Plaintiger,
I found this comparison of performance of the Xserve Server Platform using mac and pc on very prestigious server anandtech.
For more infos, please see this page
Briefly resuming, it says "The difference between the PowerMac running Linux and Mac OS X Server is absolutely striking. Mac OS X server shows better performance going from one to a second connection (and thus thread) because the second CPU steps in and helps carry the load. After that, however, performance completely collapses and stabilizes at around 50 queries per second. "

Another result of to be not competitive to pc performance is starting of building new mac= s using intel processors.
The problem is not even in hardware but unfortunallz in operating system.
And what is funny all of that? If you want to use service packs of Tiger, let´s say 10.1, 10.2,10.3 or 10.4, the only possibility of using them is to buy them separately as a NEW, yes, new operating system. Can you imagine that you have to pay for each service pack of Windows?

And one more example:
the price of iMac starts on 1299$ (see for example page of apple )
I can give you several examples what kind of hardware is possible to buy for 1299$.

You can be sure that Mac´s cannot compare to those computers.

Finaly, I would like to say that I respect all opinions but imho who really care about his/her money won´t buy mac´s. There are too many reasons for not doing so.

Any comments?