the 27 inch mac I had was an i5, and yes I do think your underestimating the processor in the dell machine. I didn't say it performs twice as fast, I said it's "FASTER" for less money. the macbook pro which was the topic of this convo does not have the option of a 2.93, it has 2.66 i7... but I see your speaking in relation to the 27 inch imac
I literally encoded video files side by side on the mac 27 i5, and the dell i7, and the dell smoked that shit. easily. the i5 had 4gb ram, and the i7 had 8gb ram......
the 27 inch computer was over 2k.... the pc was right @ $1000.
also with a pc you get to upgrade alot cheaper, you can just get the machine with no monitor etc, where'as on a mac you can't do that, you have to upgrade everything all at once and be stuck with what you have.
do I care about screen resolution? sure, but your really playing yourself on that, because cheap monitors/setups now have that kinda resolution your speaking on, I got a 24 inch lg monitor right now that has 1920 x 1080 and it wasn't expensive at all. for $200 you can get the best resolution. so that's pretty irrelevant.
when I say half price you have to consider the dell machine has the resolution, has 8gb ddr3 memory already in it, has the i7 processor, etc.
I literally paid around 1,200 all together for my current i7 dell computer.
I also had bought a 27 inch imac, which to upgrade to the same specs it starts at 2k, then you upgrade the processor to i7 $200 more, upgrade to 8gb ddr memory add $400, and that equals $2600 right there......
that's str8 up dollar for dollar from the apple website right now, and I bought mine from best buy, go compare the 2.
half of $2600 is $1300..... i'm telling you right now I can go to best buy and buy some shit right off the shelf for the $1300 that performs exactly the same and/or better.
I can't comments on the new processor because I didn't have that one I had the i5. but the dell machine blew that shit out the water, I literally encode a full size movie file, the same exact file in under 10 minutes on my pc, and it took around 20 minutes on the 27 inch imac, it burns cds slow, and doesn't really run photoshop or any of my programs any faster, i tested it on purpose I was going to switch over because I liked the setup of it and how it's all once peice. but it literally was grossly overpriced & did not perform, as well as the screen kept flickering on the shit and when I took it back the guy says oh we get that all the time on these.
i've been trying to get someone to show me how mac is better and no one has shown any benchmarks or anything to prove otherwise.... the only thing I kept getting was it doesn't crash as much etc......
my windows 7 isn't crashing at all, I've had it since around january 1st of the year.
I literally work every single day on my machine, so trust me, if I could find something faster i'd be all on it..... i'd pay the more money for it, if it actually was faster or smoother, it's just not.