And still, that "technology of the 70's" is the fastest thing there is. Sure, you might have some CPU's that are even faster, but they are also alot more expensive. Those CPU's usually get better performance by adding lots and lots of cache to the CPU.
If PowerPC (for example) is SOOOO much better, why doesn't it wipe the floor with x86? Sure, it's competetive, but it does not annihilate x86
As to being register-starved... Again, that doesn't seem to hurt the performance of these chips that much. And if you use Opteron/Athlon64 with an 64bit OS, you get double the number of GP/SSE-registers (instead of 8, you get 16).
As to CISC... Modern x86-CPU's are very much RISCue in the inside. And being RISC does not automatically mean that it's somehow better. You can have kick-ass CISC-CPU's, and you can have crappy RISC-CPU's.
"Sentiments such as mine"? My sentiment is that we should invest in education instead of better methods of killing each other. When the people are uneducated, it's a really simple matter for the power-at-be to make them do their bidding. they can use their fears and uneductated opinions as tools to reach their goals.
And besides, it was Jack Handy who said "Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, we should be thinking about getting more use out of the ones we already have.";).
Educated masses are alot harder to control than uneducated masses are. If your audience is just a bunch of morons you can just say "we must kill these people because they are jealous of us and they hate freedom!"
why have people forgotten about hardware/software efficiency? instead of using x86-based lap heaters, why not develop more low-power hardware around crusoe and or ppc-based processors.... ? my ppc laptop (500mhz G4) runs cool with no fan and accomplishes everything that a standard research student would be doing, plus many advanced modelling/GIS/rendering/image processing/ and map making functions... all with a 3hr+ battery time on 6 yr old Li-ion batteries...
Ever heard of Pentium-M? designed from ground-up for laptops. They have kick-ass performance (alot more than your 500MHz G4 does) and they still get kick-ass battery-time.
The standard P4, K7 or K8 doesn't have a "battery mode" or any other realistic way to conserve battery power.
Well, K8 can (and does) lower it's voltage and speed if it's under a low load. So if you are just browsing the web, your CPU will be running at 800Mhz with reduced voltage. When you fire up that 3D-game, the CPU revs up to full speed.
I'm not from the USA, so I don't care one bit what your Constituion says. My point was that there are many things that could be used for either good (police with firearms) or bad (that raving lunatig robbing a 7-11 using a gun), yet they are not illegal. Your Constitution doesn't protect cars either, and they too can be used for good things and bad things. Why are P2P-utilities an exception here? They can be used for either good or bad, yet some powers-at-be get their panties in the bunch because of them.
I'm not some anti-gun activist, and I apologize if my post made it seem like that. Hell, I have lived around guns for as long as I can remember. I was around 6 years old when I shot with a pistol for a first time. And I was raised well when it comes to firearms (thanks to my father who served as a gunsmith in the Army).
Anyone but a hypocrite can tell you that most P2P apps are indeed made for trading copyrighted material, much like emulators are made for running copyrighted roms.
Claiming that they have a lot of potentially non-infringing uses is just an excuse.
Couldn't you say the same thing about guns? Guns are designed to kill. Pistols particularly are made for just that (do you go hunting with your 9mm Beretta?). Sure you could use them for target-practice and such, but that doesn't change the fact that killing is what they are meant to do.
Moreover, Britin's DERA conducted a study using simulators which found the F/A-22 Raptor to be twice as effective at shooting down Sukhoi Su-35's as the Typhoon.
it better be, considering that the F-22 is over twice times as expensive as the Eurofighter is (62 million euros vs. 152 million dollars). And the typhoon can be used in other roles besides airsuperiority. Of course F-22 can be used in other roles as well, but not as well as the Typhoon, which has been designed as multirole-fighter from the start.
So, for less money you get a multirole-fighter that is also the second-best air-superiority-fighter in the world. Not bad at all. Of course you could build the ultimate air-superiority fighter no matter what's the cost. And that's what USA is doing with F-22. Sure it's a kick-ass plane, but at what cost?
F-22 is more capable that Typhoon is (even the EuroFighter-guys acknowledge that), but F-22 is also alot more expensive. Comparing price to the capabilities, you get more bang for the buck with the Typhoon.
