hello, I'm a PC
- Thread starter BEAST420
- Start date
No time to try to address everything, so I'll address this part.
A hard drive is easily upgraded. RAM, however, is not. You'll need to make sure that the RAM is mac compatible. For example, not all DDR400 ram is listed as being compatible with a mac. While 1GB of DDR400 will cost most users $80, it'll cost a mac user $100 for third party ram that is listed as being mac compatible. Same goes for video cards as well as any PCI or USB device (I made the mistake a while ago by suggesting someone just pick up any old USB wireless adapter to get their older mac on a wireless network. While it was PnP compatible with a PC, it was impossible to use on a mac).
I'm not sure if it's still like this, but macs also used to have proprietary video connectors. You couldn't use one of those big, sexy, expensive mac displays on a pc without an adapter and you couldn't use a low cost pc display on a mac. This, of course, may have been the difference between DVI and VGA (I don't know), but my point is still valid at least for that time period.
As for the types of people that buy macs, aside from industry professionals that have been using them for years (I'll avoid my 'old, outdated and stubborn' tangent here for now), I pretty much lumped everyone else in that group because they are all essentially the same thing: non-power users that use their system for little more than word processing, email, and the occasional slide show of the family vacation.
To go back to your Ford/Chevy zealot comment, this would be like some guy that buys a giant diesel 4x4 and only drives the thing up and down his residential street telling you that his truck is superior to all others. Would you trust the word of a guy that likely hasn't done anything with his truck that he can't do with a moped? Even if the thing could travel through time when it hit 88mph, would you trust the word of a guy that hasn't taken it over 30? Wouldn't you consider the words being vomited out of his mouth to be a senseless act of noise pollution?
If you do not believe that these are the types of people that own macs, here's a doozy of a question for you: Who is apple marketing to right now? What sort of people do you think fall for this deceptive ad campaign that they are running? They are, after all, trying to market to potential (and current) mac users.
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you guys forget that not everyone spends their dough on a machine just to game. macs are pretty good if you actually want to do something besides chat and play counterstrike.
eastmonkey
Veteran X
thangs have changed... a lot
I bought 2 gb of ram for my macbook pro for about $150 a couple months ago, wasn't hard to find mac compatable ram at all.
It comes with vga and dvi compatibility
Every device i used on my old desktop... printer, scanner, digital camera, usb devices... plugged them in when i started the laptop up for the first time, everything was recognized and had drivers already, worked flawlessly out of the box.
Just not worth arguing so much, why do people care? Yeah the mac ads are annoying and lame, but it's marketing, and it does work. I've used a PC all my life, and now I bought a Mac for the first time. I play the occational game, I use heavy graphics programs, and I do all the casual user stuff too. And it's a damn good machine. Can't we all just get along?
I bought 2 gb of ram for my macbook pro for about $150 a couple months ago, wasn't hard to find mac compatable ram at all.
It comes with vga and dvi compatibility
Every device i used on my old desktop... printer, scanner, digital camera, usb devices... plugged them in when i started the laptop up for the first time, everything was recognized and had drivers already, worked flawlessly out of the box.
Just not worth arguing so much, why do people care? Yeah the mac ads are annoying and lame, but it's marketing, and it does work. I've used a PC all my life, and now I bought a Mac for the first time. I play the occational game, I use heavy graphics programs, and I do all the casual user stuff too. And it's a damn good machine. Can't we all just get along?
Man, this isn't 1999. It doesn't have to be Mac compatible.
Things have changed.
Yeah, well. We're not in that time period.
What is the point or the question? If it's to say it's random Joe buying a Mac to do non intensive work, that's what I told you. It's the same as those pre-built PCs you can buy at Best Buy.
That's why I said that specific Mac user you described is an ignorant user. Much like an ignorant PC user.
It's like you are telling me what I've been saying since the last few posts.
The majority won't be power users. Those are the same people who annoy you.
The rest of us will buy what works best for us.
Hurricane Harold
Veteran X
I'm confused.
You're admitting that mac users are not power users.
You're admitting that mac zealots are annoying and have little knowledge on the subject they boast about
You've admitted that macs tend to run at least a bit more expensive than PCs
You've admitted that windows systems can run far more software
You've admitted that mac systems can't run near as many games
Yet you think this reinforces the fact that macs are on even ground with pcs? Tell me one thing a mac can do that a PC can not do, because so far it sounds to me like PCs have an edge.
(btw, people can now get OSX to run on a pc so you can't use that as the one thing)
Also, as an example of mac compatibility, here's the very first thing I tried searching for:
http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=284&sec=0
Let's say you need a gigabit ethernet adapter for your system. I searched google for "dlink dge530t driver" because I happen to have had to do this search a couple of times today since this adapter didn't auto detect in windows. Go ahead and download the Mac OSX driver. Oops! You might be able to use that linux driver that was updated in 2003, but I doubt it. No problem. Let's try my second search. I'll hit up nvidia.com and get me some OSX drivers for that new 7900gtx I purchased. Oops! Well, the driver download page doesn't have any indication that they have OSX drivers. Perhaps those Linux drivers will work, but being the non-computer person I am, I wouldn't know the first place to look. I guess I need to return that nvidia card and get an ATI. That's ok anyways because it will go with my new ATI tv tuner card. Oops! Well shit.
