PC versus Mac

Bill Carnett

I've been using a Mac with Parallels for past few months with Flexradio.  Works fine, I think.  Sometimes there is a little lag on the waterfall when I'm tuning but suspect that could happen regardless.  The Mac has Intel quad core i7 processor, etc, two monitors, works fine.  Here's my question:  I just saw these Intel Nuc minicomputers....small foot print.  Using a dedicated PC might work well.  I don't like using windows on the Mac for other reasons.  Any real advantage in switching to the dedicated PC?  Performance change expected?  Anybody done Mac versus PC comparison with Flexradio?

Thanks
73, Bill

K6OZY

Many of us use our radios inside and outside of OS X via emulation.  Performance widely depends on the hardware being used.

Bare metal performance outside of emulation will always buy you a better experience, but the mac likely has a much better processor and integrated GPU than the NUC.   If you can tell me the exact model of your mac and the NUC you are considering, I can help give you better feedback.

The NUC's use the 15W  UltraBook processors.   Some of the iMac's use the larger 45W desktop class processors, which will perform much better sometimes even with emulation.   You can always install Windows via BootCamp and run it on the bare metal hardware and that would perform better too.

George KF2T

Concur with K6OZY. Apples to apples (sorry!) a good VM is very, very close to a dedicated machine. I do run SSDR and my digital apps in the VM, and they do fine. They are all that's under Windows - have pared down extraneous apps and services for a smooth, clean desktop. I do have plenty of RAM and a solid video card. Both help a lot.

Jay -- N0FB

I also use Parallels with my 6300.  The best way to do a direct comparison is to run windows on bootcamp.  That way, you are not running windows as a VM, you are running your laptop natively on windows.  When I want to troubleshoot a problem that might appear is a problem of running in a VM environment, I switch to bootcamp.
With all that said, I much prefer running my Mac Laptop or iMac with Windows 10 as a VM on Parallels and OS X.  I can then run my favorite logging software "MacLogger DX" with my Flex.

Bob G W1GLV

Whole heartly concur with the above statements.

Mike - ZL1MRC

I hope one day soon a MAC version of SDR software come available!!