Ordered a new machine ... now the waiting begins

[Praxis]

But that's the thing...
Is the PC really *better* for gaming? Or is it just used more?

[General Zod]

But that's the thing...
Is the PC really *better* for gaming? Or is it just used more?

there's simply more variety for the PC than on the Mac. More well known titles are created with the PC market in mind as opposed to the Mac, so you don't really have nearly as big a selection available to Mac users.

[BabelHuber]

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

They are faster

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

Can you say 'Audigy'? Or 'Envy'?

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

Not at all. There was a big comparison between G5 and PC in the German magazine c't after Apple claimed that the G5 is the 'fastest personal computer'.

Although the writer of the article was a little bit biased towards the G5, it turned out that the single G5s lost all benchmarks against a single Athlon64 (all in 32Bit mode). The writer claimed it could be because he wasn't able to measure more than 2.7GB/s memory bandwith on the single G5s (despite of a theoretical maximum bandwith of 5.4GB/s), while the dual G5 was able to saturate the theoretical bandwith of 6.4GB/s (in fact the single G5 was the only computer with this problem, Athlon XP, Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 didn't have a problem like this at all, too).

After a lot of benchmarks (Spec, Photoshop, Media Encoding, Gaming), the conclusion was that the dual G5 is actually a decent performer when you consider the price. The dual Opteron 246 (2.0GHz) was faster than the dual G5 2.0GHz in all benchmarks, but much more expensive.

The single G5 performed poorly, though.

[Uraniun235]

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?

Mac tends to be a much more expensive platform. I spent less than $300 on my current CPU, motherboard, and RAM last year. I spent a mere $189 on my video card some 18 months ago. Both have served and continue to serve me very well; I expect to upgrade these components in another 12 months, and I plan on investing approximately the same amount of cash, and I expect to get roughly the same lifespan out of those components. This works out to a rough annual cost of $367 to maintain an effective gaming platform. Can you really say the same for the Macintosh?

Even if you could, I still wouldn't feel compelled to switch platforms; I've accumulated a good chunk of experience with Windows, and I know how to get around. It satisfies my needs and I'm accustomed to it. I don't have any good reason to invest a significant amount of money into a wholly different platform with less choices.

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

Heh, yeah, Office XP sure does gobble down the clock cycles.

[Praxis]

They are faster

I'll let this page speak for itself...
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

G5 wins in 4 out of 5 tests.
And that's the dual 2 ghz G5 with a 1 ghz bus. The new G5 is dual 2.5 ghz with a 1.25 ghz bus.

Not at all. There was a big comparison between G5 and PC in the German magazine c't after Apple claimed that the G5 is the 'fastest personal computer'.

Although the writer of the article was a little bit biased towards the G5, it turned out that the single G5s lost all benchmarks against a single Athlon64 (all in 32Bit mode). The writer claimed it could be because he wasn't able to measure more than 2.7GB/s memory bandwith on the single G5s (despite of a theoretical maximum bandwith of 5.4GB/s), while the dual G5 was able to saturate the theoretical bandwith of 6.4GB/s (in fact the single G5 was the only computer with this problem, Athlon XP, Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 didn't have a problem like this at all, too).

Of course...
The single 1.6 ghz G5 wasn't just a slower processor. It had a slower bus speed, as well.
So it was a 1.6 ghz G5 processor with a 800 mhz bus. That explains the lower memory bandiwidth.

The dual 2 ghz has a 1 ghz bus, more processor cache, etc...and the dual 2.5 ghz has a 1.25 ghz bus.

I admit that the single G5 was a flop in comparison.

However!!! In general, a top of the line Athlon 64 system cost the same as a DUAL G5.

And now, the entire G5 lineup is dual processor.

Dual 1.8 ghz costs the same amount as the single 1.6 used to cost. Dual 2 ghz cost what the dual 1.8 used to cost. Dual 2.5 ghz G5 costs what a dual 2 ghz used to cost.

After a lot of benchmarks (Spec, Photoshop, Media Encoding, Gaming), the conclusion was that the dual G5 is actually a decent performer when you consider the price. The dual Opteron 246 (2.0GHz) was faster than the dual G5 2.0GHz in all benchmarks, but much more expensive.

The single G5 performed poorly, though.

The dual G5 costs as much as an Alienware with a Pentium 4 or single Athlon 64, which it can outperform or match. The single G5 is no longer sold, and a dual processor machine is sold at the same price in its stead.

