A while ago I said that I was going to get a PC and let you guys know how it worked out. So anyways:
First of all, let me just say that before last month, I was a hardcore Mac user since about 1989 and I've gone through about 6 Macs. Last month, however, one of my friends "properly" introduced me to PCs. Before that, I admit that I was completely faithful to Apple and blindly loathed Windows, PCs, etc. I guess because I invested more money than I care to talk about in Mac hardware and software and I spent an absurd amount of time learning Mac programming and other Mac specific stuff, all of a sudden admitting "PCs are better" would also be admitting that I wasted so much. Don't look at it that way though. There is absolutely no logical reason why you can't have an eMac sitting on a desk with a PC (unless it's a small desk or something, but you get the point
)
I�m not writing this post to start a massive flame war (unfortunately that�s probably inevitable) but rather to inform all of you about how �the dark side� isn�t so dark and it is really worth checking out. As I said earlier, you don�t have to completely �convert� but there are no laws that say you can�t have a PC in addition to your Mac. I know that computers are an important part of your lifestyles and I honestly believe that you�re missing out on a lot by limiting yourself to Macs only. Obviously this post won�t apply to everyone, but I sure wish that I was exposed to a post like this 5 or so years ago. Hopefully it will clear up a few things for at least a few people.
So I guess I'll just make a list.
1) Price
I have to admit that this is the main thing that caught my attention. PCs are honestly dirt cheap compared to Macs... Just take a quick look at this $1379 computer: <a href="http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/hotrod.html" target="_blank">http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/hotrod.html</a> and compare it with Apple's $1599 G4. If you're too lazy, here's a summary. The PC has everything the Mac has plus
a lot more: Twice as much RAM (faster DDR RAM at that), twice as much HD space (faster HD), a DVD drive, a faster CD-RW drive, a much better graphics card, a 19" monitor, much better speakers, a very good sound card, and a floppy drive. In other words, absolutely every aspect of that PC is faster and larger. It also includes many things that the G4 doesn�t even have at all. This isn't some ******** "buy this PC and you get 5 years of compuserve!" deal. These are just plain walk-into-Fry's open market prices. Apple�s hardware simply can't compete with something like this.
So how are PCs so damn cheap? Simple. When you buy, say, a G4 tower from Apple, you're essentially letting Apple buy all the wholesale components (processor, ram, hd, etc. - maybe $569 worth of stuff) put it together for you (a $30 fee) add a �ripoff fee� ($1000) and then sell it to you for $1599. To be fair, this is comparable to buying a PC from say, Compaq or Gateway (although at least these brand PCs have lots of competition, so the �ripoff fee� isn't so outrageous) and my estimate of $1000 is probably pretty steep. However, when learned PC users buy a computer, they buy wholesale parts from, say, newegg.com or Fry's or wherever, and then either put the PC together themselves or pay a $30 fee to have professionals assemble their computer for them and essentially bypass the �ripoff fee� all together.
Apple has a monopoly, so to speak, on Macs. There's simply no competition. Picture this: Dell minus all the competing manufacturers (Gateway, Compaq, HP, etc.), no competition between chipmakers AMD and Intel, and being forced to buy your computer from Dell (and only the few setups Dell wants you to buy.) Voila, you have the PC equivalent of Apple.
2) Customizability
When you buy a Mac, you only have a handful of options to choose from. For example, say I already have 4 DVD players in my house and 2 CD-RWs (which I do.) I really do not want to have yet another of either, but at Apple.com there�s no way to simply get a $30 56x CD-ROM drive rather than spending so much extra on a DVD player that would read normal CDs at say, 32x. When you buy a PC, however, you can order exactly what you want, potentially saving lots of money. When I bought my PC, I wasn�t forced to buy a $60 gigabit Ethernet card and the $60 Apple Pro Mouse � two items I would never use. In total, I was able to save about $150 just by not getting stuff that Apple would normally bundle with your Mac. It�s the exact same feeling you get when you�re at the Apple store and in the 56k modem popup you select �None [Subtract $29]�. However, with a PC, you�re playing with hundreds of dollars rather than just $29.
