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Apple to Announce the Power Mac G5 at WWDC?
a.ameri writes "Apple Insider is
reporting that Apple will announce computers based on IBM's 64 bit PPC 970 processor in the upcomming WWDC and will market them as G5. The new Power Mac G5s will sport a completely new motherboard design utilizing DDR 400 RAM as well as AGP 8x graphics, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0, sources said. "In the box" connectivity among the news systems is based on Hypertransport which provides 64-bit addressing and will replace Apple's multilevel bus architecture found in current systems. Initial offerings of the Power Mac G5 are said to boast 1.4 to 1.8GHz, single core PPC 970 processors, with the possibility of a dual 1.8GHz chips shortly thereafter."
fp for lunix fagz!!!! MACS ARE ghey!1...
SCORE 1 APPLE 0
i just got a 17" powerbook
damn
Who cares what's inside the box as long as it comes in semi-transparent pastel shades?
Hmmm.
Please please please editors, post more rumors and speculations about the G5. I /almost/ give a shit.
I've not seen any gigabit ethernet capabilities ?
Does anybody have information about this ?
So this "completely new" motherboard design is, like usual, about 6 months behind motherboards for AMD and Intel chips. Sweet.
(Waiting for the Mac zealots) 3... 2... 1...
While it is probably true that Apple will launch a PowerMac G5 at WWDC the information given here is only from a rumor site. Many of the rumor sites cannot be trusted much (such as MacOSRumors) and a one or two are extremely accurate (ThinkSecret). AppleInsider is one of the oldest rumor sites and at one time was one of the best. Recently though it has been taken over and the general accuracy of its stories is now unknown. However this rumor seems to have enough other sites reporting generally the same thing to be true. Its not fact yet though!
Apple themselves have made public demonstrations trying to debunk the myth that clock speed is processing power. Being known for sticking to "slower" processors, it seems that Apple is finally starting to cave into the demands of the consumers.
I have tried to use the Distributed.net client on an AMD Athlon 1600 XP running Linux 2.4.10 and a G4 864 Mhz using Mac OS X 10.2. It seems that in terms of raw processing power, the G4 was actually more powerful, at over 10,260,280 nodes/sec, while the Athlon was only at 8,160,200 nodes/sec, and that's with no backgrounds processes running (besides the OS)
I'll believe it when I see it. The description of the
case alone leaves me a bit suspicious. No ports on
the back, just a square box with a USB and a FW800
port on the front? That seems to go against pretty
much all of Apple's industrial design dating all the
way back to even before the original Mac.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
Intel has 3GHZ+ chips out these days. Thats double what the new Mac would have. I know clock speed isn't everything but at a certain point wouldn't you want clock speed over architecture ?
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
...is support for USB 2.0. I just hoped that Apple would smash the PowerBook prices again, since I am buying one during WWDC, but I'm sure that is not gonna happen. :(
... According to sources, Apple plans to make the Power Mac G5 available to the public following their introduction on June 23rd. ...
[/quote]what are the `sources'?
Anyway, what I found most interesting about the rumor/article was the inclusion of USB2.
They have long championed Firewire as superior (which it is, and is still included) but it is nice to see that they are willing to adapt and a more common USB2.
This acceptance of USB2 shows a willingness to accept standards, no matter how wrong they are.
Thoughts, anyone?
Panther (10.3) we know is coming, that is a given and that is the substance.
The "Shadow" is the G5 and even the most die-hard mac fan would most likely utter the phrase:
I will believe it when I see it.
IMO, apple needs to figure out if they are going to keep/dump metadata...and stick with it.
I find it quite half-assed you can generate previews of images, but not store them.
(with the exception of Internet Explorer, but only one at a time)
(won't someone think of the pr0n collections?)
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Gone are the days of WorkerBee.
You can't bet on the rumormill- only steve knows what's going to happen.
whats stopping IBM from making these chips available
with an appropriate motherboard for folks who would like to run linux/bsd/ on them?
Also the current Macs with PCI slots or ANY Mac that can run OSX with a PCI slot has been able to support USB 2.0 for almost a year.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
So, why they don't switch to Microsofts Windows ?
Instead of investing millions of bucks into their own properietary system, they could get it from MS for cheap. And also the users would benefit from this action. While the usability of Windows is a little lower than OS X we have on the other hand that there are much more applications on all commerical sector aviable for Windows. The user could choose from a bigger apllication pool instead of buying expensive OS X apps.
And it would be a great step for the standardization of modern computing with fewer proprietrary systems on this sector.
There is the technical issue with Mac being no Intel Pentium systems, but MS managed to port Windows to the Itanium and many embedded platforms, so they could do the step to the PowerPC, too.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
I think that's Altivec. If there's a way to run the G4 with a different core that doesn't have Altivec support you can see the difference.
The distributed.net client is about the only program I know of the G4 does so well on. Maybe somebody will post another? NOT Photoshop.
Clockspeed isn't as important as it used to be. The top of the line P4 is faster than the top of the line Athlon and the top of the line Athlon is faster than the top of the line G4. Remember that the Athlons use quantispeed architecture (marketing BS) too. I bought an Athlon last time and I'm considering a P4 for next time. Either that or an Athlon 64/Opteron.
