Apple Computer on Tuesday unveiled souped-up Power Macs, in the first major upgrade to the professional system in about a year and half. The low-end model retains the 133Mhz bus, while on the mid- and high-end models it’s cranked up to 167Mhz; the high-end model boasts 2MB of L3 cache. The creaking ATA-66 IDE controller is retained, but all models also have an additional ATA-100 bus. The Apple store lists the 2x867Mhz model (256MB RAM/60GB HD/DVD-CDRW) at $1,699; the 2x1Ghz model 256/80/Superdrive) at $2,499 – and both available for delivery right away. Read the reports at C|Net News.com and TheRegister. You can check the new Macs here or order them.Our Take: The speed bump is not significant to compete with the high end x86 models, however, it is welcome, and the prices seem a bit more reasonable this time. What concerns me is the fact that OSX is not exactly a multi-thread beast (compared to let’s say, BeOS) however Jaguar 10.2 and especially Finder have taken steps towards resolving this.
Problem is, the large majority of the OSX applications are not multithreaded at all, so a dual machine won’t do you much good if you want all this power to run a specific app as fast as it could go. Apple should educate their third party developers on how to write proper multithreaded applications, because this is not something that most developers usually know or do. Especially now that Apple is going full speed for dual configurations in order to compensate for Motorola’s complete lack of interest for G4/G5. Educating developers properly is something that Be never did, and, well… read the rest in that discussion here. Be went the way of the dodo, and it would be a real shame to see Apple get in trouble too. Please Apple, educate your devs about multithreading. I won’t argue about slow/expensive machines this time. Just let your third party developers know what they need to know to make full use of these SMP systems!
Well, Apple seems to be trying to string out the current G4 as long as they can. All Power Macs have dual processors now, faster RAM, but the high end – they only made it up to 1.25 GHz. Of course, they will be able to take advantage of od Quartz Extreme and 10.2 is supposed to be faster and they do have faster RAM, so there should be more responsiveness and speed, but most of these things are bandaids, it seems to me. And the consumer Macs are still stuck at 800 MHz and the iBooks with G3’s. I don’t know what Apple’s going to do, but 1.25 just doesn’t cut the mustard these days.
mmm… new G4s… gimme… Let’s see…
Pesonally, I would go for the “low end”, dual 867 Mhz model with the PC2100 memory, but with an added ATi Radeon 9000 64MB and a superdrive. Adding these two, it all goes from $1700 to $2000, which is not too bad at all, *for an Apple machine*. Of course, I would then add at least 256 MB more memory, but buying it from an external source, as Apple is very expensive on memory.
Naturally, I would have stayed with the GeForce4MX, but unfortunately, they downgraded it to 32 MB (older PowerMacs were shipping with the same GF4MX at 64MB), and we all know that QuartzExtreme needs as much graphics memory as it goes. Whoever buys any of these macs, make sure you get lots of gfx memory.
>Train the developers to use Multi Threading
This was exactly what I missed when I bought a smp system(dual pIII 800mhz). Although Win2k is a SMP OS, single Applications get no speedups. You only notice SMP when using more than 1 apps at the same time.
So its very sad that e.g. GTA3 loads it MP3 Stream in the game thread (I think so at least) and not in a second one, so that you notice every few seconds a short pause, where the MP3 gets decompressed.
Even on a uni-processor-system it would be better to do so, as my GFX card does very much of the whole rendering in the game, so why wasting that much time waiting for I/O access.
-A
” I don’t know what Apple’s going to do, but 1.25 just doesn’t cut the mustard these days.”
–> http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html
“How, you might ask, can even the entry-level Power Mac G4 outperform a PC with a Pentium 4 processor running at more than twice the megahertz? It’s further proof that megahertz alone is a poor indicator of real-world system performance, particularly when comparing different overall system architectures. You do the math.”
I think its Apple’s faught for sticking with Motorola. Heck if Motorola looses its ppc contract with Apple. I don’t think its to much sweet off there back. Moto has lost so much money, whats a little more. If Apple doesn’t switch, I think they should us IBM’s new ppc processor coming out. It will probably break the 2 gighz before Motorola.
The decision to use dual processors in everything makes me wonder. It suggests that motorola has very little down the pipeline in ways of faster processors. I hope that that is not true.
I also wonder if maybe motorola has now maxed out on speed and their relationship with apple. Maybe this is it for the apple/mot relationship. Perhaps the next round of processors will come from a different vendor (maybe IBM) and Apple is slowing phasing out motorola completely. I can’t really blame apple though if they lose motorola. Mot continues to show little interest in the desktop space while IBM is showing a lot of interest.
While i really believe that usability, stability, and experience are more important these days than raw speed, i’ll admit that from a marketing perspective it would look a lot better if all of apple’s computer had a 1GHz or better processor.
Simple man they’ve had benchmark studies in the past of a 1ghz g4 and pentium 3/4 chips. Sadness followed for the PPC pundits sa they trailed far behind. The argument that mhz dont matter does have evidence to prove that its true, given, but the amount of work being done per clock cycle on current PPC chips just isn’t there.
Wow…That is smokin’ a whole 167 MHz bus…yaaaahhhhoooo…..we’ve struck gold..
Seriuosly, What is the point of running PC2100 DDR on a 133 or 167 bus???? They are retaining the ATA 66 ??? WHY. I haven’t used a MAC since 95′ but I would like too….As soon as they put some real guts in the machine anyway….I have played with OS X and it seems like a lot of fun, but damnitt, give me some freakin’ power to brag about…
> The decision to use dual processors in everything makes me wonder. It suggests that motorola has very little down the pipeline in ways of faster processors.
Personally, I believe that G4 can make it up to 1.5 Ghz. But I just don’t believe it can go higher than that without losing stability. And also, I don’t believe that Motorola does anything new for Apple anymore. If you read our past articles, G5 was supposed to run between 1.2 and 1.6 Ghz. Motorola could not make it faster – in the labs! So I think that Motorola is just the past for Apple. I don’t know if Apple deside to go for POWER or x86, but one thing is for certain: There is no motorola on the horizon anymore.
They will do duals and maybe quadro machines, just to try to keep up the pace, but that’s that. At some point they will HAVE to switch.
You wonder what’s the point of running PC2100 = 266DDR on a 133MHz bus or PC2700 = 333DDR on a 167MHz bus??
Hit: Do a litte math and you get the point!
2. Hint: DDR = Double Data Rate
Ralf.
“How, you might ask, can even the entry-level Power Mac G4 outperform a PC with a Pentium 4 processor running at more than twice the megahertz? It’s further proof that megahertz alone is a poor indicator of real-world system performance, particularly when comparing different overall system architectures. You do the math.”
Flame suit on. That’s a flat out lie. Between my 700 MHz iMac G4 and my 700 MHz P3, the iMac is only faster in RC5. How is that useful to me? Photoshop? My P3 is more responsive, therefore I get work done faster, the compensates even if the iMac can execute filters faster. If frustration level goes up, productivity goes down.
It doesn’t take a P4 at twice the clock speed to overtake a G4. Athlon can rock both CPUs. Apple’s trying to get the message out that MHz doesn’t matter. I agree. Ease of use means less time wasted getting something to work. But a slow and unresponsive UI will kill your “perceived performance” and that’s where OSX is weak in. Quartz Extreme is suppose to fix that problem right? I sure hope so. But as Eugenia pointed out, QE is not really backwards compatible and may slow down older apps that are not aware of QE. My biggest concern right now is how 3D apps like Lightwave and Cinema 4D will hold out considering they depend on OpenGL, I wouldn’t want QE hogging all the OpenGL rendering power of my video card.
