Talk me out of switching to Mac

[PAK]

A question though, how is the latency on Macs when not using an external audio interface? I imagine it's better than on a PC? I won't be using my external audio interface in this case, I will hook up the Mac Mini to my TV instead of to my monitor on my desk.

It depends on audio rate and buffer. It’s about 2-3ms higher than the best external cards over Thunderbolt. EG 48kHz (32 sample) is 3.7ms output, and 256 samples is 8.3ms.

[Cavey Arrgh]

I still have my PC in pieces,

Your local PC builder could build it for you for less than the Sales tax you paid for all the pieces. And yes switching from any old to any new PC is a pain, but a pain you'll have regardless of pc, mac, and so on. (Unless I misunderstand your point)

[Uncle E]

And yes switching from any old to any new PC is a pain, but a pain you'll have regardless of pc, mac, and so on. (Unless I misunderstand your point)

Switching to a new Mac is completely painless UNLESS you're an idiot like me and try to save a few $$$ by getting a smaller drive.

[jocknaethick]

00

[starflakeprj]

I still have my PC in pieces,

Your local PC builder could build it for you for less than the Sales tax you paid for all the pieces. And yes switching from any old to any new PC is a pain, but a pain you'll have regardless of pc, mac, and so on. (Unless I misunderstand your point)

You understood perfectly well

Yes, I could of course do that. I have never really thought about it. I'm usually a "do-it-myself":er, not I'm the complete opposite. Never used that type of service, but I assume I can ask them to do exactly how I would set it up myself. I'm pretty picky with both cabling and placement. Thanks for the tip, I will scout the area

[starflakeprj]

And yes switching from any old to any new PC is a pain, but a pain you'll have regardless of pc, mac, and so on. (Unless I misunderstand your point)

Switching to a new Mac is completely painless UNLESS you're an idiot like me and try to save a few $$$ by getting a smaller drive.

Not quite true if you have 500-800 different software (apps and plugins) to install

[Uncle E]

Not quite true if you have 500-800 different software (apps and plugins) to install

Meanwhile, Time Machine be like…

[starflakeprj]

Not quite true if you have 500-800 different software (apps and plugins) to install

Meanwhile, Time Machine be like…

Not when moving from Windows to MacOS, or vice versa
But realizing I read your post incorrectly. Had a move between different OS's in mind, but you were talking about upgrading to new Mac hardware.

[machinesworking]

Yes, it does the job and is reasonably snappy, but it is ugly AF with external HD and USB hubs hanging off of it to compensate the ever decreasing number od IO Apple are willing to include (some of the older iMacs were pretty good for IO counts)....

I have an 09 Mac Pro here and a Mac Studio. Yes the Pro has PCI slots and that's about it.

The 09 was eminently upgradeable, I put two six core Xeons in it, (that included delidding the CPU's which was sphincter clenching to do), it's RAM was upgradable from 1066 to 1334, I put m.2 SSDs and a USB3 card in the PCI slots, plus a graphics card upgrade etc.

Here's the deal though, that's it, the motherboard is all that was left and honestly by that time with a Windows PC you're looking at just starting over at that point, the case will probably not do anymore as well. Thunderbolt 5 and USB 4 etc. all come around.

OTOH the Mac Studio is not going to need anything. Yes in three years there will be regular PCs that are much much faster, but that's always the case, and flatly when a computer starts up in less than 30 seconds and uses 10% of it's CPU on a normal song, I'm just not worried about the latest greatest. I don't plan on upgrading the desktop for ten years or so, and in the mean time, it's probably the Macbook Air that gets an upgrade. I'm sold on these things, TB3 and USB4 is fast enough, no fan and 90% or more of what I do can be done on this laptop.

I've been using laptops as main machines on an off for years now, so the whole peripherals are gross thing just never made sense to me, plus I have a Slate Raven 27" monitor that sits on the desk, the peripherals all exist behind the monitor.

