November 19, 2007, 9:45 PM
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Administrator
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Join Date: December 2002
Location: Arlington, VA
Age: 36
Posts: 5,252
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Originally Posted by Recurring Villain
I'm not disputing the quality of Apple's parts, as the parts they source are usually of a high standard.
Additionally, Mac hardware's uniformity is advantageous as the hardware is all seamlessly compatible (in most cases) with the Mac OS, hardware incompatibility is often the major cause of Windows' instability.
However purchasing a Mac with no intention of using Mac OS isn't the brightest idea, as you lose a lot if not most of the advantages of owning a Mac in the first place. In this case, it is better to source your own hardware and build your own computer, as you'll be able to build a computer with higher specs for a better price than Apple's equivalent*.
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Agreed x 3.
Originally Posted by Recurring Villain
*I just did a little research and found something interesting; My younger brother
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Holy crap, RV has a younger brother. 
Originally Posted by Recurring Villain
s' new computer has a Core 2 quad clocked at 2.6ghz, 8600GS, 4gb of DDR2 RAM. It cost $1400 AUD. The closest equivalent Quad-core Mac Pro costs (quoted directly from their site after using the configuration options) A$ 5,168.00, with only a single 7300GT. There was no option for a better graphics card (for example, a 7600GT like I have which is a mid range last-gen card. However you could double up on graphics cards, which I did not do. If I did, the price would be even higher.)
Previously I had taken your word on that research you did on comparing Mac parts to PC parts, where you said that the end result was remarkably similar. Unless Australia is being charged 4 times more for their Macs, however, I think you either need to recalculate or we must be getting hardware from completely different planets.
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Your mistake was in the customization. Apple rips you off big time if you do any of the build-to-order options -- I don't deny that. ($750 to upgrade from 2 GB of memory to 4 GB?) I was comparing their base model iMac and Mac Pro to a PC outfitted with the same parts (or as close as I could find).
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