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Mac Mall Apple G3 |
PC - Bloated to Have All the Garbage a G3 Has |
PC - Best Practical Match (For a standard user) |
iMac ™ |
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CPU |
G3 400, 1/2SP 1MB L2 Cache |
XEON 400 1MEG |
1395 |
P2 400, 1/2SP .5MB |
180 |
G3 333, 1/2SP .5MB |
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Memory |
256MB SDRAM PC100 |
256MB SDRAM PC133 |
170 |
256MB SDRAM PC133 |
170 |
64MB SDRAM 66MHz |
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Mainboard |
4 DIMM, 3 64b PCI, 1 32b PCI |
Dual Xeon 4DIMM, 4PCI 32b 3ISA 1 AGP, 3940U2 |
450 |
Abit BH6, 4DIMM, 5PCI, 2ISA, 1AGP, |
85 |
2 DIMM, That's it. |
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Case |
1 5.25, 2 3.5 Bays |
Mid tower |
50 |
Mid tower |
50 |
Seafoam Blue Fishtank ™ |
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Video |
16MB ATI Rage 128 |
16MB ATI Rage 128 |
85 |
16MB ATI Rage 128 |
85 |
6MB ATI Rage Pro |
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Drive Controller |
Adaptec 2940U2 SCSI |
Built in 2940U2 |
Built in IDE |
Built in IDE |
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HDD |
IBM 9 GIG 7200 U2 |
IBM 9 GIG 7200 U2 |
285 |
IBM 7200RPM 10GB IDE |
180 |
6GB IDE drive |
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CD-Rom |
24x SCSI cd-rom |
24x SCSI CD-Rom |
50 |
40x IDE CD-Rom |
50 |
24x CD-Rom |
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NIC |
10/100 Ethernet |
10/100 Ethernet |
25 |
10/100 Ethernet |
25 |
10/100 Ethernet |
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AUDIO |
Crap Audio ™ |
Yamaha X-Wave |
15 |
Yamaha X-Wave |
15 |
Crap Audio™ |
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Removable |
ZIP |
Floppy |
15 |
Floppy |
15 |
None |
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Other |
85 |
Windows 98 or NT 4.0 |
85 |
Built in 15" monitor |
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235 |
Dual Fan Heatsink |
15 |
v.90 modem |
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60 |
Zip |
60 |
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Total |
3000 |
Total |
2920 |
Total |
1015 |
Total |
1194 |
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All PC prices are from Pricewatch. All prices have been rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5 |
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Notes:
G3: this is from Mac Mall with a dumb ass, LIMITED mail in rebate that you CANNOT use over the phone. This rebate is for a $280 128 meg DIMM and a $120 Zip, take total with salt. Estimated total with out rebate, $3400.
Bloated PC: How is this machine superior to its Apple counterpart? The Xeon listed above is the P2 version with 1MB of full speed cache, the G3 has 1MB of Half Speed cache (meaning half the speed of the processor). While the G3 has a socket to upgrade the CPU, the Xeon allows for the addition of another CPU, and each slot can accommodate a CPU with 4MB of cache ram. On top of that, the ram we are using is 7ns (effectively 133MHz), the motherboard has far more expansion and AGP is very important for 3D applications and games. On top of that, Mac OS 8 does not have "Preemptive Multitasking," "Protected Memory," or "Multiprocessor support." Unfortunately, the only Xeon board I could find on Pricewatch was a dual board; this bloated the price an extra 200 bucks. All the excess crap (like Firewire) support was only for the sake of argument and 99.9% of the computer users out there wouldn't use it. On top of that, the G3 doesn't come with software that supports Firewire (Maximum PC review) making its presence on the G3 almost vestigial.
