Macintosh - good or bad?

[cheesewhiz]

What's your source?



First off, the 15" Macbook Pro does NOT have the best GPU on the market...it's underclocked to use only 50% of its power...

Anyway, It's true that you'd need to get a 17" windows laptop and not a 15" one, but I don't view this as a downside. You get a bigger screen and a better graphics cards. For a lower price...it certainly should not be $2500. Try hewlett packards dv8000t series (I think that's it). I customized one to be about $1700 with more horsepower than the pro.




Have you tried buying a replacement Mac video card? They are insanely overpriced compared to their PC counterparts (this is not a troll, it is 100% verifiable and everyone here has agreed with it in the past). Further, Apple has incentive to overcharge to perpetuate their brand image.



Source? My customizations show the Dell to be significantly cheaper



The selection is weak but if money is not an issue you can run Bootcamp.

My source is any reputable organization that discusses the issue. In other words, feel free to google it. Should take you about 5 seconds. And it is not 50% underclocked. It's about 35%. And like I said, the 17" is NOT underclocked. What's YOUR source?

Apparently, yes the HP is cheaper. However, I have no idea how your getting a "significantly" faster computer. The fastest chip is a 2.16 Core Duo. The max ram is 2GB. There is only one GPU available, the 7600. The best drive available is a 100GB 7200 sata. Seems pretty comparable to the MBP. I fail to see where the HP would offer superior performance. Unless you think having a num pad makes applications run faster. And I suppose the HP wins in the having more weight and bigger dimensions department.

Replacement video cards? We are talking about portables right? Let me know how replacing the video card in that HP goes for you... Anyway, I didn't relize that Apple was in the business of selling replacement video cards of any kind. I thought they were being marketed, priced and sold by ATI. How silly of me.

Source? Try Dell's website. Or HP. Oh and if you don't believe me and your own eyes, try Cnet. I won't bother mentioning Alienware or Falcon, since they are even more expensive. Your customizations are wrong. Period. I'm not even going to bother discussing this with you. Try using 2 woodcrest chips with 1.3Ghz FSB. The 2.66 cpu costs $1000 by itself. The 3.0 is $1400. So good luck getting a quad 2.66 machine for less than $2500. WHAT'S YOUR SOURCE?

FYI, if your not a troll, your posts seem to show troll-like indications. Breaking down a post into a million little bits, asking for sources, ignoring the main point and/or ignoring any part that can't be questioned, etc.

 

[cheesewhiz]

You are right, the macbook Pro (assuming no underclocking...which you can't do, unfortunately) uses a better card than the $1300 inspiron e1505 i had customized. that is my error. to get equivalent power on PC mobile side, you would want to get a 17" .

still, in theory the e1505 card is only slightly lower than the macbook's. in actuality, the e1505 is faster because apple underclocks its gpu. both are solidly midrange cards however.

You seem to be clinging to underclocked GPUs. Again, the 17" is not underclocked. Unfortunately for you, you can assume that it isn't.

You know it's funny, I keep looking for a e1505 with a 2.16 Core Duo, but can't seem to find one. Feel free to show me on Dell's website where I can upgrade to a 2.16 CPU.

So let's see, the e1505 has a slower cpu and slower gpu. It's physically bigger and weighs more. I wonder why it costs less...

And hmm, no matter how I try, I can't seem to get anywhere near the $1300 you quoted.

I really want to see this mythical $1300 notebook that outperforms a MBP. Tell you what, if you produce one, from a reputable manufacturer, and it outperforms (GPU, CPU, weight, battery life), I'll buy 2. One for me and one for you.

 

[wiglaff]

My source is any reputable organization that discusses the issue. In other words, feel free to google it. Should take you about 5 seconds. And it is not 50% underclocked. It's about 35%. And like I said, the 17" is NOT underclocked. What's YOUR source?

http://www.techweb.com/wire/hardware/186100205

///
SpacetitoX clocked the graphics processor (GPU) at 310MHz, 35 percent slower then ATI's recommended 475MHz. He also clocked the MacBook's graphics RAM at 278MHz, 41 percent below the 470MHz par ATI tells system makers to use.

