Dell vs Mac for Poker/Business

[Beavis68]

Ray, I don't understand your concern, I would think that the business computer would be connected to the internet anyway. What makes playing poker so risky?

Shoe is right about the memory. Your computer will only be able to addres about 3.2 to 3.5Gb of memory of the 4Gig installed. Other resources will use the rest of the addressing.

[Jonathan]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi,

We're buying a new laptop for our business, and choosing which to buy, I'm trying to consider not only biz-related issues, but poker-related issues as well.

For our work, I really need 2gb (expandable to 4gb) of RAM, and 2.33GhZ or so.

Thus, I've narrowed down to the MacBook Pro or the top-notch Dell, both of which are about 2900 with the best 17" glossy screen, etc.

There are a couple of things I just can't resolve, though - and everyone is giving me different information:

1. Just for purposes of not getting viruses, isn't a Mac a better deal than an equivalently priced PC?

2. I prefer BoDog to the Mac-able sites such as Full Tilt. Someone at CompUSA is trying to tell me that "the new Mac is like a PC too, you can run anything by running it in 'PC format'". Is this true? Can I thus play on BoDog on a Mac?

3. Does doing (2), if it exists, open the Mac to those viruses that I thought I was immune from (in 1)?

Also, if anyone knows of a cheaper way to get the speed/power I'd like (I really only care about 2gb+, expandable to 4gb, 2.33MhZ+, etc... I dont need any other funky features) - I'd love to hear suggestions.

Thanks.

PC

[/ QUOTE ]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes

I am using a macbook with parallels for poker stuff and it works great.
However, I never do any email stuff or web surfing under the windows
emulation, only under Mac OSX. Its been working out great for me,
and I am thrilled that I bought the mac and not another pc.

Good Luck

[Beavis68]

Parallels is not emualtion though right? You actually need a copy of the windows OS and you are running the windows OS on the Mac with the Windows OS and OSX sharing resources.

I would recommend Boot Camp over Parallels.

[TomHimself]

santa rose MBP address all 4gb

[Beavis68]

Do you mean Santa Rosa, the latest intel chipsent?

Doyou have any links?

[TomHimself]

2nd paragraph
http://paulstamatiou.com/2007/06/22/...a-macbook-pro/

last paragraph

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/edit...date/index.php


the macbooks can only address 3gb out of the 4gb but the macbook pros santa rosa can address all 4gb

[Beavis68]

neither of those articles say that all 4GB are addressable.

The problem isnt with installation, the problem is with the 32-bit OS that can't only address 4GB of addresses, but things like the memory card and cache take up those addresses so that all 4GB are not recognized and used on the RAM. Most systems can only utilize about 3.2GB of the 4 installed.

[BeaucoupFish]

[ QUOTE ]
For our work, I really need 2gb (expandable to 4gb) of RAM, and 2.33GhZ or so.


[/ QUOTE ]

You have listed hardware features. What are your business requirements? e.g. applications.

[TomHimself]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=335338

[Shoe Lace]

I don't know much about Santa Rosa but I don't think it's doing what you think it's doing Tom. A 32 bit integer can only store so many bytes, there is no getting around this.

System devices and your physical RAM all share the same memory addressing space. A 32 bit integer can only store 4GB total. If your video card has 256mb of ram that is a 256mb chunk that gets taken out of the 4GB figure. The OS will set aside a certain amount too for all devices (exact figure is unknown) regardless of the device's on board ram/cache.

When people say it supports 4GB they are probably asking "Is it a 64 bit capable CPU?". This means it can support 4GB of ram, but to use all of it you still need a 64 bit OS.