Slashdot Mirror
Apple Moves to All Dual-Processor Power Mac Lineup
Jason Siegel writes "Apple will no longer be selling single-processor Power Mac computers, according to GeekInformed. The company has officially dropped 1.8 GHz G5s from their lineup to pave the way for exclusively dual-processor Power Macs. The systems will range from dual 2 to 2.7 GHz G5s. This is the first significant announcement since the Worldwide Developers Conference declaration that Apple will transition away from PowerPC to Intel chips."
Apple released a statement last month that the company would be transitioning away from IBM's PowerPC CPU's in favor of Intel's microprocessors. The shift to the new processors, however, will not begin until the first part of next year.
So who would buy dual PowerPC CPU now, knowing a major shift is happening in less than a year's time?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I don't know how much G5 parts Apple's got in their warehouse, but surely this move is to clear their existing inventory to make way for x86?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Then again, who knows where desktop Linux will be in 16 months with the Mandrake/Connectiva/Lycoris mergers, the rise of Ubuntu... And think of that on dual core, dual processor... ohhh... Someone get me a tissue!
Regardless, next year's going to be interesting if you're in the market for a new box. :-)
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
The lowest you've been able to get is a dual 2.0GHz
Right?
If your going to switch processors (ppc to intel) then you want to use up the old stock, switch to dual processor only and use them up twice as fast :)
Is this how it is going to be from now on? Any time Apple changes a model, drops a speed, or something it's going to be attributed to Intel?
The 1.8GHz was an expensive system for no more than it offered, especially compared to an iMac. You started around $1899 and then had to buy a monitor and it wasn't any faster than an iMac based on reader reports.
So it makes sense to remove single proc models from the lineup with dual proc models available.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Why would Apple be so focused on only selling uberpowerful models? Not to ruffle any feathers, but isn't the primary audience Apple's trying to grab onto right now the average user? Why would Joe Average need a dual processor mac to surf the web and do his taxes on?
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
OK. I love Macs. I'm terribly interested in the future of the platform. But come on. Half the Apple stories the last few months haven't been news at all. This one certainly isn't. I bring this up because I kind of worry about the Mac losing it's nice Karma due to some of the silly hyping of the platform.
Getting developers prepared for a multi-core world that's going to be up and coming in the next generation of processors. Can't avoid it so you may as well embrace it. Especially with Apple's focus on "use our toolkits, we'll vectorize (or maybe they mean parallelize in general) it for you."
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
I even own a mac and this article is complete non-news. I wonder how long it will be before it's duped???
So, they dump PPC because they can't get enough of the right kinds of chips, then they stop shipping single-CPU systems which would seemingly help make a limited supply last longer...
Huh??
This move is good for more clearly differentiating Apple's product lines. Now there's a clear difference between a PowerMac and an iMac: the former have two processors. (And the clear difference between a PowerBook and an iBook is that the former are silver-colored.)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
If I had a choice between a PowerMac with G5 2.7 GHz or Pentium 4 3.6 GHz, which is faster?
I would guess they're both about the same -- but I don't really know -- and Apple wants Intel more for the Pent M processor for their PowerBooks rather than desktops.
Sam
you buy a mini or an iMac.
You're new to computer purchasing, aren't you? Any machine bought today can be considered obsolete in 9 months by someones standards.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Did anyone else read "Apple Moves to All Dual-Core PowerMac Lineup"? I need to get my eyes checked because I am seeing double.
Surely not, given that the first Intel Macintosh won't be released until mid-2006.
But for $1,299 refurb'd from Apple's website, it was a great alternative to the iMac. $45 for a used Dell 17 inch monitor from Craigslist and I have a machine with a graphics card I can upgrade and an empty drive bay just waiting to be filled.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
It was my understanding that when Apple re-released the single-processor PMac 1.8, they used the iMac G5s in that it had a 1/3-speed FSB. (1.8 GHz = 600 FSB) whereas historically PMac's have had 1/2-speed FSBs.
"Is this how it is going to be from now on? Any time Apple changes a model, drops a speed, or something it's going to be attributed to Intel?"
Well I guess once they've switched to Intel CPUs that will certainly seem fair. :-)
But yeah, I agree. The single-CPU 1.8GHz model was a lame duck. The 1.8GHz G5 iMac was coming in cheaper, LCD screen included. They had to do something to shore up the bottom end of the PowerMac series regardless.
They have been building OS X internally on PowerPC and Intel for a lone time.
Tiger is not the last OS X you'll get for you PowerPC based Mac. It will be relevant for years to come.
A large install base exists.
They will drop OS X for PowerPC someday, but not in 9 months.
Must have run out of single-processor MBs and don't want to make more since the other reason (converting lines over to Intel manufacture) wouldn't seem likely given that the processors Apple intends to use aren't available from Intel yet.
I can't see how any of this is going to increase their marketshare any.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Right, because every *other* computer sold now will still be tip-top in 9 months. How terrible that Apple is selling computers that *get old* and are *surpassed* by newer technology... oh the horror! There should totally be a law against that...
multifariam.net -- yet another nerd blog
That's one way to get rid of all your old processors... :)
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
With the impending move to x86 architecture, this could be Apple posturing to encourage developers to work on the SMP capabilities of their programs. Intel's chips obviously feature things like HyperThreading and dual cores, making extracting the best possible performance require good SMP code. Obviously by phasing out the idea of a non-SMP 'Power' mac, Apple can encourage developers of scientific, processing and even mainstream applications (to an extent) to take better notice and make better use of SMP capable systems.
Business Voyeur
./ ? This is Slashdot, you insensitive clod! Quit rubbing it in that Dotslash is dead.
who is going to buy into a platform that will be obsolete in 9 months?
By the time I got mine (dual 2.7) the announcement was out. I probably could have returned it, but I have kept it and you know what? It's FANTASTIC. I bought it to render my iDVD files quicker and it's about 20X faster. Sure I know this may be due to larger caches and not representative of the general performance level, but I don't care, that's what it's there for!
It is the fastest way to run Apple software for at least the next 9 months. I don't know about you, but I plan to do a lot of work during that time!
Sure, if I hadn't bought by the time the Macintels are about to launch I would hold off, but you know what, even then what I might look for is cheaper G5s. No way do I want potential unstable Mac-OS-on-Intel driver issues in my dream machine Powermac. No, for me G5 dualies have a long life ahead of them.
