Why do I want to be a sucker?

[cmaier]

Yeah, right opteron. Thats complete duke. For virtualization, the reason for nehalem's existance, nothing yet compares to the new mac pro. You couldn't shown you have no idea any more than you have.

You are welcome to prove your theory with crappy opteron's. I've been down that road, long ago.

Can you be more specific? After all, we invented x86-64, beat Intel to direct interconnect and on-chip northbridge (hypertransport) by something 5 years, had a memory controller on there from the beginning, had real multicore (not gluing multiple chips together in a package) before intel, and, for a long time, dominated the benchmarks. If anything, from where I sit, Nehalem looks a heck of a lot like Intel simply copying what we did 5 years ago. What, exactly, makes opteron "crappy?"

 

[cmaier]

I think both the Mac Pro and the OP's possible setup are both great options. You make a good argument. But not everybody is a $300 dollar an hour attorney, accountant, or chip designer where their time is worth hundreds, if not thousands.

The co-founder of Sun would come into a bookstore I worked at as a student and spend a lot of time reading and chatting. His time is worth tens of thousands per hour. Dave Packard liked to tool around at Ace Hardware. Reggie Jackson volunteers his time at a one of kind hat factory in my friend's backyard in Santa Cruz, for fun, and he owns a lot of local businesses and is a very busy person.

You had to have some fun building the thing. You can't just work all the time as a chip designer and lawyer and have no hobbies. My $250 dollar an hour former lawyer, now tax accountant, likes to go out many nights and watch jazz. That takes hours and she's there all the time. She seems to be enjoying herself. I can't believe that someone with your depth of knowledge in engineering didn't have fun making the killer machine you put together.

If you are so worried about billable hours, don't build another machine, buy Mac Pros online every year or so and have somebody deliver it to you, and hire somebody to set it up, and other people to organize and clean your desk so all you have to do is get up, boot up, shut down, and then go to work. Actually there are tons of people like that in Palo Alto, Woodside, Atherton, etc.

Even at $20/hr, the time it takes to build and maintain a hackintosh adds up quickly. And while I did have fun building the thing (at least picking out the components - it wasn't much fun tracking down firmware updates trying to find a combination that would work), for a lot of people, including me, the constant tweaking that would be required to keep the hackintosh running, patched and up-to-date, etc., would not be a lot of fun. If that sort of thing was fun, I'd still be a windows guy.

I'd much rather spend my hobby time writing iPhone apps...

 

[-hh]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116378
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116493

Not quite $400, I'm fine with XP until Windows 7 is released.

If you place no value on the differentiation between the OS's, then that's your answer.

As for labor costs, this is something I would enjoy doing and I'm not too worried about parts failing considering I'm saving almost 2k.

Great! So can you please stop by my house and do 10-20 hours of yardwork this next weekend? I promise you that it will be equally 'enjoyable'.

And you can't really compare to a Ferrari, were talking electronics that run the same applications. Nothing fancy about that.

But since both a Ferrari and all the other 'mortal' automobiles drive on the same highways, and buy gas from the same gas stations...all you're really suggesting is that you can't recognize that the analogy is one of the concept of product differentiation.

The bottom line to all of this remains the same: if you do not see any product differentiation, then buy based on nothing but price.

From a caloric & neutritional standpoint, there's no difference between 8oz of sirlion steak and 8oz of hamburger. But if you're willing to pay more for the steak, it means that you're making a product differentiation based on some factor other than its neutritional content.

Just because you don't see any product differentiation doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

I'll take my 2k savings and buy a 24" Printer.

Its your choice, even though IMO, that's a sucker's purchase.

The reason why is because contemporary larger format printing ... but you know what? You're not going to bother to listen to me anyway, so go buy what you want and go believe that you're having fun. Maybe you'll figure out on your own.

Good point, the PC can run at 3.6Ghz on a bad day, 4Ghz on a good one, the Mac will always run at 2.93Ghz. Did I miss something?

Yes, you most certainly missed something here too.


My apologies for being a tad rude, but its not like this topic hasn't been covered 8 million times over the time you've been here.

-hh

 

[SnakeOiler]

Can you be more specific? After all, we invented x86-64, beat Intel to direct interconnect and on-chip northbridge (hypertransport) by something 5 years, had a memory controller on there from the beginning, had real multicore (not gluing multiple chips together in a package) before intel, and, for a long time, dominated the benchmarks. If anything, from where I sit, Nehalem looks a heck of a lot like Intel simply copying what we did 5 years ago. What, exactly, makes opteron "crappy?"

