a challenge to all pc users who prowl these boards.

[Mord]

You're forgetting shopping time, shipping, workspace costs (yep, they have a cost too), equipment costs (how much is a torx screw-driver, etc.) and the time it took you to learn how to build a computer in 15 minutes. Then what can you install in one hour, all your programs? Or maybe just the OS?
Take all the above costs and add that to the cost of a home-built computer.

to spec out and find the cheapest parts take me about an hour and frankly i enjoy it, with pc's you dont need torx screwdrivers, over the last four year i have spent roughly £30 on tools, and i have every T bit and a fair few i have never seen on anything, i have AC5 a giant tube of white paste, a non magnetic screw claw, a black stick (v. important when working on macs), a torq screwdriver and a fair few other things i forget about including my trusty soldering iron, i just installed the OS in one hour because i dont use my pc for any real work, just for a few apps i need that wont run in vpc like ICON ladder logic for my electronics coursework and MPlab, and of course a few games like operation flashpoint .

as i said to compare the price of a home brew is not fair because so few people do it and most consumers are not, i however am seeing as i make money from fixing macs and a few pc's i have the experience to build my pc which cost me all told £38 which was £30 for a nice looking case and £8 on an 80W peltier the rest were spare parts i had lyeing around and some parts from school (slot A motherboard, 550MHz cpu, 512MB ram and a 40GB HD)

 

[feakbeak]

Ok --- I can understand the sense of achievement - I suppose

some people love to bake their own bread ...

but this would then negate the arguments about Macs being too expensive / exclusive wouldn't it??? --- I know that's not the original point of this thread... but I was questioning the 'economics' of self-build

Most people who build systems aren't doing it to save money at all. The people who claim you can save money by building yourself may have a point. If you buy crappy components off newegg.com or something you can probably build a really cheap system, but the margins on budget PCs these days are so low already, what would you be saving, $20? That's not worth the trouble when you can buy from Dell and get it pre-built, pre-loaded with software and a warranty on the overall system.

There are a few companies that offer systems with quality components, like Alienware. In this case, building your own can save you a decent amount of money, but it is still not huge. If someone wants an Alienware machine or wants to build a high-end PC they are going to be spending $2000+ (USD) anyway, so I don't think those are the people complaining about high Mac prices. I think the ones that complain are the people who buy a $800 Dell system with a 3.0 GHz P4 and the Power Macs only have 2.7 GHz G5, so why spend $2200 more on a crappier system, right? You have to keep in mind that these people are equipped with Logic Teflon™.

 

[justkeith]

So, if we're including 2 week "build time" of pc's shouldn't we also include the 4 month "ship time" on a lot of new macs? How about the "Wait for anouncement time" which is REALLY popular in the Mac crowd... 4 months... 6 months.. a year of sitting around "I'm not ordering till we hit 3GHz" time?

I'd argue no. It's interesting to me and fun to research parts, its fun to build the system... it's fun to surf these boards, its fun to think about rumors. Its a wash...

Well, what I was saying was - if it took more than 2 *days* of my time in total this would be uneconomical - I'd rather pay & save my time/money

but to follow your argument:

I s'pose all those new super-pc components are always available in stock & nobody's following the Athlon roadmap? 'holding out' for dual-core & dreaming of Cell? [or Tiger on x86?] No anticipation in the pc-builders world? other than longhorn announcements?

but I'm not knocking your enjoyment really --- it's just not particularly solid grounds for knocking other people's choices

 

[TheMasin9]

portage issues

Didnt anyone learn anything from the Doom3 thread? For me as a consumer gaming benches is where its at. I really dont care how fast iphoto springs open or how fast a blur can be done. I want to know how fast UT2K4 can run with everything on or Doom3 with everything on. I notice a lot of benches showing Doom3 with shadows off,med detail etc, whats that about? Barefeats have some interesting numbers on the new iMac vs last years and it was doing about 3 more frames. G5 is overrated and blown up by Apple. If it was so fantastic they wouldnt had to resort to dropping 2 of them into a PowerMac. Dec 2003 Macworld & Macaddict had benches and the dual 2.0 was holding its own against a single FX-51 2.2 ghz in everything but gaming. In gaming the Macs took a whipping. Anyways those benches were not shown on their web site just in the Magazines.

the thing with many games ported to the mac is that the ports just plain suck, you have to compare games that were ported well, no just a half way job that was done with doom 3. A great game to compare is halo because the job of porting is done justice. i believe it is really hard to do an accurate comparison of macs and pcs, each one does what it does well and i think the actual comparison as far as speeds go is really a wasted conversation, i think we instead need to look at OS's and software and what each can do well vs always pitting them against each other. i am a switcher and mac fan to the end, but i do recognize that each type of machine has its strengths. stop the bickering lol,

 

[justkeith]

I can't believe that this childish discussion persists.