I wouldn't consider it a fair fight against a dual Opteron- an Opteron is a SERVER processor, while a G5 is a desktop. I'd like to see the Opteron face up to a full POWER4 processor from IBM...

Anyway, you can buy an Alienware with a Radeon 9800 256 MB and a G5 with the same card. Both will have the same specs (serial ATA 200 gig hard drive for example, lots of RAM available), and I don't think the G5 will win or lose by a large amount in games.

So really...why is the Mac not a good gaming machine?
Other than the fact that developers don't make as many games for it, I believe it would perform just as well for games.

And with all the PC to Mac game converting companies around these days, you can find almost all major titles on Mac OS X.

[Praxis]

Mac tends to be a much more expensive platform. I spent less than $300 on my current CPU, motherboard, and RAM last year. I spent a mere $189 on my video card some 18 months ago. Both have served and continue to serve me very well; I expect to upgrade these components in another 12 months, and I plan on investing approximately the same amount of cash, and I expect to get roughly the same lifespan out of those components. This works out to a rough annual cost of $367 to maintain an effective gaming platform. Can you really say the same for the Macintosh?

Welll, you have to admit, it's a lot cheaper to build a computer.
I've seen comparisons done with Dell and Apple, and in many cases Apple actually has cheaper computers.

The only difference is that you can't buy a crappy 2 ghz Celeron with a 20 GB hard drive and no graphics card or sound card from Apple for $300, while Dell sells crappy machines to give the impression "We have cheap machines" alongside the ridiculously priced.

For example, I went to look at the prices of buying computer parts. I could build a computer for $500 that would cost me $900 to build with Dell, AND the Dell wouldn't even have a GRAPHICS CARD! (though the Dell came with Windows XP Home).

However, your comparison is innaccurate...
$300 for the motherboard and processor and RAM
+ $189 for the graphics card
+ $200 for Windows XP Home Edition, assuming you didn't download warez
---
= $689, for which price I could get a pretty good eMac, WITH a 17-inch monitor and 40 GB HD and relatively fast G4 processor (you didn't include the monitor in your price, I notice, or the price for the case or hard drive).

Not to mention- Mac laptops are some of the least expensive around.

Consider the price of an iBook G4. $1099 ($999 if you are a student) gets you a Radeon 9200 graphics card, a 12-inch screen, a 30 GB hard drive. DDR RAM, a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, a 1 GHz G4 processor (not a bad processor, about equivilant to a 1.6 ghz P4), and (up to) 6 hour battery life.

Not only that, but Macs are well known for lasting quite a while longer.
Generally, you don't HAVE to replace the computer in a year with a Mac. I met a guy yesterday who has a 3 GHz Pentium 4, and a G4 Cube.
The G4 Cube is an older system, a 450 mhz G4, from a long time ago, when the G4 was a new processor. He replaced the processor with a 800 mhz G4, and doesn't WANT to get a newer system, because it FEELS SO FAST. He finds the Cube just as fast as the 3 GHz Pentium 4. It was an interesting conversation.

Even if you could, I still wouldn't feel compelled to switch platforms; I've accumulated a good chunk of experience with Windows, and I know how to get around. It satisfies my needs and I'm accustomed to it. I don't have any good reason to invest a significant amount of money into a wholly different platform

Don't worry, I'm not trying to convince you to buy one, I'm just pointing out that Macs make quite good gaming machines.

with less choices.

Okay, this I have to contest. Macs have better video editting software, better/equal graphics design software, and better publishing software available. They also have the vast majority of windows games available (check out the huge list at aspyr.com!).

I call that a lot of choice

[Pu-239]

They are faster

I'll let this page speak for itself...
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

G5 wins in 4 out of 5 tests.
And that's the dual 2 ghz G5 with a 1 ghz bus. The new G5 is dual 2.5 ghz with a 1.25 ghz bus.

But there's no AMD64, which is now the fastest PC hardware you can get, and cheaper than P4EE (gamingwise- besides, one can run a 64 bit OS on it (one could run Linux on Mac, but meh, Athlon FX probably is still faster, and I don't think running in 64 bit mode makes much of a difference for PPC anyway, as opposed to the Athlon, which gets double the # of registers that it has in 32) - for Doom III and UT2k4, and AA).
[EDIT] And oh, ttp://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112749,pg,8,00.asp[/EDIT]

However!!! In general, a top of the line Athlon 64 system cost the same as a DUAL G5.

