Mac vs. PC Digital Photography Comparison 559
An anonymous reader writes "Rob Galbraith posted a comparison among two Macs and two PCs. Both a high-end Mac and PC are included with somewhat surprising results given the number of Mac zealots who will claim otherwise... optimized for PC, Mac support second, Photoshop is faster, yada, yada, yada."
Misgrokked that the first time I read it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Misgrokked that the first time I read it... (Score:5, Funny)
about the poorly digitized fellatio on an IBM porno program. "Mac is better
on everything, and this is no execption." -- "Computer Porn at the Office"
by Reese Erlich, _This_World_, S.F. Chronicle, p.8, Aug 13, 1989
heh...i work for that guy...
"Surprising results"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Surprising results"? (Score:5, Informative)
but it will be derived from IBMs multicore POWER4
The chip in question is of course the PowerPC 970 [ibm.com] (that's PDF of the microprocessor forum presentation on the 970)
In short, take a power4, lop off core #2, reduce the amount of L2 cache, add an altivec execution unit, change the bus interface and make it on a smaller (.13 rather than
I'm new to modding, but... (Score:5, Funny)
And will I need a soldering iron or do you think I'll manage with some tape, a conductive ink pen and a sharp knife...?
RMN
~~~
Re:"Surprising results"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Too true. This is what Motorola got after the big layoffs, mobile business misinvestment and shutting down of research labs.
Not only Apple, Palm also learnt their hard lesson and gradually move to non-Motorola processor like ARM [ti.com] as you find in Tungsten.
Re:"Surprising results"? (Score:3, Interesting)
1- Apple has a small market share.
2- Apple is the major (only) consumer of the PowerPC chip.
3- Apple-heads seem to be content with waiting for as long as it takes to get faster machines. As such, there's no significant pressure on Apple to improve immediately. They have people still quoting the Mhz myth and saying their G4 450 can kick a P4 3.04 (With rambus)'s ass.
4- They're one of the biggest companies when it comes to cellphones, which are NOT a small market share.
5- Research and development is EXPENSIVE, and when you take 1-4 into consideration, why would a company want to put so much research and development into something that won't yeild significant return?
-Sara
Re:"Surprising results"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Motorola builds them cool, light on the wattage and notches speed according to those first two criteria.
What do you think runs the pattern recognition software in modern drone aircraft and cruise missiles? Pentium 4's? Sparcs?
Re:"Surprising results"? (Score:5, Informative)
Your ignorance amazes me. There are numerous buyers of the PowerPC chip. Another poster mentioned some of them and I'll mention a couple more: Cisco, Nintendo (you've heard of the GameCube right) and Sony's next Playstation will have a PowerPC.
3- Apple-heads seem to be content with waiting for as long as it takes to get faster machines. As such, there's no significant pressure on Apple to improve immediately. They have people still quoting the Mhz myth and saying their G4 450 can kick a P4 3.04 (With rambus)'s ass.
Just because there are Mac users (or as you call them "Apple-heads") doesn't make them content with the current state of the PPC. But what this article doesn't really go into is why some people prefer the Mac over the PC in photography.
Ease of use, prefered applications and most importantly colour-management that is second to none. I don't care what these test prove, because if my image in the end comes out with different colours than it had to begin with the whole process would be for nothing.
Apple users are tired of laggin behind in speed, but what are the alternatives? Windows? Linux? Please.
Re:"Surprising results"? (Score:3, Funny)
Don't forget TiVo. Your TiVo has a PowerPC chip in it.
But what this article doesn't really go into is why some people prefer the Mac over the PC in photography.
Yes, I agree 100%. The best endorsement for the Mac is to say, proudly, "Yes! Macs are slower than PC's! And millions of people use them instead of PC's anyway!"
It actually kind of reminds me of that old joke. She says, "You're drunk." He says, "Yes, but you're ugly, and tomorrow I will be sober."
The PC says to the Mac, "You're slow." The Mac says, "Yes, but you're running Windows, and tomorrow I will be faster."
Price/performance... (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently bought an iBook and a Dell laptop for about the same price. The iBook lags behind in almost all applications and also takes longer to boot. I guess in the end, it is the design that you pay for when buying a Mac.
Re:Price/performance... (Score:3, Informative)
How do you know? If you're booting your iBook that often, you're doing something wrong.
I've booted this Mac one time for every kernel upgrade since I bought it, and one time for a kernel panic I got when running the original release of 10.2. I honestly can't tell you how long it takes this Mac to boot. Have no idea.
compare Apples with Apples. (Score:4, Insightful)
now come over to some outdated apple hardware, that is more than 6 months old and already updated by apple.
Now we'll run a bunch of tests which aren't really graphic design, but more just heavy processor benchmarking. Mix this with totally ignoring real world creation speeds in sight for things like continual rapid disc access.
