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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
Darn, Mac missed a chance to start off a new line of hyper-cute with some quality components.
Where are the crazy features? How about four little feet that walk around to amuse the user? Or a spout that collects humidity to make a wicked glass of iced tea every few hours?
------
Today's Top Deals
For some reason they hold resale like a fucking BMW.
It can be a few years old and almost cost what it did, fucking new.
There's 604's going on eBay for $800+
Intel hardware retains value about as well as lunch meat.
As far as I know, the biggest NVIDIA graphics card is the GeForce3. What's this model n.4?
Apple Press Release http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/jan/28pmg4.ht ml
Well, it differentiates the Pro Macs from the iMac, for the short term. The price has nudged down, and the features have gotten boosted. All this is good.
However, the chipset hasn't been updated yet (ergo no ATA100 or DDR support yet), it's the same FireWire (meaning the newer high-speed FireWire isn't ready for Prime Time yet), and the top-end speed isn't quite as fast as I had hoped/expected. I was thinking the speeds would be more like 933/1000/dual 1133 this time out.
But all in all, it's a good short-term move assuming the G5 is available in the next couple of months. But despite the specs, it reminds me of the original "Yikes!" G4 towers, which were just Yosemite towers tweaked for a G4 to hold the line while Apple got more of the high-speed chips that their real G4 was designed for. Yikes only lasted a few months before the Sawtooth version took over.
This is, I hope, pretty much the same thing.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
seriously make me want a Mac.
:)
My friend started saying things like this after he got a girlfriend too. We had to set up an intervention session. I propose we do the same before Taco starts posting reviews of "A Walk to Remember".
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.
The blurb at http://www.apple.com/powermac/ has a section entitled "Cache Advance" that should be good for a smirk, or at least a raised eyebrow.
It says, and I am not making this up, "In the 933MHz and dual 1GHz Power Mac G4 models, faster-than-light processor speed gets an additional boost with [now here comes the technical stuff--DPBS] advanced cache memory architecture that provides ultrafast, dedicated memory with massively enhanced throughput."
You know, as opposed to lesser machines that have only fast, dedicated memory with enchanced throughput.
But, wait, there's more... in this remarkable machine, "Accessing data from main memory is significantly faster than accessing data from the hard drive..."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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
neat considering that Nvidia won't own up to it's existance on their website, or the fact that you cant buy one. So is Apple going to delay release until the Geforce 4 is an actual product and not something that is in the development stages?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Please. My beige G3 from 1998 is still a very powerful graphics machine. One of the reasons people buy macs is becasue the have much greater staying power than any intel or amd product.
No more. I've got friends with Macs and knowing a thing or two about operating systems I'd pick Mac OS X over Windows any day - and thus I'm now also going to convert from PC/Windows to Apple computers. I seriously hope more and more people will do this, not just those with a techie background that can see through the MS commercials and understand that for what they use their computer for, they really really should go Apple.
Price? Umm. Let's not go there. I'm going for the iMac instead
it's in my head
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.
I've been using mostly PCs and Sun workstations, but these new Macs with OS X actually make me reconsider... the pricetag is ok I guess, the OS is solid (unix-based), PPC is a clean architecture, and it could be used by my mom while I can run all the GNU goodies I want.
Now if they have standard connectors for the display etc. (unlike some older models), it's definitely an option. That "superdrive" starts making DVDs interesting, even though 'til now I boycott them on principle (region code, CSS) - CDs are getting a bit limiting in size...
Oh well before I get serious about replacing my current setup, the G5 will be available...
> a 3d card runs a 2d app 72 percent faster?
... your CPU is.
When you run your filters (which is where most photoshoppers are able to judge the 'speed' of their platform compared to past experiences or other platforms), the PowerPC-optimized version of Photoshop screams. I've seen it first hand, the G4 beside a higher-clocked P3, and the G4 simply obliterates the P3.
Now, I'm a PC guy, but I respect that when it comes to raw performance given a properly optimized and compiled app, the PowerPC chips just scream.
But most important lesson, geez, your videocard is not doing your calcs in a hardcore photoshop session
"Old man yells at systemd"
Here is to hopeing that the new G4 towers Provide enough product placement seperation from the imac so they can uncripple the imac's 100mhz fsb. There was no reason to take a perfectly good computer and run it slow except marketing. Now Apple has some faster models, they can give the imac some breathing room.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
What NV number is the GeForce 4 MX? The NV17? If so, it's not that impressive, just marketing renaming a card. Apple has rarley had the top of the line graphics ship as default. And right now, it's not even an option (No 8500 or GF3Ti500)
For those in a hurry, here is the editted summary ...
A quantum ... revolutionary ... and ... Mac ... floating ... fearsomely fast ... through the ... barrier ... runs ... and crunches ... Pentium 4-based ... super models.
Off the charts, with hot ... fluid motion and ... phenomenal ... overdrive ...snap ... three brilliant ... creative professionals.
Faster-than-light ... ultrafast ... massively enhanced throughput ... significantly faster... even faster ... boosting ... for shooting large ... Keyboard features.
What more do you need to know?
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
and no one can imagine a Beowulf Cluster of These??
I'm disappointed.
It looks like they are trying to make up for have their system memory just PC-133 SDRAM, instead of DDR SDRAM...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
hrmph. As both a Mac and windows user, I can't say that I was particularly impressed at first by these new machines.
Apple really needs to ramp up their speed--and since most people were expecting 1.2 Ghz G5 machines, this upgrade will come as a dissapointment to many.
The new machines also use PC-133 SDRAM, which is, to say the least, sad.
There are some nice points about the new macs, though. Apple seems to have greatly improved the interior architecture of the machines, enabling the PCI bus to run at 215MBps instead of 133MBps, and giving more dedicated bandwidth to hard drives et ect. The new machines also feature an AGP 4x slot, whereas (to the best of my recollection) the older PowerMacs only had AGP 2x. The GeForce 4 MX is nice, of course, though until I see some real benchmarks comparing it to Radeon 8500 and the high-end older GeForce 3 cards, I won't be impressed.
