Vista is such balls

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:35 am

haha, I'm not really that fussed, I'm just using hyperbole and rhetoric.

The boost isn't that tiny though, benchmarks indicate that you get 50 FPS with the 9800GT vs 30 FPS with the 8800 GS in popular games such as Half life 2, Episode 2, and 50 vs 40 on CoD4 at the native resolution of that wacking great 24" monitor we've got screwed on here.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:37 am

This debate was over a long time ago {Language}

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:50 am

A_Cynic wrote:Am I missing something in this whole currency debate? Someone explain that to me.

Individual importers and producers in Australia exploit a near monopoly to price things however they feel.

Some of them feel like over pricing things and under supplying the market in a wide variety of entertaining ways.

Others don't.

SMALLER markets mean more monopoly and more crazy. Macs are a smaller market, and within the small Australian market that makes for a VERY small market.

At that scale one company, one importer, one MANAGER could (and often will) cause a massive price mark up.

Even without the frequent shenanigans the smaller market makes the business less profitable and drives up prices.

Any price differential between a larger marked like PCs and a smaller market like Macs is only going to be exaggerated here in Oz.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:09 am

Not sure that the market for Macs is as small as you think. Given that Mac has between 4 and 7% market share depending on who you ask, I'll use 6% market share. I'll assume that the market for macs is probably about 6&.

So given that in Australia there are .7 computers per person, and that computers replacement lifespan is 3 years according to this here gartner report, Apple Australia Can reasonably expect to ship over 300,000 units a year, and could potentially grow its market share to 10%, which would be 520,000 computers a year. At an average value of what, 3000? dollars a unit including associate software and pherial sales, thats 900m dollars of sales a year.

That is a pretty significant business. Dell's revenue will be bigger of course as it has like a 25% market share, but we're not kidding around here.

Incidentally, American report "One more thing: although consumers and investors tend to believe Macs cost 20% to 30% more than comparable PCs, according to Munster, he did some price comparisons and found that on average, the price difference is closer to 16% for desktop machines and 9% for laptops — essentially unchanged from a similar comparison he made two years ago." Dated April 2008.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:18 am

...Except Macs actually have resale value after three years (look at eBay). They last far longer than that. That's why I have piles of them for a non-profit. What am I supposed to do with computers that still run, were once restricted from export, but are now so old they compete with AppleTVs in function? (But can still run the latest OS! Well, sorta, they just slightly fall out of Leopard, but it's possible to tweak).

Funny you argue with me, and yet you produce a quote similar to my point earlier...

-Crissa

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:22 am

What, the in America macs are consistently more expensive, when you said macs are consistently cheaper?

I think my point is actually directly contradictory to what you said, but hey!

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:26 am

Umm, but I didn't say that.

-Crissa

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:34 am

Crissa wrote:Those specs mean nothing, honestly.

They mean you have a couple nice parts.

They don't mean you have nice important parts.

Wow, you really are a fan girl. Graphics card, RAM then CPU. Everyone knows those are the performance parts for a gaming machine. And the 4870 annihilates the Mac stuff that was linked.

Then you go quoting FSB speeds. I can overclock my motherboard by about 300 MHz no problems. It makes no difference at all even in synthetic benchmarks much less real world use.

Way to conform to the rabid Mac fan stereotype.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 9:53 pm

Uhh, actually, FSB, throughput does matter more than CPU speed and graphic card.

If you can't get the information (which is changing) to the CPU or graphics card, it doesn't matter.

This has nothing to do with Macs. Really. The only reason my PC still runs the programs it does is because I chose the motherboard with the fastest FSB I could get in the price range; which meant that it didn't matter that I had a crap CPU, because no CPU cycles were wasted waiting on more data.

That's why the multicores excel at benchmarks but provide only nominal increases in performance: They run out of things to do waiting on the memory to deliver more things to do.

And the graphics card argument is stupid. Those graphics cards came out in July. They're using a new memory configuration. Of course they're better than what's in a computer that had its specs set in stone six months earlier.

It's newer. Next year - heck, next month, they'll be available for the Mac, for laptops, etc, blahblahblah.

-Crissa

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:36 am

Crissa wrote:Umm, but I didn't say that.

