Comparisons for potential switcher

Hi all
Not yet bought a mac but are seriously thinking about the new imac 20". Now the thing is will there be much of a performance diff from my pc to the new mac, My current pc is :
AMD 2500XP ,1GB ram, 160gb hdd, ati 9800se 128mb,

My useage will be everyday use internet word etc, digital photos and making and burning dvds.

Not looking for a big debate on intel v mac just a general comparison between my pc and new imac.

All help appreciated, thanks.......

sitinduck said:

Hi all
Not yet bought a mac but are seriously thinking about the new imac 20". Now the thing is will there be much of a performance diff from my pc to the new mac, My current pc is :
AMD 2500XP ,1GB ram, 160gb hdd, ati 9800se 128mb,

My useage will be everyday use internet word etc, digital photos and making and burning dvds.

Not looking for a big debate on intel v mac just a general comparison between my pc and new imac.

All help appreciated, thanks.......

Click to expand...

Yes, assuming you are currently using XP "out-of-the-box" as your OS then there will be quite an apparent performance difference. OS X does need much more processing power than an optimised Windoze set-up due to the fact that it does everything properly. Just one example is that the icon set are all huge (resolution wise) compared to the default windoze set and use the full colour range.

Handling digital photos and video will be much quicker and smoother and you can burn you DVDs in the background without any fear of creating coasters.

The DVD burning time itself is pretty much restricted by hardware so don't expect any vast speed up there but the creation of custom DVDs (as opposed to just copying them) is so much easier it will certainly appear to be faster.

I had a XP2000 system for a few years sitting next to a 1Ghz G4 iMac, for all the tasks you list the iMac was much faster and more importantly much more productive.

Amen-Moses

My macmini with a 1.25ghz G4 runs circles around my amd athlon xp2400 computer all day long, and my 1.33ghz G4 ibook destroys it. The only reason I keep it, is that it has a 250GB hard drive, that I use to store everything on.

Hi,

I own a 12" ibook G4 1.2ghz w/ 1.25GB Ram, as well as a 14" IBM T30 w/ Pentium 4 1.8ghz + 1GB Ram.

I find them to perform similarly, and often find the iBook to be faster, particularly in handling multiple programs running at a time.

It is not unusual for me to do all of the following simultaneously on my iBook:
-Scan film w/ Epson Scan
-Edit already scanned images in Photoshop
-Browse internet on Opera
-IM with Adium
-Work on schoolwork in MS Word
-Listen to music in iTunes

I find such a set of programs performs much better than if I was doing the same stuff on my T30 at the same time.

-Expose on OS X is sooo useful, definetely feel the lack of it on XP
-Dashboard is cool, I got Konfabulator on XP.. but it really doesnt compare

All I can say is.....even though my T30 is 3 years older than my iBook... my next computer will be another mac....

So are we saying that on the whole xp os runs quicker than tiger , but apps for video and pictures are quicker on the mac?

sitinduck said:

So are we saying that on the whole xp os runs quicker than tiger , but apps for video and pictures are quicker on the mac?

Click to expand...

Not really, XP can be made to run quickly but basically it ends up looking like Win98 if you do, out-of-the-box OS X is the better of the two on similar hardware.

Where XP slows down is when you have all the eye candy enabled, with OS X the eye-candy is coded at a much lower level so seems quicker and looks a lot nicer.

I have my Mac sat next to a PC and can compare them directly, if I drag a window around on the Mac it is smooth (looks like a slab of brushed aluminium being moved around in real time) and the window contents remains readable. Doing the same on the PC results in a jerky mess. If I turn off the eye-candy on the PC such that it reverts to the old Win98 square window style it is less jerky but the Mac is still smoother movement.

Of course if I turn on the Quartz background renderer on the Mac (I like the bubbles as it uses very little CPU) the window dragging is less smooth but I can't even do that on the PC to compare with.

Amen-Moses

So you're saying that Windows is faster when it is in "Classic Style" versus "XP Style"? I just change it under display properties?

ripfrankwhite said:

So you're saying that Windows is faster when it is in "Classic Style" versus "XP Style"? I just change it under display properties?

Click to expand...

Go to Control Panel => System => Advanced => Performance => Settings and select the "Adjust for best Performance" button .... Viola Windows 98.


Amen-Moses