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Trying to Decide between a new PC or Mac M2

Eulenauge66 said:
Correct me if I am daydreaming here.
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Yes, a comparable PC will probably be cheaper but it's not as much as you're claiming and, again, the choice of platform is a very nuanced discussion.

Windows vs macOS is an endless discussion but both platform have pros and cons. Personally I think for audio macOS has an edge with CoreAudio and CoreMidi integrated right into the OS.

Comparing the cost of a couple of components is not really the best way to determine if actually a PC is cheaper or not. It's like comparing the price of cars while only looking at HPs. What about engine efficiency? What about comfort? What about the transmission and steering? Etc.

With a PC you would not be even close in terms of electricity compsuption, regardless of how much you pay for it. In Europe let's say an average of 0.28 Euros per KWh. Assuming your PC consumes 300W per hour and you work 160 hours per month... that results in 48kWh per month so about 780 Euros over 5 years. That's not negligible and it's not that far off from the 1,100 Euros you paid in components.

Plus if you live in a hot area you'd need to add AC costs since a PC generating heat during the summer is hell. I'm from Mallorca so I know all about this :)

And to be a fair comparison you'd also need to compare the quality of the individual components. Did you get a cheap motherboard with cheap capacitors? Are you getting 7000MBps SSDs? Is your power supply Gold or Platinum certified? How much did you spend in fans and cooling? Etc.

As I've discussed earlier, time is also a resource to consider. How much time did you speend picking up the components and building that PC? How much will you spend on the maintenance of that PC like random stuff with drivers, replacing hardware parts, etc? Say you spend 20 hours over 5 years (I'm being extremely conservative here). If you charge 100 Euros per hour for your work now you've lost 2,000 Euros.

Etc.

IMO it's very difficult to get to an actual percentage of how much cheaper a PC is or not.

My hunch is that yes a PC is probably like 20-30% cheaper than a comparable Mac with the big advantage of being modular but it comes with other cons such as noise, higher electricity costs, third party drivers shenanigans, etc.
 
Pier said:
Yes, a comparable PC will probably be cheaper but it's not as much as you're claiming and, again, the choice of platform is a very nuanced discussion.

Windows vs macOS is an endless discussion but both platform have pros and cons. Personally I think for audio macOS has an edge with CoreAudio and CoreMidi integrated right into the OS.

Comparing the cost of a couple of components is not really the best way to determine if actually a PC is cheaper or not. It's like comparing the price of cars while only looking at HPs. What about engine efficiency? What about comfort? What about the transmission and steering? Etc.

With a PC you would not be even close in terms of electricity compsuption, regardless of how much you pay for it. In Europe let's say an average of 0.28 Euros per KWh. Assuming your PC consumes 300W per hour and you work 160 hours per month... that results in 48kWh per month so about 780 Euros over 5 years. That's not negligible and it's not that far off from the 1,100 Euros you paid in components.

Plus if you live in a hot area you'd need to add AC costs since a PC generating heat during the summer is hell. I'm from Mallorca so I know all about this :)

And to be a fair comparison you'd also need to compare the quality of the individual components. Did you get a cheap motherboard with cheap capacitors? Are you getting 7000MBps SSDs? Is your power supply Gold or Platinum certified? How much did you spend in fans and cooling? Etc.

As I've discussed earlier, time is also a resource to consider. How much time did you speend picking up the components and building that PC? How much will you spend on the maintenance of that PC like random stuff with drivers, replacing hardware parts, etc? Say you spend 20 hours over 5 years (I'm being extremely conservative here). If you charge 100 Euros per hour for your work now you've lost 2,000 Euros.

Etc.

IMO it's very difficult to get to an actual percentage of how much cheaper a PC is or not.

My hunch is that yes a PC is probably like 20-30% cheaper than a comparable Mac with the big advantage of being modular but it comes with other cons such as noise, higher electricity costs, third party drivers shenanigans, etc.
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But if you live in a cool area like I do (Seattle area), then the PC can help make up for the AC in summer with reducing heating needs in Winter (and part of Fall and Spring) :2thumbs: - in summer, like now, I generally have to leave the ceiling fan on, in part because of the PC if I'm leaving it on, or using the RTX2060 with it.

Definitely a nuanced choice. More so than it used to be, which is generally good for us people buying the stuff!

With the efficiency and CoreAudio, it's almost impossible for me to recommend anything other than a MBP or even Air to someone needing a portable solution (or an iPhone or iPad is also viable - and works great in conjunction with a Mac). Maybe some day if the others get their act together.
 
vitocorleone123 said:
With the efficiency and CoreAudio, it's almost impossible for me to recommend anything other than a MBP or even Air to someone needing a portable solution
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Yeah CoreAudio and CoreMidi have so many advantages.

