Hey. I am on the brink of sticking my fist through my lcd monitor because of the stuff windows does. I want to see if the grass is greener on the other side. I wish all those who have Macs share their insight on whether or not it is worth switching to. I run vista ultimate but in reality its an ultimate crap. So is leopard worth it. How is the performance of like 2.4 ghz 2 gb mac in like gaming and running the os under stress? Thanks a lot!

Speaking only for myself, You mileage may vary depending upon what you intend do with it.

I am a software developer, so I do lot of things...develop software, build web sites, create and edit graphics, edit movies, rip Music and Movies, some for sharing and some for personal use. Because some of my clients run their businesses on Windows, I also runs two versions of windows...usually at the same time. I run Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista Enterprise in virtual machines. Both of these machines are running Office, Project, Visual Studio (6x-2008 installed). In addition to these two, I also have 4 versions of FreeBSD, and 4 distros of Linus installed on virtual machines when the need arises.

Playing games is not really my thing, but perhaps someone else can advise you on that area.

My Current configuration is:

24" iMac 2.8Ghz Intel Duo Extreme
4GB RAM
500GB Internal HardDrive
3TB available in an external Drobo chassis.

I hope this answers your question. By the way, I ordered the iMac with the minimum RAM, knowing that I would use Kingston memory for the 4GB upgrade. The memory upgrade was $212.00 5 months ago, but today is only $104 from NewEgg.com.

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It is worth it in my opinion.
I recently installed a patched version of mac os x on my pc and I was well impressed with it. So impressed that I'm currently saving up to get a proper mac computer.

Before you go out and get a proper one though you might want to try it out on your pc to see if you like it as your experience may vary from other peoples experiences.

Sagar

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I love macs, but if your goal is playing games I wouldn't recommend it unless you're willing to spend a lot of money.

The good graphics cards come only in the Pro models (MacBook Pro & Mac Pro) and most games use D3D ayway. In my oppinion, buying a Mac Pro for gaming is a bit overkill (and expensive!). For almost half the money you can get a PC as fast as the Pro's. Yeah the game will crash now and then, but it's a price difference that wouldn't compensate for me. The MacBook Pro is an excellent product and not so expensive, but not everyone likes to use a laptop like if it was a desktop

For games I use a 360, so it's really a nobrainer for me.

Regarding the OS ... well everything works a bit different. You don't need to format and reinstall, no need to defrag, it doesn't get slower as months pass by, it always works like if you've just logged in, you don't have to care about viruses (some say you do, I've never had any), applications don't install themselves throwing junk in ten different places, you can forget about the .dll hell, don't care about saving your documents every 5 minutes, etc.

As long as you have some available RAM, it handles stress like if it was a Unix, maybe because it's based on FreeBSD. I sometimes find my self calling an exposé and lol about how many apps and stuff I forgot to close, just because I didn't notice any performance losses and rarely call the Dock.

Perhaps I'm a bit biased, but everytime I need to use a windows machine I have this feeling that the computer is kind of menacing, like if I'm forced to be cautious or else I'll start getting things crash or problems arising. Dunno how to explain it. I was happy with Windows when it was my main OS and defended it against Mac and Linuxheads who talked shit about it, but believe me, when you try OSX for two weeks you really get to understand computers in a different way. MANY things that I was forced to accept as common just don't happen.

If you take a look, everyone who owns a mac sounds like an Apple salesman. Some say we do that because we can't accept that what we bought is not as cool al expected. Try one and get your own feelings

Regards.

Nice Post DamOne!

Hear here!

Chris

Gaming in OS X is basically non-existent. So if you intend to game on a Mac you really should install Windows (I would go with XP Pro) via Boot Camp. That way your games will play just as they would on a similarly configured Windows-based PC. There are other options such as virtualization (VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop) or CrossOver Games.

But when you are not gaming in Windows, OS X is a very nice operating system. It depends somewhat on personal preference though. You should really try it yourself first. Apple's website has a lot of useful information for switchers so you may want to read though the following:

Apple - Support - Mac 101

Apple - Support - Switch 101

And these links from NBR also:

Mac Switcher's Guide - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion

Running Windows on a Mac: Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop & VMware Fusion - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion

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What are the requirements (speed/memory) for a PC to run OS X Sagar?

