Uplink now available via Steam

[Stewsburntmonkey]

Here-in lies one of the oddest double-standards in the world. MS is not allowed to bundle a media player, web browser, etc else we slap it with a monopoly. Yet Apple can bundle in all the iNamedApps they can think of without incurring any legal problems. I'm very sure that if MS didn't get a lawsuit about its bundled apps, then you would get a lot more in a default install.

There are a several major differences. The major one is that Apple doesn't give any real preference to it's own applications over other applications. Apple makes system resources equally available to all programs. It was because Microsoft was giving preference to its own programs over 3rd party programs that it got in trouble.

[ShepFan]

I should probably keep my mouth shut, but there are too many things that need a reply here:

* I'm not familiar with the specs of, for example, the mobo & RAM, so I'll assume they're the same as the Mac Pro (1.33GHz dual indendendent FSBs, fully-buffered ECC DIMMs, & so on).

I highly doubt that the Mac Pro uses a SMC mobo. It's actually going to be more expensive than the one in the Mac Pro (although if anyone can tell me exact part numbers, we can go looking!). The RAM the Mac Pro uses is strange. 667MHz FB-DDR2. Why not DDR2-800? Strikes me as the oddest thing

667 is 50% of the 1.33GHz FSB. The highest-techest meaning of SMC I know or could find is Surface Mount Components. You can see them on a Mac Pro mobo in this 3rd party takeapart.

* Joe Average has to buy all the pieces when he builds his first machine. Comparing apples to Apples, you should include the cost of the OS.

Generally we were talking about updating, but do not forget that Apple can charge the user an OEM price, of which the OEM price for XP is something around £80. Granted, not cheap, but at least we do not have to pay for service packs

I thought we were talking about comparing the price of a new Mac and a homebuilt Windows PC. If one leaves out pieces of the PC, the comparison is unfairly skewed. If you have to pay retail for XP, that's one of the costs of "rolling your own." Also, most recent versions of OS X have been feature- or bug-updated 7 to 9 times, all for free. That doesn't include security updates, also free. Mac users don't pay for that.

* Linux, XP, or OS X, you still have to include the cost of the applications, or the hardware is merely a nice doorstop. It is a big reason to buy a name-brand box, especially a Mac-- you get an integrated system, software and hardware, that does more than most buyers realize, right out of the box. For instance, ou mentioned you do video editing and game programming. All Macs come with that software, plus DVD authoring, and really a pile of integrated software (you can easily incorportate your music or photo library right into your movies & DVD menus without fuss) that do make the machine very useful and add a lot of value, but that home-builders seem to discount. But it does cost money--Visual Studio is $299 or £158, and XCode is included on every Mac. Honestly, it is quite a nice product.

Here-in lies one of the oddest double-standards in the world. MS is not allowed to bundle a media player, web browser, etc else we slap it with a monopoly. Yet Apple can bundle in all the iNamedApps they can think of without incurring any legal problems. I'm very sure that if MS didn't get a lawsuit about its bundled apps, then you would get a lot more in a default install.

It's two different scenarios. Microsoft prevented other PC manufacturers from bundling any competing 3rd party apps like Netscape, AOL, open-source or commercial Office alternatives, etc., under threat of higher licensing fees or cancelling their license. They lied to the court that IE couldn't be removed from the OS install, to try and monopolize the browser market. They were caught showing a doctored video to the court. What were they thinking? Courts found ample evidence MS was using their single-source status to unfairly compete with other software companies. If Apple were similarly licensing their OS to OEMs, and threatened to put them out of business if they wanted to bundle competing software, they would be using unfair business practices as well.

If I understand the current settlement, Dell, Gateway et al. can now bundle anything they want. Nothing's stopping them. Legally, anyway.

* I think "being at int" means you're a student. This saves you some money on Visual Studio for your PC, but it also saves you £127 (VAT included) on your Mac Pro, due to the student discount.

It saved me somewhere in the reigon of £1,300 because I got this machine, and all software, free

Cool!

Um, what's with all the tongue sticking-out?

* A tangential benefit: When I'm done with my Mac and I upgrade, I have an older, fully functional computer with all-legal software I can recoup some costs on. Home-builders (correct me if I'm wrong) have old chips, maybe mobos, optical drives, etc--my sense is there's less value to recover there.

