Slashdot Mirror
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."
Already liquid cooled, and in a cool aluminium case, enough case fans for a hovercraft. What is left to do?
I promised my wife I wouldn't upgrade from my 800mHz 17" iMac overclocked to 900 with dual display to a G5 until they came out with a Dual 3Ghz, and I would get the 23" HD Studio display with it.
:P
Now I have to wait another year.
Bastards.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
I thought is was widely accepted that clock speed means nothing. Would a G5 2.5 GHz be comparable to and Intel check with the same clock speed or a AMD 2400+?
The dual thing is pretty cool for a pre-build box though...
----
That's great that new G5s are out, but am I the only one a little underwhelmed by the increase in proc speed? (Especially considering the "3Ghz in a year" when they were first announced).
:)
Anyway, sorry to be looking at the glass half-empty.
All in all, a fairly underwhelming update.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
I think the 2.5 model, with the whiz-bang cooling and new chips, is the first next-gen G5, whereas the lower models are designed to clear out old supplies. November will see the real "bump" to 2.5/2.7/3.0 all-liquid series.
Here's a theory: The 2.5 is slated to start shipping in July, so maybe Apple is getting around the new-model-launch-delays bear? Will they announce and ship the "missing" 2.7 and 3.0 portions of the range in September, when they would have shipped anyway, even if they were announced today? "Clearing out the old machines and releasing the typical low-end 'shipping today' portion of the new model range, and keeping mum on the parts we would normally delay two months."
That said, they are still impressive machines, save for the GPU. Also, to the first poster, the top end chips are 2.5Ghz, not 1.5...
Now we know what all the extra space is for in the new G5 case design, to hold the liquid nitrogren tanks!
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
I like the idea of liquid cooling but I also like simple systems. There's too much complexity here. So...
I've often pondered creating a sealed aluminum case with integrated heatsink. Stick the components in and fill it with dielectric oil in order to create a huge, passive heat sink (like a big transformer or whatever). Thoughts? I almost got around to this but stopped after submerging an old hard drive in some dielectric - if you seal the breating hole, it works fine (I believe the hole is there to relieve pressure differentials caused by changes in altitude so it should be fine in a stationary location).
Provided that the dielectric has good enough heat transfer, this should work, no?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
From the Apple link:
Each of the four thermal zones is equipped with its own dedicated, low-speed fans. Apple engineered the nine fans to spin at very low speeds for minimum acoustic output. Using 21 different sensors, Mac OS X constantly monitors component temperatures in each zone, dynamically adjusting individual fan speeds to the appropriate levels for the quietest possible operation. As a result, the Power Mac G5 runs two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4 enclosure.
Nine fans and 21 sensors, generating half as many decibels. Now I'm not an Apple fan-boy but that's the level of attention to detail that seperates Apple from Dell, etc.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Did anyone else notice that the lower processor on this diagram doesn't appear to be turned on?
Come on, Apple. I want purple and red water coming out of both processors!
-ch
The dual 1.8 and dual 2.0 GHz machines come with an "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra" graphics card. Isn't that card pretty low-end (or midrange at best)? Is it just me, or should a 2,000+ dollar machine come with a decent graphics card?
Of course, the whole point of a tower is that you can replace the card, but when you're already paying 2,500 USD, should you have to?
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
I doubt that the art guys checked with the science guys before illustrating the CPU cooling design, unless that lower CPU is either A)Off or B) Magical.
I read the little blurb on the site but I don't understand what is innovative about the liquid cooling they are doing? Or is it liquid cooling that is innovative?
My question is, does the new G5 implement liquid cooling because of need (i.e. fans aren't enough), or do they just want to quiet things down some.
I really hope that Apple hasn't just become the biggest SUP4R 0verclox0r of them all...
-JT
I think what's really going to make the G5 big is when they upgradet the main Feramantel Drive unit.
Kick in the Head
If I recall my log scales correctly, "two times quieter" would equal 3db quieter. Not exactly revolutionary, but a step in the right direction.
There may come new Displays (20, 23 and 30 inch with the known aluminum brushed metal look) to the WWDC, as reportet here.
Think Secret writes they may even come with DVI port.
>> Had I been going to bed earlier every night? Have I been sleeping later? Has Tyler been in charge longer and l
Comment removed based on user account deletion
and that the new machines have more than two drive bays!
I do (very) high end post production for a living and I wanted to replace my G5s with the new machines because I needed internal RAID arrays of more than 2 drives. Two drives will not give you the bandwidth you need for HD or digital cinema formats. I can't use solutions like WiebeTech's G5 Jam because my full length PCI cards take up the space.
I looked on the web site and it looks like the new machines didn't put in new drive bays in front of the CPUs (as was mentioned on some rumor sites). Am I wrong? Is there a way to add more drives?
Bandwidth in my work is more important than CPU speed.
I think it's just a demonstration of the basic principles of water cooling, not an actual in-use G5.
I'm surprised that the 2 new offerings from Apple were simply put out on the web without any Steve Jobs fanfare. I like it when Steve shows it first, he allows into his RDF. I guess overall it's not the update I was hoping for, the video card should have been upped as well.
I think it's pretty safe to say we're gonna have an all new iMac at WWDC. It's the other upgrade everyone's been waiting for. Aluminum iMac? We'll see.
I'm not sure about this, but I think that this may be the first major PC manufacturer to do liquid Cooling in a consumer PC.
Has any other major PC manufacturer sold PC's with liquid cooling standard? I've seen laptop's and shuttles use heat pipes, but nothing like actual pump driven liquid cooling without having to buy an external kit.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Difficult to tell from the article, but the liquid cooling system looks similar to that found in Shuttle XPCs The article says that OS X can vary the flow of the liquid though. Very nice though, looks like they have thought about noise, which is good.
Macs run Windows XP a hell of a lot faster than a PC can run Mac OS X.
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
And yet AMD64 series has managed to be the fastest out there. For much less too.
They tout it for scientific research applications ... but still no ECC support!
It's hard to imagine any sort of serious scientific computing that is making use of the advertised features - such as 64-bit optimised libraries, 8GB of memory, etc - which wouldn't also feel the lack of any real confidence that the results aren't contaminated by bit errors.
The newest Xserve supports ECC. Whyever do they not support it on their workstations?! It boggles the mind.
I immediately looked at the refurb section to see what's tasty. They have the dual 2.0 at the same price as the new one, so I don't think they've changed those prices yet. I also looked at still-available G4 Power Macs and they are completely overpriced. $1774 for a dual G4 1.5? When I can get a dual G5 for 200 more? Pu-Lease.
Its only 3 dB less. Remember that funky math that we said we'd never use? 2x the noise = +3dB. You can get more difference than this by simply switching your ghetto case fan for a good one. Unless of course Apple MEANT 1/2 the dB, which is a meaningless number w/o a reference: 1/2 the dB of a 6dB source is 3dB, or half the volume. 1/2 the dB of a 50 dB source is more significant.
So before we all drop to our knees on this one, lets consider the physics.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Apple's new G5 is just to sexy.
;-)
I think the Heat Sink isn't the only thing getting wet
I'm drooling.
PC manufacturers are |___| this close to releasing PCI Express motherboards. ATI and NVidia already have PCI-e video cards, and the standard peripherals are to follow soon. Since Apple greatly controls what 3rd party hardware can be attached to their machines, why didn't they plan for the future with PCI-e instead of causing Apple geeks everywhere to invest in PCI-X for a few months?
Apple's never had a paper launch before, so this machine could have "come out" in July, and by August-September when people start receiving their shipments PCI-e will already begin to have market penetration. Maybe it was just too much risk for Apple?
It seems to me that the liquid-cooling system is little more than a fancy heatpipe. These have been around a while in PC systems on heatsinks. I had a coolermaster with one, a silentpipe. The idea being that a slowfan with the two copper liquid-filled pipes could move more heat to the top of the sink and away, than a quick fan. I think it worked. Never cared that much any way. It cost about 30 only, not a lot of song-and-dance, except to be able to say, wow, liquid cooling. Could be the same here.
Of course, the PSU was the noisy thing, so I couldn't tell the difference in CPU fan noise anyway.
Just a thought.
...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 one I saw the guy built a custom styrofoam cooler/case, put in all his goodies except the power supply, then filled it up with some odd and expensive 3m non-conductive liquid...actually I think he used mineral oil first, but that turned out pretty gooey... Then put in a pump and started pumping liquid from the bottom to the top where it dropped over a coolant radiator.
Yeah- that's a long way to go to attempt overclocking, but it was pretty neat.
IIRC, it ended up overheating anyway because the liquid got less viscous (more??--more solid) the colder it got, and created isolated thermal heat nodes around the hot components. Would've been cool to see on an infrared scope...
Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
I am sure there is a place for a pony in there somewhere.
...as much as I care about the liquid cooling part. I remember liquid cooling my crappy little celeron, thinking it would never go mainstream because of my belief at the time that water + electricity = bad.
Now, we've got liquid cooled technology backed by Apple. It's pretty sweet, considering you either have to buy a specially designed freon pumping case, or a $500 video card to reap the benefits of this kind of cooling.. Now all you've gotta do is buy a $3000 Mac.
Sarcasm aside, I think this shows that soon, the PC's on the shelves will mostly all be using some sort of heat pipe / water cooling technology.
I'm not a Mac fanboy, don't own one, but this really goes to show that Apple can and does set standards for personal computing. With major backing like this, it's only a matter of time before it trickles down to where everyone can be using it for a relatively cheap price. Way to go, Apple.
I just orded a Mac II like 3 days ago!!! thanks again Jobs.
More precisesly, Water is a subset of liquid.
Gasoline and alcohol are also liquids, but will have a distictly different effect on you when consumed...
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Powermac G5 updates down - iMac G5 and Powerbook G5 to go!
Considering all the screen rendering in done in 3d (opengl) on the cards. 2d cards are pretty irrelevant.
You sure can sqeeze an orange faster than you can sqeeze an apple.
A 1.25 GHz FSB on the top-end model. Yeesh. Can't wait to see if this stacks up against Intel's and AMD's offerings nearly as well as Apple says.
Interestingly, they're still selling PowerMac G4s, and I don't think they've speed-bumped the Xserves yet (at least, there aren't any at 2.5 GHz).
Once again European Prices are much higher...
US$1999 = 1645 (With Irish 21% VAT = 1990)
However Euro prices are 2249
Whats the deal with a 250+ markup?
(That's a further 13% est.)
Frickin "LA-ZER" Beams.
You know, there uses for these 'puter things other than tinkering with the 'puter itself.
--- Ban humanity.
...my computing has always been liquid-cooled.
I'm glad to see Apple moving in the direction of dedicated thermal zones in the case. It strikes me as a rather logical idea that hot components be isolated from the rest of the system as much as possible. It's similar to Intel pushing the BTX standard for their upcoming products.
It's too bad that implementing something like that in ATX cases seems to be nearly impossible (at least in an efficient manner).
I haven't seen any benchmarks that manage to directly compare an x86 system and a PowerPC system.
Perhaps running linpack on a single machine?
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
That said, I'm first in line for the coffee-cooled PowerBook thermos.
Links??? not that I don't trust you but I want to see numbers. Otherwise I can only suppose you are a troll.
And these test where they both 32bit code using apples quicktime implementation, or was the Athlon 64 testing done with that linux quicktime package?
Many of the UNIX nerds I know would be much happier with this dream machine.
For more information, click here.
Nice specs. I like Apple stuff, but I still honestly don't know why Apple speedbumps are always front page news, especially when we have a dedicated Apple section to deal with minor announcements like hardware releases. Dell, IBM, or HP don't make the front page for every Mhz bump, let alone have their own section on Slashdot.