Then look at what you are really getting, it's no suprise than a single 3.06GHz chip is out performing 2x1.25GHz(and despite multithreading, 2x1.25 isn't 2.5GHz, and will perform much slower than that). Now I look at the differences in times. Despite picking tasks which are more cpu dependant, the apple still performs comparably despite being a lower clocked cpu, and running on an OS that will not allow photoshop to use 100% cpu when other background tasks are in use.
Your graphic designer will argue that the mac is faster in real world design creation. Or alternatively if you are willing to take serious contrived tests, try the apple photoshop test script, which will leave a 1GHz powerbook outperforming the fastest pentium 4M (2.25GHz) by up to 40% in some tests.
I needn't bring in other real world graphic design issues such as windows inability to colour sync or high speed access to firewire and other important graphic design orientated technologies. Or perhaps the fact that the powerbook in question is already a 2 year old design, and even back then it still had a digital screen.
So I apologise to the boffins that think throwing me a bunch of contrived numbers will disprove my real world experiences.
Re:compare Apples with Apples. (Score:4, Interesting)
"continual rapid disc acces" scores are going to be quite similar. Laptop hard drives are somewhat crippled by their smaller platter size and lower rotational speeds, so if anything, the top-spec PC is hobbled in that respect.
You are right -- the 3.06GHz versus 2x1.25GHz comparison isn't fair -- the fastest PC processor has to go up against TWO of the fastest available G4 processors! Neither configuration is used on an OS that doesn't multitask. In both cases, background tasks would have taken away foreground application performance, not that there should have been any of note while benchmarking.
If Windows is unable to colour sync, an equally valid issue would be the question of why one would use an LCD in any situation where colour accuracy was important! Also, if you went through all the benchmarks, you'd see that there was a test using FireWire... which the Macs also lost. Perhaps the "digital screen" is a novel thing to you, but PC laptops have been doing the same for many, many years.
I sympathise with you, who thinks that spinning the numbers will somehow lead people to believe that you are indeed living in the real world.
Re:compare Apples with Apples. (Score:3, Insightful)
True. I'd argue that graphic designers that really do need the extra juice are unlikely to be running laptops *anyway*, due to the smaller amount of memory, CPU juice, LCD screen, etc.
now come over to some outdated apple hardware, that is more than 6 months old and already updated by apple.
6 months isn't that old, though his point that the PowerPCs have fallen well behind in power is quite valid. Your point that they use less juice is also quite valid, and for business users, probably more significant.
Now we'll run a bunch of tests which aren't really graphic design, but more just heavy processor benchmarking. Mix this with totally ignoring real world creation speeds in sight for things like continual rapid disc access.
Here I have to disagree. Heavy random seeking is going to be less of a factor. The things that I sit around and wait for are things like a large-radius selective Gaussian blur. Those are CPU-limited, not disk limited.
and running on an OS that will not allow photoshop to use 100% cpu when other background tasks are in use.
This is quite reasonable to include as part of the test -- if daemons really are going to be chewing down CPU, or the GUI is wasting cycles, that should be included in the test.
Your graphic designer will argue that the mac is faster in real world design creation.
I'm dubious. It comes down more to differences in Photoshop on different platforms and the CPU itself than it does in the OS itself any more.
I needn't bring in other real world graphic design issues such as windows inability to colour sync or high speed access to firewire and other important graphic design orientated technologies.
I'm not sure what the Windows situation is with color management. This was the big Mac advantage for years, yes. I do remember that MS was supposed to be putting out some sort of color management software, though I'm not sure what happened with that, or how widely supported it is.
I don't see Firewire (which you can definitely throw into a machine you're building to be a graphics system) as that much of an impediment.
Or perhaps the fact that the powerbook in question is already a 2 year old design, and even back then it still had a digital screen.
I think few will dispute that Apple has contributed far more in the way of advancements to the computing world than Microsoft has.
That doesn't mean that the Mac is necessarily currently a better platform to use if you want to do graphic design.
I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:2, Offtopic)
And especially in terms of this article, would productivity improve if the Gimp was used on, say, a Linux box?
--sexy gal [slashdot.org]
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not really.. as great as the GIMP is, it still has a ways to go before it can pry photoshop out of the cold dead hands of the people who use photoshop what it is intended for rather than just for general cropping and resizing.
Not to mention the GIMP looks horrible on every OS due to the gtk widgets whereas photoshop is native to every OS it runs on and looks like a professional program. I guess you get what you pay for though.
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:2)
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can vouch for that. Paying $150 every so often (plus the $600 tag to start) is somewhat painful, but my experiments with Gimp didn't prove fruitful enough for me.
