topic Re: MacPro or Vista for AC! in Modeling

!Restored: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:27:02 GMT

Seriously I need information what kind of hardware is the right way specially for AC.
MacPro with Intel Xeon is cheaper than Dell with Xeon.
That means, Apple workstation is cheaper than Dell workstation.
That means,
Mac OS is cheaper than Vista regarding Workstation.
But,
Apple workstation is more faster and more beautiful and more ...?

AC user wants to know the better hardware.
Graphic card is not so seriously important for architects.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:17:15 GMT

The Mac is better and cheaper than the Dell and it runs XP very well in Boot Camp. I wouldn't worry about Vista right now. It will not be supported in ArchiCAD 10. By the time 11 ships it will most likely be possible to install on the Mac, and any way I'm sure AC11 will run in XP. From what I've seen Vista is a significant upgrade but not a "must have" for most users. Everyone will eventually upgrade, but I am in no hurry.

Of course you can also run MacOS X on the MacPro for even better performance (as much twice as fast from what I've seen and heard).

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

ci-JoshOs — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:05:45 GMT

I highly recommend that you stay as far away from Dell as possible. A comparable system to the MacPro is the Alienware MJ-12. In a dual-opteron configuration it will perform at least as fast as the Mac-Pro, contains an actual workstation graphics card(for rock-steady performance), and looks(i think) a lot better.

check it out here:
http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/mj-12_7550a.aspx?SysCode=PC-MJ12-7550-A&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT&cs=4

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:14:02 GMT

Sorry for Dell. Dell is just one example. I had good experience with Dell with Window system.
Now I belive that workstation MacPro is right choose (and Dell with Window can be used as server or something like that).
For AC using it is also not necessary to equip better than MacPro (of course more ram).
But I agree to change the system is very hard work and expensive.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 02:41:39 GMT

henrypootel wrote:
I highly recommend that you stay as far away from Dell as possible. A comparable system to the MacPro is the Alienware MJ-12.

Of course you must know that Alienware is owned by Dell now I assume that they have left well enough alone though.

How does the price of the MJ-12 compare to the MacPro? Since they are Dell's high end specialty brand I assume that it is even more expensive than the plain vanilla Dell.

The high end graphics card may or may not be a good thing. From what I've seen the most expensive cards aren't worth the up-charge when it comes to ArchiCAD - and may even be a problem. FWIW I've seen a fair number of display driver issues on a variety of PC's lately, but none on Macs.

Looks are of course a matter of personal taste and, while I appreciate both, I think the Mac looks better in a professional context than the Alienware machine which has a more aggressive "gamer" look.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

ci-JoshOs — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:41:16 GMT

Yes, the high-end graphics card is overkill for Archicad, but at $2,469 for a rig with almost the same specs as the $2,4000 Mac Pro, it's a great option, and even sweeter if you use 3ds Max or some other program that uses the workstation Graphics card. I would have to say that the PC does have the greater share on display issues with graphics cards, but it's not a complete monopoly. This of course, is because of the far greater range available for PCs, so i don't think that this can really be held against them.
I agree with your point on the appearance though, although on the other hand, the Alienware box isn't the size(and weight) of a small continent!

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

gpowless — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 12:45:28 GMT

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/175801

One should be careful about installing Vista on your computer since it appears the EULA allows Microsoft to not only spy on your computer but to delete programs at will. I will not upgrade if Microsoft does not remove this capability.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:43:10 GMT

If it's any help I seriously considered a dual dual xeon Mac Pro before deciding to stick with the PC - add in the memory for the Mac Pro and the prices are not so far apart.

I wouldn't buy from Dell - many people do but I prefer to pay a premium to have my PCs custom built by a supplier in London
(http://www.armari.com)

that said, Vista is so scary at the moment that if I do decide to go with Archicad I would be very tempted to get a Mac Pro rather than put it on PC.
The Mac Pros are better built than the equivalent PC and the cooling is much quieter - when my PC dual dual-core Xeons (i.e. 4 processor) starts up, the fan noise is incredible - and that's with a 'low noise' case.
(There are even heat sinks on the memory chips - FB DIMMS - my mnfctr reckons they can reach 90 deg C.)

