Actually, I've been using Premiere and After Effects for video editing/effects/rendering, along with FLV conversion tools, photoshop, flash, etc. As noted, my performance is noticeably faster than the two Macbook Pros and regular Mac Pro tower.
Here's the Macbook Pros we use: http://imgur.com/HKX95 <http://imgur.com/HKX95>Here's the Mac Pro tower: http://imgur.com/myXPH <http://imgur.com/myXPH>Here's my Gateway box: http://imgur.com/qgKca (Note the Apple sticker they jokingly stuck on my tower, with my own "I <3 Windows" text handwritten over it). For all the inefficiencies you cite, they don't seem to manifest in production. I smoke all of their machines, and have proven this in benchmarking, which is why I'm still allowed to have a PC box in a room full of Macs. On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 12:52 PM, Ian Pollard <[email protected]> wrote: > > Chris, > > Core inefficiency is the bugbear of rendering and multitasking. Often (very > often) you don't use all the cores, which means the computer's potential > power is sitting there untapped whilst one or two cores bottleneck and make > you wonder why you bothered paying for four/six/eight of them. Mac Pros > (workstations) recognise when this is happening and milk out extra clock > speed for the busy cores (e.g. the 4 core Mac Pros dynamically boost busy > cores to 3.6Ghz and the 8 core model boost to 3.33Ghz). > > Bus speed on your RAM isn't everything, either. A Mac Pro's architecture is > quite different to a PC, for example they have faster access to data stored > in memory because the processor is connected directly to the memory. Thus > the actual speed is about 40% faster when you compare like-for-like bus > speeds. Also there's a direct pipeline between the two processors (on the > eight core model), rather than running between an independent I/O bus. > > High clock speed and RAM on your video card won't help you unless you're > rendering 3D. For Photoshop, Quark, etc, you can use a $50 graphics card so > long as it outputs at the resolution you want and number of monitors you > want. All your load is on CPU and system memory. > > Mac Pros are pretty serious in terms of their spec if you're chasing > numbers (8 Xeon cores @ 2.93Ghz, 32GB RAM, etc), but even with a common > Intel processor it's apples and oranges if you ask me. > > Ian > > > > > > 2010/1/5 Chris Jenkins <[email protected]> > > Hey Ian, is there anything in the Mac world which sports real high end >> specs? I ask out of ignorance, as I haven't seen any true high end systems, >> but they could certainly exist. For instance, I'm writing from my x64 Vista >> box which has an Intel Quad Core (2.66 on a 1333 Mhz bus), with 8Gb of DDR3, >> a 1.5Gb Nvidia video card, and dual 1Tb HDD's. I'm doing a lot of multimedia >> rendering, so I need the juice. I'm the only PC box in a room full of new (> >> 6 mos) Macbook Pros, and none of them have anywhere near the performance as >> my Vista box when running intensive apps, multitasking, or just straight >> "from click to production" tests. >> >> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 7:09 AM, Ian Pollard <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> >>> Why go for Windows at all? >>> >>> If you're a writer, a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard is an excellent >>> choice. From a hardware perspective there's some things you'll probably >>> appreciate: >>> >>> - The screen is LED not LCD, so text and images are much crisper. >>> - Backlit keys with an automatic low light sensor. >>> - By far the most tactile keyboard. >>> >>> From an operating system/software perspective: >>> >>> - Time >>> Machine<http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/time-machine.html>... >>> the best backup system, bar none. >>> - A built-in research tool that pools results from multiple sources >>> (dictionary, thesaurus, Wikipedia, and translations) in a single >>> window<http://images.appleinsider.com/leopard-preview-071004-7.png> >>> . >>> - Much better writing >>> software<http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=127>than you can >>> get for Windows. >>> - If you're heavy on research, >>> Spotlight<http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/spotlight.html>will >>> save you days. >>> - When you combine Spotlight with >>> Exposé<http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/expose.html>, >>> you'll wonder why you put up with Windows for so long. >>> - No need for anti-virus software. >>> >>> I use Vista 64-bit on my development machine at work, but only because >>> we're a .NET software developer. I run Windows 7 Ultimate on my MacBook >>> (dual-boot with Snow Leopard using Bootcamp) and, whilst it is a little >>> faster than Vista, the performance increases have been greatly exaggerated. >>> It is also significantly slower than Snow Leopard on the same hardware. >>> >>> Ian >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> ""Minds Eye"" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> [email protected]<minds-eye%[email protected]> >>> . >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> ""Minds Eye"" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]<minds-eye%[email protected]> >> . >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en. >> > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > ""Minds Eye"" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<minds-eye%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en. > >--
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