To Mac and Back (and why)

Andrew — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:57:00 GMT

Since this is my first blog on here (and pretty much in general), I figured I'd give you a little information and what this blog is going to be about (for the most part).

I'm currently working as an application developer and quality control analyst.

For the longest time I was a beta tester and pc enthusiast, I loved testing early builds of XP and Longhorn. Then this thing called Vista happened. I completely disagreed with where the project was going and was disappointed with the responses to my bug reports (I'm sorry in my job if I told someone to upgrade to my product and that their dependent software wasn't my problem I wouldn't have a job anymore).

So I switched; first to a 2Ghz CoreDuo iMac and then to a 2ghz Core2Duo Macbook. At first I loved it, I loved a fully supported unix-ish (FreeBSD 4/5 base) environment. I spent alot of time with application coding (and submitted several support patches to open-source projects) and kernel coding. As with most systems, you get bored with it at some point. At first it was the lack of video games (not mac's fault, i knew it going in) but then it was the lack of true 64bit support.

After spending many hours of messing around with Mac OS X 's kernel (Darwin 8 and 9) and became extremely evident that 64bit intel support (i cant speak on ppc64) was merely tacked on (atleast in my judgement, yours may vary). From what I've seen neither the kernel or drivers are 64bit and the system switches on a process basis between 32bit and 64bit using among other things, a myriad of SS(S?)E4 calls. Sure it is extremely compatible and an elegant setup, but it adds major overhead and isn't truely 64bit.

So I recently decided to make a foray back into the pc world and decided to build a new system.

My new setup is as follows:
--
Coolermaster Cosmos Case and 1250W Power Supply
EVGA 780i Motherboard
EVGA 9800GTX (SLI)
Intel Q9450 CPU (2.66 GHz)
8 GB OCZ Ram
Striped SATA RAID
Windows XP X64

So this blog is going to be about my experiences and comparing the mac world to the pc world (among other things) and my experiences in both and my experience now. I'll be very upfront and honest about both systems.

My first "real" blog will come when I've had several more hours to sit down and mess with the system. For now I've tried CS:Source and unfortunately I can no longer blame FPS and responsiveness for my inability to play :p

Tomorrow though, is time for a little Crysis...

Andrew's Blog

To Mac and Back (and why)