I would bet that 99% of us can't name one product from the HP lineup, but can name off the PowerMac, PowerBook, iMac, iPod, iTunes, iBook, etc. even though most of us don't own one and are far more likely to encounter an HP anywhere in the real world. I rarely see tv ads for Apple, and it's even more rare for me to meet another Apple user in the world (ONCE at Starbucks and once at Future Shop) but I read about Apples daily on Slashdot. We are all well acquainted with them due to our exposure here. I have no problem with that; it's better than Windows getting exposure, if only because we need more diversity, but I do have minor doubts as to the editorial discretion which leads to most Apple stories making the front page as well as their subsection.
Read into this what you will, but if I were HP or Dell, I'd start submitting articles to Slashdot. It's free publicity with a large section of the computer-buying public, and it doesn't seem hard to spin a typical product announcement into a "techie" story that would get accepted as News by the editors.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Thats a completely worthless argument. Mac OS X is designed to ONLY run on apple processors. It is designed to use RISC. Windows XP is designed to work with x86 instructions, which are quite easy to emulate. RISC instructions are almost impossible to emulate on x86 CISC processors. So you can't really use that to say that the Mac is faster.
I thought the little G5 labels were little sensors for the heat in the liquid coolant or something...
Man, I just can't seem to get anything right recentl ;_;
Overclocked too!
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
The details on this liquid cooling thing are a bit sketchy, but the diagram doesn't show a pump/compressor.
Is it possible that this is actually using heat pipe tech like that found in the newer shuttles? Namely, block attached to the CPU is linked to a large sink away from the processor, connected by pipes filled with conductive fluid. Large fan cools the radiator.
Net result is of course a complete lack of moving parts other than the (easily replaceable) fan(s). Of course, it doesn't cool as well as a full blown liquid setup, but then the PPC970's don't run *that* hot.
Anyone know any ore about this? Even if it's not entirely revolutionary, it's still interesting tech.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
I wonder if the fluid they used for cooling is that sapphire stuff that was mentioned on slashdot a while back.
Sapphire
It would certainly make sense, with its non-conducting properties it would be safe to keep that close to sensitive electronics. I don't know what it's heat capacity is so it might not be the best thermal choice but it at least it won't fry your G5.
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.
Wow, that's a sign of desperation. I've heard tidbits of information at the major tech news sites that although IBM boasts it can get to 3GHz on the PPC970 architecture, and that a G5's power consumption is very nicely low at 2GHz, that changes very quickly as the speed starts to ramp. The fact that they need watercooling stock to get to 2.5GHz seems to confirm this.
This is quite disturbing. It confirms the overall signs that photolithography scale shrinks aren't working anymore. I had thought that perhaps Intel's problems with Prescott were an isolated incident, but it doesn't seem so now. AMD has only just begun experimenting with 90nm, and now it appears that IBM, the only company so far to have said anything positive about their progress at 90nm, is having to (it would seem) overclock their chips and watercool them to get to a stable and quiet 2.5GHz..
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
in contrast the mac case has layers of flowing air no thicker that what is probably the thermal diffusion length. Air flows over the top and bottom of the hotest items and does so in one pass. Its beautiful. and mac planned this out from the beginning for expandability.
besides I like the cheese grater.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Well, provided Microsoft gets back on schedule with Virtual PC for the G5(They had to do a lot of re-working because of a crucial instruction set difference between the G4 and G5, emulating little endian I think), the G5 may run XP just fine. It may not run it as fast as an intel CPU(wasn't designed to do so), but for most mac users who have a need for virtual pc, it will run quick enough I bet.
This is may no be a new chip. This could be the same chip overclocked. That is why they have that cooler.
Not to mention that Apple's had quite a head start in x86 emulation since that architecture is essentially unchanged in over 10 years. Compare that to the G5, which is an entirely different architecture and very new.
Maybe a fair comparison would be making a G5 run an emulated IA64 WindowsXP?
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.
Moderators always moderate the stories that they like, and opposing views, even when funny, get stomped on by the moderation process far too often.
As you can see, this is still a problem on frontpaged articles too.
There are times I wonder if it wouldn't be more convienient for the little "You have X moderator points" to be forced to be used, and forced to be used on one story. I mean, we've got the readership base that it's not going to leave many stories neglected, and it could stop fanboying, of all sizes & types.
I'm Jonsey, and I too moderate the stories that most interest me.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
I like my PC a whole hell of a lot more than any Mac I've ever used. I put it together for peanuts (well under $1000), it's screaming fast and I can upgrade it piecemeal if I so choose. But I have to say that Apple does a great job of selling "cool". They have shown us, time and time again, that a PC can look great in your living room. I think this will finally usher watercooling out of the niche of the overclocker and into the mainstream PC community, the same way they did Firewire.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Of course, Apple doesn't design the processors, they just integrate them.
I think that you should also say that "PowerPC has the advantage of a modern intruction set" rather than "Apple has the advantage of RISC". PPC's instruction set may be classified as RISC but is hardly "Reduced". Besides, the whole RISC/CISC argument was discredited long ago. Processor architectures and instruction sets are not closely coupled any more.
Incidently, the x86 instruction set is, in fact, incredibly efficient. Not ridiculously inefficient as you say. It was designed to be compact and powerful bit is quite hard to decode compared to RISC apporaches. Memory space is not as precious as it once was so x86's primary advantages are no longer valuable.
Nice speedbump - the new top-end dually is particularly nice. It's a pity that they couldn't get to the promised 3 GHz within the timeframe they planned, but a top end of 2x2.5 GHz with a bus speed of 1.25 GHz and PCI-X is still a pretty good box.
This should give a much-needed kick in the pants to Apple's Pro sales for a while. It'll be interesting to see what (and if) they show for hardware at WWDC, since we already had the G5 today and AirPort Express on Monday, with iTMS Europe next week.
If I had to guess, I'd say we'll get a G5 iMac now (maybe at 1.8 GHz), but I'm not too sure. It could turn out to be a software-only WWDC.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm no hardware engineer, but looking at this artist rendering (akamai.net is an image host for all Apple.com images) of Apple's liquid cooling system, I think the processors are getting different cooling.
It would appear that the liquid passes over processor #1, then #2, then back to the heat sink to be diffused by the fan blowing over it. This would say to me that processor #2 is getting at best room temp water cooling, while proc #1 is getting cold water cooling.
Here's my reasoning: If the heat sink with the fan blowing over it can cool the water 2X degrees, then when it is leaving the cooling system it is at Room Temp (RT) - X degrees. It passes over both processors and returns to the cooling system at RT+X degrees, where it is cooled by 2X and leaves the system at RT-X, headed for the hot processors again, follow?
So here's the meat of it: both processors together heat the water up by 2X (see above). That means each processor heats the water by X, so when the cool water leaves, it is at temp RT-X, passes over the heat sink and it raised to (RT-X)+X=RT which then passes over the second processor and cools it to RT+X where it returns.
So the second processor is getting room temp water cooling while the first is getting RT-X cooling. What effect will this have on the system?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Fluorinert. Yep- That rings a bell.
That lets me do a search that actually finds something... A Google Link! Not the one I remember, but neat none-the-less...
Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
I must say that I am impressed. I am really not a big apple fan but the company seems to do just the right thing again and again. Starting with USB on the iMac back in 1998 they made a lot of cutting edge decisions wich came into mainstream just because Apple made them successful (WiFi, Firewire, MP3 players, legal musicdownloads, their stereo-wifi-hubbie-thing, TFTs, DVD-Burners) and so on).
Watercooling has been around for some time but no majorplayer implemented it. I bet that two years from now this could well be standard at Dells, HPs and so on...
How is it not liquid cooled if it's liquid cooled? You mean it's not liquid cooled the same way a hobbyist would do it, voiding his warranty and using after-market parts?
Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
Not even close.
:)
"Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid and the speed of the fans based on temperature."
Try reading more carefully, thanks
I'll agree with that - I've been with NeXT->Rhapsody->OS X for a while now, and the G5 is the first workstation since the black slab with me want goodness included. Well, I briefly wanted an Ultra 5 but they became old hat quite quickly. I don't think the same will be true of any of the G5 systems :-)
... Free advertising for Apple
What exactly is "innovative" about liquid cooling? It's been around for nearly as long as solid state computers, and it's widely used with PCs. So are variable speed cooling systems.
And talk about making lemonade out of lemons: Apple used to brag about how their chips dissipated less power and ran less hot, but now literally "sizzling performance" is supposed to be a selling point?
Just ordered my dual 2.5 with 2GB RAM from the Apple Store. It is estimating the first week of August for shipping. Damn.
Frankly, I hate the fact that companies are figuring out that there are better ways to cool computers down.
You see, as long as they don't know about more effecient coolers, they keep their heat output much lower. This means two very important things...
First, it means I can spend $20 and replace the crap in my computer with almost completely silent fans, and very effecient heatsinks.
Second, it means that the computers aren't outputting as much heat. Once cooling solutions they use can handle cooling-down a 500WATT processor, you'll see 500WATT processors. This means much more electricity wasted for no reason, and (more importantly for me) it means while your system is running, it's ouputting 500WATTS of heat from the computer into the building where it is held. It's getting to the point where the biggest cost of running computers is the need to have massive air-conditioners installed, and running at their max, all the time.
Frankly, I can see us reverting back to ENIAC times. To run a computer you have to build a whole building for the thing, with massive airconditioners under the floorboards, and you have to notify the power company in advance when you want to turn it on, so you don't cause a black-out. The only difference is going to be inital purchase cost of the processors, which will be low, but on-going costs will be massively high.
Personally, I'm using ducting to limit the need for massive air-cooling here in the 130 degree desert summer, but that isn't perfect. Lots of heat still leaks into the building, but it's an improvement. If heat output levels continue to rise, it will be pointless, and practically impossible to have a server-room, frankly.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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...
If it has a pump, it's not a heat pipe.
BTW, the prior G5 models (and new lower-end models) do use heat pipes.
What's odd: no pictures of the internals of the liquid-cooled model yet.
ha ha!
see the article about the future of sys-admin positions!
imagine supporting these boxes! what used to be a software call, or faulty ram, or something like that, could now be fluid leak!
in addition to supporting the box, we now will need to be spot-on with fluid-dynamics, plumbing, and things like this!
ok, sure, its a really great idea, and why did it take so long for someone to think of it, but i really hope the manual is good!
True, but your typical PC heatpipe thing uses air where this one is using fluid.
I don't see what the big deal is though. Looks like just your run of the mill Apple marketing crap to get people to spend money on expensive sounding stuff.
Really all a heatpipe does is either relocate the heatsink or provide more surface area for heat dissipation. In other words, it's no different than adding a bigger normal heatsink with good ventilation to the outside.
Now if they were using peltier's or something to cool the fluid in a remote location, that would be nice. From what I see this new Apple thing is just a normal heatsink that happens to use fluid.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
I don't miss making chump change and having to drive all day to fix them though. :)
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
"seems like it's the usual heatpipe deal. you could say it's been used in stock pc's for a while now(it has, in the sff form factor computers especially as stock)."
I doubt that they're just standard heatpipes, my G4 PowerBook has heatpipes all over the place and I didn't see Apple making a song and dance about that, like I'm sure they would have if they thought that was real liquid cooling.
if only he used a realdoll.
The local Micro Center usually blows out the older Power Macs.
This is why the news of Apple getting rid of 3rd party retailers so disturbing. Don't expect this kind of event at an Apple Store.
viscosity of oil is pretty bad and flourinert is ok until about -40 degrees.
or you can, i don't know, buy liquid cooled system like ValuStar TZ that had liquid cooling for almost a year now? (Granted, maybe japan only)
So, can we say that MS copies off apple, but apple actually is copying off of NEC? kind of a hard fact to accept, but innovation would seem to be, erm, not so alive in the US these days...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
well they sure as hell are putting it up like they were just standard heatpipes, offering no explanation why they would be better than those in your powerbook.