The Dell 8200 SINGLE CPU p4 w/533 bus is NOT slower by 90% than the dual 1.25 MAC. Those benchmarks are from Photoshop filters that were customized for MACs….Let’s see how fast a MAC can run Gig + database querey’s and play mp3’s and write this opinion, my dual xeon 1.4 does it damn fast…I would aslo love to see a MAC WORKSTATION(aka PowerMAC w/dual proc) run against a dual P4 Xeon at 2.2 or 2.3 Gig PC WORKSATION. Apple ran a joe user desktop PC against a MAC WORKSTATION(again aka PowerMAC), what a pitty…
[i]Hit: Do a litte math and you get the point![i]
…if the bus runs at double data rate. Apple’s doesn’t.
Well, you could atleast be fair. How many people run a P4 Xeon at 2.3Ghz as a workstation? Let alone a DUAL. The Xeon is generally in the server arena, an Apple box generally isnt.
Just a little side note here about motorola. The general consensus is that motorola is screwing up. Motorola tends to use proactive management, as opposed to reactive. It is why they jumped ship from many consumer electronics applications a long time (like 30 years) ago even when they were profitable.
I don’t think motorola is screwing up. They have probably concluded that keeping up with Intel’s speed game won’t make economic sense to them, or anyone else, unless apple gains a lot more market share, thus little additional investment in the speed of power Pcs.
Moreover, motorola has a lucrative and profitable business selling chips for embedded applications. The volumes are high and no one complains about keeping up with intel.
Part of this is really apple’s fault. If they want to keep the interest of semiconductor vendors for long then they really need to accumulate A LOT more market share then 3%.
At the end of the day, apples problem is low market share and i don’t see that problem ending unless apple significantly reduces the price of their mini-towers,which is what most people seem to want. The only other alternative to drive PPC volumes on the desktop is sharing with another OS, perhaps an IBM linux box.
going dual means that apple could not get better CPUs.
This is not rockect science ..ok?
2 CPUs better then 1? it depends, for sure it is mandatory if you wonna get more power then the one you get from 1 CPU but if apple could go single 1.6 Ghz no dual probably for all models.
Two CPUs not equal to double the performance.
Apple is running a big fat OS, I love it but it is FAT.
For sure dual motherboards are MORE expensive then single .. ok? so this is not so a good economical move .. unles you are force to do it ..
So apple has no rabbits left in the hat.
I don’t care for USB2 .. if you use Apple you know Firewire is better and actual Firewire is fine .. isn’t it ? firewreB will be better but we are not really in need.
X86 after this? all the tuning done for altivec lost?
I hope they go with os 10.3 with better kernel with NGsnmp (ot how it is written) and do really serious tuning.
QE .. nice idea .. really .. they sold apples with small video memory up to now .. they know how to piss off the customers .. don’t you think so ?
I think that most of the ppl waiting for these “next generation” PowerMacs will keep on waiting to buy the next next generation on January or February.
This for sure will make the unit more expensive for apple .. but not sales speed up .. if they wanted to do it they had to find a way to put better CPUS and real DDR performance …
In the PC there is dual DDR channel now ! (NVidia Nforce)
It is wasted most of it .. but Apple I hope will do a very big technology step putting toghether all this kewl technology on the market with a new powermacs .. hopefully 500% faster (considering their marketing).
BTW .. why in europe (not UK please. that’s not EU) Apple boxes are so DAMN expensive? (check italy store).
sorry for my crappy english.
Bye bye
Some how benchmarks that are on the website of the company that sells the product that the benchmarks show as being a clear winner always seems a little more PR than anything else. Of course if we compare a 4k PC against a 4k powermac in some more photoshop benchmarks i have a feeling that the PC with lots more memory and much faster SCSI based hard drives is going to destroy the powermac
The C|Net article compares the lowend iMacs to Sony and HP products. Isn’t it interesting that the iMacs have about 800MHz whereas the Sony and HP have 2.4 to 2.53GHz? Are they saying that an 800MHz PPC is about as fast as those PCs with more than 3x the clock speed?
Also, Microsoft’s move to the NT architecture was a lot smarter than Apple’s. From Windows 95 on both lines had almost an identical GUI. So switching from Windows 95 to NT or 2000 was a lot easier. Of course, Windows XP, the real replacement for the old line, has a different GUI, but you still can switch to the old one and the differences are not that big. Apple on the other hand not only switched the inner workings of the OS but also the GUI. And the difference is quite striking. Maybe that is one reason why a lot of Mac OS <9 users are hesitating to switch to Mac OS X. Another mistake Apple did was putting all that unnecessary eye candy into Mac OS X that eats so much power, like the Genie effect, bouncing icons, high-resolution icons, transparency, etc. They probably wanted to wow overyone and thought the masses would switch over in no time. I guess it didn’t work out that way. Maybe it would have been better for them to first switch the OS and then the GUI, or just upgrade the GUI a little, give it a bit more modern look.
The article also mentions that PCs run everything on one bus whereas the Macs run everything on separate busses. Is that 100% true? Are there real performance penalties for PCs by using a single (but much higher speed) bus?
I really do not understand why for the dual 1 Ghz and up you have to wait 6-8 weeks … the motherboard is the same for all the product line and the 1 Ghz CPU was avaible before ..
BUT
it could be that this is a new CPU .. unfortunatly why the apple website has so stupid technical informations and ntohing detailed? which processors is it ?
For the apple Italy store the baseline DP 867 runs for EURO 2.278,80 and in US it runs for USD 1,699.00.
From a recent interview Italy is one of the best selling countries for Apple … time to get a price like US .. no? for all EU countries maybe.
Another note: why apple put 2 MB L3 cache on the 1.25 Ghx model only ? it is easy .. this CPU is not so good .. they need to make the 1.25 somewhat faster then the 1 Ghz to ask you so much more money.
This is a trick
I hoped for 2 MB minimum and 3 MB at high ends units.
I often hear how slow they are: 1.25Ghz. But 2 x 1.25 Ghz is 2.5Ghz, too – like the new P4 (and mor than AMD – if you only want to look at the mhz-speed)
And to the ones wi say that a dual system only helps if you run 2 apps: Completely wrong! Almoste every modern application uses seceral threads – even the OS itself is not only running on one processor but divided over both.
Be Incoperated realized this some 10 years ago! – Take a look at the BeOS Demo video. It explains this quite good.
Personally, I believe that G4 can make it up to 1.5 Ghz. But I just don’t believe it can go higher than that without losing stability. And also, I don’t believe that Motorola does anything new for Apple anymore.
If you read our past articles, G5 was supposed to run between 1.2 and 1.6 Ghz. Motorola could not make it faster – in the labs!
If thats the rumor from the Register that was as far as I can tell actually just a G4 revision -the G5 ran at 2.5GHz
That revision of the G4 should have turned up in these machines but hasn’t.
If it did the G4 bus would be running at 333MHz (not ust the memory) and the performance of the G4 would rocket up to PC levels – The G4 is starved for data, try running a P4 on SDRAM and see how badly it performs, it’s exactly the same problem.
It appears Mot are having problems with the new G4 revision and consequently it hasn’t shipped yet and Apple had to update with something, a 25% boost in bus / clock speed is better than nothing. Changes to OS / Compiler should speed things up a bit as well so there should be a positive impact on benchmark performance.
Once these revised G4s appear I suspect Apples speed problems will pretty much be gone, quite when this will be remains to be seen.
These aren’t the machines if you only want speed – but I for one don’t think computing is only about speed these days.
I agree ..
Would you buy a PM now if such a big technology step is behind the corner?
