MacBidouille Rumors Followup

[MacRumors]

MacBidouille posts (http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003-05-06#5441) regarding concerns about the similarities between the benchmarks and Barefeats' numbers as well as the concern of Bryce numbers (English Translation by Nonoche):

"We contacted our source about the too big similitudes between the benchs we received and those published by Barefeats, and were told that Apple took the numbers of the P IV and dual 1.42 from Barefeats and used their testing protocol. For Bryce [nonoche:not supporting multiple processors], here's the explanation we got:


"I should have told you, the benchmarks with Bryce... were done on a beta of a forthcoming version of Bryce, which should be released in July or August this year. Version 6 will support multiple processors... Bryce 6 beta is available on a few P2P sites, notably on hotline. The real file is Corel Bryce 6 beta.sit, and takes 91.2 MB"

We do not think this is a hoax in any case. A number of details of the dialogs we've been having for 2 months have been reaffirmed in several occasions, starting by the presence of the PPC 970 at the WWDC and the 64 bits optimisation of Panther. We mostly see there a lack of comprehension linked to the language barrier.


The editor clarifies that rumors should be taken for what they are -- rumors, and that they have more to lose by publishing rumors than to gain:

To conclude, if the rumor of the breathtaking performances of the PPC 970 reveals to be false, I will never again publish rumors. If the rumor gets confirmed and that the PPC 970 reveals to be the bomb we're all waiting for (which I am convinced), I will probably not publish rumors any more neither. Those informations will remain inside the team.

[iGav]

I'm just going to wait and see..... ;)

Nice figures though.... ;) :D :D

[claughery]

Well, they had the dudes over at slashdot convinced... and me too...
I think they are real...

[skunk]

Looking at MacB's comments, they're getting well hacked off with all the negative comments being thrown at them on this one.

[richie]

Well, they're being upfront about it all; it certainly endears the site and increases their believability to me - it won't be long till we see if they're right anyway!

[tazznb]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! :)

I hope to see all traces of the Geriatric 4 processor from the accursed Motorolla:mad:

[zac4mac]

I hope they're real.
I've been jonesing for a replacement for my DP550 for over a year, but the current offerings aren't enough bang for buck. Did get a 22" Cinema Display this year tho. Can't wait to get a DP970 with a Radeon 9800(?).

Z

[tazznb]

If this proves to be true I hope all the naysayers (French HATERS) are happy since they are no longer devulging information for all of us to enjoy.:o

[wallinbl]

Originally posted by claughery
Well, they had the dudes over at slashdot convinced... and me too...
I think they are real...

/. is not hard to fool.

[davy the bunny]

As the editor said, rumors should be taken for what they are - rumors. . . Even though I'm excited I make sure to always exercise my skepticism, but that doesn't mean I have to call MacBidouille liars, maybe their sources. Let's all hope though!

[Raiden]

This is what I dont like about this place. When you guys actually get a piece of quite possibly true yet farfetched info, you immediatly bash and flame the living hell out of hit. Stuff like "It isnt real, its all fake, the [author] is a moron and a liar!" I was around when APPLE57 or whatever posted the powermac pics, and everyone flamed him, and didnt believe him, and drove him out of macrumors. Its so sad cause dont you guys want rumors or something?

This is macbidolues (whatever) chance, if they predict right, they will go down as a very creditable source. Screw this up and we dont have to pay attention to them ever again.

Simple as that.

Now if I may, the bookmarks seem very good, almost too good. I am afraid to get my hopes up, but if I were a betting man, I would say that these rumors are TRUE. Which is badass!! Im so going to buy one for college!

[cb911]

i think that most of the MacBidouille scepticism has been because of inaccuricies in the translation, like they say.

the real big one was probably when they rumored the 970 PowerBooks to be released for May, or WWDC, but then later corrected it to March 2004... not the news that people wanted to hear.

hopefully MacBilouille isn't put off by all of this and they will keep posting info as they get it.:)

[Loa]

I'm not surprised to hear MacBidouille talk about language barriers, but not the one they want us to think about.

I believe (read: I'm not certain) that the French text on their site (for this latest rumor) is a translation itself, probably from English. That would explain why they have a bilingual rumor.

I often translate English to French and some of the French wording looks like it's translated too closely from English: the syntax is just not right.

Anyway, food for thought.

Loa

P.S. I also believe, like Raiden, that some people here (I've been lurking for a long time) are taking some rumors too seriously... They're just rumors guys, no need to start religious wars over them. You may have contributed to MacBidouille's decision not to publish rumors anymore. And that's sad, considering the sources they appear to have. We'll know soon enough if they were accurate or not: when we do, please remember what you said in your posts. Was it worth it?

[zigi]

Originally posted by Loa
I'm not surprised to hear MacBidouille talk about language barriers, but not the one they want us to think about.

I believe (read: I'm not certain) that the French text on their site (for this latest rumor) is a translation itself, probably from English. That would explain why they have a bilingual rumor.

I often translate English to French and some of the French wording looks like it's translated too closely from English: the syntax is just not right.

Anyway, food for thought.

Loa

P.S. I also believe, like Raiden, that some people here (I've been lurking for a long time) are taking some rumors too seriously... They're just rumors guys, no need to start religious wars over them. You may have contributed to MacBidouille's decision not to publish rumors anymore. And that's sad, considering the sources they appear to have. We'll know soon enough if they were accurate or not: when we do, please remember what you said in your posts. Was it worth it?


Well put.

[skunk]

Originally posted by Loa
I believe (read: I'm not certain) that the French text on their site (for this latest rumor) is a translation itself, probably from English. That would explain why they have a bilingual rumor.
I often translate English to French and some of the French wording looks like it's translated too closely from English: the syntax is just not right.

Just French street talk. Argot.

[Chaszmyr]

If they used Bryce 6 then why does the graph say Bryce 5? and if they used a Bryce 6 that supports multiprocessors, why did they use Barefeats Bryce5 results for the dual 1.42ghz G4?

I believed these benchmarks at first.. but not any more.

[richie]

Originally posted by Loa

I believe (read: I'm not certain) that the French text on their site (for this latest rumor) is a translation itself, probably from English. That would explain why they have a bilingual rumor.

I often translate English to French and some of the French wording looks like it's translated too closely from English: the syntax is just not right.


I see what you mean, but I don't think you're right... the reason they've been doing English translations for the last few stories is more than likely because macrumors has been bringing an English audience to their site - they retain the new viewers far mor easily if their site can actually be read. :)

As for the French syntax... it's very authentic French, to my (native) eye.

But I agree with the rest of your post about people being too hard on people posting rumours :/

[Sun Baked]

"We contacted our source about the too big similitudes between the benchs we received and those published by Barefeats, and were told that Apple took the numbers of the P IV and dual 1.42 from Barefeats and used their testing protocol. For Bryce [nonoche:not supporting multiple processors], here's the explanation we got:These machines will be furnished with Mac OS X 10.2 which is not 64 bits optimized. For each purchase of one of these machines, Mac OS X 10.3 will be offered at its introduction in september. With these conditions, at least if Apple not opposes, we will have benchmarks of this machine not later than May, 15th.So they're saying the leak was from inside Apple, now that would definitely be a huge NDA violation... oh wait, it has Apple's blessing. :rolleyes:

Plus this just makes it look like they are trying to dig themselves out of a hole... ooops the numbers we said were Bryce 5 are actually a beta of 6.

[Snowy_River]

Hmm...

Well, if these rumors are true, then I called the reason for the discrepencies.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26212&perpage=25&pagenumber=3
(down at the bottom of the page...)

I positted these reasons as a plausible reason for these benchmarks appearing as they did.

I'm still not going to say 'yea' or 'nay' about these rumors. I hope they're right, but I still have no real way to judge them. I'll just wait and see.

[trilogic]

I want to believe :cool:

[silvergunuk]

The plot thickens

[MacManiac1224]

I think that them coming out and saying this proves that the rumors they posted are true, to thier beliefs.

[foniks2020]

Good times?

If the guys at MacB aren't concerned about legal issues and they're just putting out the rumors as they get them.... hey, makes for some good times... Apple can change release dates and marketing spin but they don't make the CPUs, IBM is putting out the same hardware regardless of what some guys in a rumor-forum feel the need to say.

So relax. I mean it's not as if you guys are out there buying and selling stock based on these 'rumors' right? IF you are... well please leave the rest of us out of your premature ejaculate roid-rage fests, 'kay?

I for one just think it's fun to keep track of the what and when of my favorite hardware-software design house.

Good times...

[daRAT]

I am a Bryce 5 user, and in with that whole 3d community. Therefore, when I tell you Corel has set aside Bryce department and moved the people to other program development and is quitely looking for buyers of Bryce, you can be sure it is NOT a rumor, the head of Corel's Bryce team said that Bryce was shelved, no Bryce 6. Nada.

Bryce 6 was NOT going to have multiple cpu ability either...essh!

[DGFan]

Originally posted by wallinbl
/. is not hard to fool.

There are alot of people around that jump to a conclusion and then stay there.

The number of people who posted in the other thread with comments like, "The P4 and G4 numbers were the same as on the other website therefore it is PROVEN that the 970 results are a hoax" was just ludicrous. Some folks need to take a logic class to understand what constitutes proof.

That said, MB (or their source) should have been more careful about the info shown with the results. Obviously these are just rumors but the Bryce comparison was a major SNAFU. Under any circumstances comparing Bryce 6 numbers to Bryce 5 numbers on different processors is a bad idea. With this crowd it is guaranteed to create a firestorm if that isn't disclosed.

[Steradian]

The Truth is out there ;)

[drastik]

Originally posted by foniks2020


So relax. I mean it's not as if you guys are out there buying and selling stock based on these 'rumors' right? IF you are... well please leave the rest of us out of your premature ejaculate roid-rage fests, 'kay?



Well, not exactly, but I did buy some additional shares of Apple when the music service started to look certain. Thats done me well so far, though many anti-apple analysts, (yes, the PC/Mac rift goes that deep sometimes, for both sides of the fence, think that the high sales are a blip).

All of that to say, MacB has had some ground breaking rumors in the past, I am trully sorry to see them stop publishing rumors. I am also sick of the automatic crapstorm that befalls new rumors these days. I've been comming to this site for a long time, but lately I just read because the discussion is deteriorating so much.

[maler]

from some Jack on corel.graphic_apps.bryce

Unfortunately, Bryce 6 is on hold at the moment. This from a post at Renderosity from someone who works at Corel, and was on the Bryce team, but is no longer.

Got a feeling that version 5 may be the last.

[leo]

Originally posted by DGFan
Under any circumstances comparing Bryce 6 numbers to Bryce 5 numbers on different processors is a bad idea.
Exactly. I did believe the benchs at first, but the following explanations seem like a cheap excuse. It's too obvious. Sorry, I don't buy it anymore.

[JtheLemur]

I think we all need to relax. Everyone seems to really be venting when they find something that disproves the rumor for them. I mean, no one is forcing the rumor on you. Unlike religion. =) Deep breath everybody!

Besides, y'all KNOW that you won't turn your backs on MacBidoodoo - just look at SpyMac, that place is hopping with readers despite the whole iWalk thing... =D

[rog]

The BS just keeps getting heaped on!

[type_r503]

I don't really care. The 970 IS coming and WILL be fast, regardless of some french rumor site. I only read the rumors for entertainment.

[DGFan]

Originally posted by leo
Exactly. I did believe the benchs at first, but the following explanations seem like a cheap excuse. It's too obvious. Sorry, I don't buy it anymore.

It was never claimed that they were completely fair side-by-side lab tests. However, what it does mean is that the Bryce comparison is irrelevant. That doesn't mean the 970 Bryce result is wrong but without Bryce 6 numbers for P4 and G4 there isn't much of a useful comparison to be made.