I call shenanigans on both AppleInsider and Slashdot for being lame. I'll believe it when I see it.
First its a rumor, so I have my doubts. Second from some of the post you did read the article. Apple is putting 1 USB and 1 FW port in the front with others in the back. This is something Apple should have down a long time ago. Third, it does matter what the new machine is, it could be a Quad processor 10GHz, 25 Ghz internal bus with 50x AGP and 10 Terabytes of memory all for $1000 and some would still say "big deal, it doesn't run this or that, or it's not an Intel." Much the same as I don't give a rat's ass about a 3Ghz P4. I love my Macs, they do everything I want and I have no complaints.
those rumors have been floating around for a few weeks, if not months on other sites. For the wannabe-mac fanatics among yuo : here are other rumor adresses :
macrumors (reliable, good forums)
macosrumors (unreliable, bloated, no forums)
looprumors(reliable, low traffic forums)
thinksecret(reliable, low traffic content, low traffic forums)
macwhispers (reliable, mostly hardware info, no forums)
macslash(slashdot for mac, mostly blahblah)
macbidouille(french, rather new, so reliability unconfirmed)
appleturns(100% reliable news by Steve Jobs's alter ego)
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Steve Jobs, PLEASE let me spend more money in your latest snake oil sale! I just HAVE to spend twice as much to get half as much... because I'm an Apple lemming and it's what I do best!
As others have posted, this fantastic "new" machine is only about 6 months behind AMD and Intel and people who actually know about computers (those who can program and don't think iTunes and iMasturbate actually count) will continue to build their own boxes with the latest components and use Linux or BSD.
Come to think of it, the Mac feebs are using BSD, only their patron saint, Steve "I ripped Woz off" Jobs has taken an open source project and turned it into a closed-source stolen OS.
Yeah, keep on thinking just how hip you are and how smart you are, you fucking losers.
HyperTransport is an architecture that supports ALL i/o through one chip/chipset Firewire/USB/ethernet/wireless/cache/memory - gigabit ethernet is part of that implementation.
...unless you mean "reliable in that Apple NEVER does what MacWhispers says"
Congratulations on the most original bit of computing insight I've seen yet regarding what Apple should do. This even beats Dvorak.
In all seriousness, what advantage would people have in paying considerably more for a slower machine with less usability and stability?
Perhaps it's because I'm a Mac person, but please, explain again why people wouldn't just buy a PC? It can't be that people would pay Apple for style only; after all, Dell has those cool, all-black units.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Aye aye aye, now don't get me wrong. I'd LOVE to see the next generation of chips being put in Apple's machines, but doesn't this just seem too easy a rumor to put out? C'mon rumor-mongers, there are much better ones to go after.
Take for instance, this snippet taken from the article: ""In the box" connectivity among the news systems is based on Hypertransport -- a universal chip-to-chip interconnect developed by AMD and partners..."...why don't we start the speculation that we're going to AMD chips? Hm...that could be fun. And to be honest, I'm surprised nobody brought it up yet.
Then again...it wouldn't really surprise me to have IBM's new chips in there (I'm still wondering what's going to happen with Motorola and their silly little antics). We've got FinalCut Pro 4 coming out, Panther (OS 10.3) coming out, a couple new updates just happened (ie, iSynch)...all setting the stage for something new.
Now if they'd just hurry up with the Windows version of the music service to ward off the Redmond fellows...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
This is exactly what happened to Osborne, and drove them out of business. This is also exactly why Apple likes to shove corks up the asses of rumor sites.
Even if the opteron doesn't smoke other cpu's the motherboard technology will1
horray for motherboard advancements that are LONG overdue!!!
If you buy any mac before WWDC, and then whine about not waiting to get a 'new model'..... oh well. SOMEONE will whine about it, I know it. Kinda curious as to what this will do to apple's sales over the next week or so before the introduction of things.
moo?
moox. for a new generation.
collectively let out our breath and exhale!
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
...was shamed with a terrible bug that Intel initially refused to acknowledge. But you didn't see them changing the name, did you?
Then again, PC users are mindless sheep who base purchases on nothing but who has the lowest price.
Also, had they changed the name, Intel would've been forced to use "Sexium" because their marketing boneheads didn't think through on the succession of names-- and then all the bible-thumping inbreds in the South would have complained and boycotted, and Wal-Mart would stop carrying PCs, etc...
The author even already admitted he hasn't RTFA properly.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Mac people should know better than anyone why the name G5 - it's been complained about for years.
Marketing 101 (aka The Marketing Myth).
5 is a bigger number than 4 - therefore, the G5 MUST be better than the P4. Just like a 3Ghz PC MUST be faster than a 1.8 GHz...
The Mothership
"These initial units will ship with Mac OS 10.2, and hence, will not be optimized for the 64 bit PPC 970 processor. Consumers who purchase these Power Mac G5s will receive a coupon for a free copy of Mac OS 10.3 (Panther), which will ship in September and will be optimized for the new 64 bit processor"
Translation: It's a pet rock until September, by which time production can be geared up and units will actually be available. Of course this will kill all sales until then, so announcing this early would be a very bad idea. So an announcement this early is unlikely.
