Match these G5 Specs

[americanflats]

I constantly hear how the G5 is overpriced, so I thought I'd put up a challenge. Can anyone match these specs with a matching dual 64bit PC system? Although the Build Your Own crowd is welcome to put their two cents in, I think it would be more fair to configure an factory-supplied configuration.

And you must match up specs as closely as possible, no cheating on "extras".

Here's the configuration, below this I've listed some of the specs that it comes with but which aren't listed in the initial configuration:

• Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
• 512MB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x256
• 160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
• ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
• AirPort Extreme Card
• Bluetooth Module
• 56k V.92 internal modem
• SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
• Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
• Mac OS X - U.S. English

Subtotal $3,148.00

This machine also ships with:
Firewire 400
Firewire 800
8X AGP Graphics
1Ghz system bus (and both processors have their own independent bus)
Serial ATA
PCI-X (PCI-Express would be a suitable alternative)
Built-in Bluetooth
Built-in Wireless both 802.11b and 802.11g
DVI, ADC, and VGA video support
Optical Digital Audio In and Out (along with analog)
Support for 8gigs of RAM
10/100/1000T Ethernet
OS X (when quoting a windows box no quoting Windows XP Home, and XP Pro must be a full, legal copy, no upgrades or OEM editions...if you want to go with Linux, ok, although I consider the ability to run programs like Office and Photoshop NATIVELY more than a slight issue)

And a couple of final notes, this machine will run 32bit applications natively, it's industrial design is remarkeable, and ......it is shipping NOW!!

I'm not looking for flames or Platform wars, I'm just curious how this will turn out.

"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[simwiz2]

Can a 32-bit one be used if it would perform better?

 

[reever2]

You cant make a post about Macs without a flame or platform wars, its best just to not make the posts because many of them are stupid and the thread starter(you) is just looking is just looking to justify a stupid purchase

 

[americanflats]

"Can a 32-bit one be used if it would perform better?"

No, for a couple of reasons.

32-bit systems can only support 4gigs of RAM, and once Panther (OS X.3) ships and programs are optimized for 64bits, 32bit systems will not out-perform 64bit systems (not to mention the fact that it is highly debatable whether any 32-bit system right now could outperform this configuration, see the following link for a fair and objective look at SINGLE G5 benchmarks...as it says in the study "Note that even though the G4 and G5 systems have dual processors, detailed benchmarks in the present study pertain to a single processor only.")





"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[americanflats]

"You cant make a post about Macs without a flame or platform wars, its best just to not make the posts because many of them are stupid and the thread starter(you) is just looking is just looking to justify a stupid purchase"


Just because YOU can't discuss this subject without flaming doesn't mean that other people can't....how about if you don't have anything constructive to add other than insults, you just don't post?

Is that so difficult?

"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[simwiz2]

If support for a lot of RAM is so important, then why does your sample system ship with only 512 MB?

 

[americanflats]

"If support for a lot of RAM is so important, then why does your sample system ship with only 512 MB?"

Because I'm trying to establish a base-line here, the G5 uses standard PC3200 DDR SDRAM, thus the additional cost of RAM would be the same regardless of platform.

I'm looking forward to some specs and prices.

"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[imgod2u]

If you limit your criteria to 512MB of RAM, then the advantage of a 64-bit system has been severely cut down. At this point, you can no longer say "this 64-bit Mac is better than any 32-bit system" since you're only using 512MB of RAM anyway.

As for comparable PC's. I've not seen benchmarks on the PPC 970's so I can't tell you what would be a similarly performing PC. It also depends highly on what software you care about in terms of performance. Do you want Photoshop filter timings? Mpeg4 encoding timings? Gaming? Or just RC-5?

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[CaptainNemo]

I just popped over to a UK online shop and a built a:

P4 2.8C with MSI mobo
512MB PC3200 dual channel low latency ram etc.
180GB HD
Radeon 9600 Pro blah blah
Sony DVD+/-R multi-format drive
Case/PSU/cordless keyboard+mouse etc.
Win2K Pro OEM (only idiots buy retail)

Cost: £1150 or $1850

It doesn't have all the goodies that the G5 has and it only a single CPU etc., but it would be more than sufficient for my needs (which is all that matters).

Anyway, you only need to look at the options path to see that Macs are overpriced ($250 extra for 1GB RAM?! $300 extra for an R9800 Pro?!)

AND, look at what you get for $1999 (my system cost $1850):

1.6GHz PowerPC G5
800MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
256MB DDR333 128-bit SDRAM
Expandable to 4GB SDRAM
80GB Serial ATA
SuperDrive
Three PCI Slots
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem

That is daylight robbery!

