Mac pro users - serious advise needed for purchase

[vreb]

Hi everyone. I am in dire need of some sound advise, preferably from anyone who has experience using a Power Mac and also a Pc too.

I have been a Windows user for many years and am just fed up with system crashes and shoddy operating systems that don't do what they say on the box! I have spent many months trying to find the perfect pc manufacturer to build me a top spec machine using the best components. However, there are so many choices and also so many limitations with Windows operating systems (Windows XP home, XP Pro, XP Pro 64-Bit, Vista home, Vista 64-Bit.

I have finally decided that I don't think its worth spending a few thousand pounds on a pc when all the operating systems seem to have so many issues and performance limitations. The 32-Bit systems can only handle upto 4Gb ram and in fact only use around 3Gb I think. The 64-Bit Windows systems are also full of problems and after posting numerous topics on many Pc forums about Windows 64-bit. Its still unclear as to which, if any current option is stable enough or likely to be supported long enough to use.

I work as a graphic designer and want the most power I can afford and the option to upgrade as much as I want. Is the grass really greener on the other side? I have a few questions which would really help me out as I need some re-assurance that I will see a massive performance increase by using a Mac.

1. Do Macs crash often or are they honestly much more stable than a decent Windows machine?

2. I am totally confused by the Mac specs when compared to a Pc's. It seem to me that you pay tons more for all hardware upgrades on a Mac than a pc. Is there a reason for this that can be justified such as serious performance increases? If you ran a top spec pc against say the basic power Mac, would it compare etc? (Sorry if these seem like daft questions)

3. I will be using the power Mac mainly for Cinema 4D and the Adobe Creative suite (Large photographic work). Does anyone have any recommendations or advise as to best set up and if I am likely to be able to see a performance increase against a top spec pc.

Thanks in advance and sorry it a long topic but as I am looking at throwing around £4000 at this thing then ANY help and advise would be greatly appreciated.

vreb

[DR]

1. Mine is rock stable
2. Don't pay Apple for hardware upgrades buy Ram from a 3rd party and do your own HDD Upgrade
3. Loads of RAM

[vreb]

Hi DR, thanks for that. As I am new to Mac's completely. How easy is it to upgrade yourself? Is it like a pc where you just open it up and slide in the ram cards etc. Also, how do you know what brand of ram u can use too please?

Cheers,

Jay

[Guy]

AFAIK its very easy to upgrade ram, just like normal pc's, pull out old and replace etc.

The new mac pro's use 800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory.

So as long as the memory conforms to this then you'll be fine.

[Lowe]

Working on a Mac is a dream - the OS is rock stable and even when it does crash, it does so in such a way that the app closes. It's very rare to get a complete hang, unless you're looking at dodgy hardware (faulty RAM etc).

Before DR swapped over I think it's fair to say he had his reservations and I tried my best to tell him it'd go smoothly, it is a bit of a leap of faith especially when you're talking that much money, but look at it this way... would Apple still be about if they were producing a poor product? My main PC at home is purely used for browsing and gaming now. Everything else, on the Mac.

[peterb]

Remember that Apple sees itself as a hardware vendor - proucts that need embedded software to run - but that shouldn't put you off - but it does help explain why Apple upgrades tend to be more expensive.

In recent years, the hardware has tended to converge with that used in the Windows/Intel platform - particularly now that Macs are using the Intel CPUs rather than Motorola (shame because in some ways the motorola CPUs had some good design features.

But the operating system software is rock solid - very easy and inuitive to use, and there are some good applications - particularly for what you want. With the latest Macs you can install Windows as well (but why would you want to ) so you can have the best of both worlds. However things like MS Office (with its truly horrible Word processor!) do come in Mac versions, and there is an Outlook-like mail program - Entourage - available - as well as the standard Mac e mai and office productivty applications.

While it is true that some native Mac applications that have been ported to Windows don't always run that well (Quicktime, and even I-tunes) on Windows, they are far far better on the Mac. However, if you are an online gamer, forget it - few of the mainstream 'hard core' games are supported on anything but Wondows.

I should caveat this by saying that I am not a Mac user myself (Linux) although some of my family are - and they are not disappointed. I don't think you will be either.