Let me explain some things, though:
a.) I already have PS paid for. So for me to switch to Gimp, it has to be better. Price tag isn't everything.
b.) I already have a well established workflow with PS and no real bottlenecks (that I'm aware of) that Gimp has the opportunity to fix. So, for me to adopt it (or evaluate it) then they'd have to do something Photoshop doesn't do. I guess this makes me a Photoshop zealot. At least I'm honest!
c.) As long as Adobe keeps making really big updates to PS every year or so, they keep my attention. Gimp would have to ride that wave to keep me on board. So far, it feels like they're playing catch up.
I realize my reasons aren't entirely rational, but I can imagine that there's a significant portion of the PS population that shares or would share similar feelings.
Adoption of Gimp may happen in a year or two, particularly when Linux becomes more and more attractive to the digital artist. (Note: I'm not implying Gimp's only on Linux, but rather that Photoshop is not on Linux...) Today, though, it's not all that interesting in any way other than for the visionary. Us artists would just like to get our work done.
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, a better comparison would be to Paint Shop Pro, which is in fact what I'd gues 90% of the Photoshop users actually should be using. I know so many people who just pirate Photoshop so they can feel "pro" and use "the best" that it's not even funny. Get over it!
Not to mention the GIMP looks horrible on every OS
Looks OK to me [musichall.cz], running in GNOME on Linux (which is in fact its "native" OS) - note that screenshot is quite old now.
Considering that the GIMP will run on basically anything, and Photoshop runs on Windows or Mac OS (unless you count Wine), I think the:
I guess you get what you pay for though.
line is extremely old. No, hard to believe though it is, there's this thing called charity and it means sometimes you get something great for absolutely nothing.
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a friend that worked at adobe a few years ago that told me that they release 10-20 serial numbers into the wild for about all of their products so that kids resizing and cropping will choose their software. When the kids grow up, they'll know Photoshop/GoLive/Illustrator/whatever and will be more likley to purchase it or recommend it for purchase to their company. Nothing really lost as they wouldn't have bought the $500 package anyway. I believe macromedia came out a few years ago and said that they put together and distributed a full package version to pirate web sites to do the same. Now it's the most popular program going.
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:2, Insightful)
By "runs natively", one would assume the original poster meant "uses the native widgets for a given windowing environment". In that sense, the GIMP only "runs natively" in an environment where the "native" widget set is GTK, like GNOME. In Windows, the GTK widgets look like crap and many function differently (slightly or widely) from standard Win32 widgets. Same for GTK on the Mac, I would guess (I don't know about this, since I haven't used a Mac in years). Conversely, Photoshop on Windows looks like it was meant to be a Windows application, with the look and feel of a Windows app. Photoshop on Mac OS looks like it was meant to be a Mac application. The Windows version doesn't try to shoehorn in the Mac style of "one menu bar, many open windows, no container window", and the Mac version doesn't try to follow the MDI style of Windows.
No, by all reports (Score:2)
I gather that GIMP 2.0 will fix that particular problem at some stage, when 2.0 will be released is another question...
Re:No, by all reports (Score:3, Informative)
I think print colour matching may not appear in the GIMP for some time. I could be way off because it was a while since I read about this and it was from a GIMP web page or news group so they know about it). As I remember, Adobe owns a certain patent on color space conversion. This means they can't put it in. Otherwise they'd have to pay for a patent license, and being a free project, they can't afford it. Also being a GNU project, they probably don't want to deal with patents at all.
Re:No, by all reports (Score:4, Informative)
RGB is an additive color model: 100% of R, G and B gives you white.
CMYK is a subtractive color model: 100% of C, M, Y and K gives you black. Now, as all printing involves taking a light substrate and adding color to it, all printing is based on subtractive models as there is no way, with current technology, to print RGB.
So, to recap, all printing is CMYK because, right now, that's the only cost-effective way to actually print. That may change in the future, butm for now, you need 1) a program which does CMYK and b) a platform which gives one accurate color rendition across different color spaces.
Why is it difficult to convert? (Score:2)
Re:Why is it difficult to convert? (Score:5, Interesting)
Converting to a CMYK color space is not difficult. But you have to consider that as an additive model the color of the paper matters to the conversion, as does the ink used. You also have to provide a means for the user to adjust their monitor so what they see on the screen has some correspondence to what the final output looks like. A good CMYK conversion can save you hundreds of dollars per image in the fewer proofs you'll need before the final output looks good. You also really want to do this yourself because if you leave it up to the printshop you soon begin to believe that all their employees are color blind.
Photoshop has profiles for major printers with brand-name ink and paper plus less effective monitor profiles. It also has support for little sensors you stick on your monitor to measure it's whitepoint. This almost works, but you need very controlled lighting, and it still needs to be adjusted a bit because your eyes aren't standardized... (everyone sees additive and subtractive images differently, but how differently depends not only on the ambient lighting and the brightness of the monitor but your particular eyes too.)