Well, here are the total specs of the new machines.
My overall impression is "Nice, but not nice enough."
I, for one, will wait for the G5 to buy a new mac. MacWorld New York, anyone?
At least Apple has done well in the last few months. Although I don't think I would purchase an Apple desktop computer, their Powerbooks running OSX would make me reconsider buying an x86 compatible laptop.
/.'s archnemesis (no name required,) the amount of options people have, especially in the day-to-day tasks of word processing, spreadsheets, collecting SPAM etc., are much better now that Apple is putting out products everyone wants to use.
Unfortanately for us, the mainstay of application toolkit consists of programs designed exclusively for Windows. On the background side, we have confugured our network services exlcusively around linux servers. Sure, maybe OSX is capable of handling such things in the near future, maybe even now; I really don't need a (reasonably) expensive Apple computer to the work an old PII can.
On a more positive side, I have seen the grass on the other side of the fence. My first subject revolves around a family, who for several years used windows. First 95, then 98 then ME. This family had so many issues with their computer system, and no idea how to correct them that they just went out and bought an iMac because "everything worked." Now they want iPod's, iBooks, and the likes because Apple products work both for those without an inkling of knowledge as well as those who know exactly what they're doing.
It is also my opinion that the best applications for sound recording (please read audio, not MIDI sequncing, not waveform generation ala Max/MSP,) but straight recording are available only for the PC (Samplitude 2496 and Sequoia.) As always you are free to disagree. Our studio uses such software exclusively, but a young woman asked us for advice on buying her first computer. We suggested an Athlon-based PC and an inexpensive but high quality recording card (M-Audio, Echoaudio, Terratek etc.) So she buys a Socket 423 P4, with a SoundBlaster live. Needless to say things didn't work right from the start. The system came preloaded with ME, and when we helped her switch to 2K for stabilitie's sake, Dell informed us the warranty was void without the original OS supplied with the system. On top of that this woman's knowledge of computers was non-existent (not necessarily a bad thing, just a drawback.) She is the type of demographic for which the Macintosh is perfect, and it was silly of us to recommned otherwise because we've been back there setting up the computer on many occasions.
Apple's current efforts to provide not just an alternative but a viable one should be applauded. Though Apple is, in business models, equaly monopolistic as
There's a new tab on the PowerMac page, labeled Architecture. It wasn't there before, as confirmed by the Google cache.
Unfortunately, the page is slanted more towards marketing than geekspeak. I couldn't see anything significantly different than the previous Quicksilver models. Could someone provide a more ArsTechnica-style overview of this little gray box labeled "System Controller" and say whether it really is any better than before?
115 Frames per second.... Must... Have...Now... Powerbook... too... sloww...
http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
While semantically this is a GForce 4, technically the real GForce 4 (non-MX) is based on the NV25 core (dual vertex shaders and improved pixel shader).
The GForce 4 MX used by Apple usese the NV17 core (one vertex shader and no pixel shader). This might still be a nice chipset, but it is not anywhere near XBox or real GForce 4 performance.
Every bleedin' time we get this.
Apple's operating system is designed to be used with ONE button. However, if you have 2 or more (and/or a scroll wheel etc) it will hapily support them too. BUT THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY.
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
You realize that Apple has this new OS called OS X, right? It's built around the mach kernel and BSD. It's fast, it's stable, and you can compile tons of *NIX goodies to run on it. You can also deploy WebObjects apps, and the GUI admin tools make things easier for those who are new to operating a server. It might not rule the server world, but OS X Server has been well reviewed, and will certainly steal back marketshare in K-12, university, and creative environments where NT and its derivatives had made inroads.
The Mac is now finally a serious Java development platform. You can use all manner of GNU tools on the Mac. As for production, in the worlds of video production, audio production, web production, and print production, the Mac has always been very strong. With OS X, Apple will be able to regain a firm lead in these areas.
As more and more apps are ported to OS X, and as more brand-new Cocoa apps are written, the platform will become even more attractive to creative industries. Dual-processor machines running OS X are a godsend to people using memory-intensive apps like Illustrator and Final Cut Pro.
Macs have always been labeled as "cute", particularly after the release of the initial iMac four years ago. But Apple has changed its ways to a large degree. Sure, they make eye-catching products that are easy to use, but they're also now transitioning to a truly powerful OS that plays very well with UNIX, Linux, and even Windows.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The GeForce4 MX seems to be pretty seriously crippled (like the GeForce 2MX before it). On this page you can see that it pulls in about 115 fps at 1024x768. Compare that with this page which shows a GF3 Ti500 doing 190fps under similar circumstances.
I'm not saying that it's all that bad, and the graphics performance is very nice indeed, but the GeForce4 moniker might be a bit misleading to people who might presume it's the next generation: That little MX designation is a clue that it isn't necessarily a step up from a GeForce 3.
Video editing groups. There is a serious following of apple in the multimedia area. Final Cut Pro has dragged in tons more video editing people. Guess what? Apple still has the attention of tons of desktop publishers, a lot of smaller, independent editing houses, and graphics departments inside larger corporations. They are apple's market. My college would be buying them for a digital editing lab, a highschool doing video editing may get a bunch of iMacs and a few G4s to do the high end rendering, for the kids who want to do work that iMovie can't. And the machines are also possible servers for all of the above people.
And these machines are just something to keep the iMac from undermining the Power Mac G4 sales, supposedly the G5's will be out soon.
Seriously, you know you want one. It's the killer BSD box that you've wanted now! Just go out and get one!
Finally, dual-GHz. This is a big psychological barrier that Apple has crossed. I couldn't be happier.
--Bernie
You have one CPU dedicated solely to the app you're using, say - while the other is free for system functions, I/O and other background tasks.
So yes, a specially tuned app would work better, but it still works better than a single CPU machine would.
