[critterdoc]

I'm looking for readers who have used both a Cube or 466MHz G-4 tower and a 1.2-1.33 GHz t'bird powered WIN2K PeeCee. Beyond the typical benchmarks, I'm trying to get a handle on differences in perceived speed between the less costly G4s and similarly priced giga+ athlon powered machines for practical items such as start up time, time to load apps such as Excel, Word, Quick Books, time to copy similarly sized files, time to run utilities such as NDD...everyday mundane and hands-on stuff for a typical office user.

Perusing overclocker forums and websites suggests that cranking up an AMD PeeCee to 1.5 Gigs has become fairly simple and relatively affordable, albeit noisy and of dubious stablity. What I've not been able to find is a practical comparison of precieved speed differences between various mac G4s and the higher speed AMDs in the Windows environment.

Thanks,
Michael

[iPad]

*posting on a MAC USER board*
"Which is faster, G4 or Thunderbird?"

It's a little biast to be posting here, but as for your question, I would have to say hands down, the 1.33Ghz Thunderbird would be faster my quite a margin (especially at games, no question there) at ALMOST EVERYTHING except for a few filters in photoshop and some REALLY optimized Altivec stuff. Win2K is really nice, my friend has it running on his 500Mhz Athlon, it was fast and it didn't look half assed either (Win 3.1 ). And you're right, it is VERY easy to overclock and it barely fails unless you mess up with the cooling.



[This message has been edited by iPad (edited 04-23-2001).]

[critterdoc]

Funny thing is that I've seen more rational recognition of the PeeCee as a viable alternative platform in mac groups than I have of the Mac in PeeCee groups. Some of those darksiders get downright nasty when the "M" word is mentioned!

I wandered into several o/c forums almost by accident while hunting for suggestions that guide me in replacing my aging workhorse PPC and flakey rev. C iMac and was astonished when I discovered that one can homebuild a heavy metal PeeCee for no more than the cost of an entry level Cube or G-4 tower. Building is an interesting idea and might be fun, but I've never personally used a PeeCee in the 16 years that have passed since Mac captured my fancy. I was hoping someone here would have some specific comparisons and/or suggestions that might help me decide whether I want to risk the equivalent cost of a quiet factory-built Cube or tower on what sounds like a barn burner PeeCee that may or may not be plagued with problems if I blow the build.

Michael

[JLannoo]

Originally posted by critterdoc:
Funny thing is that I've seen more rational recognition of the PeeCee as a viable alternative platform in mac groups than I have of the Mac in PeeCee groups. Some of those darksiders get downright nasty when the "M" word is mentioned!

I wandered into several o/c forums almost by accident while hunting for suggestions that guide me in replacing my aging workhorse PPC and flakey rev. C iMac and was astonished when I discovered that one can homebuild a heavy metal PeeCee for no more than the cost of an entry level Cube or G-4 tower. Building is an interesting idea and might be fun..
Michael

Let me tell you from experience building a PC IS fun I always build mine from scratch. That way you get the components and brands YOU feel are important and can cut corners on cost where YOU feel you can.

I say build one. Its not hard and its cheap to get a cool rig setup. Plus you can learn a thing or two along the way. Once I get my Mac Monday,My PC is going to be mainly for gaming...you really cant beat a PC at gaming bang per buck IMHO.

That aside I cant wait to get my Mac monday its soooo friggin cool
looking

------------------
-JLannoo
G4 Cube 450 320MB RAGE 128 Pro
Athlon 800 256MB GeForce 2 GTS

I recognize the ubiquity and price/power advantages of PC's, especially if you want to play games, but I totally fail to understand their appeal, once you've gotten used to using the mac OS.
I was at my PC using friends house yesterday. He was trying to burn a CD. The interface was so bizarre and obscure, neither of us could figure out how to select the data we were choosing to burn. The same thing occurred when we merely tried to listen to a music CD. It took about 5-6 steps and dialogs before we could finally choose the CD we wanted, and then only one track was recognized.
What a nightmare!
I'm sure this isn't always the case, but really, why should using one's computer be so challenging? Isn't computing supposed to be a means to an end?

[critterdoc]

Originally posted by Cubee:
I recognize the ubiquity and price/power advantages of PC's, especially if you want to play games, but I totally fail to understand their appeal, once you've gotten used to using the mac OS....Isn't computing supposed to be a means to an end?

Thanks for that reply, Cubee, your words bullseye the dilemma that I'm dancing with. It's only recently that I have even dreamed about going over to the darkside - and that allure is primarily based on 1) relatively more affordable giga+ speed and 'leading edge' parts if I build a PeeCee, 2) the [mid-life crisis] challenge of home-building to regain the feeling I used to have when I've purchased Macs that 'felt' like they were on the edge of the envelope when I took them out of the box and which came in at a more than fair total cost when compared to a similarly equipped/capable PeeCee, 3) psychobabble baggage that has to do with changes in what the company seemed to imply when it said that they were building for the 'rest of us' some years ago.

Then, as you say, I think about how satisfied I am with Mac's OS and how toilsome Windoze has always seemed when I see others use it or describe it's more difficult implementation and instablilty - and yet, <sigh> there is the titillation of piling on enough cooling to assure that an overclocked t-bird don't burn down my friggin house...argggggggggggggh!

[The Godfather]

...Jedi tricks to convince me that I don't need the best GFLOP/dollar ratio I can get.

[rambo47]

When you take into account the total user experience and how fast a job gets done, the whole MHz myth comes tumbling down. Faster processors don't necessarily have higher MHz ratings. The best and only argument for using a pc is the one made above about cost and building your own. Building is definitely cool. Nonetheless, I'll stick to Macs, pay a little more, and get way more.

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

iDisk: rseijas
Homepage: homepage.mac.com/rseijas

[This message has been edited by rambo47 (edited 04-22-2001).]

[iPad]

The Mhz will ONLY apply to a certain limit, you cannot always say that PC's are slower simply because they have higher clock speeds. For comparison, a 500Mhz G4 WILL be faster than a 500Mhz Athlon on most tasks, same with a 733Mhz G4 vs 733Mhz P3.

However, comparing a 1.33Ghz Thunderbird to a 466Mhz G4 is a joke, there is no way in hell you can possibly say the G4 will be faster, even with Altivec optimized apps.

And don't bring up the GUI, is that the only defense you guys have? Sure, the mac may be elegant, but this is an opinionated question, you can't speak for everyone and say you'll get your work on a mac faster because those predictions are only based on the fact that you've used a mac long enough to be familiar with it. Windows users will prefer windows, because they can use it properly. It's all about opinion in this case, whereas comparing a 466G4 vs 1330Thunderbird will be the same throughout.
*no no, i FEEL that my G4 is faster, i FEEL it damnit!*



[This message has been edited by iPad (edited 04-24-2001).]

[spb]

Re: self made pc vs apple made macs - who do you think has the best chance of building an extremely reliable , top quality , stunningly designed controlled computer with an os the envy of everyone - a) joe ordinary with a micron of ability but tons of gung-ho spirit..or b) a brilliant computer company that is lead by the most charismatic & visionary ceo of any company in the known universe & has been at the forefront of technology for over 20 years ?