Well, they could get their hi-end cards in to the likes of Weta Digital. When they created SXF for Lord of The Rings, they used Linux on their desktops. Having such demanding and hi-profile customers can only be a good thing. From the PR-value, to the feedback they can use to improve their products.
While Linux is not often used for gaming and such, it's quite often used for content-creation (in this case, 3D-graphics). Not having working drivers available, Ati has no access to that growing market.
I fail to see how Gnome is "easy to adapt". The whole point of Gnome seems to be "as little configuration-options as possible". If you can't configure it (apart from using that god-awful registry-wannabe), how exactly is is "easy to adapt"? It seems to me that rather than adapting Gnome to fit your style of working, you have to adapt your style of working to fit Gnome.
Well, if they used similar heatsinks/fans on Pentium-M as they do on regural P4, I bet they could increase the clock-speed to about 2.2-2.4GHz right now (and that that speed it would wipe the floor with even fastest P4's). Currently P-M runs at sub 2GHz-speeds because they are all in laptops, where you can't use massive cooling-solutions.
I was talking with people on another board (hardware mavens), and for most of us with a late model card from last generation (Radeon 9800, any of the competing nVidia cards), the X800 really isn't worth it.
What about people like me who are still using GF2 GTS?
Look, people are using the drivers and they are COMPLAINING about the drivers. They are MORE THAN 50% SLOWER than 32-bit nvidia drivers and people are getting very impatient with nvidia because the drivers CONSTANTLY crash their systems. The drivers exist but they are ALPHA matterial. Just look around in the forums and you'll see.
So I should not get a vid-card at all, is that it? I mean, Ati has no drivers, and NVIDIA has buggy drivers, so I should not choose either one? Fact is that
a) NVIDIA has ALOT better track-record when it comes to Linux-support b) They have 64bit drivers available RIGHT NOW. And there ARE lots of people using them at this very moment
Are NV's 64bit drivers flawless? Of course not! But looking at their track-record, it doesn't take a rocket-scientist to say that they will improve. And, looking at Ati's track-record, the best thing I could say is that they may or may not write 64bit drivers at some point in the future, and they may or may not actually work halfway-decent. And while I'm saying that, NVIDIA has drivers available RIGHT NOW. And there are people using them AT THIS VERY MOMENT.
If I choose my next vid-card based on the quality of the Linux-support, anyone with a half a brain would choose NVIDIA. No, I'm not some NV-fanboy. I REALLY want to get X800, I think it's considerably better than 6800 is. But I find it really difficult to choose X800 since Ati doesn't really care to support the OS I use!
Even if the drivers are 50% slower (I remember seeing benchmarks on that just few days ago. The 64bit drivers were a bit slower, but not 50% slower IIRC), I don't really care. I could always do the gaming in Windows. But at least I would still have a vid-card that is at least usable in Linux. And I would have a vid-card that has drivers and proven track-record of Linux-support. That's ALOT more I would get with Ati!
I STRONGLY suggest you read around about the problems people are having with Nvidia's 64 bit drivers before investing your money.
Of course there are people having problems with the drivers. Hell, there are people having problems with the drivers in Windows as well, both Ati and NV-drivers! But there are also lots and lots of people using the drivers at this very moment and getting good performance out of them. That, in my book, is infinetly better than sitting around with your expensive vid-card and hoping that sometime in the future you might actually use it.
True, ATI have NO 64 bit drivers but perhaps that should tell you that perhaps it is too early for you to get a 64-bit system.
NVIDIA doesn't seem to have problems getting 64bit drivers out the door. I CAN get a functional 64bit system right now, it's just a matter of choosing the right components. Ati has the better vid-card, but if they don't care to make a set of drivers that would let me use it, I will then buy a vid-card from a company that writes those drivers.
Now, if that is "good enough" for you, fair enough, but I'd much rather wait for a couple to six months so that things settle down on the 64 bit arena.
My computer is several years old (840MHz Duron with GF2 GTS). Unlike some people, I don't upgrade all the time. The machine is noisy. It's so slow that it's practically useless when it comes to more modern games. The capacitors on the MoBo show signs of bursting. The HD makes strange noises from time to time. In short: the machine is on it's last legs. I need to get a new system. I have the money saved. I'm still deciding on some last components (like the vid-card).
