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fingerjello wrote:

That is where your Apple blinders need to be removed.  Even PCs that are NOT the latest and greatest are consistently far ahead of Apple in adopting higher performing technology.  You don't need to spend a lot to get a PC with PCIe graphics, a dual layer 16X DVD+-RW, SATA hard drives, DDR2 memory, etc. 

For example, the latest and greatest PC right now would be a Dual, Dual-Core Opteron with dual PCIe 6800 Graphics Cards in SLI mode, and 2 10,000 rpm hard drives.  Neato.  Well a person with a Single CPU Athlon 64 4000+, a single PCIe 6800 graphics card, and 2 7,200 rpm SATA drives in RAID 0 array would be just as modern, just not as fast- yet in 99% of programs the user wouldn't even notice the differece.  Just like the guy with a dual 2.7 GHz G5 isn't going to notice an improvement over a 2.0 G5 99% of the time.  Get it?

The funniest thing is when people load up insane amounts of RAM.  After 1 GB, the performance gain is 1-4% depending on the program.  Unless you are an audio pro loading up tons of samples into a multi-track program, or a multi-tasker who likes to have every possible program open at once, going beyond 1 GB is almost never needed.

I guess you do not understand the Mac user base very much.  We like to do things like audio, video and content creation.  1GB of RAM barely cuts it for these type of tasks.  I'll agree in that AMD is making some very compelling CPUs today, but all the power is wasted by putting Windows on it.  Linux is a better choice, but sucks for content creation unless you are doing something very specific in which there is the right software available.

10,000RPM hard drives are not modern.  15k is where its at.   PCIe is a good idea and I hope Apple adopts it for the GPU, but right now GPUs can't saturate a 8x AGP bus, so I see no point in it now. SATA 2 is pointlesss for a single or 2 drive setup, seeing as how a single drive can't even saturate a SATA 1 bus.

Oh and how much is that dual dual core Opteron with all that stuff?  Probably a hell of a lot more than a dual 2.7 Ghz G5.

You can argue specs all day long, but overall the Power Mac is still a better computer.  Better design, better architecture, better OS, better software, etc etc etc.  I'll give AMD the edge on the CPU since it has a built in memory controller.  Intel.....no contest, pure crap, all they make are room heaters now.

smurf I had 1GB of RAM 4 years ago in my B&W G3.

-mark

Czachorski wrote:

fingerjello wrote:

Czachorski wrote:

Always a bad idea?  What if you are rich?

People don't get rich by making poor investments.

It cracks me up when people look at buying computers as an investement.  I have seen people make the same claim with a Harley Davidson motorcycle.  Oh yeah, it is an "investment".  Right. 

I would like to see you get rich by buying G5 computers, since their such a great "investement"

Well you can If your are using your mac to make a living, as may creative professionals do.  You save money in fast set up, less down time, not having to deal with viruses, best tech support... etc.

So it is an investment to many like myself.

mikedemo wrote:

Czachorski wrote:

fingerjello wrote:

People don't get rich by making poor investments.

It cracks me up when people look at buying computers as an investement.  I have seen people make the same claim with a Harley Davidson motorcycle.  Oh yeah, it is an "investment".  Right. 

I would like to see you get rich by buying G5 computers, since their such a great "investement"

Well you can If your are using your mac to make a living, as may creative professionals do.  You save money in fast set up, less down time, not having to deal with viruses, best tech support... etc.

So it is an investment to many like myself.

Well, this discussion seems to have come full circle now.  If you make a living off of a G5, as creative professionals do, then it may be worthwhile to get the fastest machine possible to speed up your productivity.  Yet another example of when it is not "always a bad idea to get the fastest".

Even so, the G5 is still not an investment, no more than the carpenter's hammer is an investment, unless you are speaking in metaphors.  It is a tool to get a job done to earn a living.  When you are building a business, and purchasing computers, equipment, software, desks, etc, these items are not "investments".  They are expenditures and once paid off, they turn into assets.  The investment is the cash or capital that was put into the business.  That is what you hope to grow.  Your assets will only depreciate over time.

Aqua OS X wrote:

Ceemkm wrote:

fingerjello wrote:

That is where your Apple blinders need to be removed.  Even PCs that are NOT the latest and greatest are consistently far ahead of Apple in adopting higher performing technology.

What the hell are you smoking?? "Even PCs that are NOT the latest and greatest are consistently far ahead of Apple in adopting higher performing technology" Who had Firewire stock for the everyday user first? Apple, While PC's where still giving you a stupid @$$ floppy  drive.

I don't think he was talking about floppy drives or firewire.

Typically, Apple has lagged with implementing new industry standard technologies. AGP, PCI X, DDR, etc.

And they are the leaders at others.    You can't say that about most PC companies.

Not to mention, how can Apple not lag at implementing some new industry standard technologies?  These technologies come out, and there are 100 different PC companies that can implement them before Apple.  For them to be the leader at implmenting all new hardware would turn them into a goofy, buggy, over-featured, unelegant computer maker.

PC people don't even do much with their PCs except customise them, anyway.  PC peoples like to fix things.  It's makes them strong and clever.  They want a beardy computer hobby, rather than do anything productive.

Until they hit the age of 40 and  get very pissed off about wasting all of that time keeping up with the endless tweaking and  days of reading technical forums everytime they want to replace a piece of hardware (have to find out what actually *works*).  Or performing a motherboard swap with a supposedly stable vendor's product and discover that there is no RAM that reliably works. Oh, not to mention the joys of administering even just a home network of PCs ....

Hey, I'm not bitter about those 20 years of my life, no way!

JT

misterboo, I hate you! (congratulations grumble grumble)
I'll take the tibook, though...

someone wrote:

But also so happy with the value I got out of my Dual 450. It actually still performs well.

Hi there - I'm due to get a 2nd hand Dual 450, what do you feel about running OS X on it, if it has 512MB of RAM?

How embarassing - I was such a jerky in this thread. 



Those trolls like Fingerjello and such used to bring out the worst of me - I chased a polecat up a tree.