We'll Even Pay Shipping (10/15/03)
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Okay, okay, we know-- the whole Mac community is frothing at the mouth because of the new test results published by that paragon of platform-balanced reporting, PC World. As faithful viewer mrmgraphics was first to point out to us, said test results show a single 2.2 GHz Athlon 64 FX-51 trouncing a dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 in just about every test. This has led legions of Mac users to attack PC World's methodology as flawed and biased (otherwise described as "fliased"), but we at AtAT are here to act as the Voice of Reason-- and illustrate to you why PC World's choice of test applications was actually anything but stacked in the Athlon's favor.

  • Quake III Arena, the only reason people ever spend over $3000 on a professional computer in the first place. Biased against Macs, you say? Why? Just because you assume that the x86 version was mercilessly hand-tweaked by John Carmack in assembly language and optimized 'til it cried, while the original Mac OS X version was ported by The Omni Group during commercial breaks of a Nick at Nite "Family Ties" marathon? Well, we know for a fact that that's not true. It was a "Cosby Show" marathon. So there.

  • Adobe Premiere, the video editing application that was so darn good on the Mac that Adobe apparently decided that it had reached total perfection with version 6.5 and thenceforth ceased all further development. The last Mac version, 6.5, is no longer even listed on Adobe's products page, which only proves that it has ascended to a higher plane of software existence. So it clearly has an advantage on the Mac.

  • Microsoft Word, the world's most widely-used $200 method to produce memos that have boldface and italics. Some folks argue that benchmarking with a word processor is silly in the first place, but considering that Word frequently has trouble even keeping up with our typing (and we're not touch-typists), clearly there's some serious computation going on just to process keystrokes. Changing the font makes all the lights dim. And as for the people shouting that Microsoft Word running under Microsoft Windows obviously has a performance advantage because it's developed by the same people who wrote the operating system, we say... um... Hey, look over there! Isn't that Elvis buying an Orange Julius?!

  • Adobe Photoshop. Okay, this one we'll give you; it is clearly biased. Because the Mac actually beat the Athlon, so it must be. (Of course, it barely lost to a 2.2 GHz Opteron, so apparently it wasn't biased enough.)

So there you have it, people: far from being biased in any way, PC World's rigorous testing proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the G5 is a mere toy, unfit even for the most inconsequential of tasks-- and therefore, any of you who actually owns one of those sorry buckets should immediately send it to us. We won't even charge you to take it off your oh-so-embarrassed hands, and we'll put it to good use. (Because really, what's more inconsequential than AtAT?) And if you're still on the fence about whether or not PC World's testing is believable, just look at the magazine's slogan: "Technology Advice You Can Trust." C'mon, what more proof do you people need?


 
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The above scene was taken from the 10/15/03 episode:

October 15, 2003: Apple posts a $44 million profit; naysayers are baffled. Meanwhile, PC World conclusively proves that the G5 is actually slower than a 386, and Microsoft admits that the next major version of Windows won't surface until 2006...

Other scenes from that episode:

  • 4270: Head Nicely Above Water (10/15/03)   The results are in, people, and the ink is blacker than the box-office prospects of any post-Gigli Ben 'n' Jen flicks (sorry, Kev): according to the official press release, Apple posted a final profit of $44 million in its fourth fiscal quarter of 2003, thus prompting a perplexed Rob Enderle to scratch his head and go "Whuh?"...

  • 4272: Better Call It "Latehorn" (10/15/03)   Nine days 'til Panther! Nine days 'til Panther! Not that we're getting excited or anything. Sure, we're looking forward to hours of productivity irretrievably lost to Exposé as we repeatedly press the F11 key and watch all of our windows skitter off the screen like so many startled cockroaches when the kitchen light comes on, but mostly we're just anticipating a whole heaping helping of Schadenfreude and gloating when we're all gleefully running Panther and the Windoids are still waiting for Longhorn...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...

Vote Early, Vote Often!
Why did you tune in to this '90s relic of a soap opera?
Nostalgia is the next best thing to feeling alive
My name is Rip Van Winkle and I just woke up; what did I miss?
I'm trying to pretend the last 20 years never happened
I mean, if it worked for Friends, why not?
I came here looking for a receptacle in which to place the cremated remains of my deceased Java applets (think about it)

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