>Personally, I believe that G4 can make it up to 1.5 Ghz. But I just don’t believe it can go higher than that without losing stability. And also, I don’t believe that Motorola does anything new for Apple anymore.
Sounds about right, on all counts.
But the completely dual powermac line sets up an interesting possibility for the next generation- ibm dual core powerpc anyone?
“BTW .. why in europe (not UK please. that’s not EU) Apple boxes are so DAMN expensive? (check italy store).
UK not EU? Why the hell has the UK been paying into the EU all these years, if it was “not” a member?
Those boxes are DAMN expensive in Italy, because Apple’s market share in Italy is negligable. You do not profit from economies of scale. Furthermore, all Apple hardware is imported – add to the already high price import taxes and Italy’s high VAT rate. Voila.
And to the ones wi say that a dual system only helps if you run 2 apps: Completely wrong! Almoste every modern application uses seceral threads – even the OS itself is not only running on one processor but divided over both.
Yes practically every application compiled today is multi-threaded. Any MFC or Cocoa app is most certainly multi threaded. To what advantage is this multithreading on a DP box however? If the tasks that are CPU intensive are not parallelized, you will get no performance increase intra-app by having multiple processors. If I look at my PC right now, I see that I have 9 threads for mozilla. Does that mean I will see signficant changes in responsiveness with up to 8 processors. In fact most of the time, 8 of the 9 threads are idle. The same is true for most multithreaded applications. The performance increase people are looking for by going with multiple processors will not be realized.
As an example, Photoshop makes great use of multiple processors. However, if someone is rendering a very complicated page in InDesign or Illustrator, will both processors be working on the task? I would guess they probably don’t.
Furthermore, it is laughable to ask, “why don’t developers write their code for multiple processor machines?” Multi-threading is a difficult thing to do correctly, and distributing a computation between threads is even harder. It is not as easy as running the source code through some kind of parser and having multi-threaded, multi-processing code come out the back end. Compared to single-threaded algorithms and single-threaded code (in the section that is actually written by the programmer), multi-threading and multi-processing is darn hard to do correctly.
Even in UK they are expensive…
I remember in 1990, there was only a single Mac in the city I was studying (Preveza, Greece). A small city of more than 20,000 people if I recall correctly. It belonged to the guy who did some printing/DTP stuff. I remember lots of people being jealous of that Mac, because it was so prestigeous and expensive at the time. The rest of us, only had an ATARI 2600, and some more lucky people an Amstrad, Amiga or AtariST. But Macs?? Expensiiiveee….
“You wonder what’s the point of running PC2100 = 266DDR on a 133MHz bus or PC2700 = 333DDR on a 167MHz bus??
Hit: Do a litte math and you get the point!
2. Hint: DDR = Double Data Rate”
…if the bus runs at double data rate. Apple’s doesn’t.
Heh, I think what he was getting at was you have two processors with 166MHz busses sharing memory which operates at 2 * 166MHz.
to Assimil8or:
>And to the ones wi say that a dual system only helps if >you run 2 apps: Completely wrong! Almoste every modern >application uses seceral threads – even the OS itself is >not only running on one processor but divided over both.
Of course modern OS consists of the one or another thread mostly doing i/o & memory management and so on (and are most the time waiting), but this is not the point, as this causes not that much performance these days!
The Os scales more apps over both CPU’s thats true too, thats clear.
Every OS should do that 🙂
I talked about the perfermance of one app, in this case GTA3,where a second thread could boost that game or avaid at least some unwanted pauses!
Tell me why my two CPU’s are always so lazy!
The only OS, where both CPU’s get 100% busied at a same time is BeOS.
In Windoze it is very rarely that both CPU’s get busied up to 50%!
-A
PS:Windoze programming does not look very multithreaded to me, although you have the possibility, if you want!
Heh, I think what he was getting at was you have two processors with 166MHz busses sharing memory which operates at 2 * 166MHz.
Since he never mentioned it, I don’t think that’s what he was getting at. I think he was simply saying, “well, 166 is half of 333, and it’s double data rate,” which isn’t the case. Regardless, interpretations of his comment aren’t that important, so I’ll drop it.
That said, pertaining to what you mention, the DDR will help in the dual-processor case that you mention. But a single processor can only utilize half of the memory bandwidth. In the vast, vast majority of cases, one processor is going to be doing more work than the other, so Apple’s current DDR scheme is obviously less than optimal. Yeah, it’s because Motorolla can’t supply better chips, but when my DSL goes out, I blame SBC, not the manufacturer of the faulty router they were using.
The UK has not adopted the Euro. That’s the point.
IbJr got the point I was comparing USD prices with EU prices.
(if the guys in UK noticed we switched in europe to the EURO currency that those the point)
And please UK guys tell me why on the your Island MAc are cheaper then in Italy, France or whatever.
Please note that sales in Italy for apple are quite good, better then other countries in EU.
OH . are PM imported in UK or produced directly in UK ?
Damn I thought macs in the UK were over priced and would have thought that they were cheaper in the rest of the EU ! May be I’m wrong. But your question on manufacturing and assembly for the EU is all done in the republic of Ireland. Apple used to have a large assembly plant at least there and all UK macs came from there.
; o )>
HarjTT
Heh, I think what he was getting at was you have two processors with 166MHz busses sharing memory which operates at 2 * 166MHz.
Sorry, but no. That’s the way it works on a dual Athlon (and thus the expensive motherboards), but not on a dual G4. Both the G4 CPUs share the bus, so you can never, ever, get more than 1.3 GB/s between the memory and the two CPUs together. If both of them are memory starved you’ll only get 650MB/s.
I wanted to configure a PC with dual-processors (www.alienware.com) and the bottom line is that it cost too much for PCs. And amazingly now the G4 Macs are all dual-processors. This is a good move for Apple. ALL computers should have access to a second CPU.
Now that I am more and more accustomed to Mac OS X well… This one is next in line. I still can’t believe that I can’t get a good PC dually and get a Mac one cheaper!!! There is something wrong here captain!
I often hear how slow they are: 1.25Ghz. But 2 x 1.25 Ghz is 2.5Ghz, too – like the new P4 (and mor than AMD – if you only want to look at the mhz-speed)
The only problem is you can get a dual 2.4 GHz Xeon for less than the $5000 the top-of-the-line PowerMac costs, and 2*2.4=4.8 GHz.
As for the AMD option, you can get a 2*1.8GHz Athlon box well below $2000.
I wanted to configure a PC with dual-processors (www.alienware.com) and the bottom line is that it cost too much for PCs.
Huh? I don’t think there is much question that a dual 2.4 GHz Xeon with RAMBUS memory will be much faster than a dual G4 for almost everything except certain Apple-designed benchmarks.
The system on their website sells for $5500, but that includes a Geforce4 Ti card, an Adaptec dual-channel Ultra 160 SCSI controller, and 2*36GB 15000 rpm SCSI disks with 3.6 ms access time, and one year of 24/7 support. Start adding those options to the G4 and you will end up a LOT higher than $5500.
If you are comparing the price to the low-end dual Mac you will get better performance from a single P4 at 2.53 GHz on all benchmarks except those designed by Apple for their marketing. (And there are of plenty of dual AMD boxes under $2000)
ALL computers should have access to a second CPU.
No, not all computers. Not all operating systems can use dual cpus. Making my Windows98 box a dual cpu box would be a waste of money becuase win98 doesnt support SMP.
And for most computers running windows it’s not worth it. Your avrage Joe user wont notice much of a diffnce in perofrmance, but he will notice the leap in price.
I still can’t believe that I can’t get a good PC dually and get a Mac one cheaper!!! There is something wrong here captain!