But... we all know it's coming. Won't be cheap tho, but you get what you pay for in the OSX/Win/Linux world. Over 2 years and still not one crash on my Mac.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
A lot of you have been commenting that you're surprised they have USB 2 ports on them. I personally am not surprised to see them - the current MDD G4s have USB 2 ports on them, it's just the drivers in OS X make them into USB 1, you can actually replace the drivers and get nice 800Mbps ports. The fact that the hardware is there does not mean that they will be supported in the OS - it just means that USB 2 ports are cheeper to get hold of than USB 1 ports.
Bob
Are we really so keen on our beige boxes ?
I see comments where posters win arguments by virtue of their low "uid". My uid is around the 170000 area, is this sufficiently low to win an argument ? As more users join this site, will my uid gain more credibility ? I am keen to find out.
Let's see some gaming benchmarks!!!!
Awww... someone needs a hug!
wtf? Fiber is optical, it's not wire. Fiber is pretty cheap and getting cheaper all the time.
What "quality" is that? I use computers to crunch bits, not as a fashion statement. The computer that crunches bits the fastest is the one that has the highest "quality".
Hint: the color of the box has nothing WHATSOEVER to do with the "quality" of the computer.
Jesus, I like OS X, but the sheer snobbishness of Mac users is enough to put me off sometimes.
If you like to use Macs, you had better hope this thing is a commercial success. AAPL currently sits at a price it first set in 1987! That is to say, no sustained improvement in the stock in over 15 years. The company is losing the war, plain and simple. Arguing with me about productivity or ease-of-use or great new specs (which, I can't help but notice seem to suddenly matter again with the prospect of hot new machines--for about a year, it's been all about the OS or cool-running or whatever other bullshit we could come up with)--anyway, all this shit won't matter if these things are way expensive.
they all suffer from missing out a certain bit of information - the expected price. Yes, the 1.8 may well be up there with the high Pentium IVs, but at the moment you can get a very high spec PIV with probably more power than most people need for little over £500. If Apple release this with a price tag where you get little change from £2500, it doesn't matter that much what sort of spec of machine it can match up to...
If the internals are all connected via Hyper Transport it should be relatively easy for them to switch to Hammer if they wanted to.
Didn't Steve say some time last year that Apple will never introduce new hardware at WWDC?
Of course, the way of Steve is complex and sometimes contradictory.
I don't know, but it works for me.
If only they'd abandoned the one button mouse sooner....
Steve "I ripped Woz off" Jobs has taken an open source project and turned it into a closed-source stolen OS.
uh no. you can go download it now. It's called Darwin. the only closed part is the stuff apple coded themselves. duh?
Bob your a redundant! From Robbie (another bob)
Who's to say Apple will announce it now, but not ship it until Panther debuts? Apple announced and demonstrated the original iMac (IIRC) in May 1998, but did not actually begin shipping until August of that year-- I may not have the dates exactly right, but there were certainly at least two months between announcement and availability. And that was not an instance of Jobs saying "This is available now," but product not shipping until weeks later because they couldn't ramp up production quickly enough. It was a stated two or three month delay from the start.
I think that this time, however, Apple would be doing the right thing to release the G5 ASAP-- that way the hardware will be available during back-to-school time, one of Apple's busiest sales periods. If they do the announce-and-wait thing this time, they'll miss the back-to-school sales. They'll also piss off a lot of people who just blew their wad in August on a G4 with significantly less computing power for about the same money that now buys a G5.
As long as everyone who buys a G5 gets a voucher in the box for a free upgrade to 10.3, I see no problem with shipping the hardware a few months before the OS that takes full advantage of it debuts.
~Philly
Remember, the common consumer doesn't know anything about how a CPU works. They see a bigger number on the advertisement for the computer, think it's faster and then purchase it. Why do you think Intel went with an architecture that scales to high clock speeds so easily? And why AMD is using performance ratings? It's because there are far more common consumers than "experts" purchasing computers. Remember, processor companies are in the biz to make money, they're not out to impress the /. crowd.
Does that have anything to do with Dance Dance Revolution?
All it takes is nukes and nerves.
What do you mean by that? Is this site done by Steve or what? Or is it a joke? I don't understand it...
you are wrong
Sound waves should be free!
no, you wouldn't. lower MHz at the same processor speed is *better*.
Apple typically keeps their prices pretty constant (with some exceptions) and applies them to new revs of the same machine. They will probably have a Good, Better, and Best config. for roughly $1500, $2K, and $3K. I would love for them to prove me wrong, though.
"Form should follow function...unless it's just plain ugly."
I bought an 800 Mhz G3 iBook w/ 512 MB RAM OS X.2. The clip that holds it shut broke within the first two weeks. iTunes locks up half the time and is seriously lacking in the features department. The thing is so slow that it's almost painful to use. I have to go do something else while the damn thing boots up. Until I see significant speed improvements over my Wintel box, I'm not going to shell out the extra cash for another Mac.
more or less, generally speaking, stock prices-the "market"- today mean almost zip to any company once they've spent the IPO cash they get for them. This "market" is gambling and rumors and shills and wave this and wave at that theories more than a reflection of a companies actual worth. At best, they are a very rough indicator (see SCOX), at worst, they mean zip except in the face of a takeover. People don't* buy or sell or use macintosh computers based on todays "stock" price in apple.