No, waiting for 6 months is not an option. No, I cannot buy now, and upgrade some components few months later. Why Athlon64? Because it's faster than P4. Why run 64bit OS? Because I can. Because I want to take advantage of those extra registers. Yes, the system would also run W2K for occasional Windows-only game. And that fact is the only reason why I'm even looking at Ati at this moment.
If they would release a decent set of Linux-driver tomorrow, there would be no contest: I would choose Ati. But having to choose between a working product, and a product that does not work, I choose the working product.
Take a look at the current products they have available (Radeon9800, Geforce 5900 etc.). One of them has extensive Linux-support, other one does not. One of them has 64bit Linux-drivers available, other one does not.
Are there Linux-drivers for GF6800? Actually I don't know. But that's irrelevant right now, since the product isn't even available yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if the current set of drivers also worked with 6800.
Yes, you could say that my rambling is pointless since X800 isn't available either. But looking at Ati's past driver-developement on Linux (or lack of thereof) I'm not holding my breath while I wait for those drivers.
Also, the fact that nvidia provide 64 bit Linux drivers does not automatically mean they are any good.
There are lots of people using those drivers as we speak, and they use them (among other things) to play the latest games. So yes, they seem to be OK at least. And even if they were buggy, that would still be infinitely better than the Ati-drivers for the sole reason that there are no 64bit Ati-drivers!
So I'm buying a new system in the very near future. Either I get GF 6800 and run it with zero problems in my 64bit system, or I get X800 and pray that I will get a set of drivers sometime in the future that would make that 500e hi-end vid-card at least halfway usable.
If they write those drivers, I'm prepared to give them my money. If they don't, that money goes to their competitor. It's as simple as that.
Anyhow, the original poster is wrong and therefore this discussion is irrelevant.
The drivers Ati provide are nowhere near as good as the ones which NVIDIA provides. And since my next system will have Athlon 64 and the os will be 64bit Linux, I NEED 64bit drivers! NVIDIA has them, does Ati? I have heard some vague rumours that they _might_ make 64bit drivers available "sometime in the summer", but that's it. Untill that happens, I either have to buy a NVIDIA-card, or use some generic drivers that give me a fraction of the performance I should be getting from my 500e vid-card!
But the lack of Linux-drivers is holding me back. Not only does NVIDIA have Linux-drivers, they have 64bit drivers as well! Yes, X800 is better overall than 6800 is. But fact is that one of them works well with Linux, while the other one does not.
Ati: If you want to have my money, you better pull your thumbs out of your ass and write some Linux-drivers!
Or maybe I will buy this card, and hope it works well with the Generic Ati-drivers that ship with Xorg/Xfree...
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And still, that "technology of the 70's" is the fastest thing there is. Sure, you might have some CPU's that are even faster, but they are also alot more expensive. Those CPU's usually get better performance by adding lots and lots of cache to the CPU.
If PowerPC (for example) is SOOOO much better, why doesn't it wipe the floor with x86? Sure, it's competetive, but it does not annihilate x86
As to being register-starved... Again, that doesn't seem to hurt the performance of these chips that much. And if you use Opteron/Athlon64 with an 64bit OS, you get double the number of GP/SSE-registers (instead of 8, you get 16).
As to CISC... Modern x86-CPU's are very much RISCue in the inside. And being RISC does not automatically mean that it's somehow better. You can have kick-ass CISC-CPU's, and you can have crappy RISC-CPU's.
OS X is not Linux, so why use it? Fact is that some of us want to run _LINUX_ on PPC, not OS X.
"Sentiments such as mine"? My sentiment is that we should invest in education instead of better methods of killing each other. When the people are uneducated, it's a really simple matter for the power-at-be to make them do their bidding. they can use their fears and uneductated opinions as tools to reach their goals.
;).
And besides, it was Jack Handy who said "Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, we should be thinking about getting more use out of the ones we already have."
Educated masses are alot harder to control than uneducated masses are. If your audience is just a bunch of morons you can just say "we must kill these people because they are jealous of us and they hate freedom!"
