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The PC is interesting again

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Re: The PC is interesting again

#51

Post by bluedino »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39
bluedino wrote: post #24

Are we in a time machine? Lenovo released the Yoga, the first convertible that you could put in tent mode or tablet mode, and Microsoft released the Surface, back in 2012 . Intel announced the Ultrabook in 2011 . Today you have the same things. They've been revised and improved in the areas of screen, battery life, graphics performance, switching from HDD to SSD, but it's all been incremental. >> 2-IN-1S SUCCEEDED BE…

Maybe they are starting to get good and suck less? The first yoga and surfaces aren't exactly held up as very successful, but we seem to be turning a corner...finally. Sometimes incremental improvement over a few years is all that is needed to push something over the edge of success. Course, some ideas are probably going nowhere even with incremental improvement.

>> Sometimes incremental improvement over a few years is all that is needed to push something over the edge of success.

Very true, even the Verge would admin the MacBook Air went from a novelty item to one of the best laptops in 2-3 years worth of improvements.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#52

Post by bhauer »

freehunter wrote: post #28
0x0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. In 2013, macs were slightly more expensive than a comparable PC spec-wise, but still a fairly good deal. In 2016, the prices appear to have almost doubled and is totally unreasonable, while the specs are... malnourished. They even took away the escape key and the magsafe port. :(

According to their Amazon product page, the XPS 13 has a 2.5Ghz i5 and 8GB of RAM. It has a 256GB SSD and a 3000x1800 screen. It's selling for $1,350, original price $1,799. The 13" MacBook with touchbar has a 2.9Ghz i5 with 8GB of RAM. It has a 256GB SSD and a 2560x1600 screen. It's selling for $1,699, original price $1,799. I know people love to complain about the new MacBook and believe me, I have some complaints…

This thread was/is about desktop computers—workstations or gaming PCs, at least up to the root comment about an i7-6700K.

Apple's workstation and gaming machine offerings are widely acknowledged to be significantly under-powered and over-priced.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#53

Post by kfrz »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35
kfrz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet with a bit of deal scouring one could find a 5k panel that is comparable but not quite as good. The opportunity cost of using that monitor on any other computer rather than just the one mac? Priceless. Fuck Apple, they sell you on the brand not the product they just happen to have good products.

I love my iMac not because if any brand cachet, but I program a lot and love crisp typography on the screen. It is quite simple, you don't have to buy one, no it isn't a gaming machine. No reason to fuck Apple about it.

It would seem you love things that aren't exclusive to Apple, crisp fonts and development friendly ecosystem. I make my living writing code and I never game these days so I feel you! I say fuck apple because they know they have a huge market and they can exploit it, for money and not for the sake of the user. There are other ethical reasons to dislike the company but those are my own so idc much what others think there I just say fuck apple since they went and removed the decision making process and told me what I wanted. I had to go find what I wanted instead. Obviously to each their own I'm just spitting my thoughts as per the definition of a comment.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#54

Post by Taek »

freehunter wrote: post #14
zouhair wrote: post #8

When did they stop being interesting?

I would actually argue that this is the least interesting that PCs have ever been. The only thing they're doing that's interesting is copying features from more interesting form factors like tablets and cell phones. The PC (laptop/desktop, doesn't matter the OS) is complete. This years fastest processor is exactly the same speed as last year. This years video card plays the same games as last year. What interesting t…

I disagree. Good VR needs a good video card, and the recent 1080 from Nvidia is a strong improvement to the previous generation. You will notice a difference.

Have you tried a Vive? GearVR vs Vive is like 2012 Chromebook vs modern MacBook pro. You need a modern desktop to drive the Vive. And I feel like a lot of people who say VR doesn't excite them haven't tried the Vive, it's much more exciting than any other product on the market.

SSDs are getting much faster. 4K monitors are cheaper, and better. If you don't game, modern processors can drive multiple 4K monitors.