You dont understand. Macs have to be dual cpu set ups to compete with a high end single cpu x86 system. A single 1 ghz G4 was lagging behind the P4s so they had to make a dual cpu version.
The dual 1.25 GHz PMs might sound cool, but a single 2.5 GHz (or even 2) PM would give you alot more performace (assuming there was such a thing as a 2.5 GHz G4)
Well, I’m a Mac person basically – long time Mac user. Something has to give somewhere along the line here. I can’t believe that Jobs came back to Apple, brought it back from the brink with cool consumer iMacs, etc., creates all these iApps for the Digital Hub concept, brings out a brand new OS…and is going to sit idly by trying to limp along with the G4, slow bus, etc. And PC sales are in the dumper to boot. He has to do something. It’s like he’s created this beautiful car and the engine is actually hamsters on a treadmill <g>.
I just saw that the Mac OS X forums have been shut down for 24 hours in protest of all the negative comments about Apple.
Check out for yourself: http://www.macosx.com
It’s like he’s created this beautiful car and the engine is actually hamsters on a treadmill
Thank you. I’ve been looking for a nice way of saying it. This will do.
Making the entire “Pro” line of PowerMacs dual CPUs, in my eyes, is pure marketing. Customers will go ape shit over the fact that they can buy Macs with 2 processors!!!! Just look at the way people are reacting in this thread. This is without taking into consideration what performance you actually get out of these boxes, this is simple Joe User seeing a dual processor Mac for a similar price as a 2+ GHz Pentium 4 system.
This reminds me of a poem I read when I was a kid, don’t remember the exact words, but it’s about a kid whose dad gave him a dolloar ($1). He trades that dollar for 2 quarters – 50 cents and I quote “Because 2 is better than 1.” He goes on to trade the 2 quarters for 3 dimes, then those for 4 nickels, and finally the 4 nickels for 5 pennies. And he goes home to show his dad what he had done.
Apple says MHz don’t matter, to that I say “It’s not how many CPU’s you put into a system, it’s how much work each one does”.
No, not all computers. Not all operating systems can use dual cpus. Making my Windows98 box a dual cpu box would be a waste of money becuase win98 doesnt support SMP.
Yes I know about the Windows 9X o.s. They suck at best and have not been using them for a while. These are really DOS shells.
And for most computers running windows it’s not worth it. Your avrage Joe user wont notice much of a diffnce in perofrmance, but he will notice the leap in price.
I am not the average user. I am a developper that is tired of crappy-cut-any-corners-computers.
You dont understand. Macs have to be dual cpu set ups to compete with a high end single cpu x86 system. A single 1 ghz G4 was lagging behind the P4s so they had to make a dual cpu version.
No offense but WHO CARES. I still want one. I REALLY WANT ONE. I have played with dually PCs and let me tell you something it’s great to play with (except for the ones with MS o.s. on it). BeOS rocks on dually PCs and guess what? OS/2 too. It’s like the hourglass disappears
The dual 1.25 GHz PMs might sound cool, but a single 2.5 GHz (or even 2) PM would give you alot more performace (assuming there was such a thing as a 2.5 GHz G4)
Yes and one P4 can shoke really badly while the dually would still be running. And also the Macs have the neat toys PCs are always late to the party. After playing with iTunes and other Macs programs you begging to look at the windows programs and realize how mediocre they are. Things on the Macs are just better.
Very well said TLy.
Personally, I see the SMP move as a temporary solution. It is here to blind people from the fact that Mac cpus are behind the times speed-wise compared to x86 today. Putting 2 or 4 cpus together DOES NOT guarantee that you get twice of four times the speed. It all depends on the OS and the applications.
OSX is pretty good on SMP, but let’s face it, both the mach and freebsd kernels have scaling issues, and this is why FreeBSD 5 is doing such an extensive rewritting of their kernel, to enable SMPng. OSX might be pretty good on SMP, but no matter how you put it, it is not as good as Solaris or HP-UX, who are the Gods in SMP scaling.
As for the applications, the fact that the Cocoa API might spawn threads automatically, helps, but not nearly as much as it would if the apps were written SPECIFICALLY with multithreading in mind! *Proper* multithreading coding is a whole art of its own, and it can not be mastered by simple programmers with no experience in the field. It is really advanced programming. Even the Qt API is not 100% thread safe today, and they advise against using it, because programmers screw up with it easily creating deadlocks etc.
And today, only a very handful of apps for OSX (or even Windows or unix) are written very specifically with real multithreading in mind. And even on BeOS, only a handful of apps were written with proper multithreading. But in the case of BeOS, the API was forcing the programmer to use multithreading. And then, they were creating frankstein code. Check out the Scooby email client for example…
>No offense but WHO CARES
Everyone who values his money.
>Yes and one P4 can shoke really badly while the dually would still be running.
How old are you Mr “programmer” Ronald?
But the P4 would probably be done or on its 2nd task by that time. LOL I love my Mac but it is NOT the faster system no more. Lets be real here. 😉
Please note that sales in Italy for apple are quite good, better then other countries in EU.
Well, italy? Arr, your labor laws are a mess, and you have Berlusconi as PM.
Ronald:
Yes I know about the Windows 9X o.s. They suck at best and have not been using them for a while. These are really DOS shells.
That’s not the point. A LOT of people are still using 9x/ME and to say all computers (which includes computers with 9x/ME) should have a dual cpu system is stupid.
I am not the average user. I am a developper that is tired of crappy-cut-any-corners-computers.
That also is not the point. You said ALL computer. Not developers computers.
No offense but WHO CARES.
See Eugenia’s comment.
I still want one. I REALLY WANT ONE. I have played with dually PCs and let me tell you something it’s great to play with (except for the ones with MS o.s. on it). BeOS rocks on dually PCs and guess what? OS/2 too. It’s like the hourglass disappears
Yeah, they rock, but why have a SMP system if your os can not take advantage of it (or gains a neglible perfromance boost.)? Actually, BeOS does not have an hour-glass or something equvilant. If it does I haven’t seen it.
Yes and one P4 can shoke really badly while the dually would still be running.
What?
Yes and one P4 can shoke really badly while the dually would still be running. And also the Macs have the neat toys PCs are always late to the party. After playing with iTunes and other Macs programs you begging to look at the windows programs and realize how mediocre they are. Things on the Macs are just better.
Uh… right… and this has what to do with my comment? I never said that macs sucks (I like them, except there speed needs to be increased) or the apps suck (I love some mac only apps). I was talking about performance, not general quality of the product.
Eugenia:
How old are you Mr “programmer” Ronald?
Good question! I’d guess about 11 or 12.
If I valued my money like I should do then my system would probably be all SCSI and probably still would be running P2s. I am a computer junkie. Nuff said.
I was at the client the other day and this guy was all proud running around the office with is laptop wirelessly surfing the web. And all of a sudden it dawned on me. Wintel user are really behind the times. Mac users have been doing this WAY before PCs users ever saw this cool stuff. USB Keyboard and mouse, LCD monitors, Firewire, Airport and REAL multitasking. In the next Mac version: rendez-vous. I guess I don’t see things the same way you people do. There is only one advantage left with PCs: faster processors. That’s about it. BTW I’m a switcher
How old are you Mr “programmer” Ronald?
Above 30 why?
There is only one advantage left with PCs: faster processors. That’s about it. BTW I’m a switcher
What about price and hardware options? You can get good high quality hardware with x86, all for less than you are paying for your Apple.
LCD monitors (as we know them today) we’re available for PCs long before they were available for Macs. USB Keyboards too. Airport and Firewire is all you can really claim, but 80211 is faster and cheaper with PCs.
I guess I don’t see things the same way you people do.
