PC vs MAC

[gachilleos]

Hi All,

I need some help deciding on what i need/should get for work. I need a desktop or laptop with the capacity for CAD software to design buildings/floor plans etc for surveying. I have always used a pc/laptop but have been recommended to get a MAC for my needs. I want something that is powerful enough to open various apps/software at the same time, loads of memory and storage. And good graphics (for the occasional gaming ). Price wise I wouldn't mind spending up to £2000ish.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hi All,

I need some help deciding on what i need/should get for work. I need a desktop or laptop with the capacity for CAD software to design buildings/floor plans etc for surveying. I have always used a pc/laptop but have been recommended to get a MAC for my needs. I want something that is powerful enough to open various apps/software at the same time, loads of memory and storage. And good graphics (for the occasional gaming ). Price wise I wouldn't mind spending up to £2000ish.

You won't get good graphics on a Mac, they don't do decent graphics except the Mac Pro which would be a lot more than your budget. I would say get a windows based one, you need to decide on desktop vs laptop. You could probably squeeze in a high end octane for that budget which is desktop graphics and processor in a laptop.

Benefits of a desktop is they're cheaper and you can upgrade in the future and add bits.

 

[SlimCini]

You could get an absolute beast of a desktop PC (which I assume you'd need peripherals for?) without going near your budget. For a mac or laptop you'd need to spend far more to even get close to this level of performance.

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE S BLACK GAMING CASE (Window)
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-6700k Quad Core (4.00GHz @ upto MAX 4.60GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® Z170-P: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
32GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2666MHz (4 x 8GB Kit)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1070 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Hard Disk
2TB WD BLACK 3.5" WD2003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG SM951 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2150MB/R, 1260MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£69)
Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-D15S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler (£69)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Monitor
AOC 21.5" E2270SWDN LED Monitor. 1920 x 1080, 5MS (£75)
Keyboard & Mouse
PCS S300 USB MEDIA KEYBOARD (£5)
Mouse
PCS S300 USB OPTICAL MOUSE (£2)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,614.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-skylake-overclocked/SpUBNVGwkj/

 

[Oussebon]

A point well made Though it'd be a shame to pair a build like that with a very basic monitor, perhaps at least an AOC i2369vm for the 23" IPS screen

 

[Scott]

The review spec Octane II Pro is £1900. Comes with a fair few options that would normally push the build past £2000. Laptop wise I don't think you could beat it.

 

[mdwh]

All the mainstream CAD software (from low end to high end) is available on Windows (with some notable examples being Windows only), I can't see the benefit of OS X here.

Windows will also win for gaming.

And buy from PCS, you'll have lots of options for customising a high end model, be it desktop or laptop

 

[cemerson22]

Mac

 

[Stephen M]

I would go for the Windows over a Mac any day, you will get a much more powerful system for a lot less. Plus you could consider dual-booting with a Linux distro. I know little of CAD software but have heard some decent reports about open source freeware stuff, there is a review of six of them here: http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20090607033315929/CAD.html

They may not suit your needs but as they are freeware you are not wasting money trying them out.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Apple are rapidly reducing their market share for what a mac was useful for. Once upon a time it was the go to platform for Audio, design, and programming work. They've lost the market for design and programming to microsoft now that they've released the surface studio and surface pro. Pretty much the only bit of pro software that is still Mac only is Logic Pro X, but otherwise, most of the big packages like ProTools etc are cross platform.

The new macs are purely expensive mainstream laptops, they don't cater for the pro user anymore as it requires a crap load of adapters or docks which require dedicated power sources and are just another point of failure for critical use applications which pro's won't go for as it's too risky to have a failure mid show. They're also underpowered and old tech. You're paying for the brand for little return. The older macbook pro that apple is still selling has 4 year old components.

The mac pro is not a pro machine anymore. I sincerely hope they design a new range that does cater to pro users.