I guess they have to find SOME way of burning through those chips now that no one will be investing in an architecture that's been EOLed
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Who worries about obsolescence? I'm not a gamer, so my previous computer lasted 5 years. All I did was add hard drive space and memory - a firewire and USB card when that became the rage. It did everything that it did when I bought it - it didn't slow down over the years or anything. When it finally refused to power up one day, I went out and bought another one. Hopefully it will follow the same path.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Surely once Apple moves away from the PPC architecture, the developers will not continue developing software for the platform, will they? Will Apple provide an emulator so you can run X86 binaries on that spiffy PPC Mac you bought today? Wouldn't it be a performance hit to run programs that way?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What is this "dot slash" of which you speak?
Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips.
My guess is that the single processor G5 had a similar price point to the iMac, which has similar specs, plus a built in LCD. MacMall lists the 1.8 Ghz power mac at $1495 and for the same price they offer a 2 Ghz iMac. My feeling is that they want to keep the lines between the iMac and the Power Mac pretty clear to eliminate customer confusion. Plus, dual processor Power Macs have been available for about 4 years and there have been several times that they've only been available in dual processor configurations. I wouldn't read much into it and I think its too early to start thinking about clearing inventory of Power PC chips. Remember that the high end chips are rumored to be transititioned in late 06.
Yes, but we're talk about the standards where no companies actually produce software for it any more. How many more versions of MacOSX do you think Apple is going to make that are actually released for the PPC. This hardware won't be obsolete because it's under powered, it'll be obsolete because no one is supporting it any more.
A little chicken little, yes I know.
But, now-a-days it's not like you need twice the CPU speed to email/webbrowse/write word docs. There is no reason to be new computers other then vanity and video games.
So how can apple keep making money? Forced obsolescence. Move the OS to a new chip and drop support to the old one. A whole new batch of hardware sales to keep your company alive.
Because Microsoft can't force obsolescence in the same way, the Wintel machine machine you buy today will have a much longer shelf life then a mac.
I think my biggest concern is that Apple will make the shift to Intel and then shortly after IBM gets their productions ramped up. Apple decides to continue to produce G5 Macs and then after 6 months or so drops Intel altogether. Then those few that bought x86 systems become the bastard children that Apple wants to forget.
I just don't see what would keep them on Intel if IBM could start performing. They have always seemed to like to have the niche of a different architecture. I'm a little wary of the whole thing.
"Luke, I am your node.parent();"
I'll be sure to upgrade with the last PowerMac PPC's sold because I know all my Mac apps will still run on it. Contrary to Apple's claims of a simply recompile, many software packages are going to need a lot of rework to run on Mac Intel boxes.
Dell moves to all 256+ MB RAM desktops...
Seriously, is this really that big of an announcement?
I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
that works with the Cisco VPN Client in 10.4...
look at the market for a new box of the other sort and you can drop that tissue, friend!
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I'm not sure why this news is so big. It's even on the front page of Google News right now. Apple had an all dual-processor Power Mac lineup last year too. The re-introduced the single processor model in October, 2004. The fact that it's been dropped is not really too surprising. I wondered why they didn't drop it a while back when they last updated the rest of the Power Mac line. A single 1.8 GHz Power Mac is not a good deal when you can get a faster iMac with a better GPU, more features and a screen for the same price.
That's why I said 'platform' not 'computer'
167 for the PB, 133 for the ibook. Video cards are different also. Does it justify the cost? To me... no.
If your going to switch processors (ppc to intel) then you want to use up the old stock, switch to dual processor only and use them up twice as fast :)
This is what everyone keep saying, but aren't chips intended for SMP designed a little differently than ones intended for single?
Of course, we have yet to see any OS (aside from high-end UNIX/mainframe implementations) yet that can fully take advantage of a dual proc system, much less a 64-bit dual proc system.....
Oh well.
do() || do_not();
We're still waiting on that dual-button mouse.
>Seriously, who is going to buy into a platform that will be obsolete in 9 months?
If you go by that logic, nobody would ever buy a videocard.
At some point, you have to buy.
PS. not made no more != unsupported
"Old man yells at systemd"
How's your PC going to be looking about seven years from now? Because that's about how long a Mac purchased now ill be useful for NEW software being built.
Any software maker writing for the Mac is going to be shipping universal binaries for years to come as it make no sense for a business to drop more than half the market. Probably three years from now half the market will still be PPC macs. And once the cross-platform issues or fixed there's little to do to keep maintining those universal builds.
In fact, if you think about it is this absolutley the best time to buy a Mac. These macs are going to be the primary tested units for 99% of software for at least three years due to marketshare. The real question is who are going to be the early adoptors of the Intel macs when they come out, since they will not have full software availiablity right off the bat.
The final determiner of how long PPC macs will maintain usefullness is how long Apple will support the PPC units with new versions of OSX. And that has been about five to seven years, so you have that time as a base.
It's odd to me that so many seemingly people on Slashdot have got the problem Apple has so exactly wrong. Supporting hardware that already exists in large numbers is not the difficult part of a platform transition!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We're still waiting on that dual-button mouse.
...
That only comes with the triple-CPU Uber Mac, coming out in 2007
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Me.
I'd love to have a PPC machine to dick around with, and the fact that Apple is dropping PPC is probably going to make me get up off my arse and buy one before it's too late (well, when I get the money, that is...).
Granted, when I do buy a PPC Mac, it'll almost certainly be a Mac Mini, not a Power Mac, but the Mini will be just as obsolete as the Power Mac in two years...
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Will Apple stay the dual-processor course when they move to Intel? I don't mean dual core Pentiums. I mean two slabs of silicon, like a dual Xeon setup.
I hope Apple does stay with the Dual-CPU theme they've been sticking with for their high end systems. I'm sure you could get just as much power out of a dual core system, but one thing that's appealed to me about Macs is that they are different. Computers aren't exactly appliances any more for a lot of people, they're being treated a lot like how cars are treated these days even though they aren't quite at the status symbol level yet.
Just like how a lot of people choose to buy a certain car over another because it's different, there's something appealing about having something that's different. That's why I wasn't so happy about the switch to Intel x86, even if that means we get better CPU's from the switch. Similarily, if I was in the market for an entry-level Luxury Sedan, I wouldn't go for a 3 Series, C Class or even an A4, I'd probably go for something like a Saab even if the other three were technically superior, I just wouldn't want to be driving what everyone else drives.
