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New PowerMac G5s: Up to 2.5Ghz, Liquid Cooled
no_demons writes "Apple have just announced the new, completely dual-processor PowerMac G5 lineup. The models all sport an 8x SuperDrive, whilst new the dual-2.5GHz model also features an 'innovative liquid cooled heat sink,' available in July."
The clock speed is useless to compare different architectures or even different processor lines made by the same manufacturer. So, A G5 running at 2.5GHz can't be compared to an Athlon running at 2.5GHz on clock speed alone, for example.
But between two otherwise identical G5 chips, it can be assumed the 2.5GHz one will go faster than a 2GHz one. It's essentially the same chip, just running faster.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
2) Fast video cards are nice, but if I want a gaming machine I'll get a PS2.
3) Yes, only 256MB of RAM on the 1.8GHz. You need more, buy it from somewhere else. Apple overprices their RAM
The real development here is the liquid cooling. It's a big step forward, because this means that they might be able to put faster processors into the Powerbooks, and they'll be ready for 3GHz and faster processors once IBM overcomes the Voodoo Curse.
I'm a little disappointed, but since I have to save for a wedding, I'm kind of glad they're waiting to release the dual 3GHz. It will be easier to convince my future wife that we need it when we aren't dropping $5000 next week for a payment.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Macs run Windows XP a hell of a lot faster than a PC can run Mac OS X.
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
...and multiple fans: Apple does it because they want to keep the machine as quiet as possible while still as cool as possible (as opposed to being forced to do it, lest the processor become hotter than the surface of the Sun).
(They don't do it because the PowerPC 970 family is "so hot", either; the PowerPC 970, and the 970FX even moreso, run much cooler, and require less power, than even the newest generation PowerPC 74xx (G4) family processors: )
Also, new PowerPC 970FX information from IBM is now available.
Actually the breathing hole in the hard drive is critical to maintaining the cushion of air that the drive heads use to float the couple of microns over the platter surface that they need. If you plug the hole, you've got a good chance of having a hard drive crash in the most literal sense of the phrase when the heads dig into the platters on boot.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
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Noise level (bels, often referred to in tenths of bels, or decibels) is a logarithmic measurement, similar to the Richter scale. The number of bels for a given ratio of power levels is calculated by taking the logarithm, to the base 10, of the ratio.So this is actually a reduction of just over three decibels. Doesn't sound like much, but it really is twice as quiet. Gives you more respect for the 20db case fans, eh?
Then simply stick to doing what the rest of us are doing.
internal drives in the computer are system drives.
leave the stack of external fiberchannel/scsi drives as the media drives in the raid array.
works great for AVID when dealing with HD or digitalcinema.
and I prefer that those 15Krpm drives be external... we have had to RMA 2 of them already this year for failures/ excessive noise from 2 different AVID suites here in the office.
External media drives are the only way to go.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That would be Fluorinert. Not a bad idea. NASA had a fluorinert-filled heatsink inside a mylar bag that I used once. Geez. Its still here. I need to clean out my desk more often.
PCI-X is twice as fast as PCI and is a replacement for PCI. PCI-E is a replacement for AGP and is twice as fast as AGP 8x. PCI-Express boards will have multiple PCI-X slots for sound cards, network cards, etc, and one PCI-E slot for the graphics card.
Well, actually most all of it is done in 2D with OpenGL.
GL does have a couple 2D Drawing modes, GL_ORTHO, for instance, and cards hardware accelerate them. How do you think games draw their pretty little GUI's and menus and whatnot?
Interestingly enough, nobody's ever developed a really good benchmark for cards that can accurately compare card performances drawing to ortho's. Maybe 3DMark should include a test like this. I imagine that raw fill rate has the biggest impact here, but who knows what kind of crazy optimizations card manufacturers might have in there to help/hurt the 2D OpenGL performance in favor of the 3D.
SPEC.ORG doesnt have any recent PowerPC benchmarks, but looking at historical bechmarks (Specint95 on 500Mhz processors) PowerPC has about a 20% higher score than a pentium of the same Mhz.
I would guess this advantage has increased as PowerPC pipelining and paralellism have improved dramatically since then.
So a 2.5 GHz PowerPC should be able to crunch numbers better than a 3 GHz Intel.
The chip also has the advantage of not being constained by the 8080 architecture.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Did you look at the page?
The schematic clearly shows a closed circuit of pump driven fluid flowing past the CPUs getting heated and then flowing into a heat exchanger (takes the place of a holding tank, and is actually superior too one) with a fan blowing on it. This is exactly like a smaller version of the cooling system in a car. There is no phase change.
A heat pipe is completly different, it is a phase change driven system, and does not involve pumping, or traditional heat exchangers.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Radiators by all laws of physics can only cool down anything going through them to (almost) room temperature. Now the equations you want are that if the radiator can bring the water within 2C of room temperature with one CPU pumping out heat, then with two CPUs it will bring the water about withing 4C. You are correct thout that the second CPU will (obviously) be warmer than the first one.
