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Rumors Of MP PowerMac G4 Flying!
Maktoo writes: "Well, this has been a favorite rumour in the Mac world for quite some time, but with the approach of WWDC (next Monday) things are starting to heat up.
MacOSRumors, AppleInsider, and Go2Mac are all predicting MP G4s soon ... with Go2Mac actually claiming that CompUSA has SKUs for the systems. The keynote on Monday should be interesting. I don't see why Apple would release MP machines before MacOS X ... but we might get a demo at least. I'm excited enough that I'll be getting a copy of MacOS X Beta when I walk in the door ... but an MP G4 would be nice too."
Actually, though, ALL modern processors can execute multiple operations per cycle. Pentiums can hit 3-6 ops/cycle and IA-64 will support 6-12. Most often, though, you only get a number closer to 2 ops/cycle (or slightly less) due to the state of today's compilers and the the difficulty of the scheduling problem.
The real difficulty in benchmarking two different architectures, IMHO, is that the processor is just one of dozens of crucial variables. Ok, so Photoshop or Netscape run slower on a Mac with a processor a than on a PC with processor b. So what? Maybe Adobe and Netscape don't work as hard on the Mac versions of their products to optimize them (true, esp for Netscape). Maybe the MacOS is just slow and outdated (true, esp for OS 8). Maybe the PC compilers are better (certainly possible, though hard to tell). See what I mean?
That said, I think the best way to compare is to look at price/performance and other benchmarks on EXACTLY the applications you use. So, the Photoshop test is meaningless to me, because I don't particularly do graphics. But it's not meaningless to a graphic artist, who could care less what specific components cause the machine to run PS well.
--JRZ
Since WWDC is just a week away, why not resist and wait a week?
About the only thing I can get my dual-604e processor card to do (with an SMP kernel) in my 7500 is crash. There aren't enough Linux developers who even know anything about PPC, let alone SMP PPC. I think that there's one guy who used to work on it.
Other people have gotten other kinds of SMP macs to boot, some even have no problems. But there's probably only about 5 people in the world running SMP linux on macs.
In short, don't expect any linux to work on this architecture for years. 2004 would be a reasonable guess for full support, iff people actually care enough to try to get linux to work at all. Which is still doubtful, esp. considering that you can run MacOS X on these by the time you will be able to buy them. Who would invest time in porting yet another unix clone to a system that only a few thousand people will be able to buy? LinuxPPC.org hasn't gotten any support from Apple in about 2 years, why should they change anything now?
* They won't let anyone else build Mac-compatible machines anymore.
Nothing's really stopping you. They don't license their designs anymore, but that doesn't mean you couldn't build a compatible machine. No guarantees that future releases of MacOS would work on it, but the same goes for any OS running on hardware that the OS creators don't specifically say will be supported in the future.
* They won't let anyone else sell Macs online unlessthe store arranges for customers who already own a Mac to setup a password/account/etc
Ok, I don't quite understand what you're saying here. I see lots of places selling Macs online, and they just have the normal sign-in-so-we-can-ship-the-thing-to-you system.
* If they had their way, nobody but Apple owners would have been able to use a graphical interface. (Bogus lawsuits, copyrights, patents on GUIs)
Conceded.
* Quicktime, all under Apple's control.
QuickTime itself is a completely open specification. You are confusing the format with the codec, like I see all over the place. QuickTime is just a format for mixing various time-dependent media. The thing everyone really should complain about is the Sorenson Video codec and the QDesign audio codecs, neither of which were created by Apple. Now Apple may have entered into some exclusive agreement with them in exchange for shipping the codecs standard with QuickTime, I don't know.
* FireWire® - registering a trademarked name for an IEEE standard. Only they can use the name if they so choose!
Sony has its own name for it too. I don't know if it's trademarked or not, though. Apple did invent the whole 1394 thing, so I think they deserve to call it whatever they want.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Yes, that's correct. Current MP support in MacOS is a lot like the way most operating systems don't support MP -- they require the application to be written to access the other processors.
And to think they were bragging about it when they added that feature . . .