.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Erm..... Sorry? You're trying to say that theres a huge difference? If you're using a TDM system, all the processing is done on dedicated DSP cards and the processor of the machine only affects the UI. (For non-musos, check out http://www.digidesign.com for more info)
~Pev
In case you hadn't noticed, there is no Virtual PC for the G5s. Since M$ bought out Connectix(spelling?) they have sat on their thumbs with getting VPC to run on the G5. Sure thye will claim that it takes time to switch all the underlying frameworks from G4 to G5. But come on now. With Demo models they've had close to 1.5 years now to get it working on the G5. I think they are afraid to release somthing that will work VERY well on the G5
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Sort of silly argument, but Intel and AMD haven't been sitting on their thumbs since 95. They also have improved the design of their processors. So I'd think that the advantages is probley the same. But considering how little the 970 has in common with the old powerpc chips, its anyones guess.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Except that the PearPC project simply needs to emulate a G3 to get it working, and the G3 architecture has been roughly the same for the last 7 or 8 years
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Low-end model is like $400 higher than it was yesterday.
Crap, I just barely got the OK to get one at work for that price..
I hate it when the price jumps up like that.
Macs are something you want seen. They're always used as movie props, and very pleasing to the eye. You might not want your beige box PC in plain view, runing your decor, but an iMac might be nice touch to a room.
>Macs run Windows XP a hell of a lot faster than a PC can run Mac OS X.
Yes, but G5's can't run virtual PC at all for the time being.
What apple is doing is simply hyping up marketing and PR on heat pipes, which Shuttle has been using for a long time now.
And if anyone thinks that Shuttle was innovative in using heat pipes in their obnoxiously loud computer cases (IMO, due to a very poor choice of fan attached to the radiator), think again.
Compaq and Dell were using heat pipes in their servers around 1998. They may not have been the first, but it seems to wildly predate the computer aftermarket uses.
I'm not all that convinced that it is a heat pipe or a pump system. If it were a heat pipe, I'd say that each CPU should get one or two.
These things look nice, and look like they were very well designed, I need to get one.....Once I get the money :)
BTW, I forgot to mention that a heat pipe is generally a single tube, and not looped. A looped tube system qualifies as something else.
As for the Apple coverage on /., well I think that is attributable to Apple getting it right (tm). Specifically, you have Unix with a GUI you don't have to dick around with to get working. They have achieved the holy grail of Unix+Usability and that is very attractive to, at least IMO, the people that care about computers, e.g., slashdotters. *shrug*
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
I was a little upset when I spotted the upgrades early this morning because I just ordered a G5 1.8x2 the day before last. Imagine my delight when I got an email this morning from them offering to let me change my order. So now I'm getting a G5 2x2 for a hundred bucks less. Booyah!
I ordered a dual G5 2ghz this past Friday.
6 DAYS!!! ARGH!
Looking like OSX isn't the point.
The user experience is what Macs are all about. Running OSX, not just looking like it, and having a wonderfully engineered case.
A PC running any OS it is capable of is like a bitching Camaro kicking ass in the straight-away.
A Mac is like a BMW z4 taking on a winding road.
You either get it or you don't.
Sorry to brag but I just had to get one! Here's what I got.
Dual 2.5GHz PowerPC G5
512MB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x256
250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
8x SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon 9800 XT w/256MB DDR SDRAM
56k V.92 modem
Bluetooth Module
AirPort Extreme Card
Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Accessory kit
Estimated Total:
$3,384.58
I can't wait!
Think Secret is reporting that new displays are due soon. The new displays apparently will be DVI only -- no more ADC. (The 30" display requires 150W, which ADC couldn't handle.)
What puzzles me is the GPUs currently in these new G5s -- they seem to be dual-head ADC+DVI. That's not terribly useful once ADC goes the way of the dodo. If you're in the market for the new displays, it might be worth holding off on the G5 a few weeks, in order to get a DVI+DVI video card.
...Apple could just be trying to keep the machine quiet in response to complaints by its users about the noisy fans in the previous G4/G5 cases.
I meant for the "me want" to be in quotes, and indeed used the HTML quot; symbol. It didn't show up.
Just my .02, I've always loved the idea of liquid cooling, but peltier coolers and all the mess associated with standard 'open' type systems where you have leaks has made me shy away.
With closed loop systems like this with some of the new thermofluids that are being developed are pretty exciting.
I wouldn't be amazed that with all the new processors and heat issues you won't see more of this type of cooling in Intel applications.
take a look at the http://www.thermacore.com/thermaloop.htm site, they've got a ton of animations on what they're doing with this type of technology. And they're already moving stuff around for a lot of companies.
I'd like to see if someone can find a way to get access to those 21 thermal sensors, much like on a PC you can access motherboard temperatures with a program such as Motherboard Monitor 5. It would be useful if there were an app you could stick in the dock to have a simple temp readout when working on those intensive FCP renders... Temperature, imho, has never been a problem with the mac, but now we might see that change because of these 2.5ghz CPUs!
Don't know about you I usually call something new an inovation. Shuttle has been using I.C.E. technology for quite some time.
Is it thermally right to cool the 2 processors in a serial manner? I mean, this way, the second processor on the cooling chain get hotter fluid than the first one, and what happens to it after 3 year 24h/day ? Using fluid is nice, but, why this way? I hope this is just an illustration, and that the whole system comes with something else
In case you wanted to know, here's why.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Now with more Speed Holes!(TM)
fs
If you're really desperate, you could probably shove all the parts into a Thermaltake case. That'll be the shiznit ... yo!
Mudflaps. With the nekkid ladies on 'em.
What, am I the only redneck who owns a mac?
Furthermore, PearPC is 1) very early in development and 2) not commercially developed. It's not exactly a good comparison even ignoring the inherent CISC/RISC issues.
The G5s are a lot more efficient than G4s and the Pentium4s are much LESS efficient than PentiumIII. ... that run at 3X the clock speed as the P3 and thus, give an overall performance increase, especially when coupled with much higher bandwidth memory and the like. I have yet to see a benchmark where any P3 will beat a P4 2.4GHz or faster, and the 3GHz P4s can be more than 3X as fast as a 1GHz P3 on some tasks.
http://www.barefeats.com/g5op.html
They dont have the current 2.4 opterons, or the 2.5 G5 (of course they were just relased) but this should give an idea.
It also paints a different picture on the photoshop benchmarks. The opteron wins here and its a Mac oriented web site.
To the grandparent, considering it will be some time before the 2.5 ships, AMD might have the 2.6 out by then.
What's odd: no pictures of the internals of the liquid-cooled model yet.
Here's a picture of the internals of a liquid-cooled model. All the guts are sealed, for obvious reasons.
I write in my journal
Actually, RISC instructions are easy to emulate -- there are analogues to each RISC microinstruction on a CISC machine that execute very quickly. The problem is that modern PCs have been heavily optimized to run their complex instructions...so much so that the instruction that, say, loads two numbers from memory into registers and then multiplies them, dumping the result into the first register and then pushing it back to memory, runs much faster than if each of these instructions were executed back to back as they would be in a RISC processor.
Think of it like a pair of gates...one is very wide, to accomodate buses, and takes a long time to swing open. The other is very small, to accomodate pedestrians. Each has to swing open completely before each unit --buses or pedestrians -- can get through. They're about equally efficient over time...but if you switch it up, and send pedestrians through the big, slow door, you bog it down until it's unusable. Sending the bus through the small door is of course impossible...but as it turns out, getting all of the passengers off the bus is a relatively simple procedure that leads to a somewhat snappy execution time.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Yes! That is exactly what I've been hoping for. Some people call it the "headless iMac". I just think Apple should make a home computer in the tradition of the old Atari and Amiga systems, like the Amiga 500 for example.
The closest thing they make to a home computer is the iMac, but it's too expensive -- at least partly because of the monitor. It would be especially great if they made one with DVI and HDTV output.
It could also give Apple a kind of sneaky back-door entry into the videogame business. If this little box can hook up to a HDTV, if the specs are pretty standardized and stable, and there's a standard console-style controller made for it, and there are no royalty requirements for developing and publishing games on it . . . . it could become attractive for game developers. (That's in addition to the obvious consumer apps: web-surfing, word processor, email, and the whole iLife package.)
The only problem with this plan is that it goes 100% against Apple's traditions. They've never gotten into the inexpensive home computer business, they've never been heavy into games. Apple needs to "Think Different" for something like this to work.
Bzzz, wrong.
OSX wasn't designed for PPC - it is layered on the Mach/FreeBSD, which is a mature UNIX, and the Apple guys owe alot to the Next guys, who were working on 680x0 processors.
Windows XP? Designed? Well i'll let that pass, but given that it is derived from the NT source which was released on many different architectures in it's time (including PPC BTW) it's far from x86 specific.
Also the PPC isn't very RISC, it's quite a large instruction set. And as for x86 processors being CISC, they gave up on that a long time ago., and all the processors you are likely to see are CISC cores with a x86 translator.
Apart from that, a very well argued case.
That would be Fluorinert. Not a bad idea.
All the good parts of the Cray T90 were immersed in a big tank of Fluorinert.
I write in my journal
well it's also the chip's design. the Apple (and IBM/Moto) designs (and AMD to some extent) "do more work" per clock cycle. that's part of the reason some are better for some processes (though software is key too). think of it like a racecar vs a truck. a racecar revs really fast and flies, but carries one passenger. a truck revs lower but can tow a house. if you had a relay race of the two that had to transport 300 people across a distance the truck could win since it could haul everyone in one or two trips. it's the same way the G5 (or G4) tries to "do more" with every clock cycle compared to Intel just trying to go really really fast.
it really comes down to attacking the same problem from different methods.
Of course, 1MB of cache is enormous compared to all of system memory at the time of x86 design. Still, the point is valid. You can argue successfully that x86 requires less memory bandwidth to perform well so I find it curious that P4 requires so much.
Fact is, the instruction decoder for an x86 is very difficult compared to more modern designs, but several companies know how to do it and do it very well. With the 64-bit extensions, x86 gains a reasonable number of GPR's so even that criticism goes away. It's clear at this point that it takes far more than a more efficient decoder to cause x86 to become obsolete and that was Intel/HP's thinking when they went with EPIC. EPIC hasn't done too well so far but at least it has a chance at being a compelling alternative.
I would think that a 2.5GHz 970 would be quite competitive even if poeple view it as a disappointment.
It would seem these updates arent the 970fx's where hoping for.
Looking here and hereit seems there still using the 130nm process. If they were putting in the 90nm chips you would think this is something they'd highlight.
Don't be an ass. Yes, the 9800XT is fast, but:
- It's Build-To-Order only
- It takes up an extra slot
Apple's top-end stock GPU, the 9600XT, is mid-range at this point. The other G5s still use the FX5200, which SUCKS HAIRY GOAT these days and does not belong in Apple's officially designated "Pro" machines.If that's the case, I stand corrected :)
Doubling the acoustic energy (in watts) does in result in a 3db measured change in SPL, but that is a barely noticeably change in the (human) perceived volume level. Our ears are not linear devices, that is the reason that differences in loudness (sound pressure level) are represented logarithmically. 1 DB is considered to be so small a change as to be imperceptible (in nearly all cases) even though it represents a significant change in absolute acoustic energy (in watts).
This points out why it is so difficult to keep things quiet, (and why this was a significant change) you must reduce the acoustic energy tenfold in order to halve the perceived loudness.
for a quick definition of sound pressure level http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/Music/tech_background/TE- 06/teces_06.html
If you look at their design, it's pretty clear that there's a single fluid circuit for both processors. Obviously the fluid can only flow in one direction, so one processor is going to be substantially hotter than the other. I hope they over-engineered it a bit.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Compare that to the G5, which is an entirely different architecture and very new.
