Welshkiwi Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Hi all, Right, in the next month or so I am going to be buying a new laptop. Having been a PC user for many years (before that it was my beloved Amiga ) I was obviously going to get something like a Dell or whatever. However, a friend of mine suggested that I look at the Macbook Pro (the one with the Nvidia gfx chipset). So, I did and was pretty impressed with what I saw. The thing that put me off was a) the price and the applications. He then told me that it was possible to put either XP or Vista on it so I could still play one or two of my games on it but do everything else that I want (photo stuff, 3D apps etc) through the Mac. One of the things I saw on the website was the speed of the Hard Disk in the Mac, 5400, as opposed to a 7200 I could get with the Dell. So, I suppose my question is this. Would it be worth me "crossing over" as it were? Would I be able to get the best of both worlds? Any words and advice would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flowero4ka Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Buy mac! I love it. And of course, you can run windows on it !! I use parallels. It admits me to run two OS in the same time. They have a nice offer - 4 in 1. It means - parallels, anti-virus kasperskiy, Disk Director Suite and True Image Home. I use three first ones. http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/premium/ I don't know why do I need the last one... Could anybody explain me, maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuietOC Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 One of the things I saw on the website was the speed of the Hard Disk in the Mac, 5400, as opposed to a 7200 I could get with the Dell. Apple likes to put crappy drives in their systems. OSX also sucks at drive usage. So, I would look to finding the fastest drive you can get. Even with a 10,000rpm Raptor my iMac seems sluggish, and you can't get a faster mechanical drive than the Raptor. There are a few fast 2.5" Solid State Drives (SSD) which could make a Notebook useable (not the slow 1.8" SSD in the Mac Book Air.) If you get a SSD and run OSX make sure to install with Journaling turned off--to save the drive and increase speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VenturAce Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Well, i have been a PC-user as well for whole 12 years! Now, from New 2008 I am Mac user! What has forced me to switch? The consciousness that I can have both Mac+PC on my Mac, that I have get advantages of smart and excellent-designed Mac and I can also have the advantages of habitual and conservative PC with its Windows. I could get all this with Virtual Machine's technology. I think this is quite convincing argument to switch from PC to Mac! About Parallels Desktop... I run it for about month (not much but I already do have experience). I really enjoy it and have no problems with it. It has perfect interface, excellent usability. It doesn't drag my system. Moreover, it fully satisfies my needs. I even run some PC-games thru Parallels. I use BootCamp also to run some games with high system requirements. BootCamp copes with it much better than Parallels but I'm sure they will adopt it for gaming soon. If you decide to get Parallels Desktop don't miss the opportunity to get another apps in one package with Parallels Desktop! (but you will have to spend a little bit more on it, about $100) Check Parallels Desktop Premium Edition offer on their web-site. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuietOC Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 So, I suppose my question is this. Would it be worth me "crossing over" as it were? Would I be able to get the best of both worlds? You can run Windows and OSX on the same machine. Best of both worlds? No. The Okay of both worlds, yes. Running Virtual machines like Windows in Parallels is the future. It is a slow future, but it is nice to run almost anything I want (Well, I can't run some classic Mac OS apps on my iMac--even with OS 9.0.4 installed in SheepShaver.) I find Windows XP/Vista much more reliable than OSX. Did I mention that Macs are slow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deviant0ne Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Get the Mac. You won't be sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Apple likes to put crappy drives in their systems. OSX also sucks at drive usage. So, I would look to finding the fastest drive you can get. Even with a 10,000rpm Raptor my iMac seems sluggish, and you can't get a faster mechanical drive than the Raptor. There are a few fast 2.5" Solid State Drives (SSD) which could make a Notebook useable (not the slow 1.8" SSD in the Mac Book Air.) If you get a SSD and run OSX make sure to install with Journaling turned off--to save the drive and increase speed.No doubt you should get a 7200rpm drive if you can. It will improve performance... You can buy your own and upgrade yourself or get it as an extra with the MBP. But I haven't found OS X to be slow with I/O, nor has it really bothered me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshkiwi Posted February 18, 2008 Author Share Posted February 18, 2008 Hi all, Many thanks for these replies. Much appreciated. I would have replied sooner but I wrote the initial message just before going to bed (I live down in New Zealand ) I'm still on the fence I must admit but I am swinging more towards the Mac side of things. For those of you who use that Dual boot thing, what`s the performance of XP/Vista like? Oh, when you say "get your own 7200 drive) is changing drives in a Mac just as easy as in a PC? i.e. a bog-standard 2.5inch will do just fine. Again, all thoughts and opinions greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane Adams Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Hi all, Many thanks for these replies. Much appreciated. I would have replied sooner but I wrote the initial message just before going to bed (I live down in New Zealand ) I'm still on the fence I must admit but I am swinging more towards the Mac side of things. For those of you who use that Dual boot thing, what`s the performance of XP/Vista like? Oh, when you say "get your own 7200 drive) is changing drives in a Mac just as easy as in a PC? i.e. a bog-standard 2.5inch will do just fine. Again, all thoughts and opinions greatly appreciated. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2119528,00.asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshkiwi Posted February 18, 2008 Author Share Posted February 18, 2008 Thanks! Hmmm, definitely hedging towards the Mac now it seems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuietOC Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 For those of you who use that Dual boot thing, what`s the performance of XP/Vista like? I had dual boot with XP via Boot Camp on my iMac, but I never used it except through Parallels. After swapping drives, I converted the Boot Camp partition into a disk image, and use Windows that way now. XP is sluggish but useable under Parallels. I mainly use it for Office 2007, IE7, and some other apps that aren't available for OSX. If you plan on using anything like Photoshop get as much memory as you can. 4GB should be a bare minimum now, with 8GB or more highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshkiwi Posted February 18, 2008 Author Share Posted February 18, 2008 4 Gig? Man, that`s quite a lot for an initial purchase I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Get a iMac with a good configuration. You won't look back. The laptops are a little more expensive for their hardware anyway.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbetts Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 I would grab whatever Imac has the HD2600. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshkiwi Posted February 18, 2008 Author Share Posted February 18, 2008 Well, to be honest with you, its a laptop i`m after now. I no longer want a desktop machine as a laptop will be fine for me. I can just plug it into my lcd monitor when I want to use it at home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 If you want a good mactop get the MPB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshkiwi Posted February 18, 2008 Author Share Posted February 18, 2008 If you want a good mactop get the MPB. That's the beast which has caused me all these problems I was happily going to just get a Dell but then I was told to look at the Macbook Pro. I suppose the thing which is getting to me is this. Can I justify spending that extra on the Mac. Will I use it's features or will I find myself dual-booting and simply using Vista or XP. This is the reason I posted here because I expect many of you will have had the same thoughts/experiences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 It depends on how much you like OS X Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evilhax0r Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 1.) There's no shortage of OSX applications, you just have to look for them. There's also a LOT of freeware for Mac which is . You're right about the ability to run Windows as well (VMware Fusion ftw?) 2.) If you're into gaming, and want to be able to game, get the Macbook Pro. I, personally have a gaming rig, so my Macbook suits me just fine. However, the Gfx card that comes with the MBP can't be configured to ship with the Macbook, so the only way to get it is buy the MBP (Clever on Apple's part). 3.) Just get the god damn mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshkiwi Posted February 19, 2008 Author Share Posted February 19, 2008 1.) There's no shortage of OSX applications, you just have to look for them. There's also a LOT of freeware for Mac which is . You're right about the ability to run Windows as well (VMware Fusion ftw?) 2.) If you're into gaming, and want to be able to game, get the Macbook Pro. I, personally have a gaming rig, so my Macbook suits me just fine. However, the Gfx card that comes with the MBP can't be configured to ship with the Macbook, so the only way to get it is buy the MBP (Clever on Apple's part). 3.) Just get the god damn mac. Lol! I take it you like your Mac a lot then? Well, you`ve all given me loads to think about. To be honest with you, I reckon all the serious apps I would use (Photoshop, office etc etc etc) would be done on the Mac and one or two others that i`d ned would be on the Vista side of things. I game mainly on my 360 now too, so hey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuietOC Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 4 Gig? Man, that`s quite a lot for an initial purchase I suppose. 8GB of DDR2 800 is $140 today. Why have any less? I just priced out a new Quad Core Mac Pro today. They want $1500 for an extra 6GB of slower memory in a Mac Pro. Go Apple! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshkiwi Posted February 19, 2008 Author Share Posted February 19, 2008 If I were to get a Macbook Pro with the minimum 2 gig of RAM (for now) how would that run Vista? I mean, chances are I would be using the Mac side of things 80% of the time but I'd want to know that when i did want to use the "dark-side" it would be ok. So, would the Mac specs be sufficient to run Vista? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 Go for the Ma if you feel its right for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
socal swimmer Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 8GB of DDR2 800 is $140 today. Why have any less? I just priced out a new Quad Core Mac Pro today. They want $1500 for an extra 6GB of slower memory in a Mac Pro. Go Apple! FB-DIMM RAM (which is used in the mac pro) has a higher latency and slower frequency, but it can transfer MUCH more information. like 30+ GB/s, vs 3.x for DDR2? i can't remember what link it was, but it was a good site. maybe in the skulltrail thread? and the macbook pro will be great on vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuietOC Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 FB-DIMM RAM (which is used in the mac pro) has a higher latency and slower frequency, but it can transfer MUCH more information. like 30+ GB/s, vs 3.x for DDR2? No, it is the same speed as DDR2. It is DDR2 chips with an extra buffer chip added between the DDR2 and the chipset. The only reason for those buffers to exist is to allow more than 2 DIMMs per channel. So, there is no reason to have it unless you are putting more than 2 DIMMs in per channel. The Mac Pro has 4 channels so you should have more than 8 DIMMs in it to see any advantage for having the buffers. Compare the Mac Pro memory bandwidth to a 2-socket Opteron which has 4 channels of normal DDR2, and see which is faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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