They can still use the machines or give them to other famaly. My current machine will probibally end up being a render workhorse if I get a new computer soon.

But, you wrote:

XP Home - I'm not going to include the price of this for two reasons. One, when windows users update their machines, they reuse their copy of windows (after all, it is still only being used on one machine), and two, I can just grab a linux distro and run that, which is free.

And here:

I mentioned those lacking items in my post; I've already got them and there's no point buying new ones... Do not forget that ATX means that you'll be able to keep your case between each build, unlike a Mac. I've got a case that cost me £110, there's no way in hell would I get a new case with a new build.

So, I'm getting some mixed messages here.

Finally, I think you must admit that the Mac is pretty darn competitive on price, even ignoring the value in the packaged software.

The can be because they buy in bulk. Lets not forget that they won't be paying some £500 for each CPU. God no, I would say that they could pick them up for abotu £300 each. Looking at the spec, Apple can make quite a profit due to the gap of production cost to selling cost.

I agree about buying in bulk, of course, though I don't understand why Dell is priced ~$900 higher. What's news to me is that home-built machines don't have a clear price advantage any more.

And even more finally than that, thanks for your civility. The Windows/Mac debate has gotten turned on its head with the conversion of Macs to Intel chips, so here we all are again stirring up old passions and well-entrenched opinions, with all the selective perception that goes with it. I own and work with both, so I'm not as partisan as I sound. But I really feel the need to get the story straight when the public is told something like (not quoting anyone in particular), "Get/Build a XXX, you'll save £500/$940!" I figure if Dell, with their volume buying is ~ $900 more expensive than an equivalent Mac Pro, it's got to be tough for a home builder to do it without skimping somewhere. Anyway, I apologize if I came across as personally critical to you. That was never my intent, only to keep the debate balanced and fair. I know I owe trickfred an apology too--that one comes next.

Don't worry. I'm always civil. If I say something, then I try back it up with hard fact. In this case I do give credit to Apple for making something well-priced, but I still managed to save £32 on the base specification

Not once you include the price of XP.

However, here's my main kicker. While the Mac Pro is nice, it has a silly spec that means it's unbalanced. Bascially, the RAM and GPU let down some god-like CPU's. As I noted, one could just drop back to a dual-core duo, up the RAM and graphics card, add more HD's and walk away laughing. While it might not have as much CPU grunt than dual-woodcrest's, it would make up for it with a more-rounded system, so it wouldn't stutter and die in something like Oblivion, and could fly through more RAM intensive operations, like level loading, etc. If I had two suggestions to Apple, they would be to aim for a better GPU, and get better RAM. DDR2-800 should be used with woodcrest, not silly 667's. One should also get something more than a 7300 GT in a system that is a pound short of £1,700.

<snip>

NeoThermic

I think the default config is fine for most folks, but not hardcore gamers or folks doing 3D-intensive stuff. The Mac Pro introduces multi-threaded OpenGL, which should help some. Still, gamers push hardware to the max. In a break from the past, Apple has only one stock pro-level Mac instead of 3. They seem to be switching to a web-based, build-to-order approach, and there are over 4 million possible configurations for the Mac Pro. A serious gamer would obviously want to upgrade to the ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB. A rich gamer could go for the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D!

I have the Mac Pro's daddy, the PowerMac 2.5GHz Quad, which also has a middle-of-the-road graphics card. Even so, people have been surprised how good the FPS rate is. (However, the normally-silent Mac gets all nine speed-controlled fans pretty much maxed out and noisy when playing Darwinia!)

Still, I can understand why folks who build their own wouldn't like being able to, as you say, switch to a single Core 2 Duo, put the money they saved into a better graphics card, and in general have more control over the tradeoffs.

-ShepFan

[petteyg359]

edit to be blank since I can't delete it

[NeoThermic]

* I'm not familiar with the specs of, for example, the mobo & RAM, so I'll assume they're the same as the Mac Pro (1.33GHz dual indendendent FSBs, fully-buffered ECC DIMMs, & so on).