*probably a very small "few", but really, you know what I am saying here.
I've had two of the dual-USB iBooks, a 500MHz/320MB/20GB/CD purchased back in June 2001 and used daily until December 2002, when I upgraded to an 800MHz/640MB/30GB/Combo. I have never had a problem with either unit, nor with iTunes locking up. The speed is just fine.
I think the problem is that you don't take care of your hardware, and don't know how to maintain the OS. Either that or you're just making the whole thing up.
If the battery life of apple laptops is adversely affected by an attempt to stay in the pointless meggahurtz race. My iBook 800Mhz is more than quick enough for anything I want to do, and 4.5 hour battery life (on average, using Airport) is the reason I bought it (apart from OS X itself).
Wouldn't this break binary compatability with current Macs? That would mean s/w distributors have to sell two versions of s/w; wouldn't that strangle the 3rd party software for Apple market?
Practice Kind Randomness and Beautiful Acts of Nonsense.
That's not true. I believe the cost is about 25 cents US per port, if that - and I doubt that most companies blanch at the thought of paying 50 cents more per computer or mainboard.
USB is cheaper to implement, but that's mainly because Intel wants to saturate the market with it. I've seen tests where even Firewire 400 is able to sustain a faster connection than USB 2 (which is supposed to have an 80 Mbps advantage). So one could argue that, in a sense, you get what you pay for.
good post and I'll add - PowerBook G3's and G4's can also use USB 2.0 cardbus PCMCIA cards
With the hypertransport and some of the other stuff it just seems that it's too much of a jump. I think we will see a G5 based on the IBM chip, we will see USB 2.0 and we may even see Firwire 800 (faster then the original firewire). The rest of the stuff my require too many changes to OSX to be brought out in this time frame. Or, quite possibly, Motorola may have been working on something totally new and unknown to us due to NDA's with Apple. IE, don't hold your breath and if you want a Mac, don't hold off. Buy the Mac you want now. It will work.
Gorkman
Few points:
- Apple should fix the latch right away (did they?)
- iTunes - if application(s) start locking up, trash the associated preferences file(s), and/or fix your permissions (try Google); it's weak, but it beats having to fix your registry
- YOUR REBOOTING IT? You should rarely have to do that, just open it to wake it up and use it, close it to put it to sleep (this takes literally 2-3 seconds)
I am a Windows admin (please save your snide comments) and I was at the mall yesterday. I haven't touched a Mac in some time and went into the apple store to see what all the hype was about. I have to say after playing with a variety of systems I wasn't into it at all. I understand if I had one and became intimate with one I'd discover what all those people are talking about that have switched. But maybe its becuase I'm use to having more then one mouse button, but the interface wasn't nearly as intutive as advertised. and the desktop seemed all about bells & whistles (which are nice, but at home I want to game, host a web site, surf porn, and maybe do some multimedia stuff). Don't get me wrong, I love the hardware and damn the new iMac is sexy, if I could get one that ran Windows or RedHat (or Mandrake) I'd think about it, but the freaking Mac software is priced out of my range. I am looking for a new home PC and the Dell XPS is my choice right now, but I'd love to hear about someone in a similar situation as I that went with a Mac and what their experience was.
But as the popular MacObserver states, "A mac on your desk is worth two on the rumor sites."
Apple will announce computers based on IBM's 64 bit PPC 970 processor in the upcomming WWDC and will market them as G5...Initial offerings of the Power Mac G5 are said to boast 1.4 to 1.8GHz, single core PPC 970 processors Isn't the whole "G" thing copyrighted by Motorola? Even if it's not, G5 is a lame and misleading name. Not only are G3s and G4s made by Motorola, they are 32-bit. Even if Apple somehow thought G5 would be a good idea, I don't think IBM would stand for it. Many people know Gx = Motorola = slow development. It seems like it'd be a better idea just to call it what it is, the PPC970, and calling the Power Macs, Power Mac 970.
But how slowly will 32 bit applications run on it?
We can only hope!
/me practices his Dance Dance sk177z to show off for the ladies
Well... since the current G4 is less than half as fast as a PC and costs twice as much, then I guess that will put the G5 at 4x the cost of an equally equipped PC.
But if Apple does the unimaginable and puts a realstic price tag on them, I'll be first in line to buy one.
Yeah, it's a rumor, but this is a pretty substatiated rumor, that i think we can all agree is happening. One thing still in dispute, is if the new processor is gonna be called a G5 or not. I'm sure Apple wants to get away from the image that the motorola processor havee generated over the last few years.
I would expect to see the PPC 970 at WWDC, or shortly after, i.e. August. As for USB 2, it's coming. Apple has already started using USB 2 cards in its powermac lineup (just not supported by the OS). As for apple trying to catch up in the Mhz race, i don't see this. IBM is the one who's set the Mhz of the 970. I also agree with many rumor sites, stating that the 970 will not be any more expensive that the current G4 lineup. Apple is the only company getting anything based off the G4 motorola line, but IBM currently builds the 970 for it's own blade servers, thus they don't have to gear up just to make chips for apple.
Yeah, the P4 is up over 3Ghz, but looking back, crays are still uber fast, and they don't run ungodly mhz......