So to sum up converting to a CMYK colorspace is not so hard, converting to the right one is a PiTA.
Re:No, by all reports (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggie though is the flexibility of paper - photographic paper all looked like photographic paper. Thick, somewhat glossy, and unfoldable. That leaves it kind of useless for magazines, flyers, brochures, letterheads, and... anything except short run displays. It didn't end up cost effective for large runs, such as the tens of thousands of posters made for say, a movie release.
Re:No, by all reports (Score:3, Interesting)
here [durst.it] is a link...
Re:No, by all reports (Score:3, Informative)
Well actually 100% K alone gives you blac K , 100% CMY gives you a dark grey in most real world output devices, hence the need for K.
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:2)
So
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:2)
You mean 11"x14" @ 600dpi? Yeah, nobody does that. [google.com] That's just ridiculous even to think about.
Gimp doesn't have CMYK support. (Score:2)
Short answer? No. [slashdot.org]
And especially in terms of this article, would productivity improve if the Gimp was used on, say, a Linux box?
You're joking, right? Linux can barely even display fonts properly. [patriot.net]
Re:Gimp doesn't have CMYK support. (Score:2)
Re:Gimp doesn't have CMYK support. (Score:2)
If that's the case, and you are running OS X, I gotta try RH8.
Re:Gimp doesn't have CMYK support. (Score:3, Informative)
Linux may have had problems displaying fonts a few years ago, but XFree86 has added TrueType support and better fonts may be used instead of old crappy ones. Those problems have gone away. Not to mention that article is talking about Mozilla/Netscape and how they try to scale bit mapped fonts.
I'm running Linux/XFree86 with Mozilla using TrueType fonts now, and it looks great.
Re:I'm sure someone else will mention the Gimp... (Score:2)
Macs are Faster (Score:5, Funny)
Morons.
--Steve Jobs
zealots and shallots with carrots. (Score:5, Funny)
I don't care what computer you use, why should you care what I use? Ahhh, PC zealot. In case you must know, i have a PowerBook G4, an RDI Powerlite, and a Sun Ultra Workstation.
So the PC's are faster (Score:5, Insightful)
But there are a variety of reasons for choosing a machine and platform, speed is not necessarily only the thing that comes into play.
For example, I, for one, just how long the battery on that super 1337 Alienware notebook lasts. It's probably not anywhere close to the Powerbook.
Oh well.
But doesn't anyone else see that this is pointless? Use what you like to use......
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:2)
Naa naa na naaa naa.
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:5, Insightful)
I would still not be surprised in the least if the Alien ware box won the tests simply because even though the G4 is a good processor, the speed increases have been very small compared to what Intel has done. Until Apple can get thier hands on new processors this isn't going to change and shouldn't surprise anyone any more.
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:5, Insightful)
the same desktop 3.06Ghz P4 that has a max energy dissipation of ~100w (typical dissipation is ~85w)
I for one wouldn't want 100w of heat being poured directly into my lap >:(
Unlike the Mac world (Score:4, Informative)
You can't get a 14 hour mac, and you can't get mac as powerfull as your alienware notebook.
Re:Unlike the Mac world (Score:2)
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:2)
For example, I, for one, [wonder ] just how long the battery on that super 1337 Alienware notebook lasts. It's probably not anywhere close to the Powerbook.
I suspect that you should probably think of the battery as a UPS, becuase I think the time can be as bad as half an hour. But to agree with your point, the Alienware notebooks aren't really targetting the the same market as the powerbook.
Re:So speed isn't everything? (Score:2)
How about low price? No, I guess not. How about the ability to run Quark XPress natively? Oh, is that not important? [macnn.com]
How about a non-crippled DDR implementation? Is that not important, either? [slashdot.org]
Damn. Well, at least you have instant friends [newsfactor.com] if you buy a mac.
Re:So speed isn't everything? (Score:2)
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if you have the fastest hardware in the world if you can't use it because of badly designed software.
Ciryon
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:3, Interesting)
So, OSX for the x86 would be the ultimate solution? Apple needs to release it, they may be onto a money-spinner...
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:3, Insightful)
It would actually be pretty great for users if Apple did release Mac OS X for the x86. At least for a couple months, at which time Apple goes bankrupt because they are a hardware company. They just happen to be a hardware company with some of the best software out in the market.
Re:So the PC's are faster (Score:3, Insightful)
The MacOS X interface isn't any faster to me than the Windows2000 interface. To me, they're both based off of the idea of, one click selects, two clicks activates. And program and document organization schemes that seem similar, if not ripped off of each other. Who ripped off who is not the subject of this debate, but rather the idea that they both have it is.
