Earlier this month, we reported that The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s as well as Ars Technica’s sources said that Apple was working on the next version of Mac OS X, dubbed Snow Leopard. The news was that the new release wouldn’t focus on new features, but on performance. During yesterday’s WWDC 2008 keynote, Steve Jobs confirmed this rumour, and now Apple has published a preview page.The preview page is quite clear: Apple is going to streamline Mac OS X and increase its performance.
Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard – scheduled to ship in about a year – builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality. Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.
Apple lists 5 important points of interest in Snow Leopard:
- Microsoft Exchange Support: Mail, Address Book, and iCal will receive built-in, out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007.
- Multicore: “Grand Central” is a set of new technologies built into Mac OS X that allows developers to take advantage of multicore processors. In addition, the OS itself will become fully aware of multicore processors.
- 64bit: Mac OS X Snow Leopard will support up to 16TB of RAM, but sadly, no word yet on whether or not 64bit Intel processors will be required, as the rumours said.
- Media and internet: Quicktime X will offer more efficient playback and better codec support. In addition, WebKit’s new JavaScript engine offers much better JS performance.
- OpenCL: Open Computer Library allows developers to take full advantage of the processing power available on GPUs.
Nothing too exciting for average home users.
I can understand their energy to start focusing more on the business users, but unless Snow Leopard has some convincing features home users won’t bother to upgrade. Although this could be their strategy anyway, to skip a user friendly release and focus more on business and engineering user types.
I’m still happily running on OS X Tiger and have no intention on upgrading, until I buy a Intel mac in the next 18 months.
I disagree. As a home user, I am very interested in performance gains as well as a reduced footprint on my hard drive.
I guess this means everything will be Cocoa-based.
Really, this seems more like a sort of “10.5 Service Pack 2” than a totally new release. They’ll charge money for it because they know that the Mac fanatics who care will actually pay for it. Heck, if it’s not too expensive (which IMHO it shouldn’t be considering the lack of new features) I might consider upgrading, too.
As for whether it’s Intel-only, I’d say there’s quite a good chance. By the time it comes out, almost three years will have passed since the first 64-bit Intel Macs were put on the market. Snow Leopard could be Apple’s way of keeping the customers with older Macs happy since they’re not missing out on much with “normal” Leopard, while gently pushing towards the day when those machines are obsolete–probably about two years after Snow Leopard comes out.
Broad generalization such as 10.6 == 10.5 SP2 is quite premature considering that we haven’t seen any build around to play with.
I hope that ZFS will find it’s way inside the final feature set :o)
I was thinking the same thing — HFS is kind of a big joke as far as file systems go (normalizing unicode characters and all sort of other fun treats)
Mac OS X + ZFS would be pretty sweet.
The server edition will have ZFS, according to Apple.
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/snowleopard/
“ZFS: For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.”
I know this is wild speculation on my part but, due to the nature of this upcoming version, Apple may offer it for free (as they did with 10.1) or perhaps a nominal charge.
If Microsoft spent a whole development cycle just cutting bloat, would you buy it? I suspect many would. Removing the bloat is what people have been asking for for years, and the *day-to-day* improvements would be the reason it would be worth it.
Leopard isn’t exactly bloated, as it still manages to be a little faster than Tiger; but if your computer could operate twice as fast, just with a software upgrade – how much are you willing to deny that that would make a refreshing difference on the *day-to-day*? Less hard disk space? Faster graphics via the GPU? Better load balancing across 8+ cores (especially when your time=money).
Some have labelled this as a “maintenance” release.
Spending the full engineering capacity of 1000’s of developers for a whole development cycle, is not “maintenance”. It’s full-blooded development for the future.
Apple want the OS that matters most to regular users – “is it fast?”. And we geeks can say we want features, but if anything it still boils down to the same thing, we use the computer to it’s full, we want it to be fast.
I really think this will be the most interesting and exciting OS release for geeks by far. It may not seem it yet, but by the time release is near, it’s going to become a real talking point.
Agreed.
And more, with the “decline” of the Windows, comparison of Leopard with Vista will surely be the done concerning speed/bloat/design (as it’s already done).
Maybe MS realized that already with Windows 7 being a more polished Vista ?
Even though geeks want features they/we represent a small fraction of the whole computer selling… Average joe wants things they/we(?) can use…
Dude, it’s not going to run twice as fast. 15% would be a huge accomplishment, probably closer to 10%.
Well it’s a question of what you’re doing.
Likely on average the machine is going to run 0% faster because most client machine time is spent waiting on a user. But for the latency of certain actions, which is what users care about, it is indeed possible to extract huge performance gains, depending on how optimized the particular scenario is.
Also when scaling up, if you’re at a cpu count where your scaling becomes poor due to lock contention, you can easily extract 50-100% gains by breaking the locks.