I use it mostly for development and as a unix admin workstation. I hack around with python and objective-c and even play Retrun-to-cstl-wolfenstein on it.. I imagine that I will be using it for another 8-12 months before it gets retired as a server or nat box (Which would replace my wifes old nappy-iBook (think toilet seat)). The cool thing about the iBook is , with exception of a huge hard disk
I find myself upgrading my PC about once every 12-14 months, I expect to get at least 2-3 years out of my G4 (as I almost have done with my iBook)
Cheers
...because its sexy enough on its own.
It says that it "supports" up to three SCSI drives, whatever that means, but it comes with Ultra ATA drive stock. For a machine of this performance potential, there is no substitute for a really good scsi drive, like the Fujitsu MAN series.
For those that believe that IDE has caught up, I have done a comparison on a Sun Ultra 5, which comes with internal IDE drives, and an optional SCSI interface. We had the stock IDE, and a Sun labeled external SCSI drive, and the SCSI drive kicked old school at about 1.6 times faster.
Considering Apple is marketing this to graphics/music/multimedia pros, who really use bandwidth, this box needs SCSI.
I just don't quite understand who Apple is going after with this. One would think that they need to expand more into the desktop arena since they have no chance in the server or production world.
It has been my experience that there are two kinds of people in the world.* Those who shop at Wal-Mart for everything in order to save money. The other kind is those who shop at Wal-Mart for stuff they don't care about, and go elsewhere for quality items.
Apple is targeting the latter. I bought a Mac because it is a high quality machine. I use it to work on. Whereas a few years ago I considered Mac to be almost exclusively used by designers, I can emphatically say this is no longer the case. I can use Emacs, Vi/Vim, Netbeans, Ant or just about whatever dev/build tool I used to use on Linux.
I will not speculate as to the future success of Macs as a development machine. But I can at least give you anecdotal evidence that it is quite possible (and even pleasant.) I am ecstatic to no longer have to fight with Gnome or KDE, however infrequently those problems arose.
Anyway, I have gushed enough. Moral of the story is that Macs make quite a nice development box.
- Rev.With the combonation of OSX and Dual 1ghz processors, Apple now is staged to show the world what it is made of. For all you nay-sayers that think Macs are only for Photoshop filters, I got news for you.
First of all, Macs cost less. SHUT UP! They do. If you compare an iMac to an equally equiped Dell, the iMac is 400$ less than the CD-RW version of the Dell and 400$ less than the DVD-R version. Dell 8200 vs. iMac, I tried the slower versions of the PCs on their website as well, but first off the speed comparison isn't fair to the PC, but the iMac still beat it in value until you go to the 1.1ghz Celeron version, which doesn't have graphics acceloration or a hard drive larger than 40 gigs. I haven't started with the new PowerMacs, but eventually I will have a website proving that a Mac costs less than any of the competition. Feel free to verify the numbers: iMac CD-RW 1299, dell, 1663
iMac DVD-R 1699, dell 2032
Now, past that, Mac is currently getting all the advantages of the BSD and open source software community since the Developers Tools, which look strikingly like Visual C++, come FREE when you buy OSX. They nativly compile OS 9, OS X, and BSD/Linux applictions, I currently develop a Mud server in Project Builder, which runs on BSD and Linux.
As far as graphics and video are concerened, it's OBVOIUS to anyone who KNOWS anything about processors that a 7 step G4 with the FPU unit used is going to be over twice as fast as a 20 step P4 using an FPU unit. Games, being an unfair arena to a superior processor which runs cooler at a lower voltage and clock speed, the Mac still matches the PC in most arenas. http://www.barefeats.com So speed isn't an issue.
Resale value is also better on a Mac. And if you haven't noticed, most new Mac software runs on hardware 3 years old! The staying power of a PowerMac is obvious. There's no need to upgrade at all till processor speeds almost tripple. (I upgraded from a G3 233 to a G4 733, with no problems)
SO, a special note to all you PC idiots. If you want to spend more money on slower computers, with hot running parts, bad operating systems, Microsofts invasion of privacy, and oh, let's not forget all those WONDERFUL games on PCs, that's fine. The best day of my life was when I left the 4000$ game system market and got a Mac. I much prefer GTA3 and FFX on PS2. Not to mention with OSX I have one click webserving, all the advantages of BSD, including the fastest SMP of any OS, and a huge open source community that is only growing with each Unix nut converted. What I don't get are you Unix/BSD/Linux junkies who don't see the joy in a Mac. It's BSD with the arguably the greatest User Interface made! There is an easy way to boot to console only ( click Other as login, ">console" as username, no password ), and everything made in Project Builder is easily portable to any other flavor of Unix or Linux, even MS-DOS for the sheep.
So PC people, get a clue, get a life, and get a Mac. Maybe then you can appreciate style, user interface, and speed, and if not, I'm sure you guys will never run out of reasons why you don't have a Mac. You have plenty of time to think about it while you wait for your PC to finish crashing and reboot.
Dokujaryu
niche. Motorola just aren't up to the job of making competitive silicon or support hardware like motherboards for a mainstream market.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Eh? Any application that uses fork() will benefit.
;-).
Multithreading offers finer-grained parallelism, to be sure, but I guaran-damn-tee you that Apache will run almost twice as fast (all other conditions unbounded) and handle about twice the number of simultaneous clients on a two-processor Linux or Solaris system.
And Apache is NOT multithreaded (well, 1.x isn't, and 2.x is not what I would want to run on my production servers yet).
Similarly, my gnarly Perl and shell scripts that do lots of simultaneous-dispatch work benefit enormously from a second processor. Again this is in the absence of other bounding conditions, ie. network pooping out, etc.
Single-process single-thread applications probably won't benefit much. I don't know if Photoshop is multithreaded, but that's probably the only application that most high-end Mac users care about anyways
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
If you BTO one of the dual 1GHz machines and select an ATI Radeon 7500 (better chance of working in Linux) and don't get a 56k modem, you can get it for just $2870.
Ahh, whatever. If apple can handle serving 15MB Star Wars trailers to tens of thousands of fans, they can handle slashdot.
