Mac or PC: Which do you use?

NeuronFX said
Absolutely agree with you felt! I can’t imagine myself doing complex 3D on a Mac, its too limited in terms of upgrades. Apart from the Apple’s high price tag, there’s an other problem. They don’t have a workstation powerful enough to meet the demands of large studios. Most animation, visual effects studios work on HP Workstations since they are very customizable and can get very serious!

Mac Pros are pretty upgradeable. They have upto 12 CPU cores (multi-threaded), four HD slots, 64GB max RAM IIRC , and plenty of PCI slots so double GPU / RAID etc. no problem. Very easy to service too. Replacing motherboard / processors definitely not worth it… but that’s pretty much my opinion with a PC too. Out of interest, what would be your idea of a workstation powerful enough for a large studio? The large studios I’ve worked in have tended to rely on the power of render farms rather than individual workstations.

I think the big problem with Mac Pro for now is that Apple hasn’t released a Mac Pro for quite some time (and they never give anything away, which is annoying if you’re trying to plan a hardware sepnd). It’s okay for the time being, but in a world where the fastest machines are now hooked up with Sata III / Thunderbolt /USB III etc. the Mac Pro range is starting to look a tad out of date.

I’m present in both worlds, although I really enjoy working with Apple at work. Last year I bought a PC, it was a price issue otherwise I would have bought an iMac. But for me the choice is simple, Apple.

I think we should avoid gross characterisations and sweeping statements about the type of people who use a certain brand and stick to the pros and cons of the technology itself. Your post above will offend people, I guarantee…. and that’s how flame wars start.

Speaking for myself – I know very well how to take a computer apart and put it back together (Macs and PCs). I can install software, use the terminal bash, write software even. But I choose to use Mac, not because I’m a technically incapable, ruthless and unethical colonialist who likes to show off with swish looking consumer gizmos, but because I prefer the OS.

Again did not wanted to offend anyone and I actually heard that same reasone “dont care about hardware just want a computer” statement from one widely known motion graphic designer so I guessed that my logic was ok.

Again sorry I thought that it will not start flame war.

And do not want to cross swords with you again felt, one time was enough for both of us.

And pls remove my post because you are right it might begin unnecessary flame war.

ivezicm said

Again did not wanted to offend anyone and I actually heard that same reasone “dont care about hardware just want a computer” statement from one widely known motion graphic designer so I guessed that my logic was ok.

Again sorry I thought that it will not start flame war.

And do not want to cross swords with you again felt, one time was enough for both of us.

And pls remove my post because you are right it might begin unnecessary flame war.

Fear you my mighty sword, Ivezicm?

You can hide the comment yourself if you want to by clicking Flag For Staff Reply.

• flag for staff reply – Have done it

• Fear you my mighty sword, Ivezicm? – oh so you do like to take out your sword and swish with it? nice to know that

ivezicm said
* flag for staff reply – Have done it * Fear you my mighty sword, Ivezicm? – oh so you do like to take out your sword and swish with it? nice to know that

Actually, I think it might have been Report that you needed to hit! I did it for you.

felt_tips said
Mac Pros are pretty upgradeable. They have upto 12 CPU cores (multi-threaded), four HD slots, 64GB max RAM IIRC , and plenty of PCI slots so double GPU / RAID etc. no problem. Very easy to service too. Replacing motherboard / processors definitely not worth it… but that’s pretty much my opinion with a PC too. Out of interest, what would be your idea of a workstation powerful enough for a large studio? The large studios I’ve worked in have tended to rely on the power of render farms rather than individual workstations.

HP can support up to 512gb of memory and up to 16 cores on the HP Z820 .

I’m not really talking about rendering cause that’s usually done in rendering farms as you said, as its much cheaper. I’m talking about more heavy stuff that requires very fast processing like real time visualization, raytracing, etc. Today with 3D and huge resolutions you need loads of power. HP workstations are also built and tested for applications like maya, so I think they’re more stable for big studios also.

I never worked with large studios, so I’m just guessing around here, but I think that Mac is a bit restricted for certain projects.

My daily working machine is a Mac but final rendering will be made on a PC because it renders much more faster. Unfortunately.

So basically, big majority of authors are on PC, but big majority of them would like to work on Mac. I’ll believe myself when I say that it’s because of operating system, and not because of Mac’s design or Apple’s brand. So, if you really want it for it’s great OS (if someone told me few years ago that I’ll dump Windows, I would have said to him that he’s crazy), there is always a solution – power and lower price of components, and awesome and cheap Mac OS X . Hackintosh community is really big and any problem that you encounter during installation will be resolved on their great forum. It’s totally legal, so join flashato and me if you’re out of budget and if you’re not into Mac’s just for bragging.