3) Upgradeability
I remember back when I was having friendly platform wars with PC users, they�d always toss around the phrase �upgradeability� and I never understood what the big deal was. After all, on a Mac you can just plug in a FireWire CD-RW or something right? Well... now that I�ve built my own PC and really understand all this hardware stuff, it all becomes clear. The concept that you can�t simply pop open your case and upgrade absolutely any part of your computer is a completely alien concept to PC users. I can simply pop in a new processor, upgrade my heatsink, swap my motherboard, hell, even buy an entirely new case. Absolutely anything you can think of can be easily changed. In 3 years from now, I�ll be able to sell my old motherboard, video card, etc. put down about $350, and I�ll be absolutely up to speed with all the latest stuff... exactly like I bought a new computer. While there are third parties that let you upgrade a Macs processor and stuff, there is definitely a limit to what you can do.
4) Performance
Ok, I won't get into the technicalities of the G4 vs. P4 and all that stuff. If you really want to read beyond the MHz, beyond the MHz myth, and beyond sanity, read this article: <a href="http://arstechnica.com/cpu/01q2/p4andg4e/p4andg4e-1.html" target="_blank">http://arstechnica.com/cpu/01q2/p4andg4e/p4andg4e-1.html</a> (Part 1, 9 pages) and <a href="http://arstechnica.com/cpu/01q4/p4andg4e2/p4andg4e2-1.html" target="_blank">http://arstechnica.com/cpu/01q4/p4andg4e2/p4andg4e2-1.html</a> (Part 2, 4 pages) and this guy has a couple more installments coming!
So, let�s just forget the processor for now. There�s no easy way to compare them. However, the rest of the system can't be ignored. As anyone who has installed a new graphics card knows, it�s the components like that which really make the system. In terms of these components, PCs utterly dominate. Faster RAM, faster HDs, faster graphics cards, and faster sound cards (Macs don't even ship with sound cards yet.) Hell, you can even get fancy ethernet cards that offload network overhead from the CPU. No matter how you look at it, these �other components� are way ahead on the PC side. Granted, graphics cards often come out for Macs soon after their initial PC release... But even then, for some reason ATI and NVIDIA charge more money for their special (read: 99% identical) Mac versions of their chips. You can, however, buy a PC card and try to flash it and get it to work on your Mac, but only sometimes and with certain chips.
The result is absurd speeds. In Quake 3 for example, My $1099 PC runs Q3 with absolutely everything turned up (including 1600x1200 resolution) at about a 240 FPS average. A brand new $1599 G4 tower would probably run it no faster than 80 FPS average with the same settings. :/
5) Software
This is the kicker. Apple only has around 5% of the market and it really shows in the software. The first point I�d like to discuss is the issue of Mac gaming. It�s quite dismal. Here�s an edited quotation from a post I made with my opinions on �the state of Mac gaming:�
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">A) Lousy selection: Maybe it's just me, but I would love to be able to play GTA (1,2,&3), Soldier of Fortune (1&2), the Final Fantasies (uh, a lot), Metal Gear Solid (1&2), Rocket Arena, Fallout 2, etc. on my Mac. These aren't just random games that happen to be Windows only (for that, I'd need many pages of space), these are games that I actually really want to play.
B) Lagged releases: Most Mac games get ported to the Mac way, way later than the initial Windows releases. Some games are just insultingly old... Aliens Vs. Predator, for example. A 3+ year old game gets released for the Mac and we rejoice.
C) Buggy ports: Most Mac games were originally coded and optimized for Windows. These games are then handed to Mac porting houses where the source seems to be yelled at until it compiles. The result is that a blazing fast, optimized game (Giants for Windows) is reduced to an ultra buggy, snail slow, unpredictable game (Giants for Mac).
D) Problems at Apple: Apple's implementation of OpenGL is quite poor. For example, in OS 9 and non-Jaguar versions of OS X, bump mapping hasn't been implemented! Ever noticed that in many Mac ports, certain options in the configuration screens are disabled or nonexistent? Often the reason they're disabled is because Apple hasn't added the appropriate stuff to the system yet. I've also heard that Apple's HID manager or InputSprockets or something are really messed up. I'm not sure of the exact technical details (maybe someone can post them later) but I know that my mousewheel doesn't work 50% of the time.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">A few examples of other killer software that Macs are missing:
<a href="http://www.kazaa.com/" target="_blank">Kazaa</a>, and a few other quality P2P services exclusively for Windows. Mac users are pretty much limited to the Gnutella network. Fasttrak is simply the greatest P2P network out there, utterly dwarfing Gnutella in size as well as humiliating it in search speed and connection quality. Basically with Kazaa you can find pretty much any music, software, movie, etc. and if it�s even remotely popular, you�ll be able to download it at 100k/sec.
