[Peter Normington]

Rob
pc world are sometimes under rated if you speak to their business department and get the right bod they can be very helpfull. different thing though, if you are jusrt roaming round the store looking lost.
Peter

[Peter Normington]

did i just imagine that you had a post here rob?

[Nicola McIntosh]

http://www.armari.com/overview.asp?SysCat=Workstations

this gives you an idea of costs on the pc side of things!! 😀

another bit of info

The Mac Experience
you’ll be seen as cool, as different, as a creative/media type, or as someone who’s too thick to get to grips with Windows 😉
the unit will be visually appealing. Apple cases are well designed and match the monitors and other peripherals
you are probably less at risk from viruses each time you go on the internet. Virus writers tend to concentrate their limited attention span on creating viruses for Windows based machines
Apple has some good software including iMovie, iDVD and iTunes
you’ll have to put up with the silly names like iMovie, iDVD & iTunes
There’s only one butt to kick if your system doesn’t work. No getting fobbed off by the software manufacturer saying the thingymijg is not compatible with the widgetiwoo and that the third party supplied whatyamaycallit is screwing up the operating system registry
downside to the one-butt-to-kick principle is that if the one butt is not around you’ll have no butt to kick. That is an inherent weakness in all proprietary solutions – what happens if the company ever goes bust?
you can use Final Cut Pro (only available on a Mac)

The PC Experience
kick-ass speed, kick-ass speed, kick-ass speed. The top PC always beats the top Mac.
new developments – from dual processor operation to 64 bit computing – come out on the PC first
better value, wider choice of components, easy upgrade paths
the huge market share of the PC makes it something that WILL be around for a long time to come.
a lot of the best video editing products are available for the PC only
availability of lots of resources from advice, tips, support forums, and manuals to training videos, help, and online discussion groups mean that the PC user is quite spoilt really
there’s a phenomenal range of software available for PC users from a wide range of video editing software to special effects applications, format conversion programs and a range of other suites and utilities
competition is good. It means that component prices from CPUs to video editing cards are being constantly improved and becoming more affordable
once you get to grips with the interface, the menu system, right-clicking with the mouse, and shortcut keys you’ll find that you can navigate quite adeptly around any Windows application

Nik

[Peter Munday]

Rob I have to agree with Nik 😀 But I run a PC and Mac together in the office networked and they run fine :2thumbs: I do however find that the Mac can open PC files better then the PC with Mac files, and also if connected to the net a PC is more likely to get infected :spammer: Overall the Mac has a much nicer interface than the PC and as Nik says it looks cool 😎

[Shane Drew]

Rob,

Nik makes some very good observations in her post.

MAC are pretty well the standard in most publishing houses, but for real work horse stuff, the PC wins everytime.

My experience selling PC since 1975, is that at the end of the day, you”ll probably have a better and cheaper uograde path if you go the PC route.

Certainly a few years ago, the MAC had many things a PC could not do. Dual screens on a PC is only a recent edition since win98, but mac had that options years before.

Now thow, technology and software is well up to speed with the MAC.

Certainly MAC still target the publishing market, and it is fair to say that they have that area pretty well covered. Also, Niks point on viruses is a valid one. Once again, software is the answer to this on a PC.

I upgrade my PC’s (I have 6 – ranging from 1ghz to 3ghz) every 6 months, and if they were MACs I would have to buy a new machne. With my PCs they have open architecture, which relates toi a more competative market place. The MAC has closed architecture, meaning it has to be Apple, and it WILL be expensive.

Video cards and screens are something that is always improving. I run two 19″ monitors off my 3 ghz design PC running XP, and I have to say that it is very good. I could invest in a better monitor or better video, but it runs video very well now so I don’t feel the need to change. The point is tho, if I want to I just change the appropriate video card. It would not be an option with a MAC, certainly not at a reasonable price anyway.

End of the day, purchasing a PC for your needs today are important, but you should not ignore your needs in the forseeable future.

In the back of your mind you should consider your upgrade path, as with any business, the application you have in mind for the machine, will expand as time moves on.