I don't really want to. Try it yourself. I will tell you that the new Mac Pro makes what I do using virtualization a dream come true. Opterons didn't do that for me.

 

[cmaier]

I don't really want to. Try it yourself. I will tell you that the new Mac Pro makes what I do using virtualization a dream come true. Opterons didn't do that for me.

In other words, you can't back up your assertion.

FWIW, I run vmware on my dual-core opteron hand-made system, built in 2006, just fine. Mind you, I'm about to order a MP '09 to replace that system (as well as to replace an athlon 64 server), so I'm not anti-mac or anything. I just object to blanket characterizations unsupported by detail or facts.

 

[63dot]

Just did a quick check to see how much those things were, and wow.

When you look at those Panasonic Toughbooks, Some Alien computers, and other boutique stuff/special interest stuff, all talk about Macs being expensive or Apple making "margin" goes out the window. Too many people know Apple and know some cheap PC box maker and make comparisons just from there.

Apple's design, apps, and operating system are worth it, that's why most of us here use Macs. There are a few places where they overcharge, but compared to Apple a few years ago and to the industry as a whole, consumers are in the driver's seat. Pull out any Macworlds or PC related magazines from the local library from five, ten years ago.

What we get with multiple processors, very large hard drives, lots of fast RAM, and OS X makes it worth it, and a bargain, if you look at the lineup from a bird's eye view. We got spoiled when we went to Intel. Macs rock these days and have price points for everybody and none of the gear they have is substandard.

 

[CaptainChunk]

Anyway, Mac Pro expensive? Somewhat. But what I consider expensive is something like the Panasonic toughbook. I have no doubt Apple could make their version of a toughbook, and cheaper than Panasonic.

Well, Toughbooks are built for very rugged environments and use mil spec case parts. They're virtually indestructible. Those parts are not cheap. They're made for a totally different market... And I don't think it's anything Apple would be interested in doing.

 

[63dot]

I don't really want to. Try it yourself. I will tell you that the new Mac Pro makes what I do using virtualization a dream come true. Opterons didn't do that for me.

You have to realize that chip technology is a very fluid situation.

Sometimes AMD is the hero (remember when they hit 1 GHz first), at other times it's Motorola (G3 killed Pentium 1 and Celeron) or Intel (Centrino and Core series).

When I had a Motorola G3 powered iBook ($1599), it killed the AMD K6-II and Intel Celeron powered notebooks by a mile. Sure, it cost a couple of hundred dollars more, but it was worth it. The same day, I also purchased the said AMD K6-II Compaq Presario, which was a couple hundred dollars cheaper, but it was nowhere in the same league. (It was computer housecleaning day). But today, AMD kills Motorola. Things change in high tech, especially when it comes to chips.

 

[63dot]

Well, Toughbooks are built for very rugged environments and use mil spec case parts. They're virtually indestructible. Those parts are not cheap. They're made for a totally different market... And I don't think it's anything Apple would be interested in doing.

Why not? People said Apple had no business making MP3 players or cell phones.

The US Army hospital system once contracted Apple for some of their machines. Dell lost out on that round. It beat out PCs running Windows NT 4.0. When I became a tech on the side, it was in Windows NT 4.0, and that operating system has the stamp of approval of the Defense Department and is deemed "DOD Level 2 Secure". More and more, Macs make their way into heavy industry, government, and small business. That being said, I know Apple will never have the visibility on military bases, libraries, universities, or corporate cubicles as a Dell, but that doesn't mean Apple is completely shut out from those markets. And I don't have any illusions of OS X overtaking Windows, but there is room in this world for both.

Since many here like cars and put out car analogies, the highways are filled with Ford F-150s, Honda Civics, and Toyota Corollas. They are great and reliable and offer value at a good price. But isn't it nice that we have the choice of more expensive, well designed cars like Range Rover, Mini Cooper, BMW, and Lexus? Apple is that higher quality market and the choice for those who want a little more. If Lexus was out there thinking they would outsell the bare bones Honda Accord and Civic, they are high on dope. But if they think they can lure a person who wants a fully loaded Honda Accord, then they are looking into the right customer. I would personally take a Mac mini for $599 with what it offers than a PC copy of a mini for $449 at Best Buy which is loaded with much more software and games (which I would likely not use anyway). What's more fun, OS X with what software I get which works well and is easy to learn, or Windows Vista with four versions of Solitaire, Quickbooks, shooter games, and alternate office apps that do the same thing as the bundled Microsoft Works Suite/or whatever they call it these days? I will take the Mac mini and OS X because it works, doesn't have tons of junky software, and will outlast the PC by 2x.