50%-100% would be extreme corner cases, the vast majority of the time threads just don’t get used enough to make multi-cores make a difference. Dual Core does make one, as you (more or less) are using one core for what you are doing, the other for the os. Quad Core is a complete waste for 95% of uses that a home user computer is used for.
Aparently all support for single core was dumped from 2k8, and honestly I don’t notice much in the way of perf difference between it and vista 64 as a workstation machine.
Not all OS follow the MS School of threading. A true SMP based OS would run any thread on any processor/core. In this scenario, the quad core looks like a good idea again, no?
99% of the time the OS is fast enough doing nothing while waiting for input. Speedups only matter for the remaining 1%, when you ask the OS to do something.
Vista was fast enough when you weren’t asking it to copy files around.
Personally I think the name gives it away. It’s another Leopard, it’s not another cat. They may call it 10.6, but it is basically what Windows 7 will be for Vista…
Personally, I think this is good news.
The more the core OS can move away from Carbon the better.
But it will still run on 32bit machines and will run on PPC too…
However, the optimisations will most likely be specifically targeting the Intel 64 multi-core platform, so the biggest gains will be there.
I expect it will be free too, especially as it is still a Leopard… If it will be sold, then either the speed increases will be mind blowing, or they will need to add some enticement…
I’m not sure about you, but I don’t have 16TB of RAM and I’m guessing most home users don’t, so that’s not going to be much of a draw card…
I think an OS is too big to download, and too much of a change to release on unsuspecting users through software update. If they don’t charge the full price for it, then I would suggest something like a $29 upgrade price for Leopard users, to get the DVD through the post.
I don’t think so. I can download a DVD in 4/5 hours. That’s faster than the post and cheaper. Moreover, It would be better if MacOS X was able to upgrade directly from the network. They do iTunes and they can’t put some DVD for download?
I’m on FiOS so can download a DVD in about 20 minutes. I’d still want a DVD to install an OS release that changes everything.
Windows 7 is not a Vista Service Pack. You will definitely notice the difference in feature set and appearance.
For me this is exactly what I want. Can any of you remember the last time one of the large OS’es focused on performance rather than new features? Give us proper java and I am sold
The OS is suppose to be there to support the applications…not steal valuable resources away from the applications (*Vista*).
Edited 2008-06-10 07:53 UTC
exactly my words… i would love to see one more thing though: some kind of optimization for SSDs, low-latency/high-speed
maybe ZFS too
You want ZFS read/write? You get ZFS read/write!
Bottom left: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/snowleopard/
For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.
Too bad they couldn’t get rid of enough bloat to get it practical on laptops or desktops. Looks like they might require that 16TB of RAM to run it.
i would have to echo the above comment (hangloose) Microsoft is doing exactly the same thing with windows 7. They said they are optimising it and that Vista has had all of the major changes they are now working on fine tuning. And just as apple will charge for 10.6 microsoft will make you pay for windows 7.
I also would have to agree that i would pay for the upgrade, i think it’s a nice breathe of fresh air that both apple and microsoft are ditching the feature race and are both working on creating faster, leaner OS’s
Although i do find it quite amusing how both companies seem to be following the same track at the same time. That both leopard and vista introduced new features and both are working on optmised follow ups.
Also ive heard that exchange support is coming in 10.5.4, which is quite interesting and would make sense with the iphone v2 update
Windows Vista’s biggest competitor is Windows XP (not OS X – uptake for Vista is slow largely because of people sticking to XP not switching to Macs). Seeing that by the end of the month, XP sales will stop, by time Windows 7 comes out, it would be a choice between Vista and 7.
For enterprises, which is Microsoft’s biggest customer group and the sort of base Apple is trying to target with Snow Leopard and iPhone 2.0, I think Windows 7 stands more than a fighting chance.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think Apple meant Snow Leopard to be the answer to Windows 7, rather trying to get into the Windows XP replacement business. Snow Leopard is coming out next year – Windows 7 in 2010 the earliest. It’s a good strategy I must say, as a lot of enterprises are vary of Windows Vista.
I think more and more enterprises replacing hardware will note that low-end Macs running Leopard way better than similarly spec PCs running Vista. And this proposition will become better with Snow Leopard (and with Exchange 2007 support, they don’t need to migrate their mail servers too).
The period between XP’s death and the release of Windows 7 is Apple’s best shot at getting a comfortable foot in the enterprise market. I’d say they’re making a really good, and probably successful, effort.
Have to agree with the general sentiment that it’s a good thing.
OSX is beautiful on the desktop, however it’s not so great underneath. The raw performance is laggardly compared to other platforms. Things like the filesystem and the kernel are not highly regarded.
I just hope as part of this effort they provide a nice stable core for third party developers. I’m keen to see a (non X11) OpenJDK port as well as more development tools and languages.
As for new features, I’m not entirely fussed. A better performing core with a better filesystem would probably lure the cash out of me.
Pity that I have a 32bit Core Duo though. That would kill my enthusiasm. I will most likely buy another mac, but probably not in that timeframe.