And with this in mind, any professional who works with digital imaging should have some idea on how to operate a graphical interface shouldn't care about the actual operating platform, but the machine performance. Which in reality does let you get more work done, by reducing the amount of time you're staring at the 'Processing is: x% done' window.
But I am not a professional in that field, so I could be dead wrong.
What kind of benchmark is this? (Score:4, Insightful)
How would you know? (Score:2)
Anyway, why do you say that you should get a mac if you want to make 'great art'? PCs are just faster all around, the only reason to get a mac is because you like the interface more. It won't make you more productive unless you're so inflexable as to be unable to uable to function in a slightly diffrent environment.
Huh (Score:4, Informative)
Wow (Score:2, Funny)
Talent over tech or money (Score:3, Interesting)
pointless comparison (Score:2, Interesting)
That's why if you ever go to a magazine's or newspaper's office, you will never see any layout or photowork being done on PC's, because the colors just aren't balenced. The only two systems I have seen get this right are Macs and Sgi's, and that is why they are still so widely used!
Even if people use PC's for processing work, professionals always go over their images on a mac, just to see if it looks "right".
Re:pointless comparison (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh yeah, I know the type: 'I learned everything I know 20 years ago, and I'm pretty fucking sure there is and will not be anything better'.
Petty assholes.
No. (Score:3, Informative)
FYI: a lot of paperfocussed designers are already moved to PC's.
Re:No. (Score:4, Informative)
The editor before me bought a PC for layout, so that's what I had to use. Whenever I had to take files to a publishing house (including area newspapers) they complained to no end, pointing to all the Macs in their department.
Then I bought an Mac. Much better.
Re:pointless comparison (Score:2)
Seeing as your .sig (and previous posts) invite the criticism, I'd like to point out another advantage the Mac has. OS X has a built in spellchecker that checks as you type in web forms.
Re:pointless comparison (Score:2)
What, the colors look like shit when they're printed on newsprint anyway. Besides, color correction tools do exist for the PC, they are just not as widely used.
Re:pointless comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
PC's do not have correct color output, and never will. No matter high end the PC, the colors never look "right" or balenced on the screen.
Interesting... First of all, the word "never" here is pretty strong. You must have one hell of a crystal ball, right?
Second, I don't understand what are "right" or "balenced" (sic!) colors. The purpose of color-calibrating your equipment is to make sure that the colors on your original are the same as the colors on your monitor are the same as the colors on your print. That's it.
Third, there is no problem with calibrating a PC-based workflow so that it all works very, very nicely. The colors I see on my screen, for example, are a very close match for colors I get on my prints (they'll never be exactly the same since the monitor emits light and a print reflects it).
Fourth, the poster is probably unaware of the concept called "gamma" and thus is clueless that Macs by default have a gamma of 1.8 and PCs by default have a gamma of 2.2. Thus, without gamma correction, images produced on Macs will look wrong on PCs and vice versa. That does not mean, however, that Mac-produced images are somehow intrinsically better. It's just that if you want to look at them on a PC you need to gamma-correct them.
Fifth, the statement that no professionals do layout or photowork on PCs is obvious bullshit. It just ain't true.
Sigh.
Re:pointless comparison (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, you can read more of the discussions on Galbraith's site for some interesting back-and-forth regarding color management. Windows has been gaining quite a bit of ground in color management. For most people, I would say that color management software between Apple and Microsoft products are equivalent. On the hardware side, there is quite a bit of color calibration equipment now available for both Macintosh and Windows.
I'm curious how many magazine and newspaper editors you have seen that are really judging color on screen. In my experience, most editorial folks have no good color viewing conditions in their personal offices, let alone even minimally calibrated monitors. If you look at an image on a screen in a very brightly lit office with a three year old 20" monitor while wearing a heavily saturated shirt, it really doesn't matter if you are on an Apple or MS machine--your color judgement will be impaired. In contrast, our imaging department has color-controlled lighting booth and regularly calibrates (and replaces) their monitors.
Professionals do not always go over their images on Macs. I work at a large national weekly sports magazine. All of our photo editors edit images on Windows machines. Of our 15 photographers, around half use Macs and the rest use Windows. Our imaging department uses macs for production work partially due to page design software requirements. Similarly, our editorial department also uses macs because of other software requirements. Because of software requirements, all of our Macs currently run MacOS 9, not MacOS X. (Let's not even get into the server side.)
I went to the Fiesta Bowl a week ago or so. Of the photographers I saw in the press tent, around half were using Macs and half were using PCs running Windows.
So do "professionals always go over their images on a mac, just to see if it looks 'right'"? No, not really. Are there other advantages to running on Apple hardware and software rather than using WIndows and Intel hardware and software? It is definitely a topic worth debating. Galbraith has done a great job of stimulating discussion.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Windows bigot. (The Unix people call me a Windows bigot. The Windows people call me a Unix bigot. No one really wants to keep running MacOS 9.) However, I hate it when assertions are made regarding platforms that simply aren't true.