Can a tatty old laptop manage it? (AthlonXP 1600 cpu & 640mb ram - 32mb of which is shared graphics)

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If you have downloaded over 2GB and your ratio has dropped below 0.50 you will not be able to download.

Solutions

1) Leave a completed torrent in your client until you have uploaded enough data to bring your ratio up to 0.75
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Please let me know if my torrent or links are dead

Mac isn't worth it. It used to be better when they still used PowerPC CPUs, but now they're just glorified PCs with a large Steve-Jobs-bonus-check fee tacked on. While there are many games supporting OS X now, the majority still don't. OS X and Macs in general are a multimedia platform for Photoshop and related CS apps, movie editing, audio editing, and that kind of stuff. Even though the hardware is no longer the optimal for that usage (Altivec kicks the ass of MMX / SSE), that's what they've got. Gamers just aren't the target audience. If Vista really annoys you that much, try vLite, and remove most of the crap and it'll run much faster. Or try one of the many Linux distros. Or as a few others said, get a console dedicated to gaming. Would recommend PS3 if I had to pick one, since it seems Bluray has "won" the "format war". PS3 folding is also good

If you try Linux, try SuSE and Kubuntu. Being used to Windows you'll probably be more comfortable with KDE rather than GNOME. And if you know all the hardware in your computer well (including CPU and have looked at what type of sensor chip you have using CPU-Z), try Gentoo. It can be challenging to set up the first time, but you are forced to learn quite a bit in the process

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try it and see if you like it...

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Public Folder

I got my macbook in January and I don't use my acer lappy much anymore. It just sits there collecting dust mostly. I was initially scared about how expensive macs were when compared to pc. Whenever I played with a mac in the store, I didn't know much about how to use one and didn't see what the big deal was why people were making such a fuss about it. Plus I saw that when comparing linux and win32 to mac in the software realm, mac had the least of which to choose from. I grew tired of windows bluescreening and worrying about viruses. I had both xp and vista. I saw that mac had seemingly better pro-ish apps for production and editing.

One day, I had over a grand and it was burning a hole in my pocket, so I said, wtf, I'll give it a try. I bought the least expensive macbook and got 4gb of ram from newegg and a 250gb sata 2 hard drive and put it in myself. It worked great. Now I will say that I am somewhat hard on machines, meaning poking around and tweaking the os and sometimes hardware. I will learn by trial and error and making an os (unintentionally usually) fail or stress testing it. I mainly encode video with mine. I've re-installed os x about 6 times in the 3 months I've had it. Sometimes it was from something I did by removing something that shouldn't have been and couldn't figure out how to fix it.

Now like any new os, Leopard isn't perfect and rock solid. I mostly have kernel panics from my intel video card, but sometimes it's the wifi card. Sometimes it gives me the finger with my sprint wireless card. Flash based animation seems to be the thing that pisses it off the most. From what I've been reading online, Apple is aware of this and is in the process of releasing 10.5.3 update maybe in a month. It is supposedly addressing graphics issues too. I know that when tiger was out, it was probably flaky in the beginning, until the bugs got worked out. It's the nature of the beast.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my macbook. I love the fact that I can use it on the battery for almost 5 hours sometimes, depending on what I do. I compare that to the 1.5 hours if I was lucky on my win32 laptop. I also have the extended warranty and if I need anything, I can see a real person at an apple store. This is actually my second macbook, my first one had an amount of uneven screen illumination that was unacceptable to me. They switched it out for me, no problem.

There's countless other features that are standard and cool for macs. I love the built in dictionary and spell checker! That helps alot and I use it everyday. I bought an encase cover for mine to keep the scratches down and a laptop cooler pad (usb fans). It does get warm when the cpu is really chewing through something. The macbook pros get damn hot when the cpu cycles are consistently high.

My friend teases me all the time for going to the dark side. Owning a mac and the experience of it goes beyond explanation sometimes. It's one of those things that you just have to experience to understand. It's a solid built computer.

I also use an external dvd burner with it because all the built in ones are lame and slow. Plus, if you wore it out, it would be expensive and a pain in the ass to fix. External wears out, throw it away and get a new one. Cheap and easy!

