Mac and PC Price Differences Grow, Does it Impact Your Purchase?

[boiltheocean]

Mac

Not as fast as... anything

OSX is faster than Windows running on the same Hardware. Startup is faster, Shutdown, Launching and running of programs is faster and it performs much better after being in Sleep than Windows.

 

[Rykon Zero]

My friend has an Eee PC and it's slow as hell compared to my 4-year old Dell Vostro. It tends to freeze up on him, and he's already cracked the screen. (Though that might be more his fault than the hardware's)

I've got the one with the top of the line Intel Atom processor and the 160 GB HD. He's probably got one with the 800 MHz processor and an SSD. Mine's far faster than any of my other computers under normal running, but it doesn't have enough steam to keep up with their sheer brute force.

And yes, if you treat it like a computer, not some sort of solid metal nuclear bunker, it'll last in good condition. My only problem with it is the mouse buttons which don't work anymore, but it's fine because of the clever mousepad.

Anyway, I'd like to see a proper Mac netbook, I'd bet beyond anything that it'd be excellent. And no, the iPad doesn't count.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

OSX is faster than Windows running on the same Hardware. Startup is faster, Shutdown, Launching and running of programs is faster and it performs much better after being in Sleep than Windows.

Too bad about that same hardware.

I've got the one with the top of the line Intel Atom processor

330?

That one is a fair bit faster than the single cores.

 

[Danoff]

OSX is faster than Windows running on the same Hardware. Startup is faster, Shutdown, Launching and running of programs is faster and it performs much better after being in Sleep than Windows.

Which Windows?

(also, startup and shutdown are meaningless. Linux might take longer to start up - doesn't matter)

 

[boiltheocean]

Which Windows?

Windows 7 64-Bit compared to OSX Snow Leopard. Although it is a similar story with Windows XP, Vista isn't worth taking into consideration. Not sure how you figure shutdown and startup are meaningless? If I want to use my computer I want to use it now, not in half and hours time.

 

[Danoff]

Windows 7 64-Bit compared to OSX Snow Leopard. Although it is a similar story with Windows XP, Vista isn't worth taking into consideration.

Very much doubtful on code speed running on XP vs. OSX. Based on my own experience from having computers with both operating systems.

 

[boiltheocean]

Very much doubtful on code speed running on XP vs. OSX. Based on my own experience from having computers with both operating systems.

Well it's what I noticed when dual booting on the same hardware. Windows was most definitely slower at everything, and it lags out like mad when you bring it out of sleep.

 

[Rykon Zero]

330?

That one is a fair bit faster than the single cores.

330 what? It's a 1.6 GHz dual thread.

 

[Danoff]

Well it's what I noticed when dual booting on the same hardware. Windows was most definitely slower at everything, and it lags out like mad when you bring it out of sleep.

My guess would be that you noticed something else - like antivirus - running on the PC that you aren't running on the Mac.... and no that's not inherent to the OS, that's a result of market share. But yes, I'll be the first to admit that a PC in the middle of an intensive anti-virus scan is like a Maybach Limo with a flat tire. PC's often get loaded up with tons of crap that they don't need and run slow. Especially if it's a pre-packaged PC from a company like HP.

But I can tell you with 99% certainty that if you give me $600 to put together a PC, or $600 to buy a Mac, my PC will run circles around it.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

330 what? It's a 1.6 GHz dual thread.

330 this

It's too bad that companies charge way too much for netbooks with it, because that's about the only Atom processor that is interesting.

 

[TB]

Anti-virus software just makes my otherwise perfectly adequate PC CRAWL with no responsiveness.

But yes, I'll be the first to admit that a PC in the middle of an intensive anti-virus scan is like a Maybach Limo with a flat tire.

Can you guys please tell me what AV software you've been using so I can avoid it. AVG can run without any issues while I'm doing pretty much anything short of encoding a video, but that's no surprise.