So, yes, I believe the numbers. But, no, the Bryce numbers don't mean much. The other numbers don't mean that much either without full system specs.

Still, it's interesting and has me anticipating the new systems. Which is all that should come out of the rumor....

[DTphonehome]

What kind of performance can we expect to see from the 970's when they come out, and in what speeds? Would they match or surpass PC speeds (not in clockspeed, but actual performance)? And not just on one or two Photoshop filters either...I would love to see something comparable to a 3Ghz P4...OsX would BLAZE on a machine like that...with a nice fast bus....rowr

[NicoMan]

Originally posted by richie
I see what you mean, but I don't think you're right... the reason they've been doing English translations for the last few stories is more than likely because macrumors has been bringing an English audience to their site - they retain the new viewers far mor easily if their site can actually be read. :)

As for the French syntax... it's very authentic French, to my (native) eye.

But I agree with the rest of your post about people being too hard on people posting rumours :/

To my french eyes I agree it is authentic french syntax. The reason why they've been putting english translation, as you have put it, is to catter to the english audience coming from macrumors and others. A couple of weeks ago they were looking for a few bilingual people to help them (on a permanent basis) with english translations of their articles on their sites.

Now, on a different note, the reason why (I believe) they have so many rumours/infos flying around is that Apple Europe have a lot of French people in their ranks (I think 3 or 4 of the top 5 guys are french) and I guess they feel more inclined to give tidbits of info to a french site...
To answer a question I saw earlier, Apple is not BIG in France but I guess it's got 3-5% market share or something and going up (I was in Paris over the weekend and I was amazed by the number of Powerbook ads in the streets) after a few bad years. Of course the US remain the main market for Apple, but it would probably help their international ventures if they made an effort to give international users the same array of features... 'Nuff said.

NicoMan

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Chaszmyr
If they used Bryce 6 then why does the graph say Bryce 5? and if they used a Bryce 6 that supports multiprocessors, why did they use Barefeats Bryce5 results for the dual 1.42ghz G4?

I believed these benchmarks at first.. but not any more.

Agreed. They were provided the numbers from Bryce5 by Apple for the existing processors and Bryce6b for the 970 tests.

This doesn't throw all benchmarks in question, nor certainly indicate that the benchmarks are fabricated. It indicates that the compiler of the benchmarking results was just a bit lazy and not as careful as he should have been.

As before, I am more inclined to believe the MacBid numbers because they (1) lie within reason according to IBMs published facts and numbers, and (2) are coupled with other dev facts that make sense.

[eric67]

Originally posted by richie
I see what you mean, but I don't think you're right... the reason they've been doing English translations for the last few stories is more than likely because macrumors has been bringing an English audience to their site - they retain the new viewers far mor easily if their site can actually be read. :)

As for the French syntax... it's very authentic French, to my (native) eye.

But I agree with the rest of your post about people being too hard on people posting rumours :/

Thank you both for those comments, it is always nice to see some people thinking twice before acting or writing comments.....
By the way speaking french syntax or not, I will probably go further, I think their source might be english-speaking but not as its native language.... if it is a native english-speaking person then why contacting a french mac-fan site, whereas there are tens of such sites in US??? to avoid to be traced down by Apple or IBM?? benchmarks of the PPC 970 are just the last step of a story which started already few month ago!!! just wait and see, in less than 2 weeks we will know for sure.
BUT if macbidouille turns out to be right I do expect public excuse from those ****** who are commenting sometimes in quite rude language something which is just a rumor....

[hacurio1]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Agreed. They were provided the numbers from Bryce5 by Apple for the existing processors and Bryce6b for the 970 tests.

This doesn't throw all benchmarks in question, nor certainly indicate that the benchmarks are fabricated. It indicates that the compiler of the benchmarking results was just a bit lazy and not as careful as he should have been.

As before, I am more inclined to believe the MacBid numbers because they (1) lie within reason according to IBMs published facts and numbers, and (2) are coupled with other dev facts that make sense.

Agree…..There are people here whining and saying that those scores are BS. Yes…probably the Bryce scores where fabricated, but they are certainly not BS. It has been mentioned here and in Ars that the 970 will be about twice as fast as the G4 in a per-clock basis. Now, Imagine how a system with two 970 processors at 1.8 GHz and such a wide BUS will perform. Then those numbers are not far from the truth!!!! I remember last year people whining that by the time the 970 is released the PIV where going to be at 4 GHz. Here we are, several months later and they are only at 3.2 GHz. Some people here are not realistic……they are pessimistic (BIG DIFERENCE!)

[Kai]

.."Apple" (who supposedly made the benchmarks) is a frequent visitor to Hotline etc.
However, it still doesn't explain why the test says "Bryce 5" and why the P4/G4 numbers are clearly the exact same as in the Barefeats-Bryce5-Test.
One would think they'd atleast run this hot w4reZ0r-Bryce6 on the Dual 1.42 G4 aswell, wouldn't you?

Also notice the amazingly low SMP-Factor of 1.38 (compared to a supposedly 400MHz SLOWER Power970, mind you!) in Cinema: P970 = Great SMP-Performer, wasn't that their claim? That's interesting, cause i have never seen a SMP-factor so low in C4D, not even with a Dual-Pentium1 (which *really* sucked cause of their shared L2-Cache!), especially not compared to a slower clocked Single-machine!

Oh, and here's another thing that wasn't spotted yet as it seems: The Photoshop-Results!
They're from the SP-Bench-Suite on Barefeats (check the Numbers!), a suite that ONLY uses Single-CPU filters. Oh my, why is the Dual P970 more than twice as fast as the Single (sorry: "Mono"!) P970 in this then?

Summing up: Bryce-Numbers obviously false, Cinema-Numbers obviously false, Photoshop-Numbers obviously false. What's left? Nothing!
Oh, i forgot, it's all the fault of the "language barrier" that kept me from percieving a few simple bargraphs and reading a few numbers. They count kinda silly in France (99 = four times 20, ten and nine), but last i heard the numbers 0-9 still meant the same there as they do here!

