Mac OS X 10.3, aka Panther, will not be a 64-bit operating system, despite running on a 64-bit processor, the PowerPC 970 aka the G5. Instead, the next major release of the Mac operating system will be a hybrid, much like version 10.2.7, codenamed 'Smeagol', which Apple has running on its pre-production Power Mac G5 machines and with which it will almost certainly ship production units, TheRegister reveals. TheRegister also has an article about a possible roadmap of the G5 CPU family. Also, this the second installment of ThinkSecret's "Inside Panther" series, covering Mac OS X 10.3.
Post a Comment
When Apple went from 68k to PPC. People went out
and bought a 66mhz PPC Mac to replace their 68k
Machines. Then reliized that their 68k apps actually
ran slower on their new machine.
I already mentioned this previously in a comment. The simple reason is that making Panther completely 64bit would make it slower, even on 64bit hardware. Too much overhead. 32 bit applications will run just as fast, there is no emulation involved.
They are just going to optimise some libraries for 64 bit, for example the math libraries.
When Apple went from G4 to G5, people went out and bought a 2GHz Dual G5 Mac to replace their G4 machines. Then realized that not only did new 64bit apps run much faster on that machine, but their 32bit apps ran up to twice as fast on it, too :-)
If Mac OS X 10.3 was completely 64-bit, then how would Apple sell it to customers still using 32-bit G4s? Apple wants customers, not absolute elegance.
When do you consider an OS 64bit?
Panther will allow applications to use 64bit-pointers, they can perform 64bit calculations and some libraries that do really benefit from running in 64bit mode will be optimized. What advantages would a "true" 64bit-OS have? None?
WHY should Apple EVER make something like a 64bit-Finder, if that Finder would have NO ADVANTAGES AT ALL?
Well, I TOLD YOU SO!!!! Panther WILL NOT BE A 64bit OS!!!
After all the hate post of get informed, and you not having clue... it turn out that Steve Jobs is doing ya'll again.
This is why I do not use Apple. They will sell you an expensive G5, granted is great hardware, but the ripoff is the OS which won't take advantage of the hardware. So Jobs like to benchmark the Hardware, but he doesn't put any stress on benchmarking OSX versus say YelloDog Linux, or in this case AIX, as IBM intend to sell G5 AIX boxes.
You guys are right Steve Jobs IS charismatic guy, in fact he get some of you to drink all the red kool aide up! Suckers.
While I respect your hardware choice, I personally like the PPC line, I think you are being taken, wildly, on the OS side by Apple.
When Nintendo came out with the SNES, people went out on it and bought it because it was 16bit instead of 8bit...oh glorious Mario!
This is why I do not use Apple. They will sell you an expensive G5, granted is great hardware, but the ripoff is the OS which won't take advantage of the hardware.
No, you won't use an apple, because you have absolutely no clue. Here is a clue: a hybrid 64-32 bit OS is faster than pure 64 bit on hardware that gives natives performance on both 32 and 64 bit operations.
Are the new Windows XP 64 Bits versions fully 64 Bits? Other than the Itanium version...
"Well, I TOLD YOU SO!!!! Panther WILL NOT BE A 64bit OS!!!
After all the hate post of get informed, and you not having clue... it turn out that Steve Jobs is doing ya'll again."
Remaja, what you said/implied was that the OS would not be able to run 64 bit software nativly... and THAT is false.
"This is why I do not use Apple.
Sounds to me like you don;t use Apple technologies out of ignorance.
"They will sell you an expensive G5"
No more expensive than comparible PC systems.As a matter of fact, they're considerably less expensivethan comparable x86 systems.
"the ripoff is the OS which won't take advantage of the hardware."
The finder wont, but the OS does. In typical OS news fashion, the headline is misleading which feeds the ignorance of the unwashed masses such as yourself.
"So Jobs like to benchmark the Hardware, but he doesn't put any stress on benchmarking OSX versus say YelloDog Linux, or in this case AIX, as IBM intend to sell G5 AIX boxes."
The largest competition isn't YelloDog Linux on G4/G5. its x86. He made the right comparison.
I predicted this on 6/23/2003, becuase pushing hardware and selling an inferior OS on it is Apple MO. Is not the first time, MacOS use to run on PPC emulating 68k, embarassing. Now Panther will do similar. More kool-aide?
Here is how it went down on 6/23/2003:
Apple is suckering you again!
By anonymous (IP: 209.11.79.---) - Posted on 2003-06-23 19:28:45
Lets say the G5 is the fastest pc out there. I actually love the PowerPC line over X86. BUT, Apple is suckering you again. The hardware is fast, but how about the OS??? Is Panther 64bit? Or is it 32bit OS that a 64bit processor will emulate and ergo not fully utilize the hardware advantage?
Apple has a looong history of beefing up their hardware and selling you a crappy slow OS to run on top. Remember the MacOS on PowerPC? You got a PowerPC chip emulating a 68K one to run MacOs.
Wake up! The new G5 are good only if you slap a 64bit Linux on them, or AIX for that matter. Apple may have the hotest hardware, but they will sell you something that you cannot fully exploit with Panther, I'll bet.
RE: Apple is suckering you again!
By alan6101 (IP: ---.ATLNGAHP.covad.net) - Posted on 2003-06-23 19:33:01
Get off the crack, panther is 64bit.
Re: Apple is Suckering you again!
By anonymous (IP: 209.11.79.---) - Posted on 2003-06-23 19:43:35
RE: Apple is suckering you again!
By alan6101 (IP: ---.ATLNGAHP.covad.net) - Posted on 2003-06-23 19:33:01
Get off the crack, panther is 64bit.
***************************
eweek article: 64-bit Macs May Outpace 'Panther'
"Since the PowerPC 970 is backward-compatible with 32-bit code written for the G4, Apple intends to release Smeagol to fill Q37's software bill until Panther ships, sources said."
http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3668,a=43076,00.asp
Perhaps there is a news update to this that I am not aware of.
Re: anonymous
By Bascule (IP: ---.atmos.colostate.edu) - Posted on 2003-06-23 19:44:37
Apple is suckering you again. The hardware is fast, but how about the OS??? Is Panther 64bit?
Yes.
Or is it 32bit OS that a 64bit processor will emulate and ergo not fully utilize the hardware advantage?
No
Wake up! The new G5 are good only if you slap a 64bit Linux on them, or AIX for that matter.
Uhhh, AIX is not going to support HyperTransport/NUMA.
A move to a 64-bit processor will benefit MacOS X *much* more than it will Linux. MacOS X currently suffers from a rather inefficient ABI on 32-bit PPC, and a move to 64-bit PPC will allow them to design a much more efficient ABI for all 64-bit applications.
Apple may have the hotest hardware, but they will sell you something that you cannot fully exploit with Panther, I'll bet.
Perhaps you should read a bit before writing this sort of comment... it's been known for months that Panther will include a 64-bit kernel and userland (as well as legacy 32-bit supprt, ala Solaris)
Re: Apple is suckering you again!
By Anonymous (IP: ---.ph.ph.cox.net) - Posted on 2003-06-23 20:07:54
"Is Panther 64bit?
Yes
"Or is it 32bit OS that a 64bit processor will emulate and ergo not fully utilize the hardware advantage?"
No, the OS is fully 64 bit
Suckered?
By Anonymous (IP: ---.broadviewnet.net) - Posted on 2003-06-23 23:45:39
Your an idiot, anyone who purchases a 970 will receive Panther. Panther is a 64 bit OS. There is no 32 bit emulation, it runs native.
Bye, bye.
____________
Think about it. Why should a 64bit OS be faster/more capable that the hybrid Panther?
If you really know an advantage, please post it here. Applications can be optimized for 64bit on Panther. So that wouldn't be an advantage. The 32bit code in Panther is as fast as 64bit code on the G5 and the G5 does not have to switch modes or something.
So if Apple optimizes the portions of the OS that will benefit from 64bit processing (No OS uses more than 4GB RAM for itself, so they could only speed up math operations that use 64bit numbers), Panther should be as fast as a "true" 64bit OS or even faster.
"Panther will allow applications to use 64bit-pointers..."
Not true. The OS will still give you 32 bit pointers. Meaning that even if you have 8 GB of RAM, no single application can see more than 4 GB. The only significant 64 bit advantage of the G5 is the ability to do long long integer math in hardware.
«"Panther will allow applications to use 64bit-pointers..."
Not true. The OS will still give you 32 bit pointers. Meaning that even if you have 8 GB of RAM, no single application can see more than 4 GB. The only significant 64 bit advantage of the G5 is the ability to do long long integer math in hardware.»
Ok, if that is really true, I admit that it would be a real disadvantage of Panther vs. a real 64bit system. However, I wonder why the Mathematica guy who was at WWDC said that they had looked for a benchmark that would show the advantage of being able to address more than 4GB of RAM if Panther did not support it?
When do you consider an OS 64bit?
Panther will allow applications to use 64bit-pointers, they can perform 64bit calculations and some libraries that do really benefit from running in 64bit mode will be optimized. What advantages would a "true" 64bit-OS have? None?
Well, on my Alphas, memory glorious memory and actual math. I want my OS 64-bit so I can get around that @#&#$&!'n 4 GB barrier and so I can use pure-on 64-bit math. Let me tell you, you learn true patience when you get used to quantum chemistry on Alphas and then have to move to 32-bit.
Cry baby, cry!
Now go give all your money to Stevey Jobs, an obviously honest fellow. Er, also I have a bridge to sell. More kool-aide anyone? :-)
That Panther will feature a 32-bit build of XNU?
This makes absolutely no sense. The article makes it sound as if Apple would rather pull off some (nearly impossible?) hacks to make XNU manage memory with 64-bit datapaths while in 32-bit mode. This begs the question "Wouldn't it be simpler to make a 64-bit build of XNU?"
I really see no reason why not to make a 64-bit build of XNU, unless Apple was unable to make the XNU codebase 64-bit clean in the past 7 or so months, something I find highly unlikely.
Certainly there must already be 64-bit code in portions of XNU, such as the HFS+ module.
One thing I noticed about this article is a complete lack of attribution or citing of sources. Whatever happened to lead, quote, transition, quote, transition...
The article says that "Smeagol is a 32-bit operating system, though certain libraries and other elements have been recoded to allow applications - and the OS itself - to make use of the 64-bit addressing and datapaths, sources close to Apple said."
Perhaps from this we can assume that the userspace will remain 32-bit. Yet I see no reason why XNU itself can't go 64-bit (32-bit applications can still make system calls to a 64-bit kernel)
It also seems many people here are unfamiliar with how to facilitate a conversion from a 32-bit to a 64-bit OS. I suggest you look at how Sun did it with Solaris, supporting both sparcv8 and sparcv9. All packages in the base system come with 32-bit and 64-bit builds, ensuring backwards compatibility but also full 64-bit support.
"I predicted this on 6/23/2003, becuase pushing hardware and selling an inferior OS on it is Apple MO."
How is the OS inferior? You are totally misreading the headline. (Hard to do because of OSNews's headline wording) The OS will sully support 64 bit applications. The finder is not 64 bit. This is a GOOD thing for the finder as it would be slower, but yes, the OS itself is 64 bit in that it FULLY supports 64 bit applications.
"Is not the first time, MacOS use to run on PPC emulating 68k, embarassing. Now Panther will do similar. More kool-aide?
Nope. No kool-aide here. The G5 runs 32 bit apps nativly, the same way it runs 64 bit apps nativly... all with no speed degridation. As a matter of fact, 32 bit applications will run CONSIDERABLY faster than what they did on the G4. No, and no, not because the g5 makes up for the speed dfference to make the emulated code run fast... but that it is NOT emulating code. Its all runny totally native.
"Lets say the G5 is the fastest pc out there.
Lets anyone misunderstand... Apple claimed that the G5 is the fastest personal computer... not the fastest computer as has been incorrectly quated throughout the media...
"Apple is suckering you again. The hardware is fast, but how about the OS???"
Apple is not suckering anybody. The hardware AND the OS are fast.
"Is Panther 64bit?"
The finder will not be 64 bit, but apps run at full 64 bit.
"Or is it 32bit OS that a 64bit processor will emulate and ergo not fully utilize the hardware advantage?"
Nope. It will run 32 bit apps nativly. it will run 64 bit apps nativly. The finder wont be 64 bit, bit the OS will run 64 bit apps nativly.
"Apple has a looong history of beefing up their hardware and selling you a crappy slow OS to run on top."
Not at all.
"Remember the MacOS on PowerPC? You got a PowerPC chip emulating a 68K one to run MacOs."
In that case, the PPC was emulating 68K code, but the PPC was so fast, 68k apps actually ran FASTER than what they did on machines which previously ran the 68k apps nativly.
"Wake up! The new G5 are good only if you slap a 64bit Linux on them"
Not at all. While I'm sure that Linux will run fabulious as well... OS X will run just as intended.... very fast.
"or AIX for that matter."
that OS too.
"Apple may have the hotest hardware, but they will sell you something that you cannot fully exploit with Panther, I'll bet."
See... you were wrong. If the finder were 64 bit, it would not be as fast. Thankfully, the finder is 32 bit and the OS FULLY supports 64 (and 32) bit applications nativly at full speed.
"The OS will still give you 32 bit pointers."
32 and 64.
"Meaning that even if you have 8 GB of RAM, no single application can see more than 4 GB."
Not true.
>The only significant 64 bit advantage of the G5
>is the ability to do long long integer math in hardware.
And what advantage is this for all but 1% of the population?
-m
>The finder is not 64 bit. This is a GOOD thing for
>the finder as it would be slower
I've read this a few times already and am wondering how this would be so?
-m
Actually Bascule, you need not get too technical. According to information from an eweek article[ http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3668,a=43076,00.asp ] one can conclude that Apple was going to do this all long. It just that Stevey Jobs decided to lie for the Press-media show, and apparently you fell on that bait like a flimsy cod.
Wish there was a better explanation, but IMHO is sleazy bussiness as usual in Apple land. Here is to all that money going into Cupertino!
But relax is just a computer. So what if Panther is 32bit, the main thing is that you can brag about a G5 hardware, even though we all know that is not being properly utilize by OSX, but hey, let that be our little secret.
>>"The only significant 64 bit advantage of the G5
>>is the ability to do long long integer math in hardware."
>"And what advantage is this for all but 1% of the population?"
Considering the fact that nobody has a G5it affects 0% of the population. Your statement assumes that OS X usage wont increase with the G5. I can assure you that OS X usage will grow.
I have several Windows and Linux using friends who have said for several years that they would never buy a Mac, and with the introduction of the G5 with Panther they not only said they would buy a G5... they already did. Their orders are already placed.
If Apple has got these individuals to switch... individuals that swore that they would never buy a Mac... to do so, then I believe this is an indicator that several others are considering the same. OS X useage WILL grow.
I have just found out that what you wrote is not correct. Applications can access more than 4GB of RAM in Panther. They can theoretically access 4TB of RAM.
Again, who knows a real (and true) advantage of a complete 64bit system???
Almost everybody here writes things like "The chip is not properly utilized by Panther", "it can be compared to the PPC emulating 68k code" etc. and NO ONE except Daniel has given any reason why a 64bit OS would be better/faster. And Daniel's argument turned out to be wrong.
"one can conclude that Apple was going to do this all long. It just that Stevey Jobs decided to lie for the Press-media show, and apparently you fell on that bait like a flimsy cod."
What did Jobs lie about?
"Wish there was a better explanation, but IMHO is sleazy bussiness as usual in Apple land."
Seems to me that the sleazyness is in the people that respond to misleading news articles in an effort to fulfill their own OS agenda. Apple didn;t do anything to warrent that comment. you're just a troll.
"But relax is just a computer."
How can anyone relax when people are spreading FUD?
"So what if Panther is 32bit"
Pather's finder is 32 bit. it can run 64 bit applications at full speed. IE... nothing has changed.
"the main thing is that you can brag about a G5 hardware
AND about the OS and its FULL support for 64 bit applications
"even though we all know that is not being properly utilize by OSX"
It most certinly is. If the finder were 64 bit, it would be slightly slower. (Not by much... the G5 would certinly make up for the difference... but why make the finder 64 bit if it doesn;t need to be? Especially if it makes it slower? You really have no argument here.
Who would need more than 4GB of RAM on his personal computer, anyway?
...
That's what I though. I think 32-to-64-bit transition is good, as 64-bit compilers aren't probably optimised and stable as 32-bit compilers. Let the technology mature. Most future Athlon64 users will probably only use Windows XP 32-bit at its launch...
>By Anonymous (IP: 12.105.181.---) - Posted on 2003-07-07 >18:11:35
>"one can conclude that Apple was going to do this all long. It >just that Stevey Jobs decided to lie for the Press-media show, >and apparently you fell on that bait like a flimsy cod."
>What did Jobs lie about?
LOL. Is all in good spirits, here have some more kool-aide.
My understanding from the WWDC was that 10.2.7 certainly couldn't do this, and the engineers I spoke to were not aware of a 64 bit virtual address space in Panther. Do you mind if I ask what your source is? I could be wrong, but I didn't hear about this the whole week I was there.
To your previous question, I'd say that 8 GB of RAM would still be useful with 32 bit pointers because the kernel can use the remaining memory quite well, for example on the disk cache. Or of course on other applications.
Almost everybody here writes things like "The chip is not properly utilized by Panther", "it can be compared to the PPC emulating 68k code" etc. and NO ONE except Daniel has given any reason why a 64bit OS would be better/faster. And Daniel's argument turned out to be wrong.
I guess a 64-bit OS would be faster with some calculations involving large integers, but that's it. I think the main advantage is the access to more RAM. I don't think we'll see a big speed difference like we saw when we moved from 16-bit to 32-bit... for now. Maybe we'll do in the future.
"Who would need more than 4GB of RAM on his personal computer, anyway?"
Digitial music editors, 3D animators, digital movie editors are a few consumers that come to mind.
Currently, home users don't require that much ram, but the machine is being targeted at the professional. Apple has lower end consumer machines and low-end towers for consumers who only need a computer for word processing, e-mail and web...
However, many consumers will want the speed that the G5 brings and may opt to not max out the ram... like me. I bought one for its speed but will only bringing the ram up to 2 Gigs.
>>"[/i]What did Jobs lie about?"[/i]
"LOL. Is all in good spirits, here have some more kool-aide."
Here, go back under your bridge you troll.
"Considering the fact that nobody has a G5it affects 0% of the population. Your statement assumes that OS X usage wont increase with the G5. I can assure you that OS X usage will grow."
That doesn't really answer the question. So let's say that the G5 explodes to be 50% of all desktop computers sold (for argument's sake). Of that population, how many would care that 64 bit integers can be processed directly in hardware? Really, where I'm trying to go with this is that Apple has developed many innovating products and brought them to the market. However, this latest itteration is not very innovative at all, but it is being marketed as such. And the fact that the G5s allow 64-bit data types does not legitimately help anyone except a small population of scientists and engineers.
-m
Case1:
Mac zealot: Macs are great you get to run Adobe, Adobe is great!
Event: Adobe drops Mac platform for Première
Mac Zealot: Adobe sucks, who needs Adobe anyway, Apple apps are better!
Case2:
Mac zeolot: Macs will now be the greatest they will be 64G5 running 64bit Panther, Wintel can't do that, or at least not yet!
Event: News get out that Panther will be 32bit.
Mac zeolot: 64bit is slow, who needs 64bit, 32bit is better!
:::Keep sipping that kool-aide!
"That doesn't really answer the question. So let's say that the G5 explodes to be 50% of all desktop computers sold (for argument's sake). Of that population, how many would care that 64 bit integers can be processed directly in hardware?"
That depends on what those consumers did with their computers. If they were professionals that required the extra ram, or were professionals that required the extra ram and wanted to take advantage 64 bit applications... then it would be that population that would be able to take advantage of the hardware.