I highly doubt that the Mac Pro uses a SMC mobo. It's actually going to be more expensive than the one in the Mac Pro (although if anyone can tell me exact part numbers, we can go looking!). The RAM the Mac Pro uses is strange. 667MHz FB-DDR2. Why not DDR2-800? Strikes me as the oddest thing

667 is 50% of the 1.33GHz FSB. The highest-techest meaning of SMC I know or could find is Surface Mount Components. You can see them on a Mac Pro mobo in this 3rd party takeapart.

SMC = Supermicro Computers. They mainly make server motherboards (hence why the motherboard listed is a E-ATX). If you know exactly what motherboard the Mac Pro uses, we can grab a better price comparison. I only chose the SMC board because I had about 400 spare after getting the base spec.

The point I've got about DDR2-800 is that you could either run it at a lower T-rate at 667, or you could overclock the Xeon's to match the DDR2-800's speed for a "free" performance boost.

EDIT: I just did a second check of the DDR2-800 FB-DIMM's I looked at, and I noted that they are listed as future products (i.e. they won't be out in 2006), and thus Apple has done it right by using DDR2-667 FB-DIMM's. You can safley ignore my gripe with the RAM now

Here-in lies one of the oddest double-standards in the world. MS is not allowed to bundle a media player, web browser, etc else we slap it with a monopoly. Yet Apple can bundle in all the iNamedApps they can think of without incurring any legal problems. I'm very sure that if MS didn't get a lawsuit about its bundled apps, then you would get a lot more in a default install.

It's two different scenarios. Microsoft prevented other PC manufacturers from bundling any competing 3rd party apps like Netscape, AOL, open-source or commercial Office alternatives, etc., under threat of higher licensing fees or cancelling their license. They lied to the court that IE couldn't be removed from the OS install, to try and monopolize the browser market. They were caught showing a doctored video to the court. What were they thinking? Courts found ample evidence MS was using their single-source status to unfairly compete with other software companies. If Apple were similarly licensing their OS to OEMs, and threatened to put them out of business if they wanted to bundle competing software, they would be using unfair business practices as well.

I'm not sure you understand how intergrated IE is to the XP kernel, sadly. Bascially, I can be using any explorer window (note, not Internet Explorer!), and rather than typing in a local directory name, I can type in a URL, and boom, I'm on the web. If I remove IE from XP, XP will basically stop working (all folders have metadata that is basically HTML, and thus XP uses IE's dll's to render it). They are not lying there. I'm not sure where you source the thing about a doctored video, so lease indicate that one for me. As for the last comment, Apple don't licence out their OS to OEM's. You can say the 'if' all you like, but it doesn't fly when Apple won't let it happen. The second they do allow OEM's to bundle OS[X|XI|XII|whatever], I'm sure Apple could land in a lawsuit. Could that be a reason why they don't licence it out?

* A tangential benefit: When I'm done with my Mac and I upgrade, I have an older, fully functional computer with all-legal software I can recoup some costs on. Home-builders (correct me if I'm wrong) have old chips, maybe mobos, optical drives, etc--my sense is there's less value to recover there.

They can still use the machines or give them to other famaly. My current machine will probibally end up being a render workhorse if I get a new computer soon.

But, you wrote:

XP Home - I'm not going to include the price of this for two reasons. One, when windows users update their machines, they reuse their copy of windows (after all, it is still only being used on one machine), and two, I can just grab a linux distro and run that, which is free.

And here:

I mentioned those lacking items in my post; I've already got them and there's no point buying new ones... Do not forget that ATX means that you'll be able to keep your case between each build, unlike a Mac. I've got a case that cost me £110, there's no way in hell would I get a new case with a new build.

So, I'm getting some mixed messages here.

Exactly what mixed messages are you getting?

Finally, I think you must admit that the Mac is pretty darn competitive on price, even ignoring the value in the packaged software.

The can be because they buy in bulk. Lets not forget that they won't be paying some £500 for each CPU. God no, I would say that they could pick them up for abotu £300 each. Looking at the spec, Apple can make quite a profit due to the gap of production cost to selling cost.

I agree about buying in bulk, of course, though I don't understand why Dell is priced ~$900 higher. What's news to me is that home-built machines don't have a clear price advantage any more.