Got two at work, they are buying their last MACs this year. Neither will touch Intel for reasons either right or wrong - I don't care.
So there is still appeal in the Power line to some of the more fanatical buyers out there.
As for the transition destroying Apple's market share I think it was done for the exact opposite reason - to generate marketshare. The switch to Intel will generate a lot of interest among both Apple and non-Apple users. However what its real focus is is to make existing owners of older Apple products upgrade in fear of being left out and ignored. Will it work? Who knows, but I suspect you will see press releases heralding the surge in buying of MACs that completely ignore the fact tha most of them are former Power based MAC owners not wanting to be left behind. Emulators will not keep Power Macs around long.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I would be really psyched to have a machine that could use both types of chips. It would certainly make OS X's transition smoother, and it would be great for embedded development for PPC. I used to have a DOS card (486) with an old 68040 and that was fun at the time (good for DOS Games that weren't ported to Mac)
Surely once Apple moves away from the PPC architecture, the developers will not continue developing software for the platform, will they?
:-)
Well I don't know, if you were writing software would you prefer to sell to 10 million people or one million? That's the kind of question you are asking.
Furthermore the dev tool (XCode) makes it super-easy to build universal binaries - it's not like you have to ship an Intel version and a PPC version. They are all bundled as one "App". That's the handy thing abou tmaking applications really directories in hiding. So if you have something that works now you just need to make sure it can also work on Intel and then you can ship universal binaries in perpituity.
It's the new Intel macs where the situation will look a little sketchy the first year or so. The current PPC macs are going to see universal binaries for something like 99% of apps for several years just for marketshare reasons alone. I do think that after a short time some games may be Intel only, but since when have you bought a Mac because of game support?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think that the proper question to ask is not "Who will buy a PPC now?", but "Who will buy the first Intel Macs?".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Apple is all about market segmentation, and this way they can keep the PowerMac expensive and exclusive. The problem they're going to run into is that IBM probably isn't going to be delivering faster chips on a regular basis, so the line will likely stagnate over the next year. My guess is that Apple will then have to start the Intel transition at the high-end, not the low end.
Anyway, what I care about are laptops. I was really looking forward to a Powerbook G5, but I'll certainly be happy with a Mac Centrino.
Tristan Yates
According to CNET, the transition will begin with the low end in 2006.
;)
My assumption is that small form factor systems like the Mac Mini, and the laptops that are stuck with G4's, will go with Pentium M processors.
After all, Apple said they are going with Intel for performance per watt, and the only current Intel processor that gets that is the Pentium M.
The PowerMacs will stay with PowerPC processors for a while and will probably be the last to switch, because you don't really care about the performance per watt on a watercooled monster like the PowerMac unless you're an overclocker
The move from PPC to i86 is harakiri for Apple. That concept cannot be understood by who never did a comparison between the two architectures taking into account not only costs and speed but also power consumption and global performance.
People who don't like Intel?
Microsoft Intellimice work right out of the box. OS X support two button mice natively.
The powermacs are their professional towers. imacs and mac minis are aimed at non-power users.
It appears you are equating "professionals" with "power users". Um, this has not been my experience. I would consider a 13 year old hacker on an eMac more of a Power User than the dude who's been in graphics design for two decades on the Dual PowerMac on the other side of my office wall.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Isn't that one of the signs of the end in Revelations? I mean, sure, we could blithely count on the fact that two such camps of fanatic idiots would mutually repel each other, but just think of the horrible repercussions if there was even one crossover!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
At this time, increasing the speed of a chip is becoming very difficult becasue of cooling issues.
So, If someone believes that CPU speed is getting close to the practical max for everyday user where does on go to get more power?
more procs.
More power on a computer does not equal faster procs, it equals how much work can get done in a given time frame.
The bad news is, there are a ton of MultiThreaded applications that have been written withou taking into consideration of multi procs. well, not bad news for me, I'll make money changing them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Good point. Only the stupid, it would be insane.
Developers will not care about the PPC, it'll be too much hassle. It's a lot easier to just get an Intel dev kit and in one year all the new computers are Intel so just produce Intel only binaries.
Building universal binaries takes only a checkbox. Only the insane would drop support for PPC when it's so easy to support it.
diegoT
With the ease of x-code's fat binaries, there's very little incentive for a developer to write programs that will only run on intel macs, so why get all bent out of shape about buying a machine now?
What about hardware/driver support? What about apple developers focusing in optimizing code for x86 instead of ppc? What about programs like photoshop. They can ship fat binaries, but will they focus in optimizing for ppc? What about games and SSE/altivec optimizations? What makes you think everybody will bother to use fat binaries to support both platforms?
Face it, apple's G5 will be a dying platform as soon as the first apple x86 is shipped.
I'd love to see OSX become a *nix that takes advantage of any of a number of CPU configs. PPC/Intel, single/multi CPU... How about a multiCPU with both PPC and x86, that can run either instruction set's binaries natively? Put a 4PPC/4x86 headless VNC server in the rack, and never say "no" again to "does that app run on our machines?" As long as it's a *nix app, of course.
--
make install -not war
In actual fact, Apple's PowerMac line were all dual-processor machines until about a year ago, when they released the single-processor machine; which was essentially just a dual-processor machine with one of the processor sockets removed.
I don't believe it sold very well, anyway. I think Apple were testing interest in the low-end tower market, which proved lukewarm, especially in competition with the iMac.
Its funny all this talk about 'the future'.. My old 700 PIII is still plugging along, doing the job it needs to do. And I'm sure it will continue to do so in another 2 years...
Just because you CAN bloat out, doesnt mean you should..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So who would buy dual PowerPC CPU now, knowing a major shift is happening in less than a year's time?
Someone who wanted software stability for the next few years? The new Intel boxes are not magically going to run all current software with 100% success. Universal binaries will be shipped by 99% of the Mac software vendors for years to come as only an idiot would cut off half his customers for no reason. It's not like they have to ship an Intel and a PPC version apart, it's all bundled as one.
Furthermore the current PPC Powermacs are really, really fast. They are plenty fast for just about anything you'd want to do with them. So why would you not buy one now to have a fast computer to get work done? In fact a lot of the people buying Powermacs need as fast a computer as they can get so they might buy another one in a year anyway.