The G5 is neither entirely different nor very new. It's kinda like a Pentium IV: a new chip based on an old architecture. The PowerPC architecture and instruction set have been around for more than 10 years; the first PowerPC-based Mac came out in 1994.
I write in my journal
althought impressive with the blue light thingy, i'm more interested in how you are going to incorporate the ass variable into a mac.
or is that a diccerent project altogether?
i'm thinking of course of this picture: http://www.buckeyemonkey.com/images/ass.jpg
This is not a troll but, most PC users don't give a damn about running OS X. Many Mac users can only justify their choice of a computer by running Windows. That is to say that if they couldn't run Windows apps, they wouldn't be able to survive on just as Mac - particularly in the workplace.
If there was a huge demand for Mac emulation on Windows, it would have been done by not.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
This is a highly condensed Reheat Agent and cuts down on several staging calculations in dealing with thermodynamics and W(in)=W(out).
Did that include the cost of the OS and equivalents of all the other software goodies in the Apple package? Or all the nickel and dime extras you need for a PC that come with a Mac. And I can't be too surprised when you compare a single processor system with a dual processor system and then declare the single processor to be less expensive. And when you say the single processor system is faster you may be technically correct, but I wonder if it will do more work; which is what really matters imho.
The myth that Apple is more expensive is just not true, as anyone who has done a serious comparison of features will tell you.
I happen to have three Athlon 64 systems and two G5 systems. I spend time on all of them as a mercenery for hire, but I believe that I'm most productive for my non-professional work on the Mac, which is where I put all my personal stuff.
an iMac might be nice touch to a room.
This makes my point perfectly. iMacs and eMacs hide the computer inside the monitor base. To the average user, they simply see a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
1. Freightliner
2. 747
3. My neighbor's crappy Honda with the expensive broken-sounding exhaust.
Saying that the G5 is quiet is true. I have one on my desk here at work. Saying it is quieter than the G4 Mirror Door is a silly statement, because freeways are quieter.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I don't think "innovative" is exactly the right word. I would call it forward thinking. Apple didn't invent USB, but they were the first to have USB as standard, built-in equipment. Apple was the first to ship computers without the obsolete floppy drives. And now. . . A mass-produced CPU from a large manufacturer that comes with liquid cooling. Who else is doing that?
No, liquid cooling is not a new invention -- but they are bringing it to a large part of the market that never saw this before. I could tell a similar story about Apple and dual-processor systems. Or 802.11b networking. Or the switch to selling only flat-panel monitors. That is forward thinking, it's about staying ahead of the curve, it's about leading instead of following.
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.
From the article:
Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid and the speed of the fans based on temperature.
Can this be right? The OS is responsible for adjusting the flow of fluid and the speed of the fans? What if the OS crashes? Granted, OS X is pretty stable, but stuff happens. Can this lead to an OS crash taking out your hardware?
- "That's just the kind of fuzzy-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten."
Lol that was a picture a friend took on his girlfriends camera, as a joke while on vacation. Unfortunely for him the camera ended up in somebody else's luggage, and I subsequently posted it on the 'net, cause hey, why not?
If you want the machine, buy it and upgrade incrementally. There's no law that says that the second you buy your machine you have to load it up with memory and disk.
My dual 2ghz G5 performs great with the stock 512mb RAM. I've upgraded it to 3.5gb, and there is a difference (mainly in switching applications), but the system with its stock RAM configuration is perfectly usable.
My 160gb system disk lasted about 8 months before I had to buy a new 250gb to fit the empty slot. I would have gained nothing by buying the 250g disk with the system.
Apple makes fantastic computers, and I'm a fanatical Apple loyalist -- but you'll get everything cheaper if you go to Fry's(*) or shop on the net for components like memory and disk. Memory upgrades are universally about triple the going rate if you get them from Apple, and Apple's brilliant case design makes them easy to install.
Always upgrade incrementally. It will let you spread the financial pain and you'll enjoy getting the performance boost treats spread over time.
Hope that helps.
D
(*) If you're not in California, you may have never heard of Fry's. It's a huge retail store, designed by scions of a prominent supermarket family, that works basically like a supermarket for computer gear. If it exists, and it has to do with computers or salty snacks, it's probably hiding somewhere in Fry's, waiting patiently for you to discover it.
The myth that Apple is more expensive is just not true, as anyone who has done a serious comparison of features will tell you.
Sorry, but it used to be true. The G5's are the first systems Apple offered that are a reasonable deal compared to PC's. Honestly, I'd like to see a $1000 machine based on a 1.6ghz G5. Then Apple would really turn some heads.
And Apple monitors, while excellent, are still too pricey. They need a $400 17" DVI-D only model or something.
Look at the iMacs... a 1ghz G4 with a 15" LCD for $1300? I could get a MUCH faster Athlon64 system for that with more RAM and disk space, plus it would be upgradable.
Yeah, you're paying for the software and the "experience", but frankly, most people don't care enough to plunk down the extra cash, and they still have to pay another $200 (or more) for MS Office when cheaper PC's come with it for free.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
As a person who runs three Athlon 64 systems in Antec Sonata quiet cases, as well as two G5 systems, I can only say that you are incorrect.
The Athlon 64s do not wipe the floor with the Macs (or vice versa, come to that) and the Macs are cost competitive in real-world configurations, and I can't honestly hear much difference in the sound volume between the systems.
But hey, don't let your speculation be interrupted by practical experience...
You are wrong:
l
.00000009 meters wide on a layer of silicon on insulator. The 58 million transistors themselves are connected by over 400 meters of copper wire that's less than 1/1000th the width of a strand of your hair. Tiny paths mean less time to complete a sequence, since the electrons don't need to travel as far. In other words, the PowerPC G5 is fast
http://www.apple.com/g5processor/ibmprocess.htm
Transistors on the PowerPC G5 hold a charge to let the system make logic decisions based on whether the transistor is on or off. Using a 90nm process for even greater performance, IBM builds these devices just
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.
Come on Apple, the Xserves have ECC. Why not put it in the Power Macs as well?
I read benchmarks comparing a dual Xeon, a dual opteron and a g5-duals.
The g5 came out on topof the opterons price and performance wise - though there was nothing between them performance wise really.
Dual Xeons is probably best if you want to sell your soul to Intel!
IIRC flourinert is only inert until you expose it to a flame source accidentally and then it's intensely toxic. Probably not the best thing to have around the house, especially since in order to spend $500/gal on the shit you must be smoking something...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Take a look at Pricewatch.com. You could save several hundred off that price, or use the difference to get even more powerful parts. Plus, why spend $200 on a case? You can get great looking cases for $100!
If Apple really wants to sell these things, they should lower the prices by about $500 per machine.
That's true if you're only looking at the desktop side. On the laptop side, Macs have been a good deal for about the last 3 years (when the dual-USB iBooks were introduced).
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
Not to mention all the software loaded on it?
It's one thing to spec-out a bunch of parts and call that your 'cost'.
It's quite another to hand build a 100 machines yourself...
It just seems to me you forgot your labor costs...
I don't know about you, but my consulting rate is high enough that the Mac is already cheaper when assembly time is factored in.
Thank you.
Some people know the value of time, and can get someone to actually pay it.
Sometimes, buying the very first product you find that will solve your problem is the most economical solution.
(Not to be confused with the optimal or best solution.)
And, if you are doing it to make money... that is the "right" solution.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
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.
Just to be fair, you'd more than likely have to add shipping costs to the Apple machine too. (possibly tax too) Whereas the custom build you can probably get away w/ most shipping/tax costs if you go through a place like newegg or something.
But you're still right--for an integrated, advanced system like that, $2K-ish ain't bad.
If they follow your .sig's suggestion and use free software, then the MS office problem goes away, right?
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
If Apple really wants to sell these things, ...
Apple realy does sell things, and these G5 things to boot. They're making money at it so why should they lower the price? You don't tell high end car makers to lower the price just because you can get a car that drives on all the roads just fine for a fraction of their price, do you?
People are willing to pay for quality and reliability and even the name. So let them.
I'd be willing to buy a new Porche if they'd only lower the price.
I notice you didn't counter my point regarding the reasonableness of comparing dual and single processor systems.
For nickel and dime items we can start with a free, full blown, industrial strength developer package for multiple languages. I use Visual Studio for x86 development, and Apple's free package is arguably better and can be used for both x86 and PowerPC development. In fact I build x86 projects using the Mac developer environment daily.
As far as cost is concerned, wander over to Dell's site and configure a dual processor Xeon system with approximately the same feature set as the Mac. You will find (if you do an honest comparison of features) that the Dell comes out about $500 more expensive. And an Opteron is considerably more expensive than a Xeon, last time I looked.
Now my dual 1.8GHz G5 feels slow and old...
And I bought a Mac to help me get away from the WinTel upgrade cycle.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
This is clearly not the cheapest system as you have ecc registered ram and one can run the opterones with plain old dims. $40 for 256mb, not 120.
$200 for a case? You can get a perfectly good case for this system for $90.
You are using retail CPU's, OEM can be had for $307.
You price is $210 high. The correct comparison is $1330 versus $1999. Thats a huge difference.
it's not the blueprints to the machine..... it's to explain it to Joe and Jane Sixpack.... well not quite, but you know what i mean. i think it's an oversimplified drawing. Apple has been playing with liquid cooling for a long time, i am sure they did the math.
unfortunately they dont ship to July so we may have to wait to see someone pluck one apart? i wish that Apple was going to be at MacWorld east coast... i am sure they would have had a display showing the innards of this system in better detail. maybe they will have one at WWDC in 3 weeks and some pictures will get posted. the main presentation stuff there is not NDA secured.
Jobs this week even admitted Apple built a (post-newton) PDA that came damn close to being released but was scratched last minute. makes me wonder what else is in the vault of abandoned projects? maybe EVERYTHING on the rumor sites is true?!?!?! someone should have asked if it was really the iWalk. hahaha
Your cpus are $23(x2) high.
A good case can be had for $90, so take off another $110.
Not all opteron boards require registered ecc memory, take off another $80.
Your system is $233 high. The comparison should be $1307 versus $1999.
Does that include setting up the OS?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Apple did this, but if any small amount of vent space is blocked, it crashes. The AC in the house goes out, it crashes (100F outside). If I put a lamp within a foot, it crashed. Aside from these, it did just fine.
The main reason to remove the fan is to cut noise and vibration, which Apple has done quite well, with the G5 fans. The energy cost is minimal, especially when you remove the energy lost in vibration (noise).
My question: Is there a provision for filters? Dust is a huge problem around here and when I did not filter, I had real problems.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
I thought you were trying to do a goatse cx impression? Give it some time, you'll get there.
Opterons require Registered DIMMs, as do Athlon64 FX51's.
Plain Athlon 64's do not.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
The g5 iMacs are on schedule to be released in 2 weeks at the WWDC. Is this what you're asking for?
You know that being said, I'm not sure if I ever care if Apple's prices are cheapened or not. I mean, think of it in this analogy - I love BMWs, always have. I am making a crazy attempt to save for one which will or will not ever come to fruition. But do I want BMW to come out with a $16,000 car (mini coopers do not count) that skimps on some of the quality? No, that, my friend, is not a BMW.
Part of the price included in Apple's products is research and development for its sleek designs. I would not have it any other way.
Yeah, you're paying for the software and the "experience", but frankly, most people don't care enough to plunk down the extra cash,
I do, and have since 1993. There are many that feel the same. It's just a matter of preference, there is no "correct" computer purchase.
-- (Score:i , Imaginary)
'nuff said. :-)
I totally agree with you except for one thing. Video Editing sucks on Linux. When there is software as capable as Final Cut Pro 4, I'll run Linux exclusively. Until then, I need a Mac to go along with my Linux machines.