My only thought to the Dell price is either it wasn't an exact duplicate spec, or Dell has passed on the licence cost of the software on to the end user. Either way, I wouldn't buy from Dell

And even more finally than that, thanks for your civility. The Windows/Mac debate has gotten turned on its head with the conversion of Macs to Intel chips, so here we all are again stirring up old passions and well-entrenched opinions, with all the selective perception that goes with it. I own and work with both, so I'm not as partisan as I sound. But I really feel the need to get the story straight when the public is told something like (not quoting anyone in particular), "Get/Build a XXX, you'll save £500/$940!" I figure if Dell, with their volume buying is ~ $900 more expensive than an equivalent Mac Pro, it's got to be tough for a home builder to do it without skimping somewhere. Anyway, I apologize if I came across as personally critical to you. That was never my intent, only to keep the debate balanced and fair. I know I owe trickfred an apology too--that one comes next.

Don't worry. I'm always civil. If I say something, then I try back it up with hard fact. In this case I do give credit to Apple for making something well-priced, but I still managed to save £32 on the base specification

Not once you include the price of XP.

If we include XP, I'll change the motherboard for a cheaper version and still come in cheaper than the Mac Pro.

I think the default config is fine for most folks, but not hardcore gamers or folks doing 3D-intensive stuff. The Mac Pro introduces multi-threaded OpenGL, which should help some. Still, gamers push hardware to the max. In a break from the past, Apple has only one stock pro-level Mac instead of 3. They seem to be switching to a web-based, build-to-order approach, and there are over 4 million possible configurations for the Mac Pro. A serious gamer would obviously want to upgrade to the ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB. A rich gamer could go for the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D!

Isn't it overkill though for those not doing gaming or 3D stuff? Do you really need a quad-core machine to use the internet and do the basic stuff on a Mac? This is why I find the spec of a Mac Pro odd. It's stuck halfway between being a decent high-end all-round machine and a low-end basic use-all-the-time machine.

Still, I can understand why folks who build their own wouldn't like being able to, as you say, switch to a single Core 2 Duo, put the money they saved into a better graphics card, and in general have more control over the tradeoffs.

The last and major advantage to a self-build is that you feel less compelled to keep it as-is. For example you should see some of the things people do to the cheap cases they buy because they know that if it goes wrong, they can just go to their supplier and get another one. I don't see Apple selling the Mac Pro cases empty

NeoThermic

[Stewsburntmonkey]

Isn't it overkill though for those not doing gaming or 3D stuff? Do you really need a quad-core machine to use the internet and do the basic stuff on a Mac? This is why I find the spec of a Mac Pro odd. It's stuck halfway between being a decent high-end all-round machine and a low-end basic use-all-the-time machine.

The Mac Pro is designed to be a real workstation. The specs bear that out. If your concern is the lower end graphic cards, you should keep in mind a lot of Mac Pro buyers are going to be using it for non-graphics heavy applications (scientific computing, sound editing, software development, etc). Allowing these users to save some money by not having to buy a high end graphics card they don't need seems to make a lot of sense. All the other specs are definitely workstation worthy.


As for the motherboard, it is customed design as far as I know, but it uses the Intel 5000X chipset (as does the SMC Motherboard you speced). Article on Apple motherboard/chipset.

[NeoThermic]

As for the motherboard, it is customed design as far as I know, but it uses the Intel 5000X chipset (as does the SMC Motherboard you speced). Article on Apple motherboard/chipset.

Not trying to split hairs or anything, but why does the Mac Pro only allow 16GB of RAM, while the SMC board I linked to allows 32?

The link was intresting though, although they are the same chipset, they are certinally not the same board

NeoThermic

[Stewsburntmonkey]

Not trying to split hairs or anything, but why does the Mac Pro only allow 16GB of RAM, while the SMC board I linked to allows 32?

The link was intresting though, although they are the same chipset, they are certinally not the same board

NeoThermic

I believe Apple can't deliver the 4GB sticks yet that would be needed to get the 32GBs. The XServe, which ships later this Fall, says it supports the 32GBs (and uses similar architecture), so I would imagine once the RAM becomes readily available they will update the stated specs for the Mac Pro.

The two boards are clearly not the same, but they are fairly comparable for our purposes.

[The GoldFish]

Why *are* we investing so *so* heavily in CPU power while cutting our hands and feet off with mediocre hard drives, ram and graphics, anyway?