Has anyone more information about OpenCL? I searched the web, but it seems to be a (proprietary) Apple technology. And the now botan-called open crypto library project is surely something different.
OpenCL would be great, if it was actually open as it name suggests. I would surely love to have a nice, compatible (i.e. no Nvidia/AMD-only library) library to offload operations to the GPU.
My guess is that it’s nVidia’s CUDA rebranded.
It’s “Grand Central” that appears to be a unique Apple technology for general multiprocessing. THAT’s what I’d like to get more information on.
see my posts above and
salvaged from the google cache
and
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/june#tue-10-snow_leopard
well, is it an extension to c or to object-c?
Edited 2008-06-10 21:33 UTC
Apple says it will be an “open” spec, which implies not proprietary. Hence the “open” in “OpenCL”. Who knows. Apple has done this with a few technologies, but not often.
Edited 2008-06-11 07:10 UTC
I think Apple are doing a performance release like this to lull Microsoft into a false sense of security. They know Windows 7 will probably get the same reception as Vista, so they’re coiling up, ready to strike, with either 10.7 or .8, or maybe even Mac OS XI. Purely speculative, of course. Microsoft will see a sluggish uptake of Windows 7, and Apple will strike when the iron is hot: just as Windows 7 starts to pick up momentum. The upgrade treadmill has been slowed a little, and a decisive blow to Microsoft, such as breaking the market momentum of their flagship product after the lackluster performance of Vista, could break the treadmill once and for all. Or at least change it’s ownership.
I, for one, welcome our new, artistically inclined overlords.
There’s no way an OS release will take out Microsoft. Especially if it’s relegated to running on a specific hardware platform only.
You want to get Microsoft where it counts? Woo the corporate user base to switching to Mac. Make a Mac that’s more affordable than the Wintel counterpart for enterprise users. And have a server product that can actually compete with Active Directory.
In going for Intel, it amazed me at the time that Apple went for 32bit hardware when they could have gone for 64bit.
Some aspects of OSX would still have had to exhibit 32bit APIs but it would have been worth doing for twists in the road like ‘Snow Leopard’.
The ‘Snow Leopard’ features being touted are none too earth shattering, so there must be more to come.
Each new OSX edition kills off older models with insufficient capability; and I wonder where the divide will fall this time. My guess is that G4’s will be out, G5’s will be in for one more lap; and some features will depend on your GPU (okay for MacPro, less so for MacBooks).
This G4 Powerbook probably won’t make the grade so will ‘end of life’ when 10.7 appears. This sets it’s life at about 8 years.
There’s nothing to be amazed about, the only processor they could put in a notebook was an old 32 bit G4 without hope to have a 64 bit G5 ready in a reasonable amount of time, because IBM has more lucrative customers than Apple.
Intel, instead, gave them a precise plan.
Leopard killed my beloved 800 MHz iBook G4, which was less than four years old. I wouldn’t be surprised if its snowy brother kills my “new” first generation MacBook, which will be less than three when it will be released.
I wonder if it’ll really be a free upgrade, coz Apple tends to charge for everything these days. Here in my country, all that “similar costs compared to a WinPC” talk doesn’t apply and Macs along with their software command a chunky premium.
If Apple expect me to pay for what seems to be a fancy ‘service pack’, just a year after I paid 10k+(SG dollars) for my Mac Pro, it had better be damn bloody fast…. anything slower than Vector Linux (blindingly responsive on a budget laptop) and I’d consider it a disappointment. I’m already up to my neck paying for new camera bodies, new printer/paper/inks, ….etc.
BTW, does Apple even sell a Mac that can hold 16TB RAM?
Given that you say Vector Linux is so blindingly responsive on a budget laptop and you appear to value “blindingly fast” so much, why not just install Vector Linux on your Mac Pro and be done with it?
Edited 2008-06-10 09:45 UTC
Because one does not buy a Mac Pro to run Linux on it.
That’s like buying a Bugatti Veyron so you can run it on Diesel.
What??? My god, step away from the RDF….
Tell me for my own benefit what Linux will do on a Mac Pro that people buy Mac Pros for, that outstrips what OS X is used for?
Video editing?
Highend Photoshop work?
Audio processing?
The only thing I can think of is science work, and Leopard is Unix already.
Having a super powerful computer is one thing, but buying a Mac Pro not for OS X confuses me? If you wanted Linux for power, you’d build a power machine.
I actually agree with this sentiment buying a mac to run linux is a bit silly. I mean why not cut out the apple tax and get the same/equivalent hardware using off the shelf intel? I guess you could make an exception if you want 8 core intel and don’t want skulltrail. in which case a mac board makes sense. You could always buy a greybox x86 to run osx but obviously the benefits of buying direct from Apple are then lost. Maybe someone likes their hardware’s pretty curves?
I have a mac keyboard, but a dell monitor and a greybox (black thermaltake) pc. There’s not a lot of reasons to buy mac hardware for mac hardware’s sake. if you buy it to run osx it makes a lot of sense. Mac mini might be an exception if you want a small easily deployable linux box. Oh and no apple sell a pc with a maximum of 16/32gb ram maybe 64gb now been a while since I checked. they have like 8 ram slots on their high end boxes.
Edited 2008-06-10 11:09 UTC
I agree that you do lose some good apps installing Linux on a Mac pro, what I disagree with is comparing a Mac Pro with Bugatti Veyron. It’s PC, it uses standard PC parts, standard CPU, standard video card, standard SATA drives, standard ram. A Veyron does not use standard car parts, and compared to a normal car, the Bugatti Veyron is a performance beast, far beyond what a normal car can aspire too. A Mac Pro is just a computer.
A Mac Pro is a UNIX workstation comparable to IBMs Intellistations and Suns Ultra workstations but yeah, those are all basically computers.
Whatever, if it runs windows, it’s a pc. By your measure, my home system is a UNIX workstation. It runs Debian. But it is just a PC.
I like OS X, I like the design of the Mac Pros, but they are just PCs. The Ultra workstations run on sparc chips, I believe, and Intellistations now run on Power exclusively, neither of those puppies are going to run Windows, those are RISC chips. (Power kicks x86’s ass all over the place too)
So while the Mac Pro runs a bastardized stepson of UNIX, it’s not a UNIX workstation like the systems you mentioned, it’s a PC. A very expensive PC, but still, a PC.
(for the record, OS X uses the MACH kernel, and runs the BSD userland as a subsystem, much like Windows NT has the OS/2 subsystem.)
Edited 2008-06-10 11:49 UTC
Define standard car parts? Other than tires there are no standard car parts, event those come in bazillion types and sizes. The Veyron uses an internal combustion engine like most other cars, albiet a very powerful one. The car is optimized for performance. While a Prius is for fuel economy.
You don’t buy a prius to go fast and you don’t buy a Veyron because it makes an effcient commute car.
People buy Mac Pros to do serious work for stuff that it does best, which is Apps on MacOS X. If you wanted to use linux any box will do it doesn’t have to be a Mac Pro. Which is what the OP was hinting at.
Edited 2008-06-10 19:01 UTC
“Define standard car parts? Other than tires there are no standard car parts, event those come in bazillion types and sizes. The Veyron uses an internal combustion engine like most other cars, albiet a very powerful one. The car is optimized for performance. While a Prius is for fuel economy.”
Uh, most cars use somewhat standard parts, at least across manufacturers. Did you know that the PT cruiser is actually a modified Neon? or that the windshield washer pump on a 98 Mazda is also the same on Honda Civics and Accords. The 85 Toyota corolla is EXACTLY the same as the 85 Nova? That’s only off the top of my head. There is lots of standardization in the automotive industry, especially for consumer vehicles.
Edited 2008-06-10 20:42 UTC
Chrysler owns Dodge so that’s not surprising. Spark plugs and small parts are made by independent manufacturers. I gaurantee that the Veyron uses some parts found in other cars too, especially VWs and Audi. So your claim that it is so special is a non sequitur.
Standardization means that most cars use the same parts. Hand picking models that were made out of collaboration doesn’t make something standard. NUMMI produces corolla and Chevy Prizms/Novas because GM and Toyota built NUMMI together in 1984. GM just rebadged a corolla with the GEO branding and then moved it to the chevy branding. So they are the same cars essentially. There are other examples of rebranding. Rebranding doesn’t make some thing a standard.
The Veyron uses a W16 engine derived from VWs W8, W12 and VR6 engines. It would follow that they use standard VW parts that go in the other engines too. Last I checked VWs were normal cars. The Passat had the W8 engine for a while.
I am sorry every single part of the Veyron isn’t special. I am sure pumps (windshield wiper) and stuff in the veyron are VW standard.
The Mac Pro is similar. Standard parts with Apple engineering. Custom Motherboard and industrial design.
Edited 2008-06-10 21:58 UTC
The Mac Pro is not similar to a Veyron.
The amount of product differentiation between a normal car and a Bugati Veyron and a PC and a Mac Pro cannot be compared. That was my original point.
The differences between the components in a Mac Pro and a PC is NIL. NOTHING. NADA. The difference is the case and the OS. The CPU is the the same. The hard drives are the same. The GPU is the same. the chipsets is the same. Many of the same parts are sitting under my desk right now.
None of the important components in the Veyron are you going to find sitting in your neighbors driveway, not the engine, or the suspension, or the transmission. No where are you going to get a 1001 hp engine for a VW bug. or a 7 speed transmission, or specially designed tires.
The premiums you pay are different. The price of the a base Mac Pro, is only about 10 times higher than the crappiest dual core PC. The cost of a fully maxed out dual processor workstation is similar to a Mac Pro.
The cost of the Bugatti Veyron, at $1,700,000, is about 106 times the cost of my 2006 SX 2.0. There is no way to max out the SX 2.0 to get it to come within 10% of the cost of that Bugatti.