Macs aren't just for artsy rich kids or designers but that is still largely the perception of most PC users I have met who have never actually sat down to a Mac.

 

[Pika]

Well, Toughbooks are built for very rugged environments and use mil spec case parts. They're virtually indestructible. Those parts are not cheap. They're made for a totally different market... And I don't think it's anything Apple would be interested in doing.

The get a 24K gold Unibody MacBook Pro.

Or buy a OtterBox Case...

 

[cmaier]

You have to realize that chip technology is a very fluid situation.

Sometimes AMD is the hero (remember when they hit 1 GHz first), at other times it's Motorola (G3 killed Pentium 1 and Celeron) or Intel (Centrino and Core series).

When I had a Motorola G3 powered iBook ($1599), it killed the AMD K6-II and Intel Celeron powered notebooks by a mile. Sure, it cost a couple of hundred dollars more, but it was worth it. The same day, I also purchased the said AMD K6-II Compaq Presario, which was a couple hundred dollars cheaper, but it was nowhere in the same league. (It was computer housecleaning day). But today, AMD kills Motorola. Things change in high tech, especially when it comes to chips.

I worked on K6-II, too First chip I worked on at AMD, though I started toward the end of that one, and spent more time on K6-II+ and K6-III.

 

[SnakeOiler]

In other words, you can't back up your assertion.

Sure, fine wordsmith. I don't have to back up squat. Show me any opteron system capable of running 3 centos 64bit virts simultaneously under load, each using 2 cores and 4 gigs of ram. Show me an opteron system that can do this, be stable, and not burn down a building.

 

[cmaier]

Sure, fine wordsmith. I don't have to back up squat. Show me any opteron system capable of running 3 centos 64bit virts simultaneously under load, each using 2 cores and 4 gigs of ram. Show me an opteron system that can do this, be stable, and not burn down a building.

No wordsmithing. You say opteron is crappy, I ask why, and you come back with, essentially, "because I say so."

For 3 years I had a machine sitting under my desk that could handle your example (to be fair, i never tried centos, but I did try various linux distros, etc.). And the power dissipation of opteron was always lower than that of Intel - Intel just reported average PD and we reported peak. Hell, why do you think Opteron was so successful? In a server room with fixed dimensions, the limiting factor became how much electricity you could get into the room and how many pizzaboxes you could fit on the racks before having to tear out your cooling system and start over. Millions of opterons have been sold exactly because they used so much less power than did Intel's offerings.

To be fair, I haven't compared Nehalem against the latest and greatest from AMD, but if I could do what you're saying in 2006 in a machine that fit into a tower case and which had a 500W power supply, I find it unlikely that the same isn't true two years later.

 

[63dot]

I worked on K6-II, too First chip I worked on at AMD, though I started toward the end of that one, and spent more time on K6-II+ and K6-III.

Correction, I think I had the K6-II+ ... not bad in my Compaq Presario 1200 series laptop but I much preferred the G3 in the iBook. But I have to admit, I was curious about the K6-III when I heard about it.

I know this is off topic from this thread, but was it's mobile version (if they had one) the same as a mobile Pentium II or mobile G3 chip as far as performance?

If I had waited, and not bought the PC laptop the same day as the iBook, I would have bought a PC laptop with a mobile Athlon. Reviews then liked it a lot and it almost got the same kudos as the desktop Athlon. That seemed very sweet but I think it wasn't until a year later that I saw an Athlon powered laptop in a store. That was December 1999 when I got the K6-II+ Compaq laptop.

And Opteron, Xeon, Core 2 duos and extremes, aren't they all really good and able to run at very reasonable temperatures?

 

[cmaier]

Correction, I think I had the K6-II+ ... not bad in my Compaq Presario 1200 series laptop but I much preferred the G3 in the iBook. But I have to admit, I was curious about the K6-III when I heard about it.

I know this is off topic from this thread, but was it's mobile version (if they had one) the same as a mobile Pentium II or mobile G3 chip as far as performance?

If I had waited, and not bought the PC laptop the same day as the iBook, I would have bought a PC laptop with a mobile Athlon. Reviews then liked it a lot and it almost got the same kudos as the desktop Athlon. That seemed very sweet but I think it wasn't until a year later that I saw an Athlon powered laptop in a store. That was December 1999 when I got the K6-II+ Compaq laptop.