It also touts the MacBook Pro's cooler design. "In the world of notebooks, there’s an eternal struggle between the forces of design and the forces of thermodynamic reality," Apple's Web site reads. "MacBook Pro innovates its way to a better place."
///

Replacement video cards? We are talking about portables right? Let me know how replacing the video card in that HP goes for you... Anyway, I didn't relize that Apple was in the business of selling replacement video cards of any kind. I thought they were being marketed, priced and sold by ATI. How silly of me.

Where did I say ATI did not sell the cards? My point is that graphics chips for macs are overpriced, I was offering that as a possible reason why the laptop is more expensive. It certainly is the reason why they stick a cheap 7300 POS card in the Mac Pros that sell for over $3000!!

Source? Try Dell's website. Or HP. Oh and if you don't believe me and your own eyes, try Cnet. I won't bother mentioning Alienware or Falcon, since they are even more expensive. Your customizations are wrong. Period. I'm not even going to bother discussing this with you. Try using 2 woodcrest chips with 1.3Ghz FSB. The 2.66 cpu costs $1000 by itself. The 3.0 is $1400. So good luck getting a quad 2.66 machine for less than $2500. WHAT'S YOUR SOURCE?

It will be over $2500 but less than the apple , but I will need to go to both stores and configure and see. I'll do that in my next post.

FYI, if your not a troll, your posts seem to show troll-like indications. Breaking down a post into a million little bits, asking for sources, ignoring the main point and/or ignoring any part that can't be questioned, etc.

?! I break it up so there is not a mess of text to deal with. Asking for sources is hopefully not that unreasonable...and what did I ignore? It's hard to tell because your post is a sea of text without references, and it is full of strange anger.

I really want to see this mythical $1300 notebook that outperforms a MBP. Tell you what, if you produce one, from a reputable manufacturer, and it outperforms (GPU, CPU, weight, battery life), I'll buy 2. One for me and one for you.

Did you read my post? Here is what I said:
You are right, the macbook Pro (assuming no underclocking...which you can't do, unfortunately) uses a better card than the $1300 inspiron e1505 i had customized. that is my error. to get equivalent power on PC mobile side, you would want to get a 17" .

Keep in mind : the graphics cards ARE similar, but the macbook pro edges it by a bit (assuming it is not underclocked, which as I have shown unfortunately, it is). The CPU is also slightly slower.

 

[5150]

Alan, I thought wiglaff was done doing this within the Mac forum.

 

[wiglaff]

Doing what?? I am trying to offer advice to show that the macbook pro is underclocked and not a good "gaming only" machine. that is quite pertinent...the poster wants to know if he should get a mac notebook for gaming. admittedly, the debate about the Mac Pro that "Cheesewhiz" brought up is not relevant so I'm not going to continue it in this thread.

It is bizarre being accused of trolling because I use "quote boxes" and ask for "sources." I thought you all were done doing that in the mac forum. ..

 

[SalmonOfDoubt]

wiglaff, your techweb article (Apr. 19) was posted 5 days before the release of the MBP 17" which was released Apr. 24th.

http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/04/24/17.inch.macbook.pro/

Based only on this article, there is only proof to suggest the 15" was underclocked.

edit:added url

 

[Brad Oliver]

It is bizarre being accused of trolling because I use "quote boxes" and ask for "sources." I thought you all were done doing that in the mac forum. ..

Trolling would be making silly statements like this:

"My point is that graphics chips for macs are overpriced, I was offering that as a possible reason why the laptop is more expensive. It certainly is the reason why they stick a cheap 7300 POS card in the Mac Pros that sell for over $3000!!"

Yeah, you can configure a Mac Pro to cost over $3000 and use a crappy card. You can also configure it to cost over $3000 and use a great card. You can also configure it to cost $2600 and use a great card. I don't know who this "they" is you are referring to - I'm guessing Apple - but the truth is *you* are the one who decides to use a cheap POS card or not, and you can certainly configure the Mac Pro to be both cheap and have a great card.

 

[5150]

Doing what??

Do you play Civ 4 on a Mac? Do you own a Mac?

 

[AlanH]

I'm closing this thread. It has ceased to generate any useful information in respose to the original poster.

This is a Civ4-specific forum. Please take your general discussion of platform differences and relative cost effectiveness to the Computer Talk forum.

And I recommend you all stop feeding trolls.