"Some mice have two buttons. Macintosh has one. So it's extremely difficult to push the wrong button." - Apple ad. circa 1984.

 

[Mephistopheles]

This thread's title...

Match these G5 Specs

...is misleading. Specs don't matter at all, it's the performance that matters. GeForceFX's specs were incredible and impossible to beat, but real life was a little different.

Now if Apple uses wrong scores for benchmarks on other platforms, it's only natural that people get suspicious. And we still lack a really thorough comparison...

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles

 

[Tommunist]

" just popped over to a UK online shop and a built a:

P4 2.8C with MSI mobo
512MB PC3200 dual channel low latency ram etc.
180GB HD
Radeon 9600 Pro blah blah
Sony DVD+/-R multi-format drive
Case/PSU/cordless keyboard+mouse etc.
Win2K Pro OEM (only idiots buy retail)

Cost: £1150 or $1850"


I suspect it could be built for even cheaper than this if one really shopped around for the lowest prices. But here's the real kicker - I'd be willing to bet for *most* applications that someone would be using they wouldn't notice a difference in performence. But I'm willing to bet they'd notice that $1000+ sitting in their wallet. All these ads on TV saying the G5 is "the world's fastest PC" are really marketing towards the everyday user who will basically never need this amount of power and therefore should save their money!!! Maybe some people have some special applications that they want the G5 for and that's fine but I feel like it's a rip off for anyone just doing everyday applications. But this discussion with relation to performence (which is what really matters) is pretty pointless because we don't have any independent benchmarks yet (ie - ones where the benchmarker didn't cripple the G5s competition to make the G5 look better than it really is). I think everyone is still waiting for Tom to do an article about it - but for some reason I don't think it's coming.....

"Don't question it!!!" - Err

 

[zejs1]

A Dell Precision 650 with dual 2.4Ghz Xeon processors sells for about $2900, with a 17" monitor.

 

[cdpage]

well in the mean time...

perhaps we al can do a little of our own testing...

maybe some one should set Up a web page for everyone to down load some stuff... like say a video to encode a spacific image to render in PhotoShop... these saort of things...

3 reasons this is a good idea... One it will keep the debate alive till Toms FINALLY does there own... 2 we'll have a good idea how it MIGHT compair to the MAC and 3 we'll have a good idea how our set up compares to other comprable setups, PC to PC.

jsut a though! Im Sure and MAC user would love to try and compete that way... Of coarse ther is no realy way of knowing if they are cheating or not as it would relay only be stop watch. but its a start!

ASUS P4S8X - P4 2.4B - 2 x 512M DDR333 - ATI 9500 Pro(Sapphire) - WD 80G HD (8M Buffer) - SAMSUNG SV0844D 8G HD - LG 16X DVD - Yamaha F1 CDRW - Iomega Zip 250 int.

 

[Crashman]

A 3GHz CPU is faster than 2 2GHz CPU's. Apple knows this but can't do much about it because their chips simply don't clock that high.

I could build a P4 3GHz system with better specs for $2000.

I could build a P4 3GHz system with similar specs for around $1500.

I could build a Dual Xeon workstation with better specs for about $3000.

And I could build a dual Athlon-MP system for around $2500.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[imgod2u]

Who here actually owns a PowerMac G5? Without that, I don't think we would accomplish this "independent benchmarking" scheme.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[rcj187]

ok how about these specs..
MSI neo fis2r
1x opteron 244 @ 1.8ghz
512mb pc3200
160gb sata 150
radeon 9600pro
dvd-r/cd-rw
56k modem
winxp home
comes with 8x agp, firewire, gigabit ethernet

£1338 or $2143
now i realise its only a single 1.8 cpu but considering ahow it smokes the p43.2 and in some cases dual p43.06 xeons this setup should be prett close to your apple system performance wise.
all for $1000 cheaper
all priced from dabs.com
there are cheaper online suppliers about but im in a rush so didnt bother shopping about

 

[rcj187]

ok how about these specs..
MSI neo fis2r
1x opteron 244 @ 1.8ghz
512mb pc3200
160gb sata 150
radeon 9600pro
dvd-r/cd-rw
56k modem
winxp home
comes with 8x agp, firewire, gigabit ethernet, 6ch audio