Forget it, dudes, this Benchmark is so clearly fake, it bewilders me how they can possibly think we'd buy *this*!
There are so many inconsistencies and contradictions in this i am actually led to believe it IS real since nobody can be so stupid to fake THAT badly! ;-)

<jedi-handwaving>These are not the benchmarks you are looking for!</jedi-handwaving>

I'm actually glad they play the princess now saying "whine! we won't publish any rumours anymore and keep em to ourselves, so there!" - Good! Great! That's exactly what i want, i don't want another hyping-up through rumours (from one site only, just like back then!) and then "disappointment" when Apple "doesn't deliver" what they never even vaguely promised like with the G5 back then!

P.S.: Remember the G5? Well, there were the exact same "rumours" from very credible "sources" flying around back then! Tony Smith of TheReg could tell you a story about "reliable sources"!
Read here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/22328.html
Or here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/23078.html
Or here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/21692.html

..and now all sing Propellerheads: "..just a little bit of history repeating!.."

P.S.2: So they got the Quicksilver case right, okay. But 64-CPU "Xstations"? A f'en Workstation with 64 CPUs? From Apple? Gimme a break! And oh yeah, there is no 6-CPU-Computer on the planet, MacBidouille! It's 2/4/8/16/32/etc only, unless you count SGIs ccNUMA or similar big irons from IBM or Sun, but these are always way beyond 6 CPUs! And that AMD has bigger production capacities than IBM is certainly news to me, especially when IBM has such a big facilities-overhead they are desperately looking for people whose chips they can make (see: IBM aims to rival TSMC, IBM broadens PPC-Licensing: http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/newsletter/mar2003/lead.html and http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984669.html?tag=fd_top )

[Hattig]

In the end these are only rumours. Nothing less, nothing more. I expect that MacB made the graphs, etc, themselves from the data provided by the source, and that the source just didn't include any relevant information.

So I don't think that MacB made up any numbers or anything. However it is possible that their source was less than attentive with the benchmarking (esp. if it was done sneakily inside Apple, and the results jotted down on a piece of paper until the source got somewhere safe to send them).

It would be nice if the results were true, or at least indicative of the overall power of the new PowerMacs. A few tests doesn't show anything though, only a truly comprehensive testing can do that. These will only appear when the machines are released, however.

[Upright Joe]

I just searched hotline very extensively and could find no trace of the elusive Bryce 6 Beta....

I'm not saying the benchmarks were definitely fabricated but it certainly looks like they were.

Regardless, the 970 exists, is smokin' fast, and is almost certainly going to make in appearance in macs sometime this year. That's good enough for me. I'll wait for real, verifiable, benchmarks to worry about performance.

[Dave Marsh]

I can't speak for others, of course, but I read these forums for personal enjoyment and insights into what may be coming down the road, not to seek out gaffs that I can respond to quickly to feed my ego. When a rumor is posted that doesn't pass my personal reality check, I smile, and move on. If it's a simple error or inconsistency that begs a comment, I'll make that without emotional overtones and move on.

Flaming, denigrating, or otherwise overtly posting something that offends others in an vain attempt to underscore how much more savvy one is than the poster of a rumor is not only rude, but ineffective, especially if the poster was simply passing on the info because he/she was so excited to have come across it, and reduces the likelihood of them ever sharing such morsels again.

It's one thing to respond to someone who has historically posted inaccurate info and note, again unemotionally, that we should be wary of their postings. It's quite another to blatantly call a poster a liar, a faker, a ...whatever, just because you find something wrong with their postings.

Mac people WANT to share because they enjoy using the technology so much. If they screw up now and then, so what? Do we want people to share or not? If they don't, what are we going to talk about on these boards, the latest bug in Word? Who would care?

MacBidouille's postings over the past year have been pretty good, which is probably why so many have gotten involved in this thread. I know that's why I was so interested.

They clearly have access to some insiders, and I, for one, would sorely hate for them to not share in the future.

[Kai]

Well - if that's the case, they would need a serious lesson in technical background!

I don't wanna come off as arrogant (too late, eh? ;-)), but writing for a Mac-Magazine myself i would check and doublecheck Benchmark-numbers of supposed future Apple hardware atleast 4 times and apply a good can of logic derived from a certain technical background (Bryce != Dual-CPU is a pretty well known fact f.ex, as is the Barefeats-Photoshop-SP-Suite being Single-CPU only! Also average C4D-SMP-Factors should be common knowledge if you're publishing technical articles like this!) if some "reliable source" sent these results to me!

That's a very important (if not THE most important!) part of the whole journo-biz: You just don't publish anything just because someone sends it to you claiming he/she's a "reliable source"!

And for those saying "it's just a rumour, it doesn't mean anything, calm down": Did you see what a dive Apples stockprice took when the G5 wasn't presented in Jan02, cause loads and loads of sites all linked either directly or indirectly to Tony Smith's stories on TheReg where he told us just how amazing the G5 will be, Benchmarks and all, and that it certainly will be released in January? Do you remember just how disappointed the whole community was? And because of what? Apple never promised anything, in fact they even gave us a hint through saying "there's much life left in the G4", but back then we were all too excited about what good old Tony told us on TheReg to listen!
Just realize the impact one single source can have on the whole community, Apples stockprice and the public's perception of Apple!

Well, Apples stockprice is on the rise again finally, due to good news from the iTunes-Store-Front, and i don't know about you, but I for my part certainly don't want to see the whole story repeat when the P970 is not released on/after WWDC!

(It seems the whole G5-thing wasn't completely false because as we all know now Moto canned the G5 midway, so Tony shouldn't take all the blame, actually Moto is the main culprit! Still, he should've chosen a more careful wording when writing his articles and should've constantly pointed out that this is all just a possibility! Apple itself certainly isn't to blame for the disaster, nevertheless they got all the FLAK for it! And you really wonder why Apple has a grudge against the rumour-sites? Well, look at the nose-dive their shares took after the G5 didn't come and just imagine how many hundreds of millions a "simple" rumour cost them! Btw: A close third after Moto and Tony are we, the whole community that just bought the rumours without questioning! That's why we should've learned our lesson and i for my part am extra-suspicious about rumours for future Apple-CPUs now!)