Also, i wouldn't count on Apple calling it a G5, as apple might go back to calling their chips by their developed name...ie-970
As for 10.3 and the 64-bit stuff, the 64 bit only comes into play when you start getting 64 bit software to run on the machine, that's why Panther is so big, it'll be a 64 bit OS. Also expect a 64-bit version of Project Builder to help move to 64-bit apps.
AMD is not the founder of hypertransport...They are part of a group who's developing it, and one of the last members to join if i recall...... And I don't think that the transition of an AMD chip is much more complicated than you make it out to be....
Personally, if the idea of a 970 makes your blood boil, wait until WWDC and make an informed choice...if you can't wait to buy a mac, but it now.....
How cany anyone say that the 970 is behind AMD/Intel? Last time i looked, IBMs own 970 is FASTER than the new opterons, aren't those supposed to be fast?
Sorry for the sarcasm, but i find that PC users bash what they don't understand. Apple is heavily imitated by the PC world, so the must be doing something right. Let's just all watch and see what happens at WWDC, and talk about it later. Gossiping about new Mac Hardware......$Free Writing Cocoa apps that screa.........$Free Showing your PC friends how must faster your PPC 970 is over their WINTEL box......$Priceless
Back in 96' or 97' I can recall a bunch of hype in the public markets for the infamous DEC ALpha. I can recall banner adds here on slashdot for "64bit power" and other advertisments basically to the effect of "my processor is bigger than yours" type stuff. The difference now is that the market seems slightly more ready for 64 bit computing as more than 2 vendors are selling 64 bit systems. Intel (ia 64), IBM (ppc 970), Transmeta (128bit/2 core), MIPS, AMD, and I think you can still buy a new Alpha from HP still. I suspect the market still isnt' ready for 64 bit computing, but the saturation of vendors trying to be the one wwho actually makes penetration, like sperm on the egg of the consumer market. Apple is probably the most end-user'ish vendor on the market with very little server penetration, and this is promising news. Most of the other 64 platforms go the way of awsome servers. Apple has the chance to sell systems to mac-heads who would do anything to recapture their former elitness geek glory of years gone by. The onyl way 64 bit system will work ijs if they are compatible with the 32 bit software, and yes I mean the OS + user apps. This is why Apple, and AMD have an advantage. Intell seems to have the notion that since it is the market leader that it can simply force a new architecture down our necks, and the market has decided otherwise, and Intel hasn't lived up to its own expectations either. Time will tell is the IBM incarnation of the PPC is going to make it, and Apple has a history of over pricing their gear. If they could get their systems down to the average price of $1200 usd, then they would have a chance.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
I've read several rumor sites myself, and I've read that the PPC970's manufacturing price point is actually cheaper than the existing chips Apple uses. So if this is true, it raises serious issues with Apple. 1. Apple needs higher clock speeds to remain competitive in the minds of Joe Consumer and Joe IT Worker (see #2). 2. If the PPC970 is cheaper to manufacture and consumes less power than the existing G3 and G4 chips Apple computers feature, then the PPC970 needs to be implemented immediately throughout the Mac line. 3. Abruptly phasing out all G3/G4 machines (#2) would kill sales of existing units on the shelves. 4. Apple would want to offer the PPC970 at the top end to enjoy large profit margins from early adopters before implementing the 970 throughout the entire Mac line. The greater good requires Apple to incur short-term losses (think existing G3's and G4's in the stores) in order to leapfrog the entire PC market by offering 64 bit solutions top-to-bottom in their product line. It is crucial Apple comes out ahead of AMD's consumer 64bit offerings. But because of #3 and #4, Apple will probably choose otherwise... If Apple were smart, they'd start off with a single 1.4 ghz PPC970 in the eMacs and iMacs, and then work their way up the PowerMac ladder with dual (or even quad) processors up to 1.8 ghz. Afterall, it would be easier for $7/hr. sales employee at Worst Buy explaining why Joe Consumer should pick a 1.4 ghz 64-bit PPC970 powered eMac over a 2.5 or 3.0 ghz P4 equipped PC than it would continuing to argue the merits of the G4 line...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
He's probably refering to the Kernel version, not the distirbution version. Companies like RedHat and SuSE give their own version numbers for their distribution, but they're all based on a Linux "kernel", which has its own version, and I think that's more reliable of an indicator than the distirbution number.
hello? slashdot? do your research linux is made for X86, wtf all my shit is at -1 cause i was a dick my first few posts. you mod's suck.
learn how to mod.
It's very easy.
The processors will continue from G5 to G9, and eventually to G9.2. The next processor after that will be GX 10.0.
Got it?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
This processor absolutely rocks! It is used by IBM to build multimillion dollar mainframes.
Apple could do a lot worse. At 1.4Ghz a single processor can take on Dual Intel 3.0Ghz Xeons. Imagine dual 1.8Ghz...droooooool!
Not quite. Hypertransport is a high speed bus used to connect the CPU to the peripheral chips. There will still be an ethernet chip, and a firewire chip, but they will live on a Hypertransport bus rather than a PCI or PCI-X bus.
HyperTransport technology transfers data at 12.8 Gigabytes per second. It is designed to be approximately 48 times faster than PCI, 12 times faster than PCI X and 10 times faster than 4-channel Infiniband.
