[Fed-Talk] Mac Pro vs. generic PC from a contract officer's point of view
[Fed-Talk] Mac Pro vs. generic PC from a contract officer's point of view
- Subject: [Fed-Talk] Mac Pro vs. generic PC from a contract officer's point of view
- From: Michael <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:19:17 -0400
To a contracting officer a desk top computer is a desk top computer
and a Mac Pro is just another desk top computer.
From a performance point of view virtually everyone reading this list
knows that a loaded Mac Pro is not really a desktop computer, in fact
is really it not a workstation either, it's closer to a small
supercomputer, especially if you have purchased several small
supercomputers starting around year 2000, i.e. the SGI Origin 2000 and
the SGI Altix 350 (aka the white elephants).
What are the key points to cover when purchasing Mac Pros for a
supercomputer cluster to distinguish a 8-core Mac Pro from a generic 1-
core PC or a generic 8-core PC? Things like performance, noise, heat,
reliability, and maintenance are very hard for me to quantify, I
suspect one of you has already made a pass at this.
I'm sure I'll get the usual Apple offers to help with this but they
don't seem to cover the points I need covered and yes I'm already in
discussion with an Apple rep for a great many months, I need "words"
to work from that someone else has used with success.
The choice of words gets very touchy, just saying 8-cores could
sometimes not be enough just to cover that one point, for example a
vendor could in theory convince a contracting officer that a machine
with hyperthreading under Windows and 4 cores was a 8 core machine.
I have to believe that someone reading this list has had to write out
purchasing specs for Mac Pros to make sure that what was purchased
really met the requirements.
I have been pricing out equivalent Dell's ever since the first Mac Pro
came out, but putting the similarities and differences into words in a
bit tricky, especially if you think about the problem from a different
angle, is it possible to describe a computer that to 90% of the
readers sounds like a Mac Pro but in reality is not.
When dealing with contracting officers you can't use brand names, I
begin to suspect that you can't even specify the processor because
that would be specifying a brand name. When you consider the infinite
combination of cheap motherboards and parts that could be assembled to
make a computer that mets the specs you write up you may begin to
understand the issue I have, in fact strip the official Mac Pro
description of any vendor specific names and terms and build the
cheapest computer possible, now consider that a vendor can get
discounts on those parts, what differences remain?
A couple of non-obvious points I was considering covering that you
won't find on Apple's web site:
1) Runs OS X, Windows, and Linux (of course this is not really okay
because OS X is a brand specific because only one manufacturer makes
computers that run OS X).
2) All wireless boards are end user removable (Mac Pros come with
bluetooth boards which we will have to remove)
3) Graphics board vendor supplies drivers for all three OS's listed
Perhaps #1 should be written as "runs Linux, Windows, and vendor
supported Unix-based operating system"
Of course my ideas are extremely poorly written as I don't have enough
experience with this.
Michael
ps. and I have been assured that all of this will be unnecessary
because they want it submitted under GSA and everything we want is
covered under GSA and under the cost we have from the open market -- a
conclusion they reached based solely on the fact that it's standard
desktop computer equipment from their point of view. For better or
worse I'm not convinced they are right, and given we have to pay for
their mistakes I need to make sure I cover as many things as possible
that would be considered our mistake, i.e. not clearly specifying the
purchase, even though doing so will cost my employer a lot of money,
because time is money.
pps. A Linux coworker actually tried to build a small computer but he
had an open enough mind to compare the costs and specs to that of a
Mac Mini and the Mac Mini won, but then he was buying only one so he
didn't have any problems.
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