PC vs MAC

[thecustomsignshop]

Hey all... Has anyone ever compaired (or uses)the new MAC Pro (D Quad Intel Proc.) running Windows XP to PC's running XP, similar configurations?

I am not happy with the speed of my Dells when doing 3d and CAD work. (Artcam, Visual Mill V5 and TC11)

I'm kind of leaning torwards MAC since it is designed for graphics, but I need some advise. (It will be my first MAC.) Keep in mind, I will not be running a shopbot with it, only creating the part files.

Here is what I have learned.... Is this correct?

MAC is compatable with XP on networks, files etc..

MAC runs XP best in a dual boot mode. I think they call is boot camp.

The upgrades for the pro series G5 is simple and you can run hardware from PC's (Hard drives, etc..)

Even running XP, macs are more reliable and stable.

Tried Vista, got to tell you, was not impressed. Another reason I'm looking at MACs.

Help please.

[waynelocke]

The relative speed of the Mac compared to the Dells will depend on the speeds of the prcocessors among other things. I love Macs and do not want to start a Pc Mac war but you should be able to do what you want. Boot Camp requires you to reboot into Mac or XP, however, there is a program called Parallels (www.parallels.com/ (http://www.parallels.com/)) which lets you run both operating systems at the same time without rebooting. Networking is pretty seamless between Macs and PC's and, if you keep all of your emailing and surfing on the Mac, your virus worries can almost disappear. OSX is real stable and adding hardware is generally a snap...generally.
Wayne

[robredick]

I have a MacBook Pro laptop with a 2G Daul Core & a Dell tower with a 3G Pentium 4. The Mac runs Windows faster & is way more stable. It is all about Bus Speed & the NON generic hardware that Mac's use. You can do most things with Sketchup & take a DXF to MasterCam, ArtCam, Autocad, etc. The best thing to do is to format the Windows partition with FAT32 (in BootCamp) so that it shows up on the Mac desktop and you can drop files back & forth while booted in OSX. Do NOT try Virtual PC. It is a huge mess. Yes, I hate Microsoft. However, if you try Apple for an extended period, you will understand.

[thecustomsignshop]

Rob, stability is key and I have heard from many people. Thank for the advise on VPC, did not know that.

Wayne, I'll check that out.

General question, does Parallels and the FAT32 partition run under a MAC shell? Does this add overhead in processing? Is that even a issue with MACs?

Does MAC support NTFS or is that a bad idea?

[nepenthes]

I just bought myself a MacBook and am running Parallels. I haven't had much time to play around with it yet but I set up a second monitor to it and placed Windows on one monitor and OSX on the other. It is great moving from one environment to the other unencumbered.

[robertj]

I am glad to here this. I am on the edge of switching to the Mac side. I am sick of Vista being shoved down my throat. I am not going to spend a couple grand to upgrade 25k worth of software just to buy a new laptop.

[jeffreymcgrew]

Jim, I've been using Parallels for a while now, and can answer some of your questions:

Parallels is a stand-alone Mac application, when you 'install' Windows using it what it's really doing is creating an Windows Image, or in other words a virtual copy of Windows that all lives within a single file. For example, I needed to move my Windows setup to another Mac, and all I needed to do was copy that image file and start up Parallels and everything was exactly the same. Parallels even has a tool that lets you create your image from an old Windows machine, so that you can migrate pretty easily from your old computer.

Now, one thing about this image, is that the Mac sees it as one big file that Parallel 'runs' if you will. So you can't browse your Windows folders that are in that image from the Mac side of things.

About the whole FAT32 question, well, if you install Boot Camp on your Mac, it will repartition your drive (without loosing anything) and let you make a Windows partition, either FAT32 or NTFS. Then it lets you install Windows on that partition, and when you boot you can choose which one, Windows or OS X, you want to use. This tool is free, comes from Apple. Once you've done this you can access that partition when you're running OS X (it just appears as another drive) and if it's FAT32 you can write to it, if it's NTFS you can read it but not write IIRC.

You can also install Boot Camp on your Mac, install Windows there, and then have Parallels run THAT instead. This does give you the ability to pull files directly from your Windows stuff, and is nice for when you do boot straight into Windows it's the same setup as when you're running Parallels in OS X.

As for adding overhead, it really doesn't add much at all; Parallels is using special hooks in the new Intel processors that let it run the two OS'es side by side at near full speed. The only speed hit you'll have is that Parallels currently doesn't support 3D acceleration for graphics. But the next version, which comes out in like a week or something, will, so that's soon to be moot.

I've found that most of the stuff I use is just as fast, and way more stable, when run under Parallels then Windows via Boot Camp on the same Mac.

It sounds confusing, but once you work with Parallels a little bit it's really not at all hard.