Hi Coursedesign,
Yes, I'll be running a CAD tool, Quicken, and a few other non-power-hogging apps in the partition.

I've got 640 GB system drives on all my machines now, both PC & Mac. Just love the inexpensive speed thrill of the WD 3-platter drives.

For what you're doing, I would still reserve 50 GB for the Win 7 partition. Nice to have some extra space, and 50 GB is only 5% of the current 1TB drives that are standard on the 27" iMacs.

SuperDuper! is my favorite utility program of all time on any platform, does super-fast intelligent image backup and more. There's a free version that covers the basic needs, and a $28 version with more features such as scheduling, scripting and more. This product can keep a complete OS X + Win 7 image up-to-date with no hassle.

Tee, hee, giggle, giggle:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1562733/apple-machines-reliable

From page 6 in the original study report:

Failure Rate:

Tee, hee, giggle, giggle.


The Inquirer promises "Fact and Friction."
That blog entry was Friction, if not fiction.

SquareTrade is also an odd choice for data. I thought they mostly cover eBay purchases?

In other recent news (Computerworld), Windows Server 2003 and 2008 had 5 times as much downtime per year as OS X servers.

Tee hee.

:O)

My point is that all laptop and desktop computer components are coming from the same factories, mostly in the Far East. Putting different badges on them means nothing. My oldest 20 something daughter has both a Sony VAIO laptop and a brand new Mac Book Pro. She loves her Mac, BTW. I sent her that link and her response was, "That wasn't a fair survey, since they didn't ask whether the laptop was also adorable and shiny."

Apparently Mac's dirty little secret is that they are inferior to Windows PC's in some ways and I found this article in StudioDaily a very interesting read: ;-)

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for the Mac

The last line kinda says it all:

"...Mac users cannot expect the same performance Windows users enjoy."

So there a case of the exact same hardware running in a PC and a Mac and the less expensive PC outperforms the more expensive Mac. (why am I not surprised... the driver manufacturers are probably tweaking for the largest audience which is PC users)

The article is primarily about two things:

(1) Mac's have very limited hardware choices which limits their performance:

"While the Mac Pro is capable of 64-bit multiple processor supercomputing, there have been few professional-level graphics cards available for this system. This is like driving a Formula One race car but being restricted to 50 mph"

(2) Even when it gets the hardware it needs, it doesn't perform as well as a PC.

"On paper all of these specs add up to a powerhouse graphics card that should be able to tackle any graphics computing task. For Windows users this is the case, but Mac users may be in for a surprise."

I find it ironic that people are willing to pay more for a Mac because it is "perceived" to be an artist's tool and it can't even take advantage of the latest graphics technology.

BTW, I like Macs. I'm not trying to bash them. I'm just pointing out that the Mac hype is sometimes... well... just hype. I absolutely love Unix and the idea of running Mac OS X which is Unix based is attractive to me (I'd be running Linux if it had more commercial applications) but I still can't bring myself to pay all that money for Mac hardware. I've been toying with the idea of getting a Macbook Pro but the prices are way out of line for what you get. :( I'm not ready to spend that much money yet. Apple needs to get their prices down if they want greater penetration. (just my opinion)

~jr

The article says that Nvidia's drivers for OS X aren't as good as their WIndows drivers for certain functions used in medical imaging and for a few high end tools for Hollywood.

Those people have already been using Windows machines for a long time, because Apple pretty much abandoned that segment a long time ago, so the market is small.

Last year and for most of this year, After Effects CS4 was very difficult to get any performance out of on Windows, but the OS X version was able to use large amounts of memory without choking (which Windows XP/Vista couldn't handle), which made the work go many times faster.

That problem has since been fixed, but there will always be something.


Windows workstations cost as much as or more than Mac Pro workstations (except HP has recently come out with some low end Windows workstations that can be had for less, at least in their minimum configurations).

A workstation is not a PC.


And looking in and around Hollywood, it is very difficult to find any working post artists who use Windows machines. Those are a bit more common in Northern California, where they are focused on 3D CGI work and massive render farms made with hundreds of cheap PCs.


I just rec'd a friend to get at 15.4" MacBook Pro for $1099 brand new at MacMall.com (or their local store) or $999 for a factory refurb with a same-as-new full 1 year factory warranty that can be extended to 3 years for about $100. Still available, great specs, better LED screens than I have seen on any Windows laptops (although I'm sure those will come eventually).

If you know of anyone offering a 3-year warranty on a Windows laptop for $100, I'd like to know about so I can recommend people to get it.

Laptops are generally expensive to repair, so I don't recommend anyone to own one without warranty coverage.

Never had a warranty claim on my Mac notebooks, but my HP/Compaq needed a new motherboard and several repairs after that, including after the expiration of the very expensive extended warranty.