Re: RE: madamimadam
Originally posted by mytdave
Excellent, almost instant response. Love the internet.
Okay, madamimadam, I just configured a "name brand" Dell PC. Here's what I got:
2.8 GHz P4, 512K L2, no L3, 533MHz FSB
1GB DDR 2700 (333MHz) RAM (same as Apple, but actually usable)
120GB ATA100 7200 RPM HD (same as Apple)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, 128MB DDR, TV out & DVI (better than Apple's)
Turtle Beach DSP sound card (tons better than Apple's)
Harmon Kardon speakers (better than Apple's)
48x/24x/48x CDRW drive (tons faster, but no DVD-R available)
Standard stuff like kybd, mouse, et al. (same as Apple)
No OS - Won't pay the Microsoft tax (get Linux it's free)
$2288.00
Apple's closest match is the top line (not BTO) G4 tower at $3299.00 but has less RAM, a slower graphics card, inferior audio, slower CDRW - but a neato DVD-R (that's a plus), and roughly equivalent processor performance. That is over a $1000 price difference! So Apple really does have room for improvement.
It is true that for the other specs mentioned you get that from custom building your own PC, but that's exactly what most PC enthusiasts do!
- The P4 is a double pumped 266MHz bus. Unfortunately for Apple, it can take advantage of PC3500 DDR RAM.
- AGP 8x is a quad pumped 133MHz bus, it is not significantly faster than 4x, but it is slightly faster.
- A 1.2GB GeForce 4Ti may exist - it's advertised by Leadtek in PC magazines as using 1200MB of 3.3ns DDR ram. It may be a typo on their part, I don't know.
- Pretty much the entire point to using ATA133 is not the speed, but it's overcoming the 136GB size limitation, allowing the use of the new 200GB HDs from WD and others. We all know a single drive mechanism can't transfer more than about 50MB/s.
- The PowerMacs have dual bays for optical drives, but PC's actually ship with 2 drives, it's not a BTO thing.
- USB 2.0 does make a difference, and Apple better jump on the bandwagon quick. Of course they're hedging their bets until they can get 800Mb FireWire working.
Don't get me wrong. I love Macs (I do have one Linux PC, a gift) and I only buy Macs, but I'm getting a little bit tired of yesterday's hardware at premium prices. Apple is an industry leader... they need to lead. Who cares what "name brand" PC makers are doing, they're not leading.
Adding Linux is a dodgy move... you can not compare free Linux to paid MacOS... MacOS kicks the **** through it and as an OS to be used all day everyday by most people Linux still just does not cut it over Windows. Windows may piss you off but it has the software you need. That is the beauty of MacOS X, you have mainstream programs but you can still experiment with all the cool open source Unix wares.
Secondly, you have matched Apple's top with a Dell mid
Dell:
If you choose their top of the range and say:
1X Xeon 2.8
512MB (2 RIMMS - RDRAM) - special offer for price of 128MB
K/B to match Apple's
No monitor
nVidia 128MB VGA/DVI
120GB 7200RPM HD
3.5" 1.44MB Floppy
Microsoft XP Pro
Harman Karman Speakers
PS/2 mouse
Gigabit Ethernet
Modem
DVD+RW+R and 16xDVD with Sonic authoring (this gives mac SuperDrive comparison and an attempt and comparing Movie/Authoring ability of the Mac)
Harman Kardon Speakers
Adobe Acrobat 5 (So it can make PDFs like the Mac)
3yr Same Day 4Hr response Parts + Onsite Labor (M-F 8am - 6pm) + GTS
Mac:
1GB PC2700 DDR SDRAM ($40 double RAM offer)
120GB HD
SuperDrive
GeForce 4 Ti w/128MB DDR
Modem
Apple k/b
Apple Mouse
Office For X
AppleCare Protection
Apple Pro Speakers - Also Harman Karman
Total Costs:
Dell - $4836
Mac - $4056
If you take the Dell down to a 1.8MHz machine you are at $4137 and if you remove the ability to make anything worthwhile with that DVD burner you are down to $3937
So I guess the Dell is better/cheaper
You said USB 2 makes a difference but have not said what difference. Tests show that Firewire can beat USB 2 is SO many tasks.
Also, do not say PC's ship with this or that because PC = too broad a market... these Dells do not ship with Dual Optical drives
I really do not know how you can say that brand name PCs do not matter.... Dell = #1 in the market... I think what they do matters a LOT.
I say, what do custom PCs matter... we have to compare on a fair playing field... if you want to buy a bit from here and a bit from there and hope you can get them to work than the non-brand name PC market is fantastic but the regular world needs things to work and so they buy from the big names.
As for 8X AGP, if you think it gives better performance, so us some stats. You do not sound like you have researched the matter all to well. It is just like ATA 133; people were raving about it before there were even drives big enough for it to make a difference and I say that if you can afford to buy a drive bigger than 136GB at the moment than you can afford what is a comparitively small cost to get an ATA 133 card. Or like the geeks who buy one PC or card because it can do 5 more frames per sec in Quake to give a total of 283 over 278. Saying this, 8x AGP has an advantage like ATA133 in that it brings in the ability to have time-constrained factors.
I don't know what the deal is with the 1.2GB RAM... as per nVidia's site, the GeForce Ti 4600 specs are:
Verticies per second: 136 Million
Fill Rate: 4.8 Billion AA Samples/Sec.
Operations per Second: 1.23 Trillion
Memory Bandwidth: 10.4GB/Sec.
Maximum Memory: 128MB
8X AGP has a bandwidth of 2.1GB/s .... could they have reversed the numbers?