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.
the reason why I don't have a Macintosh is because I
can't build one.
I wish that I could go to the store, buy the components, and put one together myself, just like
I can with a PC. I know I can't as a result of
Apple owning much of the hardware.
I read this article and I agree with the author. It'd be nice if apple sold barebones G4s. That would make owning a Macintosh cheaper and more fun since you could easily customize by yourself.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The GeForce 4 MX is really an enhanced GeForce 2 core. I know you will want a reference on this, but you'll have to take my word for it.
I yearn for you tragically
AT Tappman,
Chaplain, US Army
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.
Just for fun, try to build a comparable brand name PC for $3000.
I tried with Dell and ended up with a $5,071 quote. I'm sure my specs can be debated, but I got:
--Dual Xeon 2.2Ghz (Hard to tell if this is a good comparison)
--512 MB RAM
--80GB HD
--ATI Fire GL2, 64MB,VGA/DVI (Best I could find on their site, besides high-end)
--Sound Blaster Live! Value
--Windows XP Pro
Anyone have any idea whether the Xeon 2.2Ghz is fair to compare with at all?
a multi-billion dollar processor fabrication division is an expensive marketing tool for their consumer electronics. :)
The G4/DP 1 gig is a very appealing option, except:
THEREFORE Your system can only work with one Apple display, because only one card slot has this power connection.
What I'm getting at here is that Apple boasts that all the new Power Macs have support for dual monitors built in, but for a company who puts so much work into beautiful designs, they expect me to use two different, cosmetically mismatched displays! I don't believe that a VGA connector belongs on a flat panel due to inherent flickering issues, so that means a flat display on the ADC and a CRT on the VGA port. Ugly!
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!
I would love to have a DP 1 GHz with dual Apple 17" Studio displays. I really would. But the premium is too high.
Apple should bury ADC now and issue an admission of stupidity.
Apple did a great job of embracing standards with USB, and is arguably responsible for its success. Why they chose to suddenly abandon the DVI connector on Yosemite and original Sawtooth computers is a mytery to me. DVI was just catching on as a standard way of connecting flat panel displays. If Apple hadn't moved to ADC, we would have seen more Wintel video cards with DVI conectors on them now, because there would be more DVI-connected monitors on the market.
Apologies for the rambling post... ADC has bothered me right from the start and now these new dual cards seem like the ultimate inconvenience.
I just don't quite understand who Apple is going after with this. One would think that they need to expand more into the desktop arena since they have no chance in the server or production world.
Um... I guess it depends on what you mean by the "production world" They absolutely dominate the graphic design, photography, and print production markets which are all reasonably processor intensive. And they also do very well in the video production market which is VERY processor intensive. Even in the high end shops the less processor intensive stuff is done on macs and then moved over to the SGI machines. Notice how many macs you see when watching a documentary on the "making of" the latest hot movie. From ILM to your local TV station or commercial video production company it is a reasonably big and very high margin market that Apple is moving to dominate (with fast machines, DVDStudio Pro, FinalCut Pro & some of the best 3rd party software) the same way they dominate desktop publishing.
There was no reason to take a perfectly good computer and run it slow except marketing.
the iMac is aimed at a user who does not want to deal with the hardware very much. including a
100MHz FSB instead of a 133MHz bus allows the clueless User to purchase the cheapest memory possible.
Now Apple has some faster models, they can give the imac some breathing room.
as the announcements of the iMac and the G4/2x1GHz were less than a month apart, and the new iMacs are not even shipping yet, don't you think that maybe Apple had them in mind as in-the-market-together already?
No.
On PowerMacs, the G4 processors themselves handle the pretty big task of doing all the audio. On other machines, one has a sound card (or built in sound). This takes the burden off the processor, so it is capable of pumping out more frames every second.
I'm not sure about numbers in terms of on-board vs a SoundBlaster Platinum, but you definitely won't see a decrease. On a Macintosh, if you add a 3rd party sound card, you will see a significant increase in speed.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
What if apple started selling dual systems with a choice of OS on them? then! i might buy a mac ;)
Seany
"Where ever you go, there you are"
The Radeon has been smoking the equivalent (pricewise) Nvidia card on the Mac line. Nvidia's name sells however, not ATi. PC Converts that know something about hardware respect Nvidia in a way they don't respect ATi. As a result, Nvidia is default, ATI is the built to order option.
The Mac benchmarks were showing the Radeon line in a very good light. Also, the Geforce4 MX supports dual monitors (VERY important if you do Photoshop editting) on a single card, and other niceties.
It's a good default graphics option. If you are a gamer, save the $100 and get the Radeon card, then upgrade to a faster gaming card in the future.
For professionals, this is a great video card.
Ah, but you are not a creature of our Glorious Multimedia Age! There are plenty of people who are busy creating ingenious ways to use all your CPU capacity - and then some. Such as video editing, for instance.
I run Final Cut Pro 3.0 on my Macintosh G4/450 dual processor (which I'm thinking of replacing with one of the new machines).
When I tried FCP 3.0 in the store on a G4/867, the system came to a screeching halt when I rendered.
With my 450 dual processor, I was able to do other things while rendering, albiet at somewhat reduced speed. In my view, the dual processor is a big win for this type of thing.
Fortunately for Apple, a lot of people have bought Final Cut Pro, and those of us who do a lot of rendering (changing the speed of video clips, for instance), really need this new system. Why do you think they built in second monitor support? It was for video editors for sure.
D
(If you're not a video editing junkie, rendering is the process of saving copies of modified video information, such as transitions, superimpositions and conversions from one video format to another. If you consider that there are 29.97 frames for each second of video, and each has to be painstakingly redrawn, you can get a feel for how CPU intense this process is).
Every time someone posts a new Mac product announcement, we get these two ridiculous comments:
(1) "I could build a comparable Athlon box for way less money."