Just my thought.

Shane

[James kelly]

The love of Macs by graphic designers is very much a romantic, loyalty thing. Yes, one upon a time, the Mac was by far the top design tool but that was in the distant past. When I was doing my degree in graphic design, everyone at the university said mac, mac, mac… without really knowing what they were talking about. Most of them at the time, had never really used a ‘good’ pc for graphics. I had both a PC and a Mac back then and the vast majority of my best work was created on the PC. I could laugh at the amount of times I heard “how did you do that on a Mac?”.

Commerce dictates the progression of computers. If you wanted to make a successful business producing computer parts or software, what platform would you concentrate on?

[Robert Lambie]

brilliant brilliant brilliant…. this is what makes these boards invaluable… great help all round…

having read this, i think i will stick with PC. NOT BECAUSE ITS BETTER, just because i dont think i will have as amny problrms, long run. at the end of the day that is why i am buying anew comp. ive upgraded this p4 system till its gonna pop….

my new comp has to have a much bigger sreen… i have 17inch liquid one… and realy liked the mac 30inch…
as owen has said, i maybe able to use a mac monitor with pc… this could be my way round it.. anyone know if its 100%?

my comp is going to be shifting/playing with video files. as you can imagine these are huge. i need speed…. reliablity. as the site (after this slow server change) has to move up a frim level.

ive been on DELLs site… top of the range machine is very exspensive,,, around £4000. anyone any better idea of suppliers?

on that, thanks a million to : Owne, Nik, Peter, Shane, Peter & James

[Nicola McIntosh]

hi rob

the link i posted has real top end machines…use dell at your own risk!! (my opinion only) 😉

yes you can use a mac screen on pc…look at http://www.macworld.co.uk they have dropped £500 off the 30″ 😀

Nik

[Robert Lambie]

brill nik
will ceck out link mow… doh… i actualy missed that link 😕

thanks for tip on delll

[Shane Drew]

Nik’s right. DELL is charging you for the name.

I have a supplier here that bought everything from DELL. Told her she was probably paying thru the nose for a simple system. She shopped around before she bought her next PC.

Never been back to DELL again 😕

Find a supplier you feel comfortable with, and you should always do better than a ‘name’ player.

Cheers

[Peter Normington]

pc or mac? Although not directly relevant to your question, this is food for thought http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/w … 287513.stm

Im no expert on puters, but if I were you rob, I’d go for this, http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_ … 918015.stm
‘Always buy the best you can afford’ You’re probably the only one on the boards that could afford this! 😉

[Robert Lambie]

ok im swaying off dell and mac, ide still like the large mac screen so ill keep it as a possibility.

does anyone know where i can buy online were you just click to add the spec from list and get overall price at end. like the way dell have it on their site?

i thought it was good how at the end it corrected me on compatability of certian this i went for.

[Nicola McIntosh]

http://www.armari.com 😛

Nik

[mark walker]

hi robert, try
http://www.meshcomputers.com
they also do the upgrade options etc. very similar to dell. I must say I have a dell and have been very happy with the performance of the machine to date. Ive had 14 months and other than xp freezing up every now and then all has been well.
mark. 🙂

[Martin Grimmer]

Rob,

Think most of the main computer manufacturers let you change and adapt configuration online to suit. One thing to think of though is service if things go wrong – Mesh Computers, as suggested by Mark, always do well in the computer magazine reviews/awards, but their customer service was poor in my experience. I spent over £2K on a computer from them last year but their lack of urgency when things went wrong was frustrating – although I suppose they did eventually replace the computer.

Need to spend similar in the next few months but will try Evesham (www.evesham.com) instead – their service is supposed to be better and they have a few stores. (Not sure if Glasgow is any good for you).

Carrera (www.carrera.co.uk) is another computer company that seems to feature a lot in the computer magazine reviews and allows you to configure.

