T i m <news@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >Actually, an *equivalent* PC at the time I bought the G5 would have
cost
> >nearer £1000 more to buy.
>
> Really? Maybe that why I have never 'bought' a RTR one then! ;-) And
> are you really telling me that whatever you are doing with yer 'PC'
> (Mac or PC) requires that sorta spend? I have never spent anything
> like that on any PC (in fact on anything outside this actual house,
> even my BMW motorbike was only £2k!) and have rarely wanted for any
> more performance / capacity / facilities etc? Do you really do that
> much *work* that requires said (genuine questions etc).
>
> A mate runs an old 3G Intel box and is heavily into photography, 12G
> RAW images etc .. etc. I can't remember him complaining about how
> slow everything was or that he couldn't do stuff? Ok, granted I've
> recently built him a Quad core machine with decent graphics card etc
> but that's mainly because he's bought himself a HD Camcorder and likes
> to make his own movies etc.
I was thinking of future proofing myself for as long as possible at the
time. Although my G5 doesn't hold a candle to even the slowest Mac now,
it still performs perfectly well for *me*, and I have no other reasons
for wi****ng to change, other than trying to save a bit of leccy costs.
It handles even HD video well enough, and performs as well as some of
the early Intel Macs with things like Aperture.
I edit RAW images too, and even iPhoto can manage those without any
performance issues. In fact my iPhoto library is over 14000 images, and
a hundred or so movies.
> > I actually paid £1800 for the G5,
>
> Was that new then Andy?
Yes, and a newly released model too (only a minor facelift type of
thing).
> >plus about
> >another £500 for extras (LCD monitor, RAM, and Applecare).
>
> Plus £100 for a PSU ...? ;-)
Yes, although I've probably added another £100 of kit to the cheap PC I
do have here too.
The cheap PC is a 2.8GHz box, with a GeForce 5500 card in it (which is
supposedly better than the one in my Mac), but it doesn't come anywhere
near performing as well as the G5 Mac at 1.8GHz (OK, so there's 2
processors, but they don't always both get used by all apps).
In fact I'd go as far as to say that this PC is only just about on a par
with the old 400MHz G4 I gave my brother-in-law.
> > I priced up a
> >Dell at that time, trying to meet as best I could build quality,
>
> What does that actually mean though please Andy? I mean, I have built
> probably 100's of PC's in my time so I guess am responsible for the
> 'build quality' and I have never, ever, suffered because that wasn't
> always the best even I could manage. At the end of the day it really
> doesn't matter if say a cable doesn't run in the most perfect
> geometric and neat manner, as long as it does it's job electrically
> and doesn't interfere with anything else then AFAICS, it's 'built'?
It means I was trying to make as fair a comparison as possible - i.e.
ready built machines, or at least BTO (the Dell would have been BTO, the
G5 Mac was off the shelf at the same spec).
Building a Mac isn't easy, at least not using new components, so a
self-build option was not used for comparison. Even then, I suspect it
wouldn't have been cheaper, taking into account the standard of
motherboard needed (twin processor, AGP 8X graphics and PCI-X slots)
plus Buying two processors to match a pair og 1.8GHz G5s. Remember this
was four years ago.
> I *have* seen some PC's that have been 'built' by PC shops or
> individuals and some of them have been disgusting, but that's not the
> fault of the boxes (one POS was bought off Fleabay and the builder had
> re-used an old Compac PC, built it into a new case and had used very
> long self tapping screws to hold things like the HDD in. Now whilst it
> wasn't elegant or correct (in the purest sense) as long as said screws
> didn't interfere with any other component then there was no actual
> 'issue'. I 'sorted it' for them (CPU heatsink not attached properly)
> and it's been fine ever since).
Indeed, so already be have a comparison that doesn't match, as I said,
'as near as possible'.
> > and
> >specifications, and that would have come to almost £3500.
>
> Feck!
Exactly.
--
Andy Hewitt
<http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/>
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