N.Design Studio

I bought a G5 last year. I’m very satisfied and impressed with its performance. The only drawback is that it doesn’t run Windows in native speed & it sometimes crashes when using web browsers such as FireFox. But it sure runs Photoshop, Final Cut and all the other native OS X apps smoothly. While I could have gotten an Intel Mac at the time, somehow I didn’t think they were quite up to snuff yet. My bet is that future Macs will be considerably different from the current ‘generation’. The next ones probably won’t even have Plain Jane Intel chips but ones with souped up graphics capabilities separating them apart from their Wintel PC cousins. As for the G5, it’s still out there and very much coveted. Despite being discontinued, more than a few people are still buying them. Probably graphic artists. I suspect this may have something to do with the somewhat buggy and sluggish performance of their Intel cousins. I know if you look on eBay, the quad core G5 is still a hot item for graphics professionals. Even though I don’t have one, lots of people are looking for that model.

Well, I m a designer designing grafix since 7-8 yrs.I have always used PC. And have always desired an Apple. But due to the prices reason i always end up buying another Pc. As i cn get much bettr Pc specs. thn an apple of the same range!

I m still confused wat is goign to b my next PICk!

kansaibear: Thanks for the explanation. We now have an argument to explain what we knew blindly all along. Flash is however slower on a Mac compared to PC that I know from personal experience. Whether that is a hardware issue or a software issue from adobe/macromedia I don’t know…

Nate

what an interesting bunch of comments here
first off, Nick La, you rock.
no two ways around it, a rock star has been born.
now, to these computer noobies…
The RISC Power PC architecture and chip was developed by a partnership of apple, motorola and IBM to replace the previous motorola chips that powered the mac.
It is/was manufactured by motorola, IBM and Freescale.
PC architecture is not faster, in fact it is inherently slower when compared by clock cycles.
the reason that mac switched is because motorola and IBM did not continue to upgrade the chips that supported the mac protocols.
eventually, though the intel chips are less efficient, they managed to produce chips with enough cycles at a manageable temperature so that the advantages, and projected development schedule made them attractive enough to switch.
the fact is that when the G3 came out, probably when most of you were still in high school, it was so fast that the US gov. classified it as armaments because it was the first pc to fall under the guidelines of a SUPER COMPUTER.
it was not allowed to be exported, until the law was amended.
there has never been a intel desktop that has been so advanced for its time.
Macs were used primarily in graphics primarily not only because mac was pretty and easy to use, it was because the chip design and especially the altivec addition made calculation based functions much faster.
after all, digital graphics is just number crunching..
If you read the tech specs on the intel chips you will see that the error rate is higher than the G4 or G5, they are simply not as stable of a chip.
that being said, they were smart, give them credit, they understood that heat and performance per watt were going to be the driving factor and designed with that in mind.
Steve had no choice but to adopt the intel chips because the product map was going where apple needed to go.
personally, I mourn the passing of our G4/G5 machines.
but life is as it is so we will embrace intel.
and thank apple for giving us the best that technology has to offer at the time and change accordingly.
who knows what the future may bring?
we may see a G6 chip at sometime in the future if IBM gets off the stick.
remember, universal applications are just that intel/ppc
for now, our G4s serve us just fine for coding, web development (dreamweaver8), and as servers.
and I will admit, I lust after a macbook pro… anybody feeling philanthropic? : )

Thanks for clearing that up John. I’m on the designer side of computers not on the engineering or technical side so I appreciate the comment. Isn’t IBM the company that created the first pc? was that a motorola chip then?

Nate,

The term “IBM PC” and “PC architecture” refers to the Intel-based computers starting with the 8088 which ultimately led to the x86 chip family. IBM did not use an in-house chip for the “IBM PC” architecture, they used Intel just like they didn’t use an in-house OS, they used a CP/M ripoff called MS-DOS. The Mac’s that used IBM chips were the PowerPC based architecture which was a joint Motorola/IBM venture that is *not* analogous to the “IBM PC”. Mac’s have never been based upon the descendent of the original IBM PC architecture (until SteveJ switched to Intel chips last year).

Yeah its totally a choice thing. And you are right it is a tool. I use both at my office, and the macs are smoother to me running photoshop and other graphic programs… therefore I prefer the mac. But like you said… Nike Shoes dont make you a better baller

lol man this is so funny.
vel_unique i think you forget what site you are on. nik honed all his skill on pc. So the argument about mac makes you a better designer is a joke. It’s the person not the machine or software that determines that. Me personally I prefer pc, for cost, games, software. It’s a tool

First of All: Mac Chips were always made by IBM WHICH if you all remember is the company that created teh first modern day chip for PCs, and therefore it was always a PC based architecture. Apple chose to go with Intel for the new chips when after discussions with IBM, IBM was not able to create a chip at a low enough price to meet the demands that apple had. On a side note, The “G” series chips are the same chips that are used as the ECU in some brand cars, including Toyota. They control fuel injection, engien functions etc. The performance of the Hardware is always determined also by how the software controls it. IE PCs can’t even take ful advantage of dual core technology yet because of the way windows is engineered. There is no point in having dual or quad cores in pcs because there is no advantage gained. Mac OSX can take advantage of Dual Core and quad core techonology properly and efficiently, hence you actually do get an advantage.

Second of all: I have had a Dual Processor Power Mac G5 for the last 2.5 years, and have been using Adobe CS2 on it for that ENTIRE length of time. Not once did I ever get a crash, not once did they run slow and not once did I encounter a problem with any of the CS2 applications. in fact I could run 3 or 4 of them at the same time with no issues.

Third of All: I seem to recall that the Apple Cinema displays came out in like 1999, just after the G4 was released. So I don’t understand why you were told they are not compatible. There is I believe and adpater that you can purchase for them at any rate. You might not get the advantage of the digital display, but you still get the widescreen which in my mind every designer should try. It rocks.

Also on the debate: I’ve always looked at it this way: Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. For example, PC much better at gaming and flash development than Macs. macs much faster at Graphic based applications etc. I work on both at the office both machines have similar stats and the mac is much better with the adobe CS applications than the PC. Also more crashes on the PC etc. Also, a Ford does the same thing as a BMW so why buy a beamer?

SIDE NOTE: Mac users don’t necessarily think we are better we just like to piss PC users off by saying we are. :D

you are all close minded. You should do research BEFORE. Apple computers have teh multimedia capabilities because of how the hardware is designed, not the OS. Im not saying MacOSX is not great (its unix afterall, praise). The point is that apples (apple users) are so annoying saying all the time -this is a mac not pc- and they think they are like superior, the truth being apple switched to pc arch because of performance(have you ever thought why ppc has never been used for mathematical research?). All this seeds a new breed of technology ignorant self centered so called designer. Art direction is about how you conceptualize things, not how you use photoshop or how smooth is ur computer interface. I bet i beat you all at napkin drawing.

And finally just for the record, apple stopped sucking until they accepted PC arch in. Not cause it runs winblows now, but because of performance. Before that they just were overpriced pretty computers for most people.