why are macs so damn expensive??

[Chooco]

here is an example of what i'm talking about


WHAT???!
512mb of SD ram costs $225 US dollars? how do they figure!

 

quote:512 MB PC133 SDRAM  $   175.00

that is in CANADIAN dollars which comes to about $115 US from my local computer shop which you can find here

i was doin some numbers and i found out that apple wants $2250 US DOLLARS which is about $3375 Canadian dollars for a system that has this:
933mhz G4 processor
512mb SDRAM (SDRAM is considered old school)
60GB 7200RPM ATA100 hard drive
CD-RW drive
GeForce4 MX
keyboard/mouse/speakers/ethernet and case

now if i go to my local store i can buy this sytem, Canadian dollars
Gigabyte 7VRX  Via KT333 Chipset / DDR $169.00
AMD Athlon XP 2100+  Retail Boxed   $345.00
Nvidia GeForce4 MX-440 64MB DDR / TV Out  $159.00
LG 24x10x40x CD-RW      $99.00
Maxtor 60 GB / 7200  $170.00  
512 MB PC2100 DDRAM      $172.00  
AOpen 325 PCI Network Card      $22.00
Creative Media 8738 5.1 Channel PCI Card   $50.00  
Altec Lansing AVS300 (2 way /w Sub)   $60.00
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional   $235.00 (if you use MS stuff you better do it right)
 17" Dynamic ATX Case / 300W      $90.00
Thermaltake DRAGON Orb Heatsink (AMD)   $45.00
keyboard/mouse/floppy drive $50
total: $1666


now wait a minute, why does that Apple computer cost twice as much as my AMD with a not bad OS (just admit that Win2k is pretty good) and they're about the same speed?
that is probably why Apple is major screwed....

[choasforages]

probably cause of the ppc processor in it and other stuff. go out on ebay and look up the ibm machines. dual 300mhz systems on ebay cost like 2000+. apple uses very very good hardware in there machines. thats why people like www.lowendmac.com can use such old equipment, its made to last. unlike this x86 shit im stuck with

[the_black_angel]

And how well will your x86 machine be fairing in 2 years time? i guarantee that the apple will be able to use all the new software that comes out.

i know this from experience. i have a 350mhz G4 (sawtooth) and i have not had to upgrade in all the time i have had it. And i can still go into my local mac store and buy a game (or any software) and know that it will work, can you say that with your x86 POS.

if you won't to see the specs on my machine go to http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/g4saw.shtml

(DVD-ROM, 128 MB SDRAM)

[choasforages]

and macs keep there values better and are insanly upgradable. like my powerbook 1400 from like 1996 can take a 466mhz g3. though, i can't wait till i can buy a dec alpha to replace this my x86 box

[the_black_angel]

HMmm Zif slots Im thinking of upgradeing my system to a 933 system    

Just plug it in talk about upgradability!

[cocoamix]

Go to ebay. Blue and White G3's are fetching over $500 regularly.
Something about how they retain their value so well.

And in case you didn't know, NEVER buy any components like RAM or HD upgrades from Apple. You'll get reamed on prices. AFAIK, Apple is the only place you can get NVidia cards for Macs, but you can also flash the ROM of a PC version (some, anyway) and use it in a Mac, if you have the balls to try that.

[Chooco]

fascinating. just a few questions though

-what FPS do you get in Quake3? or better yet, Half-Life (Quake3 is the standard but i own Half-Life so i would understand that better)
-can you run a web server on a Mac?
-what components do you NEED to get specialy made for a mac? i know my friend got rammed for floppy disks, he thought you need mac floppy disks to use but one day i wanted a copy of the city he made in SimCity 200 so i busted out a mac floppy and put it on there.....he was stunned that it would actually write onto it lol. it worked too   it was a Wintel computer we were using the floppies in.

[ravuya]

Apple seriously overcharges for RAM. Buy the least possible, then go out and pick up some stuff from Crucial.com.

[ravuya]

quote:Originally posted by Chooco:
[QB]fascinating. just a few questions though

-what FPS do you get in Quake3? or better yet, Half-Life (Quake3 is the standard but i own Half-Life so i would understand that better)

I get about 45 on my iMac 600. (G3)

 

quote:-can you run a web server on a Mac?

Yes, in fact Mac OS X has Apache built in. Just turn it on, and bam you're serving web pages.

 

quote:-what components do you NEED to get specialy made for a mac?

Well, other than microprocessors, I can't think of anything else. USB, IDE and FireWire have enabled Macs to use all kinds of x86 (read: cheap and flimsy) perhipherals.

[psyjax]

Web serving on a Mac is cake. If you want it simple, using OSX server is the way to go. It's pricy tho, I have seen it used and it is sooooo way easy.

But if you wanna be hardcore about it, Apache is on the system and it's Free. It is also standard so get a couple of O'Rilly books and your off.

[Lloydr]

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[TheQuirk]

I bet you don't like punctuation either, eh?

[choasmaster]

quote:

X86 running Linux is the way to go...lol l8r

ummmm, anything running x86 IS NOT the way to go. come on,
altivec or 64 bit extensions

which would make more sense.
now maybe a 64bit x86 chip with an altivec. x86 should have been put down years ago like the m68k was.

owell, linux does make the x86 suck less

[TheQuirk]

I'm pretty sure everyone (techie) knows that the x86 architecture is horrible. But it's the cheapest, too. And don't tell me "but the G4 lasts longer" because I already know that. But Joe Average doesn't :-p

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: TheQuirk ]

[Lloydr]

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