If you seriously believe that the amount of time spent building your own pc, parts, installing OS, and software and troubleshooting... in a strictly monetary sense, equates to the $3200 that you have to spend to buy a top end mac... you're lying to yourself.

Home PC builders enjoy it. They don't do it because they're cheap bastards.. and so you can't bill that time. Even if you did it wouldn't equate to $2700 or whatever the difference is. They wouldn't build the machine if they didn't enjoy it!

There is a debate over which machine is superior, but we're all rational, intelligent folks. We disagree on which machine is faster.. and that's the reason for this thread, so don't try to push the conversation some other direction. If we can find a benchmark that both PC and Mac folk can agree is a fair.. toe to toe... a representation of pure computing power, then we can see who wins..

However, I really doubt that will happen. Because the Mac folk will come back with "Oh, well... that benchmark is more optimized for your chip." The AMD folk will say that about the Intel.. and then Intel will say that about everything.

I've dropped $4k on a powerbook... and I've built a amd 64. I've been at both ends... and I know, the AMD halls for what I have invested and it was fun to research, build, and tweak. That said, my mac is a hell of a lot prettier but it crawls in comparison.

I missed this earlier one ...

Firstly, I don't recall that you started this thread so I don't see where you get to dictate which way the discussion is going to be 'pushed' ... there are plenty others who seem to think this is worthy of some debate - even you can't resist chipping in ...

You keep saying you're not in it for money but enjoyment - but it seems you 'enjoy' the 'fact' that you can 'save' $2700(?) by doing it all yourself --- but can you do it as well? all the benchmark tests in the world may be able to give some measure of various components --- but none would indicate that *you*, or anyone else can actually build a computer as good / fast / reliable as Apple can or HP for that matter

I may be wrong of course - maybe you're a real pro - you could have churned out a couple of pcs in the time you've spent on this thread

Finally, if you could build the AMD into the powerbook form & save me $2700 I'll have 2 please

 

[cr2sh]

I can't seem to follow your point... you're all across the board... I'll try my best though, you seem confused:

Firstly, I don't recall that you started this thread so I don't see where you get to dictate which way the discussion is going to be 'pushed' ... there are plenty others who seem to think this is worthy of some debate - even you can't resist chipping in ...

This thread is about cold hard performance. The only reason anyone would complicate the issue by bringing in OS, or software, or price... is to confuse the issue. You seemed to have missed that one...

You keep saying you're not in it for money but enjoyment - but it seems you 'enjoy' the 'fact' that you can 'save' $2700(?) by doing it all yourself --- but can you do it as well? all the benchmark tests in the world may be able to give some measure of various components --- but none would indicate that *you*, or anyone else can actually build a computer as good / fast / reliable as Apple can or HP for that matter.

Again, you may be missing the point... the entire point of this thread. It's not about build quality... because that cannot be measured in some quantitative, non-arguable way. Whether I save money or not... not at issue here.

I may be wrong of course - maybe you're a real pro - you could have churned out a couple of pcs in the time you've spent on this thread. Finally, if you could build the AMD into the powerbook form & save me $2700 I'll have 2 please

In the context of this thread... my AMD is in powerbvook form. It benchmarks in the exact same way... but you're still missing that.

Edit: there are some losing mac stats on the last page.

 

[freiheit]

Furthermore, does it *really* matter if I can shave 5 seconds off a minute of work? Unless volume is paramount the answer is "no." Which bring me to my next point ...

That same sentiment can be directed toward the people who believe gaming benchmarks are all that matter. I always ask "Can you really tell the difference between 30fps and 105fps?" That's another reason I don't put much stock in benchmarks.

 

[hulugu]

I can't believe that this childish discussion persists.

If you seriously believe that the amount of time spent building your own pc, parts, installing OS, and software and troubleshooting... in a strictly monetary sense, equates to the $3200 that you have to spend to buy a top end mac... you're lying to yourself.