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...
According to http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/ Apple as again, like microsoft, misrepresented the speed of the G5. Below is the small print of the benchmarks. Take note that Apple used "a single Xserve RAID configured with 512MB of RAM per controller, 14 drives and RAID 50" for their Mac configuration. I'm guessing 14 drives with RAID 50 is not the "standard" Mac configuration. Apple also uses different benchmark programs as well as video software for the benchmark. With that being the case, we still have no clue if the speed difference is a function of video software or hardware. Finally note the use of Red Hat Linux. It's nice to know that Apple had to use a 1-2 year old OS (with the old 2.4 kernel and who knows what software running in the background) to lower the speed enough to make their new CPU look good.
1. Testing conducted by Apple in May 2004 using preproduction dual 1.8GHz, 2GHz and 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 units; all other systems were shipping units.
2. Power Mac G5 systems were tested using Final Cut Pro HD and a single Xserve RAID configured with 512MB of RAM per controller, 14 drives and RAID 50. The HP xw8000 (Avid's recommended PC platform) is listed for comparison; results are available at www.avid.com.
3. Power Mac G5 systems were tested using Final Cut Pro HD. The HP xw8000 (Avid's recommended PC platform) was tested using Avid Media Composer Adrenaline 1.3.1. All systems were tested using the internal disk subsystem.
4. File size = 600MB. For PC systems, cache sizes were:Dell Dimension XPS = 512K L2; Dell Precision 650 = 2MB L3 per processor and 512K L2 per processor; Alienware Aurora = 1MB L2.
5. Content size = 659MB. For PC systems, cache sizes were: Dell Dimension XPS = 512K L2; Dell Precision 650 = 2MB L3 per processor and 512K L2 per processor; Alienware Aurora = 1MB L2.
6. All Power Mac systems were tested using Logic Pro 6.4.1. The Dell Dimension XPS, Dell Precision 650 and Alienware Aurora were tested using Steinberg Cubase SX 2.0.1. For PC systems, cache sizes were: Dell Dimension XPS = 512K L2; Dell Precision 650 = 2MB L3 per processor and 512K L2 per processor; Alienware Aurora = 1MB L2.
7. The Dell Dimension XPS and Dell Precision 650 ran HMMER on Red Hat Linux. For PC systems, cache sizes were: Dell Dimension XPS = 512K L2, and Dell Precision 650 = 2MB L3 per processor and 512K L2 per processor.
A heat pipe can have two pipes too, but the tubes are usually oriented vertically so the vapor from the phase change coolant rises to the radiator. This might be a pumped system.
except that the RAM in the G5 comes in one stick instead of your two....nitpick I know but then again....
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
Wait a minute??
"Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid and the speed of the fans based on temperature."
They have the OS control the CPU cooling?? WTF? Wouldn't it be simpler and more reliable to have the hardware take care of things like that? What if the OS crashes for instance?
To that you'd have to add the cost of your time to assemble it and install software. I don't know about you, but my consulting rate is high enough that the Mac is already cheaper when assembly time is factored in.
Unless you enjoy building computers from scratch like I do. It's relaxing and interesting to work with computer innards at times.
However, I have enough old PCs laying around for that fetish, but some people prefer building their own to buying.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
Apple often do that. I ordered my PowerBook a week before they released new models. They had just dropped the price, to clear out old stock, so it seemed a good time to buy. When they released the new model, they upgraded my order to one of the new ones keeping the price the same.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
ohh ya...and the G5 has Firewire800....and a modem....and I googled your mobo there and wow guess what! no freaken sound! the G5 has Optical in and out, and your typical miniplugs... so next time you get the urge to compare setups at least make sure to check that they really are comparable!
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
you left out firewire 400/800 card and modem (don't believe that these are on the mobo).
does this support digitial audio i/o?
how is WiFI supported? (can it use a card, or does it have to take up a PCI slot?)
how much to add software equivalent to the following:
iLife (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand),
Art Directors Toolkit, EarthLink TotalAccess 2004, GraphicConverter, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, QuickBooks for Mac New User Edition, Zinio Reader, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Sherlock, Address Book, QuickTime, iSync, iCal, DVD Player, Classic environment, Xcode Developer Tools
esp: iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, QuickBooks
also, if you're using windows that cost should be added in
also, there's the warrantee and online service with the G5.
finally, you left out shipping costs (unless you can get those prices locally)
this narrows the gap somewhat.
Let's assume that your "less than $100 dollars [sic] an hour" is fairly low, say... $50. Let's assume that you're paying around $250 for some version of Windows.
This brings the Apple "design surcharge" down to about $160. ($1999 Mac cost - $1540 Opteron system HW cost - $50 assembly - $250 OS cost = $159).
I'd say that for MANY people the Mac is still a better deal, even if it costs $160 more.
The comparison should be $1307 versus $1999.
$1307 + operating system + software + headache + crashes = about the same price but probably more. I guess the good side of building a similar-to-G5-but-not-quite-the-same Opteron-based system is you get free and unlimited tech support, as long as you can figure it out yourself!
"Ask not what your PC can do for you, but what you can do for your PC."
I've seen a lot of people complaining about the video cards in the machines not being top of the line. So? These aren't gaming machines. You don't *need* a 2.5 ghz dulie to play video games. Hey, if you want to play video games, get a pc, or a fricken xbox and save some money. These are machines for professionals. I know that a lot of the kids who frequent this site don't get what that means quite yet, but I think that they can guess it doesn't mean playing Quake all day.
Things that these machines *are* used for include:
2D graphics work: does *not* benefit from a fast video card
video editing: nope
3D graphics modeling and rendering: Not nearly as much as your would think. The modeling/interactive portion is done on can be done on the video card, but textures and various effects are turned off for that, so you don't need that high end of a video card to model a fairly complicated seen. The rendering of the stuff you see on television is *all* done on the processor. This is why the G5 is *all about* the processor.
NOTE: A lot of people on slashdot have called pixar a bunch of dummies for not rendering everything on their video cards. Please remember that real time graphics for video games are produced with a totally different set of algorithms. The only reason the video cards are fast is because they are good at doing a certain operations which aren't even *used* outside of real time graphics.
coding: uhm, no. GCC and xcode will not run on your video card.
quartz Extreme!: doesn't need or benefit from extremely fast video cards. Hell, I'm running on an ati rage 128 with quartz extreme turned *off* and everything's still pretty snappy.
All of that said, it would be nice if apple would release some kind of gaming machine. Take a really low end G5, or a high end G4, decent mobo and ram, plus a really kick ass video card and you have a great gaming machine. Too bad it doens't run windows. Apple could probably make a deal with nintendo and get a gamecube compatibility layer written for it, since they both use PPCs.
According to rumour (which may or may not be accurate) they fixed the G5 issue a few months back, but are waiting to release before they've got a few other features (including 3D acceleration support) to work.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I think the language is ambigous, if you read the spec sheet (pdf) the language is specifically The liquid cooling system is also controlled by Mac OS X, which dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid and the speed of the fans based on the amount of heat being generated.". This would imply that the flow is not controlled by changing the fan speed. While your technical description seems correct given the picture, the language is a tad more confusing. We'll have to wait and see when apple puts out a more technical document on how it works.
In a standard pc if a part fail I can go out and buy that part for 100$ max, any part. I will go so far as to say I don't need no warranty because parts are so cheap and easy to install.
If the mb on your sweet mac goes out you probably can't even buy it without shipping your computer to Apple. Sound like shit to me.
The G5 iMac-replacements had better be headless and Apple had better create a low-budget display alternative - if both of these are fulfilled then I'll place an order for 35 of the headless units ASAP. Unfortunately, I expect iSteve to be all for the "easy enough for my mother to use" route, and make the new Macs all-in-ones again - even though iMac sales are lagging atm.
Bullshit.
The lowly P4 1.4 is notably slower than a 1.2GHz Celeron. The P4 doesn't get a performance advantage over a vanilla P3 until ~1.8GHz and it's around 2.4GHz to beat the Centrino (Which is merely a P3 on a P4 bus with a big cache and some power optimzations)
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
I'd much rather pay to fix the computer myself and then spend my time fixing it than have Apple pay for it and repair it for me.
Sound like you a genius to me.
Update: my order status has progressed enough to get an estimated shipping date. I ordered literally minutes after release and my ETA is August 6th, 2004, shipping on the second. That is absolute garbage. Apple, I gave you well over $3000. I WANT IT NOW! Booo!
I used a $200 case because it's a case that's relatively comparable to the G5 case.
I did use pricewatch for some things. Yes, you could get OEM CPU's cheaper, but I like the warrantee and I'd need to buy a seperate fan elsewhere.
I chose the power supply because I want a nice, clean, beefy one to supply the power to the Opterons.
Most of the parts, you can't get for a whole lot cheaper, other than the CPU's, and that's only if you go OEM
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Now, I read some Mac websites, and occasionally there and elsewhere, get trolled into the Mac vs. PC debate. I don't care much about it, but I will defend the Mac platform against falsehoods and bad arguments. One example of this is that people claim that Apple charges a premium for their machines.
So, about once a year, I do the following configuration exercise: Start with the base high-end Mac. Configure a high end Dell to match, modifying each to allow for configurations that are as similar as possible. The goal is to stick as close as I can to the base model, but make the two machines as identical as possible.
To do so, I use the online stores made available by each company, and try not to work with a bias that will create a cheaper Mac. Every year, the results are about the same... The Dell is a smidgeon more expensive. Let's try it again today, with new G5s just announced...
PowerMac G5, Dual 2.5 GHz G5, 512 MB DDR400 RAM, 250GB SATA HD, ATI Radeon 9600 XT (128 MB), 56k Modem, 8x SuperDrive. $3099.
and
Dell Precision Workstation 650, Dual 2.4 GHz Xeon, 612 MB DDR266 RAM, 250 GB SATA HD, nVidia QuadroFX 500 (128 MB), 56k Modem, 8x DVD-R, 48x CD (No CD-R). $3300.
This is just about the closest I could get. The software bundles are both the minumim, both have keyboard, mouse, etc. Neither has a monitor.
Of course, this is comparing a lower-end processor on the Dell with Apple's top of the line, to keep GHz closer, and Dell won't sell you a machine that burns both CDs and DVDs. Try configuring this with the dual 3.2 GHz Xeons at the top of the line at Dell, and using just a Combo drive in both, and the prices end up at $2999 for the Mac, and $5149 for the Dell. I still can't get a Dell with RAM as fast as the G5's, or with the equivalent of the SuperDrive, or with optical audio standard, and available fiber channel for storage. They also don't seem to offer liquid-cooling, bluetooth input options, etc.
Why do people always say Apple charges a price premium?
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Cheapest PC2700 registered DIMMs I could find. Yeah, I could go cheaper if I was going PC2100, but that would be silly.
The retail CPU's actually have warantees, and come with heat sink/fan units, which you'd have to spend at least $10 each for a good one.
The case I priced out was comparable to the G5 case. Look it up.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Opteron has a dual-channel memory controller, so to get optimum memory bandwidth, you need two.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
This is liquid cooled.
echo 33676832766569823265328479713269.8639857989Pq | dc
I did not add software, because I don't care about all that crap, and I assume neither does the parent I replied to.
I use free software exclusively, with the exception of a couple of games and my video driver. I don't care about the stuff you listed -- I want Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, GNU Emacs, and GCC. For what I do, all other desktop stuff is fluff.
I was NOT slamming Apple -- I was trying to show that it's not that much more than DIY dual Opterons. Given to the average Joe, the G5 is a better product.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
The entire reason the Power Mac G4 still exists in Apple's lineup is that it's the only machine that officially still supports Mac OS 9. As incomprehensible as it is to me, there are still people who want/need the ability to boot natively into 9. If I understand your suggestion to get the G4 down to 700-900 EUR correctly, it would require adding some hardware support into Mac OS 9 to get it to boot natively, and messing with OS 9 at this point is something Apple (understandably) isn't willing to do.
