Jericho: Take a bite of THIS!
The Mac vs. PC wars have raged for years. I'm a way-back Mac fan as you all know - but I removed myself from the wars a while back. They are all just computers, they all have their advantages and draw backs and most of us do not put the awesome computing power on our desktops to anything resembling a real test. You gamers are just insane, might I add, but in a good way!
However, now and then, a product comes around that brings out the Mac Evangelist inside of me. Have a look at this. Yes, that's a QUAD processor, 4 2.5 Ghz G5s. These are still RISC processors - none of that X86 drek - yet. Look deep at the specs - this thing can support 16GB of RAM - that's 16 gigabytes of memory. Remember the days, oh, say, seven years ago when a 6GB hard drive was WOW big? Ha!
For all you Mac haters out there, open your eyes and your wallets. Yes, it's the price of a KIA, but the gamers out there spend that much cash yearly keeping up with the latest video cards. You gamers, imagine running VitualPC (a Microsoft product!) on this Mac and running your games from there! Quad processors, gigabytes of RAM, 228MB of video RAM - yeah! When the gamers of the world start seeing products like this and realizing they can have the best, instead of cobbling together some crap that usually falls apart pretty quick, dealing with the hourly security patches to Windows, the market will change. Before they released Quake III, id software admitted that developing on the Mac was easier than the PC, that's why they released the Quake III beta for the Mac before the PC.
In short, it's pretty - damned pretty. I'll get off my Apple crate and let you all think about this.
However, now and then, a product comes around that brings out the Mac Evangelist inside of me. Have a look at this. Yes, that's a QUAD processor, 4 2.5 Ghz G5s. These are still RISC processors - none of that X86 drek - yet. Look deep at the specs - this thing can support 16GB of RAM - that's 16 gigabytes of memory. Remember the days, oh, say, seven years ago when a 6GB hard drive was WOW big? Ha!
For all you Mac haters out there, open your eyes and your wallets. Yes, it's the price of a KIA, but the gamers out there spend that much cash yearly keeping up with the latest video cards. You gamers, imagine running VitualPC (a Microsoft product!) on this Mac and running your games from there! Quad processors, gigabytes of RAM, 228MB of video RAM - yeah! When the gamers of the world start seeing products like this and realizing they can have the best, instead of cobbling together some crap that usually falls apart pretty quick, dealing with the hourly security patches to Windows, the market will change. Before they released Quake III, id software admitted that developing on the Mac was easier than the PC, that's why they released the Quake III beta for the Mac before the PC.
In short, it's pretty - damned pretty. I'll get off my Apple crate and let you all think about this.
posted by Jericho Brown at 11/29/2005 04:36:00 PM
28 Comments:
Neat.
'Spensive.
If I didn't need to eat for a year...
Actually, I don't even spend that much on food in a year.
But it is pretty. 16 gig of RAM. A terrabyte of HD space.
Oy.
What I love about this machine is that it feels like the future to me. Sure, processors will continue to get smaller and faster - but, they still spend most of their time doing nothing because they don't get fed enough info. Either there isn't enough L2 cache, the bus is slow, etc. However, if you add a second processor, you add another L2 cache, another path on the bus, etc. - vastly increasing speed.
So, instead of buying a single processor, we'll buy machines with multiple processors - or maybe just add processors to what we already have. Apple is going off in a direction that I think the industry may flow - instead of the mother board housing the processor, the processor is on a daughter card. With the new version of PCI, I could see a world where we all buy boxes that are essentially passive back-planes - just a row of PCI slots. Each slot will be filled with a module; a sound module, video, USB, processor, etc. Wanna upgrade? Just add another item, slip it in the slot, you don't even have to open the case. The OS will auto detect, and off you go with a faster, better PC - you may not even have to reboot the system.
Either way, there's no way I can afford this box, either. I'm looking to upgrade to a new machine sometime after the first of the year, but I'll be getting the new iMac at half the price of this box - monitor included!
Jusr for kicks, I hit the Apple store and just went nuts with the Quad. I drove that puppy's price to a little over $20,000.
I've said it before. I'll say it again. Oy!
I've never been anti or pro Mac. I've always gone the commercial route and stuck with PC's. The new dual core PC's are nice, but still have some kinks to work out. I'd love to see these macs going full bore with no glitches. WOOF!
If only the software I spent all day doing tech support would run on a Mac I'd love to see how these handled it. The RealFlight software needs high end CPU's, RAM and Video cards just to get moderate performance
You support a flight simulator? How does one get in on that gig?
When Mac's are as cheep as PC's I'll buy one. The PC I'm sitting at right now has a 2.8 GHz Pent 4, 160 GB Hard Drive, 512 Ram, DVD RW, CD ROM, 6 USB 2.0 ports, Media Card reader, and 3 IEEE-1394 Firewall ports. It cost us about $500 with a printer AND 17" flat screen monitor from Best Buy.