You gets what you pays for in life.. soap box derby ( PC)
or Mercedes S-class (Mac) - your choice....

[The Godfather]

Hey, I am no Joe Ordinary! Bear in mind that you are talking to very educated PC people here. I used to own an iMac/A 3 months ago but now that I switched to P2-333, I must say, that the G3 is a dog. I blame myself for having got a CPU with no floating point unit.

Although OSX is the best thing since the TRS-80, it doesn't make up for the QUALITY and vast variety of Win32 apps. With 20 times as many programmers, which platform do you think must have the best software?

You must have had extremely bad experiences with the worst PC in the planet

[fady]

in the end, what does it change? really?

If you wish for the cheapest solution and you like working on a PC, buy a PC.
If you are a HARDCORE gamer, buy a PC.
If you hate Windows, like working on Mac, buy a Mac.

Get the computer YOU won't bitch about. Whether it is 3 seconds faster or slower at opening an app, who cares?

later,


[This message has been edited by fady (edited 04-23-2001).]

[iPad]

Sounds like the typical mac user, LISTEN, the question here, the topic, is SPEED, it is not the usability of a mac nor is it about the quality of products. Read the first post, this guy has used both, and it seems as though he is concerned with speed a little more as he's being temped by the "Ghz" methology on the PC side, and is even thinking about converting. By no means, i'm not against anything whether he wants to use a mac. The thing is many people will NEVER switch no matter what. For example, my dad has been a mac user all his life, and all he ever does is type and go on the internet. He feels that the mac is easier to use, and doesn't care about multitasking etc...because the ONLY APPLICATIONS he uses are Microsoft Office 98 and Netscape Communicator. Not to mention he gets a $hit load of money to buy a comp, so the price/performance ratio isn't important to him either.

Apple by no way is using "super high quality" products with their comps compared to other companies, if you remember a while back, Apple even shipped thier comps with 3-2-2 RAM, although the difference is not percievable, the fact is, Apple is like any other dealer out there. They strive to make a product, and then make a PROFIT, just like any other dealer out there. Perhaps you misinterpreting "price" with "quality".

Building your PC, you have MANY more options, therefore, you may choose to use the highest quality components, OR, simply use what ever works. It is true that you will not have a quick fix from one simple call (such as calling dell if your HD breaks, and they send a new one the next day), but all your parts are covered by their own warrenty (unless you get a used product or go OEM). But the biggest thing out of all of this is PRICE. Building a PC is SO inexpensive its amazing nowadays. Apple may be innovative with the design of their products, but that does not neccessarily mean they have the best strategy, especially with the consumer side.

Do I use a mac? Yes, i bought my mac when Apple was considered speed king of the road, and when Mac OS 8.5 was FAR more better than Windows 98. But times have changed, i'm still using OS 9.1 simply because OS X just runs slow and sluggish. Sure, it may never crash, but i cannot get one bit of work done as well without waiting inconsistently for an app to load, etc. And Win2K compared to OS 9.1 is no question....therefore, i am determined to defend the PC from mac zealots such as you.


[This message has been edited by iPad (edited 04-23-2001).]

[NeoMac]

This whole Mhz and speed issue is nothing but an excuse to conceal the poor state of the American lifestyle. All the Mhz in the world won't change the fact that you really have no where to go with it.

PSYCH 101.

Maybe I can help. Currently I dont even own a Mac. However I plan on getting one soon. Like at MWNY. If you are seriously considering making a PC consider what you are going to use it for. If just a game machine, work machine, or just for the hell of it and to tinker with. Make a decision based on these criteria. If for pure gaming and tinkering then what the hell, take a plunge. But for work well, no. I have been a Windows guru for 6 years, and the reason im switching isnt really that the Windows OS sucks (though it does) its more for a change on scenery. Cant wait for my PMG4 with 22in Cinema Display hmmmmm.

[Ahura]

Maybe you should consider this when deciding on things such as PC vs Mac. You have to put hardware aside and ask yourself: What is it that really caught your eye and made Mac so appealing in the 1st place?

Personally, it was the OS and user experiance. I love using Mac OS (and now X), for me it's a very enjoyable experiance and I have alot of fun. Macintosh is what made me, and continues to make me love computers. However, when I use wintel machine, the experiance just isn't there. It find it dull and just plain boring. And something that goes along way to add to that, is that the most depressing OS to look at was made and desgined by, and for programmers. It is those people that often care not for the aestheitcs of a room, and the affect that it can have on you. When you look at a breathtaking painting, or a beautifully designed building it makes you feel good, good to be alive. And that is the power of Mac over a Wintel, it is the TOTAL user experiance made by wonderfully designed system..

Now when you consider a Mac vs a Wintel try to remember that, with the OS, you will interact with it nearly everyday of your life. That will have an affect on you, and it will affect your experiance with computers. So if you enjoy using a Mac and its OS, remember that, put aside monetary and hardware concerns, and really think about that. Then consider how good your hardware is compared to another computer.

P.S. Another good thing to remind you about why Macs are great, is watching the Apple '1984'...break the conformity!

[critterdoc]

Originally posted by Ahura:
P.S. Another good thing to remind you about why Macs are great, is watching the Apple '1984'...break the conformity!

Been there, done that, way back then in a galaxy far away. Went right out and did a deal with a Mac sales guy - forking up $2500 for his personal 128K box - which as I recall were distributed to the sales force before being made available to the general market. To date have no G4 experience with quickest box being a rev.c iMac.

Seventeen years later, I was/am bewildered to discover that one can build a PeeCee powered by a 1.33 t-bird, user configurable IDE RAID-capable 266-mobo, top-dog PSU and HSF, beautiful and highly expendable multi-bay aluminum case, 256MB DDR ram, ULTRA160 SCSI controller card, 18GB ULTRA160 SCSI 15,000RPM 3.9MS HDD, IBM 60MB GXP IDE HDD CDR-W, fast Plextor burn-proof CDR-W - for hundreds of dollars less than the cost Apple's "fastest" Cube and/or 533MHz G4 tower offerings.

I'm sincerely not trolling for fire here, just seeking credible and experienced opinions and expectations on real speed [e.t.] differences between the above described PeeCee and Apple's Cube or 533 G4 tower when it comes to everyday events such as start-up & shut-down, loading apps such as MS Excel & Word, Q.B., Netscape, copying/duplicating large files & large multi-file folders to a secondary HDD or CD. Much as I'd like to deny it, raw blistering speed is attractive, and the main concern I have about building is configuration & driver challenges that might arise at initial post and shortly thereafter.

Anyone out there willing to venture a guesstimate on e.t. difference for:
1. start-up
2. shut-down
3. loading MS Excel
4. loading Netscape
5. copying/duplicating large files & large multi-file folders

[This message has been edited by critterdoc (edited 04-24-2001).]

[NeoMac]

Before you get carried away with the Mhz bonanza in Pentiums, you should know that TechTV just showed that the performance difference between a 1.3Ghz Pentium and 1.7Ghz Pentium is around 3%. And the AMD Athlon still beats the crap out of all of them.

So much for Mhz.

