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Multiprocessor G4s @MacWorld
whostudios writes "According to this arricle at AppleInsider Apple will show their second generation 500Mhz dual G4 boxes at the MacWorld Expo this January. The same article also says that Apple is working on quad-processor boxes. " It'll be pretty sweet to have another SMP capable platform for Linux to run on. Update: 12/27 09:30 by CT : If you don't want to wait for Apple's solution, try this dual G4 board and roll your own.
Doesn't necessarily mean they'll be announced, though. The article indicates they'll be unveiled on stage, but it's also possible they may just be exhibited to a few select developers. Apple is already introducing (by all accounts) a new PowerBook along with updates on OS 9 and OS X. There's also the possibility of a new 17" iMac announcement, and the long-overdue G4/OS X Server machine will hopefully be ready at the same time. That's a lot for even a MacWorld Expo. The MP machines are more likely, IMO, to be announced later in the year at an Apple Event of some type. Unless Steve is looking for that perfect Columbo-esque "Oh, one more thing..." announcement for this Expo. Hey, it worked twice last year...
Mmmmmm...new PowerBook. (makes Homer-ish drool sound)
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
I'm sure the Apple boxes will rock, but I suspect they'll cost a little more that this. :-)
However, if ABIT ever puts out a dual-processor PowerPC board...
At the time only Photoshop, Premiere, and a fractal-calculating demo could use the 4 CPUs, until I installed the BeOS on it. It was amazing what difference the added CPUs made...
After 2 of the CPUs burned out a couple of years ago, (the thermal paste wasn't tropics-proof, it seems) I installed a 300MHz G3 board - which at the time performed somewhat better than all 4 of the original CPUs.
The Mac OS has for some years supported extra CPUs strictly for number-crunching, but it wasn't symmetrical for other things. I'm looking forward to swapping my board for a dual or quad G4 in the near future, once full SMP support is in place.
Mac OS 9 has limited support for multiple processors, but not SMP. Apps need to be specifically coded for MP configurations. Fortunately, most of the apps that actually need MP (stuff like Photoshop) are already MP-enabled, because Apple has made a couple MP machines in the past.
Mac OS X Server does not currently have any kind of MP support at all, but the Server 1.2 update (which was originally just intended to add G4 support) has been taking longer than expected, and it's rumored that this is because it's going to be a rather major upgrade. If Apple really does introduce MP machines at Macworld, it doesn't seem so far fetched that a version of Server that supports SMP will be introduced as well.
SMP is an announced feature for the client version of Mac OS X as well (and all future versions of Server will be based on this client version), whenever that actually ships.
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I for one cannot wait to see SMP Athlon vs SMP G4 benchmarks. Both are excellent CPUs, and should scale well. IIRC, both AMI and Tyan have SMP Athlon boards coming out in 1Q00. This stuff is getting more and more important as people start to wonder about the longevity of Moores Law...
God Fucking Damnit
Apple (and Mac OS clone manufacturers) have toyed with multiprocessor Macs in the past. Apple itself sold dual processor systems while some cloners went as far as to bring quad processor systems to market. The machines were mighty impressive, but unless BeOS was your bag, the only thing they were good for was accelerating Photoshop filters. And let's face it, most of us don't spend that much time waiting for Photoshop filters to finish.
Fast forward to 1999 and nothing has changed, except that Apple is now being led by a guy who actually understands that multiprocessor boxes are useless with classic Mac OS. That's why Apple isn't shipping any. The next major Apple OS release, Mac OS X, will feature decent SMP support, but could still be a year away. Shipping SMP hardware before that is ethically questionable at best, doomed to backfire at worst.
Marko Karppinen
back when the G4 was in development they talked a whole lot about "multiple-core" G4s. As opposed to normal multiprocessor setups, these were just a number of G4s that had been wired to act as if they were only one G4. The point is unlike SMP where you have to rewrite the software to take advantage of it, the multicored g4s would not-- they acted as if they were one processor and you treated them as such. (my apologies if this is not a totally accurate discription; if you care go browse appleinsider's back issues, or something)
Whatever happened to this? This sounded like a really good idea. Has apple just forgotten about it, or did they spend so much time on altivec they just never got around to developing the idea fully?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Considering the common notion that the G4 is fast, multiple G4's are obviously the next logical step. The problem becomes: what would I do with G4-MP???
The MacOS seems infinitely capable -- why must it do all of them so poorly and/or primitively? MP support on a Macintosh works out to be a few specific Adobe apps crudely hacked to run two parallel threads on separate CPU's. The OS doesn't natively support any kind of MP, and 90% of Mac apps simply 'stay at home' on CPU 0. If there were more than ten apps used on a Mac (Adobe software, M$ Office, Quark, and Nutscrape), I'm sure that percentage would be higher.
Linux SMP is coming along (but admit it, it's not even up to pace with NT, let alone BeOS), but Yellow Dog only has half-assed support for the G4. Then there is the problem of getting it from kernel 2.2 to 2.4 in the next couple of months...
Apple's OS X is a way off, and given the hardware used in their systems since the introduction of the iMac, would you be able to find any other UN*X that supports bizarre foreign hardware like USB keyboards and mice?
Just imagine a bitchin' Beowulf cluster of MP G4's with a functional OS! =)
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E2 IN2 IE?
Certain Apps and plugins (like photoshop/Strata Studio Pro) can take advantage of the extra CPUs even if the OS does not.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yes be thankful... Be thankful that Apple exists today to bring you multi-G4 Mac's... Be thankful that OS 9 is here, OS-X Server has been here for a while and OS-X consumer is due to arrive soon.... Be thankful for the little iMacs that could.... Be thankful they finally got USB to become popular enough that people decided to make USB devices... and be thankful that they've taken part in the development of firewrie... i'm sure there's others too...
Programs that wait on CPU's definetly benefit from added CPU's... For instance, yes, photoshop loved them... Then there's pretty much every 3-D application on the planet... RIPs - the programs/hardware that converts Quark files to bitmaps so they can be printed in the Boston Globe, also enjoy added CPU's...
I spend a huge amount of my time waiting and wating for my computer sometimes... just watching the bar crawl across the screen... Added CPU's would certainly help - so long as the programs were reworked to recognize them.
time Apple has gone the multi-processor route. Way back a while ago they came out with the 9600/200MP, running of dual 604e processors at 200mhz. It was a decent system from what I understand, except MacOS 7 was a bit of a pill to keep running on it. That was back in 97 though. I think dual G4s would be nice but a bit of overkill unless you had some software that could use the AltiVec stuff in multiple threads to really speed things up. Lets just hope the Mystic sells a bit more than the 9600/200MP did.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.