Why is Apple only giving a 5600 FX card with a $3000 system?

[Sideswipe001]

Now that the G4 Quicksilvers are two generations old their prices should go down quite a bit, and maybe some of the Mac haters will actually go out and TRY one for a month to see if they really hate it as much as they have convinced themselves that they do.

I've had to troubleshoot and take care of a few Macs at work. I would never, ever use one at home. Say what you want about their stability or speed, I've had nothing but problems making the things work right. Our company uses a large Canon lazerjet printer for most of its printing. MacOS X? No drivers. Doesn't work. We have an Exchange 2000 server for E-mail. Outlook for Mac? Only in OS9 compatability mode, which needs a completely different set of printer drivers. And is there a version of Quickbooks for Mac? Sorry.

One of the employees uses their old Mac laptop. That's on OS9 and it takes it literally about 2 minutes from power on before you can do anything on it - and even then there's a good chance of it locking up on you.

My experiences with them have never been good. I'm glad some people enjoy them - they have their place in teh world - just not *my* world.

 

[hans007]

i used a g4 400 power book for about 3 days once. that thing was slower than ass . it was running os 9 but i figured, what the hell this is a $1500 laptop, why does it take forever to do anything.


architecture wise the mac is garbage. outside of pretty cases, and fans and other things (which can all be done on the PC side, it would just cost a lot). the hardware and software are not insanely better. i'd say the hardware is now vastly inferior, and outside of being pretty winxp is pretty near osx. or you can run linux on a pc if you want all that unix stuff.



i think the reason manufacturers dont put quiet fans in even though they could , is that it would make their computers cost a lot more, and they would be uncompetitive since 99.9% of pc buyers would rather save the money, thus why x86 machines are so cheap as it is.

the only people who buy macs, are creative artsy types who know nothing about computers. if you could build a special compaq, in a pretty sculpted aluminum case tha twas super quiet (say we gut out a g5 and stick a dual opteron in there with giant heatsinks and 120mm fans spinning at 2500 rpm only)


well maybe we could sway them. if we put a special shell on winxp so it looked prettier. or a linux shell that looks jujst like osx.

 

[Diable]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
Have you ever stopped to think that Macs and PC's do things differently. If a G5 performed the same way a P4 does then well I don't know it would be the same. I myself have never relaly used an Apple extensively except for editing video and some graphics, but never really for gaming. And while Apples run the games that are made for them, gaming is not a big deal for Apple. Another reason they probably use cards like that is because of the name...probably.

Then why not use something a little more high quality in terms of 2D quality? Like Matrox cards? Matrox cards are like apple, they won't have the best performance, but they will be the best in terms of quality and usability.

Apple doesn't sell CRT monitors anymore so a nVida 5200 or ATI 9600 will look just as good as any Matrox card when attached to a LCD. Also why ship machines with a gaming gfx card when there's 10 games at most that will uses them?

Originally posted by: NFS4

They've gotten so used to taking it up the butt for years in speed by PC's that they don't even realize it when Apple slips a "choker" of a card into their mail slot.

If Steve Jobs showcased a computer that looked like a "real" apple complete with stem, included a 1.8GHz processor, an FX 5200 graphics card, and a DVD+RW drive for $2900, they would bow down on their knees and kiss his feet (among other things).

But I really can't blame Apple. If their customers are gullable enough to put up with it, why not bend 'em over and pump 'em a few times?

Steve Jobs is really a genious. He's like the Oprah of the computer industry. He's got a cult following, people worship him like he's a God, if he says go buy something -- they go and do it (just like Oprah's Book Club) and he charismatic.

I really hope that these new G5's do well for Mac. They do need a jolt. But sticking a Accord transmission into a Ferrari chassis just ain't gonna cut it IMHO. The top of the line G5's are just to powerful to be coming with mainstream video cards. Give 'em top of the line vid cards STANDARD!!

You have no clue what the hell your talking about do you? By your reasoning H/P, IBM and Dell's customers are gullable too cause there workstations (and thats what the G5's are) don't come standard with a high end video card?

Dell doesn't ship a Precision Workstation with a high end video card. You have the option to buy one but the standard video cards are a QuadroFX 500 and a ATI FIRE GL E1. Both are looow end dressed up gaming cards. HP's standard video card is a two year old Quadro2 EX and IBM's base card is a Matrox G450 neither is high end and both are slow as hell compared to the ATI 9600 that's standard in the dual 2GHz G5.