£1338 or $2143
now i realise its only a single 1.8 cpu but considering ahow it smokes the p43.2 and in some cases dual p43.06 xeons this setup should be prett close to your apple system performance wise.
all for $1000 cheaper
all priced from dabs.com
there are cheaper online suppliers about but im in a rush so didnt bother shopping about

 

[Fallen]

WOW a 56k modem! They still make those things? Is firewire 800 standardized yet? Are there any products that use it? I don't use firewire, so I honestly have no idea. I could care less about bluetooth too, since I don't use it. Maybe one day it will be the greatest thing, but not yet. I'm pretty sure that Mac OSx is actually Unix, skinned like a Mac with some Mac APIs added, but that doesn't matter. 8 Gb of Ram!!! You're killing me kid! On a small server, that would be cool, but would you EVER use that on a desktop? Probably not. It kinda makes me sad to think that a $1000 PC can do 99% as much work as a $3100 Mac. I don't mean to talk sh!t, but really...

 

[americanflats]

>>>A 3GHz CPU is faster than 2 2GHz CPU's. Apple knows this but can't do much about it because their chips simply don't clock that high.

I could build a P4 3GHz system with better specs for $2000.

I could build a P4 3GHz system with similar specs for around $1500.

I could build a Dual Xeon workstation with better specs for about $3000.

And I could build a dual Athlon-MP system for around $2500.<<<


Do you have any facts to go along with that, or is your word supposed to be enough?

Here's a link showing what a SINGLE G5 is capable of:

http://members.cox.net/craig.hunter/g5/

So please bring facts if you want to be considered in this little study.



"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[americanflats]

Again, this isn't what YOU need, this is about configuring a comparable system to the one I posted.

If you have some facts to add about configuring a 64bit PC config, bring it.

"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[americanflats]

"A Dell Precision 650 with dual 2.4Ghz Xeon processors sells for about $2900, with a 17" monitor"

Specs and prices, please, that tells me nothing about what the Dell has....facts, please, facts.

"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[americanflats]

"A 3GHz CPU is faster than 2 2GHz CPU's. Apple knows this but can't do much about it because their chips simply don't clock that high."

This benchmark from NASA comparing an un-otpimized SINGLE G5 says otherwise.

http://members.cox.net/craig.hunter/g5/

"It's just a computer platform, people!"<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by americanflats on 09/15/03 08:39 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[americanflats]

"



WOW a 56k modem! They still make those things? Is firewire 800 standardized yet? Are there any products that use it? I don't use firewire, so I honestly have no idea. I could care less about bluetooth too, since I don't use it. Maybe one day it will be the greatest thing, but not yet. I'm pretty sure that Mac OSx is actually Unix, skinned like a Mac with some Mac APIs added, but that doesn't matter. 8 Gb of Ram!!! You're killing me kid! On a small server, that would be cool, but would you EVER use that on a desktop? Probably not. It kinda makes me sad to think that a $1000 PC can do 99% as much work as a $3100 Mac. I don't mean to talk sh!t, but really..."

Again, to repeat myself, this isn't about what YOU want or need, this is about a top-of-the-line desktop.

Video users, Photoshop users, 3-D user, scientific users will use every bit of the 8gigs and want more.

Listen, there are a ton of other categories and uses we could compare, but I am interested at this time in this one category....if you have some facts, bring them.





"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[americanflats]

"Anyway, you only need to look at the options path to see that Macs are overpriced ($250 extra for 1GB RAM?! $300 extra for an R9800 Pro?!)"

If you think that Mac users pay Apple RAM prices you are sadly mistaken. One of the reasons I left the config not maxed out on RAM is the simple reason that the G5 uses STANDARD PC3200 SDRAM DDR MEMORY, and just like any PC user after I buy the machine, I'm going to price-shop for the best deal on RAM.


So, again, can anybody actually reply to me original post with a comparably configured PC, or is it just the same old Mac Bashing without substance?

(And for the record, I spend more time on a P4 IBM Windows Box than I do on any Macintosh, so I'm not a fanboy, I'm not trolling, I just want to see people lay their cards on the table.

Is it that difficult?


"It's just a computer platform, people!"

 

[americanflats]

>>> I'm pretty sure that Mac OSx is actually Unix, skinned like a Mac with some Mac APIs added, but that doesn't matter<<<

Why don't you actually use OS X before you comment on how good it is or isn't? Because it does actually matter.

Here are a couple of links that you may find interesting, if, that is, you are able to be a somewhat objective person:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/05/35OPconnection_1.html

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/12/36OPconnection_1.html


Use OS X, then feel free to comment on what it is or isn't.

"It's just a computer platform, people!"