“PC Magazine is flat-out wrong in pricing the PowerMac G5 Quad, and they should correct the error. You can buy a PowerMac G5 Quad for less than half the price they list, which means: For about the same as an equivalent PC, or somewhat less,” Leland Scott writes for Musings From Mars. “The serious error here is that PC Magazine lists Apple’s Power Mac G5 Quad as costing . . . Guess! You’ll never guess how much they say it costs. Honestly.”
Scott writes, “OK, I gotta spill the beans at some point. PC Magazine says a Quad costs $7,023 to $9,522!“
“When I first read this in December, those numbers struck me as very odd, since I had just bought a new Quad for myself, and I didn’t pay anywhere near $7,000-$9,500 for it. The unit I bought was hardly the base model, either: I had paid an extra $350 for the Nvidia GeForce 7800 graphics card with 512MB of VRAM when it became available as an option, and also added $99 for Bluetooth and Airport wireless cards,” Scott writes. “And I got all this for only $3,448! How is this possible, you ask?”
Full article here.
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Curiously any error i have ever seen regarding Apple with ANYTHING is something that affects them negatively. Coincidence?
Apple use’s the blood of slave childeren to make there microchips, they also hate america. ooops sorry
is that the kind of errors you where talking about or did i miss something,
With these options, the price is about right !
Type: Media, Business, Workstation
Processor Family: Apple G5
Installed RAM: 4096 MB
Hard Drive Capacity: 1024 GB
RAID: No
Graphics Card: nVidia Quadro FX 4500
Primary Optical Drive: Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW
Monitor Type: LCD Widescreen
Monitor Size: 30 inches
Notes: $9522; $7023 without monitor
It’s not so much an “error” as an omission (a misleading omission). They stated the price they paid for their UPGRADED, maxed-out system. If there is an error, the error is that they lead the reader to believe the base system contains all their upgraded options and costs as much as it does – out of the price range for most home and semi-pro users.
PC Mag should publish a correction / clarification.
Peace.
They basically got the best of everything, graphics card, the biggest hard drives, the most expensive RAM – 4 Gigs of it.
Hardly a fair review or comparison with other computers. The review with all the added stuff was still only four and a half out of five stars. Pretty ridonkulous.
Maybe they were using Singapore dollars.
Or maybe they are hungry, scared, mean and slightly psychotic with latent fratricidal tendencies, multiple hangnails, painful, open ulcerations, oozing pustules, and multiple internal lesions causing a backup of cerebrospinal fluid. No wonder they were off by so much.
Just got my Quad G5 yesterday at work. It’s fast for having only 512 megs of RAM (two gigs of DDR2 ECC RAM coming) but with the mid-level graphics card upgrad it was about $3,400 (education price).
If I had put two 500 gig Hard drives and four gigs of RAM from the Apple store and a 30″ monitor, sure it would be a tad more expensive.
And what’s with the Dell only havinga gig of RAM? What, XP Pro more efficient than OS X by four times?
We bought a Dell for a guy doing 3D renderings in our department and it cost $2,000 more than my computer, and it won’t be as fast as mine when there’s more RAM. In fact, we took delivery on another Quad for that guy so he doesn’t have to drive himself crazy working on a PC.
So the facts are, Macs are very competitive – especially when all things are equal in terms of specs.
Maybe they meant Canadian? Australian? Hong Kong? dollars
MDN overract a bit?
The review clearly states
“The basic configuration of the 2.5-GHz model comes in at a more reasonable $3,299 (without monitor); the system we tested was outfitted with top-of-the-line components, pushing the price up significantly.”
Their price is basically in line with reality. I don’t have an educational discount and the price quoted for the system that they built is correct.
Now…if you compare the price with a dual Xeon or whatever Intel is making now, I think that you would find the Quad G5 to be cheaper and probably a better buy. As a Mac user, that would of course be my biased opinion, but I think that the quad is a better machine in many ways.
As for buying a Quad G5 for $3500….I don’t know about that. Sure you can do it but why would anyone purchase a top of the line computer with only 512 meg’s of RAM ?? That’s frickin stupid. And why would you put the crappiest video card that Apple offers in such a machine ?? Once again…stupid. So can you assemble a system for 3 grand….I guess so. Should even be purchasing such a desktop as the G5 Quad with less than 2 gig’s of RAM ? In my opinion….NO !!
Hi there!
I wrote the review of the PowerMac in question, and the pricing came directly from Apple Computer. Yes, the system we reviewed is a tricked out system with 4GB of RAM, workstation-class Quadro card and an extra hard drive.
“For anyone other than graphics or video professionals, this system is probably overkill—not to mention a bank-account obliterator”
If you are a graphics professional, who needs the PowerMac’s power to do work, it is worth every penny. If you’re a ‘normal’ user (whatever that means) or even a power home user, iMacs and Mac minis are more than enough, and are good systems for the money.