I think though the Powermac line might be the last line to get Intel chips, I'd think they would update iMacs and minis first.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How the hell is Apple dumping their single proc Powermac significant? The machine had a horrible price to performance ratio, and sold poorly. Considering you could get an iMac with a faster processor & a 17" monitor (thrown in for FREE) for the same price, who the hell would buy the Powermac?
This isn't significant, it's over due.
The single-CPU PowerMac cost about twice as much as a PC with similar capabilities. It was outrageously overpriced for what it could do. Most of the other machines are reasonable, but the premium of single-CPU PowerMacs really stood out.
The dual-CPU PowerMacs cost a reasonable amount for what they have, but being forced to buy a dual-processor machine when all that's needed is a PCI card or dual displays is a bad deal.
I realize Apple doesn't want the prices of their various product lines to overlap, but in this case I think it's a mistake. Low cost, single-CPU machines occupy a sweet spot in the market. Professionals and enthusiasts frequently need the capabilities of an upgradable machine but not the extra performance of a second CPU. These people are also some of the most likely to be willing to put up with a bit of extra effort to deal with a PC if it gives them what they need for that much less.
Someone looking at a PC instead of a PowerMac can pocket the savings, or add different hardware that would benefit them a lot more. For example, system a few gigs of memory or a RAID array will handle some workloads better than a machine with two processors. A PowerMac can include both upgrades, but only on top of the premium you're already paying. When a PC can be built with these features for less than the entry-level price of a PowerMac, it doesn't look like a very good deal.
Some people will prefer the Mac either way, and they'll probably respond with "It's still worth it!", but that point of view is not universal. The extra value of MacOS is not infinite, so a sufficiently large premium can make a machine unappealing.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
By no mean this is true- it is just a logical conclusion.
A few of the people had gotten dangerously close to the real reason without actually hitting it.
There are couple of reasons, and they are somewhat related to each other.
1. Clear out inventories - Probably true to some degree, but remember, there are still 9 months of PowerPC Mac left. You don't start clearing out every single product 9 months before you abandon it.
2. To allow existing PowerPC users/companies to upgrade - this is a much more logical reason. Remember, most of the existing companies use PowerPC-base softwares for heavy duty work (rendering etc.). They don't have the time nor money to create a new set of tools- they want to use their current tools for as long as possible. These new and fast PowerPC provides just the solution - they are among the last PPC Mac on the market; when MacTel takes over, should they then decide to upgrade their slow G3-G4, they would need to buy new hardware AND new softwares. However if they just get the fastest PPC Mac today, these hardwares/softwares could potentially last them quite a few years. This saves time and money with the freedom to switch to Intel whenever they want.
They are aiming at professionals who don't want to abandon their PPC softwares for years to come.
I would prefer to sell five million copies of software to the Mac market, rather than one million copies to the PC market due to piracy and crowding of competion.
Not to mention that once you get beyond a certain point of sales, who cares if you sell one million or ten million if you are having a more enjoyable time developing the software?
Microsoft and Adobe seem to feel there are enough Mac users to sell to so why shouldn't even smaller developers?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mod me to whatever...
You must be so damn proud. "FP" posts and replies like this one are a waste of harddrive space. Grow the F up and stop wasting peoples time. That count for all you FP'ers!
I consider myself a diehard Maccie Fanboi, but really, is this news *at all*?
And no, I'm not new here. It's just that this one in particular seems like the most non-news story about Apple yet.
All that happened was that Apple dropped a configuration from a line-up of current models...perhaps because it was relatively underperforming in terms of sales, maybe...ya think?
I have more to say about this subject, but rumor has it that SJ just ripped a fart and I *must* drive down to Cupertino to see if I can speculate on what he had for dinner last night. The trolls are saying he had Kirk burgers, but I know that can't be right.
This site gives a processor to processor performance chart. It hasn't been updated yet for the latest processors. Where you see Italic "Dual" just means the OS was on the other processor, giving the first processor slightly better performance in the chip to chip comparision. A Dual 2.5 G5 is equal to a Dual 3.8 P4.
http://www.systemshootouts.org/processors.html
QUICK! Dump the rest of the RISC chips before we can't sell them anymore!!!
Awesome, what a great way to move the procs out the door, so they can switch over without left over stock.
Clever.
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
From here: 2-way SPEC systems
SPECint_rate2000
2200 Opteron 68.1 64.2
2200 PowerPC 970 21.5 20.2
SPECfp_rate2000
2200 Opteron 69.1 63.9
2200 PowerPC 970 20 19.2
I see, if by smoke, you mean have 1/3 the performance of an Opteron. And for Pentium M, SPECint2000, since they don't make dual PMs
2000 Pentium M 1541 1528
2200 PowerPC 970 1040 986
SPECfp2000
2000 Pentium M 1088 1087
PowerPC 970 not on chart or not tested.
From the data, its clear that the G5 sucks ass, and that the superior performance of the x86 is the reason behind Apple finally switching. I can't wait for the day that the Apple uses Intel, so I don't have to hear any more morons that know nothing about processors or performance, and are so obsessed with Apple produced they'd buy a freakin iProduct
A summary of what processor to buy: Raw throughput, POWER5, poor man POWER5, Opteron, shiny case, G5.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Just found this http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/3286.html> from a link on Google news. Check out the comment about running OS X on one processor and Windows on the other processor in dualies. Sounds like they really know what they are talking about!
Forgot the link
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Sounds like Apple will implement Freescale's dual core G4 embedded processor in the laptop to maintain a luxury lineup based on the PowerPC. In time they will open the door to the commodity PC marketplace with the Intel based lineup. Thereby, maintaining their existing customer base and opening way for a whole new level of consumer to have the "Apple Experience" I can see Apple making a big push into the education market, much like the recent announcement about Microsoft putting XBOX's in Japanese schools. They continue to develop for both platforms and observe the proliferation of the PowerPC/Power core with IBMs industrial partners and the Cell processors (Power based). I believe that eventually Apple will embrace the Cell as it gains traction and it bears fruit for Sony/Toshiba/IBM. Actually, in retrospect of Apple's announcement it is actually a very strategic move for them. And they have not closed the door on either pathway really with the time period of this shift. Something to think about. All that and OS X is based on BSD. The future looks interesting and will be exciting to watch.
Scientia et Potentia
Powerbooks still suck the weenie.
Too bad.
is to announce away from artificial vendor lock-in.
...
open up the mac. you don't have to support unrecommended configurations, it should be made clear but let people install osx on any x86 system.
no support whatsoever but let people run software on their hw. this aint a console OS, it's for computers.
short sighted
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
...as most people out there aren't used to that kind of power, but then most programmers aren't used to coding for that kind of set-up either.
I can see SMPs with dual or quad cores per processor, but I can also see the industrial air conditioners needed to cool them.
Nice, but I'd really prefer to see them work on modularity, interoperability, and advancing and not following. SMP Windows workstations can be had for about what they are charging for these multiprocessor Macs and such were being used in 3D work back when the Mac had no real 3D app platform to speak of so this is nothing new to me. New to Mac people, but not Wintel people.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Eyetech in the UK so they can upgrade the Amiga motherboards that are so woefully out of date.
I know its flamebait, but they have been waiting for new PPC motherboards, and since Apple has the vitural stranglehold on the chips, at least be a little bit charitable to another woefully forgoten platform that still exists.
The latest version supports SMP Macs.
Drop single processor boxes...this is certainly one way to move that old stock, make us buy two, whether we need it or not.
personally, I think they should maybe toss in a free processor for every one paid for. they are "obsolete", right?
maybe if you'd spent $500 for that dell box, you wouldn't feel so bad.
a dual processor mac with 1 PPC and 1 P4? That way I won't have to run anything in emulation. And If I get fat binaries, they can use both.
Sucks. Now the cheapest Mac that has a PCI slot, or the option to drive dual monitors, is $2000.
A lot of people, like me, can't live without one or both of those features. This will drive them away from the platform.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Apple did this about a week ago! Why is it being posted so late?
It's not compiling for PPC that will be difficult. It's testing it sufficiently to achieve release quality that is expensive. Very small vendors might just make a build and have users test it for them, but vendors with reputations usually need more assurance than "it compiles". I don't think Photoshop or Word will ever ship with "use at your own risk" PPC binaries.
But as you said, it's not at all stupid to support the PPC. This is because even when the number of PPC Macs sold drops to zero, there is still a big installed base of PPC Macs to sell to. If you look at the MacOS 8/9 section of versiontracker.com, you'll see that there are at least five (on a Sunday!) software updates a day for the past five days, when MacOS 9 was discontinued in 2002 and and the last Mac that could boot MacOS 9 was discontinued in June 2004.
Well, the shift is going to happen over a few years, starting with their low-end systems. They will phase out the G4's before they fool with the G5's. Computers go obsolete every few years, and the G5 is still a cool processor.
In short, by the time the dual G5 system is defunct, it will be approaching obsolescence anyway (from age).
hey! That's a really good story! Let's check my logs... 2005-06-17 03:16:45 Apple drops the 1.8 Ghz G5 PowerMac (Apple,Desktops (Apple)) (rejected) Oh. That was last Friday. Good thing Slashdot doesn't actually want to "break" any news. Hey guys!! We need to pay attention here...
Big companies (such as Adobe) won't have problems finding PPC computers to test their programs in. This is really a small investment in exchange for all of the advantages they get by building Universal binaries. Especially if people keeps buying PPC Macs for as long as they are sold.
Small companies will probably not have the same chance to test their software on both systems. But it's not such a big difference from the current situation where they are not able to test their programs in different PPC Mac models.
Apple is pushing developers a lot to build universal binaries, so I really think that they must have worked a lot to ensure this goal. This, of course, is only speculation... but when you realize how important it is for Apple for this transition to be as smooth as possible, you also get to see why it really makes sense for them to do the work correctly. IMHO it will take them a few minor new OS releases to get everything going once the new Macs are out.
And on top of that, Apple never really offered as much support for the transition from 9 to X as they are offering for this transition. For example: back then they changed the APIs whereas the new Intel Macs will keep the same APIs. Developers will be able to compile their programs for both platforms with two checkboxes from an Xcode hosted in any of those two platforms.
I really think that we will be seeing universal binaries for a long time... and on top of that I also think that people will not really see much difference between Intel Macs and PPC Macs (as long as there are no hardware problems on the Intel Macs) when it comes to software. At least not for a few more years.
diegoT
HP may have had something to do with Steve Jobs change of heart.
HP Media Center m7170n Photosmart PC
The newest Media Center PCs use the Dual Core Intel CPUs:
Intel® Pentium® D processor 830 with two processing cores (3.0GHz)
Windows XP Media Center
1GB PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM
250GB 7200 rpm hard drive
LightScribe double-layer DVD±R/RW drive with CD writer capabilities; DVD-ROM
ATI® RADEON X300 SE PCI-E graphics, 128MB DDR video memory, TV out
Intel High Definition Audio
9-in-1 digital media card reader
Personal video recorder
Remote
Media drive bay
Camera dock holder
The PowerMac platform is about a year out of date, compaired to the HP Media Center PCs.
Apple is still the leader in Video editing & HD-DVD creation, but HP is very close and still improving.
The really nice thing about the HP Media Center PC is the price, about $700 cheaper than the slowest Apple machine.
To paraphrase the saying used before: What took Apple so long to change?
I only hope that Apple will Grab the next AMD 64x2 cpu for some of their systems. A dual CPU - dual core - 64 bit machine would be a nice product.
Nice consumer system, but it on has 2 memory slots, doesn't have Altivec, nor does it run OS X. Workstations cost more.
:)
But this looks like specs for next years iMacs.
You did not understand what I wrote. Getting Photoshop to compile on a PPC is trivial, but getting a PPC Photoshop to be ready to put in a box for sale is not.
But it's not such a big difference from the current situation where they are not able to test their programs in different PPC Mac models.
Even if you stick with gcc on both CPUs, you'll be using an entirely different code generator backend, which will have different bugs. If you use Intel's excellent compiler instead, then it's a different compiler altogether. Changing compilers is not usually a negligible risk.
Apple is pushing developers a lot to build universal binaries, so I really think that they must have worked a lot to ensure this goal.
I'm sure Apple will work very hard to make the transition as smooth as possible. I'm just pointing out to you that simply getting the code to compile for both CPUs is trivial next to getting it to ship on both.
