RE: [APML] computer video card

["Gene Horr" <genehorr@houston.rr.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: astro-photo-bounces@seds.org
[mailto:astro-photo-bounces@seds.org]On Behalf Of Jerry Lodriguss
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 1:56 PM
To: Discussion of Film Astrophotography
Subject: RE: [APML] computer video card

> There are no advantages of a Mac over a PC, unless you want to pay more
for
> exactly the same hardware

Well, I would add one slight change to this statement.  If you are comparing
a $2,000 commercial-grade PC with a Mac, you are correct.  In fact usually
the PC would have a material speed advantage.  Then when you add in the cost
of software, the advantage moves over to the PC.

When comparisons are made, though, it is often between a $2,000 Mac and a
$1,000 white box generic PC.  Well, duh.  Of course the PC is going to
lock up or crash often, and not be as fast.  Testing all of the drivers
for compatability, using ECC memory, a fast memory bus, SCSI drives, and
a quality motherboard design costs money.  You're not going to find that
in the consumer PCs as the sole criteria for that is often processor
speed (ignoring bus speeds...) and price.

Be sure and load whichever machine you get with as much RAM as you can.
In the case of the Dell you will want the 800 Mhz (actually 400Mhz x dual
memory bus) option.

Gene Horr
genehorr@houston.rr.com


_______________________________________________
Astro-Photo mailing list
Astro-Photo@seds.org
http://seds.org/mailman/listinfo/astro-photo