Practical Match: This PC Is that which best matches that which the average user would use from the G3. The processor has been downgraded from the Xeon to a standard P2, SCSI was replaced with IDE because SCSI with 3 devices is a waste of hardware. Cd-Rom and hard drive were actually upgraded. Still, AGP and expandability are still far better than what the Mac has to offer. The mainboard is one of my person favorites, with a whopping 5 PCI and lots of Features for the overclocker in all of us!
iMac: IMHO, the iMac is THE WORST COMPUTER EVER!!!! Everything about it is total garbage; It is slow, it is weak it is low in resources, and it is as expandable as Axle Rose's leather chaps. This piece of garbage is a trap for the consumer, you either live with it forever in its pathetic state, or you buy a new one a year down the line. Even with its built in monitor, it is less of a bargain than the somewhat beefy $1000 PC above.
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3 Grand Shopping Spree!!! |
If I had 3G's to blow on one box NOT including a monitor, keyboard, etc, what would I buy? Now that PC's are mainstream and even Microsoft has competition, $3000 is a lot of money for just a box. I would never justify using such a high dollar amount on a machine no matter how badly I wanted it, unless I needed it for work or something. But forget that, onward into my 3K Virtual Spending spree.
To start of, we need to blow a lot of money on a motherboard. For this I choose the Supermicro P6DGU. This board is similar to the board that I used in the $2920 comparative model up above. It is built around the Intel XEON GX chipset, but for the Pentium II and III processors. It has a built in 3940UW, supporting up to 24 SCSI devices! (3 plugs, 8 devices a piece, dual SCSI bus) While I will never use 32 devices, if some day I wanted fault tolerance via a mirror of 2 disks, I can put one two matching drives, each on their own SCSI bus, to protect against damage caused by an errant SCSI bus. (to me this is more important than getting the faster Ultra2 SCSI version) Another feature of this motherboard is that, because it is using the GX chipset, it can address 4GB of memory, (1GB SDRAM, 4GB EDO) I have 3 grand to blow, I'm going to load it with all the ram it can handle. The most important feature of this board is that it is a dual processor motherboard, I am Bill Gate's whore, I love Windows NT, I might as well take advantage of NT's SMP capabilities. Finally, this board has 4 PCI slots, 3 ISA slots, and 1 AGP slot. I will try my best to fill them all before I am done. This board weighs in at $370, $2630 to go.
Next, I'm going to load this machine down with processors. As much as I am tempted, I am not going to do the "Dual Celeron" trick, I must spend the money! I am still thrifty and choose to buy 2 Pentium III 450's. I could go faster, but at $450 the 500MHz Pentium III isn't $200 better a processor than a 450 at $250. So, at a cool $500, I have 2 Pentium III processors, and I'm now down to $2130.
With the size of the P6DGS and the 2 P3 processors, I am going to need a case large enough to fit the footprint. I just so happen to know where I can get such a case,
Now all I need to at least see that everything is working is a video card. The hot, new Riva TNT2 Ultra is blazing fast! Because Creative Labs is kicking down some cool little goodies for their customers (unified drivers and stencil shadows in unreal) I can't loose by kicking down an $190 to them instead of their competitors. WOW, all of one APG slot, figuring out where to stick it is going to hard. Trial and error leads me to discover that it only fits in the brown slot. A job well done, and with $1807, I can turn my computer on and
<BEEP BEEP BEPP>OOPS!!! Left out memory. Let's see, I've got 4 DIMM slots, and a GX chipset, I could totally fill this thing with RAM, but I'm not going to. I think that 256MB, though very modest, should do fine until I get 3 more G's to burn. Even though the 256MB PC100 7ns SDRAM is more expensive per meg than 128MB SDRAM, I'm going to buy it anyway; I can support up to a Gig of SDRAM, I might as well plan for it. $227 a stick, (just to get rid of that ugly 7) I'm at $1580. There!!! 2 processors, 450 a piece, 262144k of ram, turn Num Lock off in the bios, looking sharp!