Home PC builders enjoy it. They don't do it because they're cheap bastards.. and so you can't bill that time. Even if you did it wouldn't equate to $2700 or whatever the difference is. They wouldn't build the machine if they didn't enjoy it!

My point was simply that there are more costs involved with any DIY project than are typically considered, not just the labor and the parts, but also tools, troubleshooting, etc. When I consider any DIY project, whether it be building my own AMD Linux box or working on my Jeep's brakes or replacing the piping under my sink I will consider how much the project will cost for me to do it versus hiring a professional or buying a brand-name system. That's not a childish point, but thanks for trying to belittle anyone who happens to think that only including parts and labor is the only way to quantify cost.
Obviously, someone who enjoys it shouldn't consider labor as a cost, but not everyone enjoys researching for the right parts, piling them together, and plugging them into a case. Not everyone enjoys cooking and I—using your impeccable logic—could say that anyone who eats at a resturaunt is lying to themselves if they think the food is any good because you can make better, healthier food for less at home.

 

[Will_reed]

dispite the performace Id actually rather play doom 3 on a mac simply because It supports widescreen resolutions. Its kindof annoying when they port a game to mac and forget to include this kind of support.
uprgading to os 10.4 seems too have given me a bit of a performance boost to my 17inch powerbook and Im sure it could get even beter with future updates.

 

[Mord]

can we get back OT?

as i said no game benchmarks and no price comparisons of home builds.

and btw i can have benches done on a single and dual 1.8GHz G5 so if anyone with a 1.8GHz K8 wants to do benchmarks that would be great.

 

[justkeith]

I can't seem to follow your point... you're all across the board... I'll try my best though, you seem confused:



This thread is about cold hard performance. The only reason anyone would complicate the issue by bringing in OS, or software, or price... is to confuse the issue. You seemed to have missed that one...




Again, you may be missing the point... the entire point of this thread. It's not about build quality... because that cannot be measured in some quantitative, non-arguable way. Whether I save money or not... not at issue here.



In the context of this thread... my AMD is in powerbvook form. It benchmarks in the exact same way... but you're still missing that.

Edit: there are some losing mac stats on the last page.

Well it was kind of late when I posted last ...

But as for me being all "over the board"?

1 post positing the question of the economics of self-build (the issue of self-build had already been discussed in a couple of posts - which is why I reasoned that it would be quite fair to raise my question)

2 posts (now 3) responding to you ... and I see you've got a few others "all over (this) board"

Confused? Maybe it's the fact that some people want raise issues of economics in all of this --- when challenged they can throw all kinds of figures in the air - from clock speeds to relative pricing - and under further scrutiny, decide that they're not in it for the money but for the sense of fun & achievement.

*You* seem to have missed the point that you cannot dictate to me what this thread is about

Firstly, you didn't start it - so you don't get to set the parameters

Secondly, several others here, including yourself, have made comments regarding the 'factoring in' of software / OS / price - before & after my query about the cost of self-build.

& since I was 1 who raised 1 of those issues, perhaps I'm best placed to tell you what my reason was & not the other way around (get my point?)

anyways, the thread isn't about fetishm or masturbation either - but that doesn't stop you & others cooing about 'pleasure' & "satisfaction" ... it's not about games - but they've been mentioned... it's _definitely_ not about product announcements. is it?

Generally, the thread title should be enough guidelines for decent discussion. I have no doubt that my contributions are quite pertinent to the general Mac / PC debate - and as I've said, others raised the issues around self-builds before I did


Thirdly, I may not be able (or want) to build an AMD64 in a shoebox, I may only be a newbie here. But I can tell you, I'm pretty good at English & Psychology & I know what's being said here by whom. So if you think this is all down to my confusion, confusion and missing the point, I think you should lay off the solder and get out & learn to communicate & interact with other people


"In the context of this thread" you informed us that you "dropped $4k on a powerbook" - you should have bought a mini then shouldn't you? - and saved yourself a shedload

you didn't mention how much you actually saved by rolling your own but I bet it would've cost considerably more in powerbook form --- & I still wouldn't want to buy 1 from you

Benchmarks? I believe the thread was started by some discussing viable & valid benchmark for comparing systems - presumably on the basis that a lot (all?) of the existing benchmarks are not viable or valid... now you can state glibly that your powerbook & AMD are benchmarked the 'same'


why didn't you just say that to the original poster at the beginning of the thread ???- and then back up your claims to all the other posters here, some of whom appear decidedly more knowledgeable about those things than me

the stats you posted --- i didn't go there --- already looked at several charts / opinions on this --- based on your posts here I didn't want to waste my time (if I'm going to believe them I might as well believe you - & I don't)

 

[justkeith]

can we get back OT?

as i said no game benchmarks and no price comparisons of home builds.