If the consumers that bought them were home users that required the extra ram (not as likely... but a possibility), or home users that required the extra ram and wanted to take advantage 64 bit applications... then it would be that population that would be able to take advantage of the hardware.
"Really, where I'm trying to go with this is that Apple has developed many innovating products and brought them to the market. However, this latest iteration is not very innovative at all"
Apple didn't make the G5. Its IBM's innovation. Apple however was wise in being forward thinking and preparing its user base for a new breed of application that could take advantage of 64 bits.
"And the fact that the G5s allow 64-bit data types does not legitimately help anyone except a small population of scientists and engineers."
Right now, the primary applications that a 64 bit processor would benefit is this market. But Apple is being forward thinking and is developing applications that will take advantage of it as well as creating development tools that will help developers take advantage of it.
I recall, several years ago many consumers saying that they simply didn't have a need for increased processing power and yet they bought new computers a couple years later... and yet new computers a couple years after that... and yet again... newer computers after that.
To think that the industry wont find a use for increased processing power is akin to adopting the mindset that these same individuals held so many years back. The industry will most certainly find use for increased processing power as it always does.
Why is "Force Quit Finder" an option in the Apple menu 
?
"Case1:
Mac zealot: Macs are great you get to run Adobe, Adobe is great!"
Event: Adobe drops Mac platform for Première
You're forgetting the fact that Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express have already swept up the market... not with just Mac users, but Windows users who want the best post production video editing software. So in retrospect, your comment should read, " Mac realist: Macs are great you get to run Final Cut, Apple software is great!
"Mac Zealot: Adobe sucks, who needs Adobe anyway, Apple apps are better!"
Nobody is saying that Adobe sucks, but their video editing software is lacking when compared to Apple's offering.
"Case2:
Mac zeolot: Macs will now be the greatest they will be 64G5 running 64bit Panther, Wintel can't do that, or at least not yet!"
"Event: News get out that Panther will be 32bit."
The finder is 32 bit. This is a good thing as it would decrease the performance for an application that wouldn't be able to take advantage of the power that 64 bit processing allows. Thankfully, OS X FULLY supports 64 bit applications and all the advantages that go with it. You have no argument here.
"Mac zeolot: 64bit is slow, who needs 64bit, 32bit is better!"
I don't know any Mac user saying that... probably because 64 bit is better.
I recall already telling you all this.. but then again, its become obvious that you only want to troll these forums.
":::Keep sipping that kool-aide!"
Go back under your bridge you troll.
BTW... zealot is spelled zealot and you sounds like one when you spell it incorrectly.
For professional use, yes, but I thought I clearly said "personal computer". You know, the one at home. IMO, that's an useless feature to promote. Even XEONs supports 8GB (although I must admit that it's with ugly hacks).
" But Apple is being forward thinking and is developing applications that will take advantage of it as well as creating development tools that will help developers take advantage of it."
I hope that you're right. I hope that these apps come out soon enough to take the world by storm. However, there is always the possibility that Apple doesn't exploit the 64-bit architecture (before someone else... i.e. Traff-O-Data) and instead continues to sell interesting technology to the same gang of friends that is has been for more than a decade.
-m
"Why is "Force Quit Finder" an option in the Apple menu ?"
Because, like (although rare) the Finder can misbehave. So, rather than bringing down the whole system, you can opt to force quit it which will result in it auto starting again.
"However, there is always the possibility that Apple doesn't exploit the 64-bit architecture (before someone else... i.e. Traff-O-Data) and instead continues to sell interesting technology to the same gang of friends that is has been for more than a decade."
Apple will almost certinly take advantage of its newly acquired 64 bit strength as the company repeatedly does for most of its advantages.
Apple has consistently grown their user base year after year for the past decade even if sometimes the overall computing industry grow faster than it did.
"For professional use, yes, but I thought I clearly said "personal computer"."
The computer that professionals use is a personal computer the same way that a home computer is also a personal computer.... IE: P.C.
"You know, the one at home. IMO, that's an useless feature to promote."
Apple has several consumer applications that are power hungry enough that would benefit from 64 bit processors... most notable is their consumer video editing software applications. (iMovie and Final cut express)
"Even XEONs supports 8GB (although I must admit that it's with ugly hacks)."
I didn;t know of such a hack. Can you point me to a reference?
Apple will almost certinly take advantage of its newly acquired 64 bit strength as the company repeatedly does for most of its advantages.
Apple has consistently grown their user base year after year for the past decade even if sometimes the overall computing industry grow faster than it did.
A growing user base is meaningless in the face of market-share. I probably miss-spoke in my "friends" comment. My point is that I really hope that Apple is able to get that killer 64-bit gem out there because if they don't then they are in the same boat. Apple has consistently released products of high quality, and yet the market share seems to be stagnant at best. So whatever that next great product that they make is... it better be extremely cool, or at least first.
-m
for those of you saying "who needs 8 gigs of ram" remember this quote:
"640K of memory should be enough for anybody." -- bill gates 1981
Also, to 12.105.81.---'s
>>They will sell you an expensive G5"
>No more expensive than comparible PC systems.As a matter of fact, they're considerably less expensivethan comparable x86 systems
I just purchased an athlon 2600 with 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig hard drive for 500 dollars brand new. if I were to cluster, I could have 6 of those clustered for the same price as the base model dual 2 ghz G5. not that I'm knocking apple, I want a dual 2 ghz G5 running OSx very badly, but not enough to warrant spending 3 grand (3800 for the configuration I wanted, which is another athlon in the cluster)
People keep adding fud to anything that sounds remotely bad. how about take the technology as it comes and see how it turns out. instead of saying "32<64, if panther isn't fully 64 bit it must be inherently evil" look into the technology and see why it's not fully 64 bit. otherwise you look like a moron when you're proven wrong.
Thank you for your time
My my, the misinformation runs rampant around here, doesn't it?
1) Speed isn't being affected here --- since the G5 executes 32-bit PPC instructions just as fast as 64-bit instructions, the only thing that comes into play is increased pressure on the data cache, which won't mean much more than 10% in practice.
2) Memory addressing probably isn't affected. Its going to be a little contorted inside the kernel, attempting to manage >4GB memories with 32-bit code, but I'm guessing they'll manage. Most likely what will happen is that the full memory of the system will be available to 64-bit user-space apps, while the OS will be limited to using only the first 4GB for its own purposes (data structures, caches, loadable modules). Unlike the AMD Opteron and Itanium, I'm guessing that the G5 has a mode that allows 64-bit apps to run under a 32-bit kernel. If it doesn't, then the "hybrid" aspect will probably mean some thunks will come into play which will shunt calls from 64-bit apps to 32-bit code deeper in the OS. Not unlike Win9x, really, except not as extreme.
3) The only real impact this has is on elegance. But OS X is a rather inelegant architecture underneath anyway, so, as the saying goes, if you're in the sticks, you might as well enjoy the grits 
"A growing user base is meaningless in the face of market-share. I probably miss-spoke in my "friends" comment."
Actually, market share is irrelivant in this context.
Market-share is determined by quarterly or annual sales figures. The problem with market-share statistics is that it implies that all computers retain the same level of usability over time. It assumes that once a computer is sold, it will retain its productivity status for as long as its parts continue to function.
Unfortunately, usability statistics and replacement purchasing habits of consumers vary significantly between platforms thus causing the market-share figure to look skewed.
Linux users (for example) are known to keep aging computer hardware useful long after it was left for dead by its former Windows using owner. The open source community consistently manages to squeeze every last ounce of processing power from even the most aged hardware available.
Similarly, Mac users are known to keep their computers as primary productivity tools until the gears fall off. This is really a testament to the quality that Apple incorporated into its hardware and software over the years.
Unfortunately, the incorporation of quality into these platform's coding efforts will only fuel the notion that they are far less popular as what they are as long as market-share is the most commonly used gauge to determine platform popularity.
Because the Linux operating system's distribution model isn't tied directly to sales, it will never get a truly accurate gauge as long as market-share is touted over installed-base.
Apple on the other hand, may be in a better situation for the foreseeable future.
As we all know, the troubled economy has caused desktop PC purchases to fall to an all time low. This fact may actually work to Apple's advantage.
Everything Apple has been working toward pivots on the release of OS X running on next generation hardware.
The release of the G5, when coupled with Apple's Panther operating system starts the completion of Steve Jobs' rebuilding of Apple.
It's this combination, which the computer using populace has been waiting for, many of which have said that they've been holding back their computer purchases for Apple to get the time table right.
This sudden sales windfall will occur in parallel with the PC industry's slow sales rate, which means that as long as the semi-misleading market-share statistic continues to be touted; Apple's percentage will likely jump from its current 3 percent status to double-digit growth, (somewhere in the 12 percent range) in as few as 6-9 months.
Remember, marketshare for any given company is calculated in relation to the sales of its competators. This will cause Apple's market share to make an even larger spike considering the fact that each individual PC manufacturer's sales wont be there to counter Apple's.
"My point is that I really hope that Apple is able to get that killer 64-bit gem out there because if they don't then they are in the same boat.
I'm asuming that you're talking about them getting the G5 out there... as in... in the market... as apposed to meanting that they need to make Pather 64 bit which is for all intents and purposes wrong as for as consumers wanting 64 bit applications are concerned. (Remember, Panther will be able to run 64 bit applications nativly... despite the misleading OS News headline. (Its only the finder than wont be 64 bit... which is fine. The finder doens;t need to be 64 bit. Actually, I would argue that at this point, the finder needs to be 32 bit... as it would experience as slight speed decrease as a result.
"Apple has consistently released products of high quality, and yet the market share seems to be stagnant at best."
its important to remember that Apple HAS increased its user base, although not as quickly as the rest of the industry. Again, marketshare for any given company is calculated in relation to the sales of its competators on a quarterly or annual basis and is not a reflection of how a company products sit in relation to the rest of the world as far as who is using them.
"So whatever that next great product that they make is... it better be extremely cool, or at least first."
I'm not worried their products typically are. Thankfully, the G5 seems poised to increased both user base and market share.
Actually Bascule, you need not get too technical. According to information from an eweek article[ http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3668,a=43076,00.asp ] one can conclude that Apple was going to do this all long. It just that Stevey Jobs decided to lie for the Press-media show, and apparently you fell on that bait like a flimsy cod.
The eWeek article had the following to say:
While Smeagol will be built using GCC 3.1, Apple plans to compile Mac OS X 10.3 with GCC 3.3. Apple has said it will show off Panther later in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, an event which sources said will also mark Apple's first discussions of the PowerPC 970; it's unclear whether a developer preview will include support for the new chip.
I thought the last part was the most interesting...
Apple does, however, plan to release a 64-bit version of the OS when it ships in September, according to sources.
At least eWeek recognizes that somewhere exists a source for their information, unlike the Inquirer article, which simply states it as fact and provides no source.
The eWeek article is also saying the exact opposite from the Inquirer article... that Panther will include 64-bit support, be that in the kernel or only in userspace.
Regardless, there is no technical information in this article. They don't say if Panther's build of XNU will be a 32-bit binary or if a 64-bit version will be included for use with PPC970. It makes no sense to make only a 32-bit build of XNU as it won't take advantage of PPC970 scheduling and would make implementation of a VMM for 64-bit data paths significantly harder than if they were to simply do a 64-bit build of the kernel.
So once again I ask... what is the source of this information? It simply does not make sense...
"My my, the misinformation runs rampant around here, doesn't it?"
I would like to thank Mr Hashem/Remaja for writing a very well-reasoned response to the FUD and misinformation that is being posted around here. In the past, this wasn't always the case.
Keep up the good work.
for those of you saying "who needs 8 gigs of ram" remember this quote...
First, I said 4GB.
Second, I knew that somebody would dig up that quote. It was predictable like a clock.
Third, yes, right now, we don't really need 4/8GB RAM, so I hardly see why Apple promotes it as a feature. That's all. I realise that some people need it, or that we will need it someday, but it's like saying that 4TB is stupid and that we should seek 96/128-bit processors...
Memory addressing probably isn't affected. Its going to be a little contorted inside the kernel, attempting to manage >4GB memories with 32-bit code, but I'm guessing they'll manage.
The question is why go to such extreme and bizarre lengths to manage 64-bit addressable memory from 32-bit code? Why not simply make a 64-bit build of the kernel? The only two reasons I can think of would be that PPC970 support in gcc is not robust enough to justify a 64-bit build, or that XNU is not 64-bit clean. Judging from the most recent commits to the gcc 3.3 tree (which included, amoung other things, PPC970 scheduler support) the former isn't true. As for the latter, Apple has already had almost seven months to ensure XNU's 64-bit cleanliness.
I once again call into question the accuracy of this article, which does not mention any sources for its information and gives no quotes as to the matter. The information provided is sketchy at best, and makes little sense...
Actually, market share is irrelivant in this context.
Market-share is always relivant when it comes to Apple. We're not talking about a swing of a couple of percentage points... we're talking about a margin of close to +90% points. That is major. You say that Apple users hold onto their computers longer, and that very well may be (I still use my 6100/66), but that very well may be because the hardware is sold at a premium far above that of PCs. While it's probably true that a similarly equiped PC may run approximately the same price, most people would never know that because they see $500 computers that do everything that the Macs do just as fast. I am a computer scientist and consider myself to have needs above those of the 'average' user (email, internet, scanning, digital camera, mp3s) and I still don't find the justification to dole out +$2500 on a computer that may make my software builds slightly faster. Let's face it... Apple sells the Lexus, and there are only a set percentage of people who need them, want them, or can afford them... everyone else just needs something to get them from point A to B.
-m
"Right now, we don't really need 4/8GB RAM
Many of us do.
"so I hardly see why Apple promotes it as a feature."
Because many of us need it and it wasn't available on previous Macs or x86.
"That's all. I realise that some people need it"
Why would you say that after saying, "we don't really need 4/8GB RAM"?
"or that we will need it someday"
Many more will probably need someday and Apple is being forward looking, but many consumers do use it. Its not as if Apple is forcing you to buy it.
"but it's like saying that 4TB is stupid and that we should seek 96/128-bit processors..."
not at all.
Hello,
If you want an interesting read the Apple Devlopers doc for hardware is up at Apple (sorry can't find link right now) from readin this document it appears that Apple only talked about the dual cpu G5.
1. There are 3 speeds of CPU to Hypertransport channel, 800, 900, 1000
2. THe CPUs use the same channel into memory. THis is equivalent to the current AMD MP system. Means it shouldnb't scale well beyond about 4 CPUs, Opterons NUMA is far superiour on this point.
3. Bluetooth is an usb donngle (how amusing)
4. USB is used A LOT inside the computer.
5. THe AGP-Hypertransport Tunnel is an AMD chip
Other notes
if(sizeof(void*) == 8)
std::cout << "64 bit " <<std:: endl;
if lseek uses an 64 bit argument.
Also:
I check to see how much a G5 dualie would run and it seemed to me that Apple is only shipping 1 GBi sticks. THe memory is old PC2100 DDR non-ECC. I expected to see the 4GBi expansion to use 8 sticks of 512Mbi. I think there is some price goging there. The drives and other components seemed pretty close. (drives witihin a dollar of online, bluetooth too.) Video cards are little high, Take an intel radeon and reflash it to save a few bucks. (Same card sans the DVI connector but Power PC bios not intel BIOS.)
My 2.3 cents
Donaldson
Panther is a hybrid 32 bit and 64 bit OS. It can run both 32 and 64 bit applications natively. It can definitely access 8GB of RAM and theoretically access several terabytes of RAM. I've known all of this for quite some time...so methinks others just weren't reading the press releases carefully or weren't reading them all all, just reading headlines and comments and thinking that makes them informed.
The computer that professionals use is a personal computer the same way that a home computer is also a personal computer.... IE: P.C.
I guess that's just because we don't share the same definition of PC. I tend to call an high end machine a "workstation" and a home machine a PC.
Apple has several consumer applications that are power hungry enough that would benefit from 64 bit processors... most notable is their consumer video editing software applications. (iMovie and Final cut express)
Benefit of 64-bit processors, OK, but of >4GB RAM... I doubt.
I didn;t know of such a hack. Can you point me to a reference?
Yes! It's called Physical Addressing Extensions (PAE). Here's a list of Intel chipsets for the XEON:
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/linecard/svr_wkstn.htm
As you can see, many of them are supporting over 4GB even if all their CPUs are 32-bit. However, I must add that PAE must be supported by the OS (some versions of Windows Server, Netware, Linux and FreeBSD (still in development)). I'll try to find a more "direct" reference to that term instead of a chipset list.
"Market-share is always relivant when it comes to Apple."
For perception yes, but not for sales.
I'll make this very simple. Think of it like this, if in one quarter, Apple sells 1 computer and Windows sells 9, Apple has 10% market sahre. But If apple sells 100 and Windows sells 900, Apple still only has 10% of the industry this despite significantly growing its user base.
Now If Windows has a bad quarter and drops down to 600 (from 900) and Apple sells 400 computers (up from 100) their market share just shot up to 40%.
The next quarter the PC industry may recoup sales and the proports may not be like they were. This could mean that Apple's market sahre would change from 40% ro 15-20% in the sapce of only a few months.
In every scanareo, Apple has increased its user base. This is how Apple has been opperating for the past several years... increasing user base but not making much of a dent in market share because the industry grew faster than they did.
Right now, Windows is very stagnate with regard to sales, and Apple just released a highly wanted product. This could mean that "market share" will make the dramatic rise as outlined in my example.
"While it's probably true that a similarly equiped PC may run approximately the same price, most people would never know that because they see $500 computers that do everything that the Macs do just as fast."
Well, thats the key, a $500 computer is not equally equipped and therefore cannt do the same as a Mac costing $1000 (for example)
"I am a computer scientist and consider myself to have needs above those of the 'average' user (email, internet, scanning, digital camera, mp3s) and I still don't find the justification to dole out +$2500 on a computer that may make my software builds slightly faster.
Nobody says you should. On that same token, why would you spend that much on a PC (considering the fact that the PC with the same components will cost roughly the same ammount if not more) Simply find a Mac to meet your needs.
"Let's face it... Apple sells the Lexus"
You're implying that Apple's prices aren't similar to whata PC would be with the same specs. Apple has several different models, all with different configurations to meet the pricing needs of nearly all consumers... except for the <$800 consumer.
"and there are only a set percentage of people who need them, want them, or can afford them... "
As would be the case for the average PC. Remember, the prices are similar when software and hardware are matched similarly.
"everyone else just needs something to get them from point A to B."
Thankfully, Apple sells a computer priced accordingly for these people as well...
Here's a though,
With these machines shipping so late why didn't Apple just drop AGP all together and use PCI-X video cards. Would have saved money. (Article link below on ATI dropping AGP cards.)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8841
Donaldson
Somebody asked why having a 64-bit CPU was useful. Let me explain:
1. You get a much larger addressable memory area since you can hold 64 bit addresses in a register. Useful for databases.
2. You can do faster 64-bit math. If anything, this is where you'd find quite a bit of the advantage in going to 64-bit. This is useful for mathematical applications and engineering applications. It could also be useful for things like Photoshop when dealing with high color depths. For more information on why more bits are a good thing for math, read IEEE-754. More precision and more accuracy!
As you can see, there's not really all that much reason for a stereotypical home user to care about 64 bit-ness at the moment. Your web browser won't run faster. Your games won't play quicker (unless they're doing something really funky!). As memory sizes get bigger, it will become a serious issue if your OS can't address them in hardware, but again, that's not a big problem _right now_, and probably won't be for a few years (assuming "average" memory size keeps doubling every year).
The PPC970 itself sports some other improvements which will no doubt make it much faster than the G4 for home users, but it being "64 bit" is not one of them. The Athlon64 and Opteron are much the same way - the performance increases you see from recompiled apps are from the addition of registers and architectural improvements, not "64 bit power".