The only difference between Apple and the others is they offer a Wildcat 3, FireGL Z1 or a Quadro FX 2000 at the high end and Apple doesn't.

 

[addragyn]

Originally posted by: Sideswipe001

I've had to troubleshoot and take care of a few Macs at work. I would never, ever use one at home. Say what you want about their stability or speed, I've had nothing but problems making the things work right. Our company uses a large Canon lazerjet printer for most of its printing. MacOS X? No drivers. Doesn't work. We have an Exchange 2000 server for E-mail. Outlook for Mac? Only in OS9 compatability mode, which needs a completely different set of printer drivers. And is there a version of Quickbooks for Mac? Sorry.

One of the employees uses their old Mac laptop. That's on OS9 and it takes it literally about 2 minutes from power on before you can do anything on it - and even then there's a good chance of it locking up on you.

My experiences with them have never been good. I'm glad some people enjoy them - they have their place in teh world - just not *my* world.

-Microsoft Mactopia Look @ Entourage X.

-QuickBooks Pro Edition 5.0 for Mac

 

[Sideswipe001]

-Microsoft Mactopia Look @ Entourage X.

-QuickBooks Pro Edition 5.0 for Mac

Okay, I'll give you the Quckbooks thing. It must be new - there wasn't a version a few months ago when we were looking. I'll have to look into this. Does it work with the Windows version?

 

[zephyrprime]

i think the reason manufacturers dont put quiet fans in even though they could , is that it would make their computers cost a lot more

Most consumer PCs do have quiet fans. Maybe not as quiet as Macs but still pretty quiet. It's only us enthusiasts that have more cooling on our computers than we have on our cars.

 

[dmw16]

Maybe cuz macs suck

 

[syberscott]

Macs and PCs utilize the graphics cards differently. Much of the rendering that is left to the GPU on a PC is done by the main processor on a Mac. Therefore Macs can get away with a lesser graphics card without a performance hit.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: syberscott
Macs and PCs utilize the graphics cards differently. Much of the rendering that is left to the GPU on a PC is done by the main processor on a Mac. Therefore Macs can get away with a lesser graphics card without a performance hit.

Horsesh!t. That's the whole reason for hardware T&L, to offload those functions from the CPU. You haven't got a clue.

The system has to feed the data to the GPU in the exact same way whether it's an x86 or PPC.

 

[naddicott]

Originally posted by: hans007
the only people who buy macs, are creative artsy types who know nothing about computers. if you could build a special compaq, in a pretty sculpted aluminum case tha twas super quiet (say we gut out a g5 and stick a dual opteron in there with giant heatsinks and 120mm fans spinning at 2500 rpm only)

(resisting temptation to take this thread in the same direction many AT Apple related threads tend to go...)

Apple is bundling the 5600 FX because they feel they can get away with it and it probably lets them keep a higher margin than if they put in a 9800 and kept to some market research determined price point.

I have helped friends order parts and built systems for them, and I have reccomended Apple products to other friends, based on their needs (well, based on whether they want to play new games earlier than 2 years after the PC release). All instances were the appropriate purchases for the circumstances. Ultimately, I'm just amused by the self-identification and partisanship that still turns up on either side. One's choice of platform to surf the net and waste time posting in forums has no relation to one's libido or the size of one's *$#@... so get over it already.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: drag
I don't think that it is a issue of either profit margin, simple oversite, or performance. It's cooling.....
....unforgivable. People like quiet when they work.

I don't know, I mean, I agree with you completely in theory. But in practice, even the highest end Dells i've been around have been pretty darn quiet. Not silent, but definitely not "buzz-bombs."

Ya that is true. But if you go to dell's site and check out the high-end workstations they are actually a bit more expensive then the similarly spec'd apple. Of course you have to play the Dell costimizing game were you start of with a high-end workstation with a single xeon and 128 megs of Ram. Buy the time you get it up to the performance (dual xeons fast bus and 512 megs of ram, dvd burner etc etc) and features you get from a G5 high end it's closer to 4000 dollars then the Mac's 3000.

For all the stuff you get I am suprised that they priced it at this level. If you think about it this is actually pretty good for a less-then-a-week old state of the art computer with brand new dual proccessors and a slew of features that you can't get anywere else (yet, in a couple months it will be a different picture)...