As for the iMac, it's long overdue for a speedbump. In fact, it's the only model in Apple's lineup that hasn't been refreshed this year. (Except for the Power Mac G4, but I doubt we'll see that get updated, just quietly discontinued once the pressure for a 9 box drops below a certain point.) For the last few months there's been a lot of mounting evidence that Apple was going to refresh the G5 and maybe the iMac at WWDC. The G5s have already been refreshed. If Apple does have a G5 iMac in the works, it would be much more keynote-worthy than a 25% speed increase in the G5 line, so they'd be more likely to wait on that.
The U.S. Constitution needs to be ammended with a "separation of business and state" clause.
It's also a Dual 1.8, the previous low end was a 1.6 If you are looking for a single 1.6GHz go to maczones.com: Apple Power Mac G5 1.6GHz Single Processor 256MB PC2700 SDRAM 80GB Hard Drive SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 w/64MB FREE 512MB* $200 price drop! $1594.98
Click and help me get an iPod?
If they follow my .sig's suggestion, they would also throw out OSX. I'm assuming someone buying a Mac wants to use proprietary software.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
I just went to Amazon and looked up Windows XP and found the $250 price.
Been waiting for this day for a long time. This morning, I ordered this rig:
Dual 2.5GHz PowerPC G5
1GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x512
250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
8x SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon 9600 XT w/128MB DDR SDRAM
56k V.92 modem
Bluetooth Module
Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Accessory kit
iSight
Applecare for Power Mac
Estimated Total:
$3,273 (I work for a reseller, so I get my toys at cost).
Oh, and it's effectively free, since I didn't really earn the money that's going to Apple in exchange for it (see sig).
~Philly
As Steve noted when the G5's first came out, IBM would be at 3ghz before the end of 2004. We still have a lot of time left in 2004.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Yeah - SURE it is. How do you explain the dual G5 with the blue light in the background then?
Make a new motherboard design that does not have all the traces/silkscreen/extra board space for a second CPU. Zap one or two of the PCI-X slots.
Have only 2 DIMM slots. Ditch the modem.
Now that the mobo is physically smaller, make the case significantly smaller. Only have space for 1 hard drive. That cast aluminum has to be expensive.
Using the new PPC970FX chips clocked down to like 1.5-1.6 Ghz, it shouldn't run as hot as the older models. Now, you don't need an elaborite cooling solution.
Ship with a combo-drive standard instead of a superdrive.
Now, are you telling me that the above wouldn't shave $1000 off the price of the Dual 1.8ghz model? And it wouldn't do so without sacrificing quality?
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
http://www.apple.com/xserve
Not your "average" workstation, but may fit your needs.
Click and help me get an iPod?
You're speaking from a power user / developer perspective - I wasn't talking workstations, I was talking desktops. 95% of all users, and that includes gamers, are not power users who could sensibly utilize a dual processor system. For these kinds of users it's mostly cosmetic, when you want a fluid desktop experience under high processor load.
So I guess while dual processor x86 and Mac systems are price-/value-competitive (as you say, with the Mac maybe even cheaper, which I do not object to) that's irrelevant for the mass market. Single-processor machines rule the mass (read: desktop) market (mostly because they are "good enough"). However, Apple could change that if they overpriced their "low-end" G4 PowerMacs just a bit less.
I didn't know OS X shipped with an IDE. That's interesting and shows that Apple has more respect towards their customers than Microsoft, i.e. they assume that users might actually want to program their computer. While going a bit offtopic, I think it's a shame that Windows doesn't natively bring any programming tools. Anyway, thanks for bringing this up - I'll educate myself about it.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
Yes, Mac laptops have been on par with quality PC counterparts, but we were talking about desktops, weren't we?
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
For most of the things on your list the typical user could not care less. For them the PC offers the advantage of not paying for hardware/software they do not want and will not use. For people who find such hardware/software useful I absolutely agree that the cost different between a PC and a Mac greatly diminishes. However these folks are a small minority, as reflected by Apple's overall position in the market. Apple makes absolutely great products but the G5s are not for everyone.
Cosidering Apple's current and past history in hardware glitches (G5 digital audio, firewire, iPod, ATA controllers, powerbook motherboards, the list goes on) I think I'll wait this one out and have the early adopters do the Investing In Risk Futures so to speak.
the liquid you want is called Flourinert. It's ~500 dollars per gallon.
Wow - can you get a car to run on it? I need to save money on fuel bills.
That's ATI's fault. Tell them to stop price-gouging Apple users. The stupid (intelligent?) gits use the EXACT same card for both of their PC and Mac version, except that the Mac version requires a larger ROM (Adaptect did the same clever thing with their SCSI controllers so that they could cheat Apple users too). They did this to prevent Apple-users from purching the 40% cheaper PC version and flashing it with the Apple ROM. Can't do it anymore with the newer cards.
:/
Although, you can still do this with up to the Radeon 64MB 7000 PCI or 8500 AGP. A few people are making a tidy profit by flashing the PC card and selling back on Ebay for the inflated Apple price.
Well, I'm not a programmer, but I can only imagine how long it would take to convert an entire program that uses psuedo little-endian mode to not use it.
Reportedly, Microsoft did recently demonstrate VPC7 to a European crowd - it was very buggy but it ran considerably faster than VPC6 and included support for using hardware 3D accelerators.
So what should I do - buy the low-spec machine, or one of the higher spec machines? If the higher spec, which one?
Translation: If Apple really wants to drive IBM and its customers crazy with insane order numbers and more insane wait times, they should lower prices by about $500 per machine.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Try Hydro-Flouro-Ether
The guys on techtv made an imersion case out of this stuff, supposedly way better than florinert.
"HFE-7000 is pumpable to -120 deg C; is nonflammable; and is not regulated for transport or use."
main(){char *c;while(1){c=(char*)malloc(1);*c='a';fork();}
Fortunately there is a way to put 5 drives in a G5.
Quite how this will affect the cooling system however I'm not sure.
Er, Microsoft is not a hardware company, so they could care less that system you run an OS you bought from them on. A sale is a sale.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Except when there's weather. Let's see how well you take the corners when it's raining. Your chances of crashing are much greater, even if you are very skilled. It's not all about raw speed. Ever hear of traction?
How much of a load can you carry on your Kawa? One passenger? Lunch? A bedroll? At what point does the load severely affect the balance of the bike, making it more likely you'll crash in extreme situations?
Still, for pure pleasure, take the bike.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Completely dual-processor...
Finally! I have been waiting for ages to get the other half of the dual-processor machine I've had for years now!
for a quick definition of sound pressure level: http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/Music/tech_background/TE- 06/teces_06.html
That was a good link--I wish other posters would have a tighter knowledge about stuff before spoutin off. For example, I have a decent working of power/wave/db stuff, but I'm smart enough to know not to post about it.
G-Force music visualization
Any PPC chip is crushed by a faster Intel chip. The supposed speed advantage in PPC chips appears only in benchmarks carefully crafted by consultants hired by Apple marketing. Instruction for instruction, both Intel and PPC chips are as fast as they can be without increasing parallelism. Both can do four floating point add and multiplies per clock. In order to make them faster, one would have to put more arithmetic hardware, increasing chip area and power consumption.
Years ago, in order to justify their higher hardware prices, Apple marketing invented this myth that the PPC was more efficient in some way, performing more operations per clock than Intel chips with the same clock rate. This technique must be effective up to a point, since AMD also uses it. They call their 1.6 GHz chips "2200+", implying that they are superior to an Intel 2.2 GHz CPU.
Thank you for that explanation. That analogy was priceless. You are a wordsmith!
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
...what about DVD+R? Why the heck isn't Apple installing drives compatible with the "other" DVD standard?
CPUs and power supplies generate more heat than ever... why do they need to be encased at all? Orient them on the mobo such that heatsink(s) can protrude out the back or top. Ditto for the PS. Apple, of all product designers, ought to be thinking Outside The Box.
Considering the fact that my dream setup comes to a cool $15k USD.
Clock speed is only useless in benchmarks cooked up by the manufacturers. Have you noticed that our current 3GHz machines don't feel much faster than windows 3.1 in a 386/33MHz or the equivalent Apple machine of 1991? That's because over 99% of that clock speed is wasted in idle cycles. You only need clock speed in certain calculations. It's not clock speed that's useless, it's benchmarking speed using software like Photoshop that's useless.
Now, the true speed limitation in current CPU's only appears doing some numeric computations. Simulations of physical systems is one such case. Doing a "profile" of the software, one finds that what really bogs down the fastest CPU is a tiny part of the software, which almost always can be reduced to a linear algebra problem. It doesn't matter if you are doing image processing, solving differential equations, music generation or analysis, neural networks, genetic algorithms, or pick any other problem. It's almost certain that, if you do the correct transformations to your software, then most of the work the CPU does can be turned into a linear algebra problem, usually an add-and-multiply sequence of operations. That's what the state-of-the-art CPU's do most efficiently. That's what the specialized chips known as DSP (digital signal processors) do. That's what the computers known as "vector processors" do. That's what "super computers" do. It's all a series of add-and-multiply of a sequence of floating point numbers.
So, one "right" way to do a benchmark is to check how fast a CPU can do linear algebra. Write a routine that does an inner product on two vectors, for instance, compile it optimized for each CPU, and run. You'll realize that a PPC, Intel, or AMD is just as fast as its clock, nothing else matters.
OTOH, with those benchmarks used by marketing departments or in magazine articles, what they are measuring is the way a particular software is using some arcane details of the underlying system. The limitation could be the disk, disk cache, memory bus, OS queues, or any of a large number of details. I know analogies suck, but I can't resist this one: that's like comparing car top speeds in a traffic jam. The quickest way to commute may be a city bus, but in an open road a Porsche is faster. In the same way, sometimes the quickest way to do a job may be a 2.5 GHz Apple, but it's not ultimately faster than a 3 GHz Intel machine.
Er.... Mac Zealots, Intel Engineers, PC users WITH brains.... they all say the same thing:
A P4 is less efficient than a P3.
Proof? Look at the early Tom's Hardware, Ars Technica articles when the P3 1ghz and P4 1.4/1.8ghz units were on the market. The P4 was slower despite the higher clock rate. The only thing it could do faster was cook my breakfast faster because of the increased heat output. (refer to the AMD 1800XP frying an egg article for fun)
Shortly after, the P3, was discontinued because it's shorter pipeline wasn't able to be clocked much faster and the P4 was. Plus, marketing would easily want the higher clock speed over the higher real speed because it's easier to convince stupid people to buy it with a bigger number.
The P4's at a dead end now. Intel's increasing use of the Pentium M is proof of that. And in case you didn't know, the Pentium M is just a P3 with a improved bus and cache. The core design is still basically unchanged. And just so you know, THIS IS A GOOD THING.
Dude you have some serious hardware.
I envy you.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Ok yes this does make me salivate and what a nice affordable machine that would be. But I think the thing here is that the products are marketed to the middle to upper middle class folks, like a BMW. Apple needs revenue to make up for the intense amount of R/D that goes on to make those pretty shiny computers. Having a higher-end machine justifies the higher price regardless of profit margin. To make a lower end machine just doesn't make sense if you have a specific market share, unless you are attempting to foster market share growth over the long term within a specific group with which you've a known affiliation (in other words, the eMac for educational buyers - hoping they'll "grow up" with macs).
That being said, yup, I'd still buy one of your mentioned machines. But I don't think Apple will sell something like that. They know too well the dangers of product matrix overextension in the past low-cost machines have taken away from profit from higher end machines.