Now I need removable media so I can install stuff right off the bat. Floppy, the most important part of the machine, is going to run a bank breaking 15 bucks, oooh that 3G's is just going so fast, now I know why Apple skimped on these things! Maybe getting phat CD devices will take my mind off the pain. When it comes to CD's, there is one name I turn to
, Plextor! Yeah, I don't need more than a 12x CD-Rom, but with a complimentary CD-Ripper/Disk-Duplication application, the combo of a Plextor Reader and writer is UNBEATABLE. I'm partial to caddy, so the Plextor 14/32x reader with 512k cache will run me $150, and the 4/12 Plextor burner will run me $230. Make sure to turn off the ability to for these devices to disconnect in the SCSI bios or you will have an annoying problem with reading large files. With the floppy, a CD-Rom and a CD-R, I am left with $1185.Look at all those greenbacks just waiting to be spent!!! Press on to storage. Now, this is a very important part of the process to me. I like NT, I hate partitions, I LOVE speed, what would be the best scenario as far as hard drives? I have the capability to use 24 SCSI devices (all on 1 IRQ I might add) I am not going to be conservative! First drive, boot drive, I may install 98 on it, since I want NT, it'll need to be FAT16, that means I can only address up to 4GB and each partition can only be 2GB. I'll take a Seagate 4GB drive, looks like there's one on Pricewatch, better get it before it's gone, $185 and it's mine. Partition that puppy in half, format, and install good old DOS 6.22. Now, I like to keep my programs, games, and OS away from my swap file, my documents, my MP3's, and my Porn, so I'm going to get 2 IBM 9GB 7200 9ms jobbers, $285 a piece. Format them both at 9GB, <
+> install NT on the first one and set a 1GB Pagefile on the second. I could wait until I had all my hardware installed before I get to this point, but it is good to install NT first. In doing so, I can install the Service Pack and make a hardware profile of my system before I throw drivers in to the mix. This gives me something to fall back on if a new piece of hardware (like a Sound Blaster Live) makes my computer unusable. This is done by right clicking on "my computer," going to properties, performance, and hardware profiles. This is safe, and safe is good.After the drives are installed and NT loaded, I am down to $345; man is that number getting small! This leaves room for everything else. I am going to stick with my trusty SB32 for now, NT and sound cards can be hell, SB32 works. Add a NIC, a Voodoo2 or two, pay tax and shipping, and now my pimp'n machine is pushing Quake 3 Arena to the MAX on my huge, enormous, 14" screen.
Now, when we look at this system, this bad Mamma-Jamma, It pains me to think where all that money is going to when you buy a Mac; is it the OS? the funky sea-foam blue case? or the little tinny Apple sticker on the front? Paying top dollar for a decent machine is fine, but paying 3G's for an G3 is an ass-rape and a half.
Now, before you go to Pricewatch, realize that ordering a million pieces of hardware from separate places is going to KILL you. Try to find large vendors that has everything you need.
Caliber Corp (tell them Corey McGuire from Clickjunkies sent you!!) is a great place in California and is right between Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, but even getting all of these pieces together from one place is going to hurt. I can recommend going to shows, or Frys, or anywhere to get away from shipping charges.<
+> : NT can only format up to 4GB during the setup process because it formats the drive as a FAT16 (FAT 16 can be 4GB, but DOS and 9X only see 2GB) and then CONVERTS them to NTFS. Because I am anal, this is no good, I am sure partition magic would fix this, but I'm too lazy. Instead, I do a bare install of NT on the second partition on my 4GB drive, upgrade it to Service Pack 5, and leave it as it is. It is good to have a backup install of NT on a fat drive incase the computer screws the pooch. With some versions of NT 4, you need to copy your NT SCSI drivers from your Supermicro CD-Rom for NT before you install or you'll BSOD. Just copy all the files from the i386 directory from your NT CD-Rom into a directory called i386 on your hard drive, then copy the drivers to the same directory and install from there. I strongly recommend running smartdrv.exe as high as it till go. (36500 unless you have less memory) Then run winnt.exe from the i386 directory with the /b option. (c:\i386\> winnt.exe /b) You'll be happily in NT land before you know it.