But... please do not fall into the trap of thinking "64 bit CPUs are always better than 32 bit CPUs!". We're not talking about the NES vs. the SNES here.
-Erwos
QUick Summary,
For G5 to be considered a success in my book, Apple computer needs to sell 1.2 MIllon 3Q and 1.4 millon 4Q. THis would show apple is expanding their user base. If they sell there normal 700-880k machines per quater then Apple is in trouble on the computer front.
(From finacial reports worldwide sales)
Donaldson
"I guess that's just because we don't share the same definition of PC. I tend to call an high end machine a "workstation" and a home machine a PC."
Okay, Apple sells "workstations" and personal computers for consumers and professionals.
"Benefit of 64-bit processors, OK, but of >4GB RAM... I doubt."
These processors are incredibly fast. These consumers will benefit from the speed even if they choose to not take advantage of the Ram allotments they can fill. The fact that the chips are 64 bit is irrelivant in that regard.
Either way, Apple continues to sell very fast 32 bit G4s which meet the needs of all consumers anyways.
"For G5 to be considered a success in my book, Apple computer needs to sell 1.2 MIllon 3Q and 1.4 millon 4Q. THis would show apple is expanding their user base."
But they already are (and have been) increasing their user base. They've been doing that quarter after quarter year after year since the company started.
"If they sell there normal 700-880k machines per quater then Apple is in trouble on the computer front."
They probably wont seel that few, but that wont mean they're in "trouble" considering the fact that they company has remained profitable and continued to grow their user base.
anon: 12.105.181.--- can you show me where I can find a mac for 500 dollars that is comparable to my athlon 2600 with 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig hard drive? the best I can do on store.apple.com is an 800MHz PowerPC G4 with 128 megs of ram and a 40 gig hard drive and a CD-ROM (not 48 speed write like mine) for 799 plus shipping. remember, my athlon cost 425 bucks plus 75 dollars shipping. by the way, I am 100% serious here, I want to buy a mac but financial situation doesn't support spending 1000+ on a mac that can handle my needs when I can spend 500 on a linux machine that will. prices are NOT comparable between athlon based machines and apple machines. if I can get a computer that can easily handle video editing and 3d animation, where's the justification for spending more money on macs?
"anon: 12.105.181.--- can you show me where I can find a mac for 500 dollars that is comparable to my athlon 2600 with 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig hard drive?"
You can't.
However, if you're eluding to the notion that Macs are expensive, then match up a PC with the same hardware and software etc. When you do, you will find that Apple's computers are either slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive or significantly less expensive.
If you or others have a problem with Apple not competeing in the ultra low end, complain about that. Similarly, if you have problem with the fact that Apple doesn't allow you to build your own computer, say that. Just don't that Mac are expensive or are out of the price range of most consumers because that simply isn't the case.
Most home consumers spend $800-$2000 on a personal computer, something which Apple is easily able to accomidate them with... and at the same prices to a comperable Windows PC.
"Prices are NOT comparable between athlon based machines and apple machines."
Yes they are. When you compare, make sure to upgrade the Athlon system with the same hardware components that come standard on the Mac that has a similar processor speed. Additionally, its important to include the price of all the software which comes as standard equipment on all new Mcs.
"if I can get a computer that can easily handle video editing and 3d animation, where's the justification for spending more money on macs?"
If you prefer Windows and are content using inferior bundled software (at the same price for which you could have also got a Mac) then... there wouldn't be.
Either way, Apple continues to sell very fast 32 bit G4s which meet the needs of all consumers anyways.
I don't know. I'm not a big fan of the old G4. I must admit that the G5 has a pretty interesting price/performance ratio for high-end computing, but the G4... Bah. It was not bad when it came out, but it's not great right now.
>>Either way, Apple continues to sell very fast 32 bit G4s which meet the needs of all consumers anyways.<<"
"I don't know. I'm not a big fan of the old G4. I must admit that the G5 has a pretty interesting price/performance ratio for high-end computing, but the G4... Bah. It was not bad when it came out, but it's not great right now."
I think I worded my origional statement incorrectly... I was saying that its an adequately powered machine for most consumers. its definately not Über-High end... but is definately an extremely powerful computer. Its price/performance is relative to x86 mid range options.
Yes they are. When you compare, make sure to upgrade the Athlon system with the same hardware components that come standard on the Mac that has a similar processor speed. Additionally, its important to include the price of all the software which comes as standard equipment on all new Mcs.
Unless you don't need all of that stuff. I didn't realize that you were comparing both hardware->hardware AND software->software systems, so I was a bit perplexed at your argument... but it makes sense now. That being said, most people do not make such comparisons. In fact, they tend to look at the bottom line. Most people ARE content to live with "sub-par" apps packaged with Windows (and whatever compatible peripherals that they may desire) because the flash and elegance is not worth the extra cost. As mentioned, while the G5 may be a beautiful work of art, the benefits are not worth the price premium that I have to pay... and I think that goes for the majority.
-m
Many Apple zealots are copy/pasting this argument:
Apple computers are either slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive or significantly less expensive.
I'm sick of reading that twisted argument. It's only somewhat true with the new G5, which you can't get right now (you can only pre-order it). Please, don't use it like a whore, as it's not true for the low/mid-end market.
Btw, I say "somewhat" because it depends on the use you'll do with the whole bundle. What's the point in having Firewire & a buttload of software licences if you won't use them? Note you can say the same thing with PCs...
And Anonymous (IP: 12.105.181.---), no, I don't think you can compare current G4s with mid-end x86 offerings.
"Unless you don't need all of that stuff."
Then customize a system that doesn't have the hardware you don't need.
"I didn't realize that you were comparing both hardware->hardware AND software->software systems, so I was a bit perplexed at your argument... but it makes sense now. That being said, most people do not make such comparisons. In fact, they tend to look at the bottom line."
Typically, what happens is that consumers see a bare bones stripped to nothing model prrice extremely low. When they look at its specs the realzie its only barely usable so they end up upgrading it here and there to the point where they could have easily bought a Mac anyays, as it would ahve the same compontents they upgrade to .
"Most people ARE content to live with "sub-par" apps packaged with Windows (and whatever compatible peripherals that they may desire) because the flash and elegance is not worth the extra cost."
But thats the kicker, assuming these consumers aren't buying these ultra low LOW end machines and are upgrading them margionally... they don;t have to live with sub-par apps because the machines are the same price.
"As mentioned, while the G5 may be a beautiful work of art, the benefits are not worth the price premium that I have to pay... and I think that goes for the majority."
Just to be clear, its not a "premium" your paying in relation to an equivilent x86 PC. As a matter of fact, tehir significantly less.
If you're not going to buy an ultra hi-end Mac anyways... then you wouldn't be buying an ultra high end PC. Which means that you (and similar consumers) would be in the market of one of Apple's many other computer configurations... which include High or low-end G4 towers which are significantly less expensive now that the G5 debuted.
Here's a though,
With these machines shipping so late why didn't Apple just drop AGP all together and use PCI-X video cards. Would have saved money. (Article link below on ATI dropping AGP cards.)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8841
PCI-X != PCI-Express :-)
http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pcix_20/
http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pciexpress/
"Many Apple zealots are copy/pasting this argument:
Apple computers are either slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive or significantly less expensive."
I haven't seen a single Apple zealot saying that. However, I have seen several very rational Mac users saying this.
"I'm sick of reading that twisted argument. It's only somewhat true with the new G5, which you can't get right now (you can only pre-order it). Please, don't use it like a whore, as it's not true for the low/mid-end market."
Its true for all of Apple's product line. it wasn't true previously for Apple's towers (G4) bvut now with the G5, it is very prevelant, as a similarly equipped x86 machine would cost more than $1000 more.
"Btw, I say "somewhat" because it depends on the use you'll do with the whole bundle. What's the point in having Firewire & a buttload of software licences if you won't use them? Note you can say the same thing with PCs..."
For many prebuild PCs, removing Firewire isn't even an option. You buy it whether you like it or not... coincidentlly the same way as Apple sells its computers.
"And Anonymous (IP: 12.105.181.---), no, I don't think you can compare current G4s with mid-end x86 offerings."
I sure can, as can you. if you make a fair comparison, you will see that a Mac is in fact either slightly more expensive, same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive.
I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole argument that Macs at the $2000 are comparable to those PCs at that price range. YES...they probably are...but there is more to it. What if I don't HAVE $3000 to spent on a Mac plus a nice monitor? It doesn't matter how much fucking bang-for-your-buck your going to get if you don't HAVE that buck. Schools cannot afford a $2000 workstation. Sure, they might last longer, but no school board is going to allow you to spend $2000/computer (that's without a monitor) just because it will "last longer." That's just silly.
They might be comparable, but we don't need those $2000 PCs that are comparable, either. If you don't HAVE the money, it doesn't matter how great it is, you can't buy the fucking Mac!
Tell you what. When Panther comes out and folks can actually fish through it and find out for sure, then I'll believe that Steve was blowing a certain amount of smoke when he said Panther would be 64 bit. Rumor sites are notoriously wrong.
-HH
so are you saying that my athlon 2600 with 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig hard drive is ultra low end? how about a dual mp 3 ghz with a radeon 9800 and 2 gigs of ram for under 2 grand? where's the comparable mac? and you must have missed my linux. no one said that windows is cheap, and my machine runs faster with the linux equivelants of the software than it did on windows 2k or xp. even if oo.org takes a little while to load. and you keep saying that you can get macs for the same price that are comparable, I haven't seen any mac for under 2 grand that would compare to some of the amd/intel systems that you can get for under 1500.
in fact, I'll get you a price right now:
athlon dual MP 2400 (500)
1 gig of pc2700 ram (120)
160 gig SATA (150)
radeon 9800 128 megs(300)
sound card (<50)
dvd-ram (150)
gigabit NIC (<50)
case (50-100)
athlon system: 1420 (and that's rounding up in most cases)
mac 1.8 with 1 gig of ram and a 160 and the radeon 9800 and the super drive: 2,970.00
or was that high end enough for you? I just compared a high end (I think you'll agree) athlon system against a comparable mac system and the price is twice as much. I want you to tell me a situation where the mac will be twice as good as the athlon. macs are more expensive, no way around that, I'm not anti mac, I want to use one because they're smooth as silk, no way around that, but when the performance is equal, the prices are way different. if you can prove me wrong, I'll admit I was wrong, I offer proof, offer some of your own.
"I'm getting really sick and tired of this whole argument that Macs at the $2000 are comparable to those PCs at that price range. YES...they probably are...but there is more to it. What if I don't HAVE $3000 to spent on a Mac plus a nice monitor? It doesn't matter how much fucking bang-for-your-buck your going to get if you don't HAVE that buck."
Then you wouldn't be buying a PC at that price either then. If you need to go down in price then Apple offers an equivilently price computer to an x86 Windows PC if you compare both the hardware and software exactly (or as close as possible)
"Schools cannot afford a $2000 workstation."
Then they don't have to. Both Macs and PCs come in configurations that are priced dramatically less than that. When you compare each machine (yes even those in the sub-$2000 market as well) you will find that Macs are either priced slightly more, are the same price, slightly less or are significantly less.
"Sure, they might last longer"
yes, and at a price that is only slightly more, the same price, slightly less, or significantly less.
"but no school board is going to allow you to spend $2000/computer (that's without a monitor) just because it will "last longer." That's just silly."
Agrred. Thankfully, Apple sells computers that are significantly less than $2000, are well equipped and can have a monitor included
"They might be comparable, but we don't need those $2000 PCs that are comparable, either."
Then you wouldn;t get a Mac or a PC in that price class.
"If you don't HAVE the money, it doesn't matter how great it is, you can't buy the fucking Mac!"
Nor the PC for that matter.
Funny--
Our school replaces it's Macs on a three year schedule, and yes they purchase the high end models. Our labs are 1/3 Sun workstations, 1/3 Windows PC and 1/3 Mac.
by the way those are pricewatch.com prices on the athlon and store.apple.com for the G5. I really want to see you compare a mac with an athlon or intel system and get similar priced similarly equipped systems
I haven't seen a single Apple zealot saying that. However, I have seen several very rational Mac users saying this.
Right...
For many prebuild PCs, removing Firewire isn't even an option. You buy it whether you like it or not... coincidentlly the same way as Apple sells its computers.
For many, yes, but not for all.
Its true for all of Apple's product line. it wasn't true previously for Apple's towers (G4) [then why it's true for the entire product line? -Me] bvut now with the G5
[...]
"And Anonymous (IP: 12.105.181.---), no, I don't think you can compare current G4s with mid-end x86 offerings."
I sure can, as can you. if you make a fair comparison, you will see that a Mac is in fact either slightly more expensive, same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive.
Please, next time, read what you've written above before copy/pasting your "argument"... I must agree with you for the G5, but the copy/pasting you made with the G4 prove that you're in the category that I call "zealots".
"so are you saying that my athlon 2600 with 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig hard drive is ultra low end?"
Not at all.
"how about a dual mp 3 ghz with a radeon 9800 and 2 gigs of ram for under 2 grand?"
Not at all.
"where's the comparable mac?"
http://www.apple.com/hardware/powermacg4/
http://www.apple.com/powermac/ (It comes in a low-end configuration too)
"and you must have missed my linux. no one said that windows is cheap, and my machine runs faster with the linux equivelants of the software than it did on windows 2k or xp."
Macs run Linux too you know...
"you keep saying that you can get macs for the same price that are comparable, I haven't seen any mac for under 2 grand that would compare to some of the amd/intel systems that you can get for under 1500."
Remember, its important to upgrade those systems with all the standard equipment that come with the Mac. Regardless, Apple's High End G4 and Low-end G5 would compete very well in either case for simialr price points.
"in fact, I'll get you a price right now:
athlon dual MP 2400 (500)
1 gig of pc2700 ram (120)
160 gig SATA (150)
radeon 9800 128 megs(300)
sound card (<50)
dvd-ram (150)
gigabit NIC (<50)
case (50-100)
athlon system: 1420 (and that's rounding up in most cases)
mac 1.8 with 1 gig of ram and a 160 and the radeon 9800 and the super drive: 2,970.00"
This is what I'm talking about. Your PCs are equally equipped with what the G5 gives you. If you're going to make these comparisons, you've also got to factor in the software as well.
"or was that high end enough for you?"
not at all.
"I just compared a high end (I think you'll agree) athlon system against a comparable mac system and the price is twice as much."
You left out several key components that the G5 will give you that the systems you suggested don't.
"I want you to tell me a situation where the mac will be twice as good as the athlon."
A single or dual processor G5
"macs are more expensive, no way around that"
Not at all. They are less configurable however.
"I'm not anti mac"
its hard to tell.
"I want to use one because they're smooth as silk, no way around that, but when the performance is equal"
The performance is greater on the G5
"the prices are way different."
Nope. Depending on the configuration, a mac is either slightly more, the same price, slightly less, or significantly less.
"if you can prove me wrong, I'll admit I was wrong, I offer proof, offer some of your own."
Just match the hardware and software to the EXACT same specs (or as close as possible) in both hardware and software and you'll see. Its all there... you just aren;t matching up the specs.
"I must agree with you for the G5, but the copy/pasting you made with the G4 prove that you're in the category that I call "zealots"."
I made some typographical errors and now I'm a zealot? Pahleaze...
Black Pot and Black Kettle....
"Its true for all of Apple's product line. it wasn't true previously for Apple's towers (G4) [then why it's true for the entire product line? -Me]
because the prices on the G4 made a dramatic price drop with the introduction of the G5.
""Again, who knows a real (and true) advantage of a complete 64bit system???""
There's actually some incredibly funky things you can do if you have 8 bytes to play with in a register. It's not all maths either, there's quite a few optimisations you can pull off by doing multiple operations simultaneously thanks to have the bits to play in. Eg, changing case of 8 ASCII chars in one fell swoop, string searches etc.
Then there's all the graphical stuff like being able to mix multiple pixels simultaneously (Like the x86 MMX instructions). That particular case might be dealt with in the GPU now, but there are plenty of others like it.
Yeah, I know. I checked the prices on Apple Store before making that argument, too. IMO, they're still too high. If you make a fair comparison, you will see that a mid-end PC is either slightly more expensive, same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive . Then again, maybe they're just okay for users that really want to get a Mac.
That said, I wonder if Apple will offer a "low-end" G5 (maybe a 1.4GHz?) under 1500$. I must admit that the G5 seems to be a great computer (although we haveyet to see an independant review, i.e. not asked or sponsored by Apple). IMO, I'm sure that more people would like to get (or at least try) one at that price point.
what key differences did I leave out? you are being very vague and taking my comments out of context. instead of commenting on bits and pieces of my comment, why not the whole entire thing?
first off, between the systems, mac software was factored in, linux software mostly free was factored in.
secondly, the dual athlon 2400 vs the single G5 1.8 and all else hardwarewise was equal, tell me if I'm wrong here, and the mac was twice the price.
Those systems are pretty close to being equal, how about you do a comparison with systems that you think are "the EXACT same specs" tell me what was missing in my comparison or something instead of being like a 10 year old and saying "nope you're wrong, nope that's not right, um, not quite, you're not telling the whole story"
I've given numbers and exact reproducible data for everyone to see, my cards are on the table. show data, if you go into court and say "I don't think he could have dont it, you just have to believe me, it's just not in his nature" you'd be laughed out of court. GIVE SOME PROOF
and have some kool-aid or build a bridge or whatever you think is necessary :-D
you keep saying that a mac is either slightly more, the same price, slightly less, or significantly less. give a situation where an equally equipped mac is either slightly more, same, slightly less, or significantly less than it's (equally equipped remember) opponent. I seem to be missing those, because I've searched ebay for QUITE SOME TIME now for a mac that is even slightly more than it's non-mac counterpart. I seriously want to buy a mac, but the fact that for the same price or (in all of my experiences) LESS, I can get a higher performance non-mac, has led me to believe that there are none that fit the bill. show me a system that fits the bill of being less than the pc-compatible counterpart. I'm anxiously awaiting that system.
"Yeah, I know. I checked the prices on Apple Store before making that argument, too. IMO, they're still too high."
Then you also must have a beef with x86 manufacturer's prices, as Apple's prices are similar in price.
"If you make a fair comparison, you will see that a mid-end PC is either slightly more expensive, same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive ."
That one made me laugh. 
"Then again, maybe they're just okay for users that really want to get a Mac."
The point is, while Apple may be lacking in the configurability department, they are not lacking in price. When people say that Mac's cost too much, what they mean is that they can eliminate a feature and make it less expensive. But then again, most of the features that come as standard equipment on the Mac are typical of the base systems that most consumers would want anyways... IE USB, Hard drive, keyboard etc...
Similarly, Apple doesn't compete in the ultra low end nor does the company allow you to build your own computer which only fuels the misconception.
What I've found is that Most consumers who opt for the ultra low end PCs typically upgrade fgeatures here and there to the point that they could have got a low end Mac anyways., and Apple is also very competative in the $800 - $1,200 market (the market these people upgrade these $400 computer to) so, for the most part that aspect of the price equation is a non issue.
Similarly, if people have a beef with Apple that they don't allow them to build their own computer... (which can result in a lower price) simply say that... rather than sawing that Apple's computer's are more expensive).
What's important when comparing prices is that you compare Apple as a computer manufacturere to other computer manufacturers and equip both machines with EXACT (or as close as possible) hardware and software.
"That said, I wonder if Apple will offer a "low-end" G5 (maybe a 1.4GHz?) under 1500$."
Eventually, when the G5 gets transitioned to a 0.9 process to which it will benefit from the associated cooling advantages, (In less than a year) we will probably see such as system.
"I must admit that the G5 seems to be a great computer (although we haveyet to see an independant review, i.e. not asked or sponsored by Apple)."
A representative employed by Nasa recently conducted an independant review. His report verified much of what Apple said.
What I fear is that other independant reviewers make the mistake of comparing the G5 SPEC scores to a P4/XEON using Intel's compiler which will end up with dramatatically different results. People will see those different results and cry shenanagins.
The reason why the GCC compiler was used on both platforms (rather than using Intel's compiler on the x86 hardware), is because the benchmarks measure two things at the same time: compiler, and hardware.
To test the hardware alone, you must normalize the compiler out of the equation -- using the same version and similar settings. Regardless, its important to remember that gcc has been available on the Intel platform for a lot longer and is more optimized for Intel than for PowerPC.
The Dell numbers that Apple quoted would have been higher with the Intel compiler, but that the Apple numbers could be higher with a different compiler too.
"IMO, I'm sure that more people would like to get (or at least try) one at that price point."
I'm sure they would. But Apple's High-end G4's make up the disparity in price to performance between the low end G5s and the high end iMacs.
"what key differences did I leave out? you are being very vague and taking my comments out of context. instead of commenting on bits and pieces of my comment, why not the whole entire thing?"
I know this looks like I'm avoiding the question, but a comparison like that takes at least a half hour to make sure that both machines are matched accordingly.
I've done those so many times before on some many forums... all of which can;t be copied and pasted because in each instance someone throws a new configuration at me. What inevitably insues is an attempt to tear appart the differences, to which I must spend an additional hour or two defending lest it look like my comparison was false.
For these reasons, I'm going to put this back in your court because it is use that is claiming shenanigans. however, I will give you a reference where you can compare tech specs which must be matched:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html
Mactch these specs, then bundle in the price of equivilently matched software. When you do, post your results here.
Anonymous --- your argument is BS.
"where's the comparable mac?"
http://www.apple.com/hardware/powermacg4/
>>>>>>>
Hardly. The closest G4 machine I got get to his config was a dual 1.25 GHz with 256MB of RAM, 80GB HDD, and Radeon 9000 for $1570. The G4 has a much slower processor, much smaller HDD, a quarter of the RAM, and a much slower graphics card. Bringing the G4 up to dual 1.25GHz with 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, and GeForce4 Ti (nowhere near as fast as the Radeon 9800) comes to $2500 (from the Apple Store). There is no way in hell the Mac comes with $1000+ worth of software, especially when you take into account that the total cost of software for a Linux machine is on the order of $100.
Macs run Linux too you know...
>>>>>>
You can build a PC without buying Windows. Building a Mac is expensive and requires jumping through hoops.
Remember, its important to upgrade those systems with all the standard equipment that come with the Mac.
>>>>>>
Like what? Gigabit NIC? He took that into account. DVD burner? He took that into account. Shitty onboard sound? Check. The Mac doesn't even include speakers in its base price! The original poster did his part. He offered up the specs to a PC. Now, let's see you build a Mac to comparable specs for price even $500 within the PC.
Look. Apple products can be very high quality. However, they aren't cheap. I recently shelled out $370 (student discount for an iPod. I could have bought a cheap plastic imitation that did the same exact thing for half that. But the iPod is a genuinely high quality product, and it was worth what I payed for it. Nobody's trying to say that Apple products aren't worth what they cost. Thanks to the new dual G5's, the roughly $500 price premium you're paying over a comparably equiped PC (the base $3000 dual G5 machine leaves something to be desired in the graphics and audio departments) seems reasonable if you really like OS X and the iApps. However, lets not try to pretend that Apple machines are anywhere near as cheap as PCs.
"you keep saying that a mac is either slightly more, the same price, slightly less, or significantly less. give a situation where an equally equipped mac is either slightly more, same, slightly less, or significantly less than it's (equally equipped remember) opponent. I seem to be missing those, because I've searched ebay for QUITE SOME TIME now for a mac that is even slightly more than it's non-mac counterpart."
Match the specs for each of the following systems:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/hardware/powermacg4/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/emac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/ibook/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html
"I seriously want to buy a mac, but the fact that for the same price or (in all of my experiences) LESS, I can get a higher performance non-mac
You're not compareing teh same specs for hardware and software. I've done these experiments MANY times.
"Hardly."
Don't buy the Ram from Apple.
" You can build a PC without buying Windows. Building a Mac is expensive and requires jumping through hoops."
Agreed, but then your argument is not with the price of the Mac its with Apple's decision to not let you custom build one.
"Like what? Gigabit NIC? He took that into account. DVD burner? He took that into account. Shitty onboard sound?"
I know this looks like I'm avoiding the question, but a comparison like that takes at least a half hour to make sure that both machines are matched accordingly.
I've done those so many times before on some many forums... all of which can;t be copied and pasted because in each instance someone throws a new configuration at me. What inevitably insues is an attempt to tear appart the differences, to which I must spend an additional hour or two defending lest it look like my comparison was false.
For these reasons, I'm going to put this back in your court because it is use that is claiming shenanigans. however, I will give you a reference where you can compare tech specs which must be matched:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/hardware/powermacg4/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/emac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/ibook/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html
"The Mac doesn't even include speakers in its base price!"
Every Mac comes with an internel speaker.
I offer you a challenge. pick apart my system that I spec-ed above and tell me the key differences between the mac G5 1.8 listed there. remember, I have stated the key specs, that's not all of the specs. I also stated the prices. state the key differences, you're starting to sound like you're under the age of 15, and by the way, all of your comparisons are based on the apple website, give some real world proof of concept here. so far I (and probably everyone else who has read this, who by the way have left the conversation) have seen nothing from your statements other than "I kiss the ground that steve-o walks on, he is my god and there is no other before him, his are best there are no others, you offer proof but you must trust me"
Upgrade the cache on your athlon to 512K
Now give it a 800MHz frontside Bus
Now upgrade the DDR SDRAM main memory to 256MB PC2700 (333MHz)
You didn't say, does your config come with Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet? if not add it.
Is it prewired for 802.11b/g? If not, add that too.
Does your configuration have Optical digital audio in, optical digital audio out, analog audio in, analog audio out, front headphone minijack and speaker? If not add that.
make sure to find equivilents for the following: iLife (including iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD), QuickBooks for Mac New User Edition, FAXstf, Art Directors Toolkit, Microsoft Office v.X Test Drive, FileMaker Pro Trial, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, GraphicConverter, QuickTime, iChat, Safari, Sherlock, Address Book, iCal, iSync, DVD Player, Mail, EarthLink, Acrobat Reader, Classic environment and Apple Developer Tools
Does it come with 90 days of free telephone support and a one-year limited warranty? If not, add that too.
The chalange was not whether or not Apple could be as configurable as a PC. A PC can be more configurable. His configuration had many things lacking as compared to a G5, G4 etc...
The argument was whether or not the PC was less expensive than the Mac. Macs come in predefined configurations... so it is HIS hob to find a configuration that will match the Mac, not my job to find a Mac that is configurable to a PC.
Again, I NEVER said that a Mac was more configurable.
If he wants to make comparisons, he's going to have to match the Mac's specs and try to make the price difference considerable.
I've consistently said that the mac will either be slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive when you match the PC's hardware and software EXACTLY or as close as possible to the Mac.
Anyone that contests that is going to have to abide by that rule.
Do you PC hobos factor in the cost of the case of the G5? Its at least the cost of the high end CoolerMaster? How about the cost of having a 9 computer controlled fan system? FW400, FW800, 802.11g all built into the motherboard.
Getting price from Pricewatch is stupid, who handles the warranty? All six or ten of the companies you order from? NewEgg? Who? Compare name brand to name brand. Apple is a name brand, Jimmy Sockitoomi's computer store on pricewatch is not.
Nobody factored in the cost of the software either? MacOSX and all the iApps is worth more than $200 at least. If you counter that you don't care about MacOSX and you will just install Linux it shows how much your time is worth.
Ever think of depreciation? I sold my G4/400 for $650, I bought it new for $1200 several years ago. My AthlonXP today is not even worth a third of what it cost to build.
You can peice together a Honda Civic to get 400HP car but its still not a BMW-M series even if it is faster and you know it.
Sorry, but I did the comparaisons, and not with self-built computers. Then again, we're using cheap Canuckistan dollars here, so it has probably an impact on the price. For example, Intel CPUs tend to be more expensive than AMD ones here even if their prices are more or less the same in the US.
Btw, I think upgrades are great because it extend the useful life of the computer. Most people I know upgrade their PCs for gaming. Perhaps Mac users don't have that problem because there ain't many Mac gamers. Non-gamers don't really need to upgrade often. My GF is still happy with her P1 233MMX that she bought 6 or 7 years ago even if it's slow as a snail. She only made one upgrade: the HD.
the athlon processors I spec-ed had 512K cache
um, the memory WAS pc2700... 1024 megs to be exact
I actuallly did say it had a 10/100/1000 base T ethernet
macs don't come prewired for 802.11b/g, you can upgrade to one though 99 dollars to be exact (store.apple.com)
no digital audio in on my sound card, but it had digital audio out, analog in and out, and the case came with front headphone jack and speaker AND MIC AND USB AND FIREWIRE (where's that?)
iLife there is more powerful but not as polished open source/free software programs,iPhoto konqueror can handle, bundled with xmms and xine can handle iMovie and iTunes ms office is crap (so is oo.org so we're even there) filemaker is trial, doesn't count. what the crap is omniGraffle and outliner? graphic converter? you mean between formats? the gimp can handle that, xine is much nicer than quicktime IMHO. Gaim is really nice, ever tried it? beats iChat. Mozilla browser and firebird are better than safari, and you're REALLY digging with mail address book and dvd player, every system can read .pdf, and if you have to mention a free earthlink program, you must really be desperate.
warranty, every single thing had 90 day to 1 year plus warranty... did I miss anything?
OH YEAH front side bus... if you're going to pay 1500 dollars for a faster front side bus, then you're pathetic.
tell me, did I miss anything?
"Btw, I think upgrades are great because it extend the useful life of the computer."
I agree. I enjoy upgrading my Mac regularly.
"Perhaps Mac users don't have that problem because there ain't many Mac gamers."
I disagree. There's no reason to believe that the number of Mac gamers runs in paralyl to that of Windows users when considering market share proportions.
my spec-ed mobo has fw400, and let me reiterate mac is "AirPort Extreme ready" meaning that it has a pci slot and you can buy the air extreme card for 99 dollars. which mac has 9 computer controlled fans again? my case has 5 and I paid 25 for the cas with a window and led fan, and have 2 on the power supply, and then bought the fans for 10 dollars a piece... 120 mm fans, not 60mm 120mm. that's 65 dollars for the case.
and by the way, my 1985 iroc Z-28 with a 383 enforcer with a paxton supercharger and about 5 grand into structural reinforcement and suspension and steering is faster and has better handling than the bimmer M, and only cost 7 grand for the engine/supercharger, 5 grand into handling, and 2500 for the car, that adds up to 14500 for the car, and I can pull off my T-tops and beat that bmw-m around any track.
any more questions? is my system up to spec with yours yet? thank you come again
RE: bsdrocks (IP: ---.ks.ok.cox.net)
I know that but in order for ATI to support AGP that have to use a tunnel to convert to AGP, Apple Should easily be able tosweet talk them into a PCI-X version and more than likely get AMD to agree (Opteron server boards.)
Donaldson
and as for considerable price difference, I believe that the 1550 dollar price difference is considerable, since I haven't added any cost to my system and found software to match and the only considerable difference was the front side bus... argue with me that that's worth 1550. I mean seriously. do it with a straight face, I can't keep a straight face for real
and I don't care about graphs that are on the apple website, give me a program that will run on both systems (a raytracer perhaps, or some sort of renderer, like say blender) and set up a single file and render it on both systems, and see the difference, I'm sorry but a dual athlon 2400 with 1 gig of ram will outperform a single G5 1.8 with 1 gig of ram, and the dual athlon was less than half of the price, all things are equal EXCEPT that the G5 has considerably less processing power, and costs twice as much. tell me where the mac is better for 1500? we've argued hardware, software, what's next? the air inside of the mac tastes better? you could enter computer beauty contests and win some of your money back? I'm lost as to why you're even fighting still
"macs don't come prewired for 802.11b/g"
They come prewired so that all you need is a card. The same is not always true for many PCs
"no digital audio in on my sound card, but it had digital audio out, analog in and out"
Thats an expensive add on. Get it on there.
"and the case came with front headphone jack and speaker AND MIC AND USB AND FIREWIRE (where's that?)"
Thats all on the low end G5.
"iLife there is more powerful but not as polished open source/free software programs"
I disagree as would most consumers.
"iPhoto konqueror can handle"
I don't think you know what iPhoto is. A comperable Application would be Adobe's Photoshop Album. Their's is the copycat of Apple's iPhoto.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopalbum/overview.html
"xine can handle iMovie"
xine is just a xine multimedia player, not a low end video editing and post production video and effects applciation.
"iTunes ms office is crap"
LOL, you must never have used iTunes. It is the best MP3 software player on the market. Althogh a lot of competition exists and so therefore that perspective is in the eyes of the user, I dont know of any individuals that have used both activly to hold that opinion.
"filemaker is trial, doesn't count. "
How do you figure?
"what the crap is omniGraffle and outliner?"
What kind od statement is that?
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/download/
"graphic converter? you mean between formats? the gimp can handle that
True.
"xine is much nicer than quicktime IMHO."
That argument is respectible.
"Gaim is really nice, ever tried it? beats iChat."
I've tried several.
"Mozilla browser and firebird are better than safari"
While I'd agree that both of these are nice, Safari is the better browser. However, Mozilla browser and firebird are still more compatible with the remaining ones that Apple and the KHTML team haven't fixed.
"and you're REALLY digging with mail"
Mail is a nice app and is highly competative with other e-mail apps.
"address book"
Anotehr nice application because it integrates with iSync and mail and fax and blutooth phones etc... I haven't found a similar app that could do that anywhere.
"and dvd player"
You may have a point there. DVD player is common everywhere you go.
"every system can read .pdf"
But not every system can write PDF from any application because it is an operating system level function.
"and if you have to mention a free earthlink program, you must really be desperate."
I don;t believe I mentioned that.
"OH YEAH front side bus... if you're going to pay 1500 dollars for a faster front side bus, then you're pathetic."
Who said that I was paying $1500 for a faster front side buss?
"tell me, did I miss anything?"
See above.
"and as for considerable price difference, I believe that the 1550 dollar price difference is considerable"
Except for the fact that it wasn;t a $1550 price difference... (see argument above)
"and I don't care about graphs that are on the apple website"
Sigh...
"give me a program that will run on both systems (a raytracer perhaps, or some sort of renderer"
The staff at Pixar said that in preliminary tests using their crossplatform software (renderman?), Apple significantly outpaced the competition.
"I'm sorry but a dual athlon 2400 with 1 gig of ram will outperform a single G5 1.8 with 1 gig of ram"
I don;t believe anyone's made such a comparison yet.
"and the dual athlon was less than half of the price"
As noted (above) that figure still hasn't been confirmed.
"all things are equal EXCEPT that the G5 has considerably less processing power"
Um... Where do you get your figures from?
"and costs twice as much."
Nothing you've said has indicated that.
"tell me where the mac is better for 1500?"
The argument is whether or not the PC is less expensive than the Mac. Macs come in predefined configurations... so it is your job to find a configuration that will match the Mac, not my job to find a Mac that is configurable to a PC.
Again, I NEVER said that a Mac was more configurable.
If you wants to make comparisons, you're going to competitiveness to match the Mac's specs and try to make the price difference considerable.
I've consistently said that the Mac will either be slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive when you match the PC's hardware and software to the exact specifications or as close as possible to the Mac.
Anyone that contests that is going to have to abide by that rule.
"my spec-ed mobo has fw400, and let me reiterate mac is "AirPort Extreme ready" meaning that it has a pci slot and you can buy the air extreme card for 99 dollars."
Mac don't use up a PCI slot to get wireless functionality.
"which mac has 9 computer controlled fans again?"
G5
my case has 5 and I paid 25 for the cas with a window and led fan, and have 2 on the power supply, and then bought the fans for 10 dollars a piece... 120 mm fans, not 60mm 120mm. that's 65 dollars for the case.
This is more of what I had in mind...
http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=11-119-010-01.JPG/11-...
We are not taking cheap junk cases. Just because a case conforms to ATX form factor doesn't make it a good case. A case with a windows doesn't fly because of EMI/RFI considerations. The computer controlled fan system has to be over $100 in the PC world.
" and by the way, my 1985 iroc Z-28 with a 383 enforcer with a paxton supercharger and about 5 grand into structural reinforcement and suspension and steering is faster and has better handling than the bimmer M, and only cost 7 grand for the engine/supercharger, 5 grand into handling, and 2500 for the car, that adds up to 14500 for the car, and I can pull off my T-tops and beat that bmw-m around any track."
I am sure the performance is all there but this car is just as ugly and uncomfortable as a Grand National. Besides isn't GM phasing out this car? More people prefer the Mustang anyway. Look at all the modification you made to the car just to keep it from flying off the track. In stock conditon an M will eat your car alive on the track. I'll stick take the M or even a 350Z any day. I am not surprised by your car selection by the way.
I agree. I enjoy upgrading my Mac regularly.
What can you upgrade? I'm curious. Perhaps I've understimated the upgradability(?) of the Mac.
I disagree. There's no reason to believe that the number of Mac gamers runs in paralyl to that of Windows users when considering market share proportions.
Um... Sorry, but you're completely out of your depth here, unless you classify Photoshop as a game.
I know that Doom3 was shown first on the Mac, but it's not even out... and it was a tech demo for the GeForce 3. 
the pc is just as wireless compliant as the mac, it's called pci, same as on the mac.
konqueror along with the gimp can take out iPhoto, I know what iPhoto is.
evolution is a very nice E-mail app
there are several address books that syncronize with different mail/pda/phone programs in linux
linux can save to pdf also
earthlink was definitely listed in your post
linux has several outline/project/flowcharting programs
and there was one video editing suite that I can't think of the name right now, I'll look into that one and let you know.
as for the trial version of filemaker, you still have to pay for the full version, thus adding money to the mac system
thus leaving user preference and the front side bus in question
and the matter of ~1500 dollars
is it worth it? we'll let the people be the judge
"What can you upgrade? I'm curious. Perhaps I've understimated the upgradability(?) of the Mac."
Although I don't know how friendly the G5's will be to processor upgrades, previous models (except for all in one units ofcourse) you could upgrade every aspect of the hardware.
>"There's no reason to believe that the number of Mac gamers runs in paralyl to that of Windows users when considering market share proportions.
"Um... Sorry, but you're completely out of your depth here, unless you classify Photoshop as a game."
Of course I don't consider Photoshop a game but your argument (suggesting that Mac users only user their computers for graphics) is just as relivant as me saying, "unless you classify MS Word as a game."
"I know that Doom3 was shown first on the Mac, but it's not even out... and it was a tech demo for the GeForce 3. "
That was not where I was basing my perspective.
"I'm sorry but a dual athlon 2400 with 1 gig of ram will outperform a single G5 1.8 with 1 gig of ram"
I don;t believe anyone's made such a comparison yet.
did you happen to read the system comparison that I made? maybe I should paste it in here again:
athlon dual MP 2400 (500)
1 gig of pc2700 ram (120)
160 gig SATA (150)
radeon 9800 128 megs(300)
sound card (<50)
dvd-ram (150)
gigabit NIC (<50)
case (50-100)
athlon system: 1420 (and that's rounding up in most cases)
mac 1.8 with 1 gig of ram and a 160 and the radeon 9800 and the super drive: 2,970.00
by the way all of the mods done to my car and the price is still less than the M class bmw or the 350Z, and GM is phasing out the car because they have turned it into a mid-life crisis car in the 35000+ range, which niche is filled by the corvette
All you anti-mac people seem to really get off on downing Macs.. what is the point? Get a life, a girlfriend, whatever..
It's not a matter of superiority, because that can always be debated and never proved. It's a matter of taste, some people prefer Macs, some prefer PC's, who cares?
I've shown you a computer that costs half the price, has all of the software available, and has considerably more processing power, so it all comes down to user preference, and I'm willing to try (no, I highly wish to try) osx. apparently you're so dead set in your ways, that nothing will pry your hands off of a mac. Oh well, I can handle that, if I have shown but one person the light today I can die a happy man.
"the pc is just as wireless compliant as the mac, it's called pci, same as on the mac."
Most Macs have the wireless entena integrated into the hardware. I think thats the aspect you're missing here to which I was talking about.
"konqueror along with the gimp can take out iPhoto, I know what iPhoto is."
Then you must not have ever used iPhoto because its a totally different type of application.
This isn;t a battle of Apple software vs. Open source software, I love and use several Open source apps on a daily basis. I'm simply saying that the applications that you're mentioning as appas which run in paralyl in functionality to Apple's bundled apps aren't the same thing.
"there are several address books that syncronize with different mail/pda/phone programs in linux"
Please tell me of some. I've looked and can't find any.
"linux can save to pdf also"
You have a point there.
"earthlink was definitely listed in your post"
If I did, It was a mistake. I was just copying a list from Apple's spec page.
"linux has several outline/project/flowcharting programs
and there was one video editing suite that I can't think of the name right now, I'll look into that one and let you know."
Although I can't think of the name either... I have a feeling I've used the app you're thinking of. While it is a nice app, iMovie feels much more polished.
"thus leaving user preference and the front side bus in question
and the matter of ~1500 dollars"
Have you added the Optical digital audio in, optical digital audio out, analog audio in, analog audio out?
Also forgot to mention, make those PC slots 33MHz, 64-bit PCI slots.
Dont forget to tack on a SuperDrive (DVD-RW/CD-RW)
I forget did we mention anything about I/O yet? One FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports (one on front); three USB 2.0 ports (one on front), two USB 1.1 ports (on keyboard); AGP 8X Pro slot with graphics card installed, including ADC connector and DVI connector.
Oh ya, and last but not least... don;t forget that 800MHz Frontside bus
"and by the way, my 1985 iroc Z-28 with a 383 enforcer with a paxton supercharger and about 5 grand into structural reinforcement and suspension and steering is faster and has better handling than the bimmer M, and only cost 7 grand for the engine/supercharger, 5 grand into handling, and 2500 for the car, that adds up to 14500 for the car, and I can pull off my T-tops and beat that bmw-m around any track. "
Which BMW M-Series would you be talking about now, the M3, the M5, the M Roadster, the M Coupe? They're all different, and you make a very valid point. While you're car may be faster and handle better, its still at 1985 Z-28, an ugly piece of shit that I would _never_ want, I don't care how "fast" you claim it is. Again, it's about taste. I've dealt with Dells and PC's all my life, I have decided it is worth whatever extra cost for the user experience.
To refute your other comments about Linux. Yes, Linux is nice and useful and powerful and whatnot. However, it is also difficult (don't debate this, you know it is), horribly inconsistent, and just not destined for the desktop. I could never use Linux as my main OS, however I own a nice Linux box which does filesharing, sshd, and httpd.
>I don't believe anyone's made such a comparison yet.
"did you happen to read the system comparison that I made? maybe I should paste it in here again:"
athlon dual MP 2400 (500)
1 gig of pc2700 ram (120)
160 gig SATA (150)
radeon 9800 128 megs(300)
sound card (<50)
dvd-ram (150)
gigabit NIC (<50)
case (50-100)
I saw the system, i was simply contesting the statement, "I'm sorry but a dual athlon 2400 with 1 gig of ram will outperform a single G5 1.8 with 1 gig of ram"... saying, "I don't believe anyone's made such a comparison yet." Which is true.
"I've shown you a computer that costs half the price"
With different hardware and software... sure.
"has all of the software available"
Except for the fact that it doesn't.
"and has considerably more processing power"
Nobody has made such a comparison which proves that.
"apparently you're so dead set in your ways, that nothing will pry your hands off of a mac."
I'm a reasonable person. I would consider any machine that gave me more for my money.
Of course I don't consider Photoshop a game but your argument (suggesting that Mac users only user their computers for graphics) is just as relivant as me saying, "unless you classify MS Word as a game."
That's because I've seen this video: http://www.honest3d.com/halo/apple_gamer.wmv
;)
However, yes, I tend to believe that there ain't many Mac gamers, even proportionally with the market share. If you can prove me wrong, go ahead, but I'm pretty sure of what I'm saying. If Macs were such good all-rounders (great price/performance ratio [I'm not counting the G5 as it isn't out yet], all the software you need is available, etc), they would be more popular. Don't get me wrong: they're nice computers. However, I believe you're overhyping them a bit, as many PC users are degrading them without any sense. And please... Don't tell me that it's because most users are not "enlighted" or BS like that (I don't think YOU will, but I know that some do).
the video cards are the same, the mobo has 6 USB2 ports and 3 FW400 ports, dvdRW drive is on there, digital out and analog in and out were there, just digital in was not.
by the way, the car, while ugly, is just waiting for the evoluzione styling kit, which I could care less about how it looks until I have the build done perfect, I'm not one of those people who will put a wing and a body kit and a fart cannon on their civic and then say it's fast. go to k1-styling.sk I haven't figured out which one will end up on the maro, the evo1 or 2 it will have to be modified because the rear end overlay is heavy of course, but I believe that you will like the styling when I'm through with it. the interior is from the 1998 firehawk (I believe it was 1998, it was a junkyard car, interior perfect.
all it needs is an iBook to interface with the ecu and I'll be set.
by the way, on a serious note, if any of you know of a place where I can get a sub 500 dollar G4 that I can run OSx on, please let me know. I seriously like mac, but can't afford to spend that much on one, as I will be shelling out 35000 to go to full sail to play with their macs :-D
"However, yes, I tend to believe that there ain't many Mac gamers, even proportionally with the market share. If you can prove me wrong, go ahead, but I'm pretty sure of what I'm saying."
I tend to believe that there are many Mac gamers when speaking in proportion to Apple's market share. If you can prove me wrong, go ahead, but I'm pretty sure of what I'm saying.
"If Macs were such good all-rounders (great price/performance ratio [I'm not counting the G5 as it isn't out yet], all the software you need is available, etc), they would be more popular."
First of all, it wasn;t always like this. For several years Apple had significant advantages in many aspecs and chanrged a higer price accordingly. Then for a short while, Apple sold comparable hardware while maintaining that price premium. Now Apple's hardware is very price competative when you compare hardware and software.
Regardless, these issues are only a fraction of the reason why Macs aren;t more popular than what they are. I can go on and on...
"Don't get me wrong: they're nice computers. However, I believe you're overhyping them a bit as many PC users are degrading them without any sense."
Mac users are computer users like anyone else. Why would a Mac user be any less interested in play games that any other computer user. if the Mac had no or even few games you might have a point, but the Mac has several games. many aren't released in tandom with Windows, but that has no bearing on the fact that Mac users are just as enthusiastic about games as Windows users.
"by the way, on a serious note
Not serious before huh...
"if any of you know of a place where I can get a sub 500 dollar G4 that I can run OSx on, please let me know."
If you want to buy new... you're out of luck.
same ram, same hard drive, same video card, the main difference is the mobo/cpu combo, and the mac has a single 1.8 ghz 64 bit cpu on it vs a dual athlon MP 2400 system, and there is equivelant software, however not polished (you get that when you have to worry about compatibility, apple only has apple hardware to deal with)
anyway I'm done arguing about that, I want a mac, I have a mad fast pc, I'm pretty happy, I'm not going to change you you're not going to change me (unless you offer me a job where I can afford that mac) so it's over. unless you want to top off 200 posts :-D
Getting price from Pricewatch is stupid, who handles the warranty? All six or ten of the companies you order from? NewEgg?
>>>>>
Everyone. NewEgg will handle RMA within the first 30 days (for DOA hardware), and after that, you've got your standard vendor warrenties from everyone else. First thing I do when building a machine is stuff every piece of paper I received with the parts into a big folder. I keep that folder somewhere safe. In the rare case something goes bad, its 5 extra minutes of searching to find the appropriate person to call. If that 5 extra minutes is worth all that money, then buy all means, buy your Mac. Put it right next to your 50" plasma screen and $20,000 reference speaker system.
Who? Compare name brand to name brand. Apple is a name brand, Jimmy Sockitoomi's computer store on pricewatch is not.
>>>>>>>
Dell? Dell machines are cheaper than hand-built ones these days.
Nobody factored in the cost of the software either? MacOSX and all the iApps is worth more than $200 at least.
>>>>>>>
Windows is worth (in market price, anyway) $100, what's your point? Plus, most PC machines (Dell, etc) come bundled with Office, which is worth a hell of a lot more than $200.
If you counter that you don't care about MacOSX and you will just install Linux it shows how much your time is worth.
>>>>>>>
My time isn't worth so much that the one hour it takes me to install Linux justified a price difference of hundreds of dollars.
You can peice together a Honda Civic to get 400HP car but its still not a BMW-M series even if it is faster and you know it.
>>>>>>
We're not talking about whether the Apple is worth all that money. For some people, it may be. But there are people on this board claiming that the Apple machine costs the same, which it most surely does not!
The whole concept of GNU/Linux being comparable to Mac OS X is just laughable. That kind of difference just can't be included in an even comparison.
BTW... I gave you links to mine, can you give links to your prices?
The chalange was not whether or not Apple could be as configurable as a PC. A PC can be more configurable. His configuration had many things lacking as compared to a G5, G4 etc...
>>>>>>>>
Give me *one* specific detail. He asked what was a comparable machine. You gave me a link to Apple's G4 page. I couldn't find a comparable machine. You keep waving your arms and saying there is one, so the onus is on you to show us one!
Macs come in predefined configurations...
>>>>>>>>
Not they don't. Not any more than a Dell, anyway, if you use their webstore.
I don't care if it's used or new, I just want one that works, I've been looking for one with like 256 megs of ram, and a hard drive that can at least support itself (I've got a 120 gig, an 80 gig, a 60 gig, and a 30 gig that can handle file overload from whatever is on the mac) but I've searched E-bay and the few that I've bid on have gone up to like 500+ and then shipping on top of that, I wouldn't mind if I could find one in decent shape for like 400 + shipping, but it just hasn't happened yet (hence the spur of the moment purchase of the athlon xp 2600) but if you know of a place online to buy one from or an E-bay seller (with decent feedback) let me know
"there are people on this board claiming that the Apple machine costs the same, which it most surely does not!"
When you make comparisons to Mac hardware and software the pricess ARE either slightly more, the same price, slightly less, significantly less.
...to even consider comparing a build your own computer to a Mac. Of course the hobby-pc is going to be cheaper. You've got to compare Apple to vendors they compete against: DELL, HP/COMPAQ, GATEWAY, SUN, SGI, etc...
I don't know too many large corporations that rely upon build your own hobbiest machines for their staff and infrastructure needs. Granted, I don't work at a fortune 500 company, but I can't see their IT staffs building computers from scratch. They're going to go with a large vendor that can offer support.
Mom and pop PCs isn't going to do that!
Most Macs have the wireless entena integrated into the hardware. I think thats the aspect you're missing here to which I was talking about.
>>>>>>>
The G4s you linked to don't. And that's all you can get right now.
Then you must not have ever used iPhoto because its a totally different type of application.
>>>>>>>>
What does iPhoto do that Gimp doesn't. Concrete details, please!
Please tell me of some. I've looked and can't find any.
>>>>>
Evolution is probably the most popular, but Kontact is quickly becoming usable, and Athera is also available.
Although I can't think of the name either... I have a feeling I've used the app you're thinking of. While it is a nice app, iMovie feels much more polished.
>>>>>
This isn't a matter of polish (which is a seperate debate). Its not a matter of worth. Its a matter of price. Price is concrete, and its a dishonest tactic to try to argue that something is the same price as something else because you have an inflated opinion of the worth of certain pieces of software. Let's stick to sticker prices, okay?
Have you added the Optical digital audio in, optical digital audio out, analog audio in, analog audio out?
>>>>>>>
Most $50 sound cards (which he included, btw) have everything on that list except optical digital in.
Also forgot to mention, make those PC slots 33MHz, 64-bit PCI slots.
>>>>>>>
That's a bullshit argument that shows you have no idea what you're talking about. 64-bit PCI slots are of limited usefulness on desktop machines. Pretty much every x86 motherboard made today has a dedicated bus (independent of PCI) for networking, sound, and IDE. The only way 64-bit PCI is going to become a factor is if you add in a card that needs more than 100MB/sec of bandwidth, which is pretty much limited to high-end SCSI RAID arrays (ATA RAID arrays are handled by the onboard IDE RAID controller that comes with many x86 motherboards). Do a Google search for Hypertransport, V-Link, MuTiol, and "Intel Hub Architecture."
Dont forget to tack on a SuperDrive (DVD-RW/CD-RW)
>>>>>>>
Can you read? He included a DVD burner!
I forget did we mention anything about I/O yet? One FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports (one on front); three USB 2.0 ports (one on front), two USB 1.1 ports (on keyboard); AGP 8X Pro slot with graphics card installed, including ADC connector and DVI connector.
>>>>>>>
The PC will have everything except the FW ports, which are of limited usefulness in the PC world.
Oh ya, and last but not least... don;t forget that 800MHz Frontside bus
>>>>>>>
You're joking, right?
"Give me *one* specific detail."
Just one? 800MHz Frontside bus
"He asked what was a comparable machine. You gave me a link to Apple's G4 page. I couldn't find a comparable machine."
He and I were talking about several different configurations. The G4 link was in reference to an earlier conversation.. If my wording gave the impression as to the contrary... thats my bad... However, Apple does in fact make comparable machines and a similar cost... as we've been ullustrating countless times.
"You keep waving your arms and saying there is one, so the onus is on you to show us one!"
Heh.. Who's waiving their arms here. I'm responding very eloquently in a calm and professional fashion. If anyone is waving his arms its the guy that has been responding to me thus far. he hasn;t even given a single link to verify his prices. I've looked and the prices he mentioned are wrong... unless he's pricing a used system.
">>>Macs come in predefined configurations..."
"Not they don't. Not any more than a Dell, anyway, if you use their webstore."
They most certinly do. I can't equip a G5 machine with G4 components or vice versa. Apple gives you very defined starting points from which to add or take away key elements to their hardware.
So, Because Macs come in predefined configurations... it is his job to find a configuration that will match the Mac, not my job to find a Mac that is configurable to a PC.
I NEVER said that a Mac was more configurable.
If you wants to make comparisons, he's going to make comparisons to match the Mac's specs and try to make the price difference considerable.
I've consistently said that the Mac will either be slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive when you match the PC's hardware and software to the exact specifications or as close as possible to the Mac.
Anyone that contests that is going to have to abide by that rule.
I got all of my prices off pricewatch.com, if you click the little links at the top, you then go into a subcategory in the bottom, that is where you'll find the prices
"Most Macs have the wireless entena integrated into the hardware. I think thats the aspect you're missing here to which I was talking about.
>>>>>>>
The G4s you linked to don't. And that's all you can get right now."
You're right about the G4s.
"What does iPhoto do that Gimp doesn't. Concrete details, please!"
iPhoto archives photos according to date, album, film roll, keywords and comments. You can scroll through thousands of photos in seconds order prints, order a book of the photos pumlish to an online photo album all from within one application. Additionally, it will automatically extract the photos from your digital camera. (No configuration required. Just plug in your camera) iPhoto archives photos according to date, album, film roll, keywords and comments. iPhoto will make a slide show of all your images and play it into with music from iTunes. The completed slide show can be exported as a PDF or movie file...
I can go on and on and on,
"Evolution is probably the most popular, but Kontact is quickly becoming usable, and Athera is also available."
I'll have to look into those.
"This isn't a matter of polish (which is a seperate debate). Its not a matter of worth."
Thats a logistical argument because someobe could say that cutting and splicing physical media is of greater "worth". I'm talking about tangable benefits that one Application has that the other may not.
"Its a matter of price."
Both are free.
"its a dishonest tactic to try to argue that something is the same price as something else because you have an inflated opinion of the worth of certain pieces of software. Let's stick to sticker prices, okay?"
free and free. Therefore, if one doesn't offer you the same advantages as the other does, you will need to upgrade to the version that does. That has been my argument all along.
"Most $50 sound cards (which he included, btw) have everything on that list except optical digital in."
If one doesn't offer you the same advantages as the other does, you will need to upgrade to the version that does. That has been my argument all along.
"That's a bullshit argument that shows you have no idea what you're talking about. 64-bit PCI slots are of limited usefulness on desktop machines."
If one doesn't offer you the same advantages as the other does, you will need to upgrade to the version that does. That has been my argument all along.
Again, I NEVER said that a Mac was more configurable.
If you wants to make comparisons, you're going to comparisons to match the Mac's specs and try to make the price difference considerable.
I've consistently said that the Mac will either be slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive when you match the PC's hardware and software to the exact specifications or as close as possible to the Mac.
Anyone that contests that is going to have to abide by that rule.
"Dont forget to tack on a SuperDrive (DVD-RW/CD-RW)
>>>>>>>
Can you read? He included a DVD burner!"
He did. I missed that.
>>>"I forget did we mention anything about I/O yet? One FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports (one on front); three USB 2.0 ports (one on front), two USB 1.1 ports (on keyboard); AGP 8X Pro slot with graphics card installed, including ADC connector and DVI connector."
>>>>>>>
"The PC will have everything except the FW ports, which are of limited usefulness in the PC world."[/i]
If one doesn't offer you the same advantages as the other does, you will need to upgrade to the version that does. That has been my argument all along.
(Why is Firewire of limited usefullness in the PC world? That's a rediculious argument)
"Oh ya, and last but not least... don;t forget that 800MHz Frontside bus"
>>>>>>>
[i]"You're joking, right?"
Not at all. If one doesn't offer you the same advantages as the other does, you will need to upgrade to the version that does. That has been my argument all along.
"I got all of my prices off pricewatch.com, if you click the little links at the top, you then go into a subcategory in the bottom, that is where you'll find the prices"
I did, and couldn't find the prices you mentioned. Would you mind just providing links for us?
Okay, I went ahead and spec'ed out two machines I think will resolve this debate:
1) A Dell Dimension.
- 2.8 GHz P4
- 800 MHz bus (for you, Anonymous)
- 1GB of DDR 400 SDRAM
- Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card
- 120 GB hard drive
- Sound Blaster Audigy 2
- DVD Drive
- DVD+RW drive (seperate drives).
- Microsoft Office XP
- MusicMatch Jukebox ($20 addition)
- Roxio Videowave ($130 addition)
- 4 year warrenty, 4 year at home service
- Total Price: $2840 ($2900 - $60 rebate)
2) A PowerMac G5
- 1.8 GHz G5
- 1GB of 400MHz DDR SDRAM
- Radeon 9800 Pro
- SuperDrive
- Office XP for Mac
- Standard iApps bundle
- 3 year warrenty
- Total Price: $3817
Now, some points:
- Extrapolating from the SPEC results, the two machines should benchmark similarly for FPU code, while the Dell should be significantly faster for integer code.
- Didn't include speakers for either, because both offered sound systems suck Give me Klipsch's or give me death!
- The Dell system has an expensive software bundle. More than $150 of extra software was added to compete with the iApps.
- Apple charges $100 more for Office XP than Dell does.
- The price on the Dell comes down big time thanks to special deals, which in reality are available almost all the time from their webstore.
- The support on both systems is expensive. Apple charges about $50 more for its extended support than does Dell. Without the support option, the price on the Dell drops $200, and the price on the Apple drops $250.
- The Dell is most definately cheaper than what you'd pay if you built it at home.
- The G5 is one of Apple's best deals. The G4 machines are much more expensive compared to what you get.
- The Dell is clearly cheaper. The systems engineering is equally good (my roommate has a new Dell P4, and its whisper quiet), and all the components are brand name.
Now, I'll repeat --- the extra money for a Mac (the $1000 price difference in this comparison is large, for cheaper machines, the price difference should be smaller, but the percentage should be similar) may very well be worth it. However, claiming that a Mac costs at most slightly more than a comparably equipped PC is clear fallacy.
" - Extrapolating from the SPEC results, the two machines should benchmark similarly for FPU code, while the Dell should be significantly faster for integer code."
Its important to understand that SPEC data is NOT an accurate measurement of performance. It never has been. it has never been contested until recently because there has never been a processor that actually completed SPEC benchmarks faster than that which Intel was able to do... because intel's chips are engineerd in such a way to pump up SPEC benchmarks.
This point was exemplified by veritest's examples which they compared the G5 to the P4. In SPEC benchmarks the G5 ouperformed the P4 by a respectible margin, but when real world apps were compared, the G5 BLASTED past the P4 in every benchmark.
Therefore, if you want to make an accurate comparison, you're going to have to upgrade that processor to a XEON.
" - The Dell is most definately cheaper than what you'd pay if you built it at home."
Remember, nobody is arguing that a PC is more customizable.
"- The G5 is one of Apple's best deals. The G4 machines are much more expensive compared to what you get."
You may want to re-price the G4 series as it has come down considerable in price since the G5's introduction.
" - The Dell is clearly cheaper."
Not by a long shot. Your comparison was flawed for reasons mentioned above
If one doesn't offer you the same advantages as the other does, you will need to upgrade to the version that does. That has been my argument all along.
>>>>>>
You've got to be making this up. You can't just point at a feature few people will use and say, "it's a must-have, so find stuff that does this." Very few users have 64-bit PCI cards or something that requires an optical-in. Its not an advantage to support these, but a check-box item! In the real world, a buyer will get far more use out of a $50 soundcard that supports 3D audio in hardware (which the on-board sound in the Mac does in software) than they will get out of optical inputs or 64-bit PCI. I could just as well claim that the G5 doesn't support serial ATA or a dedicated I/O bus like the x86 machines, but I won't, because they're insignificant enough to be irrelevant.
(Why is Firewire of limited usefullness in the PC world? That's a rediculious argument)
>>>>
Firewire is of limited usefulness in the PC world because very few PC devices use Firewire. x86-land is very USB-centric.
Also, you forgot a match to iDVD. (The closest competator I've found in comparisons (the name excaps me for the moment) costs approximately $100
processors http://www.memorymedia.com/D/FMPro?-DB=selling_units.fp5&-lay=web_l...
ram
http://www.bzboyz.com/store/product2443.html
video card
http://www.fticomputer.com/cgis/detail.cgi?product=VB-PC-ATI-XR98-C...
sound card
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=29-117-107&re...
hard drive
http://www.knowledgemicro.com/detail.php?p=HD-ST160BS&c=pw
dvd combo drive
http://www.compuhq.com/piondvra0dvd.html
I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff, I can provide links if you need them though, the motherboard is gone, it was a refurb at newegg, and all they have is single cpu ones left, those are 65 dollars, (gigabyte I think was who made the one I was looking at before)
"You can't just point at a feature few people will use and say, "it's a must-have, so find stuff that does this.""
most would argue that the high end systems you are dream designing are way beyond the needs of most consumers. Indeed these are systems for niche markets... markets which WILL benefit from hardware mentioned. You can't ignore that fact.
Again, the PC IS more customizable. You are absolutely right. That is definately a PC advantage. But if you are going to compete on price, you must match the hardware as close as possible. otherwise, its totally irrelivant.
The PC's customizability is a unique benefit... something that man MANY consumers consider to be the well worth making a PC purchase.
The Mac will either be slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive when you match the PC's hardware and software to the exact specifications or as close as possible to the Mac.
Let the argument go.
"I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff, I can provide links if you need them though, the motherboard is gone, it was a refurb at newegg, and all they have is single cpu ones left, those are 65 dollars, (gigabyte I think was who made the one I was looking at before)"
Maybe I'm missing something but the prices you mentioned in your previous links dont match up to those you have listed here...
mkisofs + dvdrecord if you don't like it make a front end for it :-D
SPEC is a damn good gauge of performance. SPEC results told us for a long time that the G4 wasn't a particularly fast chip, which was eventually borne out by other benchmarks. Besides, do you even know what kind of benchmarks are in SPEC? They're not synthetic --- SPEC tests regular stuff like running gcc, compressing files, etc. If some benchmarks show the G5 to be drastically faster than the P4, I'd take them with a grain of salt, because an analysis of the chip architecture (as well as comparisons between the P4 and the G5's bigger brother, the Power4) don't support those kinds of results. If anything, both CPUs will be largely bus-bandwidth limited in FPU-heavy code. Even the SSE2 unit, which is admittedly much slower than the G5's Altivec unit, is fast enough to saturate a 6.4GB/sec bus. Since both machines have similarly fast busses, *sustained* FPU performance should be similar. Again, the G4 fiasco bears this out. The G4's AltiVec units were clearly much faster than the SSE units on a P4, but the G4 still stumbled in benchmarks because of its slow bus.
Second, you don't take into account the performance of integer code. Most of the code executed by your average user is integer code. Yet, the G5 doesn't handle that as well as it handles FP code. So in the long run, the P4 is damn competitive with the G5, and in the normal user's desktop, will be noticibly faster. As for the Xeon comment, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about, do you? For desktop loads, the Xeon processors aren't noticibly faster than the regular P4s, despite costing more.
"mkisofs + dvdrecord if you don't like it make a front end for it :-D"
:P
Although I really wanted to talk about the 64 bitness of Panther, nobody else here does... so for a quick reality check, I just went to AlienWare and Apple to do a price check... I chose Alienware because they make a quality PC and represent a quality based (not pure cost) purchase. Here's what I found...
Alienware MJ-12
duel 3.06 ghz 533 fsb w/512 cache
1gb pc-2100 ddr sdram
120gb seagate barracuda 7200 ata
plextor px 504a 4x dvd+r/w
nvidia quadro fx 1000 128mb 8x agp
creative labs soundblaser audigy 1394
integrated intel gige adapter
windows xp
$4641.00
Apple PowerMac Duel G5
duel 2 ghz 1ghz fsb w/512 cache
1 gig pc-3200 ram
160gb serial ata 7200rpm
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW
Integrated sound
integrated gige adapter
OSX
$3520
Given the above specs... Apple is really looking good (to me at least).
most would argue that the high end systems you are dream designing are way beyond the needs of most consumers. Indeed these are systems for niche markets... markets which WILL benefit from hardware mentioned. You can't ignore that fact.
>>>>>>>
Look. Every machine is going to have a slightly different architecture. You can't have exactly identical machines. If you really need digital input, just buy yourself the digital I/O header for the Audigy. It won't cost you more than $50. But its foolish to nitpick about details like that when you're staring at a $1000 price differential. There are lots of bits that the PC has that the Mac doesn't have, like a dedicated I/O bus and serial ATA controllers. But you could always add those to the Mac for chump change compared to the price of the machine. Still starting at that $100 price differential.
Again, the PC IS more customizable. You are absolutely right.
>>>>>>
Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that. Macs are very customizable --- they can use a lot of the same devices PCs can.
A) Alienware is a rip-off. Dell charges $3500 for a comparable machine (sans Quadro for reasons explained next).
B) The Quadro is a $1000 graphics card! The Radeon 9800 Pro, well, isn't!
C) Once you add-in Office XP for the Mac, the Dell still has a few hundred dollars price advantage.
I just purchased an athlon 2600 with 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig hard drive for 500 dollars brand new.
No offense, but your new PC is probably a piece of crap.
I always have friends and friends of friends bringing me their pc's to fix. The worst ones are always the really low priced ones. Most often bad mobo's, power supplies, memory, and occasionally HD's.
Your PC has Porche specs and Yugo parts. Your whole case cost less than a good quality power supply.
"SPEC is a damn good gauge of performance. SPEC results told us for a long time that the G4 wasn't a particularly fast chip, which was eventually borne out by other benchmarks."
Ahhh... here's the kicker. Yes, SPEC DID tell us that, but you're neglecting the fact that Intel's chips and their compiler have been shown to pump SPEC numbers higher than what processors like of similar capabilities to a P4 reported.
Before you misunderstand, yes, the P4 did eventually pass up the G4 in speed AND spec, but for a long time, it was only SPEC.
"SPEC tests regular stuff like running gcc, compressing files, etc."
Intel's entire line of chips... (it wasn't JUST the compilers) were engineerd in such a way to increase SPEC numbers.
"If some benchmarks show the G5 to be drastically faster than the P4, I'd take them with a grain of salt, because an analysis of the chip architecture (as well as comparisons between the P4 and the G5's bigger brother, the Power4) don't support those kinds of results."
You've got to be kidding me. The only analysiss you're talking about is how the Power4 compared with SPEC benchmarks... the very benchmark that I'm contesting.
The G5 beat P4 in SPEC by a large margin. When real world apps were compared, the performance lead was GIGANTIC... sometimes by as much as 700%!
This proved that SPEC is NOT an accurate gauge to determine sompeting processor's speed. I can't believe you're even trying to argue this. You are WAY out in left field with this one.
"Since both machines have similarly fast busses, *sustained* FPU performance should be similar."
The G5 does have a faster BUS... but they are somewhat close.
"Again, the G4 fiasco bears this out. The G4's AltiVec units were clearly much faster than the SSE units on a P4, but the G4 still stumbled in benchmarks because of its slow bus."
That and the G4 itself was showing its age.
"Second, you don't take into account the performance of integer code. Most of the code executed by your average user is integer code. Yet, the G5 doesn't handle that as well as it handles FP code."
And yet it handles intiger code well.
"So in the long run, the P4 is damn competitive with the G5
not by a long shot. You would have a point if you were talking about the XEON... which is damn competitive with the G5 but the P4 is way behind.
"and in the normal user's desktop, will be noticibly faster.
Than a G5?!
Are you kidding me?
"As for the Xeon comment, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about, do you? For desktop loads, the Xeon processors aren't noticibly faster than the regular P4s, despite costing more.
Sigh....
[shake head]
About to leave...
We'll have to finsih this another time. (In my mind its already finsihed, for somereason you're not accepting the premmises I'm giving you.
Oh well, we'll have to pick it up next time.
trust me I know what I'm doing I've been building pcs for about 10 years now and have been working on cars for about 5
if you believe the american speed 383 mated to a paxton is crap, then you know nothing about what you're talking about, I could be using a ford 5.0 and replacing head gaskets every weekend, even with under 10 pounds of boost. but this is about computers.
the mobo is msi and the hard drive is western digital, and the video card is a GeForce, I just need something that I can use blender/maya on through school. then I'll buy a dual G5 when I can finally afford it
anyone who wants to unload a sub 500 dollar G4 ~400 with 128-256 megs of ram, let me know :-D I'm on hotmail and aim, smart ones can mail/im me spammers won't catch this one
Just went to dell... picked the same specs as with AlienWare but with the lower end nvidia quadro fx 500 card and the cost was: $3905. Still more expensive then the apple, with lower specs then the apple.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W...
hey mac users who know... how well would a G3 400 with 256 megs of ram stand up with osx? it's got a 12 gig hard drive and a rage pci video card. and how much would you say it's worth? this info is needed within the next few minutes
trust me I know what I'm doing I've been building pcs for about 10 years now
In your case, that OK. If something goes wrong you can fix it relatively cheaply. That's not the case for your average consumer. I know a guy who got charged over $700 for bad ram by a local PC shop. (It took them 10 hours at $75 per hour).
the mobo is msi and the hard drive is western digital, and the video card is a GeForce
MSI makes some great mobo's, and some really cheap one's too. Yours is probably one of the latter. I just replaced a GeForce card that developed vertical red lines in less than two years. You can buy low quality GeForce cards.
Your system may work fine for years, but the chances of it going bad are higher than if you'd spent more on the components.
BTW, I Apologize for calling your PC a "piece of crap". However, I still think that the average consumer will not be well served by a machine in this price range. To use a car analogy, the repair bills on a cheaper car can easily exceed the cost of making payments on a newer car.
It's worth less than 200. it'll run OK, but fairly slow. Similar to Win2K on a K62 450.
heh, I've ran pro2k on a k6-2 500 with 768 megs of ram, the ram ALMOST made up for the crappy mobo/cpu :-D now it's sitting downstairs for my cousins to play games on (you know, best of windows entertainment package and various 2d kids games :-D)
you mean it took them 10 hours to figure out that it was the ram or they just raped him on the price? I'd hope they didn't take 10 shop hours to figure that out.
you mean it took them 10 hours to figure out that it was the ram or they just raped him on the price? I'd hope they didn't take 10 shop hours to figure that out.
Actually, it was a business. the tech was onsite for almost two days. It may seem ludicrous, but that sort of thing happens. I doubt that the tech was incompetent, but I don't know that for a fact.
My point is the bill was $40 for parts and over $700 for labor. If you don't know how to fix it yourself, you have to pay someone who does.
His repair cost wasn't too far from buying a brand new PC.
Two things!
Every time there is a topic about Apple, and boum!!! almost in every case there is more than 100 messages, and evey time its the same topics, performances, prices, ...... . Interesting!!!
When Intel or amd give some benchmark results of their processors, nobody say that those results can not be correct, or that it can not be correct because Intel has done it, or something like that.
But when apple does some benchmark who is not sponsorised as some people said here, but are independently tested by Veritest which exist before apple has done the powermacG5, and has done a lot fot benchmarks for different pcs makers as Dell, hp, ibm, gateway, nec, microsoft, and intel......, well everyone is saying that those tests are not right, because of what.......its apple.
Veritest does hundreds of test for intel, and nobody says that its not correct, but for apple its different!!!! High hypocrisy, isn't it?
But anyway i don't think that a dual-athlon can beat a single 1.8 ghz G5, just in the dreams of some person here..........
And about the price, check precisely the configuration (comparing to the dual-athlon system evoked in this forum), the software that you have with each configuration, the technologies (network, wireless, IO), and you will see that you get a machine for your money when tou buy a mac, no to mention the fantastic MacOsX and his Unix world.
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2086.html
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2087.html
A new OSX API has also been proposed that will provide a superset of the existing Gestalt, sysctl, and _cpu_capabilities functionality. This API will be named OSSystemInfo and is scheduled to appear in Smeagol and Panther.
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2090.html
To allow existing device drivers to work with upcoming 64-bit system architectures, a number of changes were required. To explain these, a brief introduction to PCI bus bridges is needed...
The other solution, the one chosen in Apple's 64-bit implementation, is to use address translation to "map" blocks of memory into the 32-bit address space of the PCI devices. While the PCI device can still only see a 4 gig aperture, that aperture can then be non-contiguous, and thus bounce buffers and other restrictions are unnecessary. This address translation is done using a part of the memory controller known as DART, which stands for Device Address Resolution Table.
(10.2)
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/architecture/index.html
"In your case, that OK. If something goes wrong you can fix it relatively cheaply. That's not the case for your average consumer. I know a guy who got charged over $700 for bad ram by a local PC shop. (It took them 10 hours at $75 per hour)."
I pity you Yanks! Here in Australia most PC shops will build your machine for the cost of parts alone. My local shop will install any components or software bought there for free while you wait - just bring in your box. They also deliver after hours for free to the local area.
Labour costs are only equivalent of US$30-40 an hour anyway.
"Everyone. NewEgg will handle RMA within the first 30 days (for DOA hardware), and after that, you've got your standard vendor warrenties from everyone else. First thing I do when building a machine is stuff every piece of paper I received with the parts into a big folder. I keep that folder somewhere safe. In the rare case something goes bad, its 5 extra minutes of searching to find the appropriate person to call. If that 5 extra minutes is worth all that money, then buy all means, buy your Mac. Put it right next to your 50" plasma screen and $20,000 reference speaker system."
That may be fine for people like you and me who can build our own PCs from good parts and good vendors but it is no realistic for the average computer user or someone who is accustomed to a Mac.
"Dell? Dell machines are cheaper than hand-built ones these days."
Agreed, Dells are good machines and inexpensive but they are not Pricewatch systems.
"Windows is worth (in market price, anyway) $100, what's your point? Plus, most PC machines (Dell, etc) come bundled with Office, which is worth a hell of a lot more than $200."
It may cost just as much as the hardware.
"If you counter that you don't care about MacOSX and you will just install Linux it shows how much your time is worth."
I've installed Linux on my PC before. Mandrake and RedHat and was unimpressed in both instances. I have found XP to be faster and more responsive. Still, I cannot say that I gave Linux enough of a try, it seemed more troublle than what it was worth considering that I already had XP and it is working fine.
"We're not talking about whether the Apple is worth all that money. For some people, it may be. But there are people on this board claiming that the Apple machine costs the same, which it most surely does not!"
Agreed. Macs do cost more but for me it is worth it. I've used MacOSX since the beta and it keeps getting better and slightly faster with every release. Its an OS that generates a lot of attention and excitment even among PC users as evidence in the number of responses on Mac news at OSNews. Then you have the Apple hardware that gets everyone's attention regardless if its fast or not. The whole hardware line just looks cool. There are the other neat devices like the iPod and iSight. The cool and simple iApps software and the soon to be released iTunes for Windows which will probably be Apple's biggest software download ever.
for crying out loud... get a freaking life. If you don't want/like/own a Mac then why do you care?
It's amazing, I could care less if you like Windows/Ford/GoodYear/Sony. I don't care what kind of hair cut you have. I don't care what kind of music you like. You ARE ALL PATHETIC LOSERS! Who the F**K cares. GET a F*****G LIFE!
A better comparison.
Everyone knows dell gets better discounts from intel and microsoft so we take out Office from the equation.
Dimension XPS $2,878
Dell Dimension XPS Series:
Pentium® 4 Processor at 3GHz with 800MHz front side bus
Memory: 512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz (2x256M)
Video Cards:New 128MB DDR ATI RADEON™ 9800 Pro Graphics Card
Hard Drives: 120GB Serial ATA Hard Drive,7200RPM
Operating System:Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional w/ Microsoft® Plus!
Network Interface: New Dell Gigabit Ethernet
Modem: 56K PCI Telephony Modem
CD or DVD Drive: New 4x DVD+RW/+R Drive w/CD-RW including Sound Card: Sound Blaster Audigy 2™ sound card
Speakers: No Speaker Option
Software Bundles: No Productivity Software Security Software: Dell SecurityCenter by McAfee, 90-day introductory offer
Digital Music: Dell Jukebox PLUS powered by MUSICMATCH
Digital Photography: Dell Picture Studio, Combo - Image Expert Premium and Paint Shop Pro
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options: 1 Year Limited Warranty plus 1 Year At-Home Service
Multi-Media Players: RealOne™ Player PLUS, w/Universal Media Playback REALPLS [412-0381]
Multi-Media Software: Microsoft® Plus! Digital Media Edition
Video Editing: Dell Movie Studio Plus with Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator™
Apple PowerMAc G5
• 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
• 512MB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x256
• 160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
• 56k V.92 internal modem
• SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
• Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
• Mac OS X - U.S. English
Subtotal $2,749.00
Would you say this was a better comparison?