Which is why you don't get the FX processors and get the regular Athlon 64s, which are almost as good. What's the performance for single-threaded apps anyway (like many games)?

The dual G5 costs as much as an Alienware with a Pentium 4 or single Athlon 64, which it can outperform or match. The single G5 is no longer sold, and a dual processor machine is sold at the same price in its stead.

But Alienware hardware is marked up significantly and is overpriced. Also, lots of AMD64 machines have much more than 512MB of ram. One can get a dual 1.8GHz opteron system here: http://www.laclinux.com/en/opt (custom so that most specs are nearly equivalent with a Mac for 32$ more than the fastest Mac (ECC RAM costs more, but you get reliability). And that's with a monitor. W/O monitor + 2GHz Opterons it's 3100$

I wouldn't consider it a fair fight against a dual Opteron- an Opteron is a SERVER processor, while a G5 is a desktop. I'd like to see the Opteron face up to a full POWER4 processor from IBM...

Which costs significantly more than an Opteron, and we already know POWER pwns nearly everything else. And you forgot to bring up quad/8-way Opterons, hehe (since aren't POWER chips dual core, so it would make sense to compare a single POWER with dual Opterons). Also, I don't see Apple selling any POWER servers... only G5 Xserves...

The cheapest POWER workstation here is 7500$ http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/ps ... kstations/

Anyway, you can buy an Alienware with a Radeon 9800 256 MB and a G5 with the same card. Both will have the same specs (serial ATA 200 gig hard drive for example, lots of RAM available), and I don't think the G5 will win or lose by a large amount in games.

So really...why is the Mac not a good gaming machine?
Other than the fact that developers don't make as many games for it, I believe it would perform just as well for games.

And with all the PC to Mac game converting companies around these days, you can find almost all major titles on Mac OS X.

But don't many games have much of the CPU work in one thread?

[General Zod]

Mac tends to be a much more expensive platform. I spent less than $300 on my current CPU, motherboard, and RAM last year. I spent a mere $189 on my video card some 18 months ago. Both have served and continue to serve me very well; I expect to upgrade these components in another 12 months, and I plan on investing approximately the same amount of cash, and I expect to get roughly the same lifespan out of those components. This works out to a rough annual cost of $367 to maintain an effective gaming platform. Can you really say the same for the Macintosh?

Welll, you have to admit, it's a lot cheaper to build a computer.
I've seen comparisons done with Dell and Apple, and in many cases Apple actually has cheaper computers.

not necessarily. I've seen some quite excellent basic, pre assembled systems out there for a measly $600.00 for PC. I'm talking 2.0 GhZ AMD 64, 256 megs Ram, 40gig HD, basic graphics card, and cd-rw drives, with OS and Monitor. Suitable for most tasks except hardcore gaming really. Compare the price on these to building it yourself and it's just about equal.

[phongn]

G5 wins in 4 out of 5 tests.
And that's the dual 2 ghz G5 with a 1 ghz bus. The new G5 is dual 2.5 ghz with a 1.25 ghz bus.

As this is a gaming thread, you might want to start showing gaming benchmarks.

Dual 1.8 ghz costs the same amount as the single 1.6 used to cost. Dual 2 ghz cost what the dual 1.8 used to cost. Dual 2.5 ghz G5 costs what a dual 2 ghz used to cost.

It's still $2K, which is not cheap.

The dual G5 costs as much as an Alienware with a Pentium 4 or single Athlon 64, which it can outperform or match. The single G5 is no longer sold, and a dual processor machine is sold at the same price in its stead.

Alienware is heavily marked up, probably to around Apple levels. Try again.

I wouldn't consider it a fair fight against a dual Opteron- an Opteron is a SERVER processor, while a G5 is a desktop. I'd like to see the Opteron face up to a full POWER4 processor from IBM...

Opteron is not that much different than Athlon64 and POWER4 is out of both's league (and even more expensive to boot). It also has things like massive amounts of L2 cache and a few other features.

Anyway, you can buy an Alienware with a Radeon 9800 256 MB and a G5 with the same card. Both will have the same specs (serial ATA 200 gig hard drive for example, lots of RAM available), and I don't think the G5 will win or lose by a large amount in games.

"Don't think" is not acceptable evidence.

So really...why is the Mac not a good gaming machine?
Other than the fact that developers don't make as many games for it, I believe it would perform just as well for games.