Anyway isn't this a long dead issue that everyone already knows the answer too anyway?

Normal home users should all get middle of the road AMD machines and use friendly linux distros that include all the basic applications they need.

People who want to have some control of their computers should hand make them from the bottom up, choosing the components, osses and applications that best fit their needs. Vital for creativity in computing!
(My main computer is metallic purple, has over 30 fans, and is nice and quiet, and I'm currently making boxbox2 which will be my spare computer, containing normal computer components in a teeny weeny case of my own construction ^_^)

People who want to use their computers to actually accomplish something should buy Macs, especially if they want to rely on their computer (and I mean *really* rely) - they're great for creativity in non computer related areas (business, movies, graphics, all that jazz)

Price wise? The range is too broad to make a generalisation. You can save money hand making, and you can make a killing getting a good deal from a company, and some people are happy to spend money to get someone else to do the work for them, for a fair price.

No one, anywhere, should buy a Dell.
Or a laptop unless they're going to actually use it...

[ShepFan]

As for the motherboard, it is customed design as far as I know, but it uses the Intel 5000X chipset (as does the SMC Motherboard you speced). Article on Apple motherboard/chipset.

Not trying to split hairs or anything, but why does the Mac Pro only allow 16GB of RAM, while the SMC board I linked to allows 32?

The link was intresting though, although they are the same chipset, they are certinally not the same board

NeoThermic

I read here:

...(And as a side note, the Mac Pro’s logic board supposedly—unofficially—supports 32GB of RAM right now, and it’s possible the system will support 64GB once Leopard, a 64-bit OS, is released.) In case you’re curious, the cost to equip the 64-bit Dell 690 with 64GB of RAM is a paltry $49,500—just for the RAM."

FWIW, Apple always does that-if the RAM isn't yet available when the computer ships, the official specs never claim compatibility. The majority of Macs have supported the next-larger size of RAM SIMMs/DIMMs/SO-DIMMS/etc once they were available.

-ShepFan

[ShepFan]

NeoThermic,

I think I've said all I can to respond to almost all of your points. If you're interested, read my last reply again--it's all there. Just a few new items:

I'm not sure you understand how intergrated IE is to the XP kernel, sadly. Bascially, I can be using any explorer window (note, not Internet Explorer!), and rather than typing in a local directory name, I can type in a URL, and boom, I'm on the web. If I remove IE from XP, XP will basically stop working

Microsoft made the same claim in court. They were easily proved wrong, and court-ordered to keep them separate. This is from one of the court decisions:

This Court concludes that Microsoft's decision to offer only the bundled - "integrated" - version of Windows and Internet Explorer derived not from technical necessity or business efficiencies; rather, it was the result of a deliberate and purposeful choice to quell incipient competition before it reached truly minatory proportions.

I'm not sure where you source the thing about a doctored video, so lease indicate that one for me.

Here's one.
Here's another from salon.com.
Here's another from CNN. This last one also lists the steps in removing IE from Windows 98, which was current during the court case, and which MS claimed in court was impossible. The video was intended to document their claim, but it backfired.

-ShepFan

[NeoThermic]

Microsoft made the same claim in court. They were easily proved wrong, and court-ordered to keep them separate. This is from one of the court decisions:

This Court concludes that Microsoft's decision to offer only the bundled - "integrated" - version of Windows and Internet Explorer derived not from technical necessity or business efficiencies; rather, it was the result of a deliberate and purposeful choice to quell incipient competition before it reached truly minatory proportions.

Granted, the court ruled this. However, read on...

Code: Select all

[url=http://www.msboycott.com/news/99_02_08.shtml]Here's one.[/url]

Not a reputable source, just looking at the URL is telling me that it will say *anything* it wants to put its point across.

Here's another from salon.com.

All I see here is conjecture that they did what is described in this person's blog. I see no links to any other source that verifies his claims.

Here's another from CNN. This last one also lists the steps in removing IE from Windows 98, which was current during the court case, and which MS claimed in court was impossible. The video was intended to document their claim, but it backfired.

The instructions here make me laugh. What you're basically doing is rolling back Windows98 versions of your files to Windows 95. Note that it also asks you to remove all .htt files. This is my point, you can't remove IE from Windows 98. The link there bascially tells you to roll back to Windows 95.