I can also buy my parts at UAP/NAPA, just like a Honda, or a Mazda, or a Chevy Truck. Try getting parts for that beast at Canadian Tire.
There is no other way to say it, the Mac Pro ain’t no Bugatti Veyron. I certainly think that compared to Mac Pro, the Veyron is pretty special.
http://www.rsportscars.com/bugatti/2006-bugatti-veyron-164/
No computer is. Your “Reductio ad absurdum” argument is what I had a problem with originally. At this point there is no point in going down this path. You win.
Edited 2008-06-11 05:07 UTC
All I was saying was that you can’t compare a a Msc Pro with a Veyron in ANY WAY. That was my original argument. Try reading the posts, it’s what I have been saying all along. Reading an entire thread is often useful, gives you context.
Edited 2008-06-11 11:35 UTC
You can unless you use reductio ad absurdum. Apple is considered a boutique manufacturer of personal computers. Bugatti is a boutique manufacturers of cars. The Mac Pro is the flagship Apple computer, the Veyron is a flagship Bugatti.
The Mac Pro’s target market is Apple’s pro market that runs their pro applications like Final Cut studio etc. Bugatti’s target market is uber rich automobile enthusiasts. Both the target markets preclude “normal” people. It is beside the point that one is more unfordable than the other.
Most people don’t buy a $24,675.00 + Tax fully loaded Mac Pro to run Final Cut Studio ($1299), Logic Studio ($499), Shake Studio ($499) + other Pro Creativity Apps. That’s $27,675. Just like most don’t buy Veyrons.
I didn’t want to indulge you in your flawed argument but here goes. Cost of the average Dell PC is $650. The cost of the fully loaded Mac Pro with Pro Software $27675 + Tax. So that’s a 41x difference between a “normal PC” and the flagship Mac Pro.
You can get a Dell for $379 so that’s a 73x difference.
The Most expensive Dell XPS 730 H2C $9,271. So thats a 3x difference between what a “normal” power/gaming user will get and a Mac Pro.
There is no way to max out any of those systems to even come close to the cost of the Mac Pro.
The Mac pro is targeted at a very different market than “normal” PCs, even gaming rigs. Just like the Veyron.
That’s a very flawed argument. You don’t take the lowest common denominator and try and stretch it to fit your argument. Your argument is cheap PCs have a cost ratio that is very small compared to a Mac Pro and similar workstations have similar prices to a Mac Pro.
Let’s take similar cars to the Veyron and some average but fast cars and compare.
The Veyron is a super car. Let’s compare it to other fast cars.
The Ferrari Enzo now sells for 1.2 million and the Veyron 1.7 million.
The Ferrari FXX will be $2.3 million
The Koenigsegg CCXR which is approx equal in performance to a Veyron but costs $1.2 million.
http://www.rsportscars.com/koenigsegg/2007-koenigsegg-ccxr/
So the Veyron is not that special. There are cheaper similar performing cars out there. Analogous to your PC workstation Vs Mac Pro argument.
The Lambhorgini Reventon will be about $1.6 million.
Let’s take some more easily affordable fast cars.
The Ferrari F430 is $217,776 so the Veyron is 7.8x the cost of a mass produced Ferrari.
Lamborghini Murcielago $345,000 4.92X
Let’s compare this to an average fast car like a BMW 335i $49,500 So that’s 35x difference.
Let’s take a BMW M5 $83,900 is 20x
To recap,
Ratio of normal PC (Dell) to Mac Pro (fully loaded) almost nothing-73x
A far cry from your 10x argument. I am sure you can get cheaper PCs but I’ll stick to brand names that normal people will get.
Ratio of fast car to Veyron- almost nothing to 35x
Again a far cry from your flawed 106X argument for a Dodge which is even farther down the scale when compared to a BMW 335i, let alone a Veyron, than the difference between a Normal PC to a Mac Pro.
I did read the entire thread. The original poster’s claim was made in jest as an off hand remark. Not only did you not let it go you broke the argument down to ridiculous levels to try and make a point aka Reductio ad absurdum.
Edited 2008-06-11 20:33 UTC
I didn’t want to indulge you in your flawed argument but here goes. Cost of the average Dell PC is $650. The cost of the fully loaded Mac Pro with Pro Software $27675 + Tax. So that’s a 41x difference between a “normal PC” and the flagship Mac Pro.
I compared the crappiest PC ~300 bucks cdn to the BASE Mac Pro, and a MAXED out workstation with a MAXED out Mac Pro. I NEVER compared a average dell with a maxed out Mac Pro. I never compared a ~300 PC with a maxed out Mac Pro. Read my posts, please, I beg you.
“That’s a very flawed argument. You don’t take the lowest common denominator and try and stretch it to fit your argument. Your argument is cheap PCs have a cost ratio that is very small compared to a Mac Pro and similar workstations have similar prices to a Mac Pro.”