The current G4 suffers from a severe bus bandwidth bottleneck. This is an on-chip problem, so no fancy peripheral chips can rectify it. This is why the current DDR PowerMacs don't see the significant benefit that DDR technology should provide. In most current P4/Athlon/G4 performance comparisons, the G4's lagard performace can be much more attributed to its poor memory bandwidth than it's core clock speed.
Although initial 970 core clock speeds don't seem to be significantly greater than the current G4, its peripheral interface bandwidth is lightyears ahead. Hypertransport would help the 970 sing, significantly improving its throughput. Hypertransport would be wasted on a G4. It would be like having a superhighway run by your city, but your on/off ramps are potholed dirt tracks with metering lights.
"Hi5" sounds good to me!
As if we don't know your tatics by now!
YHBT, HAND.
If you're going to mention As The Apple Turns, you must also mention its evil twin site Crazy Apple Rumors.
I visit them both daily.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
They may not need to make a Windows version of the music store - rumours are running around that it'll be made accessible through Amazon.com. This may be a better way to allow access to Windows users.
G3 + AltiVec = G4
I've done a brief analysis of the 970 on my website: http://haxor.dk
mind you there are some cases where this might be beneficial - say specialised infiband or sci or myrinet interfaces - but by and large these are few and far between.
Steve "I ripped Woz off" Jobs has taken an open source project and turned it into a closed-source stolen OS.
What do you expect from a Jew?
It says DDR 400 but that doesn't mean it will use the 400FSB. My A7V8X motherboard can use 400FSB DDR, but it only supports an XP Barton.
So a computer that sounds like a jet engine is okay
Or that vibrates like a jackhammer
Or a screen that flickers like mad
Or where the power supply buzzes
Or where the monitor is 5" too tall, 10" too close
Where the machine is like a space heater, and it's already 80F
Where the hard drive clicks and grinds every other minute
Where the mouse is 4" too high, and the keyboard 5" too far away
All of those are 'comfort' issues
Incidentally, they are also efficiency issues, as well as performance issues. High performance and high efficiency are correlated, though not necessarily causally linked.
A system that wastes half it's power as heat, noise, and vibration, vs the same system that wastes only 1/4 of it's power as heat, noise, and vibration... the latter system should outperform the first system by 1/4.
So comfort, performance, and efficiency are all intricately connected. You cannot use an uncomfortable system for extended periods of time, without injuring yourself (noise, headaches, vision problems, attention span, repetitive stress injuries, etc), and a system that is grossly inefficient is a tremendous waste.
GPL Deconstructed
I'm thinking that it seems mac's hardware is consisently one step ahead of x86's... if i were wanting uber hardware for a linux box, macs seem the way to go. note: i've never owned a mac, but it seems that they have cool stuff and better integration and are a more finished product that 99% of PCs. Granted I despise apple's os, but if u could toss the *bsd thing and have pure linux would be really cool.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
nForce boards have FireWire (top speed: 400 Mbps), not FW800.
Sounds very nice, now if only I did not have to sell a kidney to buy one. If I could dual boot, OS X and Win32 (for my main use of the comuter, GAMES!) I'd probably be one kidney short ;).
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
i'll buy one. hell, i'll order ten of them for my office...
the day quark xpress 6 comes out.
seriously. the only reason i and a good many other mac IT folks with purchasing power have still got previous generation macs on our desks is that f*ing quark xpress isn't X native yet. the new G4s don't boot in 9, so it's not an option to dual-boot or run 9 and wait to upgrade to X. everybody i've talked to pretty much agrees, apple needs to light a fire under quark. or maybe buy them, since apple seems to have eaten up all the companies that make video editing software to create final cut and dvd studio. maybe an apple iQuark...
anyhoo, the day xpress 6 is available, apple will immediately see a spike in sales of new systems and OS X boxes. i'd be willing to put money on it.
Quark has had 2+ years now to carbonize xpress. i thought adobe was lagging with photoshop being so late to the game, but quark makes them look like early adopters by comparison. and with every day they don't have a carbonized xpress, their market share in the heavy mac-using print graphics world is eroding away, given over in droves to adobe indesign.
probably off-topic, but i felt a rant coming on and this was a target of opportunity.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Da Blog
While it's largely true that "clock speed alone doesn't mean that much anymore", Apple's biggest defecit has been in system bus speed. Their best G4 tower still uses a 266Mhz bus, if I recall correctly.
By comparison, current P4 boards have as high as an 800Mhz bus.
In the last 2-3 years or so, I'd say that bus speed on the motherboard is much more of a bottleneck than the CPU. Cranking a CPU's processor speed up gives diminishing returns if the rest of the support chips and RAM can only move the data around at a fraction of the speed the CPU crunches the data at.
This problem gets compounded when everything else in the machine gets faster and faster (such as video cards, hard drives, etc.). All those devices push data out to the motherboard, and there's only so much "bandwidth" to go around for cards and integrated controller-based devices. When that gets flooded out, performance suffers.
This is painfully obvious when people buy G3 and G4 upgrade cards for older generation Macs (such as Beige G3's), upgrade to a Radeon video card, and then try enabling "Quartz Extreme" graphics acceleration under OS X. The 100Mhz bus speed of a Beige G3 gets saturated with the video acceleration on - and performs worse than with it off.