Hope that is some help.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:04:33 GMT

Hmmm I bought MacBook Pro recently the weakest model only I added 1GB of RAM so altogether 2GB of RAM. I put Vista as second operating system and I was shocked!!!!!! I don't know about others who tested it but ArchiCAD preformed much much faster on my MacBook PRO with Vista than on my PC at work AMD x64 +3200 with 2GB of RAM and windows XP...

I still haven't experienced any problems running Archicad on Vista, I had my doubts before installing but all turn out to be a pleasant suprise from Microsoft in my experience!!!!

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 06:32:01 GMT

SoPoT wrote:
I don't know about others who tested it but ArchiCAD preformed much much faster on my MacBook PRO with Vista than on my PC at work AMD x64 +3200 with 2GB of RAM and windows XP...

That's been my experience. The MacBook Pro is a seriously fast Windows machine. I assume that new Core2 Duos from Dell et al are similarly quick. The cool bit is that AC seems to be about twice as fast in OS X than in XP on the same machine.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:12:17 GMT

Many users say AC with MacPro runs much better than AC with Window.
It is not so easy to switch to Apple because of existing many hardwares for Window.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

TomWaltz — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:20:35 GMT

We just installed our first MacPros and are running Autocad on them as well (through Parallels). I'll keep you all updated, but the initial response from the users has been extreme excitement over the performance.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:38:50 GMT

TomWaltz wrote:
We just installed our first MacPros and are running Autocad on them as well (through Parallels). I'll keep you all updated, but the initial response from the users has been extreme excitement over the performance.

Tom,

I will be very interested to know how you like parallels. I haven't installed it yet since it will not use the same install of XP as Boot Camp and I don't want a second windows install on the same machine (bad enough maintaining one). If it's good enough I'll switch and dumb the FAT32 partition.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:22:51 GMT

Internet and server and printer with existing XP, and MacPro for AC.
Can the both systems be connected together?

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

TomWaltz — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:45:07 GMT

Archi wrote:
Internet and server and printer with existing XP, and MacPro for AC.
Can the both systems be connected together?

I don't see why not.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:17:34 GMT

Is there any reason to buy Window for AC-using?

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

TomWaltz — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:33:16 GMT

Archi wrote:
Is there any reason to buy Window for AC-using?

Maybe you like the gun-metal gray background in Windows instead of free-floating windows & palettes on Mac.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:37:04 GMT

There are so many problems with VISTA that you only have two choices if you want to go from XP, it's MAC or Linux, if you want to use ArchiCad and don't want XP anymore, MAC is your choice.

Maybe (in my opinion), Vista is Microsoft's last big os. They only got this big because all homeusers copy Windows and use it at their home and then take it to their office and then bought it.
Now more and more use Linux and Mac at home in Sweden and Europe, and more and more offices here in Sweden that only use WEB-based software goes to Linux because they save alot of money every year.
The only software I used in our office that won't exists at Linux are ArchiCad, other software I used are Openoffice, Firefox.

Why I use XP at home is because of ArchiCad and my soundsystem, my soundcard are 3 month old and will never be supported by VISTA (Or MAC) because it need some important music standard functions that Microsoft have stopped in their VISTA.

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:29:16 GMT

I have been using the parallels (latest version) in order to chack on AutoCad drawings in their native format. The install was Win98 with an upgrade to XP. Both installs were fairly painless. I have tried AC on the Windows side and find the old keyboard problem of the apple and command keys on my MBPro 17" to be to hard to remember where I am.. Mac side wins. Autocad on the other hand works fine and is quite stable (ACAD 2000). I am not sure of the effects of trying other win software as the MAC versions are fine and compatible with the office.

The only apparent problem is one of heat - whenever parallels was operating, the processor seemed to be overworking. The latest version has been better as the heat is less. I am impressed with the progress that Parallels has had in such a short time. It has been very stable and quite quick.
Lew Bishop
Jon Worden Architects
MBP 17" 1GB OS X 10.4.7
AC10 US

Re: MacPro or Vista for AC!

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:14:16 GMT

Archi wrote:
Internet and server and printer with existing XP, and MacPro for AC.
Can the both systems be connected together?

I have used my MacBook Pro to connect with many Windows networks and have had no more than the usual problems, booting in either OS X or XP (networking outside of an all-Mac environment is always a bit of a pain).