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Dual 1Ghz G4 PowerMac With Extra Yummy
A huge number of readers submitted the new
Dual Ghz Power Mac that
Apple has announced. Includes a Geforce 4 and assorted other bells and
whistles that will ring and blow for the Mac Junkie. They start
at $3k and seriously make me want a Mac.
I just bought a dual 500 G4 PowerMac about 1 1/2 years ago for $3,000 w/ an ATI Rage Pro 128. Now I can get a dual 1Ghz PowerMac w/ a GeForce4 for $3,000. Awesome!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The high end is 3k, the low end starts at 1,600. But that's without a superdrive or the GeForce4
The lowest priced PowerMac model is $1599 (US, no display). That's with the single-800 MHz processor.
The *top of the line* model with the dual-GHz is $2999.
I know that this article is specifically about the dual-GHz model, but don't give the impression that PowerMacs start at $3k. They're not all that expensive.
In addition, the PowerPC G4 can perform four (in some cases eight) 32-bit floating-point calculations in a single cycle -- two to four times faster than processors found in PCs.
That's fast. I just love the details behind the facts: Pentiums suck, I'll take 1 G4 over a P4 at ANY speed. Anyway, enough trolling, if you click on the processors link in the article, apple gives a pretty nice overview of why their dual processor G4's are really, really nice.
~ now you know
Under MacOS 9 you needed specially tuned apps to take advantage of that second CPU... Like Photoshop.
Under MacOS X, it's no longer required, and EVERY app now benefits from that second CPU. Just like Linux or Solaris would.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Again, we bring the argument of CISC v. RISC up, and in this day and age that is of more importance than a chip's megahertz, which is simply a marketing myth (a well-spun one, but a myth all the same). The question should be: "How fast will the system do what I need it to do?" not "How fast is the system?" I suggest taking your dream Intel box and the top Power Mac and benchmarking them - especially looking at apps like Photoshop and Mathematica under Mac OS X. Once you've done that, then you can make the claims you're making and have things to back them up with...
ya. the computer you built has its own sound processor, whereas the G4 processors have to handle sound themselves. so while you're getting 145fps, that powermac with an actual sound card will probably be cranking out 150-160. crank it up to 1600x1200 and you'll watch your computer lose, and big time. i know, because i have a dual g4 with a geforce3 and a dual athlon with a gf3 ti500. the athlon is faster, but the g4 will still smoke yours when you add a real soundcard.
Food for thought.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
Actually, in Quake3, there is a limit that you need on Frames Per Second. The way Q3 does the rounding, the optimum FPS score is 142 for single-player games and 125 for multiplayer games. With your com_maxfps set to these values, you will strafe-jump farther and faster. It actually *can* make a big difference.
As far as 115 - it is rather sad, considering that my dual Athlon with a GeForce3 Ti 500 gets 200+ frames per second @ 1600x1200 (though I have it maxed at 125 - see above). But I have my settings tweaked well. My Dual G4 performs rather admirably as well - 1280x1024 and it runs about 130 frames per second. I could get it much faster - one only needs a sound card, which will relieve the processor of a significant burden. Try running Q3 with the sound off and it will be nearly as fast as current PC's, just as it should be.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
If I want two displays that look the same, I have to enter into an imposing combination of needlessly wasted PCI slots, buying redundant cable adaptors, and spending a lot of money!
You're talking about spending lots of money on Apple's LCD displays. What's the difference?
The new video cards available on these Macs have one ADC output and one VGA output. There is absolutely no way to connect any current Apple display to that second monitor port.
Then connect anyone else's display to that second port. What's the problem here?
If you want a second Apple display you would have to purchase a video card with a DVI output to go into an un-accelerated PCI slot, and the special multi-hundred dollar adaptor described above to connect to the second Apple display's ADC connector.
You're already talking about spending a premium for the Apple display. Why are you worried about the price of hooking it up?
You're worried about how it looks, but then you're worried about how much it cost to make it look nice. Seems like you've got too little to worry about.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I do agree that OS X is a pig, but disagree that it is the underlying design. Something went terribly wrong in the transition from NextStep to OS X.
My Turbo-Color Slab from NeXT (33Mhz 68030 (040?) IIRC with 32MB of RAM) seems just as zippy as my 400Mhz G4 with 1.5GB of RAM.
okay. you're lying. either that or exaggerating. i know this because, believe i am typing this response in OmniWeb 2, running on NeXTSTEP 3.3, running on a TurboColor. it's a good exercise in patience, bringing me back to my old days.
www.nytimes.com, for example, takes about a minute and a half to render. this may have been "zippy" then but no one can say the same now. what is more admirable, i think, is that i can use this as the only head in my room (i have a NetBSD/x86 box, but it's running headless) and i have something that is both beautiful and functional. but not zippy.
you might want to take a look at http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html
It talks about Dual Display Support... Each Geforce4MX card offers built-in dual display support in two useful modes. Extended Desktop mode allows users to work on two monitors at once for increased desktop real-estate (and increased productivity). Video mirroring is useful when presenting, so you can see the same image on a projector that you're seeing on your Apple display. Each card can drive an ADC based Apple flat panel as well as any device with a VGA connector by simply attaching both monitors.
750Mhz Pentium III: 1.9Mkey/sec
1.33G AMD: 4.7Mkey/sec
8x250Mhz SunSparc Ultra: 3.2Mkey/sec
2x800Mhz G4: 16.5Mkey/sec
Ummm....NO. What a longer pipeline does is allow you to run a higher clock speed. The P4 explicitly gave up IPC (Instructions per clock) and took a big hit for pipeline stalls (What happens when the speculative execution unit guesses wrong) in order to hit 1.5 GHz and above. The Athlon XP does this as well, but it's a much smaller hit than the P4, due to a shorter Pipeline (About 10-12 stage IIRC). In fact the Current G4 (PPC7450)made the same trade off, to get to 800+MHz, but it still only has a 7 stage pipeline, vs a ~10stage one for the Athlon and 20 stage pieline for the P4. The IPC on the G4 is higher than any current x86 processor, this gives the G4 about a 130% advantage over a similarly clocked Athlon, or a 150% advanyage over a P4. The G4's big advantage is Altivec. The G4's Altivec Unit is so much faster than the P4's SSE unit it's not funny, the G4's are also FPU monsters. This is where the big performance for Graphics and DV work comes from, otherwise, the Macs are still a bit slower than a top end PC overall, but since the G4 is the fastest thing out there in its target market, it doesn't matter.
The Crazy Finn
(Note that performance margins are guesstimates based on Benchmarks and relative IPC)
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Oh yeah, one more thing...
Your ADC to VGA connector is available for gefen.com for $49.
From Gefen.com:
For those who purchased Apple Computers latest G4 dual 800MHZ Power Mac G4, 867MHZ Power Mac G4, or the 733MHZ Power Mac G4, now you can use the ADC connector with a VGA analog monitor.
Gefen supplies the custom cable as a "plug and play" solution to be used with the Twinview graphics card. The Gefen solution enables operation using two analog monitors side by side.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith