Ordered a new machine ... now the waiting begins

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-06-11 02:38pm

Well, my school got an incredible deal on the new dual 1.8 GHz G5s that I just couldn't pass up. I got one for $1299, which was $700 off the retail price. I used the money I saved to buy a retail ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB ($300) and an additional 1 GB of DDR400 ($200 -- 2 512 MB DIMMs), for a total of 1.256 GB of memory.

Now the waiting begins. Sigh ...

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-06-11 03:36pm

And what games will it run..?

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-06-11 04:07pm

I play TrueCombat, a mod for Quake 3 a lot, and it'll run that just fine. It'll also run Halo, America's Army, Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004, Medal of Honor Allied Assault Breakthrough, Battlefield 1942, Knights of the Old Republic, probably Doom 3 ...

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-06-11 06:24pm

Awwwesome...
Hey, you forgot to list Jedi Academy!

Mind sending me one of those G5's?

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-06-11 07:21pm

Durandal wrote:I play TrueCombat, a mod for Quake 3 a lot, and it'll run that just fine. It'll also run Halo, America's Army, Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004, Medal of Honor Allied Assault Breakthrough, Battlefield 1942, Knights of the Old Republic, probably Doom 3 ...

And Mac Nightfire (once that comes out).

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-06-11 07:50pm

I notice the lack of HL2!

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-06-11 07:54pm

InnocentBystander wrote:I notice the lack of HL2!

HOLY SHIT IT'S MUST BE SHERLOCK HOLMES!!! HE FIGURED OUT THAT HL2 DOESN'T RUN ON MACS!!!!!!!!!!111!11omfg!111!1!

HL2, not HW2 -- Phong

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-06-11 08:18pm

LOL!

Anyway, I am extremely jealous. You mind sending me one?

In fact, I recommend you buy a whole bunch, then sell them on Ebay.

Considering the fact that until 2 days ago the dual 1.8 sold for $2500, and on ebay people pay WAY too much for Macs...
(Not kidding here, I've seen outdated 15" PowerBooks selling on ebay for more than Apple charges for them in the refurb section of their site. Once in a while people will pay more for macs on ebay than they would buting a NEW one off Apple.com!)

For example, check out this bid:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 51843&rd=1

It's currently at $2,299. That's $200 less than retail. And it's used. Plus they have to pay shipping (apple was offering free ground shipping last I checked).

Even worse, a 500 mhz iBook G3. The 500 mhz iBook is a HORRIBLE computer to run OS X on. Trust me, I used to have one. Even the older 500 mhz Pismo runs it better.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 45555&rd=1

About to sell for $850, and there's 20 bids already.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-06-11 08:39pm

InnocentBystander wrote:I notice the lack of HL2!

Yeah, it relies heavily on DirectX, and Valve hasn't expressed any interest in porting it themselves or letting someone like Westlake do it. They canned the original Half Life for Mac port when it was about 80% of the way through. I think it was because they're a bunch of cock suckers.

But I'm very happy that KOTOR will be coming to OS X in August. I've heard great things about it, and I'd love to play it.

Praxis: This was a deal through my school. Basically, anyone who ordered a single-processor 1.6 GHz G5 before Noon today for $1299 got his order upgraded to a new dual 1.8 GHz free of charge. So they weren't about to let me order 10 of the things just to turn around and sell on eBay.

My school snatched up a bunch of these puppies. One for my co-developer and me each, and one for each lab on campus. I think they want to gage the popularity of the Mac in labs to see if they want more on campus. Though I doubt that's a fair comparison. A gorgeous dual-processor G5 sitting in the midst of a bunch of ancient PIII Dells? I anticipate death matches and flying puck mice over who gets to use it.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-06-11 08:44pm

LOL @ the flying mice and death matches

I'd warn the school to start watching mice if I were you. If I were a student I would be constantly pulling the mice off the dell and plugging them into the G5's for the second button, lol

My school over here has one G5. A dual 2 ghz. And the teacher who has it is so overwhelmed by the fact that it's not OS 9 (all her other computers are iMac G3's, 233 mhz) that she gets completely scared of using it, and she didn't see the "free upgrade to panther to anyone who bought a G5 with Jaguar" they had for several months, so it's still running Jaguar.
Nobody gets to use it

Then theres another school over here with a room foll of G4's, all running Jaguar.
Phooie! I want panther!

BTW, I've been meaning to ask you.
Do you mind if I steal your sig? I get annoyed in browser arguements when people say, "there's nothing Firefox can view that Internet Explorer can't, so use IE!"

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-06-11 09:10pm

Sure. Spread the glory of Firefox on Windows. On OS X, use Safari.

And tell your teacher to get with the god damn times. OS 9 is a piece of dying shit. OS X is the wave of the future, so she'd better damn well get with the program. People like her are holding the platform back.

Saurencaerthai · Post by **Saurencaerthai** » 2004-06-11 09:22pm

Durandal wrote: And tell your teacher to get with the god damn times. OS 9 is a piece of dying shit. OS X is the wave of the future, so she'd better damn well get with the program. People like her are holding the platform back.

Amen to that. If my Ti-book had come with OS9, I would have opted for a Windows machine. It runs beautifully.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-06-11 10:45pm

Praxis wrote:Even worse, a 500 mhz iBook G3. The 500 mhz iBook is a HORRIBLE computer to run OS X on. Trust me, I used to have one. Even the older 500 mhz Pismo runs it better.

Ouch. And then there are the SuperPismos with 900MHz G3s, maxed out RAM and 5400RPM HDs

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 45555&rd=1

About to sell for $850, and there's 20 bids already.

$1300??

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-06-11 10:57pm

Durandal wrote:
InnocentBystander wrote:I notice the lack of HL2!
Yeah, it relies heavily on DirectX, and Valve hasn't expressed any interest in porting it themselves or letting someone like Westlake do it. They canned the original Half Life for Mac port when it was about 80% of the way through. I think it was because they're a bunch of cock suckers.

Indeed.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-06-11 11:02pm

phongn wrote:

$1300??

Uh...wow.

BTW Durandal, the reason I'm so jealous is that the other day I was at CompUSA. I say a dual processor G5. I walked up to it. iTunes was playing. I opened the applications folder. I launched EVERYTHING- PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Entorauge, iMovie (iMovie tends to slow down even my PowerBook G4 noticeably), iPhoto, Calculator...practically the entire applications folder.

iTunes kept playing without a stutter.

The sheer power was INCREDIBLE.

I want a G5. *NOW*!!! lol

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-06-11 11:05pm

OTOH, all that software alone in that computer is worth a huge amount of money, so that might be why the price is as high as it is.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-06-12 01:13am

Ah, I didn't spot that before.

On the other hand, it's against ebay policy to include software with the computer other than the original software.

They once threatened us and cancelled our auction because we had Microsoft Office installed on a computer we were selling.

Post by **Dalton** » 2004-06-12 12:04pm

You're an asshole, Damien.

BabelHuber · Post by **BabelHuber** » 2004-06-12 12:48pm

Well, my school got an incredible deal on the new dual 1.8 GHz G5s that I just couldn't pass up. I got one for $1299, which was $700 off the retail price. I used the money I saved to buy a retail ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB ($300) and an additional 1 GB of DDR400 ($200 -- 2 512 MB DIMMs), for a total of 1.256 GB of memory.

So you payed $1799 for a G5 1.8? And you payed an extra $300 to upgrade to a RADEON 9800PRO? Is this considered a bargain?

For me this seems a little bit overprized, but I've never understood the G5 hype OTOH.

I've assembled a new PC for gaming in April: Equipped with an Athlon64 3000+ (which runs at 2.2GHz right now), 1GB Corsair XMS LL PC 400, 160GB S-ATA RAID0, a RADEON 9800PRO (which cost ?230 back in April, BTW) and a cool-looking aluminium case, it came in at ~? 1250 (without DVD-burner and Audigy 2 ZS, which I already had).

This babe is not only cheaper, but also faster than the G5 1.8 - I'd say, as long as you don't absolutely hate Windows, it's the better gaming platform.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2004-06-12 12:51pm

BabelHuber wrote:*snip*

There are other uses of a computer besides gaming...

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-06-12 12:59pm

I've assembled a new PC for gaming in April: Equipped with an Athlon64 3000+ (which runs at 2.2GHz right now), 1GB Corsair XMS LL PC 400, 160GB S-ATA RAID0, a RADEON 9800PRO (which cost ?230 back in April, BTW) and a cool-looking aluminium case, it came in at ~? 1250 (without DVD-burner and Audigy 2 ZS, which I already had).

This babe is not only cheaper, but also faster than the G5 1.8 - I'd say, as long as you don't absolutely hate Windows, it's the better gaming platform.

Die. Then again, you windoze lusers can't take advantage of recompiling apps for 64 bits anyway, so there

.

And my friend is getting a dual Opteron with GeForce 6 running Gentoo next year...

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-06-12 01:47pm

BabelHuber wrote:
Well, my school got an incredible deal on the new dual 1.8 GHz G5s that I just couldn't pass up. I got one for $1299, which was $700 off the retail price. I used the money I saved to buy a retail ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB ($300) and an additional 1 GB of DDR400 ($200 -- 2 512 MB DIMMs), for a total of 1.256 GB of memory.
So you payed $1799 for a G5 1.8? And you payed an extra $300 to upgrade to a RADEON 9800PRO? Is this considered a bargain?

No, he paid $1299 for a dual G5 (with 256MB of RAM). That's a pretty good deal. IMHO. Then he paid for the upgrades, which was extra. Normally that machine costs $2K.

For me this seems a little bit overprized, but I've never understood the G5 hype OTOH.

It is a fine microprocessor.

This babe is not only cheaper, but also faster than the G5 1.8 - I'd say, as long as you don't absolutely hate Windows, it's the better gaming platform.

Yes, I think everyone here knows that PCs are the better gaming platform.

BabelHuber · Post by **BabelHuber** » 2004-06-12 02:29pm

Die. Then again, you windoze lusers can't take advantage of recompiling apps for 64 bits anyway

OK, I'm lazy, so I use Windows. When XP64 arrives, however, I bet we'll see a lot of 64Bit applications coming soon.

No, he paid $1299 for a dual G5 (with 256MB of RAM).

Overlooked the 'dual'. After all, the dual G5 isn't such a bad performer, unlike the single G5 systems.

It is a fine microprocessor.

It's not bad.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-06-12 03:42pm

phongn wrote: Yes, I think everyone here knows that PCs are the better gaming platform.

Actually, I've been meaning to ask about this.

Other than the fact that MORE GAMES ARE MADE for Windows, why are PC's better for gaming?

A G5 can match an Athlon 64 if they have equivilant graphics cards.

It really comes down to OpenGL vs DirectX...DirectX has a bit more special effects and is a bit more buggy (How many people have had corrupted DirectX? How many have had corrupted OpenGL? See what I mean?)...

Personally, I think Macs are just as good gaming machines as Windows PC's, except that there simply aren't as many games available.

Can anyone explain to me why not?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-06-12 03:52pm

Praxis wrote:Actually, I've been meaning to ask about this.

Other than the fact that MORE GAMES ARE MADE for Windows, why are PC's better for gaming?

But that is an important factor -- quantity of games.

A G5 can match an Athlon 64 if they have equivilant graphics cards.

Uh, no. There is also a lack of hardware-accelerated 3D sound cards for PC.

It really comes down to OpenGL vs DirectX...DirectX has a bit more special effects and is a bit more buggy (How many people have had corrupted DirectX? How many have had corrupted OpenGL? See what I mean?)...

Not neccessarily, because not a few games on PC use OpenGL.