Yes, much like how most PC users are not power users.
Yes, much like how most PC users do.
Yes. The bundled software counts for something.
Yes. But if the user chooses to do so, he has the choice of installing Windows.
See above.
I never said Macs are better than PCs.
I said they will do the same thing. You just choose which better suits your needs.
Not really. Running Windows natively and hacking your way into making it work are two different things.
Every Mac ships with Gigabit ethernet. So I don't see why you would need to buy one..
Being the "non-computer person" that you are, you wouldn't upgrade a video card.
What happens if the gigabit ethernet happens to crap out, or if you want to free up that bit of cpu usage? Most pcs come with Gigabit ethernet nowadays too, but it doesn't change the fact that it's cheaper and easier to upgrade a PC.
As for everything else, I still don't see how you can say that macs are even at the same level as a PC. They cost more and do less. There's no way around that. You can't game. You can't use all the software. You can't upgrade the thing near as easy. Even with the new intel macs, you can't just install XP and be happy: You can't run an nvidia video card. You can't run an ATI tv tuner. You can't install a dlink ethernet card. I'm sure there's a crapton more that you can't do as well.
Hell, with all the stuff a mac can't do (and the fact that mac users are now officially not power users), they might as well just get a $400 emachine instead of spending $1000 or more on a mac; they won't know the difference.
As a bonus, by avoiding macs, you get to not be lumped together with the mac zealots and looked down upon by the geeks of the world.
So far, all I have gathered from this thread is that macs are pretty and some people pay extra for that type of pretty. Seriously, throughout this thread, I have pointed out several things a PC can do that a mac can't do, yet there is nothing a mac can do that a PC can't.
That's coming off a bit of desperation, don't you think?
"What happens if the Gigabit ethernet happens to crap out or if you want to free up that bit of CPU usage?"
See? You're being ridiculous now.
You mean these things?
Are you serious?
Install Windows. End of story.
Why can't you just agree that both systems are similar and that the end user chooses what works best for him.
RebelToRumble
Veteran X
You get what you pay for 
I'm selling my gaming PC to buy a mac, keeping my PC laptop.
Ive used macs since i was in 10th grade, and i am not a college grad...i have realized that every time i complained about macs, its only because of how i hate their image...In all actuality they're freaking awesome.
What i love most is the arguments people get in over these things, its arguments like these that fuel the fire to burn the commercials Apple's making.
Just shut the fuck up, 90% of you probably don't even know what you're talking about.
I'm selling my gaming PC to buy a mac, keeping my PC laptop.
Ive used macs since i was in 10th grade, and i am not a college grad...i have realized that every time i complained about macs, its only because of how i hate their image...In all actuality they're freaking awesome.
What i love most is the arguments people get in over these things, its arguments like these that fuel the fire to burn the commercials Apple's making.
Just shut the fuck up, 90% of you probably don't even know what you're talking about.
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I take it you've never had a component in your system die before. Onboard peripherals break just as often as everything else. Why do you think I had to search for those dlink dge530t drivers today? If you plan on keeping the system for any good length of time, this chance increases. This is factual stuff and is anything but ridiculous. By the way, onboard ethernet DOES use the cpu, meaning there WILL be a performance increase if you get a pci one (though a rather small increase).
If I were to go and install windows on a mac, what would be the purpose of having the mac? Did I pay that extra money for the added prettyness?
Why can't you agree that there's a ton of things you can not do with OSX? Why can't you agree that, if you were going to go and run Windows, you might as well get a PC since it'll cost less?
You still have yet to show me a reason why to purchase a mac, while I have provided many reasons why to purchase a PC. While macs have begun to catch up to PCs due to them now using the same hardware (read: mac fell behind in hardware), you still can't do everything a PC can do unless you turn the mac into a Windows PC (which will just be a really expensive PC).
Oh, and tell me what I can't do besides game.
RebelToRumble
Veteran X
I thought macs were the gay.
Then I started working with them, not by choice. Started w/ Tiger (10.3).
Was given a 600MHz iBook, then an 866MHz powerbook G4. Thought, damn, this is cool, even on shitty hardware.
I now have a 2.16GHz macbook pro running OSX 10.4, XP, XP w/ Novell shit, Ubuntu, and Fedora.
I can have 2 OS's open and running... close the lid, and its asleep in seconds.
I think the last time I rebooted it was in May.
Then I started working with them, not by choice. Started w/ Tiger (10.3).
Was given a 600MHz iBook, then an 866MHz powerbook G4. Thought, damn, this is cool, even on shitty hardware.
I now have a 2.16GHz macbook pro running OSX 10.4, XP, XP w/ Novell shit, Ubuntu, and Fedora.
I can have 2 OS's open and running... close the lid, and its asleep in seconds.
I think the last time I rebooted it was in May.