No, I said that the ratio between a cheap PC and a base Mac Pro is much smaller than the ratio between a cheap car and the Veyron. I also stated that you can build a PC that is comparable to a Mac Pro for around the same price. That means the price/performance ratio between a Mac Pro and a high end PC is NOTHING.
If you bothered reading before starting to type, you would have realized the difference. The automotive market is much more differentiated than the PC market, and the ratio between the cheapest car and the most expensive is much more than the ratio between the cheapest PC and a mac Pro. You can pretty much start from 5000 bucks and buy a beater, and then move up in features and price. It’s almost a continuous range of features, quality and price.
In the PC and Mac markets, they all use the same parts. They are essentially the same things. The price points are closer together. Comparing the two industries is useless.
“Again a far cry from your flawed 106X argument for a Dodge which is even farther down the scale when compared to a BMW 335i, let alone a Veyron, than the difference between a Normal PC to a Mac Pro.”
Again, you can’t compare the two industries like that. The differences between my Dodge and the Veyron are much greater. That’s why I was arguing against the analogy in the first place. It was a flawed argument in the beginning, and it is still flawed.
“I did read the entire thread. The original poster’s claim was made in jest as an off hand remark. Not only did you not let it go you broke the argument down to ridiculous levels to try and make a point aka Reductio ad absurdum.”
It was not apparent at all that it was made in jest, and I have the right to refute it, that’s what this forum is for. You have been trying to break down my arguments over 4 posts. Perhaps I am not the only one being ridiculous. If you disagree with me fine, but come on, I believe that your arguments are in error, and you seem to be ignoring whatever part of my posts do not suit your fancy.
I did read that. That comparison is flawed. A Veyron is a flagship car so you need to compare it to the flagship Mac.
The other flaw is a cheap PC is not a workstation. The Mac Pro is. You are essentially comparing two different classes of computers. Like wise a cheap car isn’t a super car. The Veyron is a super car. Compare it to other super cars and the technological differences aren’t that much. The CCXR has a 1018 HP engine too.
Especially if you want to compare a MAXED out workstation to a MAXED out Mac Pro.
Why do you want to compare a base Mac Pro? Thats pretty
disingenuous. Like I pointed out there are other super cars in the same price range as the Veyron with similar performance.
Can the High end PC run Final Cut Studio, Logic and Shake? No then its useless to the Mac Pro target audience. That is the point.
“Why would you buy a MacPro to run Linux?”
The OP said “why would you buy a Veyron if you want to put diesel in it?” He said nothing about performance.
You assumed a Veyron means performance and made a flawed argument based on that incorrect assumption.
The statement is still true if we change it to “Why would you buy a M5/335i to put diesel in it?” or “Why would you buy a Gasoline/petrol car to put diesel in it?”. Ergo, implying why buy an expensive product for which it is not intended. Obviously with a lot of
exageration thrown in.
Please don’t say that the PCs can run the same OS a Mac ! that is irrelevant. The point is any PC will do to run linux you don’t need a Mac Pro.
I did. If you had bothered thinking you would have done the same.
I proved the ratios by real examples.
You need to compare Apples to Apples. You can’t compare a econobox dodge to a Veyron. A dodge neon/sx is not even the same category as a Veyron. You can’t compare a super car and econobox on any plane.
I can get a 3 year old computer essentially free and have 2800x ratio with a base Mac Pro. I can run it for free too. With car just running it and maintaining it costs money. So the cost ratio of a old mac/PC to a base Mac Pro blows your car to Veyron ratio out of the water.
That’s irrelevant. I showed you with real data that the ratios of cost can be comparable. It doesn’t matter what the implementation details are.
You can’t do 253mph in a normal car and you can’t Run Final Cut Studio etc on a normal PC. To run it properly for post production you need the flagship Mac Pro. It doesn’t matter if the parts are the same.
A computer performs a function. You can’t just buy all the parts of Mac Pro and run the Apps that I mentioned. At least not legally. So your “parts are the same” argument is bunk.
Nope your argument is seriously flawed. The ratio between a fast car and Veyron is in the same ball park as cheap PC and the Flag Ship Mac Pro.
I said you win and let it go until you responded. I am spending way too much time explain a simple concept. I even wrote a detailed example with facts to illustrate my point and all you can offer is “You can’t compare the two” with no real concrete argument.
Edited 2008-06-12 01:04 UTC
The Mac Pro has some outstanding internal design features that are difficult to reproduce on a home-built machine. In addition, some people think it’s a good-looking machine, and the cheapest variant of the Mac Pro is, in fact, relatively affordable for what you get (yes, people, it really is).
Linux has its advantages over Mac OS X, just like any other system has its advantages over Mac OS X. For some people, the whole freedom aspect is very important. In addition, Linux allows for a lot more customisation than Mac OS X does.