Yes, you probably could. But Apple is a premium brand. Think Sony. You do pay extra for an integrated software-hardware package, good industrial design, 90 days free tech support, etc. You may not need or want these things but some people do. In particular, Apple's ease of use is somewhat predicated on the OS knowing exactly what hardware configuration to expect, so the user doesn't have to mess around with device drivers and kernel extensions.
(2) "I can't believe Macs still have only a one-button mouse. What a bunch of morons. When will they get with the program?"
Buy a Mac. Then spend $15 and buy a 2-button scroll-wheel mouse. You won't have to install anything because OS X already supports it, context menus and all. My Mac's mouse has 4 buttons and a wheel. Macs come with a 1-button mouse for good reasons, like ease of use for first-time or novice users and purity of the original mouse metaphor (point at things and click on them). There are actually users out there (including PC users) who find the second button confusing and may not know what to do with it.
Sorry for the lengthy rant. But I just keep seeing these comments over and over again, and they miss the point.
Explicitly, Apple's OpenGL doesn't include support for:
Obviously, Carmack was able to get needed programming info to make these things work, why not the rest of us? Is it that game developers now need to beg Apple to work on cutting edge technology on their machines? In my opinion this is killing any reason to use OpenGL over DX8/DX9 for future game development. Even if OpenGL itself supports advanced features that rival DX, I can't use them to build a cross-platform game. If that's true, what's the point of using OpenGL? (I actually like the DX8 programming model better.)
Dan
Perhaps Classic is not installed? You might try running Classic manually and then see if those applications spring to life.
If they work in MacOS 9, there's no reason that I know of they wouldn't work in Classic.
D
Darwin may be open source, but it is Aqua that makes OS-X what it is.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Okay, okay...here are some better specs...still trying to build comparable features from Dell:
--1 x 2.2Ghz Pentium 4 (note that I didn't build a dual machine)
--512 MB RAM
--80GB HD
--ATI Fire GL2, 64MB,VGA/DVI
--Basic sound card
--DVD-RW/CD-RW
--Modem (remember, I'm trying to compare)
So, summary: A single proc sys with close as possible specs from Dell is....
$3,778
Bottom line, as a PC-User, I've got something to think about.
Why are people so stupid about framerate? FPS above 60-70 (worst case, so about 100 average) make no difference. Yet, people want cards that can get 1000fps in Quake III? Why? Because that same card can get 70+ fps in Quake IV! It is *important* to have fast graphics because games keep getting more complex.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
But WHY? For 1/2 the price you can (next week) get a dual AMD 1.6 Gig and a GF4 and be able to run all your linux software without so much as a recompile...
In fact with the famous apple 6-8 week delivery times you could have it 5-7 weeks earlier as well.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
I personally get along fine using the control key for all right-click-equivalent shortcuts in OS X. The rest of the time I enjoy running my fingers over a very simple, nicely finished, slickly designed titanium powerbook track pad with *one* mouse button.
Face it. Apple makes cool shit. Anyone who bitches them out for doing so is 1) too poor to afford one, 2) jealous. Well. sux 2 b u guys >:D
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
At several places right now you can get a new 733 for just under $1300, as well as on Apple's edu website. It's not an $800 Athlon, and it's not a dual 1-Gig, but then you did say bottom end Mac...
That way you can trick it out with all kinds of peripherals and get a CPU upgrade at a later date from Sonnet or one of those guys.
Hehe, okay, because I missed a qualifier (certain, some, .. is it most, or a very small amount?), my points regarding the fact that your card isn't doing any work, and that the PowerPC-optimized filters are significantly faster on the powerPC platform than on the Pentium platform makes my point non-informative? :)
...
I'd say the slashdot crowd is getting tougher than ever, although I think its just that the bloated user base has left us with more nitpickers
"Old man yells at systemd"
I have almost the same profile as you, right down to the ST and period of PC's (though some have been running Linux and I've also worked on a lot of other UNIX systems). Though personally I loathed resolving problems in Windows (which was often).
I made the switch late last year and bought a Powerbook G4 after they upgraded to the higher speeds. I'll still use the PC as a Linux server, but even there I'm thinking about replacing it with a G4 tower. OS X has been great and is just the right mixture of UNIX and a powerful GUI.
I mostly use NT at work and have worked on Win2K here and there, but the more I use OS X the more Windows just pisses me off (Win2K worse even than NT with helpful "features" that aren't).
I think my attitude stems from this - Windows trys to do everything it can for you, and makes it very difficult if you decided something else is in fact better. If it doesn't think something is broken, you are going to have a hell of a time fixing it.
A macintosh helps you where it can but STEPS THE HELL OUT OF YOUR WAY when you need it to. Like being able to edit XML files directly to alter app/system behaviour instead of peering through 4000 badly thought out locations in a monolithic registry. I was able to look right in some config files and fix a problem that I was having switching between different external monitors, just the kind of problem that would have initiated a system reinstall on a PC (or simply just living with it for years on end which is more likley).
.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Interestingly enough, Apple seems to have extended their rebate plans for the LCD monitors, at least in the Education store. They had been running this since late last year, allowing a rebate if you bought both a G4 and one of Apple's LCD displays. It is a pretty nice deal, knocking off $300 off of a G4+17" LCD, meaning you could get the 17" for under $700.
Most people were expecting the rebates to end shortly before the introduction of the new machines.
In all I am glad to see the speed bumbs, if for no other reason than it will allow me to pick up a refurb 867 mHz pretty cheap.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
seriously make me want a Mac.
/. : Apple introduces new hardware/software X !
I'll assume Taco doesn't have a mac from this comment...
Why? You see these posts all the time:
Poster: Wow, now that Apple has X I really/finally want one!
Why do people do this?
Do you yap all morning about how you want a cup of hot coffee, and never get one? Then repeat the process tomorrow when there is a fresh pot?
I wanted my Apple (now outdated) and so I invested my $3500k 4-5yrs ago, and it was/is awesome. Now with some of the new stuff they are coming out with I'm PLANNING on getting another... not just talking about it...