[Flowbee]

Originally posted by Kai


I'm actually glad they play the princess now saying "whine! we won't publish any rumours anymore and keep em to ourselves, so there!" - Good! Great! That's exactly what i want...

Then why do you even read rumor sites? If every rumor site that ever got someting wrong stopped publishing rumors, there wouldn't be any sites left! Let's remember, part of the fun or 'rumoring' is discussing whether we think they're true or false. If everyone's rumors turned out to be true, these boards would be pretty boring.

I personally don't think MacB's benchmarks were malicious or meant to deceive. I think they simply passed on some info from a source that they've trusted in the past. If the benchmarks turn out to be bogus (and I think it's pretty clear that they are), the most we can ask is that they not be so quick to trust this source in the future. I hope they continue to post rumors that they think are reliable.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Chaszmyr
If they used Bryce 6 then why does the graph say Bryce 5? and if they used a Bryce 6 that supports multiprocessors, why did they use Barefeats Bryce5 results for the dual 1.42ghz G4?

I believed these benchmarks at first.. but not any more.

It's actually worse than that.

As Kai also points out, the numbers on the Photoshop tests clearly show that the benchmarker is using the "SP actions" Photoshop file from BareFeats. This means that this benchmark DOES NOT benefit from multiple processors. Yet the DP 970 is more than twice as fast as the SP 970 in this benchmark! So clearly the Photoshop results are faked as well.

There are only two possible explanations:

(1) The benchmarks are completely faked.
(2) There were tests run on the 970, but these tests were COMPLETELY different from the ones that are posted on the BareFeats site. Thus the 970 results are cannot be compared in any meaningful way to the G4/P4 results. It would be like saying that a Mac Plus is faster than a G4 because the Mac Plus can scroll though a 2 page Word document faster than the G4 can calculate pi to 6 million significant digits - you're not even running the same task on both machines.

The likelihood of (1) being true is substantially higher, which unfortunately means that most of MacBd's rumors from this "source" are probably false. But either way, these benchmarks are worthless and should be ignored.

[pilotgi]

June-July 2003: PPC 970 PowerMac and Xserve, PowerBooks with G4 @ 1.25 GHz.

This is the big one, on top of all the previous hardware and software announcements of this year.

August-September 2003: iMacs with 1.25 and 1.4GHz G4 processors.

Just two months later, these speed bumps for the iMac. I'm guessing they'll also get a 167 Mhz bus.

November 2003: iBook still equiped with G3 processors, but Apple will now use the Gobi version of the processor at 1 and 1.2 GHz.

Again, just two months later. This is an interesting one because it will mean that the iBook will get a next generation processor _before_ the iMac or the PowerBook. Unless of course, they announce a 15" PPC 970 PowerBook before then. And what will the bus speed be for the Gobi G3? 200 Mhz?

Of course, these are rumors and it's anyone's guess what will really happen. But it sure looks like a busy year for Apple.

[Dave Marsh]

I actually have NO problem with people posting their misgivings with the validity of posted rumors. It's the TONE of their comments that I'm addressing.

Just because one can be anonymous on these boards if one chooses, doesn't justify such rudeness.

If MacBidouille's posting makes no sense to you, simply say so, and why, as you have.

However, some on these boards are actively attacking them, accusing them of creating false data to mislead, while presenting no evidence to support such an accusation with the current rumor, or history of such malfeasance. That's my gripe.

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Dave Marsh
... I read these forums for personal enjoyment and insights into what may be coming down the road, not to seek out gaffs that I can respond to quickly to feed my ego....

Well put, Dave. It astounds me the vehemence that some people use when calling, not just the original poster of a rumor, but also those that say that there could be some credibility to a rumor, stupid, gullible, drunk, high, or what-have-you. Such personal attacks are, as you said, rude and counter productive.

These rumors are here as entertainment, and to provide some level of information. But they are still rumors, and as such, all should be taken with varying sizes of grains of salt. (Some my take a grain of salt the size of the moon, but that's another issue, and I certainly don't think that this rumor is one that needs that big a grain. ;))

[Kai]

Rumours are great. I love em. I love discussing them. But, and here comes the important bit: If something is so obviously fake as this one (believe me: Barefeats was the first page i surfed to for comparison as i know that Photoshop/Bryce/C4D is their usual test-suite!) it simply angers me if the person publishing the "rumour" doesn't even apply the most basic common knowledge to verify the numbers before publishing!
If i get some "rumour" i check it thoroughly before publishing it, and i choose very careful wording in my article. Or if it's all over the newspages already i write about it and debunk it in the same article.
There are good fakes and bad fakes. I would never blame anyone for falling for a really well crafted fake, like e.g. the iWalk back then! However, this is a bad fake, and MB should've seen it themselves before publishing it!
I just hate it when such a bad fake gets such exposure as this one currently does! Oh look, it seems it's gone from Slashdot now! ;-) Good, finally someone took action against it!

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by pilotgi
June-July 2003: PPC 970 PowerMac and Xserve, PowerBooks with G4 @ 1.25 GHz.

This is the big one, on top of all the previous hardware and software announcements of this year.
...

I really don't see the latter part of this happening. I just don't see how they can put a 1.25GHz G4 into a PowerBook. They're just too hot. At least the 7455 are. So, are we talking about the 7457? In that case, I'd say that it's just as much a mythical (at this point) processor as the 970, with one big difference. The 970 is being made by IBM (someone that we have some reasonable confidence in), whereas the 7457 is being made by Moto (who we have little or no confidence in). My bet is on seeing a 970 based PowerBook over a 1.25GHz G4 PowerBook. I just hope that we see such before next year, as the 1GHz G4 PowerBook is already getting long in the tooth...