Martin
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[Alan Drury]

Rob, rather than go to a large manufacturer is there no local ‘computer shop’ who will advise and build one for you. I always have my work machines built this way and not only do they seem quicker than the large store ones but the shop is there for advise and local if some thing does go wrong.
Alan

[cavedave]

For my 2p worth,

I would buy a Mac for video editing if money is no object.
I would say I am a computer person, not Mac or PC. I use both from a development point of view and dont have a preference to either any more than I prefer my hammer to my screw drivers.

For streight forward desktop graphics I would use a PC, as its fast as a Mac for this purpose and a lot cheaper and you get little benefit other than a certain Mac elite status from the extra £ spent on Macs for this these days.

But video editing takes some real crunch both in terms of memory and processor power and the 64 bit processor and O/S on the Mac makes a noticable difference in this area. So if I had the money I would buy a Mac for video editing, but with a wife, 3 kids and a dog I dont have the money so I use a PC 🙂

Best regards

-David Evans

[budone]

The real key here is how much do you want to spend?

Obviously £4k is too much as stated but give us an idea on they price all in with monitor, speakers etc…

Have you upgraded your P4 yourself? building a computer is really easy, whats hard is making sure everything is compatible with each other.

save some labour costs, give us an idea of what you want to spend, get a spec for a computer and build it yourself!

[Shane Drew]

quote budone:

save some labour costs, and build it yourself!

Budone, I would have agreed with you until recently.

I have been selling PC’s since ’75 (remember the Commodore PET and Vic 20?), and building them since the early ’80’s

I build all my own PC’s even now, and yes compatability is a nightmare these days.

End of the day tho, most companies that sell ‘systems’ will put it together at very little cost. Here they charge $35. Fully checked and warranted.

For the time and effort doing it yourself, it is good to weigh up how much you value your own time. Certainly someone in Robs situation with his own business and the boards as well, paying someone to do the ‘leg work’ is probably worth the little extra. Peace of mind counts for some value too.

As you say, comes down to the budget really.

Just my thought.

Cheers
Shane

[Nicola McIntosh]

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

check this wee cutie out!! 😛 😛

Nik

[budone]

Heard about the macmini on the radio today,

Looks pretty similar to the PC Shuttles.

So any idea on what your looking to spend Rob??

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Marts:

Carrera (www.carrera.co.uk)

do not buy anything from them http://www.hexus.net/ this will keep you informed!! 😛

Nik

[Robert Lambie]

not sure yet mate, waiting on accountant to tell how much i can get tax deductable and see how far i can stretch from there… 😕

[Martin Grimmer]

quote niknaxpc:

quote Marts:

Carrera (www.carrera.co.uk)

do not buy anything from them http://www.hexus.net/ this will keep you informed!! 😛

Nik

…..thats another company I’ve given the kiss of death to…they didn’t mention their insolvency on their website – strange that…

Martin

[Nicola McIntosh]

no it is the same company!!

😛
Nik

[Nicola McIntosh]

rob how is your new pc? 😛

Nik

[wanderer]

I bought my first PC many years ago for over a grand. I asked, “Is it upgradable” , I didn’t even know what it meant.
Yes they said, no problem. It was obsolete within six months!.
I was so mad I went on a few courses and build my own now.
They are childs play to put together, but keeping up with the ever advancing technology is a nightmare.
Now we’ve got PCI Express, which is a new, faster way of transferring data which of course obsoletes (Is that a word ?) all previous machines.

Doh

Tony

[asifnmalik]

I have always taken Apples advertising and hype regarding the power of their computers and the fact that their operating system does not crash as often as windows. Therefore have never bought one. We recently purchased a HP Indigo Digital press and had to purchase a mac (Indigo uses Unix) anyway we took some advise and bought a Powermac G5 Tower, Dual 1.8ghz with 1.25GB ram. After using it for a couple of weeks all I can say is that the build quality of the G5 is absolutely incredible both internally and externally. BUT. The mouse is a piece of crap, no right button so you have to use the keyboard and shortcuts, whats that about.