-Crissa

I'm not sure I understand what 'dipped below' means then

Crissa wrote:
Ugh, I hate to have to fight that all the time. Of course, this being a recession year, this is the first year in which Mac retail prices have not dipped below PC retail prices for the same hardware in ten years.

You mean you're not saying macs are cheaper? It sure looks like you are. Especially as you were responding to me saying

Me wrote: Macs are much more expensive, hence the popularity of hackintoshes

It sure looks like you are saying they are cheaper.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:42 am

And it's retail prices too, I was considering that maybe you where counting on hocking it off and getting the residue value, but that doesn't quite fit.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:54 am

[url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dip wrote:Dictionary.com: Dip[/url]]14. to decrease slightly or temporarily: Stock-market prices often dip on Fridays.

-Crissa

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:56 am

Crissa wrote:Uhh, actually, FSB, throughput does matter more than CPU speed and graphic card.

If you can't get the information (which is changing) to the CPU or graphics card, it doesn't matter.

Nice, state a fact that isn't relevant. The Core 2 architecture has massive amounts of cache compared to previous chips to account for this. If you go get an 800MHz mobo and clock it to 1200 MHz you won't care about the difference. Apples to apples its not FSB clock speed that counts.

Its usually not Hz that counts for anything really. Architecture is god, Core 2 beats P4 not by having more cycles but by using less of them more effectively. New graphics cards aren't just the old ones with more clock speed, they are different in other ways.

Multicores excel at benchmarks because the benchmarks chosen are designed for multi core processors. Apps are routinely not taking advantage of the extra cores at all and generally not to full advantage.

And the graphics card argument is stupid. Those graphics cards came out in July. They're using a new memory configuration. Of course they're better than what's in a computer that had its specs set in stone six months earlier.

Why would I want to buy a 6 month old spec? You've just admitted that mac is actually at a hardware disadvantage, at least on prebuilt systems.

You are right on one thing, this has nothing to do with macs. Thats why its so obvious that you're a rabid fan. Someone with sensible reasons for liking macs wouldn't mention the hardware because its the same hardware. Sensible reasons for buying mac are about the OS because thats whats different. But no, you went off about the hardware.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:06 am

I'm sure everyone in the world builds to the newest hardware in the last month.

...Oh, wait, they don't. In fact, they account for such a small sample of actual running computers that game companies running on the bleeding edge like that are... Well, it's called bleeding for a reason.

What's the world's largest installed base of computer operating system?

Wait! It's not Vista. Or XP. (or any unix variant)

And there's a hardware reason for it.

-Crissa

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:05 am

Crissa wrote: What's the world's largest installed base of computer operating system?

Wait! It's not Vista. Or XP. (or any unix variant)

And there's a hardware reason for it.

-Crissa

Oh fuck off with your Macfangirlbullshit. Seriously.

wikipedia wrote:As of the end of November 2008, Windows XP is the most widely used operating system in the world with a 66.31% market share

Unless something absolutely crazy happened in the last week and a half, 2 out of 3 computers are running Windows XP. That's a fact. The fact that you personally like Mac doesn't mean that more people use Macs, they don't.

Here's the fucking data. When you compile all Windows crap together, it's 89.6% of the world. Your precious Mac doesn't even make 9%. The market penetrance of Windows is more than ten times what it is for Mac products.

There is a lot of good things to say about Linux. And some good stuff to say about Macs. But when yo make ridiculous bald faced lies about stuff that literally takes less than a minute to expose, you do your cause no good at all. You like Macintosh. We get that. We accept it, and wish you the best of luck with it. Move the fuck on. And don't treat us like fucking children.

-Username17

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:15 am

Okay, previously it was Windows 98 as the most installed; hardly anyone had XP in China (or outside the US, really) until Microsoft made a trade deal with the Chinese government a year or so back. Your link doesn't seem to break it down by version. I am getting my numbers from a speech in spring '08, tho.

The point was that your fastest video card is hardly supported by 'everything', and the must-upgrade-crowd often forgets that.

Nothing I've said was incorrect, Frank. I've got one thing going right now, and that's going to dev conferences. At least let me show that.

-Crissa

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:54 am

Crissa wrote:
And the graphics card argument is stupid. Those graphics cards came out in July. They're using a new memory configuration. Of course they're better than what's in a computer that had its specs set in stone six months earlier.

-Crissa

Actually the 9800GT in the dell comparison came out in the April, and the 8800 GT which benchmarks almost identically to the 9800GT and much better than the older ATI in the mac came out in October last year, or more than a year ago (i.e. before the iMAC's spec was set by your reckoning.

Its just weird that the much more expensive iMac - the premium product - incorporates a budget card.

Also, the thing about the Quad cores is not a lack of memory bandwidth (this is universally a problem for all computing applications), it is an extreme lack of applications that are programmed for it on the desktop.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:40 am

This is why.

Maybe next year. But the iMac is designed as a desktop, which puts it squarely in the middle of the pack. Very little desktop software needs the processing power or video capabilities of your machine.

In fact, most machines are sold with Intel video chips. You know, those ones so poor that they will generally not run those games that are listed for benchmarks.

You're just taking this personal for no reason. It's a better OS, but yet, import restrictions and a small market means the bleeding edge doesn't bleed as much or as often. They upgrade the machines once a year, and bring out new models every two to three years... Unlike Dell that has new models out every six months.

-Crissa

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:06 am

I'm not sure what you're trying to say any more

A) Yes, I know, which is why I specifically went through and picked a dell with similar capabilities. An 8800 GS used to be a quite competitive video card.

B) Yes, I know. I used to work in the IT infrastructure department for a small government department and of course we only procured intel desktops with integrated graphics. Of course, we'd get our machines very cheap because of the size of the contract (about 4000 seats)

But the iMac didn't have one, so I didn't select a dell with one. Some of the dells are sub 900 dollars retail if that is the spec you want.

Anyway, the better OS remark is just amusing. I've used all three, and I think they are all a cavalcade of mediocrity, with linux being the best and the worst.

However, the real difference is in the application stack.

If I'm running an advertising company, I buy macs because they have the design apps I want. It isn't even a choice.

If I'm running an engineering shop, I buy WinTel because the best finite element simulation programs and CAD/CAM gear are windows exclusives.

If I'm running a HA server, I use red hat linux and get a bunch of enterprise support agreements.

Any OS war is just a joke.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:46 am

Yeah, this brings me back to the old Nintendo/Sega wars of the early 90's. Except that grown adults are taking the roles of 12 year olds.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:07 am

Yeah, but the crap cthu is spewing is information which was out of date in the mid-90s. Graphics programs run on PCs now; most of the engineering software is either gone, proprietary, or *nix; and Macs are made with mostly the same damn parts as a PC.

Given a piecemeal machine, it'll be more bleeding edge and cheaper than a Mac unless you buy whatever they've upgraded this year and has parts either better or better tuned than a similar.

Comparing an iMac to a Dell tower is kinda like... I dunno, why don't you compare it to Dell's all-in-one units? Things which have the same footprint/power usage?

Not everyone cares about the bleeding edge. If I want a quad core, I got to the lab at school, they've got dozens of them sitting right next to dozens of out of date alphas next to...

-Crissa

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:55 am

Have something to back up those claims?

I just remember the time during a debate on WoW when I accessed my wife's account, got the healing/mana ratios right there, and calculated them, and you accused me of using "old numbers". Although technically, the numbers were about three minutes old at the time I posted them.

So, I tend to be skeptical when you make claims like that, I've caught you lying before.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:32 am

Crissa wrote:I'm sure everyone in the world builds to the newest hardware in the last month.

...Oh, wait, they don't. In fact, they account for such a small sample of actual running computers that game companies running on the bleeding edge like that are... Well, it's called bleeding for a reason.

The 4870 was released mid this year, it is now several months old. That blood clotted already. [Reference to Frank's comment Re: Google]

I'd also like to note that the footprint issue is meaningless over here. OH&S regulations mandate enough desk space that the size difference can't be noticed. At home I'd like to see you jam three 3.5" HDDs and a DVD drive into an iMac.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:59 pm

Got a claim you think is false?

Else bugger off.

-Crissa

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 7:18 am

Just proved you're full of it about graphics hardware and Frank just did the same about OS install bases. Your comments about desktop footprint only matter to a very small segment of people plus small footprint mandates few HDDs.

I'm not seeing where you get the idea that Macs are totally sweet at everything and we're all tards for not using one.