I would have gladly gotten a Mac that has all the same things at the same price. It's all about the cost, baby.
Hey Max, Just move up here to Champaign IL and apply at Hobbico. I answer phones and e-mail telling 90 year old men how to operate their brand new computers so that the R/C Flight Sim will work on it.
It's that simple? I would think you would have to do something particularly evil to earn a slice of that hell.
The real fun kicks in when you get the 90 year old wife of the man who is using the software relaying everything you say because he won't talk on the phone, one if not both are inevitably deaf and they are insisting that the software was not in the box when they opened it three weeks ago but are just now getting around to calling because they thought perhaps the software would arrive separately from the controller...then 25 to 30 minutes into the call they bring up the fact that she was not home when the package arrived and he has Alzheimers...Good God I wish I was a drinker!
A drinker you wish you were, hmmm?
You will be. You will be!
Laura, you are correct. For the average, everyday user, PCs are fine. They are the Ford Taurus of the industry. But, you do indeed get what you pay for.
Now, answer me this: Did you actually look at the Mac line before you bought a PC? Did you actually go touch one, check out it's specs, really look at what you get for the price? Or did you just get what was on sale? If you went to Best Buy only, I know for a fact you didn't look at Mac.
Most people don't look. They see the big sticker and that kills it. In an age where people pay $5 for a cup of premium coffee, instead of $.69 cents for a cup of drip robusta - the Macs should be flying off the shelves in triple their numbers. It's amazing to me.
And I want people to look! The more Apple can sell, the cheaper they can sell them! :)
Is this thing working yet??
FINALLY! I've tried to post this like four times now!
Jer... I went to school for Graphic Design remember? I have used a Mac. Extensivly. I didn't really care for it over a PC. I was indifferant, at best. I hated not having a right mouse button, but I know that can be changed. And it's not like OSX is infalable. I remember it having issues now and then, just like Windows would. But I remember more that the hardware had problems. The built-in CDR would crap out quite a bit and it wouldn't recognize my Zip disk half the time, so I'd have to get a paper clip to push the little button to get my disk back- even after re-starting the computer it wouldn't always eject the disk. I like having an eject button. Sorry.
Yes, I realize since these computers were at school, they were probably abused, but even so, for me, I think that for the money a PC is just as good as a Mac. And all the graphics hardware is compatable with both systems now-a-days anyway, so why spend $2000+ on a Mac when I can get a perfectly good PC for $500?
I have been fairly agnostic towards OS's until recently. It seems that both Apple and Microsoft seem interested in moving towards a mediated, controlled computer experience defined by how they want users to experience their computers. That may work for the lusers that are just now moving into the computer. But for this control freak geek, it's not going to work.
Max, I have heard this argument before, and I have never understood it, I understand it even less these days.
Usually, this argument is framed in the "I have more control on a WinTel box than a Mac" - but, this being you, you had to take one step deeper.
Explain to me what is being kept from you by these machines? As far as I'm concerned, when I want to check my email or surf the web, I just want it to work. I don't care what's going on at Level Three of the OSI model, I just want my friggin' HomestarRunner. Where is this loss of control?
These days in the Mac world, you have OS X - which is essentially a shell over Linux. You have a Linux command line interface if you want it - how much more geekishly control freakish can you get?
Help me to understand you ...
As much as possible. More than I am qualified to have. More than I will get with Windows or Mac. Probably more than I will be able to get on Linux as "Trusted Computing" enters the hardware architecture. Email and surfing are meaningless. They can be done on any computer with equal aplomb. It has more to do with what happens when I try to put media on my computer or use my computer to move media from one device to another.
So, does your perferred computer operating system actually exist?
Linux on a computer not infected with "Trusted Computing" protocols and run by a more competant version of myself.
So...sorta.
Laura is willing to trash all Macs, even though she has no idea what one costs and hasn't touched one made in the last decade. (Floppy drive? Wuzzat??)
Max is willing to dis ALL personal computers because he favors one that only kinda exists.
I love IWDC! :)
So, we are whack for disliking things we don't like? It is the wise man who happily ponies up a couple grand for something that doesn't do what he requires of it?
Never said I hated them. I just don't see the point in spending so much when I can get a machine that does the same stuff for less. I've seen the iMac's and I just don't like 'em that much. Still more expensive for less than a PC. I guess the 3 years spent in South City St. Louis has "skewed" my views on spening money.
Okay - everyone is ignoring emoticons. We're done here.
Ummm...I am almost certain my comments were light-hearted. Laura's out to kill you, but I keep her drugged up these days so she isn't much of a threat.
Use an emoticon now and then, please? No way to tell with you, Max.
BTW, up her dosage! ;)
What? That smiling face to the right isn't enough for you?
Smile? I thought you just had gas!
At today's prices?
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