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This is a supercomputer?

A few years ago, I was visiting a small PC manufacturer. They were trying for product differentiation from Dell, HP, etc., and had a row of "concept cases" on display. There was one with Viking horns. One like a Darth Vader mask. One something like this one. One that looked like a 1940s Telefunken radio. Some of these went into production. If you really want a PC that looks like a yellow Samurai mask in plastic, they have some in stock.

I saw one of the Viking horn models in a surplus store recently.

I write this note just after reading the article, some posts I completely agree with, and making some google searches:
- the comparison is at least strange because the test is based on Premiere (not so much a success, and especially not now) and MsWord (really not a perf. master on Mac), so IMHO only Photoshop stays as a comparison (why not comparing MP3 encoding or easy to run stuffs like that?). The FPS in Quake is comparable but really not that much interesting as depending on such configuration mainly on the graphic card.
- the PCs used and cited at the beginning (Alienware, Falcon, Voodoo, ABS) are all mono Athlon, most of them $3500, except the ABS at $1900, are all mono Athlon 2.2Ghz, comparable to the Apple 1.8Ghz mono G5, $2400 by Apple (just do the math, Athlon speed per second/2.2*1.8 are really nearly the sames as the G5).
- The "winner PC" is a strange "Polystation Two" which is not really on Polywell catalog, but close to a Polystation 2020 (dual Opteron), priced around $3200 (one Opteron) or $4100 (dual Opteron). Whatching at the results, so close to the dual G5, I really believe a dual 2Ghz has been used for the test (>$4500)
This leads to real doubts on the serious of this comparison, but if we just clear the record and base the comparison on the Photoshop indicators/ the machines/ the prices/ the manufacturers we first obtain an interesting conclusion:
"The Athlon 64 (and Opteron) is really close to a 64 bits G5 and the machines based on those processors and adapted architectures are comparable in real-life use."
We also obtain some interesting information in term of PC/Mac comparison as the 3 first (Alienware, Falcon, Voodoo) are quite comparable to Mac mono-G5 1.8Ghz (clean, well built, powerfull), even if they are not made by a "big name" with worldwide distribution. Well, they are also more expensive ($2400 for the G5, $3500 for the Pcs, even the 1.8/2.2Ghz doesn't make the maths). The comparison is different with the Polystation (not nice looking, close to a server, clearly not the engineering of the Mac) for which the price difference is even bigger ($4000-$4500 for the PC, $3000 for the dual G5 2Ghz).
My conclusion for this odd "audience seeker" article would be:

In the top-desktop offer, real bad news for Intel in term of speed, very good news for Apple in term of price.

Yeah, ok, they all use the Asus SK8N motherboard which offers SATA RAID, Ethernet, 6 channel audio with SPDIF connector, support for 8GB memory, PATA RAID, Firewire, USB 2, full overclocking support including clock multiplier, and dual channel DDR400. Not many features eh? You really should do some research, something Mac cultists seem to find impossible. Hmm, Polywell offers them with a DVD burner. Again, a poor researcher posts.

Well here's a Quad-Opteron System from Polywell, its not a mobo, but the parent mentioned being able to buy a system not a mobo.

They have some nice-looking laptops - especially their new Centrino-based model.

The Polywell starts at $3000, as does the dual G4.

The equality is also in the long standing claims of superior performance from some Apple tr^H^Henthusiasts.

Buy from Polywell Systems. They provide the actual Windows disks, with their pretty holograms and paper-thin manual and all that.

They also provide a floppy disk that you can use to recover your system to its as-shipped configuration. What they do is put a hidden file containing the original C drive image in the D drive. In my case it only takes 1.5 GB out of my drive, which is much better than taking 10+GB. They also give you instructions for creating additional C drive images using the ghost utility.

Unfortunately, online ordering from them isn't the best, but still, for what you get, it's probably worth the annoyance.

BTW: If you want Linux, or even Solaris (!), they do that too.

Finally a 64 bit processor, and with amd the server chips might be affordable.

What, never heard of the Compaq Alpha?

Check some of the examples at Polywell. You can find more with some simple searches, like Yahoo

Relevent story on The Register.

Oddly enough, Polywell indicates they are _shipping_ Athlon DDR systems.

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Finally a 64 bit processor, and with amd the server chips might be affordable.

What, never heard of the Compaq Alpha?

Check some of the examples at Polywell. You can find more with some simple searches, like Yahoo

Relevent story on The Register.

Oddly enough, Polywell indicates they are _shipping_ Athlon DDR systems.

--
+++ Out Of Cheese Error +++
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++

Polywell will sell you an AMD or Intel or Alpha with Linux :)