[MacMaven]

Generalizations like the ones you made really can't be supported. All processors scale differently in different benchmarks. I've yet to see any benches that only show a 3% improvement but I'm sure if you tried hard enough you could find one that shows 0% on any platform (for example a high-resolution gaming benchmark that stresses the videocard instead of the CPU). Check anandtech and tomshardware for some comprehensive reviews (in which it scales VERY well).

As far as the thunderbird 1.33ghz kicking the crap out of it, yet again, it does better in some benchmarks and worse in others. Probably if you're looking strictly at the value you get for your money the thunderbird is still the better value since it's dirt cheap.

Go down to a local computer store and play around with some of the high end PC's setup. See how quickly they launch applications and do various tasks. Start up and shutdown with WinME should be in the neighborhood of 15-30 seconds to startup and 1-2 seconds to shutdown depending on the speed of the HDD, controller and CPU. If your going to be using win2k will those numbers will be as much as doubled.

My advice would be to pay less attention to the speeds and more to the user interface. You will probably find that windows is too different for you to be productive with it. In which case what does the speed really matter?

[iPad]

Originally posted by NeoMac:

Before you get carried away with the Mhz bonanza in Pentiums, you should know that TechTV just showed that the performance difference between a 1.3Ghz Pentium and 1.7Ghz Pentium is around 3%. And the AMD Athlon still beats the crap out of all of them.

So much for Mhz.

When were we talking about Pentiums..? The subject here is the Thunderbird itself.



------------------
NO SIG YO

[SpeedRacer]

This thread started off real interesting - a simple question of everyday speed in everyday applications - a real-world comparision between a PC and a Mac...

Now it's filled with psychobabble, over-narrated personal stories about OS evangelism, and even the inevitable, never-ending debate over whether or not a computer's mHz actually matters.

Here's something to chew on... who cares?

The topic of the thread was a question regarding speed differences in common tasks - yet there is not ONE post detailing this information. Information that i, as a long-time Mac user, would really like to hear from those out there privelaged and open-minded enough to own BOTH a PC and a Mac.

Like many others here, i love my Mac for its style, class, simplicity, and innovations, but while i sit and wait for X to "grow up" or wait for OS 9 to reboot after its 5th crash/day or watch my @ss get fragged again and again by competitors on 1.5 gHz Athlons they bought/assembled for 1/3 the cost of my Cube, i have to wonder...

what am i REALLY missing out on here?

C'mon folks, let's see some REAL links, posts, or stats on the differences between a 466/G4 and 1200/Athlon.

Speed

[This message has been edited by SpeedRacer (edited 04-24-2001).]

[sine -''-..-]

bottom line:

mac does all i ever need and more

mac does these things faster and or smoother than on a peecee


yes its not very quantitative, but to me its all that counts. after using peecee for most of my life, and being in a job, where i repair handle and sell peecees, i find that the macintosh has done every thing better. maybe not faster, but better. my life revolves around computers, and i use macintosh.

[critterdoc]

Originally posted by sine -''-..-:
bottom line:
mac does all i ever need and more
mac does these things faster and or smoother than on a peecee

My Macs do all I need too, but speed in my next box will matter a lot. I amuse myself when I justify a possible new Mac purchase based primarily on 'elegance' when it wasn't long ago that I bragged that Mac ruled on all fronts. I worry that the speed front may be forever lost and that what remains is 'desktop elegance.' How Whistler shakes out in the elegance and stability arenas may well define our platform options in the not so far future.

Anyway, FWIW, the following actions on my quickest mac [266 rev.c iMac] time out as follows:
Cold boot: 65 secs
Shut down: 10 secs
Load Excel and 7000 byte file: 4 secs
Load Excel and 900,000 byte Excel file: 5 secs (?repeated several times?)
Load Word and 23,000 byte Word doc 5 secs
Load Communicator: 8 secs
Duplicate 76,000,000 byte 440 item folder: 25 secs.
Communicate on dog meat dial up connection: burp, snarfle, groan

Anyone got a giga+ PeeCee hanging around for some relative real world comparisons?


[This message has been edited by critterdoc (edited 04-25-2001).]

[This message has been edited by critterdoc (edited 04-26-2001).]

[zac4mac]

A quickie:
At work, I have a Dell PIII-500, and my old cyborg'd PM8500.

PIII: 500MHz/256MB RAM(PC-100) NT4.0 SP5
8500: 454MHz G3/240 MB interleaved EDO 60ns/OS 9.1

I loaded Photoshop 5.0 LE on both and started up. Photoshop opens a few seconds faster on the 8500.
Opened a 30MB JPEG that inflated to 200+MB on both.
1m30sec on the 8500, 2m40sec on the Dell.
I work on the 8500 and use the Dell for e-mail/web access only.

Not a T-Bird, but as close as I can get.

[critterdoc]

Thanks for reporting that, Zac.

Never used p-shop and would greatly appreciate a basic explanation of "30MB JPEG that inflated to 200+MB & 1m30sec/2m40sec".

BTW guys, just to reiterate, I selected the Cube and entry level G4 tower as a base for comparison to a homebuilt heavy metal giga+ athlon PeeCee because they are closely matched in price.

[pele]

Why anybody would need a 1.33 Ghz Athlon to run Word and Excel is beyond me. I mean if you said you wanna play games fine, or you do a lot of multimedia, or you have to do 3D modeling and animation, fine you need the 1.33 Athlon. But to run Word!!??? How many times do you launch and quit applications in one hour anyway? Why are the launch speeds even that important,not to mention they're more dependant on the speed of your hard drive and the version of the operating system you're running than the type or speed of the processor.

In fact, if what you really care is application launch speeds and switching between apps I can guarantee you that a dual processor Mac will be more responsive than any single processor Pentium or Athlon you can get.

I couldn't give you numbers, I don't own an Athlon or any of the Office Software you use. I have a dual G4 and a Dual Pentium III and they don't seem much different to me as far as launching apps like Photoshop are concerned...

[critterdoc]

Originally posted by pele:
Why anybody would need a 1.33 Ghz Athlon to run Word and Excel is beyond me.

Several reasons come to mind, Pele.
1) Personal philosophy = speed is life, and while perhaps being academic in the above referred context, it's nonetheless there. I feel no different about speed [cpu, booting, launching, SCSI, etc] now then I did a few short years ago when it was much safer and more rational to presume that my machine(s) were on the leading edge of the envelope.
2) An unlocked 1.33 GHz Athlon w/ a 266MHz FSB is available for a bump over 200 bucks and dropping, which is not much more than a 850 MHz 200MHz FSB unit costs.
3) Putting look, feel, and stability issues to the side, $1,500 will generate a ton more horsepower in an athlon based homebuilt than it will in any Apple system that I can find.

The attraction of the darkside is more related to bang-for-buck than anything else for me. At this time last year I had never given serious thought to anything but another Mac when the time came. Now that I've begun to actively look at other options, I'm wavering, and if the cost/performance gap continues to widen it's gonna be hard not to abandon ship.

[pele]

Look dude, there is no dark side. You use computers to do some kind of work, whatever that may be, and you get the one that suits your needs. I use both PCs and Macs. PCs are better at 3D, I like doing 2D on the Mac, and I like the interface much better. Whatever floats your boat. If you're looking for an excuse to buy an Athlon, you shouldn't ask people for meaningless comparisons. If owning the fastest computer for the least possible amount of money is what matters to you, you shouldn't waste a single day and start ordering your components right now. But that doesn't mean your computer will be on the bleeding edge of technology either, if that's a life philosophy as you put it. It just means you'll have the fastest of the cheap. There are much faster workstations than home-built Athlons out there, you just can't build them yourself...