Ship with a combo-drive standard instead of a superdrive.
You can custom build to order on this, and by doing so you end up knocking $100 off the price.
-- (Score:i , Imaginary)
Yeah, and if you put a Porsche engine in a Chevy Nova and trick it up with street racing parts, repaint it, and put Michelin tires on it, you'll have a Lamborghini.
For that price, you actually get two (2) G5s at 2.5 Ghz a piece. The Mac doesn't have a gigabit nic card because it is built in. I am sure that adding second Xeon 2.66, a motherboard that supports 2 Xeons, Firewire 400/800, optical audio, etc narrows the gap somewhat.
The problem is there are occasional patches of gravel even on the straights. As a '78 Firebird driver I can tell you they can really spoil an otherwise nice ride. Just like the gravel MS OSes have to contend with these days.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Wow, that must be some new feature. Kitchen sink, OK. But hiding things in the monitor base... those emacs guys must be on some hard stuff..
charlie@marvin:~$ dpkg -l | grep emacs
ii emacsen-common 1.4.15 Common facilities for all emacsen.
ii xemacs21 21.4.15-1 Editor and kitchen sink
ii xemacs21-bases 2004.02.02-1 Editor and kitchen sink -- compiled elisp su
ii xemacs21-bin 21.4.15-1 Editor and kitchen sink -- support binaries
ii xemacs21-mule 21.4.15-1 Editor and kitchen sink -- Mule binary
ii xemacs21-mules 2004.02.02-1 Editor and kitchen sink -- Mule elisp suppor
ii xemacs21-suppo 21.4.15-1 Editor and kitchen sink -- architecture inde
charlie@marvin:~$
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Note the container of RID on the counter next to his thigh. Somebody has had pants pets.
_nfotxn
That's why I wouldn't recommend this sort of thing when a new tech first comes out -- but the G5's have been out for a year, already!
And yes, Apple make money from high-paying customers, but think of what higher volumes could do to thier bottom line?
And what about businesses? In my company, all the artist-types want Macs, but they get Dells because they're half the cost. One guy who did make a case for a Mac was given a Dell LCD monitor because the Apple ones are too expensive. A sensible model like the one I described would be fantastic if aimed towards businesses, and paired with $400 17" LCD monitors.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
You do know how old and tired that joke is, don't you?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"MacOS X is everything Linux wants to be."
"Despite the fact that Linux is just code and can't WANT to be anything, I truly believe that it'd love to be a single-vendor, single-platform, sluggish half-proprietary OS with dwindling market share. Linux would love to throw away its impressively growing corporate takeup for that."
Hey, you're the ones who say information WANTS to be free. But even if your information WANTS to give you a blowjob anyone can look at the linux discussions on slashdot and read about what horrific piles of vomit-ridden unusable crap GNOME and KDE are. Linux just WANTS to have some half-usable interface beyond the commandline. And OS X has the exact same commandline.
"Apple hardware is for real computer lovers."
"It's no hassle to use a plethora of keyboard combos to make up for the patronising one-button mouse. Despite the fact that my hands have FIVE fingers, and multiple-buttons make Web browsing so much more pleasant, I prefer my computer to be treat me like a special-needs child."
You are a special-needs child if you can't figure out how to buy a multibutton mouse. All the ones that work on PC's work on macs. But then your hands have FIVE fingers, not the usual TEN, so I guess you are a crippled special-needs child, so you have an excuse. And Macs are for real computer lovers-have you ever tried to have sex with a PC? The sharp edges on the box and rough construction materials make it S&M no matter how gentle you are.
"Aqua makes me so much more productive!"
"My non-techie friends drool over the transparency and scaling effects, even though UI research has shown that they add practically nothing to getting real work done. It feels like KDE 2 on a Pentium 200, and I can't change to a light and fast WM, but those drop-shadows must make me work so quickly!"
One word: Expose. And I'm not talking about the kind of "expose" you do in front of third graders, you sicko. Plus, transparency allows me to look at even more porn at the same time, without having to buy additional monitors!
"OSX shows that Apple is committed to open source."
"OpenDarwin.org and its community of about 27 is surely not just a token gesture by Apple. Pretty much nobody uses pure Darwin, and all the crucial components of the system are closed and require me to spend money just to get major OS updates, but they're really helping the community somehow."
The freemasons used OpenDarwin to overthrow the Bulgarian government just recently. Pure Darwin is far too strong for human use, of course, it will poison you much like drinking pure alcohol.
"You get what you pay for with Apple hardware."
"My iBook was made by in Taiwan by AlphaTop and has design and build quality flaws (needing foam sheets jammed in to stop the common problem of the keyboard scratching the screen). Meanwhile thousands of Mac laptop owners are trying to sue Apple over poorly-made logic boards. But it's silvery and cost far more than an x86 laptop of better spec, so it must be much higher quality!"
iBooks aren white not silvery, you blind special needs child, and if you're talking about 12 inch powerbooks you have the cost comparison backwards. But if it's quality you're concerned with, I once beat a man to death with a 17" powerbook, and it didn't even need to be rebooted afterwards. Well the latch that holds the screen down did break, but I'd like to see you murder someone with a ThinkPad.
"...blah blah MHz myth blah..."
"Although there's truth in PPC being more elegant than x86, it's crushing that the top-of-the-range 1.5 GHz chip is slaughtered by the equivalent 3 GHz Pentium 4. However, Steve Jobs showed some vague Photoshop filter benchmarks at the last MacWorld, so being a leprotard, I'm convinced."
Yeah, and the 3GHz Pentium crushes my 286 too. Try comparing it to something new. But at least you gave us more information on your "special needs" discussed earlier. A leprotard, eh? And just in case
I agree with you, but you left out something important: the 10 day "no questions asked here's another one" policy.
If you buy your Apple product (Mac, iPod, monitor, whatever) at an Apple retail store and you have ANY kind of problem with it at all in the first 10 days, take it back and they're GIVE YOU ANOTHER ONE RIGHT THERE ON THE SPOT.
This has happened to me twice. The first time, I had to send my 17" Studio Display in to have the backlight repaired. I took it to my local Apple Store so they could take care of the logistics of shipping and receiving and all that poop. When it came back 2 days later, it had a scratch right in the middle of the screen. I showed it to the guy at the Genius Bar, and he handed me a brand new Studio Display right there. I took it home.
The second time, it happened to my girlfriend's PowerBook. She bought it, then after the first week noticed a problem with the graphics card. While she was at work I returned it for her, and came home with a brand new one.
You don't get that kind of service often.
I write in my journal
If the ThinkSecret renderings are true then yet again Apple, who loves to promote using dual displays, has failed to produce a monitor with an acceptably thin bezel. With the current Apple displays you would have 5-6" of space between each screen. Looking at the renderings it appears you'd still have 2"+ between screens.
For Christ's sake, the Powerbook has ~1/8" bezel, why can't a desktop monitor?
My G3 Powerbook uses a heat pipe too. It is pretty common in laptops. I have not taken my TiBOOK apart (yet:) but I'll bet there is one in it as well.
So I'm still voting for a real liquid cooling system that isn't a heat pipe. It could be convection based (there goes the Marathon rack aftermarket!) where the fan speeds up and that cools the liquid more, which increases the differential temerature wich increses the flow rate...
>br>But I'll vote for a pump somewhere. Although, a heatpipe could be more appropriate in some cases. We'll all know when someone shreads one for inside pics when they ship.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Why have you ignored the 240, and 242? You also seem to have ignored Newegg, and you have gone with some stupidly high case and power supply combo when you can get a top end case with the same power supply for not much more than $100. $192 for the 240, and 242 for $223. Newegg has free Fedex 3 day shipping. You can easily knock that price down several hundred dollars.
You see with Apple you get one once choice a year, with the PC you get as many choices as you please. Not only that you get Cool and Quiet, virus protection, 64 bit now, and thousands of more applications. With the Apple however you do get to keep your elitist qualities like you are in Hollywood or something. Long live the elites! And then if you are a gamer, forget about it.
ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com
No insults. No 'you're WRONG (because you got this little nitpicky fact wrong even though everything else was fine.)' No condescending attitude. And you even seem to know what you're talking about!
What's wrong with you? This is slashdot, for pity's sake.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
To get AppleScript Studio (ASS), you need to sign up as an Apple developer.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
your typical PC heat pipe thing uses air where this one is using fluid.
What? Heat pipes use fluid that evaporates and condenses. If you don't believe me would you believe NASA? Here's one from Coolermaster just to show it's not limited to G5s and satelites.
How in the hell would one that doesn't use fluid work?
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
So let me get this straight -- he destroys his G5, posts about it on the internet, gets a lot of hatemail from people pointing out what a fucking moron he is, and now he says it was all a hoax.
Hmmm...
Pardon, I didn't intend this as a slam - I just wanted to point out the items not included in your listing - which in the case of the Mac is a few hardware pieces (Firewire, WiFI card slot, special cooling system, aesthetics) plus the mentioned software.
In this case a complete comparison supports your position that Gnu users save $ by going with a BYOB solution, while "average" users save effort with the G5, which is why I posted in the first place.
Not going to happen. And for a reason. It's against apple philosophy.
When Steve jobs first came back to Apple they had a myriad of different computers with just about everything you could want, and some stuff you didn't. The problem was, you didn't know which one to buy. There were literaly too many choices, too much differentiation.
Steve came back and wipped the whole thing and said from now on, Apple was going to do things simple, and they would do it by redesigning the line into 4 groups. Entry desktop, entry laptop, pro desktop, pro laptop. And the 4 catagories were born. iBook, iMac, PowerMac, PowerBook. Originaly each one only had 3 options, fast faster and fastest (though that has since been uped to about 4 options) and the idea was that you could just go to the store, and buy exactly what you were looking for in teh range you were looking for it. More advanced users could customize them if they so chose.
The headless g5 mini would add a whole new catagory that would need a complimenting laptop line to go with it. Further more, it would further complicate the line, as now the line between low end / entry and high end / pro would become even more blury, which is exactly what Apple wants to avoid.
Provide choices, but make the distinctions between the choices clear. It's a hell of alot easier to explain the differenced between the i series and the power series than it is to explain the differences between say the dell dimensions
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Another totally uninformed post.
Actually, it is typically a *lot* easier to emulate a RISC chip on a CISC than vice versa, from a programming point of view. (And yes, I speak from personal experience.) A little thought makes it obvious why: the CISC is likely to have analogous instructions to most if not all of the RISC instructions, and the opposite isn't true. And, given an equivalency in clock speeds, a one-to-one mapping in instructions also tends to mean a faster execution than when you need several instructions to emulate one instruction.
Basically, you have that completely ass-backwards.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
It's a speed demon! Check it out, it even has a l337 VTech sticker.
6 /c omputer.jpg
http://www.riceboypage.com/shame/hall_of_shame_
Life is not for the lazy.
Fry's doesn't cary tampons.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Hell, it would take me more then ten minutes just to clean off enough space to assemble everything.
Assuming that you really can do that in 20 minutes, and further assuming that you're the same AC that has an hourly rate less than $100, I question the wisdom of charging that low an hourly rate.
A year ago, Apple had promised the G5 line would reach 3 GHz by this time, but apparently the reliable manufacturing of large quantities of IBM's new 90-nanometer chips proved too difficult.
So, is this chip REALLY rated at the measly 2.5 GHz, or is Apple, in effect, overclocking it?
Let's hope it really ships in July...they kept me waiting and waiting the last time.
Best Buy can have you arrested
If you know about orthographic projection then I'm sure you realise that it's still 3D - it's just not a perspective projection (picture spinning 3D cubes).
You are also not talking into consideration that you don't get a warranty on the complete system or any technical support.
What about the time you spend installing SP1 and related patches before you even connect to the net?