Like someone else said, if you wanna play games, use a console. No compatibility issues and everything works better. I'm not much into games anymore, well maybe some frozen bubble sometimes.

It took me a week of using my mac and googling how to do stuff in order for me to become more familiar with it. Plus I got Amazon.com: Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual: David Pogue: Books and it is a great reference and highly rated.

I don't know of many people that bought a mac and regretted it. I'm saving up now for a 24-inch imac. Good luck

UPDATE
My kernel panics were from flaky ram (not the stock ram that came with the computer)

I can only confirm what many said here: it's worth it when it comes to computing, but not for gaming. Get a console for that.

I have never come across a disappointed Mac owner so far. My wife bought a 24" iMac last year, with the intention to use it for Windows [she was used to that and very conservative] and I could use the mac-part [dual core Intel, you know]. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she started Windows approx. 4, 5 times, and then stuck to Mac. The difference was amazing for her: fast start-up, no reminders 'Found new hardware' or virus-stuff: in fact you do not notice the OS working. You can focus on your applications. Indeed, she turned into some sort of a Mac sales-person now, demonstrating the thing to everybody. And now she bought me a MacMini, so we're not in eachothers way!!!

The screen quality of the iMac is excellent BTW, a lot better than most screens out there. We're also using it as a TV [24"], with the EyeTV hardware and software, for easy lossless digital recording, exporting to avi or whatever, and viewing of any digital or analog TVsignal out there, including HD broadcasts.

Indeed, Mac's are a bit more expensive. But do not forget, when you want to sell your old Mac, the remaining value is still high. Try selling a 5 year old PC, it's virtually without value. A Mac will still sell for about 300-400 $ !! Check this website: Mac2Sell - Guide to used Mac & iPod - Evaluation - Argus Mac, iPod, iPhone Occasion

And here are some cool things you can do with your Mac, but not on a PC: http://www.silvermac.com/2006/cool-things-you-can-do-on-mac/.


Good luck!

i would like to run mac os on a pc.....how do u do that? pm if you want

What more can I say? Macs are the most elegant computers on the planet. Switch and you'll be a much happier camper!

I fix pc's all day and come home and play on the mac. I will admit, the mac can't do everything a windows machine can, unless you use boot camp. The hardware is similar to any other pc vendor, except Apple actually makes the motherboards and the software - has all the drivers not conflicting with each other. So, if it doesn't work, Apple can only blame themself. Unlike Dell blaming Microsoft, or vise versa. I've played World of Warcraft on an original intel iMac - core duo. It works great. I also own a WII for the wife to "game" on. If you have a ps3 or xbox360, those to me are gaming machines. My dad uses a Mac and also plays Battlefield series games, Call of Duty, etc. While I agree that a lot of mac games take a while to get ported, unless made by Blizzard, only the good ones do.

Unless you are a computer geek and love to tinker with your OS or deal with viruses, spyware, malware, trojans; get a Mac. Vista has been good for Apple, check the stats.

Apple makes the best statements here... Apple - Get a Mac

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Enjoy and happy seeding.
~p0wermac

Sorry p0wermac, I can't agree with you.

The Mac OS is an extremely powerful platform hidden beneath that pretty GUI. On a Windows box, the OS is what it is, but on the Mac, you can upgrade and modify the way things work from a platform perspective. While the Mac OS comes out of the box, so to speak, with older versions of Apache, Python, sendmail, etc., you can upgrade, patch and modify most of the base OS stuff to your hearts content. In other words, there is enormous power available to you if you go have the desire to seek it out. The same cannot be said of the Windows platform, you are at the mercy of M$ to a large degree.

As for not being able to do something on a Mac, Nothing readily comes to mind. Now there might not be an application written to do something on the Mac platform, but that is hardly a fault of the OS itself. I am sure that you will find that as Apple gains more market share, the number of commerical applications will steadily increase.

I would agree that there have been far fewer security issues with the Mac and other Un*x variants, but that is due to the longevity of the Un*x platform and M$ stranglehold on the market. over time, that will change, you can count on it.

It is a strange phenomina that once someone makes the conversion to the Mac, most will, at some point, promise to never go back to Windows.