Double or half the power is +/- 3dB.
Shawn's Tech Articles
Am I the only one that would rather have a dedicated controller to handle the fans as opposed to during it in software?
assuming that the new g5's work the way the current ones do in this regard (and I'm sure they do). the software overrides the hardware. if there is no software to control the speed, then it defaults to full blast.
if you install linux on a g5 then the fans all run at full because the linux people haven't decoded the fan controllers yet (or hadn't last I looked). and even with osx on it, when you turn it on, the fans blow at full for a short while until bios/osx gets loaded and takes control and brings the speed down.
so if osx crashes so hard that even low level drivers like that die, then the machine should still not overheat.
dave
Ok... here goes... the cheapest dual Opteron system I can build, based on the 1.8ghz Opteron 244:
Mobo: MSI K8T Master2-FAR $220
CPU1: AMD Opteron 244, Retail $330
CPU1: AMD Opteron 244, Retail $330
DIMM1: 128MB ECC Registered DIMM $ 60
DIMM1: 128MB ECC Registered DIMM $ 60
HDA1: WD800JD 7200RPM 80GB SATA $ 75
VID: GeForceFX 5200 $ 55
DVD: 8X DVD+/-RW $ 90
CASE: Lian-Li PC-V1000 $200
PWR: Antec TRUE430 $ 70
MISC: keyboard, mouse, fans, etc.$ 50
=====
total $1540
So you're talking about a system that's about $1540 pre-shipping (which would probably run close to $100). And that's with the cheapest motherboard and RAM money can buy.
The dual 1.8ghz machine with otherwise similar specs from Apple is $1999. So you're paying a premium for quality system design and support, and software.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Linux has had G5 fan control for several months; it works OK in our testing.
You wouldn't get a warranty with the Opteron system, not that you get a great one with the Apple, but it's better than nothing.
OS X is definitely worth something, although if you're coming from a Linux POV you might think that OS's should be free. I'm willing to pay for some ease of use and elegance.
For my money, the Mac is a better deal, and arguably cheaper.
the rumor sites picked up on the LCD promo ending 2 days before WWDC (end of June) so they guessed Displays and PowerMacs maybe at the same time....
they also noted the fine print of the promo listed display by part number, so if a metallic 23inch came out sooner, it would not qualify for the discount per say.
though looking at the Apple site now i am only seeing a $500 off 23inch LCD with G5 purchase.... so i dont know if i am missing it of only the 23inch is on sale.
Tom Boger, Apple's Director of Power Mac Product Marketing:
"All-in-all, no we are not getting to 3GHz anytime soon"
Excuse me, but it IS a heat pipe and it's NOT pump driven.
FYI, I did RTFA and see this:
This system provides a continuous flow of thermally conductive fluid that transfers heat from the processors as they work harder. The heated fluid then flows through a radiant grille, where air passing over cooling fins returns the fluid to its original temperature.
That is clearly how a heat pipe works.
Furthermore, in relation to your question to another poster:
Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid...
To control the flow of the fluid you would need a pump. You could put a valve in it, but that makes no sence, because a heat pipe adjusts it's own flow, passively, based on the heat load.
They did do it without a pump. And it's still a heat pipe. Heres how:
Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid and the speed of the fans based on temperature.
By adjusting the speed of the fan that blows air through the radiant grille, they can control the cooling efficiency of the radiant grille.
So with the dynamically changed airflow, which in turn changes the temperature, the result will be a change in the pressure in the area covered by radiant grille within the closed system. This will cause a change in the speed at which the fluid flows.
Hence, Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid
Read it properly next time and apply some common sense... Oh wait, this is Slashdot..
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Apple has by far the best warranty experience that I have ever encountered. All systems come with 90 days phone support ("I can't get OSX to do this" or "my machine is doing this") and a full year of hardware support, over the phone ("shit broke"). I have a Powerbook G4 I bought in August of last year, and the 2 times I had to call support on it (once for the screen, it was a known manufacturing issue with the 15"s at the time, the other to fix the casing that wasn't reassembled properly, just a bit loose was all, nothing major) I was on the phone for a total of less than 10 minutes, calling during "peak" times, and was on hold for less than 30 seconds before I was talking to a Mac Genious (Apple's tech people, not someone just reading off of a screen prompt). When I got off the phone, a box was on it's way to me and arrived the next day to send it in for repair, and I got the machine back a day and a half later. No computer company that I know of, except for business-grade support can match that. And Apple's AppleCare warranty, which extends phone support and hardware warranty to 3 years, is only ~$250, which is cheaper than about any level of support that anyone else offers, and for a hell of a lot better service
I hate sigs...