Yes you are blinded by the Jobs personality cult. (This isn’t a bad thing, my girlfriend is too, but her devotion to Macs do scare me)
ibJr
What about price and hardware options? You can get good high quality hardware with x86, all for less than you are paying for your Apple.
I agree with you on this one. But remember that most computer companies are not innovating at all. But then when is the last time Dell put out some great product to complement their PCs? Does Dell have an o.s. to support? Does Dell have to keep getting screwed by their own processor supplier?
LCD monitors (as we know them today) we’re available for PCs long before they were available for Macs. USB Keyboards too. Airport and Firewire is all you can really claim, but 80211 is faster and cheaper with PCs.
Hmm… Your wrong. Macs started the trend with USB keyboard and mouse. If it weren’t for Apple the LCDs market wouldn’t have move a bit. Apple leads then the rest follows.
Yes you are blinded by the Jobs personality cult. (This isn’t a bad thing, my girlfriend is too, but her devotion to Macs do scare me)
Yes I kinda like Jobs. Apple is the only company innovating nowadays. But then you’re still locked in the i80286 days. There is more to it than processor speed.
>Yes I kinda like Jobs.
He is cute, isn’t he, my little kittie? And he’s got a heart made from gold.
>Apple is the only company innovating nowadays.
Oh, yes, sure.
I can’t believe this guy who shut down the OS X f orum in protest due to people beefing about Apple. ROFL, I’m glad Eugenia doesn’t do that every time someone disagrees with her <g>. Seriously, I want Apple to do well, but to put a corporation above its customers…that’s ridiculous.
I want Macs and OS X to run fast, really fast. But, they have to do something to achieve that. LOL, my Microtel PC from Walmart has an Athalon 1.5 GHz processor! And it runs XP Pro like lightning! Yes, from Walmart!!
Does Dell have to keep getting screwed by their own processor supplier?
YES!!! Have you ever seen a Dell system with an AMD processor? How about VIA C3 or Crusoe? NO!!!
This is me imitating Intel:
“You must build systems only with our Pentium processors. If you use AMD processors, we will stop selling you Pentium processors.”
Believe it or not, Intel does bully their customers, although not in such as silly way as I have presented here, but it does exist. Microsoft does the same thing. “Dell, you can not sell systems with no OS pre-installed.”
Ronald,
What’s more important than being the first one acroos the finish line? Being able to stay on your feet for the aftermath. Just because Apple is the “leader”, the “innovator”, first one to come out with all those cool gadgets, it isn’t worth squat if they aren’t sticking around long enough to benefit from it. I owe it to the PC industry to flood the market with hundreds of cliches and “me-too” products. When supply is higher than demand, the price goes down, and that my friend means I DON’T WASTE MONEY ON CRAP. Because it really is just crap, and Apple products are just pretty looking crap that still costs more.
I fail to see how Apple can survive in this “me-too” industry where everyone is copying everyone else. I acknowledge that there is a lack of innovation these days. Coming up with new ideas is always good, but there’s also the option of improving on old ideas. Apple hasn’t gotten a solid footing on any of their innovative ideas before they run of on another tangent.
I will admit I am surprised by Apple’s ability to move forward so quickly. But I see it as dangerous practice. Dell has been selling computers to consumers, businesses, and education facilities for years and that’s all they do. They build and ship systems and they provide tech support. If that’s their only focus, you bet they’ll do a very good job at it and it shows, Dell has held the title of #1 PC distributor numerous times.
Apple looks like it’s trying to be like Microsoft. MS is doing everything now a days. From OS, to Office, to web services, hardware, platforms (TabletPC), the list goes on. Apple doesn’t have the resources to do all this, yet they keep spreading their business broader and broader.
Different people will measure the growth of a company in different ways. You see all the new and innovative things that Apple is pushing out the door and you translate that as the company’s prosperity. I don’t have that same vision. There are still more people using Windows out there, and more importantly, there are more businesses using Windows. I gave OSX an honest to God chance, and I really wanted to Switch. But in the end it just does not meet my needs, nor does it meet the needs of my coworkers whom I have to support, or my customers whom I build or recommend computer systems for. All the new ideas Apple is bringing to the table means nothing to me if I can’t utilize them in an advantageous way.
On the flip side, Windows has been improving, and it truely is getting better. Microsoft is making my work and my life easier and that’s how I measure the growth and improvement of a company. By how well they can serve me.
>Yes I kinda like Jobs.
He is cute, isn’t he, my little kittie? And he’s got a heart made from gold.
Get a life. I respect the man. He is a great company CEO.
>Apple is the only company innovating nowadays.
Oh, yes, sure.
What kind of response is “Oh, yes, sure”? I haven’t seen much innovations from anyone else.
What kind of response is “Oh, yes, sure”?
It’s a sarcastic kind of response.
Apple Pro Keyboard was introduced with the iMac (Summer 2000),
Have you ever heard of the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro? Now think about Logitech’s, apple was not the first.
If it weren’t for Apple the LCDs market wouldn’t have move a bit.
Unsuported
*Proper* multithreading coding is a whole art of its own, and it can not be mastered by simple programmers with no experience in the field.
Proper multithreading coding is not something a beginner will master right away, but once you have the basics down it’s no harder than most things programmers have to do. It’s not rocket science.
It is really advanced programming. Even the Qt API is not 100% thread safe today, and they advise against
using it, because programmers screw up with it easily creating deadlocks etc.
They most certainly do not “advise against using it”, in fact they provide explicit support for multithreading, even going so far as to include their own multithreading API (QThread, QMutex, etc). I’ve been using Qt with threading daily for a year now, and it works great.
If a programmer is experiencing deadlocks, it’s generally a reflection of a poor design. A proper design will avoid the possibility of deadlocks, either by never holding more than one lock at a time (message-passing designs do it that way), or by specifying a well-defined locking order and sticking with it.
And today, only a very handful of apps for OSX (or even Windows or unix) are written very specifically with real multithreading in mind.
True; of course most apps are completely GUI-bound anyway (spending 99.9999% of their lives waiting for the user to move the mouse), so it makes no difference how they are written. The apps that really *need* multithreading are generally also the apps that are complex enough that their programmers should have no problem writing multithreaded code anyway.
And then, they were creating frankstein code. Check out the Scooby email client for example…
There’s plenty of single-threaded frankenstein code out there too…
LOL, I hate to get detailed, but the original iMac were the first Macs with USB. They came out in August of ’98, four years ago exactly. The flimsy keyboard and infamous hockey puck mouse were USB. I have no idea if Apple was first or second or thind in the USB standings <g>.
Because it really is just crap, and Apple products are just pretty looking crap that still costs more.
It’s the most trouble-free crap I ever used.
I gave OSX an honest to God chance, and I really wanted to Switch.
No you didn’t. Did you move all your PC stuff onto the Mac computer? Did you try to use it more than 1 month? You know it takes time to move to the Mac platform. At first I found it really annoying that when I close the main application windows it didn’t close the app properly. But now after a year, I finally realized that it’s actually a time saver. Also when I tried XP for the first time I thought my God what is this crappy interface. Then after a while I began to get accustomed to the new interface and now I feel right at home.
>Apple Pro Keyboard was introduced with the iMac (Summer
>2000),
>Have you ever heard of the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro?
>Now think about Logitech’s, apple was not the first.
The Apple Pro keyboard was the 2cnd model to use USB. The first came with the original iMac in 1998. It would have been hard to use Macs in that 2 year span seeing as they used USB *exlusively* for their keyboard and mice peripherals. At the time, they were the only PC maker that shipped USB mice and keyboards with their computers.
>Also when I tried XP for the first time I thought my God what is this
>crappy interface. Then after a while I began to get accustomed to
>the new interface and now I feel right at home.