I do completely agree that the bang-for-the-buck is decidedly in the PC's favor, though.

 

[Rykon Zero]

@ROAD_DOGG33J: Oh. Then, yes it is.

Didn't know it was dual core, though.

 

[Danoff]

Can you guys please tell me what AV software you've been using so I can avoid it. AVG can run without any issues while I'm doing pretty much anything short of encoding a video, but that's no surprise.

I do completely agree that the bang-for-the-buck is decidedly in the PC's favor, though.

I use AVG. When it does a full system scan, forget it.

In the background AVG is fine, but Norton isn't. Norton is a super-quick way to bog down your PC.

 

[Keef]

Avast is real-time and therefore you don't really need to do a full scan. It's alerted me quite a few times while browsing the net. I replaced my old laptop's AVG with Avast that is the one thing that kept me from throwing the computer away, it made that big of a difference. Our other desktop, a dual-core that's fully maintained on a regular schedule, became noticeably more responsive when I got rid of AVG. And I haven't had a virus problem since because Avast doesn't seem to allow you to download a virus anyway.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Can you guys please tell me what AV software you've been using so I can avoid it.

That should happen with pretty much any antivirus scan, unless it's on ultra-low priority. The hard drive is probably the slowest computer component, so anytime it's in heavy use the computer will be bogged.

 

[James2097]

That should happen with pretty much any antivirus scan, unless it's on ultra-low priority. The hard drive is probably the slowest computer component, so anytime it's in heavy use the computer will be bogged.

Pretty much, especially on older PCs that are already bogged down with newer more bloaty software, even just having AVG on seemed to really slow boot-up down a LOT. I also had Ad-Aware too. Both supposedly lightweight, but I took them both off and now the PC runs really nicely. I don't go to any dodgy sites and have had a track record of never getting viruses with my kind of PC use, so I'll just scan the PC manually now and then. Its the only way to keep the thing fast enough to use.

With AVG, it was actually going slow enough and hanging etc to the point where I thought the hardware must be acting up, or the HDD about to fail. But no, just anti-virus doing way too much crap in the background, even if you set it NOT to do much, if anything.

 

[Gabkicks]

saw this pic, then i thought of this thread... I wonder how much it would cost to get a mac of equal power to my pc.

 

[Casio]

I'd just like to throw in another thing there: that Porsche would be fast if you didn't have to stick McAfee/Norton/AVG's traction control on to stop it unexpectedly crashing one day.

Porsche?

Also, I've ran Windows without Anti-Virus for the last 2 years and haven't had any bugs. It's called not being a retard.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Wayyyyy off-topic of course, but if you want a light-weight AV for Windows that's actually good, try Eset Nod32. When I still gamed on pc, I even kept it on while gaming, never noticed that it was running.

And Casio is of course right, I had a virus scanner installed for a couple of years as well, and no hits at all. But I don't click 'funny' links, files or whatever other crap people send me.

 

[Anghammarad]

My guess would be that you noticed something else - like antivirus - running on the PC that you aren't running on the Mac....

I actually ran similar tests on a dual boot mac with Leopard and XP on it a while back. The Mac OS was configured so that you had to manually log on with a username and it also had a Skype klient that loaded at startup. The XP was extremely vanilla without any user accounts or anti-virus. The Mac was noticeably quicker. The difference in startup time up was silly. XP needed 1 minute 45 seconds before I could start surfing in a webbrowser, MacOS 37 seconds, not to mention that to start working from sleep was a matter of a second in MacOS and something else entirely in XP.

But I can tell you with 99% certainty that if you give me $600 to put together a PC, or $600 to buy a Mac, my PC will run circles around it.

Now that is of course true. Just as true as the statement that a Sony Vaio will be more expensive than a similarly specced Acer.

