Help! Mac versus PC benchmarks needed
Hi Guys,
I could really do with your help here. we work for the largest organisation in our field and for too long have been marginalised by a rabid anti mac agenda by our IT head honchos. Recently an email has been doing the rounds from one of them to another outlining articles that "prove" the G5 lags way behind a dell especially in Photoshop. They aren;t interested in balance at all and it now looks like they are spreading cr*p to ultimatey rebuff any argument for keeping macs.
I desperately need links to as many articles and tests as possible that show how a G5 thrashes PCs to counter the ones they are trumping up.
can u help?
There is a war brewing. The casualties could be our macs.
I could really do with your help here. we work for the largest organisation in our field and for too long have been marginalised by a rabid anti mac agenda by our IT head honchos. Recently an email has been doing the rounds from one of them to another outlining articles that "prove" the G5 lags way behind a dell especially in Photoshop. They aren;t interested in balance at all and it now looks like they are spreading cr*p to ultimatey rebuff any argument for keeping macs.
I desperately need links to as many articles and tests as possible that show how a G5 thrashes PCs to counter the ones they are trumping up.
can u help?
There is a war brewing. The casualties could be our macs.
Comments
have all of your pc users run it. then ask them how much work they're getting done while they're patching, cleaning and fixing their shit ass boxes.
http://barefeats.com/pentium4.html
Originally posted by chych
http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/
http://barefeats.com/pentium4.html
Also, keep in mind that these tests were done while the 1.8 was still a single processor. If your company isn't interested in spending all the cash to get the 2.0 than you'll still have one blazing fast, Pentium killing computer with the dual 1.8.
Stupid . . . likeafox - do you have any articles backing up those figures you quoted - it would really help in a meeting. The one big problem we have with figures and quotes is that so much mac stuff is US biased (not suprisingly as apple is american!). when we use them in our arguments we are told that its of no relevance to us what americans get up to whereupon they will then go on to back up their arguments using figures from amercian research!!
I agree with you about the last part. However, we are an edu outfit (although we deal in some heavy duty multimedia, DV, animation etc) and when it comes to it the powers that be don't care about the institution, the students, education or anythining else. the only way to beat them is to provide hard cold facts that would put them in a difficult situation publicly if they were to go against.
Altivec2.0 - I've been to apple's site but since the rumpus over the G5 claims (both the pc press screaming that apple lied about their stats and the recent very publicised fact that apple had their G5 ad banned on uk tv) mean that anything that isn't independant will just be rubbished.
kepp it coming guys!
the problems people had with their stats it turns out really weren't a problem. certain features being turned off etc. actually made the PC's perform better, not worse. (as doubters initially thought)
you could also look into the consistant findings from Gartner that Macs cost significantly less over a 2+ year period than PC's do. i would also find out how much your IT folks have spent and continue to spend on firewalls, patching, antivirus software and fixing machines with virus problems. as for their obsession with speed, do they realize that a computer's CPU is used maybe 2% of the time for 99% of the people out there?
if you're doing heavy DV work though, have your own real backoff. if they really think their PC's are faster, have them buy one Mac. get a large DV file, and work on it in Final Cut Express, and whatever app. they want on their PC. do a lot of stuff to it. i promise you a dual 1.8 or 2.0 will bake whatever P4 based machine they bring out.
the stats comparing the Adobe DV program (whatever it was) was stupid. it's a classic app running in classic mode that is pretty much a crappy app anyway. if you're going to be using a Mac, you should use the tools that Mac users have available to them.
http://www.macminute.com/2003/09/22/creativeshare
However, I repeat that getting into the benchmark game is playing by their rules. You're implicitly admitting that being virus-ridden and difficult to use is OK as long as you are 2% faster or 3% cheaper (totally ignoring TCO, of course).
Anyone coming out strongly against Macs these days is marking themselves out as an idiot. Don't get sucked into a pointless argument.
[i]Originally posted by alcimedes\\the stats comparing the Adobe DV program (whatever it was) was stupid. it's a classic app running in classic mode that is pretty much a crappy app anyway.
Adobe's app is called Premiere. Version 6.5 will run in X, but it's pretty slow, and for me it crashes left and right. In 9 however it cooks along nicely. However it was installed in 9 and that probably has something to do with it. Soon I'm going to get Final Cut express with my new iBook so I can have a legitimate, supported editor and stop worrying about crashes.
