[thechat] Mac new stuff

[Martin Burns]

On Wednesday, June 25, 2003, at 04:00  am, Lachlan Cannon wrote:

> Martin Burns wrote:
>> ...so, any non-current Mac users tempted to switch with all the stuff 
>> announced yesterday?
>
> Well, they certainly look nice. And it would be tempting to switch 
> over, if I had a spare $3000 USD ($4500 AUD) lying around....

Well if you *insist* on getting the top of the range... I think the 
problem that many people have when they're repeating this complaint is 
"Apple don't make budget machines".

Actually, they do - look at the iBook.

Perhaps it's more accurately "Apple don't make budget machines in a 
standard tower form factor" and that's because Apple's product matrix 
has the tower machines as pro machines, not consumer ones. If you're 
wanting consumer machines, then you're buying an iMac or iBook (or the 
eMac - very good value).

btw, the G5 AU pricing hasn't been announced yet, but you can get an 
eMac from under AU$1500, which will run everything else announced this 
week.

> Seriously though, reading the write-up on Wired, it seemed like 
> they're bullshiting with a lot of their stuff. If they're comparing 
> with the fastest pcs then why are they using the crappy Xeons rather 
> than the brand-new P4 3.2 GHz?

Cos P4s won't do SMP? There are benchmarks comparing with P4s too 
(3.06GHz. Don't know when the test was performed, compared to when the 
3.2s were available)

> Crappy Xeons whose arse are kicked by Opterons, which will be released 
> for consumers in the form of Athlon 64s fairly soon too.

Well, *when* they arrive... I'm not seeing any mass market names in the 
list of their Opteron workstation partners.

> Not to mention the fast Intel machines that will be out equal with / 
> shortly after these Macs.

Again, we'll wait and see.

> Still, it's nice to see Macs finally get a decent speed.

Oh yeah. Motorola have a lot to answer for.

Cheers
Martin