That’s because it is a crappy interface. I guess by “getting accustomed to the interface” you mean “changing it to look and function like the old version of Windows.”
These aren’t really bad machines, but nothing to really write home about, either. I get the feeling these dual processor machines are just an interim solution. They’re probably just treading water until IBM starts cranking out their new Power4 derivative desktop processor in volume.
Over the long haul, this kind of discipline may be good for Apple. Having to learn how to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of a lackluster processor may give them a very distinct advantage in system performance when they finally get their hands on competitively performing processor. I’m sure they went through a few contortions and learned a few tricks figuring out how to get these boxes to perform somewhere in the ballpark of current Wintel machines. And from the reviews I’ve read, it looks like they’ve done quite a bit of work optimizing Jaguar for speed as well. It should really cook on one of those new IBM chips.
There s SMP ist on lists.apple.com.
Some apps widey used by Mac Pros (ie the Adobe line) are SMP enabled hence Going MP is a smart Move if if Apple stays SMP.
Mhz is no myth, but one day the Mhz limit will be reached: remember Microwave oven do run at 5 G Hz or something so There’s a speed limit. When this limit will be reached in the IA32/IA64 world they’ll need to go from single to multi. If Apple stays multi until then , then it’s OS and Application will be a lot more tuned for MP then in the Intel world.
Btw this is the first time all PM are SMP, when I got my Dual 450 the first model was single. So I just hope the Next revision of the PM line will stay “all” smp this will force developers for the pro merket to dive into the smp world.
.. so now they are even 20 % faster than dog slow… what a striking difference…
It won’t really matter – the CPU still runs 100 MHz internally…
How, you might ask, can even the entry-level Power Mac G4 outperform a PC with a Pentium 4 processor running at more than twice the megahertz?
Did it come with any form of benchmarks? No documentation of the benchmark? None? What? Plus, Apple use a PC that cost from $989 (see the difference with the lowest end PowerMac?) http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/products/model_dimen_1_dimen_8200.htm
It doesn’t take a P4 at twice the clock speed to overtake a G4. Athlon can rock both CPUs.
Actually…. sadly…. P4 rocked Athlon…. for now.
Well, you could atleast be fair. How many people run a P4 Xeon at 2.3Ghz as a workstation? Let alone a DUAL. The Xeon is generally in the server arena, an Apple box generally isnt.
The amount of users coul in fact be more than PowerMac’s users. Xeon has two versions, one for low end servers, the other for high end workstations. HP, Dell etc. normally advertise Xeons for high end stuff.
I don’t care for USB2 .. if you use Apple you know Firewire is better and actual Firewire is fine .. isn’t it ? firewreB will be better but we are not really in need.
Most people don’t really care a hoot about the very unnoticible difference in performance between IEEE1390 and USB2.0. But USB2.0 is being picked up by a lot of manufacturers as a replacement for USB1.1 because it is backwards compatible, plus cheaper to implement.
As for IEEE1390b, don’t expect it out anytime soon, the current cost to implement them is too high.
X86 after this? all the tuning done for altivec lost?
But they can start tunning for SSE2 and HyperThreading, no?
BTW .. why in europe (not UK please. that’s not EU) Apple boxes are so DAMN expensive? (check italy store).
Politcally, UK is part of the EU. The only thing is that UK doesn’t use the Euro, plus have conflicting policies with the EU.
I hoped for 2 MB minimum and 3 MB at high ends units.
No economic sense in that.
I often hear how slow they are: 1.25Ghz. But 2 x 1.25 Ghz is 2.5Ghz, too – like the new P4 (and mor than AMD – if you only want to look at the mhz-speed)
Most consumer applications doesn’t support SMP. Plus, isn’t 2 processors more expensive than one P4? A lot of Mac users would still continue using OS 9. Buying a new computer is expensive enough, why buy expensive software that is just ports to OS X?
If thats the rumor from the Register that was as far as I can tell actually just a G4 revision -the G5 ran at 2.5GHz
Just a rumour. Credible news sources and Motorola itself say that it is between 1.2GHz and 1.6GHz.
OH . are PM imported in UK or produced directly in UK ?
UK has lower import export taxes, sounds resonable? Plus, the Macs IIRC are made in Ireland, which makes shipping cheaper.
I wanted to configure a PC with dual-processors (www.alienware.com) and the bottom line is that it cost too much for PCs.
I have seen places much cheaper than Compaq, but what they offer has more value for money than PowerMacs. *Sigh* browsing Dell’s and HP’s product page is nightmarish…
That’s not the point. A LOT of people are still using 9x/ME and to say all computers (which includes computers with 9x/ME) should have a dual cpu system is stupid.
Well, most NEW systems ship with Windows XP…
Hmm… Your wrong. Macs started the trend with USB keyboard and mouse. If it weren’t for Apple the LCDs market wouldn’t have move a bit. Apple leads then the rest follows.
Well, before Apple even had a Apple-branded LCD screen, IBM had a all-in-one LCD computer, Dell started to push LCDs in high end business machines, (and IIRC, HP too, but can’t be too sure) and so on. In fact, Apple’s early LCD screens is just a expensive good-looking branded LCD which technically the same as PC LCDs.
As for USB keyboards and mouses, my cousin had a USB 1.0 keyboard and a USB 1.0 mouse before Apple released the iMac. Of course, they are really lousy… but quite good compared to early iMac keyboard and mouses.
Yes I kinda like Jobs. Apple is the only company innovating nowadays. But then you’re still locked in the i80286 days. There is more to it than processor speed.
Yes, they are more to it that processing speed. Intel invented SSE2, much better than AltiVec. AMD invented x86-64… and the earliest we could see 64-bit Macs is after 2003. And so on. Apple didn’t innovate much. It just brought ideas together. That’s not innovation, that’s being clever.
This is me imitating Intel:
“You must build systems only with our Pentium processors. If you use AMD processors, we will stop selling you Pentium processors.”
No wonder HP and Compaq, Sony etc. don’t have Pentium-based PCs anymore…. wait, they do.
That’s because it is a crappy interface. I guess by “getting accustomed to the interface” you mean “changing it to look and function like the old version of Windows.”
I took a week to get used to Windows XP interface. I never switch to Classic.
When this limit will be reached in the IA32/IA64 world they’ll need to go from single to multi.
I doubt this would happen. Microwaves had a limit because it didn’t want to burn your food…
It’s the most trouble-free crap I ever used.
I invite you to learn Carbon programming. Let the sh*t hit the fan.
No you didn’t. Did you move all your PC stuff onto the Mac computer? Did you try to use it more than 1 month? You know it takes time to move to the Mac platform. At first I found it really annoying that when I close the main application windows it didn’t close the app properly. But now after a year, I finally realized that it’s actually a time saver. Also when I tried XP for the first time I thought my God what is this crappy interface. Then after a while I began to get accustomed to the new interface and now I feel right at home.
Now that’s a bold statement. You are quick to assume that I’m just complaining about one bad experience. For your information, I bought an iMac G4 700 back in March, it is now August so do the math and you will see I did try it “for more than 1 month”. I bought Photoshop 7.0, $599, I bought CodeWarrior 8.0, $499, and about $500 worth of games. I bought a 20 GB firewire hard drive, $250, and moved all my files onto that, music, documents and PDF’s I’ve collected, all 6 GBs of my data collected over the past 5 years.
If OSX is suppose to be so easy and appealing, I must be a big friggin idiot because I still screw it up yet some how I can find my way around using other OSes such as all flavors of Windows, even DOS (Windows 98 died on me, had to back up files onto zip drive via command line), Linux, BeOS, and QNX.