"I believe" means nothing. Show us the numbers, and remember that most games are single-threaded (UT is an exception and even then it mostly used the second CPU for sound). The number of games is also an important consideration if your primary purpose is to play games.

[phongn]

The only difference is that you can't buy a crappy 2 ghz Celeron with a 20 GB hard drive and no graphics card or sound card from Apple for $300, while Dell sells crappy machines to give the impression "We have cheap machines" alongside the ridiculously priced.

Yes, well, for many purposes those cheap machines are fine.

For example, I went to look at the prices of buying computer parts. I could build a computer for $500 that would cost me $900 to build with Dell, AND the Dell wouldn't even have a GRAPHICS CARD! (though the Dell came with Windows XP Home).

I'd like to see this, because at the low end Dell is untouchable.

Not to mention- Mac laptops are some of the least expensive around.

Only the iBook line. The PowerBooks are generally competitive with IBM's offerings, which are not cheap.

Consider the price of an iBook G4. $1099 ($999 if you are a student) gets you a Radeon 9200 graphics card, a 12-inch screen, a 30 GB hard drive. DDR RAM, a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, a 1 GHz G4 processor (not a bad processor, about equivilant to a 1.6 ghz P4), and (up to) 6 hour battery life.

A 1GHz G4 would get schooled by a 1GHz P-M.

Not only that, but Macs are well known for lasting quite a while longer.
Generally, you don't HAVE to replace the computer in a year with a Mac. I met a guy yesterday who has a 3 GHz Pentium 4, and a G4 Cube.
The G4 Cube is an older system, a 450 mhz G4, from a long time ago, when the G4 was a new processor. He replaced the processor with a 800 mhz G4, and doesn't WANT to get a newer system, because it FEELS SO FAST. He finds the Cube just as fast as the 3 GHz Pentium 4. It was an interesting conversation.

That's absurd. I've used 800MHz G4s and they don't fell as "snappy" as a 3GHz P4. Nowhere near as smooth. Furthermore, my 1.53GHz Athlon XP machine is still humming along nicely. It should last a good amount of time. Hell, I still see P2 machines running all over the place.

Okay, this I have to contest. Macs have better video editting software, better/equal graphics design software, and better publishing software available. They also have the vast majority of windows games available (check out the huge list at aspyr.com!).

Oh, fine, so FCP is good. There's good stuff on the PC as well. You might also remember Avid's high-end offerings are available both for Mac and PC. DTP is equal on both platforms as are graphic editing programs.


As for your price comparision, I just built a Dell XPS for ~$2000:
P4E/3.2GHz
XP Pro
512MB DDR SDRAM (2x256)
128MB R9800 Pro
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
250GB 7200RPM SATA HD
8X DVD+RW
1 Year Warranty
Optical Mouse

The low-end PowerMac for about the same price gives you...
2x G5/1.8GHz
OS X 10.3
256MB DDR SDRAM (2x128)
64MB GF5200 Ultra
Internal Sound
80GB 7200RPM SATA HD
8X DVD-R
1 Year Warranty
Optical Mouse

The Dell is a faster computer at the same price.

[BabelHuber]

I'll let this page speak for itself...
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

G5 wins in 4 out of 5 tests.

Please tell me that you are not serious! Xeon MP 2.4 GHz and Athlon MP are very old processors! Nowadays the Gallatin Xeon 3.2 GHz runs with 2MB of L3 cache, and the Athlon MP is even the old K7 core, and not the new K8 (aka Opteron/ Athlon64).

These tests are meaningless. Why don't they put in actually new hardware against the G5 instead of outdated versions? Perhaps there is a reason...


Edit: Try these instead:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/ ... g,8,00.asp

[phongn]

I usually don't trust Barefeats much and often they didn't seem to understand why things didn't happen. For example, back when the G4s got DDR, they seemed astounded that performance didn't increase. Well, duh, the G4 has an SDR FSB! You should be especially carefuly about their cross-platform tests.

[BabelHuber]

I wouldn't consider it a fair fight against a dual Opteron- an Opteron is a SERVER processor, while a G5 is a desktop. I'd like to see the Opteron face up to a full POWER4 processor from IBM...

Actually, that's not the case. If you want to go dual with the AMD64 architecture, you have to buy an Opteron. It's not only for servers.

Unlike the Intel/ IBM CPUs, each Opteron CPU has its own dedicated 2 channel PC400 memory interface. For dual Opteron systems, this means a memory bandwith of 12.8GB/s.
Additionally, each Opteron has 2 Hypertransport (HT) channels, one to communicate with the other CPU, and one to communicate with the mainboard.