If you think Apple's stuff is worthy, buy it.
Just my gripe...
I'd agree with much of what you said, but I think the Dell representative you spoke with was misinformed.
Our company has been using Dell PCs (Optiplex models) for over 6 years now - and we often bought them with Windows '95/'98 on them, only to immediately wipe the hard drive and install a "Ghost" drive image of a Windows NT 4.0 installation on them instead. That's never once affected our warranty on the hardware.
I can see where Dell might not provide software/OS assistance if you change it from the pre-installed OS, but the warranty on the system itself is still good no matter what you install on it.
THese are indeed awesome machines, but there's even more good things in store - I believe the G5 will be launched at New York '02, about July time, MW Tokyo in March is a little too soon, especially looking at these specs of the new machines.
Still if you want an Apple, the time has NEVER been better.
Better still - if you want a kickass computer the time has never been better to buy Apple.
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
No more than Porche will push Toyota out of the market. And that's also why Apple isn't going away anytime soon. People also post: "Yeah, Macs are great, but they are too expensive. They might be nice, but they are flashy and expensive". This is usually followed by a prediction that Macs will disappear soon. Yet, the *exact* same thing can be said, substituting "Porches" for "Macs", and yet nobody thinks Porche is going to go under soon, and nobody says: "Porches suck! Less than 5% of cars on the road are Porches!". People *do* debate if Porches are actually worth it, but point is moot - they will be purchased by those who want and can afford them.
Meanwhile, Toyota makes everything from heavy tow vehicles to sedans to vans. And they are pretty cheap, and have plenty of 3rd market products, both cheap and expensive.
Neither Porche or Toyota are going anywhere, and neither are Apple or Linux. Or at least not anytime soon (industry time, of course).
--
Evan "With applogies to Neal Stephenson" E.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Speak truth to power.
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.
I agree - HP tried the same thing a few years ago with me that this Dell rep did with the original poster. No warranty unless the original OS was on the machine. I bitched long enough to get them to clarify that they wouldn't do any tech support for any other OS (fair enough), but they'd still always honor the warranty for any hardware failures.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Actually you can, not with the current generation Mac (I think) but places like Macresq will sell you the older G4 tower logic boards (i.e. motherboards) and other parts. It's not a very effective use of money though since they are not all that cheap.
It also makes support harder since Apple can no longer be sure what kind of machine you are calling about (or at least if it is put together right). One of hte nice things about Apple owning the whole process is they are on the hook for much more support. They don't get to point their finger at the hardware maker or OS maker because they are both, they frequently don't even get to point their finger at the app maker because they make (or at least brand) a lot of software for their own machines. As a result you can normally actually get them to help which is rather unlike my experiences with Wintel boxes.
Is it a good trade off? I donno, Jobs thinks it is, so there isn't a lot we can do to change it :-)
Last time I saw Steve do his Reality Distortion thing he had 3 apps. PhotoShop (doing a lot more then one filter), VideoCleaner (doing a de-interlace and something else), and the Sorensen Qt encoder.
I agree, the first thing I do is toss my pro mouse in a box with it's brothers when I get a new machine. They are nice mice, but I use a 4 button trackball, and there is just no going back. However, before I used the trackball, and was stuck with the one button mouse, I did easily find software that would translate a click and hold as a command click, eliminating the need for the modifier key. I assume that some enterprising shareware author has come up with or is working on a similar solution for OSX
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
750Mhz Pentium III: 1.9Mkey/sec
1.33G AMD: 4.7Mkey/sec
8x250Mhz SunSparc Ultra: 3.2Mkey/sec
2x800Mhz G4: 16.5Mkey/sec
Ahh, but you forget one problem. A branch mispredict on the longer pipeline means more instructions need to be cancelled, causing massive slowdowns.
A shorter pipeline is better overall. The only reason to have a massively long pipeline is to jack up clock speeds.
No. It doesn't matter anyway - I do 1024x768 for Q3, because it keeps the screenshots smaller - less disk space, and I don't need to go back and edit them.
Regardless, it doesn't matter what I see - it matters, to Quake, how many frames it is pumping out each second. You will run faster with certain framerates, which is what my post discussed. It has been proven by various mods and tests. The numbers are 142 & 83 for single player, and 125 for multiplayer. It doesn't matter whether or not you can see them - it matters whether or not Quake is pumping them out.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
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
I'm guessing cost versus performance here. It's been shown in tests such as running actual application-like benchmarks rather than theoretical tests, that a low memory fetch latency is more important to memory performance than max burst transfer rate. That's why RDRAM suffers in many cases, since it still runs at a latency compared to 100MHz SDRAM. Most applications just favor short-latency fetches to high-speed large-block transfers in order to run the best. But it is odd. There's no real latency difference between PC133 and DDR2100, and there IS a difference in sustained transfer rate, so I suppose they just didn't think the sustained transfer rate increase was worth the extra cost (as well as design time).
/ Per
It is also my opinion that the best applications for sound recording (please read audio, not MIDI sequncing, not waveform generation ala Max/MSP,) but straight recording are available only for the PC
Um.... Pro Tools? Pretty much considered the industry standard for digital audio workstations?
And if you want, Cubasis, Digital Performer, PEAK's apps, and a whole host of others. To be fair, I've never used Sequoia or Samplitude. But there are plenty of quite serviceable audio recording solutions for the Mac.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Uh-oh...
:-)
Do you really mean that you think a "pipeline" of length X means that the computer performs one instruction and then waits for X cycles?
In that case it would be absolutely pointless to ever have a pipleline with X>1. Why is Apple using X=7, then?
The reason is of course that by increasing the pipeline you can get a higher frequency while a good compiler will still be able to "hide" the latency to a good extent. The last 20 years in the industry has been revolved about instruction scheduling and out-of-order executing...
Is X=20 too much? Well, that depends on the speed increase you can get from it, but in many cases the P4 really shines.
You can of course claim that X=7 is the god-given universal constant known to be perfect.... Although a year or two ago Mac users used to claim that X=5 was perfect (before Motorola increased it).
