A 1GHz G4 CPU with 1MB of L3 cache is roughly the equivalent in CPU muscle as a 2.53 GHz Pentium IV. And all the new G4 towers are equipped with TWO G4 CPUs. So for $2,500, you get a dual-1GHz Mac with DVD burning capability, and with the newest 10.2 Jaguar OS, you can network directly with your old PC without having to buy any extra software. Right now, you get big discounts on MS Office for Mac and Adobe InDesign 2.0 (which costs $699) for free. That's not a bad deal at all even with this day and age of very aggressive PC pricing. I just wish the software part of the equation were a less bitter pill to swallow.

I just visited the websites of Dell, Mircon, Gateway and a couple others. To get comparable CPU muscle, DVD burning, multi-monitor capability and other things, you'll be spending over $2,000 for a single CPU Wintel PC (I couldn't find anything outside of server configurations for multiprocessor PCs on any of their websites).

Anyway, as a long time PC user, I'm fixing to buy a new Mac and start collecting software for it.

Dell Precision Workstations

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In configuring a dual Xeon system with similar appointments in hardware as the dual-G4 1GHz Mac, I was shocked at how much more expensive the systems turned out to be. A dual-P4 2.6GHz setup with 512MB of RDRAM, 80GB HDD, DVD+RW+R and WinXP Pro came in at a whopping $3880! And that is with no monitor included and the standard Quadro4 video card downgraded to an entry level 32MB RadeonVE adapter. It took dropping dual-Xeon CPU speeds to the minimum 1.8GHz spec, shrinking the RAM and the hard disc to get the price down to just under $2700.

I am surprised as well on how multiprocessing PCs have never really taken off on the Windows side, given that WindowsNT has had SMP support in it from the OS launch back in 1993. Dual processor Intel board designs have come and gone. I've got an old (and dead) SCSI PII400MHz dual system. The first Pentium Pro 200MHz Micron computer I had featured dual CPU sockets. I remember that it wasn't hard to configure a PC with four PPro CPUs back in the mid 1990s.

And the multi-threaded apps have been there for a long time. Adobe Photoshop on NT has been multiprocessor enabled since version 3.0. Other apps like Premiere, After Effects, Lightwave3D, 3D Studio Max and Wright Design have been able to take advantage of SMP.

Overall, I think Apple is making a good move with this dual-CPU redesign of their G4 towers. That's a good way to get around the misleading slower clock of their RISC CPUs.

Steve

Besides, it didn't power up. The MAC dealer said it would cost about 75 bucks to see what was wrong with it, and then it would probably be too expensive to repair. I saw another one just like it for $349.00 that was running, so that should say something.

I took the screws out of mine, and pryed it open like a clamshell, and tossed it in a trash can at a local rest area. When I drove off, I said to myself, "Now it is a GOOD Mac!"

Apple: One of my beefs with Apple's latest generation of products, especially the X-Servers, is they use IDE hard drives as a cost-savings measure. IDE drives are much less expensive than SCSI. Unfortunately the MTBF and general performance specs for IDE are also lower than SCSI. I suspect SCSI drives go through a more rigorous quality-control process than IDE drives, but that's just my theory. IMHO, real servers should have SCSI drives. Where I'm working now, in 1 year we've had 5 IDE hard drives go bad out of a total of 14. Our main server has 8 SCSI drives, and none have failed. Small sample, but consistant with my past experience...

Steve

In addition to being more reliable than IDE, SCSI is a real "win" in that it makes it very easy to connect many devices to the same SCSI controller (whereas IDE is limited to two devices per controller).

From Apple's site on older SCSI support (the card costs $25):
The Ultra SCSI PCI card lets you use older external SCSI devices such as tape drives, scanners, and hard disks with your new Power Mac G4 or Macintosh Server G4. You can connect standard SCSI (SCSI-1), Fast SCSI (SCSI-2), and Ultra SCSI (also called Ultra Narrow SCSI) peripherals to the Ultra SCSI card. With the card installed, you can also start up your computer from externally connected drives.

This economical and convenient option lets you connect up to seven SCSI devices, as long as the total cable length measures no more than 6 meters, or about 18 feet. The card supports cable lengths of 1.5 meters when running in Ultra SCSI mode or 6 meters when running in SCSI-1 or SCSI-2 mode. Ultra SCSI mode supports transfer rates of up to 20 megabytes per second (MBps). SCSI-2 mode supports up to 10MBps, and SCSI-1 supports up to 5MBps. The Ultra SCSI card includes a 25- to 50-pin cable adapter.

On SCSI Hard drives:

Ultra160 SCSI hard drives
SCSI hard drives run at up to 10,000 rpm and will read or write data at much higher speeds than ATA drives. Apple offers Ultra160 SCSI drives, which come with a dual-channel Ultra160 SCSI card installed in one of the computer's PCI slots. Ultra160 SCSI can support up to 160 megabytes of data per second. These high-storage and high-performance drives allow both desktop and server customers the ultimate flexibility in data storage all conveniently configured within your Macintosh system.
For optimal performance, connect Ultra160 SCSI devices to the preinstalled dual-channel Ultra160 SCSI card. With the dual-channel Ultra160 SCSI card, you can also connect external SCSI devices on the second SCSI bus without affecting the performance of your internally connected Ultra160 SCSI drives.

Macs don't have SCSI? Not sure where that information came from.

PS - Dynamix was also responsible for the horrible 3DO game Stellar 7. Not sure, but I think there was an even worse version for the Sega CD. The best part of both games was the music and sound effects.

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PS - Dynamix was also responsible for the horrible 3DO game Stellar 7. Not sure, but I think there was an even worse version for the Sega CD. The best part of both games was the music and sound effects.

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Couldn't tell you, never played it myself. Just as some movies turn out as crap despite the best efforts of their makers, so do some video games. Thanks for pointing that out though.