Attending WWDC -> Aus$2000....
i don't read slashdot anymore.
iTunes Music Store is run off of 'em. ;-)
x se rve/
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/06/02/
I'm not so sure your comparison is valid, because you generally don't know from one moment to the next what the CPU speed of your PC is. It stays the same, and it is what it was when you bought it. You may even forget about it if you're not a slashdotter.
In contrast, I know my S2000 redlines at 9K every time I drive it. I have a 466Mhz Celeron (Win98) next to a 350Mhz iMac (OS9), but the only time I think about the speed of either machine is when I'm adding/upgrading, or if someone asks. The iMac is zippier for most things, but I've just come to expect that.
Tim
>the new iMac is sexy, if I could get one that ran Windows or RedHat (or Mandrake) I'd think about it
You can get Mandrake for PPC here, and also NetBSD, Yellowdoglinux, MkLinux, Debian (!), SuSE, etc.
What are you waiting for?
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Where's the creativity apple? U guys should name it H1. Yeah. Hold on.. Nope.. Never mind..
> if u could toss the *bsd thing and have pure linux would be really cool.
: //www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/c om/us/private/products/suse_linux /ppc/. gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-install.xm lhttp://www.mklinux.org/c .html
Wake up. You can.
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ppc.php3
http
http://www.suse.
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/
http://www
http://vinelinux.org/pp
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
No announcement. Some people will buy G4 Macs they had been putting off buying while waiting for the new G5s.
Pre Xmas, new G5 line will be announced. Pros and kids with rich parents will upgrade. Cheap punters will bitch and moan and keep using their old G4s, and upgrade mid-next year when prices have dropped.
Or not. I'm just making this shit up.
We must remember how tight lipped Apple almost always is, but we can estimate with some degree of certainty that whenever Apple announces a price cut on a particular product line that they are gearing up to release an updated one. We also know that there is one particular product line that is moving more units then another, except to say that occassionally there is surprise like the imac and the ipod. Nevertheless I'm an ardent speculator of future Apples, thus: From all of the hyperboly I've read about the imminent release of the G5 for the last two years , I haven't once gleaned a snippet of info about Altivec, ie as to whether its included in the G5 Architecture or not and if it isn't a more powerful inclusion, what replaces it ?
This is somewhat OT, but it is relevant in that many percieve the Mac as being relegated to non business applications.
The introduction of the PPC970 will no doubt improve Apple's fortunes in a very cut throat computer market led mostly by FUD, price sensitivity and monopoly practices. Allow me to explain.
As many here know, Linux is eating into Windows server marketshare in all areas, as it is becoming acceptable in business to actually think about what one spends the IT dollars on before one spends them. This is a market that Linux will almost certainly dominate in the next 4 to 5 years, as I cannot imagine that Redmond will be able to introduce technology spectacular enough for corporations to not consider using Linux in that space instead, as has been shown in numerous articles here on slashdot.
On the desktop there is also movement, particularly in civillian infrastructure IT such as local government offices, health departments etc, worldwide as the departments are increasingly having to cope with IT spending cuts and definitely get more bang for their IT buck with Linux than they do with Windows.
Where does the Mac fit in here? Recently, here in Switzerland, I had to buy a new car after trashing my old one, and in my tour of various used car lots, came across a wierd phenomenon: The majority of the offices of said used car lots were using Filemaker database applications on Macs for their bookkeeping, inventory tracking etc. This would be similar to the windows world of Access applications, except the people claimed that the Macs "just work" when asked why they weren't using newer PC's with Access.
The Mac, with it's simplicity and robustness, makes friends even today where Windows can often be a royal pain in the butt to administer (my job) . Not only this, but Mac OSX is very compatible to Linux and the execs and management in a company would be more amenable to running a Mac with a hyped to the extreme PPC970 (the marketing is important in these areas) than a beige box if they thought that it could be used to bolster their egos ("the PPC970 is much faster than any Intel", "My Powerbook goes so well with my metallic Audi TT"). It is kind of elitist, but I've never known Management types not to fall for status symbols, and this status symbol would actually be worth something of true value as opposed to the chrome cufflinks and platinum Rolex.
Canon recently (as in the last couple of weeks) announced their G5 digital camera ... this is the followup to the G1, G2 and G3.
... I find it doubtful that after that, Apple will now come out with the G5 themselves.
Why no G4? Because, apparantly, Apple had discussions and pursuaded them to skip "G4".
So
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
I make this point to people constantly and it never seems to register. There's no way to measure subjective speed in a user on a given platform, of course. If there was, the OS itself would conceivably have a 'productivity' rating or some other such nonsense. But I do wish it was measurable just to prove the point.
As for that other clown who keeps saying stuff like 'cars never go fast enough', again, he's illustrating your point... but while poking you in the eye. Irritating.
Now, one could make a case for not 'switching', ever, based on this argument. The pain of relearning a new interface paradigm is great, for many... makes you wonder what the 'productivity' difference is between (to pick a not so random example) the various car dashboards. Simple, I know.... but how would you quantify the intangibles... I like Mac OS X myself, but again, the fact that I can do things like a cmd-tab between apps while performing a drag-and-drop operation is huge to me... but not measurable in any metric.