So, your argument is essentially "If Apple/Motorola are increasing the pipeline it is a good thing (TM), but if anyone else does it it's cheating."
Get a life...
Pass me whatever you're smoking, Coward. Sounds like you're enjoying it...a lot.
That's fair - I've not seen a Quicksilver yet. The G4 heatsink is large, but some of the Dells I work with look like they should be running dual processors under theirs...and they're not.
nVidia only makes the Geforce3 and Geforce2MX for the Apple. Check out their products page. The dude probably got confused between G4 and Geforce. There's probably a Geforce2 in that thing. And everybody knows that the Geforce2MX are pretty shit. And 1.1 billion textured pixels, as Apple claims in their add, is about par for the Geforce2MX.
Back your argument up. If you can't, then find another place to troll.
That Moore postulated that performance would double every 18 months is a myth perpetuated ad infinitum by the clueless newsmedia. And certainly no one is claiming that clock frequency adheres to that law; as Intel has proven with the P4 it's rather easy to shamelessly inflate your MHz for marketing purposes without providing much of a performance boost at all.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Anyone know PPC architecture??
From: http://www.apple.com/powermac/processor.html
"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."
2,000*8=16,000Flops. They probably left one off to allow for a more real-world figure and account for processes that don't do much multithreading.
Doing complex calculations, I can easily get 2.6 GFlops out of my 466MHz G4, so I would expect to get at least 10 or 12 GFlops out of one of these in real world calculations.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
I see a lot of price comparisons going on here, and while that's all well and good, people are tending to glaze over a few important facts.
.. $999.00
..$999.00
...$7995.00
... $3995.00
1- These are workstation class machines (as far as Macs go). 2mb L3 cache per proc, 64-bit pci, 1000/100/10 NICs, superdrive, etc. Apple knows its target audience and delivers what they need.
2- Once you're up in this price range, the price is usually moot for the buyer. The people buying these machines will drop 10k for one box (for CPU, software, monitor, etc) and don't bat an eye. I mean, do you think the average consumer would shell out 600+ bucks JUST for Photoshop if they had no viable means for a Return on Investment? That's what a Mac is to the people who buy their high end machines - a way to get work done NOW. Any downtime means they don't get their RoI, and that's why these people don't usually build their own boxen, and why they will pay a premium for a Mac.
3- To respond to a few earlier posts.
--Macs are the deFacto standard for professional audio, and will only become more so. Id say 80% + market share for this. I've been to many recording studios, and without fail, they have a Mac or 2 hooked up.
--64bit pci.. Well, there are only a few kinds of cards you'll find in the average Mac. High end video, ultra160 SCSI, high end audio and special purpose accelerators (encoding, graphics effects, etc). All of these are high bandwidth tasks.
Yes, you COULD build a PC that has faster specs for less. But you'd be missing the point. Computers are tools. If you're making money with your computer, and you're in one of the businesses where Apple products excel, you're shooting yourself in the foot to go with anything else. And I imagine with OSX, that the sector where Apple products excel will only be getting bigger.
Here's a Pro Mac purchase for Graphic Design / ProSumer Video/ audio. Feel free to make up a comparable PC.
Right from the apple store... I know I could save money buying HD and ram elsewhere, but I am shooting for convenience. Make sure PC has - sound card, 64bit pci, firewire, case, motherboard, dual head support, and an OS (that has all the comparable apps)
(1 GHz PPC G4) x 2
1.5 GB dram
22" cinema display
iPod
SuperDrive
GeForce4 MX
56k modem
10/100/1000 NIC
keyboard/optical mouse
AirPort card
OSX.1
Dual channel ultra160 card
(72 GB ultra160 HD) x 2
AppleCare plan (3yr hardware replacement)
TOTAL............. $8,845.00
Now, the software....this is usually full retail, not going to look for deals.(mostly right from apple store)
DVD Studio Pro
FinalCut Pro3
MS Office..$459.95
FileMaker Pro...$249.00
AfterEffects Pro..$1499.95
Illustrator...$399.00
InDesign...$699.95
Photoshop...$649.95
GoLive...$399.95
BBEdit...$119.95
Flash5...$399.95
That's enough to do most tasks......not going to look for pro audio equip or a pro video capture card (add about $3-6k for that at least)
TOTAL.........$6875.65
Time for the pro Audio and video cards
ProTools HD 1
Protools 192 IO
Can't think of a video card Mfg ATM, ill go with
Media100 for ~ 4,000
Add in some accessories
Graphics tablet..$400
Speakers...$600 (reference monitors)
17" studio display...$999 (definitely need a second display)
TOTAL....... $17,989
I'm sure im missing a few things, and this hasn't even included the supporting equipment that I would need (cameras, sound recording equip, scanners, etc, etc.)
So, for pretty much what you would have stuck inside the box, or hanging directly off of it, you have a grand total of..........
GRAND TOTAL......$33709.65
Can most people personally afford 7k+ for software alone? No. So now you see the market Macs are often used in, and the money generally tied in to them, and why people choose Macs to get work done. Fast. Efficiently. It has to be easy; it has to work, because they need to make back such a huge amount of money.
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
the new fab'd processors use server-chip technology, as described in this cnet article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-824621.html
they say (in short) that it uses silicon insulating to help prevent "silicon drift" even more, so less power is used. what was immediatly brought to my attention was that this new fabrication uses only 10 watts, 15 watts @ peak power consumption. I have a lava lamp w/a 40 watt light bulb....i'm curious, does a 15 watt processor (using 100% of it's computing power, all the time), produce as much heat as a 15 watt light bulb?
moox. for a new generation.