Re:pointless comparison (Score:5, Informative)
Half of us use Macs (because of other software they need to use due to the drafting package the architecture firm we are associated with uses)
Half of us use PCs (because of other software we need to use for 3D rendering and animation, and compatibility with drafting packages from other architecture firms)
Now. Like I said, we do photowork and layout on both platforms. Both platforms are network printing to the same professional-level color printer. Guess what? We can make images look the same on print, display.....REGARDLESS of which machine we create them on.
Next time you go and babble about an industry and a use....make sure you actually know what you are talking about.
Yes there is ! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:pointless comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Add that to the limited hardware space Mac users have to account for- only certain types of monitors, video cards, etc- and the hooks the application developers build into their DTP apps, and you have an elegant way to make sure your puke green logo is the proper shade of puke green throughout the production process.
For instance, I develop for the Web- so I have embedded a ColorSync profile that makes my monitor look like a Windows machine (about 20% darker than a typical Mac). By propagating that profile through all my apps that support ColorSync, I can make sure that even if I specify a very light color, it will be properly compensated for and appear darker on my screen.
Windows users can do the same thing- Photoshop recently shook up their entire profile handling on both platforms, much to the concern of digital artists everywhere- but, as is usually the case, the implementation is not quite as elegant, and the results not as predictable.
That said, there's no reason why Windows can "never" reach a similar level of function. Never is a long time...
(p.s. Safari inline spellchecking in HTML forms is a great way NOT to look like a doofus when posting at 3:05 AM!)
Re:pointless comparison (Score:2)
Re:pointless comparison (Score:3, Informative)
1) Windows has a system wide colour compensation technology too. Most people don't take the time to learn about or use it, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
2) Mac do NOT only have to worry about certian types of monitors. Since Apple has branding and selling tube monitors, people have been forced to turn to 3rd party solutions (at least no prepress house I've ever been to will use TFTs for colour critical applications).
3) I find that by and large the colour problems cause by using PCs are form Mac people that don't really understand the way colour spaces work. First, PCs normally operate with a 9300k temperatore, Macs are normally 6500k. You either need to switch the mode on the monitor, or compensate for that. Then there's the gamma difference. PCs are 2.2, Macs are 1.8 (I think).
Really, if you understand how to setup a PC properly, it's not hard to get it's colour matched to what you are printing.
IMO Apple is just treading water. (Score:2, Interesting)
But... (Score:4, Funny)
SPECmarks (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't generally buy the fastest machine on the block, but Apple seems to be really falling behind. Their answer seems to have been to ship all Power Mac G4 towers as dual processor [apple.com]. But two slower processors are not as useful as one fast processor. And the heat sinks and noise on those G4 towers are even more ridiculous than on the Pentium 4's.
Speed matters... my speed (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep the CPU meter running in the dock, and its twin towers of darkeness mock me..."what's the matter, buddy, can't even feed two glacial G4's? We're just sitting here, at 20% of capacity, while you try to decide which Actionscript to incorrectly code next..."
Even when I'm saving giant Photoshop files, checking 14 e-mail accounts and loading web pages into three different browsers (IE, Chimera, Safari), it still has one or two little dark blocks at the top of each meter. Probably just to piss me off.
Disclaimer: If I was a 3D or video artist, a 10% increase in speed could free up an hour a day. Since I'm not, even a 100% increase in speed would just mean my computer would have half as much to do while it waited for my sorry ass.
Lag... (Score:2)
Re:Lag... (Score:4, Informative)
True - photoshop is fast enough.. Color-sync works (Score:5, Informative)
I usually am playing mp3s when working and its still fing.
And that OSX is realy stable. Plus the built in color matching in OSX is a blessing..Saves so much time when printing, I usually get what I expect out of the printer, which saves time ink and $.
Where are all the abusive Mac zealot comments? (Score:2)
Not until you realise that this story isn't on apple.slashdot.org. Had it been so, all posts that were not mac positive would be modded as flamebait, troll or offtopic. This is a personal observation based on personal experience.
BTW I own an iBook which I recently bought. My attitute to Apple has changed recently I must admit, however I have not threatened to "kick someone's ass" or kill them for critisising my choice.
I'd be more interested in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Meaning, start to finish, how long it took to setup each computer to be a good digital photography workstation, including color matching, scanner setup, etc. Plus, an examination of workflow on each system. Plus an examination on how much the operating system acted as a hinderance to actually getting work done.
Then I'd trust a benchmark. Processor speed and computational speed only extend so far. Windows vs. Mac is not a speed issue, but a usability and interface design issue. Regardless of speed, Mac OS X is more usable than Windows. It puts less obstacles to getting work done than Windows does.
