Microsoft Doesn't Care about Apple...

[Mikuro]

Originally Posted by contoursvt

See here is the only problem with Apple products... they are very proprietary which means if the power supply in a tower ever let go or if a system board let go, you have no choice but to pay apple what ever they ask. Thats my main reason for not buying a mac brand new (meaning pay a lot of money).

When one of our Dell's in the office (PIII 500) finally let go, we decided we would still use the 40gigabyte HD that was in there, the chassis, the DVD ROM, Floppy drive..etc. Purchased a P4 board, RAM, Processor and Power supply and basically made the Dell new again. Didnt cost a lot of money either and were purchased through a local computer shop. System board was an MSI and it fit pretty much perfectly.

Ironically, I've had this problem with Dell more than with Apple!

My brother got a Dell PC free from his job, but it had no power supply. It did NOT use any kind of standard connector, so he had to buy straight from Dell. Worse yet, the people who took his order at Dell didn't even know the products, so they ended up sending him the wrong power supply. Pain in the rear, that was.

And Apple's HDs, optical drives, RAM etc. are all the same you see in PCs, and just as interchangeable.

But you're right, you can't just buy a new motherboard. At least, I don't think you can...Intel Macs do use custom motherboards, don't they? I assume they do so they can ensure OS X only runs on Apple hardware.

[Sunnz]

That's one of the main reason why I don't buy Macs for desktop... for laptops, fine, it is not like I'll be building my own and changing the motherboard anyway... but I do have my own hard disk, motherboard and cpu that I want to put on a Mac Pro, too bad that they happens to be the only components that you can't buy a new Mac Pro without!!!

So yea, till they let you choose the exact quantity of each component in their Mac Pro, I'll be getting one.

[nixgeek]

Originally Posted by Sunnz

That's one of the main reason why I don't buy Macs for desktop... for laptops, fine, it is not like I'll be building my own and changing the motherboard anyway... but I do have my own hard disk, motherboard and cpu that I want to put on a Mac Pro, too bad that they happens to be the only components that you can't buy a new Mac Pro without!!!

So yea, till they let you choose the exact quantity of each component in their Mac Pro, I'll be getting one.

How is this different from PCs manufactured from Dell, HP, Gateway, et al? You can't easily swap out the motherboard, especially on a Dell. And if by chance yuo ghappen to come across an OEM motherboard from someone like MSI or Asus, you're bound to only get one from that particular manufacturer and hope that it fits the dimensions of your computer. And even the CPU is a gamble sometimes, unless you know who manufactures that motherboard and then it's a matter of finding out what CPU is supported by it. This is not considering how voided your warranty would be if you did this.

As for hard drive, optical drives, and expansion slots, the Mac Pro and all generations of Pro-model Macs (Power Mac G5, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G3, all previous PCI Power Macs) are just as upgradeable and expandable as their PC counterparts. And not to mention all the third-party CPU upgrades there are for these systems, costing just as much as a brand-spankin'-new x86 processor or equal capability. So your reasoning is rather flawed when it comes to the Mac Pro and previous generations of the Macintosh towers.

Granted, the iMacs are still less upgradeable than the Mac Pro, but consider its directed market. Also consider that you can also upgrade the RAM and hard drive on those as well. Still a better option if you ask me.

[Sunnz]

As for hard drive, optical drives, and expansion slots, the Mac Pro and all generations of Pro-model Macs (Power Mac G5, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G3, all previous PCI Power Macs) are just as upgradeable and expandable as their PC counterparts. ....costing just as much as a brand-spankin'-new x86 processor or equal capability. So your reasoning is rather flawed when it comes to the Mac Pro and previous generations of the Macintosh towers.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding in my wording... but I am not saying that Mac Pro are NOT upgradable, I have seen videos of how it worked and I like how everything is putted together, like how the hard drives, ram, and optical drives just slots in, it is really an awesome design!!

However, when I visit the web site, I tried the configuration thing, despite the 100'000 something possible thing, it doesn't let me choose to have no hard drives, let alone motherboard/cpu.

The other thing is that I never have even slightly thought of buying a desktop from Dell, HP, etc... their design doesn't seem anything special... but Mac Pro has certainly caught my attention into start thinking about it.

And if by chance yuo ghappen to come across an OEM motherboard from someone like MSI or Asus, you're bound to only get one from that particular manufacturer and hope that it fits the dimensions of your computer. And even the CPU is a gamble sometimes, unless you know who manufactures that motherboard and then it's a matter of finding out what CPU is supported by it. This is not considering how voided your warranty would be if you did this.

I don't really know what you are talking about here... I have always been able to just get a new motherboard and it just fits my case, I guess I got one of those generic case? I don't know why CPU is a gamble? I mean, don't you know what CPU your motherboard supports?

And not to mention all the third-party CPU upgrades there are for these systems,

Umm... what do you mean by this? A new CPU or???

[Sunnz]

Ok, just to clarify myself before things get messy: I prefer customisation at the time I buy a Desktop; rather than buy one that may not be exactly what I wanted... of course this is presuming that I can expand it either way.

[nixgeek]

If you check places like Sonnet and others, they offer processor upgrades for the PowerPC Macs prior to the new Intel Macs Apple offers.

As to whether you would by something from Dell or HP or whoever, that's not the case. The case is that neither of them offer anything substanially configurable over Apple.

If you build the system yourself, then you would know what CPU the motherboard takes. If a brand name company makes the computer, unless you open up the case and know where to look, then you're going to have a difficult time finding out who makes the motherboard (if it's an OEM motherboard) let alone trying to find out what CPUs it takes. We're not talking about retail motherboards here so it's not as easy.

As for Apple's configurations, I don't know what exactly you're referring to about the configurability of the build-to-order Mac Pro, but it's not unlike what I've seen on Dell's site for build-to-order.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...CjuAJn6/2.?p=0

You have to compare apples to apples (so to speak), and comparing a DIY PC to what's available as a build-to-order option from a computer hardware manufacturer is not a fair comparison. Even the Dells, HPs, et al would seem less configurable than a self-built PC.

BTW, according to AnandTech, it is possible to swap out the CPUs with something else like the upcoming Cloverton CPUs (the Core 2 Duo Xeon). Just drop 'em in and you're off.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6

[nixgeek]

Originally Posted by Sunnz

Ok, just to clarify myself before things get messy: I prefer customisation at the time I buy a Desktop; rather than buy one that may not be exactly what I wanted... of course this is presuming that I can expand it either way.

That's understandable, but again you have to compare apples to apples. Nothing (PC or Mac) will be as configurable or expandable as a PC that you build yourself.

[Sunnz]

Ok, it is not that I don't agree about Apple being having more configurable computers than Dell... the thing is, I don't care about Dell/HP/whatever when it comes to desktops...

Ok it would be unfair to compare it to DYI computer, but I didn't said that I want it to be just like DYI computers, because that would make Apple a computer parts manufacturer... what I am saying is if the Mac Pro can be just a tiny bit more configurable than it is now, then I'll want to get one... I mean, it is not that I want Apple to have the hard drive of my choice already built in, but just come without one, it would require less work right?