Is it worth investing in a Mac?

PixelBin said
It’s funny watching people trying to justify why their custom built machine is better than anything else when in the end, all it does is run Windows which is the real problem. You can put a V12 engine in your car but you’re never taking it out of first gear with the POS that is Windows. To OP, just go find a store with Macs, try them out and stop asking people on the internet. The opinions of people that have never tried or can even afford a certain product is extremely limited. It’s like asking someone who had only eaten Snickers what their favorite candy bar is.

My custom built machine I paid $2,000 in parts and what Mac quoted me at the mac store was over $8,000. I built my hackintosh and the benchmark blows away Mac in every aspect, plus I can easily boot into Windows and Ubuntu. Mac is overpriced and I have had more issues with Mac hardware failure then any other computer I have ever owned.

My G4 lets see here, Video Card failure, Firewire Port Failure, Copper Corrision, Power Supply went out 3 times, MotherBoard quit twice. My G5 LogicBoard broke 2 times, again power supply went out and Ram would randomly stop being recognized… and this doesn’t include the plethora of issues we had with iMacs at the ad agency I use to work at.

Since I switched to my custom built hackintosh I have had zero hardware problems, the only issue I had was one of my external harddrives was causing boot issues and at first I didn’t have my Bios setup correctly on the windows side of things which was causing windows to hang up when starting, all of these issues have been fixed and I’m very happy with my HackinTosh.

But after playing around with Windows 8 beta, I’m probably going to eventually switch everything over to Windows. I’ve also noticed Pro Tools runs much smoother in Windows 7 then Mac OSX Lion and I never have any audio drop outs when running my Eleven Rack in Windows like I do in Mac, which is a HUGE issue when browsing Avid forums.

I think Mac has a great product but they need to continue to evolve like Windows is doing. I haven’t really seen much of a benefit from the different operating systems Mac has come out with. I find myself doing more things in Windows 8 then Mac OSX now…. which is odd because I have always hated Windows.

hey just curious how did you get windows and ubuntu running with the hackintosh? are you using boot camp to do that?

joesacco said
hey just curious how did you get windows and ubuntu running with the hackintosh? are you using boot camp to do that?

I have two 250 Gig solid state drives, 1 for windows operating system and 1 for Macintosh Operating System and I’m using a 500 Gig Standard HardDrive for Ubuntu operating system. So I have 3 internal harddrives and I run 3 external 2 TB harddrives for saving and working with files, but one of the drives is formatted for windows specifically, the other 2 are journal.

I don’t run bootcamp, I tried it in the passed but wasn’t impressed, it’s best to have the operating systems on their own hard drives, I’m not a fan of partitioned drives, because if the hard drive takes a dump on you, you are basically screwed.

yeah i was considering it with bootcamp but didn’t think it was a good idea. i also have Lion running off an SSD for now. i would like to try out windows 8 though. looks nice.

joesacco said
yeah i was considering it with bootcamp but didn’t think it was a good idea. i also have Lion running off an SSD for now. i would like to try out windows 8 though. looks nice.

If you have a hackintosh you can simply download windows 8 and burn it to a cd and install to a new harddrive.

i’m gonna try booting it from USB .

I run both Mountain Lion and Windows 8 (beta) on my MacBook Pro. I upped the memory to 8GB and recently switched to an SSD drive. I boot up OS X in 5-10 sec if I restart or turn of the computer but Windows 8, even with SSD and optimized system takes 2-3 min to launch properly. Which is kinda funny as I thought Win8 was faster and better than 7 that actually boots in 1 min on my SSD drive. Still, for the moment I only have Win8 installed as I’ve never been a fan of 7 and it’s ugly interface.

Windows 8 is pretty to look at but that’s pretty much it as it’s harder to locate certain programs and settings to optimize the system.

In short, I don’t dislike Windows one bit but I do dislike the discussion, Mac vs PC as they are both PC. PC = Personal Computer and Windows and OS X is both an OS. OS = Operating System. And that’s a fact.

However, I’m an Apple user and I have never been more satisfied as when I first switched from Windows to OS X some 6 years ago. OS X is easier to work with, more stable and has a much prettier interface than Windows. Also a fact.

So, before this thread turns even more off-topic and into a discussion about Mac vs PC rather than the actual subject (congrats on your new Mac btw, again) and we are forced to lock it, keep in mind that we are all designers/developers/musicians/animators and we ALL have Different taste. Whether it’s for the OS on your computer or the food you eat, we all like different things.

On a completely different note. I really don’t like Salmon.

I don’t know how good Macs are but I’m saving up for one simply because my last four PC’s (three makers) have had persistent issues with hardware and Windows. From what I’ve read, Macs are not a silver bullet and they do cost more but they do seem to have a reputation as being reliable and much of the designer/developer crowd seem to be happy with ‘em.

PatrikL said
Windows 8, even with SSD and optimized system takes 2-3 min to launch properly.

If it takes 2-3 minutes to startup in windows 8 then you do not have your Bios properly setup. Especially with a dedicated Solid State HD Windows should start up much quicker then that.

xstortionist said

PatrikL said
Windows 8, even with SSD and optimized system takes 2-3 min to launch properly.

If it takes 2-3 minutes to startup in windows 8 then you do not have your Bios properly setup. Especially with a dedicated Solid State HD Windows should start up much quicker then that.

I know, I’ve reconfigured my BIOS (since I wrote the post) and it’s a bit faster now. Still, not even close to OS X .