Ok, sorry Hector


I guess I must have missed one of those



.... arf a mo ....

note we are not bashing self builds, just saying it's unfair in a price comparison.

Hector, you introduced the price comparison issue - now we can't talk about it?

 

[Mord]

i said it's unfair and we should not consider it, the price difference is minute at the high end a dual 2.7GHz G5 generally comes out less than a dual xeon or opteron of the same speed.

 

[justkeith]

Well, I guess my original post was both concurring *and* contradicting you

I said if you factor in all the factors there would be less difference than might appear - i.e. less cost 'savings' in self-building

this seems to have been borne out by many of the self-builders here - yourself included (although you did say you built yours from salvage in 15 mins? )

so if this accepted as the case - how does the comparison become unfair because of cost reasons?

 

[cr2sh]

Not sure how good these tests are, but, here's what i did.

I ran the JavaScript benchmarking test on both my PowerBook and my Parents PC with specifications as follows.

Both tests were run on the same 1.5 MBPS DSL connection, the Mac first, followed by the PC (not simulatenously).

Desktop PC:
-Pentium 4 @ 1.8 GHz
-512 MB of ddr 2100 ram
-Windows XP Pro
-FireFox 1.4
-Disabled virus scanner, spyware scanner

my PowerBook:
-G4 @ 1.0GHz
-1 GB of pc133 ram (damn bus speed!)
-MacOS X Tiger
-FireFox 1.4

Well, first i ran the test with Safari 2.0, and my PowerBook annihilated the PC (got around 11.5 seconds with Safari).

However, making it fair, i then did the test with both computers running the latest versions of FireFox.

The PC won, but by a hair. Check the screenshot for the results:
(Btw, i didn't realize Safari's JavaScript was this superior to FireFox's)

I did this same Test with Firefox in 6.93 sec

So this is the only head to head pefromance test that we have?

A g4 running best at 11.5 seconds and a amd64 trouncing it with 6.93 seconds? Anyone care to run this test on their g5?

Also, if someone wouldn't mind posting the bat file they generated... I'd love to play with it.

 

[Mord]

Well, I guess my original post was both concurring *and* contradicting you

I said if you factor in all the factors there would be less difference than might appear - i.e. less cost 'savings' in self-building

this seems to have been borne out by many of the self-builders here - yourself included (although you did say you built yours from salvage in 15 mins? )

so if this accepted as the case - how does the comparison become unfair because of cost reasons?

because most people are not as good as me and others here at tech stuff and it's a minority that dose it.

 

[Lacero]

I really believe that the G5 is truly the speediest desktop processor chip among all those AMDs and Intels out there, without a doubt. For me as a consumer gaming benches is where its at. I dont worry how fast iTunes springs open or how fast a pointillize can be done. I'm a Mac user and I adore gaming, but not on my Mac. However, Halo 2 only runs well on nVidia hardware. Whereas, ATI totally dominates nVidia on nearly every other app on the PC.

 

[feakbeak]

because most people are not as good as me and others here at tech stuff and it's a minority that dose it.

I don't follow your reasoning, because few people do build PCs, they should not be considered fair game in this comparision of pure computational power. By that logic we shouldn't consider Macs in the competition either as they only have 3-5% marketshare. We were really only going to be comparing the Power Macs anyway and that's a much smaller number of systems. Although AMD has a little more market it is still quite small compared to Intel. I guess Intel wins by default.

Yes, I'm taking my point to the extreme in an attempt at humor, but I honestly don't follow your logic.

 

[Mord]

I don't follow your reasoning, because few people do build PCs, they should not be considered fair game in this comparision of pure computational power. By that logic we shouldn't consider Macs in the competition either as they only have 3-5% marketshare. We were really only going to be comparing the Power Macs anyway and that's a much smaller number of systems. Although AMD has a little more market it is still quite small compared to Intel. I guess Intel wins by default.