You can't examine "performance" without measuring the performer's productivity, as that has as much to do with how fast a given system is as the processor speed.
hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Regardless, it really comes down to a personal choice. Are you strong enough to make the right one?
PCs, processors, and Macs, oh my! (Score:3, Insightful)
I won't bother arguing the stats, because I concur that potential doesn't matter, real world performance in the tasks that you do on a daily basis is what is important to you.
I will say that usability is as important as raw benchmarks; I happen to find Macs more usable. Any time I spend struggling with a computer is time lost when it comes to getting my work done.
But the real point of my post is to ensure that folks here who are using Macs are aware that Apple has some very interesting machines due out before the end of the year that are surely going to garner attention in the speed department. Out goes the Motorola G4, in comes the PPC970 from IBM -- it is 100% compatible with any software your G4 runs, it just happens to benefit from the serious horsepower that IBM has developed for their high-end workstations and servers.
Yes, Macs are currently a bit slower than their PC counterparts at some tasks, but they remain more of a pleasure to use. Soon, you will have the best of both worlds in terms of ease of use, stylish design, and speed.
What is surprising... (Score:3, Insightful)
...is that:
Otherwise, the actual results of the performance tests are unsurprising. It's fairly well known that the x86 processors have been winning the speed (AND performance) race over PowerPC for some time now. Most current Mac users stick with their systems for reasons other than raw processor performance.
Benchmarks are only half the picture (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe that the reason so many people stick with the Mac even in the face of such damning evidence as 10% slower performance on highly abstracted benchmark tasks is this: They can still get their work done faster on a Mac.
There are a hell of a lot of tasks I can get done fastest on Linux. Anything involving munging data, anything I can conceive of a heuristic for scripting or automating, anything involving networking (surfing the web with Galeon, etc.).
And there are a lot of tasks I can get done fastest on the Mac. Mainly, anything involving Photoshop, Freehand, or QuarkXPress.
But the only things I can get done fastest on Windows are recreational tasks: Things involving MP3, games, and so on.
Why is this? Because the interface in Windows gets in my way every single time. I'm always clicking cancel, cursing at it, looking for "Stop" buttons. It's always doing things I didn't ask it to, installing things I didn't want, transforming data in ways I didn't want, putting files under cryptic names in places where I'll never find them, and so on. Unless you want to do the least-common denominator obvious thing (play an MP3, play a game), Windows' hyper-focus-grouped interface is its own worst enemy. People call the Mac a toy, but it's a toy that does what it's told.
Re:Benchmarks are only half the picture (Score:3, Informative)
This operates in reverse as well. Anybody who is used to Windows (or indeed Linux) will most likely find the Mac UI extremely frustrating at first until they get used to it, I know I did. I kept forgetting which key you pressed to get the right click menu up, not helped by the fact that the Mac keyboard is different to every other keyboard I've ever used for apparently no good reason. I still can't remember if it's Command or the apple key, although I did eventually "get" that the Command key was the one with the wierd squiggle on it. I kept hesitating as I tried to decide whether closing the window or minimizing it made more sense. Closing it would lose the window state, but minimizing it would just put a useless thumbnail that looked just like all the other useless thumbnails in the dock (i think it overlays icons now to reduce the effect of this usability booboo). And then of course I'd forget to close the app when I was done with and wonder why it was swapping so hard.....
Things are different between platforms, the friction you encounter when switching between user interfaces isn't really the fault of Windows or the Mac. I find the Windows UI pretty efficient simply because it's 100% keyboardable. Once you know the tricks, it's very fast to use. GNOME is less keyboardable (though they are working on it), although the command line makes up for that.
Ace In The Hole (Score:5, Interesting)
Speed hasn't been the issue for some time (Score:5, Insightful)
The amount of support I have to give these people is minimal and is all application-related.
The other area I encounter non-technical people is the PC world and, of course, the level of support required is much higher. Each successive edition of Windows is more cluttered as standard, and the learning curve is often a major irritation for busy professionals. Things often don't just work out of the box. Only last week I spent a frustrating hour just trying to get two W2k notebooks to communicate properly over ethernet, whereas I don't even have to think about adding Appletalk boxes. OK so I'm stupid, but how many other people are out there who are just as stupid as I am, and also need to work with computers?
In short, I see no real change in the long term situation, which is:
This ain't a processor benchmark. (Score:4, Informative)
The crippled DDR support of modern PowerMacs (and the last Powerbooks) helps only when doing a variety of memory tasks simultaneously, as the processors are still fed at single speed.
OSX (Unix), ImageMagick, and shell scripts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OSX (Unix), ImageMagick, and shell scripts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes I use Windows batch files to do tasks, or I use bash under cygwin for more complex operations. Inside applications I use macros or the oft-built-in VBA if still more complex things need doing. Now sorry, what was your point again?