[iPad]

Simply to say, you should make the judgement yourself, because all mac zealots will say is that the mac is better and more "elegant" while giving false results of their macs vs pc, whereas most PC users will say that Macs are unstable POS's that should be used for fishtanks.

IMO, i believe it's an excellent time to get a PC, the trend fades and perhaps someday, macs will be more appealing, but at this current moment, the comparison of a 1.33Ghz T-Bird and 466Mhz G4 is obvious. Don't feel that you need to owe Apple anything, if it's a loyalty thing that you're concerned with, and get a PC. You will find that it is just as easy to use once you get the hang of it, and speed will be huge improvement over your 266Mhz G3.

And to put it simply, try something new. It's not like you're giving up on the mac platform, because you will still have your iMac, and you may even grow fond of Win 2000.

------------------
NO SIG YO

[iPad]

Originally posted by critterdoc:

2) An unlocked 1.33 GHz Athlon w/ a 266MHz FSB is available for a bump over 200 bucks and dropping, which is not much more than a 850 MHz 200MHz FSB unit costs.

You don't need to short the L1 bridges (unlocking) on a 1.33Ghz Thunderbird, because it's already set at 133x10. Unlocking (through the pencil trick) is mostly used with the 100 FSB processors.



------------------
NO SIG YO

[Gametes]

Aim for satisfaction.
That's the bottom line, and each person must ask themself what it is that needs to be satisfied.
For you, it may be speed, so you can get your work done and spend less time working on your computer. For me, it was enjoying that time I did spend.

No one will care, or blame you, either way.
Good luck!

------------------
you are not your signature

I use a 233G3, 64Mb Ram Powerbook, and a compaq 500Mhz Celeron with 64Mb ram. My family uses the compaq, which has needed to be formatted twice, and we bought it in October 2000. My father uses it to play solitare and get on the internet, he has never used a computer before, and has a very hard time figuring it out.

I have to admit there are many many programs for windows, but many of them suck, and how many of them cause the system to blue screen?

I have a question.... What is the reliable lifetime of a windows box? How soon will you need to get a newer computer to keep up with the latest and greatest apps?
On my g3 powerbook I can run os x, and it works fine(except when Classic environment starts =X ). startup times are about the same on my computer, except for the finder, which should be worked on to get to work better... all my apps in os X seem to work better in X than when booted into classic (things like bbedit, codewarrior, carbonized apps)...
My parents compaq takes just about as long to start up in Windows98 as os X takes to start up with Finder on my paltry 233/64mb powerbook. I guess it all depends on what you know... If I knew Windows98 real well, I could strip down the registry, delete unwanted things from systems tray, overcolock the cpu, etc.
But of course my parents, dont care anything about that, they just want it to work , many times they are doing something wrong, or windows doesnt let them do it, like moving an .exe from the desktop to another folder.... or they wonder what icon they have to click to get Burning Monkey Solitaire to launch. Many times they wonder how to navigate around this new program that they just bought, or how to fix the colors on the screen after it has crashed. Why after you trash a file/folder it still appears in the start menu.... I could go on and on.
I also like the mac community, which is going to make some of us, indirectly *nix users.

Anyway Ive said all this, just to let you know that i use a mac, and will continue to be a mac user till the apple fades away =P

Well, here's my nickel's worth:

I have 2 comps here, a 1080mhz Duron (650 Duron oc'ed massively) and my G4/400 tower. I have 384 mb of ram in each one, one runs win2k and the other X/9.1

Now, as far as pure number crunching power, the Duron wins. I used to run distributed.net client and the Duron would handily trounce the G4. It was a difference of almost 1mkeys/sec between the two of them. That's a pretty hefty margin.

Now, when I do actual work like cd authoring and some other audio work I use my G4 in 9.1 (no burny burny in X). Why? Because the Mac is much more usable than Win2k. I'm used to it more probably since I've grown up owning a Mac and have owned a lot of them. I also work to support 700+ Macs in a school district.

I won't even compare Internet browsing speeds. IE on win pretty much slaughters everything on Mac, even Opera.

Since they both are needed by me (until I can get Zterm to function properly with a USB->PDA adapter for configuring Cisco routers I will use my PC for that) I guess the only difference was price.

My G4 cost 1600 dollars, plus upgraded hard drive and memory. My Duron system cost.....700 dollars, probably 850 with cooling and new Power supply.

BTW, whoever is using the pencil trick, go get a defogger kit and do it properly. My lines never faded from the defogger kit, they did all the time with the pencil.

Just a thought...

If you want speed and you buy a Dodge Viper, just remember that going through the corners won't be so easy.

[Eskimo]

Originally posted by critterdoc:
.

Anyway, FWIW, the following actions on my quickest mac [266 rev.c iMac] time out as follows:
Cold boot: 65 secs
Shut down: 10 secs
Load Excel and 7000 byte file: 4 secs
Load Excel and 900,000 byte Excel file: 5 secs (?repeated several times?)
Load Word and 23,000 byte Word doc
Load Communicator: 8 secs
Duplicate 76,000,000 440 item folder: 25 secs.
Communicate on dog meat dial up connection: burp, snarfle, groan

Anyone got a giga+ PeeCee hanging around for some relative real world comparisons?
[/B]

Here are some times from my 1GHz Tbird, 256MB RAM, win2k [note I'm running winamp, AIM, MSN Messenger, and UD.exe (uses every spare cpu cycle to analyze molecules for cancer cure)]

cold boot 89s (22s of which is within BIOS)
shutdown 19s
Word 23KB file open 4.17s
Excel 70K file open 2.03s
Excel 14K file open 0.89s
Duplicate 74.2MB folder containing 352 files,19 subdirectories 13.74s
Open IE less than 1s, i couldn't even hit stop/start button fast enough

Connecting through 100BaseT to an OC-3 priceless

Hope that helps some for you.

I am still waiting for a complete answer to the question posed at the beginning of the thread.

However, I suspect that much depends on *when* you buy, as the Mac has a different (slower) product cycle than the PC clones.

If you want to buy now, and the question is speed alone - build you own 1.3GHz PC today. The current desktop Macs don't have the same speed and Apple doesn't put the fastest hard drives in any but the "Fastest" configurations which are the most expensive. (The hard drive being more critical than the processor for the benchmarks you've mentioned).

If you want to wait for MacWorldNY you will probably be better or about the same buying a Mac because the *Slowest* desktop single CPU will be 733MHz and there will be dual CPUs at 667MHz and 733MHz which will certainly affect your benchmarks if you run OS X which you will by MWNY because it will be built in. Prices will not increase over current price but won't drop either except for the cube.

For game players there will be the NVidia 3 and 2 and Radeon to choose from. hard discs will get bigger but probably not faster unless you specificly order one at the Apple Store.

The answer is:

For Now: Build a PC
June/July: Build to Order at the Apple Store.
September: Buy an 800MHz to 1GHz Mac (preferably a dual 800).

