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Not quite fair - the Mac is almost three times the price.

eCost sells a Power Mac G5 2.5GHZ Dual Processor (only 512 Mb RAM) for $2,994.00
Monarch Computer sells an Athlon 64 3500+ (the 2.2 GHz CPU) for $1,085.00

Uh, not quite... that quote is for the SINGLE processor version, no Operating System, no software, no keyboard, no mouse, onboard sound, minimalist video, no modem, no NIC, No Firewire, no speakers.

After building one up as far as their build would allow (still only ONE [1] processor) and NO SOFTWARE equivalents... the price is $1944.97.

If you upgrade the MB and add the second Processor, guess what? The price is going to be close to $3000 and STILL NO SOFTWARE!

that quote is for the SINGLE processor version

Uh - yes. Wasn't it the single processor version of Athlon that this test used?

And if you did build out a dual CPU system of closer to the same speeds, then the performance difference reported between the Mac and Athlon would evaporate.

STILL NO SOFTWARE!

Ok - add Windows XP for $89. That doesn't quite account for all of the $1900 price difference. The software was a separate line item because there really is a choice (Windows or Linux) of software to run on the Athlon. You don't get that choice on the Mac.