 

[drag]

BTW you can play the customize game with the Apples,too.

The ATI 9800 PRO is just +300 dollars away.

Just for fun and games I spec'd the G5 at maximum selections (airport extreme, dual 23' lcd displays, 8Gb memory. etc etc etc) and got:

? Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
? 8GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 8x1GB
? 2x250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
? ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
? Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel)
? Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel) + Apple DVI to ADC Adapter
? AirPort Extreme Card
? Bluetooth Module
? 56k V.92 internal modem
? SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
? Fibre Channel PCI Card
? Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
? Mac OS X - U.S. English
? iPod - 30GB
? Logitech Z-680 THX 5.1 Speakers & Monster 2-meter Cable
? AirPort Extreme Base Station (with modem and antenna port)
? .Mac Promotional Bundle
? APP for Power Mac (w/ or w/o display) - Enrollment Kit


For a grand total of: $13,730.90

now that is nuts

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: syberscott
Macs and PCs utilize the graphics cards differently. Much of the rendering that is left to the GPU on a PC is done by the main processor on a Mac. Therefore Macs can get away with a lesser graphics card without a performance hit.

Horsesh!t. That's the whole reason for hardware T&L, to offload those functions from the CPU. You haven't got a clue.

The system has to feed the data to the GPU in the exact same way whether it's an x86 or PPC.

In fact, the opposite of syberscott's words are almost true. Apple has been pushing QuartzExtreme, their GPU enhanced GUI rendering layer, for quite some time, with 10.3 set to take even more of an advantage of it than 10.2. Whereas a PC is fine as long as the 2D is reasonably fast(basically you can't buy a slow 2D card these days), Apple is going full steam with transparancy, blending, texturizing, and even flat out 3D when it comes to 10.3's fast user switch(when it switches users, it rotates said users' screens on a cube). You can still use a non-QuartzExtreme compliant card with OS X, but at the rate Apple's moving, you're getting left behind in terms of quality and performance. For an Apple at least, the desktop experience is more reliant on the GPU than nearly any PC is.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: drag
I don't think that it is a issue of either profit margin, simple oversite, or performance. It's cooling.....
....unforgivable. People like quiet when they work.

I don't know, I mean, I agree with you completely in theory. But in practice, even the highest end Dells i've been around have been pretty darn quiet. Not silent, but definitely not "buzz-bombs."

Ya that is true. But if you go to dell's site and check out the high-end workstations they are actually a bit more expensive then the similarly spec'd apple. Of course you have to play the Dell costimizing game were you start of with a high-end workstation with a single xeon and 128 megs of Ram. Buy the time you get it up to the performance (dual xeons fast bus and 512 megs of ram, dvd burner etc etc) and features you get from a G5 high end it's closer to 4000 dollars then the Mac's 3000.

For all the stuff you get I am suprised that they priced it at this level. If you think about it this is actually pretty good for a less-then-a-week old state of the art computer with brand new dual proccessors and a slew of features that you can't get anywere else (yet, in a couple months it will be a different picture)...

The workstation market is completely different... people have different needs and people who need that performance usually have different budgets

The comparison going on here is why Apple is giving a 5600 vs a higher card like in a Dell....

 

[dartworth]

The ATI Radeon 9600 Pro comes with the top model...

 

[syberscott]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: syberscott
Macs and PCs utilize the graphics cards differently. Much of the rendering that is left to the GPU on a PC is done by the main processor on a Mac. Therefore Macs can get away with a lesser graphics card without a performance hit.

Horsesh!t. That's the whole reason for hardware T&L, to offload those functions from the CPU. You haven't got a clue.

The system has to feed the data to the GPU in the exact same way whether it's an x86 or PPC.

In fact, the opposite of syberscott's words are almost true. Apple has been pushing QuartzExtreme, their GPU enhanced GUI rendering layer, for quite some time, with 10.3 set to take even more of an advantage of it than 10.2. Whereas a PC is fine as long as the 2D is reasonably fast(basically you can't buy a slow 2D card these days), Apple is going full steam with transparancy, blending, texturizing, and even flat out 3D when it comes to 10.3's fast user switch(when it switches users, it rotates said users' screens on a cube). You can still use a non-QuartzExtreme compliant card with OS X, but at the rate Apple's moving, you're getting left behind in terms of quality and performance. For an Apple at least, the desktop experience is more reliant on the GPU than nearly any PC is.