I am a broadcasting student and I did some stuff with Premiere 6 on a 750Mhz AMD K-7 PC with 768 megs. It was horrid but I didn't know any better. Later when I got my G3 450 and the Mac version of Premiere 6 I learned how a computer is supposed to run. PC's may have higher clock rates and render scene x in x.5 seconds faster, but there's no substitute for an uninterrupted workflow, which often translates to more productivity. More productivity is all the "faster" your higher-ups are going to care about. If you can get that through the wall of techno-babble warheads your IT guys are going to throw at them, you should be OK. My deptartment of the University has the friendliest staff on campus. Everyone is more or less in a good mood and they all use computers from a certain fruit company.
Originally posted by alcimedes
the stats comparing the Adobe DV program (whatever it was) was stupid. it's a classic app running in classic mode that is pretty much a crappy app anyway. if you're going to be using a Mac, you should use the tools that Mac users have available to them.
I completely agree. They should have used Avid Xpress. (I saw one benchmark with Avid, and the Powermac kicked ass)
I'll tell you a story.
Our company used to be 100% PC based (not counting the servers)
Guys in marketing/graphics always wanted macs, but the guy who was in charge wasn't approving any of that. he got fired and i was given his job.
Marketing got macs, even though i never had a chance to play with them.
In 4 years i NEVER had a major problem with those macs, small stuff, like printer related problems, scanner/osx issues, but nothing more, these things just keep on going. solid.
In the meantime i got myself a powerbook and couldn't be happier.
One of our managers is crazy about 'the latest gadgets', He's was lugging around compaq tablet, cell phone, pda, blackberry, external CD module for that tablet, and to make it all work and sync was a nightmare, i had to see him few times a week because something was acting up...
It took him 20 minutes in the morning to set it all up, connect the wires, chargers, cradles, what a pain in the a**.
And you know what, now this biggest pc fan is using a powerbook and a P800.
He's a happiest guy alive. seriously, no complaints whatsoever.
benchmarks while somehow important are not the only criteria when choosing a computer, we are not machines, if you think a 20% faster computer will make you more productive, you better think again.
:-)
Unless you are using your computer as a rendering machine, or other application when it's cpu is always busy crunching data, speed is not that relevant. The way you work with a computer can make a huge difference, knowing keyboard shortcuts, will make you work with your comp faster than working on faster computer.
in my case mac just 'suits me', it 'feels right', it's hard to explain, guys around here know what i'm talking about.
See, on a pc you hope that your task will get completed, on a mac you don't think about it. Every time i put my powerbook to sleep i wait to see if it's really sleeping, a pc habit i can't get rid of.
good luck
"Hey, we can continue to buy 10 Powermacs running apple's proprietry system, with no hardware, software that compatible and with an IT management nightmare. . . OR . . .for the same money we could equip 3 suites of High End Pcs that compliment the windows presence we already have and can manage. After all, the old arguments about macs being better for design are no longer true. We only have to look at apple's sales figures in education and these benchmarks that prove that Pcs are faster"
It would be laughable if only it were so serious right now. Thy have no idea and interest at all - its all about appearing to make savings/cuts in the so called drive for efficiency with tax payers money. Its not even as if our resignations would have an effect. they can always find second rate staff who would be willing to put up with it since they really don't know what they're talking about anyway.
They're still running (and fully supporting) DTP courses on pcs using Publisher (a mac paint type program) in the It department and have the gall to call it advanced graphics!!!! The students really suffer as they get no skills valuable to them at all. We've tried to get businesses to come in and talk to them but the managment simply trot out companies who're run by people who've dabbled in design on their home Pcs and have set up a local print shop to refute us!!
Apple don't seem to want to get too involved if it involves their name which is a shame since if we lost the macs they would be down over 500 units in sales plus all the associated software and gizmos
Most of these guys are trained on PCs, they never worked/owned a mac, PC is something they know.
They laugh at linux, open source is a foreign concept, and just patching windows is something perceived as a fact of 'computing life'.
As long as users won't have a choice of tools they want to use, and here i mean a professional individual, not a secretary checking out horoscopes on the net, macs won't do too good in large organizations, either that or their IT staff has to be better and start looking around.
Personally i can't understand how it makes sense to run windows server, and pay for licenses when you can achieve the same with linux, or apple for a LOT less.
How is a cost of maintaining a PC any less of a cost of maintaining a mac?
Usually PCs are replaced more often than macs, look how many older macs are still around because there's nothing wrong with them, they get the job done.
I think you have a better chance of success, if you can present how more efficient macs are, rather than getting into benchmarks,
seriously though if these guys have their minds already set-up, you don't stand a chance.