-Joel
PC Magazine
I have myself a DP 2 Ghz G5 PowerMac and a 30″ with a pair of 74 GB Raptors a boot drive and 4.5 GB of RAM and a 6800GT, sure it cost some but I don’t plan on upgrading anything for quite some time.
I can run Quake 4 easily when it comes out.
The best bang for performance buck has to the G5 Quad at this time.
When the Intel 64 bit CoreDuo’s arrive in November we should see a new PowerMactel Quad, but I’ll warn you, the performance won’t be a substancial leap over present PPC Quads, but it will be air cooled.
Hmmm.. “similar” Dell pc.
around $7K, but without:
iPhoto
iMovie
iDVD
iWeb
Garageband
OSX
riiiiiight…
Oh what I mean by the best bang for performance buck, is that if you keep the machine for it’s estimated 5-7 year lifespan running all the current software, it’s total cost of yearly ownership is lower than any other Mac.
For instance a MacBook Pro has a life of only 2-3 years, provided you don’t drop it.
A iMactel has a life of 2-3 years because you can’t upgrade the video card or hard drive to a faster verision.
The Mini is a joke, it’s like every year you have to replace it.
On the other hand a PowerMac or Tower is upgradable with faster drives, more RAM, faster video cards, and it doesn’t move, which greatly lenghtens it’s lifespan.
In fact one can put upgrade kits in PowerMacs to extend it’s life even further.
Here is a perfect comparison between a Quad Mac and a Quad Dell.
The Quad Mac had to have things added to it to meet the price of the Dell.
The Quad Mac is the best deal and won’t last for long.
http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/desktop/2005/1022_dt5300.html
PC Magazine is a Windows loving tabloid with no real worthy techie content to offer its readership!
Ah, the Windows world… a religion of conformity!
Joel Santo Domingo,
You seem to be missing the point that you misleading readers by saying the Quad G5’s price range is $7,023 to $9,552, which is false, the price range for a Quad G5 is $3,299 to $9,552.
The average PC user is going to see that “starting” price of $7,023, think to themselves, dang, those Macs are to expensive, it starts at $7,023!
Check out the pictures they have with the article. The first one on the 2nd row has “Monitor Side” as the caption but it’s the side of the tower. That’s freakin’ hilarious!
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/0,1206,l=167966&s=1564&a=167910,00.asp
They can’t even tell the difference between the monitor and the tower. Maybe they bought two towers thinking one was a monitor–no wonder it was soooo expensive!
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Wait…..isn´t this computer dead in the water anyway? It is to be replaced in the next 9 months.
Why would anyone buy it?
To anyone that cares – particularly Joel.
I’ve been in the creative business for ten years. I’ve never purchased a tricked out system like this. In all my years, I can probably count the instances on one hand when anyone I knew in the industry managed to get a maxxed out machine. A cursory glance by any IT/Marketing people would assume that those new G5s for the creative department are outrageously priced and opt to throw them a PC bone.
I agree this setup is for the Pro, but I am a pro and I’ve never come close to this kind of set up. I’ve worked at small and medium sized agencies, I’ve done time in a cube @ WorldCom corporate hell, and now I’m with a small studio. NEVER has a $7,000 graphics rig been in the budget. There’s a huge difference between what the pros want and what they get. Personally I would’ve rather seen this price under a header of something like “Dream Setup.” Just so no one gets the idea that this is the norm. And I’d like to point out that most people that were going to max out their machine like this would likely pursue third-party channels for extra RAM and hard disks, which would also effect the price.
And one other point, this top-o-the-line mac would far outlast it’s PC competition on the users desktop. I typically keep a Mac for five years before passing it on to someone else. But a rig like this? With max RAM and that Video Card, it would probably hold me over for quite a while.
If you looked at the reviewer of the equipment you would notice that it comes from someone named “Santo Domingo”. Sounds just slightly suspicious. I almost laughed and I mean no offense to the person who has this last name. I honestly thought that it sounded like someone who doesn’t want his real name known. I thought it was a town for crying out loud. By all means remember, “Stupid is as stupid does”.
“As for buying a Quad G5 for $3500….I don’t know about that. Sure you can do it but why would anyone purchase a top of the line computer with only 512 meg’s of RAM ?? That’s frickin stupid.”
Sigh. Look at Apple’s price for RAM. Then go to a reputable third-party dealer, like Data Memory Systems and see what they charge for the same amount of RAM.
Apple’s ALWAYS charged out the wazoo for added RAM, for long time mac users it’s an article of faith that you buy the system at minimum RAM from apple and buy the rest of the RAM elsewhere.
Er, if that really was the reviewer ‘Santo Domingo’ earlier, then:
1) Thanks for your input; always nice to have somoene not afraid to put their head above the parapet at MDN (we know we can get a bit rabid at times).
and
2) Er, sorry for Jeff’s rather, um, interesting observations regarding your name. I know how you feel, mate…