Thanks for setting me straight Virge. I was going on some statements Steve Jobs made during his address (maybe I misunderstood?).
And BoberFett, learn to provide some constructive criticism dude.

 

[drag]

Well how about this, I spec'd out a Dell "ultimite gamer" box. The one that comes with the 9800 non-pro ati card. I tried to aproximate as much as possible the software and hardware options to get close to a Mac as I could... the result was this:


Pentium® 4 Processor at 3.2GHz with 800MHz front side bus,
512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz (2x256M)
Dell® Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard Video Ready w/o Monitor
New 128MB DDR ATI RADEON? 9800 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI 200GB
Ultra ATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM) with DataBurst Cache 3.5 in Floppy Drive, Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Logitech® Optical USB Mouse
New Dell Gigabit Ethernet
56K PCI Data/Fax Modem
New 4x DVD+RW/+R Drive w/CD-RW including Roxio's Easy CD Creator®
Sound Blaster­ Audigy 2? sound card with DVD Audio
No Speaker Option N [313-4514]
WordPerfect Productivity Pack
Dell SecurityCenter by McAfee, 90-day introductory offer
Dell Jukebox powered by MUSICMATCH
Dell Picture Studio, Image Expert Standard
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options: SAVE $50
XPS Specialized Support Included
No ISP requested
RealOne? Player, with 14 day SuperPass trial
Find a high speed Internet service provider in your area
Save $100 with mail-in rebate. Price shown before rebate. (ya right... could be)
Surge Protectors - Protect Your Investment: Belkin SurgeMaster Gold - 10 Outlet with Coax (for Broadband) (could not unpick it)

That total came out to a 2,917 dollar computer. You still get the slower bus speed, and the 33 mhz PCI setup vs the 133 Mac one and the slower memory not to mention the lack of SATA and a couple other goodies, but you do get a extra 40 gigs then then the mac in harddrive space. It's proccessor is still a bit slower, but you can argue they are close to the same performance. Plus most of the multimedia stuff is already built into OS X and OS X doesn't require a virus scanner like windows does. (could need one in the future, but not now).

So the dell is ahead by $182 (with rebate). Since I personally think that OS X is a better OS then XP and the majority of people who would by a Mac like this one actually use it, instead of just play games on it then I think this is a good trade-off.

(I also spec'd a dell high-end desktop and that came out to 2,547 or so. Now this was with the generic g4 mx 64 Meg vid card, so that is a bigger difference, but then again the ATI 9600 PRO that comes with the 3000 dollar mac is twice the card the gforce4 mx is.)

And if you realy want it you can get the top of the line 9800 PRO card for a extra 300 bucks, but I don't think that is realy a big deal. So then that raises the price difference to $485 with mail in rebate. Which is a pretty big sum, I think that you would probably get a better performance boost by investing in more memory for the tasks that the majority of Mac users do.

When you considure the numerous advantages that the G5 platform has over the current x86 offerings not only in the 64 bit cpu, but in the design of the motherboard itself and the quality of the hardware that Apple has choosen to put into the new powerMac's. I think you maybe putting quite a bit larger emphasis in the slight deficit of video card 3-d power then is warranted.

 

[drag]

Damn darn double post

 

[Pariah]

Looking at a Dimension XPS I got $2877 with a 9800Pro before $100 rebate. So including that and adding a 9800Pro to the Apple and the price difference is over $500.

Along with the cheaper price, the Dell has 1GB of RAM (free 512 upgrade), and an extra 40GB disc space (+6MB cache), and much better audio with an Audigy 2. The Apple case does look nicer though...

Slight addition- Dell offers SATA drives as an option, so one would logically assume that their systems do have SATA capabilities. The other speed improvements you listed are spec sheet fillers and don't guarantee better performance than a completely different architecture that uses different technologies.

 

[drag]

Ya, that is probably more realistic, but I don't know about the audio being superior, I don't know what Apple uses other then it "optical" digital whatever that mean. Apple always had top-notch audio in the past...

ALso does it have the gigabyte ethernet like the Mac does, or the Sata drive or the Combination dvd writer? Maybe, i don't know.

Plus the Mac is just plain faster in every other respect, plus it's 64 bit which lends to the performance difference.

It realy comes down to whether you want XP or OS X. I like OS X, I like playing around with graphics and stuff like that so definatly the G5 would be the better computer.