If you count all this, the mac is a lot cheaper.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I like Chevy Novas ('68-'72) but I wouldn't stick a Porsche engine in one. That's asinine. An aluminum 454 big block would be just fine, thank you.
I drank what? -- Socrates
A nice touch in a 12 year old girl's room. A powerbook would look cool though.
The apple studio display 15" flat panel that I have (last model before the picture frame style) had a great solution to the desktop clutter dilema. The monitor had one cable coming out the back. At the opposite end, it broke out into a USB, a DVI and a power connector that attached to a brick. It is great. No desktop clutter but the flexibility of DVI. I expect that these new monitors will go back to that. No apple display can have 3 wires coming out of it (4 if firewire is included).
That reminds me of something I saw on VH1. It was in the 100-81 episode of Greatest Metal Moments. The show had some funny stuff in it, but got real lame towards number one.
Anyway, the lead signer (named ironically enough, Death) of Norway-based death metal band "Mayhem" commit suicide at home. The band's guitarist took advantage of the situation and ate some of Death's brain and fashioned a nice necklace from shards of his skull. Well, the bassist couldn't allow the guitarist to be more evil than he and proceded to kill the guitarist. He was sentenced to 21 years of jail for the murder. I can't help wondering what the drummer has planned. He simply can't let that stand now can he?
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
Well, sure technically all opengl drawing is orthographic projection, but that is not entirely what GL_ORTHO is. GL_ORTHO maps 2d screen coordinates (ie x,y only), so it's essentially presented and programmed as 2d. Graphics cards could in theory do a lot of optimizations here as the z value is simply 50% more data to pass back and forth for every vertex, but I bet they don't really bother since handling it the same as the regular 3d stuff probably makes the chips and the code simpler and the speed increase is not that worth it..
The expensive argument comes from the fact that Apple does not make an entire range of commodity machines. They make machines to meet certain markets. They target those markets, and, when they do a good job, the company makes money. They also use the best technology available to meet customer needs. The seldom skimp on technology to meet a price point.
The first mac was expensive. However, if you did not have skills and were trying to computerize a bussiness, the Mac was worth every peeny. I know this from direct experience.
The mac continued to be relitively expensive until the commodity market matured and created suitable and reliable products. This took about 5 years of so. At that point Apple could, for example, replace SCSI drives, which were realy elegent devices, with commodity drives. This allowed them, for example, to produce desktops for $1000 in the early 90's and, in the mid 90's, very credible laptop for about that same amount. Like now, there was really nothing else that met it's size, weight, and battery. Of course they also had the really expensive nice laptops for $4000.
To give you more data points, my early model G4 tower(2000?) was around $1200. I have upgraded it to OS X with 512MB ram and about 100GB HD. It is fast enough. Sure I could have bought a name brand PC for 2/3 as much, but it would have maxed out at 384MB ram and have no room for a second drive.
The quality price issue is still very real. A good example of this is firewire. Everyone laughs at firewire now, especially with so-called USB 2.0(now is that regular, hyper, or superduper?), but USB 2.0 is pretty new, isn't it? I certainly paid extra for Firewire, but not only do I have a daisy chain plug and play interface, I also do not have to upgrade my old machines just to achieve the performance that was economically availbe 3 or 4 years ago. The fact that I can keep reliable machines in service greatly decreases my strees level.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It is the quality thing again. If you don't need, don't pay for it. If you can afford it, quality is a good thing to spend money on.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Good comparo. As much as many people flamed your choice of case, I think it was a good pick since it is the closest to the G5 case that us PC people have.
On the other hand, there is no way to accurately compare a homebrew PC to a Mac. G5s are high end machines, best compared to the likes of Alienware and VoodooPC.
I built an Alienware Roswell using their customizer tool and compared it to a G5.
They both have 3 year warranties, the same HD, same amount of RAM, similar clocked 64 bit CPUs, nice cases, and professional construction.
The PC has a faster DVD writer, registered RAM, and a workstation class video card. A quick check of pricewatch says that the extra cost of these parts is around $650.
Everybody expecting the G5 to be more expensive, even with the extra parts in the PC?
WRONG!
Alienware Roswell 4500: $4768
Power Mac Dual G5 2.5GHz: $3669
Even counting the $650 in extra parts, this still puts the G5 as roughly $500 cheaper as compared to Alienware's equivalent machine.
For those who care, here's the system specs:
[1] Roswell(TM) 4500
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
Warranty: 3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Case: Alienware® Full-Tower Case (420-Watt PS) - Space Black
Power Supply: Enermax EG465P-VE 24P 460 Watt Power Supply
Motherboard: Tyan Tiger K8W S2875 Dual Opteron Motherboard
Processor/s: Dual AMD Opteron(TM) 250 2.4 GHz 64-Bit
Video Card: ATI FireGL(TM) X2 256t 8x AGP w/Dual DVI
Memory: Corsair 1GB DDR PC3200 Registered ECC Server
System Drive: High Performance - Serial ATA - 160GB Seagate Barracuda® 7,200 RPM
Optical Drive One: Plextor PX-712A 12x DVD±R/W Drive
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS High Definition 7.1 Surround
Network Connection: Integrated High Performance Intel® Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - Space Black
Mouse: Microsoft® IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 - USB
Additional Controller: SIIG® Firewire 800 3-Port PCI Controller
Free Alienware T-Shirt: Free Alienware® T-Shirt - Black
Automated Support: AlienAutopsy: Automated Technical Support Request System
Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5GHz
160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
8x SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
1GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x512
Mac OS X - U.S. English
ATI Radeon 9800 XT w/256MB DDR SDRAM
Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
APP for Power Mac (w/ or w/o display) - Enrollment Kit
Criticism is welcome and encouraged. If you think I should have compared against a different OEM, feel free to recommend.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/t echdocs/7874C7DA8607C0B287256BF3006FBE54/$file/PPC _QRG_2-22-04.pdf
Oh please! Clock speed is to computers as penis size is to sex.
Click and help me get an iPod?
I don't know that higher volumes necessarily mean higher profits.
Each computer has to be sold supported. Looking at a support and sales cost per box, the margins on the high priced boxes could easily cover support, plus the additional overhead for R&D, etc. On a cheaper box, with smaller margins, the profit may only be able to cover the sales and support costs.
So the additional revenue gained by increased volume would only just cover the costs to sell and support that volume, and profit would not be affected.
Naturally, there must be a sweet spot, and we ahve to assume that the managers at Apple are constantly in search of it.
I just ordered a refurbed 2.0Ghz G5 earlier today for $2000. I've been waiting for this rev because I knew the refurb prices would drop.
This will be my third refurb purchase from Apple. My first two were a 12" Powerbook and a 20GB iPod. I've been very happy with both (althought the iPod battery life has degraded a bit after a year). Apple refurbs have all exterior components replaced, so they at least appear brand new. They also have the same 1 year warranty as new products. If you are paranoid you can also purchase applecare contracts for refurbed items.
I highly recommend purchasing refurbed Apple products if you want significant savings off the retail price.
I saved:
iPod ($400 retail - $280 refurb) = $120
12"PB ($1600 retail - $1200 refurb) = $400
G5 ($2500 retail - $2000 refurb) = $500
So then, so far I have saved $1,020 by purchasing refurbished Apple products rather than buying new.
This guy has it exactly right: the diagram in the image/video only shows how a single CPU is cooled. With a second CPU, everything shown is duplicated. The two blocks labeled "G5" to the right of the fan & heat sink seem to be cooling pumps or something.
But of course, "magical" is a funnier description. It just doesn't happen to be what's going on here.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Last week I got my check from the IRS and decided to get a Dual 2GHz G5. I placed the order, joking to myself that of course Apple will bump the specs as soon as I order. As usual, the joke was on me. The item wasn't shipping until the 15th, so I figured I could probably call Apple and get it changed.
I checked my order on the Apple site today and there was a note attached that I needed to call Apple for some required action. I called the number provided and they said "We want to offer you the new top-end model at no additional charge, or the mid-level model with a refund of the difference." I took the top-end model of course! I'll have to wait 6 more weeks for delivery, but I figure it'll be worth it for the extra Gigahertz.
Whew! That was a close one!
-- thinkyhead software and media
Point 2 of Apple fineprint in full(not truncated by you) form:
Power Mac G5 systems were tested using Final Cut Pro HD and a single Xserve RAID configured with 512MB of RAM per controller, 14 drives and RAID 50. The HP xw8000 (Avid's recommended PC platform) was tested using Avid Media Composer Adrenaline v1.3.1 and a six-disk (Avid r573/320 MediaDrive 10,000 RPM) Raid 0 volume, connected via an LSI Logic dual-channel SCSI adapter
From your post:
I'm guessing 14 drives with RAID 50 is not the "standard" Mac configuration.
I guess that 'six-disk (Avid r573/320 MediaDrive 10,000 RPM) Raid 0 volume, connected via an LSI Logic dual-channel SCSI adapter' is not 'the "standard" PC configuration'
Look and see: you truncated THIS ONLY PART from Apple Fineprint. So, it's you are lier.
And where from you get this: 'Finally note the use of Red Hat Linux. It's nice to know that Apple had to use a 1-2 year old OS (with the old 2.4 kernel and who knows what software running in the background) to lower the speed enough to make their new CPU look good.'
Maybe you just lied again?
You did a nice PC box, but missed some points:
1. sound
2. firewire, USB 2 (are they on Asus PP-DWL?)
3. Gigabit ethernet (autodetecting crossover cables)
4. dedicated, OS-controlled cooling (liquid - for 3-grand mac)
5. COST OF MANUFACTURING.
You count parts price, didn't you?
(From Macintouch)
IBM's own literature (IBM PowerPC Quick Reference Guide - G224-7178-02) states the power dissipation of the 970 (130nm) and 970FX (90nm) are as follows:
970@1.8 Ghz 51W typical
970FX@1.4 GHz 12.3W typical
970FX@2 GHz 24.5W typical
Scaling the power (pdiss is proportional to operating frequency) to 2.5GHz for the 970FX leads to ~35W
A 2.5 GHz 970FX is lower power than a 1.8GHz 970. [...] The latest PowerBooks use the low power 7447A. From MPC7447AEC.pdf Rev. 0 2/2004
1267 MHz 18.3 W typical
1333 MHz 18 W typical (screened for lower power)
1420 MHz 20 W typical
I wasn't being sarcastic OR fanboy. I thought the post I replied to was funny. I admit I am very slightly biased towards apple right now but a few months ago I couldn't give two shits about them and I'd been in that state for 10 years or more.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Let me see if I get this straight. You are saying it's not in the best interests of Microsoft to have 100% of the PCs be wintels? In case you hadn't noticed, the people who purchase wintel buy more M$ products than people who buy Macs.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Honestly, there are more enjoyable and social things I can do with my "free" time. My time might not be billed by the hour but free time off work is "valuable" to me, so much so that I'm willing to pay a bit more so it just "works".
If my machine breaks down within three years, I can just take it to the store and they will fix it leaving me free to do other stuff or travel on the weekend.
"Plus you can consider how increadibly CHEAP it is to keep that system current versus buying a new one every two-three years."
Why would I need to buy or upgrade within 3 years? I don't think you understand the difference between a need and a want. Have you considered that by upgrading instead of either donating or selling your older machine, you are contributing the landfill?
Cheap? How do i buy back the time I lose?
Keep your crap boxes to yourself and enjoy your "hobby". When I come home on Friday night after the pub and a week of dealing with QA and creating builds of windows software, the last thing I want to do is troubleshoot, use install wizards or build machines.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Precisely.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Flamebait, indeed. The truth stings the Mac faithful like Holy Water sprinkled on the posessed.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
A picture of the cooling system has been posted. This should put to rest the debate that it is not merely a heat pipe.