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
For those of you who are asking the inevitable question, "What about linux support"? I think you should have some faith in the good people of the world out there. You might want to see some of the stuff that TerraSoft Solutions is doing with YellowDog Linux and BlackLab Linux. I'm not sure how much a lot of this applies, but they've gotten it to run on some of CSP's Quad G4 boards and other nifty configurations.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Geez. There's a lot of anti-Mac fud and humor here. Sorta like some giant smacktalk from a legion of Ford Escort owners toward a small group of guys who drive Lexus cars. Anyways, if the hardware and OS will support SMP, then we're talking about a VERY formidable machine, and noone really should be laughing about its performance. Take,for instance, the stats coming in from Distributed.Net. G4 Macs, in all their SlashDot-assumed-patheticness, are among the fastest single-cpu crunching boxes in the entire RC5-64 contest. Compare a 500 MHz G4's performance vs. a 1 GHz Athlon or a Xeon.. The "slower" G4 is almost 30% faster (approximately 4.8 Mkeys/sec) than the fastest PC. Imagine what kind of number cruncher a double/quad Altivec would be. As for ignorant people who assume that nerds would never use a Mac.. well, you people are just perfect for a Think Ignorant(TM) ad. People find the most suitable machine for the tasks they do. I happen to enjoy working on a Mac for web development, HTML programming, and multimedia design. It works fine for me and doesn't get in the way of my creative process. I can find a generous amount of Mac software/hardware at retailers, thank you very much. You may enjoy Windoze or Linux because its "behavior" suits your own creative process. Fine. So quit flaming other people's platform preferences as long as they don't end up stepping on your toes. Do your work and refrain from bothering others.. they're getting ready for their MP Macs =)
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
A SKU is a stock keeping unit , a numeric code for inventory control usually in an electronic database.
This is similar to a Universal Product Code, which is the barcode found on virtually everything these days.
Both refer to a number. A UPC has a standard barcode and numbering system. A SKU isn't universal, and can be different no matter where you are.
SKUs sometimes include letters, too, whereas UPCs are strictly numeric.
I think.
Here's a handy template you can use to start your own Mac rumor site:
At the upcoming Macworld|Seybold|WWDC, Apple will announce:
new Powerbooks (or not)
new 17" iMacs (or not)
MP PowerMacs (or not)
an Apple PDA (or not)
MacOS X is shipping (or not)
In other words, these guys predict anything that could possibly happen, so some of it is bound be true.
Macintosh Performa
Mutha Phucka
Military Police
Maybe Purple
Multiple Processors
Medium Power
of course it really is...
Metallica Pirates
Apple's sold multi processor systems (dual; Daystar sold quads) before, but the Mac OS at present has very poor MP support. Mac OS 9 is somewhat improved; some Finder operations will take advantage of a second processor, as will all Quicktime operations; applications that are explicitly parallel get a big boost (Photoshop, for example). However, you don't get what you get in Linux, where a given single-threaded process runs on the lowest-loaded processor at the time.
However, I don't think Apple's going to be SELLING these machines in May or June. I think Apple's going to be demonstrating them to developers, showing what a boost Mac OS X gets with a dual or quad G4 machine - and what a boost a dual or quad machine gets under OS X. Since OS X is slated for release sometime this summer (probably Macworld Expo New York in July), that will likely tie the two together. I'm sure these machines will run Mac OS 9 as well, but don't expect too much.
That said, the G4 is still far ahead of twice-as-'fast' Pentium IIIs - several reviews have shown that, with Altivec-native programs like Photoshop, a G4 at 450MHz creams a Pentium III at 1GHz, by 30% in some instances. With Mac OS X on dual or quad G4s, and with much better G4s (dual altivec units, and deeper pipelining to allow higher clock speeds) coming this fall, the Mac platform's about to get a massive boost.
That said, I fear that Apple will price these dual or quad machines way out of reach. An additional processor doesn't add that much to the price - maybe $500 reasonably. The smart approach with MP is not to double up on the very fastest chips; they just cost too much. Rather, it's better to step down the clock speed a little bit to allow for more processors at a reasonable price point. Thus, I think dual G4s at only 400 or 450MHz would make a lot of sense, and could be reasonably priced. I say could be; I have little faith in Apple to do this, though Apple's been much better about price-performance lately than they used to be.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Well,
I imagine if anything it's because half of the OS X equation has already been released...OS X Server, which I believe supports multiple processors. Since it seems to make quite a bit of sense to me to have MP server boxes, I see this as a great thing (if/when it happens).
-fp