I know which I'd rather do. : )
But I have a 300MHz WallStreet PowerBook which has never seemed slow to me but I hate games anyway... except The Sims, which makes me a wimp, I know. ; )

Mark

Hello,

I have no numbers with me, but can tell you that the PC you are considering feels a lot faster than the Cube (at least twice as fast). Applications will load noticeably faster. Only the top G4 would come close, and at a much higher cost. Also, it will be more expandable (the Cube in particular can be defined as not expandable) and run many more applications, and that is something worth considering.

Regarding system boot time, Win2K is incredibly slow at startup, but once it is up and running, you will never need to restart it. WinME is respectably stable, and loads at least twice as fast (I find the ME system icons horrible), but if you change anything such as an IP address you will need to restart it (not to mention if you run into IRQ problems, it will turn you crazy !). MacOS 9.1 also boots faster than Win2K, but as you know, you will have to reboot more often because of chashes or freezes. That is why I am waiting for my OS X package, which should arrive tomorrow. In the not so distant future, we will have a usable OS at least as stable as Win2K, and a lot of UNIX nerds programming for it.

My advice for what I perceive are your intended use for your computer (yes, I know you did not ask for it :-) : get the parts and build the PC. Even if you then find you want a Mac instead, you will have saved a lot of money and will have a great gaming machine.

As for me, I still buy Macs for me and my family, and try to buy Macs whenever possible for my company. I grew up on Macs and know their limitations. Even though I work daily on PCs, I still feel safer on the Mac environment. When something goes wrong I know where to look, and I can understand what every extension does, or which preference file belongs to which program. In the PC I am mostly lost, and it scares me. And there are very few viruses on the Mac (in 15 years using Macs I have never been attacked by a virus or had to reinstall the System to correct a problem).

Good luck, and don't forget to tell us your experiences !

Juan Font
Caracas, Venezuela

I'll be honest with everyone point blank and those who wish to argue so be it. The vast majority of PC's I've found to be a crap shoot. My best PC experience was from a 600mhz p2 running Win NT 4.0. This machine was a beast in both speed and performance. My next PC an 800mhz p3 running win 98 couldn't compete. Nothing worked right and it was agrravating as hell (btw both Dell's) The 800 mhz Athlon was next and it was friggin awesome when it decided it wanted to work. Honestly it either felt like it was flying or dying. All 6 400mhz G4's I've dealt with have been consistent workhorses which fly under altivec enabled processes that I sincerely doubt any of the PC could keep up with but for the most part running MS products they are dog slow. The one machine I built PC was awesome but us fragile. But the real weird thing of it is that my Mac's I've always upgraded over and over again. My oldest just retired was IIci that was 9. Mac's I truly upgrade with graphic accelerators and processor cards, but contrary to poular belief intel and AMD are constantly changing sockets so instead of upgrading my PC's I either replace or build new. Average life of a mac is 6 years pc is 3. Why???? I don't know just the way it works, at least for me. Personally and I know people say macs cost more which they do but they last longer such that the ROI in my situation has always panned in their favor, but honeestly I hated giving up that 600mhz p2 it was sweet.

[scottells]

I'm sick of all this ******** !!! First of all real gamers don't use PCs They use Sega Dreamcasts Nintendos and Playstation 2s. Why the hell would anyone buy any desktop computer for games. THATS THE STUPIDEST THING I EVER HEARD. THESE REAL GAME SYSTEMS ARE MUCH FASTER AND YOU CAN PLAY THEM ON BIG TV SCREENS DUUUHHH!!! YOU CAN GET A PS2 FOR $300 STANDARD WITH DVD, A DREAMCAST FOR $99 AND A NINTENDO 64 FOR $99. THE NINTENDO GAME CUBE WILL SOON BE OUT. ABOUT $150. IT WILL BE THE FASTEST GAME SYSTEM ON THE PLANET. WHY BECAUSE THEY ARE USING THE POWER PC G4 TECHNOLOGY ALONG WITH FIRE WIRE AND A FASTER VARIATION OF THE ATI RADEON GRAPHICS CHIP. WICH IS ABOUT THE SAME SPEED AS THE NVIDIA GEFORCE 3 WICH WILL COME TO THE MAC FIRST. SOUNDS LIKE A G4 CUBE TO ME. GO TO THESE SITES http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters...018282,00.html and NINTENDO .COM. AND YES THE GAMECUBE WILL BE FASTER THAN THE MICROSOFT X BOX EVEN THOUGH THE X-BOX SPECS LOOK BETTER.

If you guys want to see some real mac vs pc results. Then everyone needs to go to this web site www.barefeats.com. this site is hands down the best website for comparing G4's against pentiums. This guy uses the same bench marking program on each machine (PC & MAC) the same amount of RAM, same speed hard drive and fastest processors that both platforms offer. This guy just doesn't use photoshop comparisons either. Thats one reason why I know these tests are completely accurate. A nother reason why I know these tests are completely accurate is because I use the exact same machines with the exact same specs. That this guy used for these tests at work.

I work at the Los Angeles Air Force Base Space and Missile Systems Center in El Segundo. I am A Graphic Designer/3D Animator/Website Designer. I use both MACs & PCs every day. I create 3D Animations for Satellites Missiles and Top Secret Aircrafts. Our Macs all run Mac OS 9.1 and X. We have a 733 MHz G4 with 1280 MB of RAM ATA/66 (took out two 512MB chips of ram for the tests leaving only 256MB) and 2 dual 533 MHZ G4's one with an ATA/66 HD 1280 MB RAM (took out two 512MB chips of ram for the tests leaving only 256MB) and one with 1280 MB RAM & 72 GB Ultra SCSI 160 HD (took out two 512MB chips of RAM for the tests leaving only 256MB on all machines) they all beat the Sony VAIO Pentium 4 1.5GHz 256M of RAM, GeForce2 MX, Windows ME PC in all tests with all the same programs. And yes we also have the same Sony VAIO (cheap quality flimsy) and 3 PC work stations running at the same specs as the Sony VAIO (constantly need repairing claims they have highest quality parts and keep crashing always needs Windows ME, NT, and 2000 reinstalled). The dual 533MHz mac with the Ultra SCSI HD is the damn fastest most reliable most elagant desktop computer I have ever seen especially with OSX.

[JLannoo]

First I want to point out there is a BIG difference between gaming on a computer and using a game console. They are different Markets and each has its strengths and weaknesses. To say Hardcore gamers should be using Consoles is silly. It depends on what type of game your talking about.

For computer gamers.. I recommend Buying a PC for games and a Mac for everything else if you can afford it. PC's are inexpensive to upgrade and much better supported when it comes to games. Once the game is Loaded the benefits of using a Mac pretty much vanish.

If a person can only afford one Computer and they are Heavy into gaming I would Stick to the PC.

------------------
-JLannoo
TiVo Zealot

G4 Cube 450
448MB RAGE 128 Pro

Athlon ThunderBird 800
256MB GeForce 2 GTS

CRITTERDOG-

If you are looking for some great banchmarks to answer your original post, check out this site:
www.xlr8yourmac.com

This guy constantly has some good benchmarks comparing macs and pcs. I think they are in the system area, but just look around.