Ever heard of Pentium-M? designed from ground-up for laptops. They have kick-ass performance (alot more than your 500MHz G4 does) and they still get kick-ass battery-time.
Well, K8 can (and does) lower it's voltage and speed if it's under a low load. So if you are just browsing the web, your CPU will be running at 800Mhz with reduced voltage. When you fire up that 3D-game, the CPU revs up to full speed.
right here!
I'm not from the USA, so I don't care one bit what your Constituion says. My point was that there are many things that could be used for either good (police with firearms) or bad (that raving lunatig robbing a 7-11 using a gun), yet they are not illegal. Your Constitution doesn't protect cars either, and they too can be used for good things and bad things. Why are P2P-utilities an exception here? They can be used for either good or bad, yet some powers-at-be get their panties in the bunch because of them.
I'm not some anti-gun activist, and I apologize if my post made it seem like that. Hell, I have lived around guns for as long as I can remember. I was around 6 years old when I shot with a pistol for a first time. And I was raised well when it comes to firearms (thanks to my father who served as a gunsmith in the Army).
Couldn't you say the same thing about guns? Guns are designed to kill. Pistols particularly are made for just that (do you go hunting with your 9mm Beretta?). Sure you could use them for target-practice and such, but that doesn't change the fact that killing is what they are meant to do.
it better be, considering that the F-22 is over twice times as expensive as the Eurofighter is (62 million euros vs. 152 million dollars). And the typhoon can be used in other roles besides airsuperiority. Of course F-22 can be used in other roles as well, but not as well as the Typhoon, which has been designed as multirole-fighter from the start.
So, for less money you get a multirole-fighter that is also the second-best air-superiority-fighter in the world. Not bad at all. Of course you could build the ultimate air-superiority fighter no matter what's the cost. And that's what USA is doing with F-22. Sure it's a kick-ass plane, but at what cost?
F-22 is more capable that Typhoon is (even the EuroFighter-guys acknowledge that), but F-22 is also alot more expensive. Comparing price to the capabilities, you get more bang for the buck with the Typhoon.
Of course GPU's have SOME cache. But they don't have whole lot of it. At least, nowhere near 2.5 megs as P4EE does!
How do you know that?
Well, they could get their hi-end cards in to the likes of Weta Digital. When they created SXF for Lord of The Rings, they used Linux on their desktops. Having such demanding and hi-profile customers can only be a good thing. From the PR-value, to the feedback they can use to improve their products.
While Linux is not often used for gaming and such, it's quite often used for content-creation (in this case, 3D-graphics). Not having working drivers available, Ati has no access to that growing market.
I fail to see how Gnome is "easy to adapt". The whole point of Gnome seems to be "as little configuration-options as possible". If you can't configure it (apart from using that god-awful registry-wannabe), how exactly is is "easy to adapt"? It seems to me that rather than adapting Gnome to fit your style of working, you have to adapt your style of working to fit Gnome.
Well, if they used similar heatsinks/fans on Pentium-M as they do on regural P4, I bet they could increase the clock-speed to about 2.2-2.4GHz right now (and that that speed it would wipe the floor with even fastest P4's). Currently P-M runs at sub 2GHz-speeds because they are all in laptops, where you can't use massive cooling-solutions.
There are ways of making them work. And there will be 64bit games as well. And having decent drivers also help in basic 2D as well.
What about people like me who are still using GF2 GTS?
So I should not get a vid-card at all, is that it? I mean, Ati has no drivers, and NVIDIA has buggy drivers, so I should not choose either one? Fact is that
a) NVIDIA has ALOT better track-record when it comes to Linux-support
b) They have 64bit drivers available RIGHT NOW. And there ARE lots of people using them at this very moment
Are NV's 64bit drivers flawless? Of course not! But looking at their track-record, it doesn't take a rocket-scientist to say that they will improve. And, looking at Ati's track-record, the best thing I could say is that they may or may not write 64bit drivers at some point in the future, and they may or may not actually work halfway-decent. And while I'm saying that, NVIDIA has drivers available RIGHT NOW. And there are people using them AT THIS VERY MOMENT.
