*GASP* Another Mac Vs. PC debate!

[NickSimcheck]

Actually, it's not... So you can save your comments of beating dead horses and search buttons.:lol:

My question might seem silly, but;

How compatible is PC hardware with Mac? I mean, I know HD's can be switched (i think) but what about PCI-E video cards? RAM? CD Drives? I have an awesome Dual DVI out video card that I would like to keep. I also have a lot of PCI cards such as FireWire/USB cards, sound cards, etc. that I don't want to let go.

What can I take from my PC (Gateway GT5056) when I move into a Mac Pro, that's the question.

[Tony-S]

How compatible is PC hardware with Mac? I mean, I know HD's can be switched (i think) but what about PCI-E video cards? RAM? CD Drives? I have an awesome Dual DVI out video card that I would like to keep. I also have a lot of PCI cards such as FireWire/USB cards, sound cards, etc. that I don't want to let go.

What can I take from my PC (Gateway GT5056) when I move into a Mac Pro, that's the question.

Most HD, CD, DVD, USB and Firewire drives will work fine. The other USB/Firewire devices and PCI cards will be iffy. Unless the vendors provide Mac OS X support, it's unlikely that they'll work in the Mac Pro. For the RAM, if they are PC5300 DDR2 ECC 667MHz they should work fine.

[Advocate]

While the hardware itself will work fine you have to remember a PC natively won't read a Mac formatted hdd and vice versa.

[NickSimcheck]

While the hardware itself will work fine you have to remember a PC natively won't read a Mac formatted hdd and vice versa.

Ahh, which brings up another question I have...

Is the best way of "switching over" to run a windows emulator and move all the images from the PC's drive over to the Mac's then reformat the old PC drive and putting the images back?

Or does Mac have some easy way of doing this?

[naqs]

Well all I can say is check out these ads http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22get+a+mac%22+ads&search=Search
This should convince you to convert to a mac. Make sure you watch all of them

[youngteam]

The Mac will read both FAT32 and NTFS formatted discs, but will (natively) only mount NTFS read only. So you'll be able to read your PC formatted drive without a problem.

Graphics cards are generally a problem, or at least they always were on PowerPC machines, I'm not sure about the new Intel ones. Some PC graphics cards can be flashed with Mac compatible firmware.

If a PCI/USB device is fairly generic, it's quite likely to work. If not have a look at the manufacturers website for Mac drivers.

[DavidEB]

Nick --

I transitioned years ago from PC-nerd to happy mac user. It takes a change in outlook.

with a mac, you don't need to worry about all those cards & parts. your mac will come complete out of the box, ready to work for you. you no longer need to waste your time knowing what kind of video card, sound cards, etc... you have. if you have an external hard disk, just plug it into the USB or FW, and it'll be fine.

apple has several easy ways to migrate data from your pc to your mac. see this...
http://www.apple.com/macosx/switch/

as to running windows emulation, why bother? you just expose yourself to viruses and continued aggravation.

when I got my first mac, it took me 10 min to open the box, set everything up, install all the new software, migrate my data, plug in a bunch of peripheral devices, and connect to the net. everything worked right off the bat. Have never looked back.

[NickSimcheck]

Any suggestions on where to order a Mac Pro from? I know retailers can't discount, but some give free ram don't they?

[Tony-S]

Any suggestions on where to order a Mac Pro from? I know retailers can't discount, but some give free ram don't they?

If you're going to do any mods (i.e., BTO) you'll have to go through Apple. Otherwise, the vendors out there are pretty much the same price. I usually buy from MacConnection, but that's because I get free overnight shipping as an Appleworks User Group member.