Apple/Intel FAQ
Albuquerque PC
Mine works fine on the Mac Mini, do you have maintenance so you can download the most current software? The only bug I am aware of is that you cannot use VPN client with a Dual processor Mac. :-( I am sure Cisco can fix that...
Your Average Joe
It's not funny at all.
Oh my god, it is impressive how you managed to read so far down the threads and still haven't understood bugger all.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Yeah, because everyone knows how PPC and x86 are compatible with each other. Or not.
Building universal binaries takes only a checkbox. Only the insane would drop support for PPC when it's so easy to support it.
That's a very naive statement. Sure, it's only a checkbox to compile a universal binary, but how do you know it will run properly on both platforms? Now you need to have duplicate QA departments. Basically double your testing staff because everything has to be tested on both platforms. Even years into the future, software developers will have to keep ancient PowerPC machines around just to do regression testing on.
Due to market share alone, PowerPC will be around for at least 10 years. In fact, OS X only recently broke the 50% installed base of all Mac users. That's right, there's still over 10 million System 9 and older users out there... That gives you something to think about. So yeah, it might seem really easy for somebody to compile an app for the other platform, but that doesn't mean they've even had a chance to check it and see if it actually runs.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
On a side note, the whole Macintel deal looks pretty interesting, we'll just have to wait and see what happens...
Ever heard of NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP? Fat binaries that ran on Sparc, Intel, 68k and other architectures?
Ever knew that Mac OS X is a direct descendant of that OS?
Ever read about how universal binaries (that's the 21st century name for fat binaries) will make it possible to have one application that'll run on Mac OS X PPC and Intel?
And everyone who will programme for Intel Mac OS X will have to make a PPC version, simply because for years to come 99.99999% of the user base are still on PPC. If you're programming in a sane way, making universal binaries is not much more than another checkbox to click on when compiling apps (plus a weeny bit of tweaking).
So you really didn't understand a word in the whole discussion, did you?
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Take a look at the Linpack scores of the Top 500 supercomputer list. It's one of the fairest comparisons around, every processor optimised to the max, done by professional CS people proving only they're machine. You'll see that they are totally consistant between listing of the same processor type too.
Take the Rpeak and divide by number of procs.
What do you get?
2.3 GHz 970 (G5) = 9.2 GFlops (#7 on list)
2.2 GHz Opteron = 4.2 GFlops (#17 on list)
G5 smokes the Opteron by 2-to-1.
Anyone remember when OS9 machine were sold with the promise that they could be upgraded to OSX. Remember the pittance from the class action suite? Why trust Jobs' again?
It looks like this and is made by the company that already make the PB's and iBooks.
I jest, of course it doesn't have the monstrous OSX on it, well yet..
You're smoking crack if you think the above mentioned HP doesn't kick the ass of any Mac within $600.
Because your program will be running under the same system using exactly the same APIs. Saying that this would take a duplication of the QA department is a bit excessive. It would only need the same department to know about common problematics and eventually about a particular bug in one of the two systems. This will not be like porting an OS 9 application to OS X, so making such a comparison is really like talking about oranges when I was talking about apples.
As for the testing on both platforms, that's not really much different from testing your program on every possible PPC Mac model to know it will work. Nobody can claim that a program that runs on a Cube 450 Mhz will also run on a Cube 500 Mhz without problems unless they try it out. Intel Macs will be no different. They are meant to offer exactly the same APIs and OS compiled from the same source code. Unless you need to go low level with your coding, I really doubt that there will be problems running your app on Intel Macs. Any difference that comes up will be due to bugs in OS X. And Apple has shown that it is a priority for them to make the transition as smooth as possible.
I fail to see what the number of OS 9 users means in this context. We are talking about the transition from PPC macs to Intel Macs, and it's nothing like the 9 to X transition we've seen before. The OS will be exactly the same on both platforms and the APIs will be the same. Basically they are preparing everything so that even new programs coming out for the Intel Macs in something like x years from now really take no effort whatsoever to port to PPC Macs.
Basically you are saying that it's impossible for Apple to offer 100% compatibility between Intel Macs and PPC Macs, while I think that it is quite feasible. Speculation vs speculation. How does that make my point of view naive?
diegoT
While they might (and certainly could) go on supporting the old machines for a decade by releasing two versions of every OS this seems unlikely. If you want to have the latest and greatest software for a long time then a G5 might not be the way to go.
Lasers Controlled Games!
want =! need
...
That was my point.. Which you pretty much agreed with
I dont have simpler *needs* then most people, however i dont have to have it *now*. A little patience is not a bad thing.. So it takes something a few extra moments to compile..
Its marketing that says 'gotta have it faster, bigger, etc'. Not reality..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Dude, how can you live all day looking at a Dell! :) Is that a LCD for $45 or CRT? Just curious I'd snag an LCD for $45, but not a CRT
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
The PowerMac is the Platform, and the PowerMac isn't going anywhere. Also numerous people have stated over and over that it's the Notebooks that will go Intel first, not the PowerMacs. They'll be on the tail end of the transition - as they are the most Altivec software utilized and Alitvec don't work in Rosetta on numerous reports.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
"And everyone who will programme for Intel Mac OS X will have to make a PPC version, simply because for years to come 99.99999% of the user base are still on PPC."
Have you ever worked in commercial software development? Management will see two architechtures, one that will shrink until it no longer exists, the other that will grow until it's the whole market. They're going to want to cut off PowerPC on existing software as soon as possible, and convincing anyone to support PowerPC on new projects is going to be like pulling teeth.
Does this mean management is unwilling to spend a few extra dollars when they'll probably make it back? Yes. Is that stupid? Yes. Is it true? Yes. Companies want to develop software that will provide a growing source of revenue, not a shrinking one, even if the incremental cost is small.
"If you're programming in a sane way, making universal binaries is not much more than another checkbox to click on when compiling apps (plus a weeny bit of tweaking)."
Again, have you ever worked in commercial software development? QA is not free on an extra architechture.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
When the transition is over in 2007 how long will OSX be updated for PPC? Probably not too long. Steve will be up on stage at WWDC '08 with a pie chart calling the PPC users "laggards".
OSX will be updated on x86 but not PPC or the PPC version will lag behind it and then 3rd party software will say "Requires OSX vWhatever" and Whatever will be the new OSX that isn't available for PPC. Checkmate. Time to upgrade and send Steve some more money. Apple pulls the rug out from under its userbase again!