<a href="http://www.udpsoft.com/eye/" target="_blank">The All Seeing Eye</a>, and other amazingly good game server finding software. At one point I remember showing off GameRanger to my PC friends. Now I understand why they seemed to be trying their hardest not to laugh. ASE is similar to GameRanger but the interface is truly a no-brainer. At the same time however, it�s infinitely more flexible than GameRanger, takes up virtually no CPU time/memory in the background, and the best feature: it can fully refresh a list of 5000 Quake 3 servers in about 25 seconds - a process that can take GameRanger literally 30 minutes to complete (unless you go in manually and delete old servers, that is.) Oh yeah, no banners and stuff. It tailors itself specifically to your connection by doing a quick diagnostic test and getting the number of packets you can send per second, bandwidth, etc. at the beginning. I know a lot of you are probably rolling your eyes about all this, but I�m a hardcore gamer... It�s great.
<a href="http://www.cloudmark.com/" target="_blank">SpamNet</a>, and other great, free antispam software. SpamNet is basically a P2P program that somehow creates a massive online community of people voting what email is spam and what isn�t. Something like that. All I know is that it keeps my inbox of 25 spam per day completely clean, letting only the occasional spam messages trickle through. Yes, I�m aware that Apple�s email app has some fancy anti spam stuff in Jaguar. I haven�t tried it yet, but I really doubt it can be any better than this fancy system.
I could go on for ages, but I think I�ll just cut it short with Trillian, IE 6, and Winamp. These, IMHO, are the universal apps, but of course that�s just my opinion. The point is that there�s a huge library of native software for Windows compared to Apple�s puny offering (most of it being quick ports of Windows software, anyways.) It would be interesting to get exact figures.
6) A Windows Apologia
In short... Windows isn�t that bad. I�d love to use MacOS on my PC, but Windows XP is very acceptable. Here are a couple of common myths that I see thrown around a lot:
A) Windows is an unstable mofo!@#
In my experience, Windows is actually rock solid. With all honesty, after a month of usage, I only remember getting two crash dialogs. The first: IE 6 crashed and I was greeted with a friendly dialog informing me that the version of Flash I had installed was not compatible with XP. It told me I should upgrade to 6.53454325 or whatever and it even offered to automatically install it for me.
The second: I was playing GTA1 and it randomly crashed. I set GTA1 to run in Windows 95 compatibility mode and I haven�t had any problems since.
B) Windows is really hard to use!
Well, I managed to utterly master it in my first hour of usage. Unless you�re over 60 and still have trouble with the concept of moving icons and clicking buttons, it�s honestly a no-brainer. I have no doubt that anyone savvy enough to read the MacNN forums will be able to master Windows.
C) There�s tons of viruses and spyware for Windows!
True. Simply run some antivirus software whenever you download questionable software from Kazaa or email and run Lavasoft�s Ad-Aware whenever you install something like LimeWire. In fact, you can even automate these tasks. No biggie.
That�s all I can think of for now... Feel free to add to this list by replying � I�d be happy to respond to any other questions or concerns you might have about Windows.
7) Overclocking
This could be compacted into the performance or price sections, but I think I�ll just expand it here.
The first thing I did when I turned on my PC was overclock my 1.6 GHz P4 to 2.13 GHz. It�s quite a simple process. You press <DEL> while your computer is starting up to enter the BIOS. Select �Clock speed: 1.6 GHz� and toggle it to 2.13. Simple and completely safe.
With the 1.6A chip, you have something like a 98% chance of getting a chip that can be overclocked just like that. You can also overclock your graphics card just as easily. In fact, NVIDIA�s Windows drivers have a friendly little slider that lets you choose everything by software. My GeForce 4 TI4400 is now clocked slightly higher than a 4600.
True, you can overclock your Mac�s processor (not really the graphics card though) but it�s a pain and you�ll never even come close to getting a safe 33% increase using stock cooling.
Well, that�s about all I have to say. I hope I didn�t offend anyone, and I hope that this clears up a few things. Remember, I�m not trying to be an evangelist or Windows zealot or something... I simply think that getting a PC in addition to my Macs was a great investment. In my case, to steal a Switch slogan, my Cube is [going to be] listed on eBay. However, as I said in the beginning, there�s no reason why you can�t have both Macs and PCs.
<small>[ 08-01-2002, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: Sap ]</small>
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