And Opteron, Xeon, Core 2 duos and extremes, aren't they all really good and able to run at very reasonable temperatures?

I'm not familiar with the mobile G3 chip, unfortunately. In fact, just before I worked at AMD I worked at Exponential, and we were doing a super-fast power sucking powerpc chip, but I kind of zoned out there somewhere after the 601's and 604's

The mobile athlon was not bad at all, and it clobbered the first iteration of celeron, but Intel got their act together pretty quickly, and athlon lagged behind for most of its life. I didn't work on athlon (we called it K7). I jumped from k6-III to K8 (athlon 64/opteron) which turned into quite an interesting experience (involving mass defections, a few project re-starts, invention of x86-64 almost on the back of a napkin when all but a handful of us had resigned, etc, complete uncertainty as to whether we'd be able to sell even a single chip since our 64-bit stuff was completely incompatible with Merced/Itanium and we had to convince Microsoft to get on board, etc.) We had fewer people working on opteron than Intel probably has working in its lunch room

 

[mscriv]

I don't think the OP's original intent was to troll, but it is funny to see that no matter how many times questions like this are asked, somewhere along the way people are going to be arguing about something, even if it doesn't relate to the original question.

The point is simple, don't waste your time with comparisons, clever analogies, or debate. The OP's question is not a valid question. I'm not a tech expert and thus I'm not talking about the computer parts. I'm talking about simple logic and economics. Regardless of the product, it is never valid to compare the price of a whole and finished consumer product to something that you are going to build on your own. If you can build/mod/assemble a product yourself then you are obviously going to be able to do it cheaper because you are cutting out the manufacturer's costs associated with the effort, time, and knowledge it takes to produce the product. And, as others have mentioned, marketing costs are also included in the price of any product.

So, the bottom line is whether you are satisfied with what you can produce on your own or if you want to buy a "finished product." If saving money is your objective and building something on your own will meet your needs then that's probably the best decision. Don't spin your wheels asking questions that don't matter. It'll save you and us a lot of time.

 

[63dot]

I'm not familiar with the mobile G3 chip, unfortunately. In fact, just before I worked at AMD I worked at Exponential, and we were doing a super-fast power sucking powerpc chip, but I kind of zoned out there somewhere after the 601's and 604's

The mobile athlon was not bad at all, and it clobbered the first iteration of celeron, but Intel got their act together pretty quickly, and athlon lagged behind for most of its life. I didn't work on athlon (we called it K7). I jumped from k6-III to K8 (athlon 64/opteron) which turned into quite an interesting experience (involving mass defections, a few project re-starts, invention of x86-64 almost on the back of a napkin when all but a handful of us had resigned, etc, complete uncertainty as to whether we'd be able to sell even a single chip since our 64-bit stuff was completely incompatible with Merced/Itanium and we had to convince Microsoft to get on board, etc.) We had fewer people working on opteron than Intel probably has working in its lunch room

I hope that AMD has a bright future.

If they do well, it certainly keeps Intel honest and affordable. If Intel was all alone, I am convinced the price of our Macs would go up and that's not a good thing. When I looked at PC laptops from Dell the Celeron chips in an Inspiron would make the machine $50 dollars more than an Inspiron running a K6 chip.

A Pentium III chip laptop was about $75 dollars more than a laptop of the same specs with a mobile Athlon (something like $1849 vs. $1775 on a Dell). The closeness in price, though Intel was a few percent higher on huge wafer purchases, still kept the more expensive Intels in check. That's why I hope AMD continues to do well. It would be nice to someday have Intel and AMD Macs as almost all the PC companies use or have used both.

 

[63dot]

I don't think the OP's original intent was to troll, but it is funny to see that no matter how many times questions like this are asked, somewhere along the way people are going to be arguing about something, even if it doesn't relate to the original question.

The point is simple, don't waste your time with comparisons, clever analogies, or debate. The OP's question is not a valid question. I'm not a tech expert and thus I'm not talking about the computer parts. I'm talking about simple logic and economics. Regardless of the product, it is never valid to compare the price of a whole and finished consumer product to something that you are going to build on your own. If you can build/mod/assemble a product yourself then you are obviously going to be able to do it cheaper because you are cutting out the manufacturer's costs associated with the effort, time, and knowledge it takes to produce the product. And, as others have mentioned, marketing costs are also included in the price of any product.