The Athlon64 CPUs have only one HT channel, to communicate with the mainboard.

Opteron CPUs for systems with more than 2 CPUs have 3 HT channels, of course (2 to communicate with other CPUs, one to communicate with the maionboards). Since every Opteron adds 6.4GB/s to the system, the scalability is very good.

[phongn]

Actually, no, the G5 is also NUMA in design, like the Opteron. It differs in that it lacks an integrated memory controller, but that may change in the future.

Xeon, of course, is SMP.

[Praxis]

I'll let this page speak for itself...
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

G5 wins in 4 out of 5 tests.

Please tell me that you are not serious! Xeon MP 2.4 GHz and Athlon MP are very old processors! Nowadays the Gallatin Xeon 3.2 GHz runs with 2MB of L3 cache, and the Athlon MP is even the old K7 core, and not the new K8 (aka Opteron/ Athlon64).

These tests are meaningless. Why don't they put in actually new hardware against the G5 instead of outdated versions? Perhaps there is a reason...


Edit: Try these instead:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/ ... g,8,00.asp

Oh geez...I was hoping someone wouldn't post that horrid ATTEMPT at benchmarks.

First of all, before I bash PCWorld's head in (I'm subscribed to them BTW), I will answer the frist part of your post.

The Xeon isn't that old a processor, and AT THE TIME THE G5 CAME OUT the Athlon 64 had not come out yet, nor had the P4 EE.

If you bring in NEW stuff, well, we have to count the new G5 with dual 2.5 ghz (a 25% increase) and 1.25 ghz bus (another 25% increase).

Now to kill PC World.

Benchmark 1: Adobe Premiere.
Premiere is famous for having HORRIBLE Mac performance. Almost all Premiere users went to Windows or switched to Final Cut Pro 4, which has much better performance. So this test is biased due to the program used. Trust me, even MacWorld bashes Premiere's horrid performance.

Bench 2: Photoshop.
Mac did well. They only got beaten by the SERVER which costs way more. Crushed the Athlon 64.

Benchmark 3: Word.
Microsoft Word is slooow on Mac. Duh. It's made by Microsoft.
It's well known that Microsoft uses internal Windows components (I hate integration) to speed up the Office programs, at the cost of stability. Again, this is a very bad test. All Microsoft for Mac programs are slow (MSN for Mac is HORRID, it takes YEARS to sign in and load the program) with the exception of Virtual PC (since they bought VPC from another company).

Benchmark 4: Quake 3.
Mac did quite well, though it lost. Guess why it lost? It had HALF the VRAM. A weaker graphics card. That explains it

These tests were done in conjunction with PCWorld and MacWorld. The funny thing is this...it was published in both magazines, but the PCWorld people left out the last test, DVD encoding, in which the G5 crushed EVERYTHING, including the server, by 3 to 5 times.

So, out of 5 benchmarks, 3 are biased.

But there's no AMD64, which is now the fastest PC hardware you can get, and cheaper than P4EE (gamingwise- besides, one can run a 64 bit OS on it (one could run Linux on Mac, but meh, Athlon FX probably is still faster, and I don't think running in 64 bit mode makes much of a difference for PPC anyway, as opposed to the Athlon, which gets double the # of registers that it has in 32) - for Doom III and UT2k4, and AA).

AMD64 was made AFTER the G5, wasn't out at the time that article was done. However, if you want to count the Athlon 64, then we get to count the dual 2.5 ghz G5 as well

But don't many games have much of the CPU work in one thread?

So?

My 900 mhz Celeron has a peice of CRAP for a processor, but since I stuffed a 64 MB graphics card in it, it plays games well and does everything else badly (thanks to Windows decay).

The graphics card is the biggest factor in gaming.
And even with only one processor, a 2.5 ghz G5 is NOT slow AT ALL for gaming, if you pair it with a Radeon 9800 256 MB

not necessarily. I've seen some quite excellent basic, pre assembled systems out there for a measly $600.00 for PC. I'm talking 2.0 GhZ AMD 64, 256 megs Ram, 40gig HD, basic graphics card, and cd-rw drives, with OS and Monitor. Suitable for most tasks except hardcore gaming really. Compare the price on these to building it yourself and it's just about equal.