Hope this helps!

-Jim <><

[tombarta]

I've never found the Athlon to be particularly peppy. People who claim that it is seem to fall for some of Microsoft's little "tricks". MS office on a PC seems faster than it really is-- for example-- because of the way MS keeps parts of it loaded in memory.

The whole X86 architecture-- whether Intel or AMD is moribund. I don't think either company will be able to keep substituting press releases for technology for very much longer. How long did it take to figure out that 1.5 Gig P4 was no faster than The 1 gig PIII-- not too long?

Critterdoc,

If you want a comparison on a G4/466MHz standard issue:

Starting Word and opening a 70K document: <2 seconds
Starting Word and opening 10 30K-70K documents: 3 seconds
Starting Excel and opening a 252K template: 3 seconds
Copying a 94MB .mp3 file: 13 seconds

There was nothing special about the files opened and the open tests were done by double clicking on the documents and waiting for the application to start. Office 98 for the Mac. The Excel document is the Invoice template supplied on the Office CD.

I sometimes wonder what all the fuss is about in this regard, but there have only been a few readers addressing the subject so I will weigh in.
First, ten years ago I was extremely well versed in the Mac and PC both as well as all sorts of comparative studies, etc. One of the most famous ones was with Byte magazine (I think) in which teams were given a Boxed mac or a PC and asked to publish a page. The mac team set up the mac, printer & software, and published a page in something like an hour, the PC team never finished.
Although this is an old story, it is not really a joke. PCs all come today with everything already set up inside. Don't think you can ever change this stuff--it wasn't meant to be.
As you recall, When Microsoft came out with Win98--do you think you could upgrade from '95 to '98? Not if you wanted your machine to run. The same is true today---and has always been true with PC compatible computers: buy the computer & operating system and never change it. You can't.
You can set up your PC--but unless this is why you have it--to play with the configuration--you don't dare change it back and forth the way you do with a Mac.
Of course there is nothing that says you can't use operating systems other than Windows on your Athlon machine.
SPEED:
From 1988 to 1992 magazines would run articles about the relative speeds of Macs and PCs. They stopped when it became apparent that 1) they were roughly equal with the mac a little to a lot faster; 2) What were you trying to do anyway; 3) Speed varies dramatically not only on various clones but also on various macs---and you couldn't always explain the speed difference.
The ways to test speed are not to load programs---some programs are really fast because they load more into RAM. The only way to test them is to run them through tests of things that might be so slow that they matter.
They used to compare scrolling speeds---but of course that would be silly these days, scrolling has to be slowed down now to make it usable. Other interactive speeds are based upon how the system engineer wants it to feel, not how fast it can be done.
For example, I used to love the mouse accelerators that were available. These speed up your mouse speed, but have nothing to do with processor speed.
Basically, I just recently moved to a Powerbook running Word '98. I would much rather be running Word 4 on my IIci---which is faster. Word 4 uses the key commands I memorized when I learned it on a PC-XT, and which were standardized across the board for Macs and PCs until Microsoft changed them all. Word 4 on my IIci with its key commands is faster than Word 98 on anything--because everything runs as fast as I can push it.

So the only kind of speed that matters is the speed of things that are too slow for you.
My experience is that things that are slow are slow because of bus speed disk speed, and bad internal computer sychronization. Take for instance the Mac 5200 line. It used the old quadra board and the 603(e) chip. It really ran the benchmarks great---but it had horrible problems with some things. This had nothing to do with the CPU it had everything to do with matching the system bus and everything else together. (By the way--when it came out it got unequivacal rave reviews).
This is my experience with PCs. Things look sort of fast -- and then --all of a sudden -- everything is really, really slow. These really really slow things have nothing to do with the CPU speed. They have everything to do with system design and software design.
And after all what is the point in having a fast CPU if you really need a graphics chip with 3million transisters on it?
Deep down inside, I think the new nvidia chip is obscene. All that power just for graphics?
And for that matter, I have trouble conceiving that these G4's are supercomputers (and they are) when in fact, a IIci
was really faster than I needed at the time. What in the world is all this computing power being used for? (Answer: bloatware).
Anyway, you talk about blazing speed, but as one comment points out, disk speed is more important than your processor speed.
At one point you talk about IDE RAID and another you talk about Ultra SCSI. It seems to me, that these are real issues--namely, are you going to have USB, firewire, SCSI, serial, parallel ports etc???
Are you actually going to make or buy a RAID system?
If you don't use USB and Firewire, you are not only not building the best machine, you are not going to have a machine that you can use 2 years from now.
And also 100base-T ethernet. It is pointless to build a machine without 100base T. 10 base T is a slug, and a computer without ethernet isn't usable.
You also need to consider the system bus speed, the cache, and how they work together, and how they all relate to the various old I/O things.
You also have to decide whether to buy last years voodoo card to run last years games, or next years nvidia card to run next years games. I am not smart enough to know why the Rage Pro chip is so awful as some people say. (nor do I know why Quake 33 1/3 on a multi gigahertz Athlon is so much better than Marathon infinity on a 68030.) At home we play Myth and Warcraft II on an iMac, a 68040, a 7300, a lombard, and a thinkpad, networked on slowtalk and 10base-T. Is your computer networkable? Will it run the old Warcraft II? Or only new games?
You know, my old IIci kept getting faster with new ram, new cache, new video, new disk drive, and an accelerator ( just a faster 68030) etc. These were dirt cheap by the time I bought them. But the problem is not the CPU--the problem is the entire system.
If you really want to improve the system--get more RAM, get a faster disk drive, get a better monitor, maybe a better graphics card, a better keyboard AND GET A cable modem or a T-1. A CABLE MODEM will really improve your life (actually a T-1 or cable modem may cause your life to go completely down the tubes but if you have a little discipline, it is a good thing--as MS might say. )
Finally, back to your original request, you asked about the time to load things like Word, Excel etc.---I don't think these things really matter anymore--they are all fast on G4s. And you don't need to turn off your machine anyway--no one ever does that unless they have a loud fan in their clone.
As for Explorer, I find that on my 333iMac (that you guys all think is soo slow) now that I have a cable modem (which keeps me up till midnight ranting here) MS Explorer is REALLY fast. I thought it was my computer, but it clearly is the access speed. (It helps that RAM is $54/128M and $70/256M or lower).
I have been using NDD and SUM since before Symantec bought the old software (whose name I can't remember--circa 1988) and I say: "Don't even think about using it"--its crap these days. Use Diskwarrior. (The time to run Disk Warrior is negligible).
Finally, I really don't think you can build an Indigo iMac for anything close to what Apple does. Michael Dell can't. A comparable Dell computer with say a 1G pentium, 20 Gig drive costs $909 (before shipping)(I just did this) and comes with nothing but a USB port ! ! --no firewire, no SCSI, no modem, no ethernet, no graphics accelerator, no speakers ! (and of course--no optical mouse with real keyboard)---ALSO no iMovie, no iTunes.
Where is this bargain I'm looking for?
By the way, a week or two ago, Mac-of-All-trades (I think) had Sawtooth G4s for $999.
The are only 4 things a computer does: it transmits data, it arranges/manipulates data, it displays and prints data. The main reason people originally bought the Mac is that it prints data better than other machines. It still does. Do you expect your computer to print?
I have looked at components online for a long time, and unless you are building a toy, you can't build a machine that even comes close to the indigo iMac, the sawtooth, or even the Dell. The only way you could possibly do it is by scavanging parts like monitors, keyboards, modems, not counting all your costs (like mailing costs) and by omitting all the really important little components like 100BTethernet, firewire, cache RAM, fast ram, video stuff & sound stuff. (are you going to pay for your software or operating system or steal them?)
It seems to me, that if I were going to build a computer for fun, I would load Linux anyway.
You probably have your systems scoped out anyway, but really, the only way to reach a computer decision is to lay out the final result with network, software, printers, all added up in final fashion.