Anyway, we tested the G5 with a another windows pc with an Athlon 64 3400+ processor and 1GB ram. Considering the mac has a dual processor it was soundly beaten by the pc. We tested this by using the same software, Corel, Photshop, Illustrator on both computers. We did stuff like finding out which was quicker at opening a large EPS, which could run a particular filter quicker etc.

I also found that the mac crashes just as often as the pc, it just has a good utility to let you know that a particular piece of software has become unstable and lets your force it to quit to stop having to restart the computer.

That’s my 2 cents worth.

[Adrian Hewson]

Hi Asifnmalik

Dont know who told you that you need a mac to run Unix as this is not true. We have both a widnows server and a Unix server, both are running on standard intel servers one form IBM and the Unix on a Dell. We used to have MACs on our network, they cost twic as much as a PC ran at half the speed, crashed not only themselves but the network. The only good thing I have to say about a MAC is there is always someone willing to pay you a crazily good price for a second hand one.

I’m glad their not scottish

REgards ADrian

[Robert Lambie]

well seeing as i started this thread by asking about new comp etc i thought ide post some pics of my new computer & setup i ended up with after everyones advice. basically this is the new office i have setup purposelly for running the site. on one computer we run “the boards” and the other to run accounts, memberships, emails, UKSG etc etc…. best thing i have done and means the site will never rely on the one system. just incase of this and that happening. between the two comps we have 5 200gig hard drives. again for security reasons and one for backing up the others while the others all hold different areas of the site/accounts etc since completing this last month we are steadily getting ontop of everything and im very confident these new changes & the recent switch to a top end dedicated server it will give the site the boost it needs to become top dog on the net. fongers crossed anyway 😉 :lol1:

(click images to enlarge)

now all i need to do is buy some cable tidies? 😕

.

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Attachments:

[Iain Gordon]

Rob, thats not some pictures, its the same one twice.

Too many Breezers me thinks

Cheers
Iain

[Iain Gordon]

Well it was, but its changed

Too quick for me

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Robert Lambie:

now all i need to do is buy some cable tidies? 😕
.

yep cables are a nightmare…nice set up rob, all you need know is a cumfy chair!! :lol1: :lol1: 😉

Nik

[Robert Lambie]

:lol1: :lol1:
i managed to change it before you got your post in mate… two now mate 😉

[Iain Gordon]

Yeah it looks good mate, bigger than my workshop..

keep up the good work

Iain

[Adrian Hewson]

Wheres the picture of the Secretary doing the biz at the desk 😮

[Robert Lambie]

:lol1: :lol1: your right nik, but to be honest i went out and bought those two along with the desks on purpose. i get real bad shoulder pains due to slouching in comfy seats on the comp. my last desk etc was good but i didnt realise was my monitor sat just a tad too low and after a while of hours infront of it my neck began giving me bother too… since changing to larger flat screen monitors to help eye stress and the desks and “uncomfy chairs” it has helped me heaps. would never go back to the way i had it… oh and even plenty leg space you wouldnt beleive the pian that can be caused by restricted legroom over a period of time. 😕

[Robert Lambie]

quote signco:

Wheres the picture of the Secretary doing the biz at the desk 😮

probably a coronation street break mate, or eastenders, or take the high road, or or or 🙁

😉

[Iain Gordon]

C’mon Rob. “Restricted legroom” and “Robert Lambie” should not be used in the same sentence…..LMAO

But no matter how tall you are, we all look up to you mate

Cheers
Iain

[Robert Lambie]

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

your right mate…. my legs are so short, the last time i was on the bus i was chucked off for standing on the seats! 😕 :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

😉

[Nicola McIntosh]

quote Robert Lambie:

:since changing to larger flat screen monitors to help eye stresswould 😕

i agree too i have a few large flat crt screens which are fab for graphics, but i prefer the flat lcd…nicer on the eyes 😮 😉

nice tip about the chair….never thought about the aches & pains when in front of the pc..specially sitting at night on the boards :lol1: i will try it out tomorrow just to see what it’s like on a harder chair 😛 as i have a rea…..lly comfy chair…i love my comfy chair!! :lol1: :lol1: 😉

nik