By the way, the iMac has a Firewire 800 port that allows the addition of multiple high-performance external hard drives, so both the XPS 410 and the iMac have the potential for more than a terabyte of storage. For my price comparison I add $200 to the $1,999 base price of the iMac for the 500GB upgrade, but for a lot of people that would be optional. Or, Apple customers can pay $200 extra for a 500GB drive. Tinkerers can recode the "hidden" drive to boost the system to 500GB. So is the Dell's, but with a catch: Dell adds a "DataSafe" backup drive, also 250GB, that mirrors the main drive and reduces the likelihood of data loss. The Dell can be upgraded to a 2.66 GHz Conroe chip, while the Apple Marom chip tops out at 2.33 GHz.] The L2 cache is a holding pen for frequently-accessed data, which, when properly implemented, gets information to the main processor even faster than RAM. Both machines have 4 megabytes of L2 (level 2) cache memory.
The faster the FSB, in general, the better the computer's performance. The front side bus is the data backbone between the main processor and other chips and chipsets, including RAM and expansion cards. The Dell scores points for having a faster front side bus, 1,066 MHz against the iMac's 667MHz. Using the cooler chip also means the iMac does not have to run a cooling fan quite as much, making the iMac quieter to operate. Apple chose the Marom chip because it is cooler (less hot) and has energy-saving features not found on the desktop chip. But here's the catch: The Dell uses the desktop version of the Core 2 Duo chip, code-named Conroe, which runs hotter than the newer, mobile "Marom" version of the Core 2 Duo used in the iMac. Not long ago, such "parallel processing" was the stuff of supercomputing. The 24-inch iMac comes standard with a 2.16-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo main processing engine, which is actually two separate but equal processor cores in one chip package. Apple tends to gouge its customers for add-on memory, and in this case the upgrade to 2GB costs $175. For today's uses, and for future operating system upgrades, 2GB ought to be standard. Standard memory on the iMac is 1GB dual channel DDR2 SDRAM. Vista will offer lots of features found today in Tiger, including greater resistance to worms, viruses and other security attacks. Both are scheduled to be upgraded early next year, the Mac OS to version 10.5, code-named Leopard, and Windows to several versions of Vista.
Dell's operating system is Genuine Microsoft Windows Media Center 2005 Edition. The iMac operating system is Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. And, of course, the entire iMac takes up the same desk space of the Dell monitor alone. Both feature resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels, good enough for HDTV.
But so is the integrated iMac 24-inch widescreen LCD.
Dell's 24-inch UltraSharp 2407FPW monitor is a gorgeous display.
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