Everyone seems to assume that developers will be able to choose whether or not to support PPC. My understanding is that XCode, as it currently exists, does not support Intel-only, just PPC-only or Universal Binary. Unless Apple changes its stance, or a third-party MacIntel-only development system is adopted en masse (unlikely), all this worrying is pointless.
^months^minutes^
(Anonymous because I already moderated)
As you say: as soon as possible. Since 99% of any potential buyers of Mac OS X software (= user base) will be on PPC for years to come, if you want to sell a product you WILL HAVE TO support PPC for years to come.
Otherwise you WONT FUCKING SELL ANY SOFTWARE in appreciable numbers.
What's so difficult to understand about that?
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
I doubt that anything in Apple's operating system is left emulated.
Apparently you haven't been paying attention. Apple _may_ port the entire OS to Intel chips but all the software you own hasn't and may not be. For that reason Apple has come up with Rosetta, which functions like emulation, and means that your apps will not be running at the same speeds it runs on a PowerPC chip.
Also, any Classic apps you use will not work.
Also note, Appple still hasn't made the current OS 100% 64 bit and in all the previous OS transitions have left several components incomplete in the porting.
Do some searches on Apple's Rosetta to discover more of the details of the change to Intel.
Why compare to the Opteron? Apple is moving to INTEL, NOT AMD. You'll be waiting a long time to buy an Opteron-based Mac.
I don't know why I'm writing this; arguing over the internet is like the special olympics, whoever wins you're still retarded.
The basic SPEC methodology is to provide the benchmarker with a standardized suite of source code based upon existing applications that has already been ported to a wide variety of platforms by its membership. The benchmarker then takes this source code, compiles it for the system in question and then can tune the system for the best results. The use of already accepted and ported source code greatly reduces the problem of making apples-to-oranges comparisons.
If you'd read the link I provided, you'd see that Lapack was created because of changes in supercomputer architecture, providing a more accurate benchmark.
Linpack is type of test: linear algebra, and again, if you'd bothered to read the links, or even my post, you'd notice that 26 different types of test > 1 type.
Finally, you're using a very muddled secondhand source based on 1 test to desperately hang onto your delusion that the G5 is anywhere near the Opteron.
Continue reading the following until you realize that the G5 is crap. crap crap crap. And keep your pie hole shut before you remove all doubt about being a fool as well.
SPECint_rate2000
2200 Opteron 68.1 64.2
2200 PowerPC 970 21.5 20.2
SPECfp_rate2000
2200 Opteron 69.1 63.9
2200 PowerPC 970 20 19.2
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
"As you say: as soon as possible. Since 99% of any potential buyers of Mac OS X software (= user base) will be on PPC for years to come, if you want to sell a product you WILL HAVE TO support PPC for years to come."
It's not going to be 99% for very long. Sales will surge after the Intel-based machines are released.
"Otherwise you WONT FUCKING SELL ANY SOFTWARE in appreciable numbers.
What's so difficult to understand about that?"
I understand your argument, but you don't understand MBAs.
An MBA will always choose a market that is growing over one that is shrinking. They'll take the money if they aren't mutually exclusive, but they don't like to put money into shrinking markets even if they can make it back. The reality is that a PowerPC version of the software won't be free to maintain, and even if they can do it cheaply they'd rather put a little bit more money into new stuff than support the old stuff at all. Small to medium sized companies don't always have the resources to do both.
You'll see large companies like Adobe and Microsoft do both for longer, and you'll see the open-source and guy-in-a-basement shareware people do both for longer (as their QA is more a matter of users bitching than formalized testing), but the small to middle companies will face the strongest pressure, particularly in software that has lots of platform specific optimizations.
It's already started happening now, and it will be in full swing by the end of 2006. You'll also see people that don't make CPU-bound software shipping PowerPC only binaries for a long time, until they feel Intel-based Macs are prevenlant enough and then they'll switch all at once.
Management thinking is like quantum physics. It's consistent but it doesn't make intuitive sense.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
I don't think that's the case, and even if it is it must have some capacity to have different code paths for different architechtures (otherwise Altivec or SSE specific optimizations would be impossible). The PowerPC one can pop up a window that says "PowerPC is not supported." and then exit.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
I want to get a 2005 honda civic! But the 2006 models are right around the corner! I gotta wait for the 2006 model! But then I gotta wait for the 2007 model! AHHHHH!!
Show some evidence for "SPEC is subject to all kinds of problems." The only recent spec controversay is Apple's dishonest G5 benchmarks, your paranoid anti-Intel conspiricy theory aside, and the fact that you bring up GCC shows you know nothing, since only 4/14 specfp programs are C, the rest are fortran. Also, have a look at comparison of Intel GCC and PGI compilers. Hand coding?!?! Are you insane? Do you have any idea of the complexity of a modern processor's scheduling? Go talk to a comp arch professor, and get bitchslapped for retardedness. If GCC sucks for the G5, then use something better, nobody's forcing you to use it.
Ah, I see what the problem is. Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field has given you selective reading comprehension. "LINPACK has been largely superceded by LAPACK which has been designed to run efficiently on shared-memory, vector supercomputers." Note that it was designed to run efficiently on shared-memory, vector supercomputers, therefore providing a better benchmark of said supercomputers superness. The reason Linpack is used is because clusters would completely choke on this test. All of this however, completely ignore the fact that you're trying to use a test of a supercomputer to decide what a processors worth.
Linpack is a one class of algorithms, SPEC is 14 fp and 12 int classes, selected to provide a *wide* variety in algorithms.
Find a CPU, not supercomputer, benchmark that shows the G5 is faster, otherwise it's just your word that your Andersonesque calculations are worth more than the accountable SPEC.
But all this really doesn't matter because of one question, if the top500 results prove the G5 is so much better, why didn't Apple use them?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Apple is switching because one company cannot push a whole chip architecture cost effectively, no matter how good the architecture is
Don't believe me? Why are XBox, Sony, and nitendo all using PowerPC chips? The most performance, the lowest price. Microsoft can get a 3 core 970 for the same price as a P4 (58M verses 169M transistors)
An MBA will always choose a market that is growing over one that is shrinking.
Not if the growing market is still 5% and the shrinking one 95%.
Otherwise everyone would support Firefox only because it's growing while IE's market share is shrinking.
See?
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
"Not if the growing market is still 5% and the shrinking one 95%.
