oingoboingo said:
The current model eMac uses regular old DDR333 SDRAM, which is still in the 'sweet-spot' for commodity RAM. I agree...it may actually be counterproductive to design a system which uses old SDR PC133 or something like that, as it is now more expensive than faster DDR memory. PATA drives are still cheaper on the whole than SATA drives in Australia, but I don't know how much longer that will continue for.
It's not yet across the board, but at higher capacities, I'm starting to see SATA edging past PATA into the cheaper bracket. The same is true with RAM, as you noted, because PC133 RAM is ridiculously expensive at this point and doesn't give any benefit over, say, PC2700. It's going to fall prey to the bell curve, I'm guessing. Some technology that's older but not horribly outdated will probably be the cheapest option, while the extreme low and high ends are the most expensive because of scarcity or lower production.
However, I wouldn't be so quick to call the current eMac 'outdated' compared to the rest of Apple's lineup. ... Maybe it's an indictment of the rest of Apple's non-pro lineup that the eMac could be considered to be outdated.
A few points here:
- Most of Apple's "non-pro" lineup is portable, small form factor, all-in-one, or all of the above, which puts limitations on the design that a tower chassis wouldn't have. In those circumstances, the G4 is a proven solution that consumes relatively low power and gives back more efficient performance. That being said, most of my complaint with the systems have largely been in the realm of secondary equipment - disk technology, GPUs, RAM, I/O, optical drives, and so on. The G5 platform did away with most of those, but the economy of scale has yet to show itself reversing the past trends.
- The fact that the eMac outperforms the iBook should be expected, because one is a desktop and the other a portable. The power restrictions alone are enough to provide the difference in how the chipsets behave.
- Tests at Barefests show that the eMac is competitive, but not a killer, when it comes to other G4 computers at the same or similar clockspeeds. It hangs together pretty closely with the 1.25ghz iMac on processor tasks, but even loses to the 1.2ghz iBook in some cases. The performance, as I've often alleged, needs to be looked at hollistically, not just in terms of processor.
- The eMac and iBook are right on target for their market segments, and I've demonstrated just how much the eMac beats the hell out of PC low end machines from vendors who actually make money on their computers.
What does this mean for a supposed headless box? Not a whole lot, really. It's more a commentary on your wondering whether the rest of the line should suffer some kind of heavier scrutiny.
Reasonable figures, although the PC you specified would perform significantly faster than the eMac. The Athlon 3200+ CPU and the 128MB Radeon 9600 are definitely superior performers to the 1.25GHz G4 and the 32MB Radeon 9200, respectively. Anyhow, at the $699 pricepoint you suggest, a well designed entry-level Macintosh system which they could use with the monitor they already own, would definitely make people look twice.
Well, yes, the processor is likely to be significantly better at many - though not all - tasks. The GPU was more a stab in the dark, pointing more towards what I think they ought to do with a consumer machine that doesn't have a monitor attached, and less of a comparison to the existing setup.
Fair enough. Personal preference. But if there's one thing you can count on reading in any Apple-related discussion, on just about any discussion forum, it's the 'headless iMac/eMac' discussion. There is definitely a big interest in this out there, and there has been for years. I don't think it needs to be done in a non-Apple 'cheap and nasty' kind of way. Apple has the parts it needs in its inventory now...all it needs is a slick little monitor-free case to deliver it in, and a lower-than-eMac price tag to get people saying "Damn, I didn't know you could get a Mac for that much!!"
You know what else you can count on reading in any discussion of Apple? A lot of posts by people who don't understand engineering, economics, or anything other than their own wants. I've seen countless times - all the way up into articles written by supposed IT analysts - where someone will make a ham-handed attempt to justify a decision they've already reached. It's like creationism. Make up your mind first, then try to find a way to sell it to others.
I also think that there's a significant chance that the people who have ""interest" in this are the ones who will complain no matter what Apple does. If a $600 mac were sold tomorrow, they'd be whining that it wasn't a dual 6ghz 990 with a terrabyte of disk and this magical wireless display that a lot of them also don't understand.
MontgomeryBurns said:
This is great, but this hypothetical computer won't be $699 in the eyes of most people when they end up having to buy a thousand dollar screen to even get to use the thing.
Funny, I seem to recall their being a whole
huge market of third party CRT and LCD manufacturers. I guess the only thing you can do with any Apple computer is to
only buy their products for use with them. Apple scanners, Apple printers, Apple cameras, Apple mice, Apple memory, Apple drives, Apple... Oh, wait...
Most people who champion the "headless" and "consumer" mac also think there needs to be a consumer monitor sold by Apple for less money.
mjtomlin said:
Hm. Interesting. So this works for displays that connect internally also? Or is this just for monitors that plug into the external video port on the motherboard?
What i am wondering is, since the iMac display connects internally (as we all know, there is no video cable that needs to be plugged into the back of the computer), how could you connect the display to a new video card?
There's a really easy way to do this without even necessarily needing to use any kind of special card. Have the monitor terminate in standard connection - like DVI - and then site the card on the motherboard so that it doesn't protrude to the outside. All you do is slot a card into the AGP bus and then attach the cable to the normal jack, and perhaps a molex or two to the power supply.
There's absolutely no reason I'm aware of that it shouldn't work.
Not a game player, but if I was, owning a Mac would force me to have two computers; the other being a PC so I can play the newest games.
This would be true regardless of whether the iMac had upgradable video. Why even bring it up?
oingoboingo said:
Recently, nVidia has announced plans to create a standard for notebook/compact form factor GPU daughtercards (the MXM system:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html), which will allow graphics card manufacturers to produce standardised graphics card modules for notebooks and small form factor devices, which will work in any compatible system much like an AGP graphics card does today. The MXM standard implements a PCI Express interface, so it will support newer graphics chipsets well into the future.
Actually, ATI and nVidia are at war over this, too. Both want their own standard to be the one that everyone else follows and uses, and while it's a step forward and all, it's not as great as some people seem to think. In essence, you have a powered mobile PIC-Express slot
with a proprietary connector that locks out one half of the major vendor market. It isn't really a good solution for anyone but the fat cats at either company, since any company that adopts this ridiculous position will be forcing their customers to only buy one company's cards in the future.
Wow, yeah... That's ideal.