Just because you love it so much doesn’t mean the rest of the world does as well. So please don’t tell me what I did or did not do. That is the #1 reason why I dislike Apple and their products. They hold too much control over thier platform and they dictate certain things such as hardware, and that is one area I’m most sensative about.
What a clever idea. Apple intros this new line of all SMP PowerMacs, and this will drive up sales of G4 CPUs for Motorola.
Look here: http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html
Notice it is comparing with a Dimension 8200.
Now look here
http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/products/model_dimen_1_dimen_8200.htm
See the price difference.
This model for example ( http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.asp?customer_id=19&ke… ) has all the specs of the lowest end, plus faster RAM, 20GB more space, some speakers etc.
Nice comparison Apple. Plus, you could do yourself a favour, and release the documentation behind the benchmarks, plus the specs of the P4 machine used…. but then probably the PowerMac might not look that powerful and glorious….
Oh well… :-p They are better off with comparing with
forgot the last link for the last paragraph…
http://www.hp.com/workstations/products/winnt/x2100/summary.html
I’m always puzzled when I see all those comments on how much MHz is important or how fast a system should be. It reminds me discussions I had with PC owners back in ’93 on how much the 486 DX was so much faster than the 68040 I had in my Quadra, in ’96 on how much the Pentium was faster than the 603 of my BeBox, in ’97 on how much the P2 was faster than the 604 of my S900 MP, in 2000 on how much the P3 was faster than the G3 of my iMac and iBook (see a trend here?)… To keep it short, a computer is just a tool. What does make a difference is the applications you’re running on it and the user experience.
True, Photoshop’s filters or GTA3 will run faster on some machines but for general use (i.e. email, word, excel, powerpoint, web surfing, etc.), any increase in performance will not be perceived in most of the cases. I wish we could see more comments like: “with my new P4 at 4GHz, I’m much more productive, being able to create 5 PowerPoint slides per minute”.
Well, if some of you are waiting so desperatly for more productivity, they better have to cut on the coffee break, because that should be their bigger waste of time!
On my side, I’m more than happy with my iBook with its G3 running at 700Mhz. In term of productivity, I’ve got the right tools (Codewarrior, PB, IB, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, iTunes, IE, mail) and I’m able to develop my software in a very efficient way using the Apple frameworks (Cocoa, etc.). And at the end of the day, deliverables are the only things that count. To be honnest, compile times could be shorter, but the user experience with MacOS X make is so great.
Arnaud
PS: And yes, I have experience with other systems (incl. VAX, UNIX, Windows and BeOS)
>>Huh? I don’t think there is much question that a dual 2.4 GHz Xeon with RAMBUS memory will be much faster than a dual G4 for almost everything except certain Apple-designed benchmarks.<<
This is depending on what you’re running… the Xeon got its but pounced by the G4 on the RC5 benchmarks, and a Dual Xeon isn’t going to come cheap!
>>If you are comparing the price to the low-end dual Mac you will get better performance from a single P4 at 2.53 GHz on all benchmarks except those designed by Apple for their marketing. (And there are of plenty of dual AMD boxes under $2000)<<
Actually that isn’t true except for Intel designed benchmarks (SPEC). P4 beats the G4 in some benchmarks and the G4 beats the P4 in others, so it’s still a neck and neck battle here. And with the Xserve smoking the Dell server in a benchmark last month (which was a PIII, which is faster than a P4 at the same clockspeed) will only prove Nicholas Blanchford’s theory on optimized I/O throughput!
here are some results from not so long ago;
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html
enjoy 🙂
Well, most NEW systems ship with Windows XP…
Yep. XP Home Edition, which does not support SMP either (I forgot to mention that in my previous posts)
>If OSX is suppose to be so easy and appealing, I must be a big friggin idiot because I still screw it up.
You said it yourself.
Actually that isn’t true except for Intel designed benchmarks (SPEC).
Intel did not design SPEC anymore than Sun, AMD, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Groupe Bull, IBM et cetera did.
http://www.spec.org/consortium/
Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier
How are new Power Macs OS news?
>>Intel did not design SPEC anymore than Sun, AMD, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Groupe Bull, IBM et cetera did.
http://www.spec.org/consortium/
Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier<<
Don’t take what I said too seriously (it was my sarcasm/humor mix). I just had to say something as stupid as the guy who spoke of the ‘Apple Designed’ benchmarks!
actually be blatantly titled that it is faster, where they subsequently proove that it is in fact SLOWER?! The equivalent of a dual G4 is a dual P4 – since the dual G4 is 90% faster than single Intel, the equivalent machine is 20 % slower… well, I suppose a bunch of very smart people out there won’t mind this little flaw… let’s call them Apple-users.
alex, I see your point, but the main thing we’ve been talking about regarding Macs, for the most part, in the forum is that OS X needs to be sped up. And faster Macs was one of the big partsof that…well, *the* big point.
Wow, the Mac Os Rumors guy even ripped Apple!
I was hoping for a true DDR FSB at 266MHz but the increase was from 133 to 167. However, since 10.2 is out and the other parts of the system do run at 333MHz, this, along with the 167MHz from controller to G4, is not to shabby. And, you get duals when if you buy 1Ghz or 1.25Ghz.
– Mark
since the dual G4 is 90% faster than single Intel
Where did you that idea? A Intel P2 mabye…
>> since the dual G4 is 90% faster than single Intel
>Where did you that idea? A Intel P2 mabye…
right here: http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html
I invite you to learn Carbon programming. Let the sh*t hit the fan.
I was talking user experience. I haven’t tried programming on the Mac… Yet.
Now that’s a bold statement. You are quick to assume that I’m just complaining about one bad experience.
People here are really emotionaly volatile geez it’s only computers. GET A GRIP MAN! You sound like the government is going to take your kids away from you! I said that because MOST people try the Mac out only for a week and then, while never actually REALLY trying it out, they say it’s sucks or it’s Windows for Dummies or [insert your favorite moronic statement here].
If OSX is suppose to be so easy and appealing, I must be a big friggin idiot because I still screw it up yet some how I can find my way around using other OSes…
Not really. It’s more of personal taste. Some people dislike the AQUA interface some do. But the important fact is that you gave it a REAL try.
Just because you love it so much doesn’t mean the rest of the world does as well. So please don’t tell me what I did or did not do. That is the #1 reason why I…
You presumed that I presumed that you only tried it out for a week right? I play with AS/400s all days long. I am used to proprietary stuff. But in the end, I’ll never recommend a PC to someone who’s new to computers and that doesn’t play games. The user experience on a Mac is way better than the one on the PC. If they play games then they gotta get a Windows XP computer.
>>Where did you that idea? A Intel P2 mabye…<<
A P2 couldn’t get out of its own way, much less anything else!
Maybe it is about time Apple told us really what the advantages of using an Apple are. Their constant focus on how faster their Photoshop crap is on a PowerMac just doesn’t cut it.
Emphasize on productivity, user experience, technological innovation, eye candy even, but at least back it up with some serious data and not always those boring and flawed Photoshop tests.
I was actually considering buying a Mac just before they came out with the new line. So I went to Apple’s web site and built myself a nice PowerMac. Cost: Can$ 4433.
Do the same on Dell’s web site. Cost: Can$ 3371.
In both cases I picked the fastes consumer desktop, 512 MB memory, 80 GB UATA drive, CD-RW, NVidia GeForce 4MX.
Apple ships useless apps (for me, that is): iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, iWhatever. Dell ships Microsoft Office XP Professional that I could use very much. And there is till a difference of more than a thousand bucks.
Plus, for Can$ 50 LESS I can get an upgrade to 1GB memory…
As if that wasn’t bad enough they now come out with these not so impressive dual PowerMacs. Not really enough to make me a switcher.