I'm surprised no one's pointed out the possible roadmap for the G5 in the second link in the article.
3 GHz this time next year
25 GHz by 2011.
This is you proposed system.
athlon dual MP 2400 (500)
1 gig of pc2700 ram (120)
160 gig SATA (150)
radeon 9800 128 megs(300)
sound card (<50)
dvd-ram (150)
gigabit NIC (<50)
case (50-100)
athlon system: 1420
The only decent mobo for the Athlon MP system on price watch is a tyan, the gigabyte doesn't exist on the gigabyte website. The MSI is similar.
Thunder K7X S2468GN, AMD-760 MPX CS, DDR, Graphics, LAN, Retail Box, 3 year manufacturers warranty with athlon mp 2400 heatsink and fan $519 + 1 more cpu +$80 = $600 (PW).
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk7x.html
Decent memory from crucial for above board PC2100 DDR 2x512 $200.00
Your price for the agp 9800 pro = $300 .
Serial ATA drive 120 GB $170 + controller $40 (pw) 1 pci card = $210
Panasonic DVD-R/Cdrw combo drive = $150 (pw)
Gigabit ethermet = $40 1 pci card
firewire+ usb2.0 =$20 two pci cards
Sound blaster audigy = $65 1 pci card
Power supply 460W Ennermax = $89.00 (pw)
Case decent one = $85
Fans+cables+keyboard+mouse $60
Total price = $1819
• 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
• 1GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x512
• 160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
• 56k V.92 internal modem
• SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
• Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
• Mac OS X - U.S. English
Subtotal $2,999.00
Lets take $800 off for software leaves us with $2100 for the hardware.
You claim that the dual amd box will be faster than the 1.8GHz. Lets examine the athlon box. All the athlon MP boards are similar in config so lets take the tyan based on the amd 760 MPX chipset.
System bandwidth of Athlon MP
The AGP slot on the tyan/MSI is only 4x so the effective bandwidth is 1 GB/sec the 9800 pro is an 8x card I am not sure the slots are compatible. Lets assume they are and it operates at 4x.
AGP 1GB/sec
The FSB is at 200/266MHz so the bandwidth is 3.2/4.2 GB/sec
Memory is also at 4.2gb/sec
The system has no onboard sound and all the PCI card mentioned above that take all but 1 of the 5 PCI slots on the board. The slots are only 33/66mhz 32/64 bit pci slots.
max bandwidth in the the pci buses is 523MB/sec pci is efficient at best to 60% off the peak.
System bandwidth of the G5
AGP 8x 2.1GB/sec
FSB 900 MHz 7.2 GB/sec
memory 400 DDR 6.4GB/sec
PCIX 133 mhz alots ar 2GB/sec
You can clearly see that the bandwidth on the G5 is quiet a lot more than the athlon box
Also the athlon box has no room for expansion coz to reach the specs of the G5 it used 4 pci slots of the 5 on the board.
Price difference between two systems $280
Advantage of G5
80 GB more storage
Firewire 800
Max memory config 4GB greater
So yes you can build a cheaper PC. But not necessarily better system. System performance just doesn't mean a fast cpu. The athlon system will wait longer than the G5 for any memory access so the .13 MHx increase in clock won't make much of a difference.
Let's get real here. Top level hardware is vastly more expensive than slighty slower hardware.
e.g a P4 3.2 GHZ costs 10x as much as an Athlon 2400+ ($750 vs $75) for perhaps 10-20% better real world performance. A 9800 Pro costs 10x as much as a GF4 MX. Just by substituting these two parts you have dropped a $1000 of the price of a PC.
The reality is a $500 PC is only about 10-20% slower than a $4000 PC in most real situations. That $500 PC is actually overkill for most users. A celeron 300 with 256MB RAM is plenty fast enough to run XP for web browsing and general office tasks - you are talking about a machine worth no more than about $50.
The differences only become noticeable when high CPU utilisation is necessary such as high-end gaming or video editing.
My 1GHz Athlon is currently running at 2-10% CPU utilisation and 156MB of RAM on XP PRo.
I miscalculated the bandwidth of ddr
266mhz ddr is 2.1 GB/sec
400 DDR is 3.2GB/sec
Half of what I calimed above. I based my calculation on a 128 bit bus DDR bus is 64 bit.
The mac uses ddr 400-dual so my calculation for the G5 of 6.4GB/sec was correct. That only makes the athlon system loom worse on memory bandwidth
"I miscalculated the bandwidth of ddr
266mhz ddr is 2.1 GB/sec
400 DDR is 3.2GB/sec
Half of what I calimed above. I based my calculation on a 128 bit bus DDR bus is 64 bit."
The only problem is that DDR400 RAM only imroves the overall speed of a sytem by <5% compared with DDR266 not 50% as the figures suggest.
The real speed determinant is the hard disk setup. That is where the G5 is handicapped - no SATA RAID as standard and ofering cheap 7200 RPM HDs rather than 10,000 RPM SATA or, preferably, SCSI-160 arrays. Hardrives are so cheap now it is criminal not to fit at least SATA RAID to any system costing over $1000
I still want a mac. They just look cooler
I don't know about hardware to hardware comparisons, {though I'm guessing when it comes down to it PC's would win) but the reason I want a Mac is hard to quantify. OSX just looks like it would be so much nicer to use than either XP or Linux.
Personally, I think that's what apple has going for them--the OS looks cool and works and the computers themselves are stylish and functional. Those two advantages have been (and probably will continue to be) above all, the motivating factors that cause people to shell out a couple hundred (or thousand bucks more than they were planning to spend on a new computer.
Probably jumpy sometimes, but with the latest incarnation of the OS it should be acceptable.
I recommend an upgrade, the video card, to a AGP 2x 32 mb radeon of nvidia card, it'll make display navigation smoother seem more responsive.
Consider that my mom's iMac 333 Mhz (256MB) runs just fine at 800x600 and millions of colors, this lower screen resolution makes things smoother on the User side. Her iMac is very snappy.
The P3 800 Dell at work feels sluggish in comparison, but it could be that the Dell only has 3xx MB RAM, it does run W2K that hasn't been cleaned out and re-installed for about 2 years.
I have only upgraded OS X in that same time and continues to feel snappy.
"The only problem is that DDR400 RAM only imroves the overall speed of a sytem by <5% compared with DDR266 not 50% as the figures suggest."
Really how do you say that. Do you have any benchmarks?
Can you explain with any reasonable calculation or fact that validates that claim.
The average bandwidth of DDR 266 is 1.2 GB/sec (peak 2.1 GB/sec). DDR 400-dual is probably 3.5 Gb/sec sustained rate(peak 6.4 GB/sec).
"The real speed determinant is the hard disk setup. That is where the G5 is handicapped - no SATA RAID as standard and ofering cheap 7200 RPM HDs rather than 10,000 RPM SATA or, preferably, SCSI-160 arrays. Hardrives are so cheap now it is criminal not to fit at least SATA RAID to any system costing over $1000"
You are joking right? a few millisecond seek time decrease is going to impact system performance the most. The SATA interface's max/peak bandwidth is 150 MB/sec and the sustained probably 50-60 MB/sec at best. The SATA contoller probably sits at best on a 66/64 bit MHZ pci slot with a max transfer rate of 523 MB/sec sustained of maybe 50-60% of that so 350MB/sec.
How is a few millisecond difference in disk seek time going to matter more than a 2GB/sec bandwidth difference in main memory.
The cpu doesn't fetch instructions from the hardisk you know. What about peripherals DMAing into memory? The extra 2 gig of bandwidth won't help right.
One thing I can't find out about the new OSX10.3 is: Can it run 64bit applications? The photoshop they mention in the article does use a hack, similary to the hack that Intel Xeon use to address 64GB ram, but IS it posible to run a pure 64bit app with true 64 bit pointers?
Martin Tilsted
Since we are all going out to purchase a new G5 we should price some RAM. A 2GB stick of kingston DDR333 will set you back around $1600 or $6400 for 8GB worth (sorry no DDR400 available yet). Add to your dual G5 and the price is a mere $9400. Slots right into the average budget.
I imagine that most OSX users will be using 32bit chips for at least the next 4-5 years. Only at this point will enough of a consumer base exist for apple and it's vendors to ship 64bit software. What will most likely happen (to ease the transitional phase) will be the shipping of software containing a 32bit compiled CD and a 64bit CD.
For the time being and what this article is saying, performance advantages will not be very profound in most areas as far as the 64bit datawidth is concearned and the REAL increases coming from the higher clock speed and a faster FSB.
Desktop users (with the possible exception of EXTREMELY multimedia savvy ones) will probably not feel restricted by the 4GB RAM limit. Server machines will be a different story and this is most unfortunate. My guess is that apple will probably release Xserve with a TRULY 64bit OS in not too long.
> Desktop users (with the possible exception of EXTREMELY
> multimedia savvy ones) will probably not feel restricted by
> the 4GB RAM limit.
Sorry, 8GB is it. Well, ULTRA-EXTREMELY savvy then
G5 has a single mixed 32/26 bits instruction set. The only difference between 32 and 64 bits software for G5 is that 64 bits software is 32 bits software that uses 64 bit istructions also (like G4 code that uses altivec). The optimization in the new processor are due to a different instruction scheduling.
Unfortunately due to excessive kool aide consumption, osnews.com's fridge is now empty.
No more kool aide for anyone. :-(
LOL,
I love it!!! The Mac-ies were juts bragging up all the benefits of having 64-bits on the desktop, and now they find out their OS isn't going to be fully 32-bit...now all of a sudden they're saying, "Ohhh, well who needs a 64-bit OS anyway"
The Steve Jobs reality distortion field strikes again.
Note: I love all OSes, I just wanted to point out the irony of all of this.
//Your whole case cost less than a good quality power supply. //
Huh? You think you need to spend 500 bucks for a good quality power supply?
What planet are you from?
I hope Apple ships 3GHZ desktops in less than 12 months. IBM also mentioned at WWDC that they are already working on the next generation processor after the 970.
Panther looks to be shaping to be a nice upgrade.
I guess PC users get some relief knowing that Apple will not be shipping a fully 64-bit OS. What relief this may be I don't know. As with Altivec Apple seems to be coding parts of the OS that can benefit the most from a 64-bit architecture. Regardless I am glad they didn't go with Intel and Opteron. The world would be boring place.
As always its hilarious how these Mac threads are dominated by comments on how impoverished people are. How they can't afford this and that. Ever heard of working, saving money and budgeting? Its almost akin to someone bitching how much a Mercedes cost, its quite pathetic.
> By bytes256 (IP: ---.biz.rr.com) - Posted on 2003-07-08 >13:18:49
>LOL,
>The Steve Jobs reality distortion field strikes again.
Indeed. They won't admit that Steve lie at the recent media show. If Steve says that the sky is green, watch out for all the kool aide drinkers posting that is so, demanding of others to prove otherwise and to argue "ad infinitum" about it.
Their point seem to be that they cannot be convinced otherwise, which is the point of someone who is fanatical, akin member of a cult, in this case the Apple-Jobs cult.
I think Macs are fine, I however think that Mac zealots are insane, and that of course is not every Mac user. In all fairness I know many Mac user with a sober mind.
I warned this zealots that pushing a high end hardware with a limited[emulated] OS is Apple MO for migrations. Apple seem to demand certain ignorance or naiveness on their user base, and these folks give Steve what he demands, they behave like harlots, really.
So use Apple and MacOSX, but don't lap up everything Steve dishes out like a cheap hooker. Oh well, perhaps they enjoy being taken.
On my part, I wouldn't mind a G5, at some point in the future, as long as I can run a solid OS on it, Linux or AIX. The eye candy OS is for other market, not me, which is fine too.
Why do people keep running this argument into the ground. Yes, it costs more to purchase a comparable Apple to a home-built Athlon system. Mac diehards can't or shouldn't argue this. Its a fact. Yes I know PC workstations are similarly priced, but the consumer PC's cost far less and perform pretty close to workstations.
I built my wife an Athlon based system a couple of years ago for around $1100 total. No Mac at the time could touch it in performance.
But guess what? The next computer will be a G5 PowerMac. Why? Its a better system overall. Hardware, software, usability. I run Linux on my desktop at work. I run Linux on my desktop at home. My wife runs Windows 2000 on her desktop at home. We have an iBook G3 700mhz. My wife would rather use my iBook. She just likes the OS better.
So yes, it will cost more to purchase the Mac. But I feel in the long run it will be worth it. We will get our money's worth out of it.
I don't recall Jobs lying about anything, but I'm watching it again. Please post HH:MM:SS of these lies.
Thanks
-K
You can play this game forever, but just a few notes, in making fair price comparisons:
- Don't factor in RAM from Apple (rather overpriced), factor in RAM cost from a third party. Smart folk don't buy RAM from Apple.
- Comparing supercheap PCs built out of lowest-cost components to Apple's superdesigned (even occasionally overdesigned!) computers is just odd. There's just a world of difference in quality of design, both internal and external -- this is noticable at a glance. Why would anyone who going build his own PC even consider a Mac? I don't get it. Again, if you want a low-cost PC, and don't mind a standard, cheapish-looking box plus labor, go for it. But if you're seriously considering Apple, comparisons to major retailers like Dell make much more sense.
Also, there's no "Office XP" for the Mac. It's called Office v.X.
Pricewise, IMHO, Macs are generally going to be slightly (or not-so-slightly, depending) more expensive, esp. toward the very low-end, where Apple chooses not to compete.
If you're willing pay extra for the extremely polished Mac OS X, the iApps, and a far superior plug-and-play experience, and ease of use, it's worth it by far. If you're not, it's not.
> The WWDC Keynote is still online...
> By Kai Cherry (IP: ---.balt.east.verizon.net) - Posted on 2003-07-08 15:15:40
>I don't recall Jobs lying about anything, but I'm watching it >again. Please post HH:MM:SS of these lies.
>Thanks
>-K
You tell me! Where did the Mac zealots got the notion that Panther was 64bit? I wrote on this forum on 6-27 that it was 32bit and was told that I was wrong. Now it didn't happen? Heh. So I have to prove for you that the sky is not green? Heh.
Obviously Apple[whose CEO is Jobs] was pushing such notion.
Not only that but here is waht Steve said to his lemmings:
"The 64bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never be the same again," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, speaking at the firm's worldwide developer conference in San Francisco.
"With Jaguar, we moved ahead of the competition. With Panther, we're widening the gap," said Steve Jobs, chief executive at Apple.
[from http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141799
and http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141883 ]
But it is the same, or at least still 32bit MacOSX, eh? What gap 32bit, 64bit?
Perhaps a lot of the confusion of Mac zealots can be explain with articles like this [taken from http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/06/10/eweek/ ] in which Panther is presented as the 64bit OS and Smeagol as the intermediate, only it seems that now Panther is the hybrid as well and not a 64bit OS:
________________
eWeek: 64-bit Macs may precede 64-bit OS
By Peter Cohen pcohen@maccentral.com
June 10, 2003 11:25 am ET
Speculation in eWeek suggests that new Macs based on IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970 processor may make an appearance before a true 64-bit version of Mac OS X is ready for prime time. The report suggests that Apple will release an interim build of Mac OS X 10.2, code-named "Smeagol," to bridge the gap between the release of this as-yet unannounced Mac and Mac OS X 10.3, code-named "Panther."
Panther is the next major revision to Mac OS X, and it's expected to take center stage during this month's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple's annual gathering of registered Mac hardware and software developers. The event was originally scheduled to take place in May but got pushed off to June and changed its venue from San Jose to San Francisco. Apple said that WWDC will be the first chance that developers outside of Apple will get to see Panther in action, although Panther's public release is still expected to be a few months off.
One issue at stake is Apple's ability to address the gap in clock speed between PowerPC chips and those processors used in PCs. While higher clock speed is no assurance of better performance -- as reiterated by Apple's "Megahertz Myth" protestations -- public perception has been shaped by PC manufacturers who are now selling Pentium 4-based systems operating at clock speeds that are more than twice as high as Apple's best Power Mac G4s. PowerPC 970 chips can operate at considerably higher clock speeds than Mac users have thus seen from their systems.
Speculation has run rampant about Apple's use of PowerPC 970 chips in the last few months, although Apple has been mum about its future plans. IBM's 64-bit 970 chips can also move twice as much data in one cycle than today's current crop of 32-bit PowerPC processors can. That 64-bit design will require some under-the-hood retooling of the compiler used for Mac OS X, according to eWeek's report. The publication posits that 64-bit support will have to wait until Panther's release this September, although Smeagol is expected to provide support for other architectural changes anticipated for future Mac designs.
________________
It depends of the what the definition of the word "IS" is. Right...
Have some more kool- aide. ;-)
It's truly astounding to see how many people purport to have an understanding of what "64-bit" means, but in fact do not.
There are three criteria that define "64-bitness."
One: can an application running on a given combination of hardware and software address up to 18 billion gigs of virtual memory?
Two: can an application running on said hardware and software read from and write to files that are up to 9 billion gigs long?
Three: can an application running on said hardware and software do arithmetic with 64-bit integers and doubles?
Existing Macs running Mac OS X have two and three down. File offsets are signed long longs (up to 2^63, or 9 billion billion), and any application can manipulate long longs and doubles.
G5's running Mac OS X 10.2.7 will have one taken care of. Now, in the current generation G5, memory is actually limited in hardware to four thousand gigabytes, and limited in practical terms to eight gigabytes. But applications can, nonetheless, allocate and address up to 18 billion gigs of virtual memory. The OS won't stop them from doing that. (Pointers under 10.2.7 with the 64-bit compiler settings are unsigned long longs, 2^64, or 18 billion billion.)
So by any meaningful criteria, Mac OS X 10.2.7 running on G5 hardware will be a 64-bit OS. So will Panther.
>So by any meaningful criteria, Mac OS X 10.2.7 running on G5 >hardware will be a 64-bit OS. So will Panther.
LOL. I see that Steve Job knee-pad girl is back. Have some more kool-aide. :-)
"All applications written for 32-bit implementations will run without modification on 64-bit processors running in 32-bit mode," says IBM's documentation.
....
How temporary 'temporary' turns out to be will depend on Apple's G5 adoption rate, and the necessity of providing a smooth migration path for developers. And, indeed, the extent to which the bridge delivers the benefits of 64-bit computing without the need to re-compile everything. Apple may well feel that for now it's gaining enough extra performance by stepping up to the 970 in 32-bit mode and that it doesn't feel that there's much more to gained by going to 64-bit mode. Particularly if the chip can do one mode or the other, and neither simultaneously."
[from http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/31600.html ]
In other words, Apple will have to wait to migrate to a 64bit OS, depending on user adoption of the G5 platform. In the mean time is Apple MO, like with the 68k and PPC, is the same story all over again.
Granted in the future one may see a 64bit MacOSX[If Mac's are still around] but not yet. I know many can't accept this simple reality.
Apple can't drop the 32bit stuff until people migrate. And that may take years of people buying a 64bit G5 to run Apple's [and 3rd party] 32bit code. Live with it! :-)
I think Panther is a hype name, considering is a 32bit pussy cat. [One can picture Austin Powers doing the Apple ads].
First there is "They're"... "They're making the doughnuts."
then there is "There".. "There go the doughnut makers."
then there is "Their".. "Those are their doughnuts."
I don't see how a debate on platform cost even started. I don't go there. This is just a comment on your statement "Also, there's no "Office XP" for the Mac. It's called Office v.X.". I find it lacking comparing these two suites both in functionality and reliablity. The office application suite on the windows side is quite stable and fast. This is not true for Office v.X.
"In other words, Apple will have to wait to migrate to a 64bit OS, depending on user adoption of the G5 platform. In the mean time is Apple MO, like with the 68k and PPC, is the same story all over again."
68K code runs faster in PPC emulation than it does on a real 68K machines. There is also no code emulation in the 970. This is old news, try again.
"Granted in the future one may see a 64bit MacOSX[If Mac's are still around] but not yet. I know many can't accept this simple reality."
People will accept it. Panther is gonna have a lot of buyers as will the G5. There is a lot of interest in it as the number of responses to Mac articles seem to indicate, even among PC users.
" Apple can't drop the 32bit stuff until people migrate. And that may take years of people buying a 64bit G5 to run Apple's [and 3rd party] 32bit code. Live with it! :-)"
People still bought 6100s, 7100s and 8100s despite the fact 68K emulation at the time was slow. These systems cost even more than the G5s today so there is no doubt people are gonna buy it and LIKE IT! Also you fail to mention that parts of the OS WILL BE 64-bit. Where do Mac people have problems? You PC people feel compelled to post comments on computers you know nothing about or can't even AFFORD to own!
"There are three criteria that define "64-bitness."
One: can an application running on a given combination of hardware and software address up to 18 billion gigs of virtual memory?
Two: can an application running on said hardware and software read from and write to files that are up to 9 billion gigs long?
Three: can an application running on said hardware and software do arithmetic with 64-bit integers and doubles? "
---------
You forgot:
Four: can address more than 32-bits of physical memory.
Panther allows an application to do all 4 of these (and the OS takes advantage of all them internally).
However, addressing more than 32-bits of virtual address space per user-level process is pretty useless if you have no system calls that allow you to map anything up there (and no system libraries that take and return 64-bit virtual addresses). So, you can rightfully say that Panther doesn't meet that first definition (but interestingly the kernel does use some of it's own virtual address above 4GB for some things - but only accesses those things in very controlled ways).
There was talk at the WWDC campus bash about a 64-bit libSystem (and appropriate system call interfaces) in a future update/release. But converting all 300+MB of Apple frameworks to support 64-bit virtual addresses/ABI will probably be a long time coming (i.e. you can have a 64-bit backend process, but the GUI part would still have to be implemented using 32-bit ABI).
Where Did APPLE say 10.3 would be 64Bit?
Mindless prattle from Mac Zealots, PC Trolls or idiot tech writers do NOT qualify as "Apple Said".
If you are an ADC Member, and have access to the Dev Docs, what is going on is perfectly clear:
The idiotic Sun/HP/SGI way of "64 Bit" is the way it is because of CPU design, nothing more.
The G5 does not do 32bit "emulation" (ala 68k PPC Emu) it is built (presently) to be dual/switchable.
The fact that OS runtimes are 64Bit are not really relevant In Real Life...ask anyone using Solaris
That is to say, that, as USUAL in these parts, there is a LOT of yammering from folks on BOTH sides of the issue that need to hop aboard the ClueTrain Express.
So again:
Where did APPLE say Mac OS X 10.3 would be a "64Bit OS"?
If anything, they have said 64Bit Chip, new dev tools for developers to tap into those capabilities.
Show me *Apple* PR, *Apple* quotes, *Apple* documentation that makes these statements.
Otherwise, let it go.
-K
I completely agree. Where in the keynote speech did Steve Jobs say that MacOS 10.3 will be 64bit? All I heard from the speech was features thare are going to be added, some small tweaking to ultilise SOME of the benefits of the G5.
Just look at Solaris as you pointed out, IIRC, everything in Solaris is compiled against 32bit libraries, however, for 64bit machines, the appropriate libraries are installed and the kernel is 64bit.
What is the point of making the whole operating system 64bit if there is no end user benefits? as for the lower end, does Joe consumer need or want a 64bit machine? no. People who voice their opinion here represent 3% of the over all computer user base. The majority don't give a crap what theeir front side bus speed is, what speed their AGP slot runs at or whether or not their CPU is 32bit or 64bit. What the end user cares about is the ability to run applications at an acceptable speed and able to attach the latest gizmo they have bought from Dick Smiths.
Too many people here get wraped up in the technical aspects of computing when the vast, vast, vast majority don't give a shit, and simply use a computer to get a task completed. I spend hours talking to users and guess what the vast majority want? and easy to use operating system that allows them to get work done easily and efficiently. The majority don't give a shit about tweaking their hardware or software to squeeze an extra 0.00001fps out of their computer.
As for me, I tend to have a more of a socialist point of view in regards to purchasing a computer. Why spend $3000 on a computer when in 3 years it will be obsolete? why spend $3000 on a machine which is a complete overkill for what your requirements are? I've weighed up getting either a G5 or an eMac, and there is NO justification for me to buy a G5 when taking into consideration what I use my computer for.
//Your whole case cost less than a good quality power supply. //
Huh? You think you need to spend 500 bucks for a good quality power supply?
What planet are you from?
His whole system was $500. He said his case cost $25(which I assume included a PS). $25 is not enough for a good quality power supply. Obviously, $500 would be a bit much for a power supply.
>>I've consistently said that the Mac will either be slightly more expensive, the same price, slightly less expensive, or significantly less expensive when you match the PC's hardware and software to the exact specifications or as close as possible to the Mac.<<
LOL.
If you have IQ >= 150 go ahead, built your own PC from scratch then install FS/OSS on it. You won't believe whatever Microsoft says, let alone Apple.
If your IQ = 230 then buy PC/stick with Microsoft OS/Windows Apps. You won't believe whatever Job says, let alone Mac zealots'.
If your IQ is either slightly more, the same, slightly less, or significantly less than 100, well, go ahead buy those overprized, overhiped Macs. But do't worship Job, OK!
What do you take issue with? just go to www.dell.com.au and look at the extremely crappy software kits they give you with their "consumer" line of desktops. Heck, I remember receiving a better kit when I purchased my Amiga 14 years ago!
[i]I know this looks like I'm avoiding the question, but a comparison like that takes at least a half hour to make sure that both machines are matched accordingly.[i]
Apple dosen't offer the options that the PC market does. If they did you wouldn't be beating around the bush right now saying 'oh you gotta take x and y into account'
I've got a simple one for you here. User wants a computer to check email, surf the web and listen to music.
For $600-700 they can buy a PC, download WinAmp and be doing everything they wanted the computer to do. The system will be 2+ ghz. and have plenty of expansion at that price.
Apple offers what that competes with this ? Nothing. Get your head out of your butt.
I know this looks like I'm avoiding the question, but a comparison like that takes at least a half hour to make sure that both machines are matched accordingly.
You are avoiding the question because you don't have an answer.
Matches accordingly ? Ok so thats an easy one to answer. You can't buy a stripped down Mac in a tower for under $1000 and thats what I need. Bam. The Mac is more expensive.
End of story
Therefore, if you want to make an accurate comparison, you're going to have to upgrade that processor to a XEON.
you just keep changing the requirements here.
A Xeon ? Thats not a desktop processor. Isn't that one of you maccies famous arguments on the G5? Its a desktop system right ?
He proved you wrong how many times? Keep cutting and pasting tough guy. You are just diggin' a deeper hole
Because it is utter complete crap!
Look slick, PCs ARE less expesive *because when compared to similarly made Apple Computers for less that $800 THERE AREN'T ANY!*
While I become annoyed as HELL by schoolyard Win32 nutcase vitriol, I become *enraged* by idiot Mac "Evangelists" totally riding The Big BS Train.
How in hell can you continue to *ignore* the POINT of the argument?
You CANNOT BUY a MODERN, APPLE SUPPORTED, CURRENTLY MADE Macintosh for anywhere *NEAR* the price of *several* Branded and Semi-Branded Wintel Clones.
Try using your HEAD. This mindless droning is *exactly* what turns off potential Mac Users! Its a great platform, with tons of benefits...
Assuming you want to pay the price to entry. Pretending that there isn't one, or that it doesn't matter to people *does* smack of "Kool-Aid drinkin'" son and its really, really sad.
Jesus! I was hoping we got rid of most of your types with the transition to "Evil" OS X.
Well, here's to hoping.
...attributions again?
*ticktockticktocktick*
Yeah.
Apple has more freakin' lawyers on staff and retainer than most of us have in Megs of Ram on our computers.
There is NO WAY IN HELL they would have not DRILLED into the head of ANYONE at Apple who could be considered a "credible source" to never utter the words or commit to print "10.3 is/will be a 64bit OS."
Its what they are paid to do.
So I'm assuming the "Apple Said" part is dropped. Now if the orginal poster of that nonsense could just step up to the mike and *acknowledge* (preferably without adding a bunch of ad hominum commentary) we can get some closure.
You still get to keep your (relevant) Mac Zealot points, however. I play fair.
-K
"As for me, I tend to have a more of a socialist point of view in regards to purchasing a computer. Why spend $3000 on a computer when in 3 years it will be obsolete? why spend $3000 on a machine which is a complete overkill for what your requirements are? I've weighed up getting either a G5 or an eMac, and there is NO justification for me to buy a G5 when taking into consideration what I use my computer for."
Exactly! people are suckered all the time by salespeople selling them machines far in excess of their needs. A 1GHz Celeron is more than enough for most home users.
aherm:
I guess your IQ is less than 70, because you can't even put your statements in a well organized form. It's a shame for you to talk about IQ.
That tbe biggest trolls have broadband. These people in question are unlikely to pay for their internet connection whilst the rest of us adults have to pay bills, work and don't have the luxary of having Mum and Dad paying for internet access.
As for the issue with MacOS, if you dont like it, don't use it, simple as that.
Now that they can't complain about the hardware...
the story says Hybrid ... instead of just reading the title and think you know everything you may want to read the article...
By Kai Cherry (IP: ---.balt.east.verizon.net) - Posted on >2003-07-09 12:15:48
>...attributions again?
>*ticktockticktocktick*
>Yeah.
>Apple has more freakin' lawyers on staff and retainer than >most of us have in Megs of Ram on our computers.
True. And they are clever, you got a point there.
>There is NO WAY IN HELL they would have not DRILLED into >the head of ANYONE at Apple who could be considered a >"credible source" to never utter the words or commit to >print "10.3 is/will be a 64bit OS."
Well, they have ways of pushing notions onto people. Otherwise who do you explain Mac zealots and Macmedia reacting surprise about Panther being a 32bit hybrid?
[for example http://www.macnn.com/news/20051&startNumber=10 ]
Not only that but there are Maczealots in this forum that insist that Panther IS a 64bit OS, where do you think they got that notion from?
Now I grant you that Steve Jobs [after some research] did not *directly* stated that Panther will be a 64bit OS, but he certainly insinuated it, and Apple promoted the idea thru press, albeit cleverly indeiractly, they are slick. But I grant you that point, I cannot state that Steve directly lie to people abnout this, perhaps I should have said that Apple/Jobs have mislead people by creating or allowing the impression that Panther unlike smeagol would be 64bit. So I give you your point.
Also you said *credible* sources and explained that press and Maczealots is not a valid source, well do keep in mind that I do not have access to Apple internal Memo's, so I work with what I have. And again the notion is there that Panther is 64bit OS, could you at least acknowledge that? If so, I ask you where do you think that comes from?
>Its what they are paid to do.
>So I'm assuming the "Apple Said" part is dropped. Now if >the orginal poster of that nonsense could just step up to >the mike and *acknowledge* (preferably without adding a >bunch of ad hominum commentary) we can get some closure.
Dropping the Apple part is like dropiing the M$ part, they both use smoke and mirrors to their advantage. But again I conceded your point.
>You still get to keep your (relevant) Mac Zealot points, >however. I play fair.
>-K
Thank you for that. I have been told by ignorant idiots that the reason I do not own a Mac is because I can't afford one. Heh. I have machines that are way more expensive than that for profesional use, but with that atitude who wants to join the group and gulp down the kool-aide? :-)
blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah,
blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah,
blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah,blah, blah
"Not only that but there are Maczealots in this forum that insist that Panther IS a 64bit OS, where do you think they got that notion from?"
Not Apple. This is excactly, 100% of the point. Doesn't *matter* where they THINK they heard it, its not true, it *never* was, and no one at Apple ever said so
See, you, like many other Non-Apple customers, seem to have a bit of a problem separating the Company/Myth/Users from each other.
Don't feel bad, many "Apple Customers" (I quote this since most of the loudmouths I run into haven't actually *bought* anything from Apple costing more than $1K for *YEARS*) have problems with this as well.
Developers are often as out of the loop as users, and certain one's are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Macromedia is by NO MEANS an authority on Mac OS X products; they barely manage to shake them loose of their MFC stench when they get them on OS X
So again, since ->Apple<- has never, ever directly, or from what anyone can tell *indirectly* intimatated that 10.3 was to be 64Bit there is nothing for an honest man to do at this juncture but *fully* conceed this point.
The notion that Apple somehow has a brainwave device in its hardware that "makes MacZealots think this" while romantic, is a bit farfetched and cetainly easier to explain:
They are zealots. They invent a web of lies to compensate for their own fallacies.
Pundits? Mental masterbation and speculation...pure and simple. They feed this crap more than any other source IMNSHO...because otherwise no one would care what the had to say? Why? None of them work for Apple, Inc.
Rumor sites? Its business Its what the do...gotta get those impressions up
Boards like this one? The voice of the people...the problem is that most of us with a voice of REASON do a lot of head shaking and walk the hell away.
Me? I'm a *nix guy, a Mac guy and a developer...and I like to get things DONE. There is no other platform that will meet my needs in this regard, YMMV.
And I'm a coffee drinker, thanks very much. Kool-Aid is for kids, and ad hominum attacks
-K
Why do PC users care so much about these Mac articles? Look at the number of reader comments! A good majority of them from PC users, yet you go to the other articles that are specific to the PC platform and you get 25-50 comments at best. Like or not Apple's marketing is working if Apple and the Mac is getting this much attention/mindshare.
>And I'm a coffee drinker, thanks very much. Kool-Aid is for >kids, and ad hominum attacks
>-K
Yep, it shows that you are a Java guy, feet on the ground.
Enjoyed your post.
It's good to know that there are sane people out there.
I conceded your point already, but do keep in mind the world is not B&W. I have work in silicon valley for years, enough to know how sleazy some companies can be. To me Politicians and some Computer companis, i.e., have a lot in common.
But alas... is not a romantic notion but actual experience in dealing with these people. Still I may be preaching to the choir here, since you don't seem to be under the mind control of Steve, like some of the numb heads around the board.
I own a big farm of SGI's, and do Video production with them. That's why a laugh whenever I am told that I can't afford a Mac. THough I admit Irix is not my personal desktop, but neither is Apple, and it probably never will.
Dude, I write Mac Software for end users. I know not a day passes when I don't wonder *seriously* about some of them...
"Unmitigated Balls" does not *begin* to cover my colorful descriptions
As for Apple on your Desktop: As a Unix user (ok Irix, yuk yuk. Oh MAN do I feel for you...got away from that stuff years ago when I worked at NOAA. But i did always think the fiber optic link betwixt cpus was a damn fine trick...sorry digressing here) I'd say give one at least a kick or two.
The *problem* is getting over that hump of being associated with some of the more...crackhead element...that uses Apple products. Its tough for a lot of folks. I don't know too many clean and sober folk that want to be associated with the Lunatic Fringe; but try to see over that
But like most things in life the "Cut off nose/Spite Face" thing rarely pans out in the end, and you could probably be *well served* by an Apple *nix laptop since you run a *nix biz.
If your the businessman you say you are, you'll have the acumen to give it at least a peek. My advise tho is to stay AWAY from Apple retail on a weekend, try late hours on like a Tuesday and be *right up front* and tell them YOU HATE RABID APPLE USERS AND WANT NO PART OF THAT FOOLISHNESS. You're a busy man, a *nix guy and ya' need someone that knows *nix to give the "Businessman's *nix Laptop" angle.
There is *nothing* like walking into a meeting with a 17" to do a PP (ok, Keynote now...its much nicer) presentation by hooking *strait* into the projector, click, click, flying thru then having some tech (usually a Linux guy...tee-hee) try to bust yer balls, popping up a Term and getting down to the nitty-gritty.
But by *all means* do NOT take my word for it...see for yerself
-K
How is what apple is doing any different than what Microsoft did when it released Windows 95, a hybrid OS that could run 32-bit apps and 16-bit apps natively, while touting it as a 32-bit OS?
In essense its different because *Apple* has never said it was.
The Register, long known in IT for its even-keeled reporting (har-har) writes an article as if it were a *revelation* of some sort.
So there ya go Problem is...
Bunch of me-too Mac Sites pick it up...in pieces and out of context. Remember, virtually no one goes back to the source. Had they done so, they would have most likely seen it for what it was: a boring tech article trying to be "sensational edutainment"...
Of course, as some misguide Mac Users are wont to do, they run with it, jump on it, "re-intepret" and article written in a suspect tone in the first place then roll it all up and bring it somplace like here.
A PO'd (but oftentimes MORE clued-in) *non Mac User*(...who will shortly be know as "PC Troll Luser" within 3 posts...regardless of whether or not they actually ARE a PC User) will point out some glaring hole in the MacRant du jour, probably with a bit too much sarcasm or dark humor for a MacZ that's already off the 'zak...
Then all hell breaks loose Twisted "factoids"...direct quotes from the Evagelist...irrelevant and tangental TCO arguments...ad hominin attacks...poisoning the well...the whole thing, just like we learned in school.
The noise level goes off the charts. Small animals are harmed, hopefully someone interjects something REALLY SANE or REALLY FUNNY, things get point on point for a few posts, someone screws it up with a thinly veild "gay" reference or "yo' momma" snap, lather, repeat
OK, I ve read through all these messages, most of them off topic, and complete crap written by people with no hardware/software expertise.
Every time Apple is mentioned here we get this crap, enough is enough.
To this person comparing home built Linux/Win PC with a brand name computer, get a life. It is not the same whether you like it or not, and will never be (by the way there are necessary stuff missing from your config. but I am not going there!) So yes you will pay more money for an Apple system. Happy now?
If you do not want to/cannot pay the price for a Mac, then don't. Nobody is putting a gun on your head.
Buy what you need, and stop spamming this board with all that crap. If you like win XP then get it, if you prefer Linux then get that. If you feel that you want to spend a little more to buy a Mac, do it. But please stop this futile, childish war of OSs. This is ridiculous, off topic and very annoying.
Lastly, competition is good. If AMD was not there where would Intel performance be today? If Apple was not there we would most likely still use DOS. And think about it, why do you think IE has not seen any improvements in the past 4/5 years? Why do you think Microsoft is coming up with Longhorn in 2005/2006? Do you believe they need more programers? Or maybe that there is little incentive to move faster.
Choice is good, appreciate it. Now could we go back to topic pleeeeeease!
<Panther is a hybrid 32 bit and 64 bit OS.
..SNIP...
I've known all of this for quite some time...so methinks others just weren't reading the press releases carefully or weren't reading them all all, just reading headlines and comments and thinking that makes them informed. >
Exactly, I think anyone that was paying attention knew about this the day it was announced at WWDC (or before for those in the loop), reading some of the comments here I kept asking myself: Am I the only person who knew about this? Talk about making a mountain out of a non-news story...sheeesh!
The fact remains that even running non optimised 32 bit it will still be a big improvement over the G4.
I work on and quote on both the "Wintel/AMDows" and "Mac" hardware and software. The first thing i do when a new Machine/OS comes out it USE IT before i pass final judgement.
Some ppl like to not worry about having to pop on of a handful of driver cds back in when the OS goes to Hell - I reckon a Mac and Panther will suit them. You'll get the folk though, that want to play with the innards of their puter and are more comfortable with "*fdisk*" and "howtodisablemessengeratstartup" - i reckon they'll hate a mac and sneer at the apparent "extra expense" that the almost "seamless" support and applications suite of the Mac. At least half of these folk are pirating apps that cost more than a whole G5 is worth.
If only you guys would use your powers for good instead of evil.........it takes all sorts.