For me, it’s OS X all the way, but I can certainly understand why a lot of people would want to run Linux on a Mac. It’s not exactly as if Mac OS X is the second coming of christ, for god’s sake.
I agree that people want to run Linux on a Mac. In fact, it’s an excellent choice! I’m referring to the Mac Pro only, in that buying a Mac Pro for Linux, is a long stretch of practicality. Buying a Mac Book / Mac Mini for Linux is a common occurrence.
That’s exactly my point.
If Vector Linux is so good and is Teh Snappiez and that’s what’s important to you, why not run it on the Mac Pro and stop complaining about Mac OS X being slow?
If you’re using a Mac Pro, it’s most likely because you are using Mac apps that have no equivalent on Linux. If that’s the case, an OS upgrade that makes your machine run faster which in turn makes you complete tasks faster will boost your productivity. When productivity increases, $$$ flowing into your pocket increases.
Even if the upgrade costs full price at £80 (dunno what it is elsewhere), you’ll more than likely get a significant return on that small investment.
evangs,
Your telling me about Productivity??
It takes me the same amount of time in Leopard as it did in Tiger to convert the RAWs, manipulate/retouch in Photoshop, import to Corel Painter and paint over it, import back to Photoshop to sharpen and touch-up, open Genuine Fractals to interpolate, load profile and print on my Epson. I also produce the same quality prints regardless of OS version.
Eyecandy means nothing to me if it interferes with my workflow. Would Snow Leopard really make me a better Photographer/Artist/Fine-Art Printer?
Leopard runs well on my current Mac Pro, but I can’t help feeling it’s really bloated. Using Vector (or any other Xfce distro) as an example…. programs open with the same speed (or faster) on a low-end laptop as it does with a Mac Pro that costs 6-8 times more. Of course, I can’t do Photoshop benchmarks coz Adobe don’t make a Linux version…. but you get my drift.
What I’m trying to say is:
Apple seem to tout the words ‘Speed’ and ‘Stability’ with this new release. I’m all for those two qualities, but paying someone to remove bloat that shouldn’t have been there in the first place is bit too much in my opinion. Of course, it’s better than paying someone like Microsoft to add bloat.
I’ll definitely continue using Macs coz, 1. Adobe, Corel….atc don’t make software that runs natively in Linux and I don’t have the time to re-learn the open source equivalents like Gimp, and 2. Colour Management in Linux is a bitch, even for seasoned users.
Perhaps I’ve become cheap since I started using free software..
Just my 2 cents.
So you compare what are essentially CPU bound operations on applications that are not written by Apple and you say that you gain no productivity?
Some of the things that I’ve found impossible to live without in Leopard are:
1) The new improved spotlight. It finds things instantly, instead of waiting ~3 seconds. I access spotlight loads during the day and that is a productivity gain.
2) Spaces. Depends on what I’m doing, but typically I’ll have Xcode open with a few projects up. Without spaces, this task is a nightmare.
YMMV of course.
“paying someone to remove bloat that shouldn’t have been there in the first place is bit too much in my opinion.”
Would you rather be running MacOS X 10.3 while Apple perfects the ultimate release? Apple’s release schedule has been pretty impressive, and the fact that each version is no slower (often faster) than the last is pretty impressive. It sounds like the next version is going to take multiprocessing to heart, so should take better advantage of the multiple cores on your Pro. Which is probably worth money to you.
If it’s not worth the money to you, then don’t buy it.
http://www.revver.com/video/750256/audis-diesel-supercar-street-leg…
Granted, it’s no Veyron, but if we’re warping analogies this badly, who’s to care? Seriously, it’s like calling The Pro “if money were no object, this would be the most technically advanced model of its type anywhere on Earth”-esque. Nice as the Pro is, that just ain’t so.
edit: spellcheck
Edited 2008-06-10 13:28 UTC
Code optimization is apple’s best defence against linux
The reason I say this is that, from what ive seen, open source development its nigh on impossible to get your developers to stepback and optimize everything that has gone before. Im not saying the coding is bad in the first place, but people are far more willing to contribute their free time makeing ‘superNewFeatureX’ then slogging through to optimise someone elses code..
Imagine KDE 4 having no new features, only optimisations… It wouldnt get the developer support
Edited 2008-06-10 10:20 UTC
I think that’s a little unfair. There must be many unsung heroes who do real grunt work making Linux run in minimal memory and function on proprietary hardware.
Just because their name isn’t presented to you when you log in, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t people, both paid and volunteer, who are doing the tough work too.
What Apple are doing is the marketing of that process.
There will be new features in Snow Leopard (Finalised ZFS for instance), but they won’t be marketed at the forefront until maybe the final hurdle.
I agree with apple using marketing to their advantage
I also agree with the fact there are linux devs who do grunt work (they must exist or my desktop wouldnt boot in under a week :-p)
But, open source tends to have a latest and greatest mentality (just like its users). Getting all the related projects which make up a booting system to stop adding features and only optimize for a 6 months would be an incredible achivement to say the least!
