Slashdot Mirror

In the Windows world, none of these competitors MAKE anything. They cobble together parts. Dell is not designing anything but the case. Apple is designing the mainboard.

And so is Dell, unfortunately for many users.

Apple doesn't build their own hardware any more than PC makers do. Apple is not building their own DVD-ROM or hard drives, they're buying them from companies like Toshiba and Maxtor/Seagate/whoever. They buy their PowerPC chips from Motorola and IBM. They buy their graphics cards from ATI and NVidia. I don't know whose memory they're using but it ain't Apple's own, I'll tell you that.

All Apple does is design their motherboards and cases, just like PC makers. In fact the architecture itself these days is basically the same with the exception of the CPU.

The PC world competes solely on mindshare.

So what you're saying is there's no difference between PC's other than the case? That a Dell Dimension is the same as my scratch-built machine is the same as a Falcon Northwest is the same as a Sony Vaio? I don't think anybody could seriously argue that. It's like saying all cars are exactly the same just because they all burn the same kind of gas. Only their exterior shells are different.

PC makers do compete in a lot of different areas, and many PC makers have totally different target markets. So you'll get PC's all up and down the pricing spectrum, at varying levels of true quality (build, materials, etc.) and with varying levels of features, performance, and yes, aesthetics. You can even significantly deviate from "standard" PC architecture, with RAID arrays, dual graphics cards, 64-bit AMD processors, etc. and you can still claim to own a "PC" (in the colloquial parlance of our times, that is - Macs are technically PC's too, of course).

With a Mac, you're stuck with the configurations Apple wants to give you - they'd be like a single PC maker in a sea of hundreds on the other side of the fence. Now, obviously this is working for them in some ways, as they're generally profitable of late, though mostly due to iPod. But I'm not sure that I buy this idea that they'd be less profitable if they'd continued licensing their OS. I understand the whole argument about diluting the brand name, yadda yadda yadda, so what? There's a tendency for people to believe that because of the way things turned out in the world, that that's the only way they could have turned out, and I don't believe it.

If Apple's OS and the Apple user experience is so superior to the Windows experience, why does Apple have 3% market share? There has to be a reason, and it's not all because MS is a monopoly. MS was not always a monopoly. When I owned my Apple II, Apple had more than 50% of the PC market. The supposedly superior Mac line eventually dropped them to the 3% they have today. The market was Apple's to lose and they lost it. At some point, you have to stop blaming the rest of the world and look inward for the reasons why.

That's not true.

Because of cost issues, OEM manufacturers make desktop cases and power supplies small and non-standard.

Actually it's 100% true.

Do some research next time. Dell has used STANDARD ATX CONNECTORS WITH NON-STANDARD PINOUTS!

That doesn't save cost OR space.

Here's one link.

I'm sure google can find you many more.

clicky clicky

You got lucky.

Maybe, but DDR500-qualified RAM is guaranteed to achieve better poorest timing (worst-case, of the worst sample of all batches) than DDR400, which was the fastest reviewed in the article. My point is that, given even DDR550 is available, they seem to have completely missed the "sweet spot." For the same price as their best DDR400, you can have DDR500 that will either (1) run at 250FSB if you have or are overclocking to that or (2) give better timing (closer to 2-2-2-2) in DDR200/333/400 systems.

Sometimes low-latency memory doesn't even work at lower than rated speed with more than one module installed if you don't buy matched, pretested pairs.

Yep, that's why you make sure the worst case performace specs meet your needs and are the best value for the buck. You can't predict how your part will fall in the min-max distribution of the batch in question, and returning RAM because you can't OC it to the level you want is dickish, so you have to pick something that is guaranteed to do what you want.

It may not be slower, and may well be faster, if you have a multi-channel memory controller. YMMV. BMSMA.

No, multiple modules will never be faster -- a mulit-channel controller will be the same with one or two modules; slower with more than two (which is possible.)

More modules is never faster from a memory access timing standpoint which is, again, what this discussion is (or should be) all about. You can, of course, increase overall system memory bandwidth by adding one each memory controller and SDRAM module, but that's irrelevant here (even in that case, you'd want faster RAM so that the CAS, RAS, and other latencies can be minimized and bandwidth increased a bit more.)

PC4000 (DDR500) RAM and faster) is here, and it's a lot faster than anything they reviewed. Even if your CPU/Mobo don't support more than DDR200 or DDR333, you can get lower latency (i.e., 2-2-2-2 BIOS timing options will be usable at lower frequencies) and be ready for upgrades using faster RAM.