Otherwise everyone would support Firefox only because it's growing while IE's market share is shrinking."
There's a difference: there's a good chance both will be around for the forseeable future. Apple's PowerPC products are't going to be on the market after 2007, and attrition will take care of the existing ones.
Because people are putting off purchases now[1], and because the Intel chips have so many advantages[2] that have been hurting laptop sales for Apple[3], sales are going to surge next year.
I think we'll see 50% of Mac users owning an Intel-based machine before they stop shipping PowerPC machines in 2007. I think that's when the PowerPC software will start disappearing in earnest. In mid-2007 it's not going to be 95% PowerPC and declining slowly, it's going to be 50% declining quickly.
1 - I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying they are.
2 - Current Pentium Ms have a 3x integer performance advantage over G4s, and laptops are shipping with 7+ hour batteries (eg IBM T40, that number unofficial from a review). The new Yonah core that Apple will be using will improve this further, and there will be a dual-core version.
3 - iMacs are outselling all Apple laptops put together. That is telling when the rest of the industry is primarily laptops.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
the seat of your pants. Does it really matter how many electrons can be forced across a silicon chip in a millisecond ? I want to see response times for a host of applications, from office productivity to games, complete with feedback from actual humans who have used the app on a given machine/OS. Speed is *not* everything, but I'd like to spend less time waiting for various icons to stop spinning and my apps to load. I'll leave the server stuff to the sys admins (yes, detailed metrics are important in that domain - no question) : I just want to read that buying a new Power Mac or iMac is going to have a tangible benefit for me in terms of the applications I use. Just my ten bahts worth.
I think we'll see 50% of Mac users owning an Intel-based machine before they stop shipping PowerPC machines in 2007.
Estimates say that the current installed base of Macs is about 25 to 30 million or so. According to your clairvoyance on the developement of the Mac market, at least 15 Million Intel Macs will have to be sold from 2006 to 2007 to get the Intel Macs to 50% (I say at least because it will have to be more. People who buy a new Mac usually don't throw away the old one, but rather pass them on to relatives, sell them on e-bay etc. Anyway the person who uses the old Mac still adds to the installed user base and is a potential client for software for this Mac).
15 Million Macs in one year? No way. In good quarters Apple have been selling a million, but why should they almost quadruple that suddenly, just because it's an intel CPU now?
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
I think your comment is pretty funny. But I'll defend the Apple Unix. I've been a Unix user since 1993, and switched a few years ago to OSX because of the Unix offering. I wanted business productivity apps and a good development environment integrated with the OS. Linux doesn't offer the quality of productivity apps and Cygwin doesn't quite work well enough.
Now onto specifics:
OS X is not a certified Unix.
Neither is Linux or BSD. Certification is mainly Posix and heck VMS got that. I think Linux is far closer to what reaonable people mean by "Unix" than VMS was so the Open Groups standards are the problem. So what if they own some trademark that never should have existed in the first place?
To an Apple user Unix has always been something weird and strange and generaly bad, the usual "not invented by Apple syndrome". Now the Apple user tells you he has a Unix too and Unix by now is the greatest thing thing sliced bread.
Apple sold a Unix for many years (AUX). Apple users were often big fans of Next computers. Up until recently though Unix computers didn't target creative markets or mainstream desktops so Apple users had no reason to care one way or another about Unix.
They tell you Apple is the largest supplier of Unix world wide. Of course OS X doesn't even remotely classifies as Unix
What difference is so great as not to "remotely classify"?
and recent test has shown it is at least 10 times slower then Solaris on simple database serving.
I would expect that. Oracle grew up on Solaris and Solaris was tuned for many years for Oracle. OSX is a desktop product, it shouldn't run servers effeciently it should be configured around desktop performance.
This of course gives Unix a bad reputation so you can imagine Open Group being more than upset (they have of course sued Apple over infringement). Real Unixes also has 8-10 years of support contracts, Apple has already retired support for OS X 10.2 after just a few years from release making costly unneeded upgrades nessecary.
For whom? My wife runs 10.2 fine. Further I don't remember Apple ever indicating to people they were selling an Enterprise product.
In short, for Apple users Unix is a marketing term they don't know anything about, if you need Unix look elsewhere.
I need Unix. I'd be happy to buy a Unix. Tell me which Unix has high quality business productivity software for a good desktop experience.
There are two checkboxes. If you click them both you get a fat binary.
"15 Million Macs in one year? No way. In good quarters Apple have been selling a million, but why should they almost quadruple that suddenly, just because it's an intel CPU now?"
A good chunk of those machies are unsupported and I hadn't counted them in my estimates, but I think sales could reasonably double once Intel-base Macs are released.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
All benchmarks are subject to problems. If you are testing for the CPU, somehow you must control for variables of compiler, OS, system architecture, and the amount of time and expertise of the tester.
Sigh. read: "Dell's own figures were calculated using different compilers and host operating system: Windows XP Pro, Intel's own C++ and Fortran compilers, and the MicroQuill SmartHeap Library 6.01. Secondly, the compiler used by VeriTest, GCC, is said to generate code that less well optimised for x86." QED less well than intels compiler in the previous sentence
GCC for PowerPC is not as mature: "The gcc scheduler is not really designed ideally for a processor like the 970 and the Power4...that was one of the things that we're continuing to work on to try to get the best performance out of the processor."
GCC on intel is far more mature with a long history, read a little of the history: "...When Intel released the Pentium some of their team produced a version of gcc with enhancements which gave 30% speed improvements on some benchmarks..."
Look at these redhat GCC 3.3/4.0 benchmarks. Notice how the 2-way PPC970 is twice as fast as the 4-way P4 on many tests and at close to par on the others. Now this is not the end all, am I'm sure you could come up with a different test that shows the P4 beating the G5, but certianly the G5 is not a "peice of crap".
Standardizing of compilers is scientific method. Ideally you'd do a bank of tests, and unroll the variables: Standard compilers, standard OS, standard CPUs. Or you could tune each system to the max and then compare, that was LinPack and you didn't like that one either.
Exactly my point! Intels compiler does auto-vectorization. GCC doesn't. If you test C code, P4+intel against GCC+G5, you are crippling the G5 by leaving out the altivec unit, which is a more capacble vector unit than SSE2
Hand coding is still done frequently on high performance algorithms: