Why is Mac so much less machine?

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Why is it that Mac's require less hardware to run better than Windows? Here's the specs of a TOTL iMac:



20-inch widescreen LCD

1.25GHz PowerPC G4

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra

64MB DDR video memory

256MB DDR333 SDRAM

80GB Ultra ATA hard drive

SuperDrive

Apple Pro Speakers

AirPort Extreme Ready

Bluetooth Option



And here's mine:



17-inch LCD

2.52 GHz

?

?

1GB RAM

120GB HD

CD-ROM Drive

CD/DVD-R/W Drive

Altec Lansing Speakers (5 Regular, one Subwoofer)

Network Ready

?



And yet it still runs like crap. It can't be all Window's fault, can it?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    whisperwhisper Posts: 735member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by psgamer0921

    Why is it that Mac's require less hardware to run better than Windows? Here's the specs of a TOTL iMac:



    20-inch widescreen LCD

    1.25GHz PowerPC G4

    NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra

    64MB DDR video memory

    256MB DDR333 SDRAM

    80GB Ultra ATA hard drive

    SuperDrive

    Apple Pro Speakers

    AirPort Extreme Ready

    Bluetooth Option



    And here's mine:



    17-inch LCD

    2.52 GHz

    ?

    ?

    1GB RAM

    120GB HD

    CD-ROM Drive

    CD/DVD-R/W Drive

    Altec Lansing Speakers (5 Regular, one Subwoofer)

    Network Ready

    ?



    And yet it still runs like crap. It can't be all Window's fault, can it?




    Sure it can.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    evoevo Posts: 198member
    How is Windows "running like crap"?
  • Reply 3 of 17
    If you mean slow, make sure you are running Adaware and perhaps Spybot. Adaware can be obtained from lavasoft.com. But that is all the advice I have to provide, let us know what you mean by "runs like crap". I have worked on many windows boxes where families had them connected to a cable modem w/o a firewall and they got loaded with spyware. But still, Macs sure run great and I love mine.
  • Reply 4 of 17
    dobbydobby Posts: 797member
    Which OS are you using. Before W2K everything was pretty shite. XP really is quite good (not that I'm advocating it mind you!) and snapping. The eye candy is a bit painful but it cannot be compared to Win98/ME and the likes (except for security flaws!).



    Try Fedora on a PC and you'll love it.



    Dobby.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Fedora?



    The graphics of WinXP are sterile, yes, but at least they're a step up from 2000.



    The problem with Windows, though, is that it's an exceedingly large monolithic kernel maintained by coders who come out of college as CS prima donnas, and are difficult to manage.
  • Reply 6 of 17
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    Fedora is a Linux distribution. It's related to RedHat.
  • Reply 7 of 17
    dfryerdfryer Posts: 140member
    You haven't posted your graphics card, and that can make a huge difference with game performance (especially if that's the one thing slowing you down). Clock for clock, the G4's at least *used* to be faster per Ghz than the pentiums, although the gap has narrowed significantly. XP and Mac OS X are about the same for resource hogginess, except OS X seems a little smoother in constrained conditions.
  • Reply 8 of 17
    psgamer0921psgamer0921 Posts: 393member
    Even after I run Ad-aware and Spybot, PS and other programs take a lot longer to open up like they used to. But my main question is, Why can Macs be so much better than Windows with almost half the hardware? Is Windows just more hardware intensive?
  • Reply 9 of 17
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Well, Apple was kind of forced into becoming very good at making efficient code. While it's arguable that their OS and APIs make for a more efficient use of their resources too, if MS really had to get more mileage out of their OS, they would do a better job at it than now anyway.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    majormattmajormatt Posts: 1,077member
    PSGAMER, that iMac is close to being updated, it was last updated on Nov 2003! Apple is notorious for releasing great updates then letting them stagnate. So as long as you keep up, you can get a good value. Most of us know when to buy, i.e. no one on these boards would buy a G5 tower now.



    I know any Mac should be compared to any PC at any time, it it is a poor excuse to say "they're being updated soon" but I wanted to let you know.



    The updates are already twenty days overdue!
  • Reply 11 of 17
    mmmpiemmmpie Posts: 628member
    Defrag your drive. I see windows machines with 50%+ fragmentation quite regularly.



    Check to see if you are using swap, my box regularly runs at triple RAM size for active VM ( 768ram, 2gb page file ). When this happens your system will crawl. If so, get more RAM/stop whatever you are doing.



    Programs like PS eat memory for breakfast.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    joeyjoey Posts: 236member
    Lets not forget that the architecture of the processors Intel/AMD/G4 are different also. Intel did the numbers game for years... and still does with desktop models. They've had to backpedal and explain that the MHz aren't everything now that their Centrino Pentium M notebooks are out... all at much lower MHz then the previous Pentium notebooks.. but they out perform them.



    The code in OS X is much cleaner than Windows. After all... OS X has only been around for a few years (albeit based on an OS a bit older than that). There's so much crap in the Windows kernel now... I doubt anyone knows what some of it is or does... so they just leave it there. Microsoft would need to do what Apple did and come out with a ground up new OS. And anything new from Microsoft is just so chock full of proprietary this, DRM that, activation this, copy protection that... that you wouldn't want it anyway.



    Your PC should be running smoothly with the specs you provided. Do you have these performace problems in general... when running certain applications? What apps do you have running on start up?
  • Reply 13 of 17
    mattjohndrowmattjohndrow Posts: 1,618member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Joey

    They've had to backpedal and explain that the MHz aren't everything now that their Centrino Pentium M notebooks are out... all at much lower MHz then the previous Pentium notebooks.. but they out perform them.





    are you serious????? that's awesome!!!!!! holy shit, that is so damn funny!
  • Reply 14 of 17
    mmmpiemmmpie Posts: 628member
    Totally serious. Intel will be moving forward with their Pentium M ( a Pentium III on a Pentium IV bus ) architecture, going dual core for desktops.



    As part of this whole move they recently changed from using family numbers ( PIII, PIV etc ) with clock speed, to using a model number.

    Celerons are the 300 series, all the way up to Pentium Ms, which are the 700 series. Just lke buying a BMW
  • Reply 15 of 17
    soiresoire Posts: 5member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mmmpie

    Defrag your drive. I see windows machines with 50%+ fragmentation quite regularly.



    Check to see if you are using swap, my box regularly runs at triple RAM size for active VM ( 768ram, 2gb page file ). When this happens your system will crawl. If so, get more RAM/stop whatever you are doing.



    Programs like PS eat memory for breakfast.






    Now why is it Macs don't require disk defragging and other maintenance that PCs require?



    Is there any maintenance for macs that I should know about?
  • Reply 16 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Soire

    Now why is it Macs don't require disk defragging and other maintenance that PCs require?



    Is there any maintenance for macs that I should know about?




    Go to disk utility, select your hard drive and repair disk permissions. I do this once a week but suggest you do it at least once a month.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    mmmpiemmmpie Posts: 628member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Soire

    Now why is it Macs don't require disk defragging and other maintenance that PCs require?



    Is there any maintenance for macs that I should know about?




    NT doesnt seem to have very good placement algorithms when saving to disk. I was checking out a machine last night, only a couple of months old, HD is half full ( 40 out of 80 ), and it has 35% fragmentation. Thats just nuts.



    If you leave your Mac on overnight ( but not asleep ) it will run regular tasks to tidy up things like log files. If you dont then you'll need to do it manually. Cocktail [?] is one program to help with this.



    OS X looks like it has good file placement, and Panther has automatic defragging, so it doesnt seem to be a big issue.



    Finally, OS X runs well on slow machines because there arent any faster machines for the developers to use. You'll note that it is RAM hungry, because it was feasible for slow macs to have lots of RAM. If Apple had been behind on the RAM game as well OS X would run a lot leaner.



    Be had an interesting policy when they were developing BeOS. Developers had low end machines, rather than the fastest mostest hardware. So that the system would be optimised to run well with less RAM and slower cpus. It really paid off ( well, except for them going out of business, but really good for users ).
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