But there are the Mac fanboys who think that Apple are the first ones to come out with anything. A friend of mine is one, he thought the screen res on Mac's could not be found anywhere else until I told him 4k was the standard on most high end windows laptops. He thought thunderbolt 2 was the fastest connector available until I let him know that thunderbolt 3 had been the standard on windows PC's for a while now. He thought having to stop a usb device on a Mac was totally normal until I told him windows allowed for on the fly removal of USB devices since XP days.

My point is most apple fan boys are so focused on Apple technology, they have no idea where the competition are. When I told my friend that apple were losing out to microsoft in most areas currently he was like Apple are too big to lose customers, but they are losing their core market that made them what they are and their new hardware is being trumped by that of Microsoft, HP and others. Microsoft are the new apple, they've stolen the pro crown that apple had for 10 years or so.

I think both platforms each have their strengths and weaknesses. I own a MacBook Pro and Windows devices as well as ios devices and I love each and every one of them, and they each have their specific uses. I would never claim one is better than the other.

When it comes to gaming of any kind though, you go for a windows machine, that's just common sense.

 

[ubuysa]

Whist of course agreeing with the experienced views above I think they key phrase in your post is 'what i need/should get for work'. I don't know how much collaboration you'll need to do with colleagues and/or systems at work but if you go down the Windows route, even though it's probably the best price/performance option, you might find you have issues sharing stuff and/or collaborating with colleagues who are MAC based? If it's for work it needs to meet your work requirements I would think.

 

[Rakk]

Also noting that the decision was probably made months back as this thread was started in June, but was brought back to life yesterday when it probably shouldn't have been

 

[Tony1044]

Well just to aid the debate in future for anyone else making this consideration, I have actually owned a MacBook Pro so I can give a fairly balanced response.

It was a late 2011 version - the last of the non retina display models and also the last one where you could upgrade the RAM and SSD post-purchase.

Which is something I think anyone considering a Mac needs to bear in mind - they now have a habit of soldering bits into the motherboard, even on some of their desktop models which is naughty.

Pro's - the hardware on the machine was sublime. It still remains today quite simply the highest quality build of any machine I've ever owned. And the touchpad was always a joy to use.
It was powerful - not sure where the idea comes from that you don't get decent graphics in them but mine had a (then) top of the range AMD Radeon and I believe from a quick check that you still get this.

Somewhere in between a Pro and a Con for me was the OS. I don't like OSX or MacOS as it's reverted to these days. Just didn't get along with it plus the tools I need to do my job are almost exlusively Windows based and not all will run well, if at all, virtualised, so for me Bootcamp was a must-have to boot almost exclusively into Windows.
Hold their price - I sold it at almost 4 years old and got back almost half of what I paid for it. Try that with a PC.

The Cons:
The locked EUFI style bootloader made it incredibly difficult to recover my Windows partition when it once went kaputt. Whilst you do get simplicity for most average-users, given the core here I suspect it would be too locked down
If you want to boot to more than Windows and OSX you need to get a third party tools
In the modern ones of course you are stuck with what you buy - this alone was enough to push me away from them - everything is custom and/or soldered into the board and/or epoxied in these days
They've lost their way. This is just my opinion of course but things like that extra little OLED/LCD bar...pointless for the vast majority of people. There's no Apple innovation any more. They churn out more of the same "Meh" style stuff these days
Office - 2011 for Mac was an abomination. Excel would struggle with even the most basic functions and calculations built into Windows saved versions
2016 (I think it was?) improved matters immensely but it was very prone to crash in the early days.

It still remains one of my favourite Windows laptops to date.

 

[ubuysa]

Also noting that the decision was probably made months back as this thread was started in June, but was brought back to life yesterday when it probably shouldn't have been

Doh! :taz:

 

[Stephen M]

Doh! :taz:

Ditto, I tend to just click on the "What's New? and not bother to check anything else, good spot Rakk.

I will add a bit to the debate though. A couple of friends used Mac for a long time as they were into music production in a big way and in that area it outshone Microsoft but for some years now they have been Linux users, Ardour especially is a superb DAW and there are plenty of other creative programs for music, video and graphics. I think Linux has had an impact on Macs, especially as one is free and the other is very expensive.