[Funky40]

people post BS towards both sides !
people have had problems on both sides, and still have !

people who want to make it look -in a generalised manner- as one side was really better, respectivly painless, and the other was not, are not excatly well informed.
People who want to make it look like one OS was good and that other was not, have a damage somewhere. In my humble opinion.


vs. small latency:
test a TB3 Audio interface on any apple silicon mac.
Thats the fastest. Respectivly is it way more hassle to get to that same performance on a windows system from what i gather.

folks who setup good Win-systems are usually well informed.
How much hassle and time was it to get down all that information ?
and how much risk is still left over after you have all your information down ? *

* want to know more about that aspect ? check: (especially the 2nd one vs. that matter)






and: M4macs are just fantastic ! The sheer single core power is insane !
But in my opinion and vs. my userexperience is macOS Sequoia not yet there.
15.2 is right now in Beta stage.
More knowledgable folks usually say that from .3 things should work fine.
( new mac, early adopter, ..problems/ but i can live with the mine)

[ghettosynth]

A new M4 10 core plus Satechi dock will be around $600. Yes only 16GB RAM but that's all I have now and it's ok. I mostly use VI (u-he, Softube, Arturia, Gforce) and not much of sample based plugins, no Kontakt or orchestra work. I use Reason 12 as my DAW (I know, sorry) and MOTU M2 audio interface.

I searched high and low for PC w Ryzen 9 deals and can't find anything close. Say what you will about the Intel 13/14 gen scaremongering, but a local PC store I trust said stay away. This is a 5 location pc build company who sells alot of Intel, and much less AMD, so I think they are unbiased.

I prefer a stock factory build. I don't really want some custom build by a human, but even if I did, it is $1000 minimum to get a good AMD machine, and it will be GIANT form factor compared to Mac Mini. I do not trust Minisforum type PCs for several reasons (spyware rumors, reliability etc).

You've given yourself a set of conditions that will almost guarantee that you switch to a Mac. I get it, it's shiny. But the minisforum type PCs are exactly where the market is now at the low end, and if your budget is hard limited to $600 then you are at the low end.

You can get a small form factor PC that will be competitive with the 10-core M4 all night and all day for about $450 with 1TB SSD and 32GB of ram. If you're concerned about spyware you can just reinstall windows from scratch, or, do what I do, just pull the drive out of your existing machine, put it in your new machine, and then reauthorize anything that doesn't use either serials, dongles, or has online authentication. I have multiple minisforum PCs, they have all been fine. You know what has not been fine? My macs, and I have purchased no less than 10 macs over 20 years. You will have a halo effect with macs because everyone is drinking the koolaid, but, they do fail. Most people will anecdotally comment about how they've never had a problem. My mac mini has been going fine since I bought it, but, my mac laptops have had a number of problems.

https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/commen ... e_rate_of/

2020 M1 - Early Adopter. As of June 2024, mine just started getting kernel panics related to the Ethernet port (even when not in use.)

Tried everything to fix the issue, including wiping the SSD and reinstalling macOS, talking to Apple, etc. Only course of action is to take to Apple for investigative repair but I’m out of warranty and logic board replacements are $500+.

I’m pretty disappointed because as you alluded to, if my Ethernet NIC was giving me shit, I’d just replace it on a PC. But nope, got bit by Apple again.

I always thought that the Apple Silicon machines would be super reliable but a quick google search will show you a lot of people over the years have had logic board failures or logic board replacement since all other components are on the same board.

Just some food for thought.

So, there is no risk free purchase of electronics and by choosing the base version you are increasing your risk related to the greater limitation on writes with smaller SSDs. Don't get me wrong, I think that the new Mac minis are great, but that base version is for grandma. I wouldn't buy anything today with 256Gb SSD without having a proper M2 slot. If you want the Mac, pay the tax and get the larger drive with the longer term reliability. I have a mac mini, I find external drives to be tedious.

