Originally posted by: jagerk
I've used these: $1500 (now, must have been $2000+ then)
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
600MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
Expandable to 4GB SDRAM
80GB Serial ATA
8x SuperDrive
Three PCI Slots
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem
along with these:
Apple Cinema Display (20" flat panel) ($1000 now)
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel) ($3000)
and especially these, the worst computer part I've ever used:
Apple Mouse, One Button Optical ($30)
Consistently, throughout all these machines which I've used for graphical and audio work, movies, Photoshop, et al, the hype is not worth it. These machines are the most price inflated and cost ineffective machines I've had the displeasure to use. They have the worse faults than comparable (in price) Windows machines. Ask any Mac user who's been frustrated with the damn freaking pinwheel which shows your expensive processor is being utilized for some mundane task. In raw speed, yes, it does have it's ass kicked.
I'm not even talking about the discrepancy on paper, that these machines "only" have 1.5 ghz or so tops. The discrepancy is in raw, actual, power, because I'm an AMD user, and AMD has always been playing a catch up game to Intel's clock speed. AMD has always won, though, even though their actual clock speeds were lower than Intel- because of the effective architecture on the chips, with smaller bandwith pipelines allowing more work units to be processed than Intel's processors in the same time frame. Thus, the chips across the board on the PC market from Athlon consistently have lower clock frequencies than Intel chips, yet actually perform better than Intel chips with at least 30% higher clock speeds. It's the damn truth. Which is why, contrary to public opinion, the BEST processor right now is an Athlon processor - currently at a whopping 3800+ public relations speed, which only translates into 2.6 ghz actual clock speed, compared to Intel's highest Prescott processor, the 3.8 ghz actual clock speed. And the AMD chips kicks so much ass hands down - they actually implement 64 bit compatability before "the first 64 bit personal computer in the world - the G5"- it kicks Intel machines asses right now, and is ready for the next generation of 64 bit operating systems. Can you say that for a Mac, about having so much performance?
Hardly. The mac suffers from a parity of speeds, with EITHER Intel or AMD machines. There is no getting around that; either live with the cursed pinwheel, (which is SO damn annoying when you're using a machine touted for it's graphical and user superiority.. yeah right, what you're supposed to buy is the best HARDWARE you can afford- and only recently has actual current graphics cards have appeared for Macs. Either that, or you pay a ludicrous amount for price premium of Mac-compatible graphics cards from either Nvidia or ATi.) or you buy a more expensive Mac. Even then, the most expensive Macs pitifully fall short of the comparably priced Windows machines. And it doesn't matter what kind of mythical software benefits you'll have, you'll still have crappy hardware under the cover of your pretty Mac, which you will never have the opportunity to upgrade, except perhaps user-friendly RAM modules! RAM has nothing to do with anything once you're past a certain level, so that's a moot point anyway.
This same situation has already been shown to a LOT of college students within the past year - since the time Intel came out with the Centrino package for its laptop. There was confusion as to how a chip with "only" 1.3, 1.4 ghz could be equal to or better than Pentium 4 2.8 ghz machines. This is the exact situation AMD had been in, but fortunately for AMD, its supporters know that there is a way for chips running at those speeds to truly shine and repeatedly beat out higher-rated Intel 'equivalents'. Most of the time, the AMD chips were priced ridiculously cheaper than the 'equivalent' Intel chips, too- so an AMD buyer such as myself were in a win-win situation. This is definitely not the case with Mac. I can't even give a benchmark to compare the two systems. Look at the programs which are available for Mac. You get to pay a price premium for those which are actually available, just like everything else Apple sells. And that's the real bottom line, a Mac user who falls into the hype just increases Apple's bottom line. Shrug. You can go ahead now and purchase your Mini mac. I won't be, for the forseeable future.
That's all I have to say about that.
I don't know what the hell you're thinking, but there is no way that that config will run a 30" apple display, with that video card.