I'm not sure I've aleady mentioned this but... for example it's trivial to insert an audio unit to alter the whole system audio (like using ProQ to eq your headphones) via Soundsource.

On Windows I could never get this working properly. The only solution I know is Equalizer APO but it has failed on me way too many times so I just desisted. Last time I checked, not even RME had this in TotalMix.

Edit:

Or being able to create a virtual audio interface combining inputs and outputs from multiple hardware audio interfaces seamlessly.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202000
AFAIK in Windows the only way to accomplish this is using ASIO4ALL which is not the most stable driver.
 
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Does the new extended Apple Care possibly extend the warranty at all or just access to support?
 
SupremeFist said:
Covers hardware repairs and accidental damage (subject to excess) as well.
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Wow!

So for example: if you buy a Studio and the boot drive or ram which we can’t replace or upgrade fail we are covered?

If this is correct this lessens my apprehension with these new Macs considerably!
 
Jeremy Spencer said:
One thing I personally like is AppleCare, which you can now continue beyond three years for a nominal annual fee.
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I've posted this opinion 50 billion times, but I can't help myself: even if you get bitten once or twice (I haven't, touch wood), over time you're almost certainly going to come out way ahead by turning down all extended warranties.

The golden rule of insurance is only to cover what you can't afford to pay out of pocket.

To me AppleCare is among the least likely to pay off, because all it does is extend the 1-year warranty and bet that you're going to get hit with a repair that costs more than the insurance between the second and third year you own the machine.

But I also know what the responses are going to be ("two laptops took two dives"), and of course it's a personal decision between you and your doctor. If it brings serenity to your hear and peace to your mind, then who am I to interfere.
 
Nick Batzdorf said:
I've posted this opinion 50 billion times, but I can't help myself: even if you get bitten once or twice (I haven't, touch wood), over time you're almost certainly going to come out way ahead by turning down all extended warranties.

The golden rule of insurance is only to cover what you can't afford to pay out of pocket.

To me AppleCare is among the least likely to pay off, because all it does is extend the 1-year warranty and bet that you're going to get hit with a repair that costs more than the insurance between the second and third year you own the machine.

But I also know what the responses are going to be ("two laptops took two dives"), and of course it's a personal decision between you and your doctor. If it brings serenity to your hear and peace to your mind, then who am I to interfere.
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In most cases I definitely agree with you, in principle but in the case of basically a non-repairable non-upgradeable computer that has soldered ram and drive imo APPLECARE really makes sense.
 
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vitocorleone123 said:
But if you live in a cool area like I do (Seattle area), then the PC can help make up for the AC in summer with reducing heating needs in Winter (and part of Fall and Spring) :2thumbs:
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Energy use is certainly a valid consideration, but I think it comes down to what you prefer working on (and whether you use Logic, which of course is only on macOS). We use these machines all day long.

I'm willing to pay a little more for a Mac just because I like them better - plus I've been working on them since the mid-'80s and have all kinds of mental muscle memory. There was a time when Windows was much harder to troubleshoot, but I don't think that's true anymore.

Point being, I think the justifications, including price, follow the preference!
 
So @Nick Batzdorf

if you have a Mac Studio and 3 and 1/2 years from now the internal drive or a stick of ram goes bad will you still think you’re ahead not buying the warranty?

Many years ago i had a liquid cooled G5,guess what the liquid cooling system failed spritzed all over the computer took out virtually every part inside the G5.
power supply,graphics,processor etc……..4 days before my extended warranty expired.
I brought it into a great Apple auth repair shop that used to operate in NYC -Tekserve it got repaired,to make a long story short the cost of repairing the G5 exceeded what I originally bought it for. The tech showed me the itemized parts and labor invoice 😵‍💫
Lesson learned do I get extended warranties for TV’s -No but for something expensive like a Mac (that can’t be repaired otherwise) You bet ,I consider it part of the cost of purchasing.
 
I’ve been building PCs for the last 25 years…I’m running a Ryzen 5950x 16 core 32 thread machine for the last couple of years.

Its watercooled and totally silent…it’s got 14TB of internal storage…

I use stablebit Drivepool and manage one 14TB volume…

It’s got Thunderbolt, and I’m running 3 PC screens…I could run 6 if I wanted…

I have had zero issues with it…

I recently added a firewire card to run a couple of cheap UAD Quad satellites….yes UAD support FireWire on windows 11 in 2023…

Its got 128GB and all of this is totally upgradeable…

I can still use the Lexicon PCM native reverb bundle…

I can keep all the hardware and swap out the Chip motherboard and ram if I want and this would take me around 60mins to do….

People who say PCs are noisey don’t know what they are doing when it comes to building machines…

They really can be built with stealth in mind while being massively powerful and upgradeable.
 
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