Do you buy a new graphics card whenever a new game comes out? I buy a card once every year or two. In that time frame, several generations of games come out. When I first get the card, the card gets 150fps in current games, and by the end it gets 30fps, and I have to replace it. Of course, you could always stay back on the curve a bit, but you wouldn't really gain much in the long run. You'd have to replace your cards more quickly, and you couldn't enjoy your games with all the detail options maxed out.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The graph here shows the dual GHz G4 with GeForce4 MX scoring 115fps at 1024x768 on Quake 3. How on earth did they get such dreadful performance?? The first benchmark I turned up on AnandTech has a 1.2GHz Athlon (way, way behind current top of the line) with a GeForce3 (not even a GeForce3 Ti) pulling 168fps. Could this be related to djohnsto's comment about the parlous state of Apple's OpenGL implementation?
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
if Apple wasn't so anti-competitive there would be lots of nice cheap apples floating around
Anti-compeitive?
They make their own software for their own hardware so they're anti-competive? They have to compete with each and every computer maker in the industry. You aren't forced to buy a Mac. In fact, if anything, most people are forced to buy a Windows machine.
Apple brings in 30% gross margins on average on hardware sales, but it's not like they just toss all of the money in a big pile. Apple reported a fiscal Q1 revenue of $1.38 billion. Do you know how much was profit? $38 million.
See, Apple actually creates and maintains products. They give away things like iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes for free with every machine they sell. They also give every Mac owner free email, free web space -- all without ads.
A company like Dell doesn't really compete by coming up with new products per say. They take the newest intel processor and the newest rev of Windows, stick it in a box, and sell it to you on a razor thin margin. They compete primarily on the sale, secondarily on the product.
This is great if all you care about is a cheap PC that does the same stuff your old one did, but faster. Unfortunately, this thinking has contributed to a huge downturn in the PC industry. At some point, PC makers decided cheap and fast was all that mattered. Somebody forgot about inventiveness and experience. Cheap and fast is good in some situations, but you cannot rely on that entirely. You have to move forward on fronts besides clock rate.
So the fact that you pay more for a Mac means Apple can afford to create things like Mac OS X, iTools, iDVD, iPhoto, etc. It also contributes to the support of things like Darwin. Thank goodness they're doing this kind of stuff, because few others are.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
If anything, your test proves just this: PS7 has been rewritten to take advantage of dual CPU's, where PS6 is not. OS X has nothing to do with it other than perhaps providing a more (or less?) efficient environment for the app to work in.
But getting back to the original point, general usage will benefit from OS X's MP agility because one can give iDVD one processor to encode its data while the other processor is used for email, iTunes, web browser, etc.
Some people compile large projects with one processor, and use the others to play a game.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
1) You assume that the G4 is more efficient than an Athlon when it comes to misprediction penalties.
I have seen many people make this mistake. Performance is measured in units of *time*.
Lets walk through an exercise using the numbers you have quoted:
You take a 7 cycle hit on a mispredict on an 800MHz G4. That's 8.5 nanoseconds of penalty.
You take a 10 cycle hit on a 1.5GHz Athlon. That's 6.6 nanoseconds!!! The Athlon whips the G4 in mispredict penalty, even though it has a longer pipe.
2) You assume that a beefy FPU and Altivec unit translates into higher performance.
Let's take this apart...
The Mac with G4 has lots of *execution* bandwidth for altivec and fp. However...can the memory system keep up to feed the operands to this engine? I doubt it...They're still using a 133 single channel SDRAM memory solution with it's wimpy ~1Gbyte/sec bandwidth. Their L3 SRAM cache (which is 2 Megs) only has 4Gbyte/sec bandwidth. This is pitiful considering that a 400MHz RAMBUS system gives you 3.2GByte/sec bandwidth to DRAM! The Northwood Pentium 4 processors that will come out with the 533MHz bus will have 4.2Gbyte/sec bandwidth to DRAM.
More than the mac's L3 cache!!!
Not just the content creators but the content viewers as well. I know alot of places buy iMacs specifically because it is very very very simple to administer them and with OS9/10 it is pretty foolproof to keep them up and running. You can set up a lab of fifty Macs and VERY easily keep them up and running without needing some form of certification to do so. Even if you're only buying a single Mac for your home it is still pretty damn easy to keep it up and running. Installing software is rarely harder than dragging an icon from a mounted disk to your Applications folder. I'd also say Apple's support services are the best in the industry (for consumer systems at least). It is rare to hear of complaints about their support services. Shit sometimes AppleCare contracts sell for more money than the machines they're attached to sell for.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Why does eceryone in their loath for the P4 forget about its trace cache? They included it specifically so a branch mispredict wouldn't result in a 20 stage pipeline stall. IIRC the trache cache limits most mispredicts to a 5 stage stall. The P4 definitely cranks numbers slower than an Athlon but it doesn't have the performance pentalty from 20 stage branch mispredicts like you're saying.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Only Macs cost $3000. A high-powered PC is $2000, so there!
Oh, and the article on Slashdot reminded me of this.
Zodiac Survey
The NBC crew in Afganistan kept a Powerbook as part of their equipment because they could do in field editing of footage shot with the Sony VX2000 they were carrying. More interesting than that (which I find damn cool) is a lot of editing was done with iMovie. I think it is an NBC policy now that PBs are given to crews using DV cameras. How many companies offer a full video editing suite that can run off of a battery?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Depends on the size of the battery.
I'm in the exact same boat... 5 yr old Power Computing clone, upgraded to 256MB, second HD, 400 MHz G3 upgrade, but one day I will boot it and it will not start--and while I can play Quake III semi-adequately and UT decently, I would really really like a better machine.
Pity the graphics options on the new beasts are worse for gamers--and you can't buy a GeForce 3 apart from Apple. Sigh.
BTW, were you aware that you're a total jerk? Probably not.
Except that only covers multi-threading apps specifically written for OS X. Older apps -- well, I don't know MacOS well enough to have an opinion, but I'm skeptical.
There's also the issue of threading models. I seem to recall that Sun's Java VM has something called "green threads." In effect you have multithreading, but your runtime does it on its own, without bothering the OS. Such a threading model is limited to one processor, even on OSs that support cross-processor multi-threading. The tradeoff is a higher degree of compatibility and portability.