Running a Bitcoin full node on a desktop is reasonable, running it on a laptop is noticeably detrimental. You need too much juice. Plus the 100GB hurts a lot more on a laptop, where in a desktop you can get 5TB for $100 during sales. Torrenting, Tor nodes, media centers, all things that don't work as well on laptops as they do on desktops.

As a software developer I can very confidently say that my desktop is much better for development than my laptop. Both the processor and the SSD make a huge difference.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#55

Post by pier25 »

delegate wrote: post #7

Yep. Yesterday was the first time in many years when I decided to check out how much a good gaming PC would cost me today. The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). Add a €360 27" Monitor and the total goes to € 1875. Let's round that up to €2000. A similarly powered iMac (i7, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and an inferior Radeon R9 M395X) costs exactly:…

I have a number of PCs and Macs at home (even a Sierra hackintosh) and I just prefer working on macOS.

I tried switching to Windows for work but ultimately I need iOS and macOS compilation and I also miss the macOS ecosystem too much (Alfred, Karabiner, BetterTouchTool, iTerm, etc). Also Windows is plagued by legacy software, which is not an absolute deal breaker but who prefers working with ugly outdated software?

If you have big hardware requirements moving to Windows or Linux is a no brainer. Even when money is not an issue, with Apple you are stuck with decrepit AMD GPUs.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#56

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kfrz wrote: post #53
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my iMac not because if any brand cachet, but I program a lot and love crisp typography on the screen. It is quite simple, you don't have to buy one, no it isn't a gaming machine. No reason to fuck Apple about it.

It would seem you love things that aren't exclusive to Apple, crisp fonts and development friendly ecosystem. I make my living writing code and I never game these days so I feel you! I say fuck apple because they know they have a huge market and they can exploit it, for money and not for the sake of the user. There are other ethical reasons to dislike the company but those are my own so idc much what others think the…

You really really don't have to buy from Apple if you don't want to. I'm considering a surfacebook for my next laptop, and the Surface Studio would be a really cool (but expensive) way of replacing my iMac. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on computers, if they work for you great! If not, there is plenty of competition.

They do seem to still have a monopoly on decent track pads, perhaps we should get the FTC and DOJ involved :).

Re: The PC is interesting again

#58

Post by 0x0 »

freehunter wrote: post #28
0x0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. In 2013, macs were slightly more expensive than a comparable PC spec-wise, but still a fairly good deal. In 2016, the prices appear to have almost doubled and is totally unreasonable, while the specs are... malnourished. They even took away the escape key and the magsafe port. :(

According to their Amazon product page, the XPS 13 has a 2.5Ghz i5 and 8GB of RAM. It has a 256GB SSD and a 3000x1800 screen. It's selling for $1,350, original price $1,799. The 13" MacBook with touchbar has a 2.9Ghz i5 with 8GB of RAM. It has a 256GB SSD and a 2560x1600 screen. It's selling for $1,699, original price $1,799. I know people love to complain about the new MacBook and believe me, I have some complaints…

I forgot to specify I'm looking at non-US numbers. Apple's been hiking foreign market prices quite a bit. Also, the markup gets worse when you venture into higher specced builds.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#59

Post by belltaco »

snvzz wrote: post #26
delegate wrote: post #7

Yep. Yesterday was the first time in many years when I decided to check out how much a good gaming PC would cost me today. The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). Add a €360 27" Monitor and the total goes to € 1875. Let's round that up to €2000. A similarly powered iMac (i7, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and an inferior Radeon R9 M395X) costs exactly:…

> The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). That's not a gaming pc. That looks more like a gaming-capable Workstation. Absolutely overkill CPU (games are seldom cpu bound), and too much RAM (games don't care). I suggest a glance at Logical Increments [0], which is definitely biased towards gaming, to see what you can do at a given price point.…

Visual Studio, or any kind of VM will easily chew through the high end CPU and RAM.
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