I'm not trying to support MS, yes they lost an anti-monoply case, but the evidence you've provided for your claims, bar the dcd.uscourts.gov link, is insufficent to make me belive that IE can be removed from Windows 98, and that MS tried to show a video lying about this. I also find no mention of a video in the court ruling you linked.

NeoThermic

[Stewsburntmonkey]

I'm not trying to support MS, yes they lost an anti-monoply case, but the evidence you've provided for your claims, bar the dcd.uscourts.gov link, is insufficent to make me belive that IE can be removed from Windows 98, and that MS tried to show a video lying about this. I also find no mention of a video in the court ruling you linked.

NeoThermic

As a programmer you must however understand that Windows could still use IE's functionality in Explorer without forcing IE on people for internet browsing. Basically all you would need to do would be to disable the ablility to type urls into the address bar of Explorer and make a few other similarly minor changes. To remove IE you would simply need to remove the ability to launch the IE browser explicitly. You could retain all the IE bits that are hooked into Explorer and such (you just would need to remove any use of the IE code as a true web browser).

[NeoThermic]

I'm not trying to support MS, yes they lost an anti-monoply case, but the evidence you've provided for your claims, bar the dcd.uscourts.gov link, is insufficent to make me belive that IE can be removed from Windows 98, and that MS tried to show a video lying about this. I also find no mention of a video in the court ruling you linked.

NeoThermic

As a programmer you must however understand that Windows could still use IE's functionality in Explorer without forcing IE on people for internet browsing. Basically all you would need to do would be to disable the ablility to type urls into the address bar of Explorer and make a few other similarly minor changes. To remove IE you would simply need to remove the ability to launch the IE browser explicitly. You could retain all the IE bits that are hooked into Explorer and such (you just would need to remove any use of the IE code as a true web browser).

There is, however, two problems with this. The first is usability. You'll be surprised how many people type URL's into anything, be it IE or explorer. Removing that function from the latter will only confuse people. The second is a bit more general, but how do you get someone to realise that, say, 'Firefox' actually goes on the internet? If you didn't include IE and no other browser, it would be a bit difficult for anyone to resolve the situation.

Of course, MS has compiled with the rulings of that case. OEM's can now include what they want (which sometimes is horrible crap), and you can now explicitly disable IE from being used, but the underlying code of IE is always there, and until Windows update works in a non-IE browser, it will still be needed to operate a windows system for a while. (However, recent info might make that a possiblity in Vista).

NeoThermic

[xander]

There is, however, two problems with this. The first is usability. You'll be surprised how many people type URL's into anything, be it IE or explorer. Removing that function from the latter will only confuse people. The second is a bit more general, but how do you get someone to realise that, say, 'Firefox' actually goes on the internet? If you didn't include IE and no other browser, it would be a bit difficult for anyone to resolve the situation. :P

You have perfectly explained how it is that MS leveraged their monopoly position. In 1998, people knew what Netscape was. MS more or less killed it, and now people don't understand what teh internets are, because all they have seen for the last 7 years is IE. The reason that removing that functionality from the Windows Explorer would confuse people is that MS basically drove everyone out.

xander

[NeoThermic]

There is, however, two problems with this. The first is usability. You'll be surprised how many people type URL's into anything, be it IE or explorer. Removing that function from the latter will only confuse people. The second is a bit more general, but how do you get someone to realise that, say, 'Firefox' actually goes on the internet? If you didn't include IE and no other browser, it would be a bit difficult for anyone to resolve the situation.

You have perfectly explained how it is that MS leveraged their monopoly position. In 1998, people knew what Netscape was. MS more or less killed it, and now people don't understand what teh internets are, because all they have seen for the last 7 years is IE. The reason that removing that functionality from the Windows Explorer would confuse people is that MS basically drove everyone out.

xander

Of course, I agree with this. I'm not denying the lost their anti-monopoly case, used it to pressure NS out (hell, MS asked NS not to make a 32bit version of NS), etc. However, due to the fact that no one else stepped up to the plate, MS could run away with the browser market. There was not a single browser that could challenge IE until late 2001 with Pheonix. By then IE had what, 90% or more? I'm just glad that the statistics for these forums show a 50% FF usage, and only ~40% IE usage.

NeoThermic