when Apple users come up and say how their dual 2.5GHZ 64-bit G5's will smash anything in the PC world it's because the benchmarks their comparing are single Proc P4 systems, which are mostly 32-bit, against dual 64-bit 2.5GHZ chips (That are far more efficient (i'm guessing the PowerPC G5 has a higher IPC than Pentium IV, about on par with AMD's K8, which is at 9 currently (Intel's Itanium2 whips everything with 21 IPC, but it's IA-64 (and $1400 for the ghetto one...and yes, there is such a thing as a Ghetto $1400 server proc that requires special software to do anything)
but when these Apple people say their sytsems are better, they are better against single Pentium 4 systems
and i don't disagree with them that for most creative applications Apple is the choice, as it's usually better, BUT things are seeming to change:
AMD is doing great things with Digital Audio with Athlon64 and Opteron
Intel's new dual core chips are absolutly KILLER in Video Encoding (it's like a P4 on crack, it just screams through video encoding stuff)
Apple is still the choice for some digital content creation tasks
but the way I see it is this:
If you buy an Apple your limited to Apple's world of Apple only products from Apple
yes you may have a 10% advantage in Digital Content creation, but at what expense? having to buy all Apple or Apple specific versions of programs, upgrades being impossibly expensive or complicated or impossible in general
only 1 motherboard per CPU generation (which imo is un-acceptable...)
so then we move to PC
which can match the features of a dual G5 (and actually beat it in clock speed, as the 252 is 2.6GHZ iirc (the 852 is, so the 252 should be...)
you can have 2 64-bit CPU's
the same size HDD arrays
the same ammount of RAM
even an Apple monitor (Apple's LCD's are some of the best, if you gfx card can support high resolutions (you need super high end video card, so if you have SLI i'd suggest a 23" Cinema HD, as it can take high res, and look great, but you need to be able to feed it that high res)
you can match it in hardware, actually beat it because you can't do SLI or 3DLabs cards on Apple
while on PC I could run a Wildcat Realizm 800, which is one of the best OpenGL/professional CAD/CAM cards on the market (or the Quadro FX 4400, which is comparable afaik)
not to mention the ability to run Matrox for multi-display, as many as 4 displays per card (and sync cards should I need more than 4 (so I run 3-4 vid cards, and a sync card to make it all tie together not only inside the software, but the hardware also)
so you have a greater choice of hardware to choose from
even on harder to do platforms, like 4-CPU systems
to my knowledge you have 2 compaines to produce the boards
for Intel you have SuperMicro
and for AMD you have Tyan
and from each you have 1 or 2 options for 4-way boards
with various ammounts of stuff on board (mind that SuperMicro's current generation 4-way board is just under $1900, mobo only, and that Tyan's is around $1799...so their not cheap, consider each CPU is about $400-$900....)
plus PSU
so PC may be a bit more expensive, which I did state
and PC may crash more (if your using Windows)
BUT
with PC you can goto all sorts of operating systems
heck, Sun's non SPARC platform is Opteron 2-way and 4-way systems
and then you move into SPARC (which is it's own deal)
i'd have to say the ability to move OS', and consider Linux, there are thousands of distros with hundreds of possibilities for each (you can change the GUI, not just theme but the entire GUI, plus dozens of other things you can do, or make your own)
just with Linux you can do about anything
you can make your own OS if you have the ability/time/desire to
meaning you can specialize it perfectly to your needs
I don't know how much better you can get
a custom tailored OS...layed out just like you want it, with all the features you need...
i mean, you really can't beat that...
but aside from Linux
you have all the other options
the BSD based OS'
the UNIX variants
Windows (which does have quite a few possibilities...)
also with PC's you can more easily build a cluster, because you can use Linux, which Apple won't do
it's mainly a software thing
Apple looks great at first, and they are, but once you realize that with some time and work, PC can really beat it, Apple don't look so good
it's not their hardware, it really isn't
hardware wise Apple is pretty good, if they weren't the sole builders of all their own stuff (if they were more compatable, and various companies could design/would design and builds parts just for Apple...)
in general Apple isn't so great because their software support sucks, it sucks from the stanpoint that all software for Apple has to be special for Apple
and emulators run slower than...
with PC hardware, you can run PC applications, that are designed for PC, in an emulator (like Wine) in Linux, or in actual Windows (dual booting)
so i don't see how Apple is even a viable option at this point...
the only thing I would buy an Apple for is a mobile solution, mainly because it's a stable system...if your on a 2 car ride, not driving, and need to do work
if you have Windows, it may crash once or twice, and you'd have to re-start and load, or possibly make up lost work (it might not crash at all, but Windows can easily be crashed)
with Apple it's more stable
it wouldn't be so likely to crash, so if your doing something that Apple supports (like MS Word...it's funny, the leading office suite for Apple isn't even from Apple, it's from their arch competitor, Microsoft)
but if your doing somethign like that, than it shouldn't crash for days, giving you a fully stable work enviroment
Apple is like worry free computing
you don't have to think about the system while your using it, your just focused on what your doing
Linux is simimlar
Windows isn't
BUT
Windows has better software support (not just for games)
but in the end it's really a personal choice
if you like Apple
go for it
but Apple is just too expensive for how limited they are imo