The Mac Is Sexy (Score:5, Interesting)
When i bought my powerbook with osx it was too soon, things didnt really roll until the 10.0.4 release. I was sucked in by their excellent marketing of the powerbook g4 running a gorgeous open sourceOS. Call me a sucker but apples marketing department sure knows what its doing! Still I felt resentment over buying (into) something that didn't live up to what I thought I would get.
But right now things are different. OSX is sweet, my powerbook g4 at 400mhz might not sound like a powerhouse but it's sexy. No matter what I run on it or do with it it conveys an image that I am stylish, that I value quality over other considerations such as cost and speed. That I think different. Even though I am a programmer I really noticed that this laptop made me stand out. If you're meeting creative people commercially the powerbook does the selling for you, it tells them you are no lummox. In many many fields the thing the apple brand means and conveys about its owner is a priceless add on.
I have to say i mostly run mandrake 9.0 cooker on the powerbook G4. With KDE 3.1 beta. People who have never seen osx but heard about it sometimes think Im running OSX and they comment on how beautiful it is. Yeah KDE 3.1 is gorgeous! It runs very well on the 400mhz G4. But all that's besides the point. (albeit it does show that its hardware rather than software that appeals!)
Apple did something with its brand that very very few companies have done. They created incredible value; Apple appeals to people. You dont get that with your dell or toshiba or even an alienware rig.
reverse surprised here (Score:5, Interesting)
They compared the very fastest notebook you can buy (when not running off battery), which only runs nearly that fast when tethered to wall outlet with cpu cooking at like 50W, to a PowerBook that is slower than any you can buy right now (20% lower clock rate and much less cache than currently available) and uses less than half the power.
What kind of comparison is that???
Looking at the charts, it appears that a current PowerBook would easily smoke the P4 book in speed alone. Even if you ignored the higher cache (which is not insignificant b/c altivec is severely handicapped by small caches), a 1GHz PowerBook would be about 25% faster than the one they tested. This would make it faster than any P4 book even when P4 plugged into wall cooking at like 50W.
Furthermore, PowerBooks with Radeon cards can run at full speed for hours on one battery, whereas P4 books will roast your nads for about an hour while running half speed and then die.
I've never owned an Apple product and certainly am not a mac zealot, but this test is ridiculously rigged. Nice way to get on Slashdot real easy.
Re:reverse surprised here (Score:3, Interesting)
Aparently you believe that the Powerbook (1ghz single processor) would smoke the PowerPC G4 Dual 1.25 Ghz with 1GB of ram desktop?!? Because if you read the test results (in seconds, where lower is better), the P4 notebook beat the top of the line Apple desktop. So, by that logic, the 1 GHz PowerBook notebook you describe should smoke the top of the line Apple desktop as well.
I think you should check your math. Otherwise, why would anyone buy the Apple top of the line desktop when they can just buy the 1ghz powerbook from you for more performance.
Of course, they should've compared the Apple desktop to a x-86 desktop for the same (probably better with a full desktop, not mobile GPU) results so that you can feel comfortable that we're comparing desktops to desktops and notebooks to notebooks (with top of the line notebooks for both platforms). Oh well, whatcanyado, benchmarks are tough to swallow when they don't give the results you expect. The fact that a notebook (yep, it can't run on battery for too long) plugged into a wall can roast a top of the line Powermac Desktop must really have you reaching into the bag of mixed up logic today.
No personal offense to you, but your claims are not substantiated. I think the guy who decided to make the test in such a format was begging for these strange arguments to arise. I'm sure he's getting a chuckle out of it as we all should :)
Reasons other than speed to buy a Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
The real reason to use macs in digital editing is colour. The colour (yes, with a 'u') on macs is infinently closer to print than a PC is.
This is why apples are used in 99.9% of print shops, and PCs are used in more web design shops. If you aren't printing, then PCs are just fine. Soon as print comes into the question, you simply can't use PCs. You'll be printing, editing, printing editing, so often that it'll take a lot longer than waiting 2 extra seconds while exporting a file.
Anyone who works in printing will know what I mean if they ever tried putting a curve on a dcs file... PCS just can't get it right.
HyperThreading (Score:3, Informative)
Its not about speed. Cray XMPs are FAST but... (Score:4, Interesting)
My Macs are Macs running OS X & OS 9.2. My PC is a server box running slackware. It might as well be invisible.
I don't like the x86 architecture. I definitely don't like Windows. I like Aqua. End of story.
The hardware'll get faster next week and the week after and the week after that. But I bought it when I needed it and when I could afford it and when it did what I needed. And with the style I wanted to do my work in.
That's what its about.
Re:Who's the Troll? (Score:2)
Re:PCs are faster these days (Score:2)
Re:What are we fighting about ? (Score:2, Interesting)