Ignore those telling you to have someone build you a PC. DIY PCs are not worth it at the low end. They are ugly and huge. Keep in mind that I am typing this from a DIY PC that I built myself, but, I had a specific use case for it and it's not a 16GB/256GB PC. In fact, there isn't a MAC that could replace this today for anything close to what I paid for the PC and that holds even if someone else built the PC.

So, either just get the damn thing and get on with it, or realize that you're being unreasonable in your expectations and buy the minisforum style PC which IS competitive and won't lock you into 16/256. But you're pretty much wasting your time trying to find a competitive full size PC at that price point, especially if you want it to be sexy.

[zerocrossing]

It is true that getting a custom built PC is a lot of trouble, whether you do it yourself or pay somebody.

This is not true. I has a local shop that I trust (Central Computers) put together a machine for me and they only charged me a small fee to do it and their component prices were comparable to any online prices. We went over each component, helped me make choices and a day later I had my machine which has been working perfectly ever since. I got exactly what I wanted for a decent price.

[zerocrossing]

I'm not an Apple fanboi, and am defintiely not fond of the planned obsolescence model (my 2012 MacBook Pro is no longer supported and won't run recent Logic/Live/whatever) or epoxying devices shut/soldering in what should be user-replaceable RAM/drives - but TBH Dell/Lenovo and most other non-HP mfrs. of Windows machines do the same these days.

This is one of my main reasons to stay away from Apple. Fine for my phone, tablet, watch, smart speaker, etc, but for a machine that needs to work I find Windows boxes to be superior for longer periods of time and I can easily upgrade components. I just bought another 4 tb SSD for my PC. I've been using the same FireWire PCIe card and audio interface for a decade. Try that with your Macbook. If Apple sold a $2,000ish tower, I might consider it, but they do not.

On the flip side, I'm glad that AudioMulch, VAZ Modular and other classic software written for Windows 2000/XP/7 works just fine on W10/11 even now.

This is another reason I stick with Windows machines. I was all Apple until they moved from Motorola PPC to Intel, and that was a bit of a s-show. Everytime I hear a "hardware is better because it doesn't stop working when you update your OS," I know they're a previous Mac user.

[uOpt]

Transitioning from one machine to a newer one is reasonably seamless (if you don't switch platforms).

In the Windows world you back up and then move the boot drive over. That used to not work that way with Windows, but they have made real progress.

In the Mac world you use migration assistant or restore from a backup drive.

Some plugins require de-attaching from the old computer before the move, see the list posted here.

BTW, I am a Mac user but my phone is a Pixel. I don't buy into the Apple ecosystem.

[ghettosynth]

It is true that getting a custom built PC is a lot of trouble, whether you do it yourself or pay somebody.

This is not true. I has a local shop that I trust (Central Computers) put together a machine for me and they only charged me a small fee to do it and their component prices were comparable to any online prices. We went over each component, helped me make choices and a day later I had my machine which has been working perfectly ever since. I got exactly what I wanted for a decent price.

Sure, but, it's between $100 and $200 and for someone with a budget of $600, $100 is not a "small fee." I'd gladly pay someone $200 to not have to fart around putting together a $3k+ workstation, but $100 is stiff for small pre-built. I recently put together a very small mini-itx machine that is very similar to this in terms of CPU/GPU performance:

https://www.centralcomputer.com/amd-gamer-starter.html

However, my final cost was about $200 lower and that includes a seasonic power supply, 32GB of ram, mini-itx MB, and a 2TB SSD. So while when you are comparing prices with respect to online prices you tend to be limited to what the vendor has or is willing to get. This is not a fair comparison. My price was several hundred dollars lower because I was able to hunt around for better deals at different times and different places. The PS, case, MB, RAM, and HD were all priced somewhat lower because of various sales and closeouts. Now, in my case, I specifically needed to host a slightly older GPU that I already had (price included in my calculation, same as a standard 4060), but the point remains that while prices are "similar," they are seldom optimum when you go with a vendor build.

However, it's important to note that putting a PC together yourself like that, is a bit of a hassle, certainly more hassle than cracking open a Mac after you take it out of the sexy little shopping bag that you get at the apple store.