[OT] Pegasos PPC

Sat Mar 20 06:34:01 2004

On Saturday 20 March 2004 22:14, Clinton MacDonald wrote:
> Norberto:
>
> Tim Seufert wrote:
> > On Mar 19, 2004, at 7:27 PM, Norberto Quintanar wrote:
> >> To try and wrap this up, has anyone bought a Pegasos PPC
> >> - http://www.pegasosppc.com/ they basically make PPC machines rather
> >> cheap I might add http://www.ultraspec.us/pegasos.htm
> >>
> >> So has anyone on the list bought one of these?  They appear to be PPC
> >> scorchers at a reasonable price.  Even a fully loaded custom box is
> >> $1500.US.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > But the real problem is this: you can buy a brand new 1.25 GHz G4 from
> > Apple for $1300, or a dual 1.25 for $1600.  The single 1.25 is likely to
> > perform a lot better than the Pegasos: obviously, it's clocked 25%
> > faster, but it also has a faster FSB (166 MHz vs 133 MHz), and Apple
> > uses the 745x G4 CPU with 1MB of L3 cache while Pegasos uses the 744x
> > variant of the G4 which has no support for L3 cache at all.  (The dual
> > 1.25 Mac has 2MB L3 per CPU.)
>
> I have to agree with Tim: with the dual 1.25 GHz G4 PowerMacs going for
> US$1,599 (that's fully loaded with a warranty from Apple), it's hard to
> look anywhere else. And, if you want to pinch pennies on a YDL-worthy
> system, a used G4/500 dual processor goes for around US$800 -- and that
> probably has a CD-RW/DVD drive. A *new* eMac (1 GHz with 40 GB drive and
> built-in monitor) can be had from Apple for US$750 (educational price).
> In the mid-1990s, Macs were *highly* overpriced. That is no longer true.
>
> Perhaps the problem you perceive is that Macs have always held their
> value better than PCs on the used market (but that's a good thing if you
> already own the Mac :-) ). A used recent vintage PowerBook will sell on
> eBay for not much less than what a new PowerBook costs from Apple.
>
> Perhaps you are being wooed by the advertised prices of PCs for US$400.
> Well, to meet that $400 price point, *something* must be compromised in
> that PC versus a $2900 "gaming" machine.
>
> You will never see Apple sell new Macs at $400. That is not the market
> they are targeting. If one buys a Mac today, one is usually buying an
> innovative, high-end machine that runs the operating system by which all
> others are judged. If you don't like Mac OS X, you probably shouldn't be
> in the market for a *new* Macintosh (though, if you like Yellow Dog
> Linux, a used Mac is a good choice).
>
> But, that's just my opinion. :-)
>
> Best wishes,
> Clint

I seriously can't understand why anyone would want to buy expensive PPC 
hardware to run YDL linux on it ???

I mean really... if you have a Mac already, then your Linux options are pretty 
limited and YDL is one of the obvious choices. But if you're looking for a 
brand new machine to run Linux on, doesn't it make more sense to just get a 
big ugly x86 box with a blazing fast cpu and a ton of ram for less than half 
the price of a mac?  Then you can choose just about any flavor of linux you 
want -- even Fedora/Red Hat if you really like the YDL way of doing things 
(RPMs, redhat config utilities, etc.) or any of bazillion others.

I can understand fanatical Mac-heads (count me in), but I'm not so sure about 
fanatical PPC heads who use Linux.  Someone please show me the light!

:-)

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