If I choose my next vid-card based on the quality of the Linux-support, anyone with a half a brain would choose NVIDIA. No, I'm not some NV-fanboy. I REALLY want to get X800, I think it's considerably better than 6800 is. But I find it really difficult to choose X800 since Ati doesn't really care to support the OS I use!
Even if the drivers are 50% slower (I remember seeing benchmarks on that just few days ago. The 64bit drivers were a bit slower, but not 50% slower IIRC), I don't really care. I could always do the gaming in Windows. But at least I would still have a vid-card that is at least usable in Linux. And I would have a vid-card that has drivers and proven track-record of Linux-support. That's ALOT more I would get with Ati!
Of course there are people having problems with the drivers. Hell, there are people having problems with the drivers in Windows as well, both Ati and NV-drivers! But there are also lots and lots of people using the drivers at this very moment and getting good performance out of them. That, in my book, is infinetly better than sitting around with your expensive vid-card and hoping that sometime in the future you might actually use it.
NVIDIA doesn't seem to have problems getting 64bit drivers out the door. I CAN get a functional 64bit system right now, it's just a matter of choosing the right components. Ati has the better vid-card, but if they don't care to make a set of drivers that would let me use it, I will then buy a vid-card from a company that writes those drivers.
My computer is several years old (840MHz Duron with GF2 GTS). Unlike some people, I don't upgrade all the time. The machine is noisy. It's so slow that it's practically useless when it comes to more modern games. The capacitors on the MoBo show signs of bursting. The HD makes strange noises from time to time. In short: the machine is on it's last legs. I need to get a new system. I have the money saved. I'm still deciding on some last components (like the vid-card).
No, waiting for 6 months is not an option. No, I cannot buy now, and upgrade some components few months later. Why Athlon64? Because it's faster than P4. Why run 64bit OS? Because I can. Because I want to take advantage of those extra registers. Yes, the system would also run W2K for occasional Windows-only game. And that fact is the only reason why I'm even looking at Ati at this moment.
If they would release a decent set of Linux-driver tomorrow, there would be no contest: I would choose Ati. But having to choose between a working product, and a product that does not work, I choose the working product.
What are? 64bit systems?
Do they have 64bit drivers? No? That's what I thought... And from what I have heard, Ati's Linux-drivers are crap.
Take a look at the current products they have available (Radeon9800, Geforce 5900 etc.). One of them has extensive Linux-support, other one does not. One of them has 64bit Linux-drivers available, other one does not.
Are there Linux-drivers for GF6800? Actually I don't know. But that's irrelevant right now, since the product isn't even available yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if the current set of drivers also worked with 6800.
Yes, you could say that my rambling is pointless since X800 isn't available either. But looking at Ati's past driver-developement on Linux (or lack of thereof) I'm not holding my breath while I wait for those drivers.
There are lots of people using those drivers as we speak, and they use them (among other things) to play the latest games. So yes, they seem to be OK at least. And even if they were buggy, that would still be infinitely better than the Ati-drivers for the sole reason that there are no 64bit Ati-drivers!
So I'm buying a new system in the very near future. Either I get GF 6800 and run it with zero problems in my 64bit system, or I get X800 and pray that I will get a set of drivers sometime in the future that would make that 500e hi-end vid-card at least halfway usable.
If they write those drivers, I'm prepared to give them my money. If they don't, that money goes to their competitor. It's as simple as that.
The drivers Ati provide are nowhere near as good as the ones which NVIDIA provides. And since my next system will have Athlon 64 and the os will be 64bit Linux, I NEED 64bit drivers! NVIDIA has them, does Ati? I have heard some vague rumours that they _might_ make 64bit drivers available "sometime in the summer", but that's it. Untill that happens, I either have to buy a NVIDIA-card, or use some generic drivers that give me a fraction of the performance I should be getting from my 500e vid-card!
But the lack of Linux-drivers is holding me back. Not only does NVIDIA have Linux-drivers, they have 64bit drivers as well! Yes, X800 is better overall than 6800 is. But fact is that one of them works well with Linux, while the other one does not.
Ati: If you want to have my money, you better pull your thumbs out of your ass and write some Linux-drivers!
Or maybe I will buy this card, and hope it works well with the Generic Ati-drivers that ship with Xorg/Xfree...