Exactly my point. That's a good deal and all, but you can still get a Mac for that price. (Students can get an eMac for $699, 40 gig hard drive, monitor, basic graphics card, DVD/CD-RW, OS, and fairly good processor).

As this is a gaming thread, you might want to start showing gaming benchmarks.

If you'd scrolled down on Barefeats you'd have gotten this link:
http://www.barefeats.com/p4game.html

G5 wins in two out of five gaming tests, and gets second on the others.
Not bad.

Alienware is heavily marked up, probably to around Apple levels. Try again.

A single processor Pentium 4 Alienware machine costs the same as a dual processor machine with serial ATA, a FAR better OS, optical fiber audio out, lots more RAM slots, and other professional features...I'd say the Apple is a better deal.

However, I'll admit that some of the Apple desktops (lower end G5s, the iMac) are overpriced by a couple hundred. Even the eMac should be about $100 cheaper.
But if you want laptops, (with the exception of the 17 incher) it's hard to beat Apple in price.

iBook for example. For students and schools, it costs $999, normal people $1099. It has a 40 GB HD, a good G4 processor, DDR RAM, a Radeon 9200 graphics card (try finding THAT in a PC laptop for equal price! It's gonna be hard to find), better wireless reception or battery life than ANY laptop in its class (it has a desktop processor and lasts up to 6 hours. Try to find a Wintel notebook with a desktop processor that lasts that long), and a DVD/CD-RW.

Extremely good deal and it can play some rather decent games with a 9200.

"Don't think" is not acceptable evidence.

Very well, I'll elaborate.
Check out my benchmarks. The dual 2 ghz G5 beat the 3 ghz P4 twice and lost twice in gaming tests. I'd call that a tie. That was with a 128 MB Radeon 9800.

Well, the dual 2.5 ghz with a faster 1.25 ghz bus will do about 25% better, a big increase. If we estimate that the Athlon 64 is 25% faster than the 3 ghz P4, well, you get the picture. (If the Athlon 64 is MORE than 25% faster, it's getting ridiculous- it'd have to be faster than a 4.5 ghz Pentium 4!)



















--------------


I'm not going to answer EVERYTHING- there's too much here, and I have a life

However, my point is that Macs are not that bad at gaming, and not way more expensive (especially in the laptop region).

[Praxis]

Oh yeah, about dell.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... tom_anchor

Customize it with an 80 gig HD, 2.5 ghz P4 (or closest), 512 MB of RAM, a CD-ROM AND a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive, and floppy drive. Should give you a number over $900.

I could buy the parts and build the same computer, + a 128 MB graphics card (which the dell doesn't have), + a 50% bigger HD (Dell doesn't offer 120 GB for that computer), -Windows and the small monitor...
For $500.

[phongn]

Nobody said that Macs were bad at gaming, we said that PCs were superior at gaming.

Bench 2: Photoshop.
Mac did well. They only got beaten by the SERVER which costs way more. Crushed the Athlon 64.

Look at the filterchain and see which ones have been optimized for AltiVec! That's not the entire story.

Benchmark 3: Word.
Microsoft Word is slooow on Mac. Duh. It's made by Microsoft.
It's well known that Microsoft uses internal Windows components (I hate integration) to speed up the Office programs, at the cost of stability. Again, this is a very bad test. All Microsoft for Mac programs are slow (MSN for Mac is HORRID, it takes YEARS to sign in and load the program) with the exception of Virtual PC (since they bought VPC from another company).

Prove Microsoft is using these 'internal Windows components' to speed up Office at the cost of stability. However, the comparison is not particular accurate because Office/Mac and Office/Windows use two separate codebases. In addition, Word 2004 now uses some native OS X text rendering services which is rather slow.

Benchmark 4: Quake 3.
Mac did quite well, though it lost. Guess why it lost? It had HALF the VRAM. A weaker graphics card. That explains it

Bzzt, sorry, try again. Q3 won't even use 128MB of VRAM, much less 256MB. It is irrelevant if the PC has twice as much.

AMD64 was made AFTER the G5, wasn't out at the time that article was done. However, if you want to count the Athlon 64, then we get to count the dual 2.5 ghz G5 as well

It is irrelevant if AMD64 came out after the G5 or not. The comparison is between Macs and PCs in general, not Macs vs. PCs are a specific point in time.

But don't many games have much of the CPU work in one thread?

So?

It means that your dual-processor system will have one processor twidling its thumbs.

My 900 mhz Celeron has a peice of CRAP for a processor, but since I stuffed a 64 MB graphics card in it, it plays games well and does everything else badly (thanks to Windows decay).

It may play older games well at lower resolution and without graphical options turned on. My 1.53GHz Athlon XP + 128MB R8500LE struggles with games such as C&C:G and HW2 at 1024x768x32.

The graphics card is the biggest factor in gaming.

No, it is but one important factor. Your CPU must still send geometry setup to the GPU; if the former is not up to the task you will not see much of an increase in framerates.

And even with only one processor, a 2.5 ghz G5 is NOT slow AT ALL for gaming, if you pair it with a Radeon 9800 256 MB

Slow? No. As fast as the competition? Probably not. You might also note that PCs have access to faster cards than the 9800 Pro or 9800XT.

Exactly my point. That's a good deal and all, but you can still get a Mac for that price. (Students can get an eMac for $699, 40 gig hard drive, monitor, basic graphics card, DVD/CD-RW, OS, and fairly good processor).

A student discount is not applicable to everyone. The quoted price for the PC appears to be standard. Furthermore, that Athlon64 will crush the G4 clock-for-clock, nevermind its clockspeed advantage.

A single processor Pentium 4 Alienware machine costs the same as a dual processor machine with serial ATA, a FAR better OS, optical fiber audio out, lots more RAM slots, and other professional features...I'd say the Apple is a better deal.

1. For gaming, multiple processors is not needed.
2. Both Alienware and the Apple machines have SATA ... not that its relevant from a performance standpoint.
3. And why is OS X superior?
4. The Alienware machine appears to have coaxial digital audio.
5. Yes, as it was designed as a workstation (and the G5/1.8 only has 4 DIMM slots). I somehow doubt the average gamer is going to populate all eight slots.
6. What other 'professional' features?

However, I'll admit that some of the Apple desktops (lower end G5s, the iMac) are overpriced by a couple hundred. Even the eMac should be about $100 cheaper.
But if you want laptops, (with the exception of the 17 incher) it's hard to beat Apple in price.

With the exception of the iBook, you can beat Apple on price and performance with laptops. The quality might not be as high but you can do it.

Furthermore, the iBook is not going to last six hours under normal usage, especially if you have the radio on.

Very well, I'll elaborate.
Check out my benchmarks. The dual 2 ghz G5 beat the 3 ghz P4 twice and lost twice in gaming tests. I'd call that a tie. That was with a 128 MB Radeon 9800.

A whole two games. That's not a representative sample set and one of the tests was Quake 3 which is not representative of current game technology.

Well, the dual 2.5 ghz with a faster 1.25 ghz bus will do about 25% better, a big increase. If we estimate that the Athlon 64 is 25% faster than the 3 ghz P4, well, you get the picture. (If the Athlon 64 is MORE than 25% faster, it's getting ridiculous- it'd have to be faster than a 4.5 ghz Pentium 4!)

There is the slight problem that your RAM bandwidth is effectively 800MHz ... so that nice, extra 425MHz FSB boost won't be that useful.

[Durandal]

Oh Christ. I like Macs, but using BareFeats as some sort of reliable benchmark resource is really pushing it.

Bottom line: x86 doesn't run Mac OS X, and that's my OS of choice, period. A lot of people don't understand it, but Apple caters to anal-retentive users like me. There are so many small, dumb-shit things that I hate about Windows and how it works. They're little things, but they add up. Ditto for the Linux WMs. They all have features that I like, but I miss OS X (especially Adium) when working with Windows or Linux.

So yeah, I'll sacrifice some 1337 bragging rights to get a setup that works for me. I'm not a hard-core gamer, and frankly, the selection on OS X is more than enough for me. Sure, there are titles here and there on Windows that don't get ported that I'd love to play on my box, but you can't have it all.

[Praxis]

Well, I don't want to turn this whole thing into a Mac vs PC debate, so I'll leave it as it is.

Suffice to say, I think most modern OSes are superior to Windows...at least the big ones, Linux and Mac OS X, are far superior technically, and OS X is just as user friendly. This is why I'm working toward dumping Windows.

Macs can still play many games, and I'm hoping I can get Mandrake Linux to run my Winblows games on the PeeCee

[BabelHuber]

Bottom line: x86 doesn't run Mac OS X, and that's my OS of choice, period.

I think it is good that Apple is around, just because more choice means more competition, and competition is good for every customer.

Apple delivers to market segments in which I'm not interrested in, but this doesn't mean that there aren't people for which an Apple is a good choice.

The only thing I cannot stand are Apple believers, who think that Apple computers are superiour to the competition in every aspect, even though this just isn't true.

[Uraniun235]

+ $200 for Windows XP Home Edition, assuming you didn't download warez
---
= $689, for which price I could get a pretty good eMac, WITH a 17-inch monitor and 40 GB HD and relatively fast G4 processor (you didn't include the monitor in your price, I notice, or the price for the case or hard drive).

After the initial investment, I can get away with spending in much smaller increments in order to remain competitive. This is the point I was making, that my occassional upgrades can be more cost-effective than buying a completely new medium-high end system every 2.5 years.

And, who said anything about XP? Win2K is my Windows flavor of choice. And I don't need to buy a new license every year. I don't need to buy a new 17 inch monitor every year, either. Nor do I need to buy a new hard drive every year.

I've been running the same case, OS, NIC, and CD burner since 2001. I've been running the same monitor and modem since 1998. Hard drives are separate and utterly optional; I could have stopped with my first 80 gig back in ~2001-2002 (I can't remember when I got it) if I wanted to remain competitive with the budget Mac you posted.

The point is that in about 12 months when I'll probably be feeling the age of my core components, I'm likely going to spend a lot less money than it would cost to completely replace my system, and that in the long term a PC becomes a cheaper investment than a Mac.

Not only that, but Macs are well known for lasting quite a while longer.
Generally, you don't HAVE to replace the computer in a year with a Mac. I met a guy yesterday who has a 3 GHz Pentium 4, and a G4 Cube.
The G4 Cube is an older system, a 450 mhz G4, from a long time ago, when the G4 was a new processor. He replaced the processor with a 800 mhz G4, and doesn't WANT to get a newer system, because it FEELS SO FAST. He finds the Cube just as fast as the 3 GHz Pentium 4. It was an interesting conversation.

Does he actually use the Cube for gaming?

[Durandal]

Actually, Macs are notorious for value retention. Used, 3 year-old Macs (with minor upgrades) can go for $500 to $700 easily. Sure, you might argue that Mac users are a bunch of fanatics who'll pay that kind of money, but the fact remains that, after 3 years, my Mac will be a lot more valuable than a mostly equivalent PC purchased at the same time.

[BabelHuber]

the fact remains that, after 3 years, my Mac will be a lot more valuable than a mostly equivalent PC purchased at the same time.

This is a myth. 3 years? In 2001, you could buy a Pentium 4 with up to 2GHz, or an Athlon XP with 1.5GHz. The top-of-the-line graphic cards were GF3ti500 and ATi RADEON8500. These computers are fast enough for surfing the net and E-Mailing, or doing Office tasks, or even playing games with low resolutions and without AA/AF.

I regularly give away my old PCs to other people who still have some use for them. My little brother, for example, still runs my old PIII 700@933MHz with a GF3ti200, and he's doing well with it. I bought this PC in 1999, and upgraded it a few times (CPU and RAM in 2001, graphic card in 2002).

He's still in university, so he was glad to get this PC for free. No 2001 Mac could serve him better.

[Durandal]

the fact remains that, after 3 years, my Mac will be a lot more valuable than a mostly equivalent PC purchased at the same time.

This is a myth. 3 years? In 2001, you could buy a Pentium 4 with up to 2GHz, or an Athlon XP with 1.5GHz. The top-of-the-line graphic cards were GF3ti500 and ATi RADEON8500. These computers are fast enough for surfing the net and E-Mailing, or doing Office tasks, or even playing games with low resolutions and without AA/AF.

I regularly give away my old PCs to other people who still have some use for them. My little brother, for example, still runs my old PIII 700@933MHz with a GF3ti200, and he's doing well with it. I bought this PC in 1999, and upgraded it a few times (CPU and RAM in 2001, graphic card in 2002).

He's still in university, so he was glad to get this PC for free. No 2001 Mac could serve him better.

Maybe you should read the post again. Try selling a 3 year-old PC for anywhere near the amount you'll get for a 3 year-old Mac.

[BabelHuber]

Maybe you should read the post again. Try selling a 3 year-old PC for anywhere near the amount you'll get for a 3 year-old Mac.

It was way cheaper than a Mac back then, so even if I give it away for free, I haven't lost money, or at least not much.

Even if I did, I wouldn't care, BTW.