HOW much???

I thought this was quite interesting... looking at a couple of options for desktop computers, and ended up getting a bit sidetracked.

Right. So here's the common belief (mine): Dell PCs are cheap, and Macs are expensive. OK, so I went onto both manufacturer's sites and decided to look up the most expensive desktop I could configure...

Will it be or will it be our funky friends at ?

So here's what I found... on the Apple store I clicked on MacPro and pushed all the options up to the max. I ended up with two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors, 16GB of 667MHz DDR2 fully buffered ECC RAM, and NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB AGP with Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI), 3TB of 7,200rpm SATA II storage, two 16x DVD-writers, Bluetooth, AirPort Extreme, a USB dialup modem, a 2GB fibre channel PCI-X card, wireless keyboard & mighty mouse, 2x 30" Apple Cinema HD displays (WOOHOO), all running Mac OS X of course. I could have gone for the server variant, but I'm trying to configure a workstation here (couldn't you tell :-p), wrapped up in a mysterious soundingAppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro - Auto-enroll. I also got five USB ports, two FireWire 400 ports and two FireWire 800 ports! Oh and Aperture 1.1 (funny how you can only choose ONE software package to stick onto your Mac). All for a grand total of £10,851.09 ex VAT. Not bad for about 5 minutes shopping, eh?

Right, so over to Dell UK we go (I have the small business site bookmarked, so that's the one I used). First to find a suitable base system. Not quite as straight forward as choosing the Mac Pro, I settled on the Dell Precision 690 minitower. The rest wasn't going to be easy either, with Dell offering a total of 28 configuration options, compared to 18 for the Apple. So what did I get? I got Two Intel® Xeon® 5160 (3.0GHz,1333,4MB) processors (I chose not to go for the quad-cores since this was the more expensive option, and even though the quad-cores have 8mb L2 cache, their clock speed is much lower & FSB also much slower - I know the obsession with speed is often false, but in this case the guiding factor was the price & nothing else), 32GB of DDR2 533 Quad Channel FBD Memory, a 512MB nVidia Quadro FX4500 SLI ready DUAL Graphics Card, 1.5TB of 7,200rpm SATA II storage, with an extra 160GB of 10,000rpm space (for my swap & page file silly), 16X DVD+/-RW and a 48X CD-ROM Drive> I also got (deep breath) a Sound Blaster® X-Fi XtremeMusic (D) Sound Card, a 3D Connexion SpacePilot (3D motion controller), a StopTrack anti-theft Label, an APC Back-UPS RS 800VA,a USB Smartcard Reader Black Keyboard, a Logitech® MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse, an internal media card reader, a 56.6k Data/Fax V92 Internal PCI Modem, Microsoft® Office 2003 Basic and McAfee SecurityCenter - Englishv7 with a 36 month subscription. Did I mention a widescreen Dell UltraSharp™ 3007 30" Widescreeen Flat Panel AND a Dell UltraSharp™ 2407WFP 24" Wide Black LCD Monitor. All that and I still only get lil ol' Windows XP Pro, albeit the 64-bit version. I also get all my old data migrated using Replace My PC - Data Transfer and Backup Software. All the gadgets set up for me by someone else (what fun is that?) with a a 1 Unit, Business Networked Set-up and Test Installation, and all wrapped up & covered by a 5Y NBD (Next Business Day) On-site (incl. e-Learning Pack) Warranty and also 5 Years Business Support, so that when I'm old and feeble I can call Dell and chat. Oh, and I also get the Google Search Assistant free of charge. What they won't do, the miserable ******s, is give me free delivery, so I need to pay £49 on top of my £22,298.01 price tag. That's ex-VAT :-).

Just for the heck of it I also configured a server - the details are boring, but it was just a shade over £50K. I then increased the quantities of servers & workstations until my basket totaled a shade over £1m! And yes, you can click on checkout, and yes, they do give you the option to pay with a credit card. Now I recently had the credit limit on my Visa increased, but I'm not too sure if it'll stretch to this. Does anyone's?? Does such a card exist?? I even entered card details, but no, I didn't go any further than that. I don't know what the consequences of entering into a binding contract by trying to buy £1m worth of Dell hardware on a visa credit card is, but I didn't really want to find out the wrong way...

Well there you have it - Macs are half the price of Dells. Or something not like that. :-)