So, the bottom line is whether you are satisfied with what you can produce on your own or if you want to buy a "finished product." If saving money is your objective and building something on your own will meet your needs then that's probably the best decision. Don't spin your wheels asking questions that don't matter. It'll save you and us a lot of time.

I say get techie, even a little bit. It's good almost clean fun. Drop your girlfriend, don't go out to the movies, cancel your gym membership, drink high fructose energy drinks and potato chips, get fat, don't shower more than once a week!

This thread is fun. It is geek porn at its best.

 

[belvdr]

I don't really want to. Try it yourself. I will tell you that the new Mac Pro makes what I do using virtualization a dream come true. Opterons didn't do that for me.

Sure, fine wordsmith. I don't have to back up squat. Show me any opteron system capable of running 3 centos 64bit virts simultaneously under load, each using 2 cores and 4 gigs of ram. Show me an opteron system that can do this, be stable, and not burn down a building.

You did? Where? What reason?

 

[cmaier]

I hope that AMD has a bright future.

Given the people they have left, and given that they dumped their fabs, not too likely

 

[SnakeOiler]

You did? Where? What reason?

Try using any form of virtualization with multiple simultaneous 64-bit operating systems on any opteron system. It chokes. Wanna find out, try it for yourself. I don't really care if you believe me. I don't need to prove it. This is a mac forum. The nehalem mac i use to do this does not choke. The nehalem mac and its processors exist exactly for the type of virtualization i do. And under serious load, the host still runs laps around an opteron system.

 

[gilroykilroy]

In other words, you can't back up your assertion.

FWIW, I run vmware on my dual-core opteron hand-made system, built in 2006, just fine. Mind you, I'm about to order a MP '09 to replace that system (as well as to replace an athlon 64 server), so I'm not anti-mac or anything. I just object to blanket characterizations unsupported by detail or facts.

At work I have a 3.0Ghz 8 core Xeon w/10Gb memory. At home I have a 2.66Ghz 8 core Nehalem w/16Gb memory.

Using VMWare 2.0.2 I run Ubuntu 8.10 assigned 4 virtual processors and 5Gb of RAM on both machines.

My work Mac will do a full compile of my linux project in about 40 minutes. At home that same compile takes under 20.

I am pleased.

 

[Optimouse^^]

mscriv has a very good point- it isn't valid to compare a home-built system to a factory system. We are talking hours of labor (fun factor aside) that isn't reflected in the DIY price point. In addition, I'd like to add one aspect to the ongoing trollfest:the OP is not taking resale into account.

Macs have a much higher resale value that PCs, particularly home-built PCs. If you sell your old Mac and buy up to newer equipment, your cost of ownership is lower. Google "mac resale" and you will see some articles done buy journalists showing that Macs hold value very well. PCs do not, and they depreciate at a much quicker rate. A home built machine would most likely be parted-out, and would fetch little resale money.

I'm not against PCs, but the purchase prices isn't the only thing to be focusing on. As many have pointed out, whether it is the time and money spent configuring a Windows box, maintaining (e.g. anti-virus), added to the resale costs, the price difference over the lifetime of ownership decreases.

I don't think the OP's original intent was to troll, but it is funny to see that no matter how many times questions like this are asked, somewhere along the way people are going to be arguing about something, even if it doesn't relate to the original question.

The point is simple, don't waste your time with comparisons, clever analogies, or debate. The OP's question is not a valid question. I'm not a tech expert and thus I'm not talking about the computer parts. I'm talking about simple logic and economics. Regardless of the product, it is never valid to compare the price of a whole and finished consumer product to something that you are going to build on your own. If you can build/mod/assemble a product yourself then you are obviously going to be able to do it cheaper because you are cutting out the manufacturer's costs associated with the effort, time, and knowledge it takes to produce the product. And, as others have mentioned, marketing costs are also included in the price of any product.

So, the bottom line is whether you are satisfied with what you can produce on your own or if you want to buy a "finished product." If saving money is your objective and building something on your own will meet your needs then that's probably the best decision. Don't spin your wheels asking questions that don't matter. It'll save you and us a lot of time.

 

[cherry su]

the nehalem xeon 3xxx's sole advantage over the core i7 9xx is the support for ECC memory, iirc

 

[RebootD]

the nehalem xeon 3xxx's sole advantage over the core i7 9xx is the support for ECC memory, iirc

True, and if you don't do 3D or HD video who really needs ECC enabled Xeons or ram? I don't, that's who.