# whats a mac?



## B-Subs-Me (Nov 8, 2007)

Whats the difference between a mac and a pc?


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

A Mac IS a PC. 

Peace...


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

Disregard tomdkat's useless post...... 

A Mac is a computer from Apple (the company that also makes iPods and iPhones) that runs OS X. OS X is an operating system, just like Windows is an operating system. It looks different, has different applications, and is less common then Windows, though it is getting much more popular.

Apple Mac computers http://www.apple.com/mac
Information on OS X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X


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## dannyn (Nov 9, 2007)

tomakt dont start this agian ;]


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## 3kgt (Aug 18, 2007)

This is really a hard question.


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## B-Subs-Me (Nov 8, 2007)

Oh, so it's basically a nubsauce pc.


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

No, it's becoming much more popular now. It doubled market share in the last year and if you've ever used a Mac, they're great. Click and drag application installation, simple user interface, 0 unpatched viruses, etc.


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## middigit (Feb 3, 2008)

A mac is a personal computer, just like if you go buy a dell machine running windows or get a computer built with windows or linux running on it. You can do pretty much the same stuff on osx that you can do on windows these days - the software market for osx is pretty unique and diverse. Recently the main useage for apple macs was design studios, print firms and publishers - but lately, as ferrija1 says, they have doubled market share and developed into a much more diverse field of usage and it is becoming a greater purchase for the home user - as it stands, now, with intel chip development in macs you can have all three os's on one machine with ease - plus macs take up less space and look smart - I personally use a mac mini, very little desk space taken up and i can do design work on it too with little hassle.


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## B-Subs-Me (Nov 8, 2007)

So the only difference is they can run both OS. Macs are super overpriced though... duo 2.2 GHz, 1gb ram, 120 gb hard drive for $1000. I wouldn&#8217;t call that a bargain. By the way, Macs CAN catch viruses. They look pretty nubsauce to me.

So why are Macs criticized so much?


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## middigit (Feb 3, 2008)

i think you just criticized them yourself, there you go 

some models are overpriced yes, and apple ram is overpriced - otherwise my personal opinion is that you get what you pay for - quality


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

B-Subs-Me said:


> So the only difference is they can run both OS. Macs are super overpriced though... duo 2.2 GHz, 1gb ram, 120 gb hard drive for $1000. I wouldnt call that a bargain. By the way, Macs CAN catch viruses. They look pretty nubsauce to me.
> 
> So why are Macs criticized so much?


No, they run a completely different, simpler operating system, although they can run Windows. The MacBook Pro has a camera, backlight keyboard, LED backlights, the iLife suites, Front Row, the amazing AppleCare, and much more. You get what you pay for when you buy $500 PCs. People think they should just buy the best system for the cheapest price but you shouldn't. Those cheap systems often break when you upgrade them and come with tons of trialware.

Macs were more secure from the beginning, tagging downloaded applications, authorization for Administrator changes, sandboxing, and Keychains are just the beginning. Anyways, no one even writes viruses for Macs since PCs are much more popular.

And I didn't even start talking with OS X's flexible UNIX base...

PCs look like nubsauce to me....


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## B-Subs-Me (Nov 8, 2007)

That's why you build your own system. This is my computer Im on right now. These prices are all what they were at the time I bought it, all the prices have dropped since then; it would be even cheaper than this. Tell me how much a Mac would be with these specs:

Headphones
SENNHEISER DJs HD202 3.5mm/6.3mm Connector Circumaural Headphone
$18.49

Hard Drive
SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
$62.99

Power Supply
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V EPS12V 610W Continuous @ 40°C Power Supply - Retail
$129.99

Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
$94.99

Case
Sunbeam Transformer IC-TR-BA Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
$69.99

CPU
Intel Q6600 Retail - G0 Stepping SLACR
$294.99

Cooling
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Heatsink (LGA775/AM2) 
$59.99

Graphics Card
Amazon.com: PNY XLR8 8800GT 512MB DDR3 Graphics Card: Electronics
$249.99

Operating System
Windows XP Professional SP2 OEM DSP 
$138.78

RAM
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Retail 
$54.99 X 2 = $109.98

Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
$50.99 with rebate

Optical Drives
Already have

Monitor
Already have

Speakers
Already have

Total = $1211.18

The cpu is OC'd to 3.0 GHz and the GPU is OC'd to 650/960

Does trialware really affect performance? I'm thinking about nuking my old Dell just because. 

I've never gotten a virus because I use common sense and Mcaffe's SiteAdvisor. SiteAdvisor's really useful.


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## B-Subs-Me (Nov 8, 2007)

I should have only gotten 2gb of ram and more OEM parts.
Macs look like nubsauce to me....


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## middigit (Feb 3, 2008)

so is this the whole point of your thread? so you can say that building a machine is cheaper than buying a mac? pretty pointless thread


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

The 20 inch 2.4GHz iMac would be the comparable system, but you can't compare raw specs, they are completely different systems.

Look around this forum and see all the PC to Mac success stories.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

B-Subs-Me said:


> That's why you build your own system. This is my computer I'm on right now. These prices are all what they were at the time I bought it, all the prices have dropped since then; it would be even cheaper than this. Tell me how much a Mac would be with these specs:


Could you add integrated 802.11g and maybe Bluetooth to your configuration and recalculate the total cost?

Peace...


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

And also, the monitor, drives, and speakers all cost money, they're not free since you already had them.


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## B-Subs-Me (Nov 8, 2007)

middigit said:


> so is this the whole point of your thread? so you can say that building a machine is cheaper than buying a mac? pretty pointless thread


pretty much


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