I am not saying that x86 is a peice of garbage, but just that the video card is a rather minor detail unless you are a avid gamer the G5 is perfectly capapable of handling anything the modern games can dish out, except maybe for the high-end 3-d shooters that haven't even been released yet like Doom3, which would still be playable.

In a couple months Dell and Hp and freinds will revamp their line ups and produce computers that are comparable with Apple's. Then you will have a real contest on your hands.

 

[Pariah]

ALso does it have the gigabyte ethernet like the Mac does, or the Sata drive or the Combination dvd writer? Maybe, i don't know.

None by default, but I selected gigabyte ethernet and DVD+RW drive for my price. SATA drives are available, but there isn't any reason to use one over PATA. A larger capacity drive is more beneficial to a typical user.

Plus the Mac is just plain faster in every other respect, plus it's 64 bit which lends to the performance difference.

I don't know who you are, but I doubt you are qualified to make such a statement if the Apple supplied benchmarks are your only point of reference.

 

[drag]

Realy, think that Apple cheated that bad to have the Dual proccessor 2ghz G5 64% to 94% more powerfull then a single Pentium 4 3ghz???

Even if they did tweak it I don't think that it they would try to something as stupid as potraying the Dual g5 as close to 194% as effective then the single 3ghz PIV at certain tests! That would require so much BS that it would destroy Veritest as a benchmark company.

Do you think that the owners and operators of Veritest would be willing to piss their cariers down the drain just to make Apple look good?!

Even if they were wiling to bloat the benchmarks so that it inflated the performance advantage by a factor of 2 then the PowerMac high-end platform is still much more effective then the current crop of pentiums by a comfortable margin.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: drag
Realy, think that Apple cheated that bad to have the Dual proccessor 2ghz G5 64% to 94% more powerfull then a single Pentium 4 3ghz???

Even if they did tweak it I don't think that it they would try to something as stupid as potraying the Dual g5 as close to 194% as effective then the single 3ghz PIV at certain tests! That would require so much BS that it would destroy Veritest as a benchmark company.

Do you think that the owners and operators of Veritest would be willing to piss their cariers down the drain just to make Apple look good?!

Even if they were wiling to bloat the benchmarks so that it inflated the performance advantage by a factor of 2 then the PowerMac high-end platform is still much more effective then the current crop of pentiums by a comfortable margin.

they also say that the Mac gets 355FPS in Q3 where a Dell gets 286. I question what Video they used in the dell...obviously they just got a standard config dell and not the XPS gaming one so it's a slower video than it would normally have. Also the mac was run with sound OFF! If I turn sound off I get 375fps in Q3 with my PC. This is not new for benchmarking but wither the dell had crap video or sound was not turned off to even it up or both.

 

[drag]

So your PC with a 1024x784 at 32 bits color scored 375 fps? That's pretty good. A tomshardware.com a 3.0 ghz gets 400fps. So I beleive you.

They were probably comparing the 3d performance with a dell desktop which comes with the geforce4 MX line of cards standard and if you read the pages the Mac had the 9800 pro upgrade installed. Even with those fast proccessors (dell) I could see that happening.

And apple was vauge enough that they weren't actually dishonest about it. Sorta along the lines that Intel/Amd/Microsoft uses for their benchmarks.

THat's is some bad mojo, but still that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about the test veritest did. They are a benchmarking company and their reputations depend on it. If they screw up then nobody can use them again, because their reputation will bring along bad vibes.

But still it doesn't change the fact that because the platform isn't designed for gaming, but for other uses, I will take the veritest tests at face value until I see some proof otherwise. Meaning professional-level benchmarks proving them wrong, and not just idle vitriolic speaches from AMD-fanboy sites.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: drag


But still it doesn't change the fact that because the platform isn't designed for gaming, but for other uses, I will take the veritest tests at face value until I see some proof otherwise. Meaning professional-level benchmarks proving them wrong, and not just idle vitriolic speaches from AMD-fanboy sites.

there are professional level benchmarks the proove them wrong. they are on spec's site.


all apples benchmarks say, is that the dual g5 is faster than a p4 running unoptimized spec binaries under an OS that most people who use a p4 do not use.

so if your p4 is like that one running everything unoptimized compiled then the g5 is the faster.

spec's site benchmarks tell us that in any realistically optimized situation where a given processor is run in its most common environment and optimized for it, that the g5 blows as far as spec's benchmarks are concerned.