[iPad]

Originally posted by scottells:
I'm sick of all this ******** !!! First of all real gamers don't use PCs They use Sega Dreamcasts Nintendos and Playstation 2s. Why the hell would anyone buy any desktop computer for games. THATS THE STUPIDEST THING I EVER HEARD. THESE REAL GAME SYSTEMS ARE MUCH FASTER AND YOU CAN PLAY THEM ON BIG TV SCREENS DUUUHHH!!! YOU CAN GET A PS2 FOR $300 STANDARD WITH DVD, A DREAMCAST FOR $99 AND A NINTENDO 64 FOR $99. THE NINTENDO GAME CUBE WILL SOON BE OUT. ABOUT $150. IT WILL BE THE FASTEST GAME SYSTEM ON THE PLANET. WHY BECAUSE THEY ARE USING THE POWER PC G4 TECHNOLOGY ALONG WITH FIRE WIRE AND A FASTER VARIATION OF THE ATI RADEON GRAPHICS CHIP. WICH IS ABOUT THE SAME SPEED AS THE NVIDIA GEFORCE 3 WICH WILL COME TO THE MAC FIRST. SOUNDS LIKE A G4 CUBE TO ME. GO TO THESE SITES http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters...018282,00.html and NINTENDO .COM. AND YES THE GAMECUBE WILL BE FASTER THAN THE MICROSOFT X BOX EVEN THOUGH THE X-BOX SPECS LOOK BETTER.

If you guys want to see some real mac vs pc results. Then everyone needs to go to this web site www.barefeats.com. this site is hands down the best website for comparing G4's against pentiums. This guy uses the same bench marking program on each machine (PC & MAC) the same amount of RAM, same speed hard drive and fastest processors that both platforms offer. This guy just doesn't use photoshop comparisons either. Thats one reason why I know these tests are completely accurate. A nother reason why I know these tests are completely accurate is because I use the exact same machines with the exact same specs. That this guy used for these tests at work.

scottells, you are a complete idiot. IT is people like you who extremely piss me off, and now, i will gracefully prance around and break down your post into sections with a backfire retaliation commentary:

"First of all real gamers don't use PCs They use Sega Dreamcasts Nintendos and Playstation 2s. Why the hell would anyone buy any desktop computer for games. THATS THE STUPIDEST THING I EVER HEARD. THESE REAL GAME SYSTEMS ARE MUCH FASTER AND YOU CAN PLAY THEM ON BIG TV SCREENS DUUUHHH!!!"

I beg to differ. The only advantage consoles have is basically price, which is basically why console games usually sell so many units. However, the PC has what the consoles cannot provide, and that right now is network play. PS2 will soon have this, but you WILL have to pay a monthly fee which makes it suck.

"THE NINTENDO GAME CUBE WILL SOON BE OUT. ABOUT $150. IT WILL BE THE FASTEST GAME SYSTEM ON THE PLANET. WHY BECAUSE THEY ARE USING THE POWER PC G4 TECHNOLOGY ALONG WITH FIRE WIRE AND A FASTER VARIATION OF THE ATI RADEON GRAPHICS CHIP."

The Nintendo GameCube will NOT BE using any type of variation of the G4 processor. IT will use a 405Mhz PowerPC based processor, this is NOT G4, there are MANY PowerPC processors out there, Apple only accounts for a small marketshare. And what exactly makes a console have firewire automatically make it good? Firewire will basically be useless in a console. IT WILL NOT USE A VARIATION OF THE ATI RADEON GRAPHICS PROCESSOR EITHER. It will have a specially designed processor, i'm unaware of the specs, but it is NOT a variation of the Radeon. Where the hell do you get this crap? JEFF K isnt' exactly an L33T source for daily news dude.

"WICH IS ABOUT THE SAME SPEED AS THE NVIDIA GEFORCE 3 WICH WILL COME TO THE MAC FIRST"

The Geforce 3 is NOT coming to the Mac first, PC Geforce 3 based cards are gonna be shipping next week, and most review sites have already picked up their beta card.

"If you guys want to see some real mac vs pc results. Then everyone needs to go to this web site www.barefeats.com. this site is hands down the best website for comparing G4's against pentiums."

Oh, let me guess, the G4 wins everytime.. I have seen Rob-Art do his reviews, he has no technical background whatsoever, his reviews are down right pathetic.

Example: http://www.barefeats.com/voo5b.htm

He compares a TNT2 in a PC against a Voodoo5 in a mac, and then simply comes to the conclusion that the mac is faster simply because it has a better CPU....give me a break...

"This guy just doesn't use photoshop comparisons either. Thats one reason why I know these tests are completely accurate."

Uh huh... http://www.barefeats.com/images/G733-foto.gif

Listen, this guy ONLY uses macs vs pc's in Cinema 4D and Photoshop (excluding the pathetic gaming review he wrote, link posted somewhere above). I mean, i have no doubt in my mind that this benchmark is realistic to say the least (because intel makes sucky processors), but he in no way compares G4 vs Thunderbird, which would be a different story (the results would not be as far spread out). Not to mention, in EVERYONE of his reviews, he does NOT mention the cost of his machines, almost every PC he does a review on could easily be built for less than $1500, whereas, the 733Mhz G4 rings in at $2999 without SuperDrive.

There, i've said what is needed to be said

Oh, regarding the dual processor issue, the AMD 760MP chipset will be released this quarter, therefore, building a dual 1.5Ghz Palomino will still probably be able to be done for under $1500.

Have a nice day.



------------------
NO SIG YO

I used to be a PC user. I assembled them myself for about five years until I bought my G4 last August. After using both Windows and Mac OS 9/OS X, I can say this:

I built a 667Mhz Pentium-III system with 256MB of RAM for my Dad. That machine, compared to my DP G4-450 in OS 9 (wherein only one proc is being utilized), -seems- a smidge faster in loading apps and is about twice as fast at booting up and shutting down. Mind you, this has a lot to do with the way Windows ME loads (it does it in about 10-15 seconds), but overall, his P-III is a bit snappier.

I also built a Pentium-III 800 with 256MB of RAM for my friend (I should also mention that both these systems have Rage 128 Pro video cards, 7200rpm drives and 133Mhz buses). His system is -noticeably- faster than my G4. At startup, at shutdown, when loading apps (like Office 2000), and with running games.

Keep in mind, these are my personal observations, but as far as perceived speed, I've seen a noticeable difference between the P-III and my G4.

