High End Shootout: PowerMac vs. Dell Precision PC.

The other day I posted a shootout comparison of the low end Dell Dimension vs. the Apple eMac. Of course, I got blasted by sharp-eyed, sharper-penned readers who said my comparison wasn’t apples to apples.

The really sharp readers looked at what was actually written and noted, “Mac vs. Dell. It’s like comparing, well, apples to, uh, something resembling oranges.”

The low end Dell and the $799 eMac are similar only in that both are personal computers, have screens and hard drives, an operating system, a CPU, a keyboard, and a mouse. The $549 Dell, as a few readers pointed out, has a few things going for it (expandability, for one) that the eMac doesn’t.

Others, mostly wise ones, also noted that I didn’t cover TCO (total cost of operation/ownership), which wasn’t the intent. It was a comparison of features and price. I felt an overwhelming need to try to compare the two low end machines, Apple vs. Dell, as closely as possible, feature for feature, box for box.

To be fair only to the “box” comparison, Dell wins handily with a $250 price advantage. The cheaper Dell wins, right? Yes. Box to box. Now, start comparing features, TCO, usability, upgrade requirements, and things change rapidly and favor the eMac.

I read a recent article by Paul Murphy on LinuxInsider.  Paul has this strange notion that Macs are less expensive. Period. High end. Low end. Servers. Desktop (iMac). Macs are less expensive and do more. Really?

After reading through his thinking process, I was impressed. Paul’s articles on the Mac vs. PC comparison wars are good reading. In nearly every case, Paul says Macs are less expensive, and perhaps a better buy for IT departments.

So, though the lowly eMac fares well when compared to a Dell “box” how do Apple’s offerings compare at the High End?

First, let’s define “high end.” That’s easy enough since Apple has only two real product categories at the so-called high end: the PowerMacs, and the Xserve. Since Xserve is designed primarily for server use, let me focus on the PowerMac instead.

The top-of-the-line PowerMac G5 2.5 ghz tower is a wonderful machine. Not only is it powerful, it’s loaded with goodies. Firewire. Firewire 800. USB 2.0. Dual CPUs. Cooling zones. Fans, fans, and more fans. Shiny aluminum outer skin and oversized Swiss watch precision on the inside.

A number of benchmarks put the dual 2.5 ghz PowerMac on par or actually faster than the fastest dual CPU Intel Pentium.

The $2,999 you’ll spend for the PowerMac G5 also gets you 512 megs RAM, an 8x SuperDrive, 128 megs videoRAM, DVI and ADC (for video), sound in/sound out, digital sound, and good old Mac OS X.

The PowerMac is built for power and speed. It’s a true workstation for computational goodness, graphics, video, audio or to simply provide a way to make others envy your taste in computerliciousness.

So, let me compare the dual 2.5 ghz Apple PowerMac G5 with a comparably equipped Dell Precision Workstation 670. Only this time, software isn’t an issue. Box for box. Hardware component to hardware component.

Oh, and no monitor, either. After all, since the PowerMac G5 comes with DVI, an Apple Cinema Display can now run on the Dell. And, Dell’s flat panel monitors should work on the Mac (they’ll be sucky looking, but still…).

Nose to nose. What’s the feature set? What’s the price? Ready for a surprise?

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