Ah, I'm getting incoherant. I'll just say Good Post and leave it at that.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
USB would probably not be as popular as it is were it not for Apple making it the sole port on the orignal iMac. This created demand for USB devices, which previously did not exist. One can argue that given Apple's low market penetration that this argument is specious. But, consider this, every person who bought an iMac had to buy a new USB printer if they wanted to print. That ends up being a lot of printers(and scanners).
So, I'm not surprised to see USB2.0 on the new Macs for two reasons: Apple has been consistently adopting industry standards for years, and, it's just a frigging rumor!
My other sig is extremely clever...
HEy whats this dual processor shit.
i hope apple does not make that mistake. one thing that would really turn heads is an x server with 4 - 8 proccesors. that would really make apple in the server buis. hopefully they wont stop at two.
If the first 970's really are single proc than will they be any faster than current dual proc G4's? I mean what would be the point? I love dual procs on a unix OS. Talk about smooooth....
The computer that crunches bits the fastest is the one that has the highest "quality".
Exactly! Just like how the fastest automobile is the one with the best "quality"... after all, speed is all that matters in the end!
Are you saying that someone suggested Apple ship computers with Dvorak keyboards?
MacRumors linked the same story.... and they got threatened by Apple Legal.
It's gone now. I wonder if slashdot will get the same letter.
This is a sort of throw-around question. It's not something I'd probably ever do, but I'm curious to see if people think it would be possible...
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
I've read several rumor sites myself, and I've read that the PPC970's manufacturing price point is actually cheaper than the existing chips Apple uses. So if this is true, it raises serious issues with Apple.
1. Apple needs higher clock speeds to remain competitive in the minds of Joe Consumer and Joe IT Worker (see #2).
2. If the PPC970 is cheaper to manufacture and consumes less power than the existing G3 and G4 chips Apple computers feature, then the PPC970 needs to be implemented immediately throughout the Mac line.
3. Abruptly phasing out all G3/G4 machines (#2) would kill sales of existing units on the shelves.
4. Apple would want to offer the PPC970 at the top end to enjoy large profit margins from early adopters before implementing the 970 throughout the entire Mac line. The greater good requires Apple to incur short-term losses (think existing G3's and G4's in the stores) in order to leapfrog the entire PC market by offering 64 bit solutions top-to-bottom in their product line.
It is crucial Apple comes out ahead of AMD's consumer 64bit offerings. But because of #3 and #4, Apple will probably choose otherwise... If Apple were smart, they'd start off with a single 1.4 ghz PPC970 in the eMacs and iMacs, and then work their way up the PowerMac ladder with dual (or even quad) processors up to 1.8 ghz.
Afterall, it would be easier for $7/hr. sales employee at Worst Buy explaining why Joe Consumer should pick a 1.4 ghz 64-bit PPC970 powered eMac over a 2.5 or 3.0 ghz P4 equipped PC than it would continuing to argue the merits of the G4 line...
>> Why on Earth would you want to pay 2 or 3 times as much money for hardware that is less than 1/2 as powerful just to run Windows or Linux?
.NET costs over $3000).
WTF are you talking about? Check the prices at http://store.apple.com/ before dishing out more stupid misinformations like that, and you will find Macs are actually cheaper than most Wintel PCs with similar features.
For instance, you can get an eMac for $799, iBook for $999, iMac for $1299, PowerMac for $1499, PowerBook G4 for $1599. Even the cheapest Mac is more powerful and comes with more features and free software than most people can handle, not to mention Mac's sex appeal that just doesn't exist in Windows land.
There are many Linux distros for Mac, but why would anyone bother? I have been programming for Windows and Unix for over 10 years, and to me nothing (not any version of Windows, nor Solaris or HP-UX or Linux) comes close to Mac OS X in terms of usability, style or stability.
Mac OS X also comes free with so many best-of-class programs (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iSync, iCal, Safari, and many more) that you can't even buy on other platforms. There are also dozens programming tools (not only the usual OSS like gcc / Perl / Python / Ruby / PHP, but also the highly sophisticated Apple tools such as Project Builder and Interface Builder) that would cost hundreds or thousands of dollars (MS Visual Studio
>> Apple doesn't have a prayer of competing in the Joe IT Worker space. Wintel rules business operations, Unix still has a mindshare in web services, Linux is making a LARGE dent in web services, Mac is a non-player.
First off, you obviously don't know that Mac OS X is UNIX, and Apple is now the largest UNIX vendor (by volumes, not revenues).
Secondly, Apple's server market share had grown nearly 300% in the second half of 2002 since Xserve was launched. In fact Apple shipped 60% more Servers in 6 months than the totla of Intel Itanium2 based servers in 2002.
Now take your ignorant FUD to somewhere else, idiot.
In a platform agnostic way, what's the best performance/$ ? I'm guessing it's a Duron box overclocked ($130 for a basic, functioning computer w/o video), but are their some cheap Sparcs out there or MIPS, PPC, RISC, AIX? Then again, what about high-end clones of sparcs etc?
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
And Gentoo, and (with a few changes) Linux from Scratch.
Jeremy