Yes, I'm taking my point to the extreme in an attempt at humor, but I honestly don't follow your logic.

to build a pc you need a be able to, any idiot can buy a mac thats the difference it's not purely about the fact that they are a minority it's just a minority is able to do it

 

[feakbeak]

to build a pc you need a be able to, any idiot can buy a mac thats the difference it's not purely about the fact that they are a minority it's just a minority is able to do it

Macs are typically more expensive than their PC counterparts - not everyone can afford to purchase a dual proc Power Mac, so they are unable to obtain that computer. I don't see the relevance. When you opened this thread you said you wanted to disprove that any benchmark results exist that show AMD/Intel besting the G5. If that is what you are after it has absolutely nothing to do with price, effort or ability - so why do you think self-builds shouldn't be allowed?

 

[Mord]

Macs are typically more expensive than their PC counterparts - not everyone can afford to purchase a dual proc Power Mac, so they are unable to obtain that computer. I don't see the relevance. When you opened this thread you said you wanted to disprove that any benchmark results exist that show AMD/Intel besting the G5. If that is what you are after it has absolutely nothing to do with price, effort or ability - so why do you think self-builds shouldn't be allowed?

it has absolutely everything to do with price, you may be able to get a 16 cpu dual core 2.2GHz opteron which is unarguably faster than any mac but the cpu's alone cost about $20k, benchmarks need doing between systems of similar price and compareing the price of self builds is not particularly fair as so few people are capable of doing it.

 

[feakbeak]

it has absolutely everything to do with price, you may be able to get a quad dual core 2.2GHz opteron which is unarguably faster than any mac but the cpu's alone cost about $20k, benchmarks need doing between systems of similar price and compareing the price of self builds is not particularly fair as so few people are capable of doing it.

Well, I'm assuming we can be rational and realize that a quad-proc vs. a dual/single proc is an invalid comparison. Still, considering comparing single proc to single proc machines and dual proc to dual proc, what does it matter if you build it or buy it - all the posts in the thread agree that the price difference is negligible. Again, why exclude them? Hell, if you want, add a 10% price premium for the labor on self-builds. I doubt most people even save that much building their own. The truth is I think far more people build high-end PCs than purchase high-end PCs from the likes of Alienware, etc. People who want a high-performance system are often enthusiasts and would rather build their own. By excluding these machines I think you're significantly reducing the number of submissions you might get from high-end PC owners.

 

[Mord]

as i said benchmarks with self builds are fine, just if you want to compare the price do so from a retail company.

self builds are cheaper depending on how much software you need as retail pc's tend to come with a fair bit most of witch you dont need, speccing out components to build a pc equivalent to a dell 8400 it came to 409.99 with a nice case with good psu quality ram and a gigabyte motherboard, the dell 8400 costs £662 that leaves £262 to send on software.

 

[WalterDirt]

Wow, I must say a lot of people on here are complete fanatics. Seems like people are so caught up in the mac vs pc war they can't think straight.

I'm a long time PC guy, I build my own systems for two reasons:
1. I love thinkering with computer hardware (thus my first thread on here was about the little box the G5 has. Which I'm amazed at nobody knows what it is, die hard mac people I guess just don't care about the internals, they must be too busy on message boards fanatically justifying there expensive purchase.)

2. Building a performance rig. Only the stupid would attempt to DIY for the sake of cheap. Dell is cheap, emachines is cheap, you can't touch the margins, its simply not worth it. You build so you can get the best of each component into your system. My last rig, was a balance between performance and silence. You can't hear it unless you're ear is 1/2 inch from the case.

I'm sure I'll get flogged out of the water for the comments above. But I really don't give a sh*t. I'm happy with my four PC's, and I'm happy with my Dual 2.0Ghz G5, and my mini. I really enjoy the features OSX has to offer.

Also, to the original poster, why on earth would you come to a mac forum and request benchmarks from PC users? If you want the benchmarks go to a PC forum. Damn whackos.

Here's an idea, stop moaning and bitching and do something productive on whatever machine you choose.

 

[Mord]

what i'm asking for is evidence that the G5 is getting owned which allot of pc users who prowl these boards seem to think and i want evidence, personally i dont think there is much and the little there is suggests that the G5 is no where near getting owned, what pushed me to it is the intel thread filled with idiots that think apple should switch the x86 which is plain stupid, the purous of this thread is to give opportunity to the people complaining to prove that x86 is faster and obviously they cannot do that, so in my view the thread had been successful by the fact that they have been unsuccessful at proving the superiority of x86.

and with that i go to put this thread in my sig as a trophy so no one can argue with me that x86 is way ahead like some claim.