 

[Danoff]

I actually ran similar tests on a dual boot mac with Leopard and XP on it a while back. The Mac OS was configured so that you had to manually log on with a username and it also had a Skype klient that loaded at startup. The XP was extremely vanilla without any user accounts or anti-virus. The Mac was noticeably quicker. The difference in startup time up was silly. XP needed 1 minute 45 seconds before I could start surfing in a webbrowser, MacOS 37 seconds, not to mention that to start working from sleep was a matter of a second in MacOS and something else entirely in XP.

Not sure why you care so much about startup. My linux box takes FOREVER to start up, but once it's up you can't stop it... seriously... it's been on for like 2 years. But since you keep referring to "waking up" I assume you're doing a laptop comparison. For laptops, I still think startup is over-rated, but waking up is a useful feature. If PCs take longer to wake up as you say, then -1 for them.

 

[NLxAROSA]

My MBP takes a lot less startup time than my Windows laptop (or the Vista dualboot on my MBP), but I agree with Danoff, startup time is hardly important, since I hardly ever restart it. And that's exactly why the wakeup is so important for a notebook. When I'm done, I just close the laptop and stick it in my bag or put it aside. I open it up again when I'm at work or need it at home. And it's instantly on and back online.

I never used the feature on XP, because it was useless since it was almost just as slow as a full reboot. It's better on Vista though, and I think it's even faster on Windows 7 (haven't tried yet).

 

[Northstar]

I never used the feature on XP, because it was useless since it was almost just as slow as a full reboot. It's better on Vista though, and I think it's even faster on Windows 7 (haven't tried yet).

On 7 it's on the logon screen before I even finishing opening the laptop. Although sometimes I get a "Resuming Windows" screen but even than it only lasts a few seconds.

 

[Casio]

From here, re: boot time.

- Snow Leopard booted and shut down around six seconds faster than Windows 7.

Does anyone really care about 6 seconds?

Anyway Windows machines get slower at booting up over time majorly as they as many people do not regularly/automatically defragment their harddrive or they partake in actions which causes high levels of fragmentation. OSX uses HFS+, which effectively defragments on the fly (kinda), which makes it seem 'faster' to the casual user when comparing the two.

It's hard to compare two or three completely different filestructures and decide which is best on speed alone.

 

[Moglet]

The speed difference used to be huge between MacOS and Windows machines but it's about the same these days I think. However, I actually couldn't fit anything but an iMac in my room so it's a good job I bought one.

Oh, and I got a Magic Mouse recently. It's insanely good.

 

[Keef]

I'm actually disappointed at how quickly Windows 7 boots up on my computer, not because it's too slow but because it's too fast. It's put a dent in my multitasking abilities. I used to go make myself a bowl of cereal or a PB&J while my older computers were booting up, but now I can't even make it to the kitchen by the time it's done. It's not worth leaving the computer anymore so I'm forced to stand here and watch it, wasting a whole 10 to 15 seconds of my life.

 

[Shokz]

When i first installed Windows 7 on my PC about a year ago (back in the Beta days), it would boot up in about 20 seconds and shut down in less than 5, but now i've got the full release and had a few months to shovel rubbish onto it, it's taking about 30 seconds to turn on and maybe 10 seconds to shut down. To be honest, considering how much stuff i've got on it, that's not such a bad degredation in startup and shutdown times...

 

[GTP_Deathwalker]

The beauty of hiving a Mac is that you have the option to run windows as well, thats why I choose a Mac over a normal desktop because i love Mac OS but i could also run windows at the same time using VMWare, which heavily influenced the purchase of my Mac.

 

[Keef]

If "love" is worth that lofty price then more power to you. I prefer to trade numbers for numbers.

 

[nick09]

I don't think I would want to use a mac because they can be pretty restricting.

The beauty of hiving a Mac is that you have the option to run windows as well, thats why I choose a Mac over a normal desktop because i love Mac OS but i could also run windows at the same time using VMWare, which heavily influenced the purchase of my Mac.

Couldn't it be possible to make use of a program like virtualbox to use a Mac OS inside a windows machine?