Its a shame because I think we are reaching the point in linux where something like that needs to take place..
You tend to hear a lot about the greatest and newest on a news site. Those who use red hat or slackware do not have this mentality, or they would use Fedora. they’re just in the news or on news sites because they’re using old stuff.
I don’t believe linux need a rework on performance. It beats BSD on many fronts. Or are you talking about a specific distro of GNU/linux?
Just because it beats BSD on many fronts does not means there is no room for improvement 😉
THe point I was trying to convey is because of the structure of many open source OS you couldnt universally say ‘only optimisation for 6 months’ and expect it to happen
Apple (and MS) have this luxury as indipendant companies
If nothing one’s gotta love Apple’s love for detail, down the symbolism of the name, it is the same cat just an albino, white and clean so to say.
If I would have to make make one thing thats better in Apple products, than it’s not so much more features or a better product they make, it’s just that after they make one, they themselves treat it like a princess.
It’s the main thing I miss in Windows, just look at the 100 age old Win3.1 add Font dialog in Vista, or the Icons on the desktop still redrawing and blinking in Aero, just lacks so much love.
I think that should be a factor in a every review like
Stability:
Security:
Features:
Usability:
and Love:)
Anybody else find this text from the apple website hilarious?
“With Snow Leopard, the next major version of the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X changes more than its spots, it changes focus.”
How different from another famous focus shift… One company dying and moving away from performance/sleekness on their core platform, another extremely healthy, moving toward more performance on their core platform! With language like that you almost wonder if it is a subtle jab…
Edited 2008-06-10 12:38 UTC
What is Apple doing that allows them to bring such innovative concepts and designs to the market in such a relatively short period of time, while MS stays stuck in the ‘every 3 years or so we’ll update the same-old, same-old’ mold?
In this case, Apple aren’t doing anything special. During the development of Leopard, there was supposed to be a new kernel, which is probably what they’re showing here. Avie Tevanian, the V.P. of R&D, left around the same time, maybe in disagreement over the direction. As I recall, that’s been well over a year.
Who knows, maybe they’re dropping Mach for some other micro kernel?
So Apple is not adding in more useless apps, but spending the needed time to make the system better and more responsive?
Good Call Apple. 2 thumbs up.
Not many OS Manufacturers listen to there user base about the system slowing down or such, but you did. Bravo.
Now for all of you whining about not having new apps / etc. then just stop and think about it. a better, more responsive system will, if nothing else, increase the life of your hardware for quite a while.
name me one other developer that has even bothered to try to do that.
hell, even Linux has become bloated. I remember back when a full install of Linux w/X included, was only 500Mb.
So yeah, Apple is doing a good thing here.
I remember when a full install of Linux fit in about 20mb with X11 (but without latex) — and would run in 4mb of memory. Life was good in those days because it was no longer necessary to rub the cores with a magnet to flip bits.
I give Apple credit for doing the right thing! Taking the time to optimize and rearrange the structure of the OS so that future OS innovations may be implemented more easily. Sometimes it takes balls to do the right thing!.
Leopard is a very stable OS and IMO, not bloated like other OS’s (see Vista & most popular Linux distros). Some people seem to associate optimization with bloat reduction… Whiles this can be the case, I doubt this is Apples intentions as Leopard is not terribly bloated. It is more likely going to take the existing OS and restructure certain features/functions in a more logical/efficient way.
The great thing about OS X is that I can install Leopard on my fathers 6-YO 1Ghz dual PowerMac G4 Quicksilver and have it run great! Try installing Vista on a 6-YO computer and see what happens!
MS is attempting to un-bloat win7??? I really doubt that a company that spent 5+ years putting together an OS, removing virtually all the initial “money features” in the name of “just getting it done”, is actually going to be able to make large strides is optimizing the OS. I have very little comfidence in MS abilities to do anything substantial with their OS.
If Apple really wanted to improve the performance of OS X and applications… It would write its own very highly optimizing compiler that specializes in producing code designed to run on multiple processors. And then it should do all it can to encourage/force developers to write threaded applications that make good use of multiple(4+) cores.
Krreagan
Edited 2008-06-10 17:44 UTC
This is precisely why people buy Apple computers and OSs, code reviews.
It’s a “Do the Right Thingâ„¢” attitude.
When possible – do it once, do it the right way.
Commercial OSs are not mission critical like what is written by NASA for the Space Shuttle:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=287023&dl=ACM&coll=portal
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5026
But … it is nice to know they’re thinking of us.
heise provides some information about great central:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/WWDC-OS-X-10-6-versteht-sich-mit-Mic…
german only, sorry. great central seems to be a library and great central dispatch somethink like a thread-scheduler which can break up a programm in as many threads as needed if the programm code contains “blocks” – an new feature of objective-c.
or at least that’s what i imagined from the describtion.
according to apple:
performance, ~50% faster than leopard, 20% less CPU load
http://twitter.com/juicepharma