Now, take the 1+Ghz Thunderbird you mentioned. If an older P-III is faster than a G4, there isn't a doubt in my mind that an Athlon would outperform it as well. Even in OS X, my DP G4 won't hold a candle to these PCs.

As for me, I did not buy a Mac because it was the fastest computer out there. Sure, the idea of twin processors ultimately swayed my decision in favor of the G4, but even now, I believe the PC is a better gaming machine. But I don't play games that much, so this was a moot point. I bought my G4 because I was fed up with Windows and the Apple OS seemed more intuitive. The real kicker was when I was hired at my current job; the company used all Macs. After one month of working in front of a G4-400, I was hooked.

-Michael

[pele]

Originally posted by iPad:

Oh, regarding the dual processor issue, the AMD 760MP chipset will be released this quarter, therefore, building a dual 1.5Ghz Palomino will still probably be able to be done for under $1500.

FYI the only Motherboard that is supposed to use the 760MP as of now, is the Tyan, and that's supposed to retail for at least $1000. How on earth are you planning to build a $1500 computer with that? Are you gonna build your own 1.5 Ghz Athlons at home too?

I'm really sick and tired of people making price comparisons between home-built systems and Macs, or other OEM PCs for that matter. Apple doesn't ship you a bunch of components in a box, they deliver a complete computer, designed from the ground up, that's built and tested properly, and looks good to boot. Building your own computer is a different experience and it's stupid to compare the two. Besides, as is clearly emphasized by the example in the first paragraph, people tend to greatly exaggarate the cost savings of actually building a system. Priceline quotes are hardly an accurate representation of what you'll really have to pay, not to mention shipping and handling for all separate items. I'm not saying you can't build a PC for less than an OEM price, just that each have their advantages and disadvantages and not everyone is as thrilled about saving a few hundred dollars as you are to sacrifice other niceties.

Here's my story....

I built my own 1.2 GHz Athlon box about 4 months ago from recommendations from ArsTechnica, Tom's Hardware and Sharky's Extreme:

Athlon 1.2 GHz
ABIT KT7A-RAID motherboard
256 Megs RAM
120 Gig RAID-0
Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS 32 meg video card
Plextor CD-R/RW
Pioneer slot-loading DVD-ROM drive
Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer 5.1 sound card

I had a G4/400 and I sold it to get the cash to build this box. I then installed Win2k on this box and used it for web design and for gaming. Nice box. But I just sold it last week. Guess what's sitting next to me now? Dual-processor G4 533. Why did I do this? Because I initially bit into the hype about how great Athlon's are. But to tell you the truth, I didn't like Win2k as much as MacOS, I didn't like the workflow of Windows, etc and I missed MacOS. It just feels right. It grows on you.

Speed wize, OS X and OS 9 boot faster on my G4 than Win2k did on my Athlon. Programs launch just as fast on my G4 as the Athlon and the Athlon had RAID-0. (Granted it was only IDE RAID, but still....) I won't run Windows 98 or Windows ME on any PC I own. Not stable enough or secure enough for me.

IE on the Athlon launched almost immediately - but that's to be expected on Windows as parts of IE's core libraries are loaded when Windows boots.

IE on my Mac boots almost immediately. Netscape takes a couple of seconds.

Word loads just as fast on my G4 as it did on the Athlon.

The G4 can't touch the Athlon for gaming. That's not even debateable. But if you want to do graphics work (Photoshop), etc, then the G4 is the way to go. If I add RAID (and I'm going to) to my G4, it'd be faster at loading apps than the Athlon.

If you're looking to make a purchase just based on speed, you're shorting yourself. We're talking speed differences measure in seconds between the two machines. Not minutes or hours. There are so many other IMPORTANT factors involved. That speed difference is often so negligable (sp?) that you don't really even notice it after awhile.

But there are two issues for me that made up my mind to get another G4 and sell my Athlon:

1. Color Issues - Macs are so much better with color management, etc. PC's don't have ColorSync. So if you're doing graphics work, this is a big issue.

2. MacOS vs. Windows - Mac OS, to me, is just so much more superior and efficient in terms of work flow. So really, even if Athlon was so much faster than a G4 (Which it's not), the speed issue is made up for by the fact that Mac OS is such a more efficient workflow environment than Win2k, IMHO.

I still have a Pentium III here that I use to run Win2k Server only because I need to be able to test my web sites on projects that require Active Server Pages. I also have a G4 Cube. Now I wouldn't recommend getting a Cube unless expandability wasn't an issue for you. The Cube isn't really expandable.

If you want my advice, I'd hold out another month or so and watch what Apple's about to release (Newer Macs with faster processors and faster bus speeds, etc). I'd definitely opt for a multi-processor system as MacOS X takes advantage of symmetric multi-processing. I put my money where my mouth is because everything I've recommended is sitting right here next to me.

It's your call for what you should do, but I will say this, every anti-Mac argument I've heard seems to come from some teenager who's basing his 'knowledge' on solely a gaming perspective and he's comparing modern Athlon's to older Macs.

If you want a gaming box, definitely get an Athlon system. If you need something to get work done on, I'd recommend you go G4 all the way. Now that you can do SQL and PHP development on the Mac (OS X), unless you need a gaming rig, G4 is a better route.

In my opinion, NOTHING comes close to MacOS in terms of workflow and that's where you'll save the most time and have the most fulfilling computing experience.

I'm nothing but a lowly web designer and web technologies instructor, but I also have already travelled both roads and now you know which one I'll be continuing down on.

Mac OS forever. =)

Cheers,

Michael

I have built a lot of PCs, and have been providing PC tech support for 9 years. I have comparatively little experience with MACs, but I now own 2.

I'll just say this about the Athlon: be thorough about the components you select to be sure they are compatible. There are still video and audio cards that are Intel only, so check all the specs. Also, there are some cards that are Athlon friendly only with the latest drivers from the Web site.

And keep in mind when assembling that if you run into problems it could be a bad motherboard. I have put together (my first and last) 3 Athlons, and it took 5 motherboards to complete them. Yes, 2 were bad right from the factory. (An Asus and an Abit). If I was to put together a fast PC for someone now, I would go with P4 because of compatibility and less board out of the gate.

Boot and application Load times are VERY dependant on all the stuff you're loading during the boot and/or have in memory (this is true for either platform).

Speed compared between my G4 500MHz and my 800 MHz Athlon:
(I have never taken time measurements, but I have preformed the same operations on both machines side-by-side:

BOOT Time: Athlon
Shutdown: G4
Open Web Page (On dog slow dial up): Coffee Time (both are done when I get back).
Open Web Page on Super DSL connect: Don't know yet, PacBell keeps pushing back my install date since January!

Burn a CD: G4 (Times are about the same but it's easier to setup in the G4)

Duplicate a CD: PC (the PC can dup PC, MAC, Linux, Unix and mixed CDs with no trouble and they run on their platform just like the originals. I haven't found anything for the MAC that can do that. Neither had the guys at the Apple Data Center when I worked there one year.)

Just my 2 cents...

[zac4mac]

Critter-

Re-checked the image I used. Called "mercat.jpg" from NASA, it's a composite of the surface of Mars, 60.1 MB compressed(as on disk). Saved as a TIFF, it is 231.6MB

Z