I just picked up two 512MB sticks of this amazing stuff to go with my AMD64 3200+ from, of all places, Circuit City (because it is only $129 each, cheaper even than newegg, which is usually a great deal for RAM and has amazing reseller ratings.) Though I just noticed there's a new $40 rebate on newegg's $299 price (for 1GB), making the net $259, or about the same as I paid at CC. Then again, I hate rebates.)

No shipping and insta-pick up at Circuit Shitty (though newegg is usally free for fedex saver), even with MA 5% sales tax it's a steal.

Sorry, I digress -- I'm full of gin, tonic, and Italian food. Back OT -- they got their best RAM up to 275MHz FSB (DDR550). The Kingston I got works stable up to 325MHZ (DDR650!!) and it's not much more (a few cents/MB) than the reviewed RAM.

Just thought I'd share all I recently discovered before someone runs out and buys the best of this review. I think it took so long to write all that review text and compile/plot the data that they missed the new goodies!

EE Times is also reporting that Intel may be pushing a new kind of RAM interface to compete with existing DDR and RDRAM. At 2 Gbit/sec per wire, this is about twice the speed of current RDRAM and four times the speed of DDR SDRAM. But, more interestingly, this is a point-to-point architecture - unlike the traditional bus architecture, when you add more memory modules you can get more bandwidth. Also notable is that simultaneous bi-directional communications happens over a single wire. Infineon and Samsung have made test chips, and results are to be released at the International Solid State Circuits Conference today.

I wonder how this figures into their processor/chipset roadmap...

Didn't Dell have that issue with nonstandard ATX PSUs? PSU info

Offtopic, but before you go and buy hardware that not only doesn't comply with standards, but deceives users into thinking that it does, read this. (And yes, I speak from experience, luckily before I hooked up my new PS, I smelled a rat and decided to take a second look at the main power connector pinouts.)

The reason why Dell is on top is they know what they are doing and put the best into their computers.

I call bullsh-t.

Their use of non-standard power supplies alone is reason to shun Dell.

I was in Wal-Mart last week, talking with an old engineer who presently works in their Automotive Goods department - discussing a Group 24F battery I needed. And why my Japanese Toyota car took the same battery as my neighbor's Dodge Monaco. He told me about the Society of Automotive Engineering (SAE) standards and how - by law - automakers standardized specs for batteries, fluids, tires, lamps, etc. Something to do with antitrust, I suppose. What scares me is to think of the day that every make and model of car will require its own unique consumables - who will be able to stock all of it? I would hate to think of tossing the car to the scrap heap because I could not find the headlamps for it, yet be categorized a criminal if I took something else and adapted it.

Its a shame all this crap is happening in the computer industry. Even something as common as the power supply is routinely botched up. We deliberately seem to make everything unique - and if necessary, buy a congresscritter to pass some law to give us the protection to make sure no one else can make compatible parts. And we can always seem to make room in the landfills for yet more and more junk. There are only so many square miles of earth - where are we gonna end up putting all this crap we make?

Send it to China???

If you try loading up a Dell PC with HDTV gear (card, extra hard drive(s), etc) you're likely to overload their weak power supplies (250W on a P4?!), at which point you'll probably think you can just swap in an Antec 550W from your local toy store and be on your way. Think again. Dell uses a nonstandard pinout on their ATX power supplies for no good reason.

If you must buy a prebuilt machine from a big vendor, MicronPC offers a better than average component selection, including industry standard 300W ATX power supplies (which is still low by my standards but better than most other big vendors) and nVidia nForce2 motherboards. I still custom build my PCs though.

FWIW, I have an AccessDTV card in my dual CPU Athlon rig. They've shaken most of the bugs out with the latest beta software. There's no Linux support though. I'm not aware of any HDTV card that's Linux-friendly (anyone?). There's a neat 1024p mode that works great with 1280x1024 res monitors.

You don't believe me?

Go ask Scott Mueller

I'd quote the related passage concerning this myself, but I don't happen to have my book handy right now to look it up.

Besides, your arguement about interface differences is totally off the point, since nowhere did i ever claim that the ATA and SCSI interface protocols were the same thing, I was talking about the hardware.

Perhaps you should do your own homework before you insult someone else and make a fool out of yourself in public by arguing the wrong point.

Perhaps they should rename themselves "Packard Dell."

Like proprietary ATX power connectors? No wait, that is Dell.

Careful if you recycle the case on a Dell. Some of their power supplies and motherboards are incompatible with standard ATX (one reversed pair of pins in the power plug) for no good reason other than to lock you in to their expensive replacement parts.