If OSX is suppose to be so easy and appealing, I must be a big friggin idiot because I still screw it up yet some how I can find my way around using other OSes…
LOL… you can figure out how to use Linux but not Mac OS X! This sounds so made up.
You also claim that you learned Windows XP in about a week. That’s pretty sad if you ask me. OS X takes less than a day to learn.
>>Emphasize on productivity, user experience, technological innovation, eye candy even, but at least back it up with some serious data and not always those boring and flawed Photoshop tests.<<
They’re about as exciting as the flawed SPEC benchmarks we know today 🙂
I recently traded in my xp and linux workstations for a duel 1gig power mac (early july). While I’m very happy with the decision, seeing the new hardware brings me to a functional question:
What (if any) performance difference would there be between the older duel 1gig and the new duel 1gig? My thoughts are this: Older 1gig have 2 mb L3 new 1gig have 1 mb L3. The L3 cache difference may compensate for the increased bus speed and partial DDR support of the new systems. Or am I deluding myself so I don’t have to repeatedly smack my head against my desk?
here something you might look at to compare to and get an (sorta) idea;
http://www.barefeats.com/xserve2.html
I hope this helps 🙂
Good or bad comments, I note that “APPLE” interests many people. Each article concerning to him records hundreds of messages.
Not really. I have checked them out more than once but here I am – still running Windows on PC. I think there is still too much to keep many people from buying a Mac. Also, for Joe User it is easier to buy a cheap Dell, HP, or Compaq. In the States they have now cool Apple stores but even there it is only a beginning. Most Apple vendors around here, if you can find them, simply suck.
there is simply one reason why apple has such small marketshare…PRICE!!!!!!!!!!
it costs far too much for what you get…i can guarantee that there are a lot of geeks who would love to have a mac for their second computer…but they refuse to pay so much…there is simply no excuse for Apple to maintain such ridiculous mark-ups…some people excuse these markups by simply saying that Apple is the elite of the computer industry…but at least with a Cadilac you get a powerful engine…Apple’s currently riding on the cushion of rabidly fanatic customers, but someday this will end…and Apple’s gonna need something more than their legacy to sell computers with
-bytes256
>>but at least with a Cadilac you get a powerful engine…<<
I got a powerful Mac for its time (though that was 3 years ago, times have changed)!
>>Apple’s currently riding on the cushion of rabidly fanatic customers, but someday this will end…and Apple’s gonna need something more than their legacy to sell computers with<<
You don’t think the IT (and other MS/Intel advocates) aren’t as rabid?!
Give me a break!!!
Thanks! Assuming that the architecture is the same in the xserve and the new powermac duel one gig, it would appear that the previous duel one gig will out-perform its newer brother based on the 2x L3 cache.
This leads to a theory that Apple has dumbed down the duel 1gig to provide a greater performance gap between its middle model (1gig – 1mb L3) and it’s top model (1.25gig 2mb L3).
>>Thanks! Assuming that the architecture is the same in the xserve and the new powermac duel one gig, it would appear that the previous duel one gig will out-perform its newer brother based on the 2x L3 cache.<<
I imagine that your machine is really quick now… I guess (if you adopt that is) go with Mac OS X Jaguar (10.2), then your Mac will really scream with the Quartz Extreme improving 2D/3D graphics performance via the GPU!
Enough with the “my pentium/athalon is faster than your Macintosh…”. In this horse race the x86 horse is ahead coming around the first turn, fine.
The only interesting thing about this announcement is that you cannot buy a single processor professional system anymore. Now both the server line and professional line are standard multiprocessor systems. Only the consumer line remains single processor.
I would place bets that application developers who weren’t optimizing for multiprocessor systems before sure will now.
This single change will push everything and everybody to multiprocessor standard. When it costs about the same to add more processors as to add a little more ram even the consumer line will get in on the action.
And following on Apple’s heels will be the x86 manufacturers. Apple has pushed usb, firewire, flat panel screens, etc down into the x86 manufacturer world. Sure you can buy a mutliprocessor x86 box now, but not one aimed at anybody but the server market.
When Apple gets a real processor this will have paved the way for some fun.
From the render monkeys. 🙂
I work for an animation company that mostly runs Animo and After effect on NT and OSX boxes..
My default workstation is a dual G4 450. I recently finished an After Effects project with a long camera pans over a big scene (2500*2000 pixels) with plenty of high rez layers and textures.
On the Mac, this scene renders in 6 and a half hour. Pain pain pain. So when we recieved this nifty beefed up 2.5 ghz P4 render box (bus at 533) I got all excited and stuff, thinking my nights at work would be a thing of the past.
Well, big letdown… This “test scene” takes 5H45mins to render on the P4. Gain: 45 minutes or about 8 percent.
To his credit the P4 only has 512 megs of ram versus 1.5 gig for the mac, but still… In a previous story I explained how a Titanium@667 Mhz with 128 megs of ram edged out the dual g4/1.5 gigs ram on a simpler render by 12 percent (After effect is poorly threaded on Mac, and the bus of the Tibook is @133 versus 100 Mhz for the aging 450).
There is no question that the GUI on the NTs is ten times snappier than on OSX 10.1, but as far as heavy renders go… Well those ancient G4s are kind of putting the pentiums to shame. Contrary to the SPEC benchies or those “after effect” tests published online, real life hands-on experiments tell me that I would prefer a few of those dual 1.2 GHZ new macs over Intel workhorses.
Mind you, I only care about going home earlier. 🙂
>>I imagine that your machine is really quick now… I guess (if you adopt that is) go with Mac OS X Jaguar (10.2), then your Mac will really scream with the Quartz Extreme improving 2D/3D graphics performance via the GPU!<<
Counting the days… It’s OSX that made me switch to the platform.
I might not complete a particular task as fast as on another platform, but I don’t have to maintain multiple platforms to complete all my tasks!
I’ve read about every message here and it seems that most people are upset with Apples “medicore” Professional hardware. I was also looking for bigger speed improvements rather than getting an over clocked 1 gig G4 and minor bus speed changes, but I still don’t think that tells the whole story. The rest of the Apple story is about software and HARDWARE intergration.
Apple has been behind for years in the GHz wars, and it looks like they will for a while, but Apple knows one evry important thing. It has the best commercial OS that money can buy. Jaguar and Apple other assortment of iApps and other Apps will be able to take advantage of every little bit of improvement in their Hardware. The intel PC’s will still be faster, but they wont walk away with the speed crown in every software category. Granted, I know programs like Final Cut are mac only, but I can almost granutee that Apple will program every last speed improvement they can. I can bet that Final Cut will not seem slower than Avid or Premeire on the same hardware. Look at the improvements in Jaguar. In just over 8-9 months look at how much speed and improvents Apple has gotten out of OSX. What other OS company has done that? MS hasn’t. Linux hasn’t. OSX may not be a speed demon, but if you look at where Apple started and where they are today that is just amazing. (MS has been working on XP for ever (considering it is really WIN2K with plug n pray and the ablity to play games) and it is still a step behind OSX in many areas. Is a testament to Apple.
I’m not a big Apple fan boy, but I can see that Apple is doing the best it can with the cards it is delt.
Jesus… you must be a brave guy even to dare to tell us that you through such task as a system with only 512 MB RAM. Why don’t you check your system/taskmanager (don’t know how it’s called in Eng.) in order to see what the RAM utilisation says?! It will be maxed out and if it is, then this means swapping, swapping, swapping to the pagefile… if you don’t spend that extra money for sufficient RAM, your investment is largly wasted… even mourning about the outcome is plain — you know what…