[painandgreed]

Let's all just remember that these are all rumors. There's multiple reasons why they could be given to MacB in good faith and still be wrong. I'm not sure exactly how these rumor sites work, but I suspect that they work similarly to the real world and most rumors are spread from friend to friend. I doubt if the actual developers and engineers are submitting these rumors directly to these websties. There are probably a few, and those I suspect know some of the people associated with the websites. Otherwise I suspect that rumors are submitted by people in the know but not nessisarily the ones generating the data. For example, when I worked at Adobe as lowly TS, I would talk to my QA friends to find out the latest scuttlebutt on our products. Scuttlebutt that they were getting from various developers they would talk to. Those developers might not even be working on the projects that were talked about. So, while in that position, I would say I was a "respectable source" and knew pretty much what was going on in the company and their roadmap for the next six months, but as you can see, there's already a game of "telephone" going on. Developer tells developers tells QA tells TS tells other people. Could be that that info just simiply isn't that good to begin with. It's not meant for release to the public, so it's not been checked with a fine toothed comb. Benchmarks taken straight from the head engineer's desk may be nothing more than bits and peices thrown together willy nilly for his or somebody else's entertainment. Next, you have the simple fact that the developers don't know what is going to happen with a product 6 months down the line. Good info this week may be compeltly wrong next week depending on decisions made by Marketing or Management. Features added, features killed, builds abandoned. Reading a book on Apple design, there were several working prototypes that were built yet never saw the light of day. You may hear rumors about such devices, and it'd be good information, but you'd never know it until you read a book on Apple history ten years later because it gets killed in development. Keeping up with rumors even when inside a company is constant work because the situation is changing from day to day. Then there is always the possibility of dis-information. The source is seeding his rumors with false info, or changing things so he isn't suspect or to keep his employers from getting upset. Not to mention that the comapny itself may have controlled leaks to spread dis/information. Just like artists releasing fake tracks onto Napster, if rumor sites became too reliable, companies could start releasing false informaiton from undeniably good sources just to keep peopele guessing and their secrets, secret. So, there is never going to be a 100% reliable rumor site.

What's this mean to us. Are we going to stop going to a site because somebody posts some wrong info? Most of us probably aren't betting lots of money on what is posted here and if they were, it'd probably be illegal. I suspect that most are reading these for entertainment, perhaps out of profesional curiosity, but still just as a way to pass the time. If a site just starts posting (non-entertaining) wild made up rumors, yes, we'd probably stop going to it. If one site has a better reputation than another site, we may spend more time there over the other, or at least repeat what it has to say more. Still, rumor sites are rumors sites and they're not going to be reliable, they're not going to always have the right information, and anybody who expects them too or gets mad because they aren't, is just in the wrong place to begin with.

[Rai]

When MacB. showed leaked pictures of the new power macs i heard there where insulted and flamed aswell, these rumors ending up being true.

A few months ago, someone posted leaked pictures from an intel meeting where steves jobs was presenting. There where tons of posts by "supposed photoshop experts", that claimed without a doubt this pictures where fake, and flaimed the crap out of the poster. Only a few days latter it was confirmed that the pics were real and steve jobs was at the intel meeting. No apologies where made the post turned silent.

I read an article on online communication, and its flaws. Without people needing to actually o interact with a human, and realize the consequences of there words, people are apt to be more cruel, because they know they can get away with it.

I find it acceptable, it say you do not believe rumors, and put forth your arguements of why, and trying to convince others it is false.

But I find it atrocious, that we flame them in submission. Are these peoples who claim they are lairs, frauds, full of horsesh*t, and other belittling comments, planning to come back and apologize if the rumor becomes true? or are they going to go on posting like it never happened.

Because we are not accountable for our behaviour online, does that make it acceptable, to flame and insult at will?
How many will act like this in real life

[pfranzen]

I honestly find it strange that people can't accept the 'copy & paste' results for the P4/G4 in the tests. This is not a test carried out by an independent hardware tester. Most likely they were thrown in just to give a quick comparisson so that we would get an idea of whats going on speedwise. I prefer seeing them there to have something to compare with...cuz for me the numbers on just the 970 would tell me nothing. I dont follow test enough to know.

So, sure they are not scientific but they give us an idea. I WANT to believe also hehe, and I am greatfull to MB for the 'hope' it gives for the future. It also adds a heated debate on various topics which is also very nice.

Bryce 6...erm...i have no comment on that but if they say so I will just have to take their word for it...IF you are going to presume that people lie on purpose on sites like these then what is the point of reading them. All RUMOURS here have exactly that problem not just this one. It like - Take it or Leave it...

Bring on the posts...

[Fender2112]

Wouldn't it be a hoot if Steve was the "source" of all these rumors?

[mactastic]

Rumors should be like baseball. If you get things right 4 times out of 10 you are a god.

[Kai]

To the person that pointed out that MB got flamed for the Quicksilver pics and pics of Jobs at an Intel-Meeting which turned out to be right.

Just to make this clear: I doubted neither, cause the former looked damn real to me (again: so did the iWalk though!) and in the second case i happen to know someone who personally saw him there. Just like Intel's Otellini at MacWorld the other way around!

Point is: These are not "story-rumours", these are supposedly "hard facts" in the form of Bargraphs and numbers. Unfortunately, you can debunk numbers just by looking at them (and knowing a few things about technical matters!). So that's the crux with the MB-Power970-"Benchmarks": People can debunk them without knowing anything more than the simple numbers presented! Why? a) cause they're the exact same as Barefeats, b) C4D-SMP-Factor amazingly low, c) Dual-Performance where there should be none in Photoshop-SP- and Bryce-Tests, d) no trace or announcement whatsoever of Bryce 6!

So believe me: While i don't doubt the existance of the P970, very likely even within Apple-labs - THESE Benchmark-results are bogus! They can not be true, and it's not a matter of "suspicions", merely a matter of cold hard facts! They presented the cold hard facts (and announced it with much ballyhoo before, keep that in mind!), so they should be ready to eat them! Which they don't, they prefer to moan and whine and blame the "language barrier"...

If you play with fire (which they seem to gladly do ever since they inofficially seemed to have proclaimed themselves the great P970-news-source a few months ago!) you should be ready to get burnt. It's really simple, you know?...

[iSmell]

I don't know if this is the best place to post this, but it's at least relavent.

I think a very neat feature that could be added to MacRumors would be a rumor site tracker. Not unlike the buyers guide, it would keep track of the recent history of a few of the major rumor sites, including mac rumors itself. This addition would not only be a neato place to keep up with long term rumors, but it would also provide a place to discuss rumors that turned out to be false or only partially true. Many of these rumors are no longer on the front pages of the various sites by the time they get disproven so they are no longer discussed. Then when rumors like this one show up and nobody's sure how reliable MB is, there would be an easy place for them to check and judge for themselves.

Some sites to include:
MacRumors (of course - full disclosure)
MacOSRumors
Think Secret
MacBidoulle(sp?)
apple-x-net
Spymac (I guess)
MacWhispers
LoopRumors
Naked Mole Rat (would involve some interpretation)


For each site show:
Last 10? predictions
status of each prediction (true, false, pending. etc)


I'm not sure how the forums would link up to all this, but you can probably figure something out.
I was just searching the archives of macwhispers and think secret and TS has completely nailed a few things lately (eMacs, iPods) while MW got the usb/fw cable right, got a lot of other things wrong and has quite a few rumors still outstanding (30" display, aluminum front on powermacs). It was fun to search around and check up on this stuff, but it would be cooler if it was all on one site.







Just an idea.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
I positted these reasons as a plausible reason for these benchmarks appearing as they did.


Which is exactly why the "source" made the same argument - because, as unlikely a scenario as it, it is the only possible one that could explain the massive anomalies in the benchmarks. In fact, for all we know, s/he perused the MacRumors forums for ideas on how to justify these inconsistencies!


I'm still not going to say 'yea' or 'nay' about these rumors. I hope they're right, but I still have no real way to judge them. I'll just wait and see.


Look, I honestly don't mean to offend you, but if you are thinking that these are real, you are just going to be disappointed.

It is not true that we don't have a way to judge them. We do have a way to judge them: the scientific method. That is to say, we can compare the "data" that we observe (i.e. the benchmarks) to a priori facts that we know to be true. If the data is not consistent with the facts, then either the data is fabricated or the facts are wrong. If we can rule out the possibility that our a prior knowledge is incorrect, then we know that the data must be fabricated. Let me demonstrate:

Here are the main inconsistencies in these benchmarks:

(1) The G4/P4 benchmarks are clearly stolen from BareFeats. The only way that these benchmarks could then be valid is if the same tests were independently run on the 970.
FACT: Particularly for Photoshop, BareFeats uses a specialized action file that is not available to the public for download on the website. Without this file, it would be impossible for the tester to replicate the BareFeats tests.

(2) The Bryce 5 benchmark shows a more than 2x increase in going from SP 970 to DP 970.
FACT: Bryce 5 is not multithreaded. Therefore, the DP 970 will not display an increase of that magnitude over the SP 970 in Bryce 5.

(3) The Photoshop benchmark shows a more than 2x increase in going from the SP 970 to the DP 970.
FACT: The Photoshop benchmark is the BareFeats "Photoshop SP" benchmark, i.e. it only includes actions which do not take advantage of multiple processors. Therefore, the DP 970 will not display an increase of that magnitude over the SP 970 in this benchmark.

How can we reconcile these inconsistencies?

For (1), you have suggested that the copying was intentional and legitimate. But you cannot explain how the tester got ahold of the Photoshop SP action file from BareFeats. I have e-mailed Robert Morgan, who runs the BareFeats site, about these benchmarks, and in his reply he was genuinely surprised that someone had copied his benchmarks. If the tester had e-mailed Rob to ask him for his Photoshop test file, then none of this would come as much of a surprise. So we are to believe that somehow the tester got ahold of Rob's test file w/o Rob being aware of it. This seems unlikely. Another possibility is that Rob gets so many requests for the test file that he views giving it out as routine. Possible, but far from certain.

For (2), you (and the tester) have suggested that an undisclosed version of Bryce that supports SMP exists, and that was used for testing. This seems highly improbable. Nobody seems to know about it or be able to find it, and Corel doesn't appear to be very committed to developing Bryce anyway. Furthermore, it would be illogical for the tester to choose this application for testing when he knows that the G4/P4 benchmarks were done using Bryce 5. Why would he purposely choose to use a different application so that the benchmarks are not comparable between G4 and 970 when the same application, Bryce 5, is readily available for testing? Why would he label the graph as "Bryce 5"? And it wouldn't even cost him anything to get Bryce 5 because he was just using Hotline anyway (according to his update). So either he is lying about the benchmarks, or he is an entirely incompetent benchmarker, because he doesn't understand that you want to try to run the same tests on different machines (not different tests on different machines), and his results are completely worthless.

For (3), you have no explanation. The only possible explanation we could come up with is the same one offered for (2), i.e. there is a secret version of Photoshop 8 circulating in which EVERY task is now multithreaded. Unfortunately, this would be equivalent to appealing to the tooth fairy as an explanation, because at this point many of the tasks in Photoshop which are not MP or Altivec aware are that way because the underlying algorithm inherently cannot be parrallelized. In other words, even if Adobe WANTED to make this mythical version of Photoshop in which all commands took full advantage of both processors, they COULDN'T. So this explanation holds no water.

At the end of the day, therefore, the data is not consistent with the facts that we know to be true. Given that these facts are known beyond a reasonable doubt, we must reject the data. There is no other logically consistent choice.

The problem that you are having is that you refuse to accept the conclusion that the data is falsified. Hence you are forced to come up with ever more convoluted stories with which to explain the glaring inconsistencies in these benchmarks. I will be interested, for example, to see how you explain the Photoshop benchmark.

I understand that you are very attached to these benchmarks and that you want to believe the MacBd source has been telling the truth. We all want to believe it, myself included. However, in this case, the only reasonable conclusion is that the benchmarks are false. And trust me, that is okay. The 970 will come one day. There will be real benchmarks one day. And they will probably be quite impressive (I certainly hope so). But the 970 is not coming tomorrow, and these are not real benchmarks. You just need to let them go, or else you are going to be disappointed. But it will be okay. Trust me. Just try saying to yourself, "These benchmarks are false, but that is okay. We will not be fooled by them, and we will wait for real ones, or at least ones that could plausibly be true. It will be fine." =)

[terkans]

Originally posted by Kai
Also notice the amazingly low SMP-Factor of 1.38 (compared to a supposedly 400MHz SLOWER Power970, mind you!) in Cinema: P970 = Great SMP-Performer, wasn't that their claim? That's interesting, cause i have never seen a SMP-factor so low in C4D, not even with a Dual-Pentium1 (which *really* sucked cause of their shared L2-Cache!), especially not compared to a slower clocked Single-machine!

This was actually explained by a person from Maxon support. There is a set-up period before the actual render takes place, and the lenght of this period (may be around 10 secs or so) is not cut by using multiple processors. In a render which happend in less than 30 seconds, thats going to be skewing the results in a major way.

[myrdred23]

Doing a quick search for "Bryce 6 Beta" on google turns up this newsletter, where (supposedly) Bryce 6 and its beta is mentioned as being existent.

Check it out:
http://www.hilltopdesign.com/newsletter/march8-2002.htm

[zach]

Originally posted by mactastic
Rumors should be like baseball. If you get things right 4 times out of 10 you are a god.

Damn straight.

Well said, my friend.

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by tazznb
If this proves to be true I hope all the naysayers (French HATERS) are happy since they are no longer devulging information for all of us to enjoy.:o
I'm sorry, but if the French can disagree with the American govornment without being American "HATERS" then we can disbelieve their rumor sites without being French "HATERS".

Sheesh, haven't we exhausted this subject?

I'm sorry they got their feelings so hurt over the disbelief following such outrageous numbers. No one told them they should stop. Sounded a little snippy if you ask me.

[Kai]

Nice theory! ;-)
Unfortunately it's wrong, as you can clearly see here:
http://www.barefeats.com/image03/p1000c.gif

(Yes, THAT is certainly a C4D-SMP-Factor i like! ;-)

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by mactastic
Rumors should be like baseball. If you get things right 4 times out of 10 you are a god.
There's only one position is sports where a 30% success rate is good. Sadly for MacB, I don't watch that sport.

I like the presentation of rumors on this site, personally. If you're going to post something as fact, then you'd better be prepared to be burned. If you don't have the backup to do this, then post the rumor as unsubstantiated.

Easy, right?

You know what disturbs me is the fact that rumor sites are able to occasionally get their hands on inside info. What kind of corporate espionage do you suppose Microsoft is capable of?? :eek:

[ktlx]

Originally posted by Kai
Oh, and here's another thing that wasn't spotted yet as it seems: The Photoshop-Results!
They're from the SP-Bench-Suite on Barefeats (check the Numbers!), a suite that ONLY uses Single-CPU filters. Oh my, why is the Dual P970 more than twice as fast as the Single (sorry: "Mono"!) P970 in this then?

Not to toot my own horn, but I mentioned that yesterday in the first thread. The problem was, I guess I was drowned out by the people arguing about the existance of a Bryce 6 beta and attacks on the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys. :D

The numbers are too high to be the MP actions results (unless we assume the PowerPC 970 provides almost no speed improvement) and don't square with the SP actions results. If there is a special version of Photoshop that makes these filters MP-aware, then new numbers for the current G4 and P4 need to be posted.

For me, even if the numbers came from real hardware running real benchmarks, the fact that they require beta software to run means the comparison to the BareFeats numbers is worthless. Who knows how much faster the existing Macs run the new software?

[jholzner]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
So they're saying the leak was from inside Apple, now that would definitely be a huge NDA violation... oh wait, it has Apple's blessing. :rolleyes:

Plus this just makes it look like they are trying to dig themselves out of a hole... ooops the numbers we said were Bryce 5 are actually a beta of 6.

I recall downloading a beta of photoshop of osx a looong time ago and although it was in fact photoshop 7...the splash screen and stuff said photoshop 6 (it ran in X though). So, maybe they thought it was a beta of 6 but labeled as 5...I dunno.

[macrumors12345]

Well, for those of you who are disappointed that the MacBidouille benchmarks are fakes, I can offer you some goods news that is actually grounded in reality. The Power 4+ (i.e. 130 nm Power 4) is officially shipping at 1.7 Ghz:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/05/05/HNibmpseries_1.html

Why is this a big deal (assuming you don't have $190,000 to blow on a 4 way p670)?

Because, as you know, the PPC 970 is derived from the Power 4. However, because of a variety of factors, the PPC 970 can be clocked substantially higher than Power 4 (it uses faster switching, less reliable transistors, it has only one core and less cache, so it dissipates considerably less heat, etc.). Therefore, the fact that the Power 4 is already hitting 1.7 Ghz on a 130 nm process indicates that the PPC 970 will scale far above the initial 1.8 Ghz clock speed on a 130 nm process. The IBM page at CeBit (which was pulled) certainly suggested that it would hit at least 2.5 Ghz on the 130 nm process, and I would say that this Power 4 news definitely seems to confirm that. The may only ship the 970 at 1.8 Ghz initially, but I suspect that they will scale to 2.5 Ghz very quickly (certainly quicker than it took Motorola to get from 733 mhz to 1+ Ghz...possibly even as fast as six months, I would guess). And if IBM switches to 90 nm in any reasonable time frame...heh heh...I would guess that a 90 nm Prescott (Pentium 4...maybe they'll call it Pentium 5, but it is pretty much the same core) will not compete that well with a 90 nm PPC 970, especially when you consider that the 970 is MP capable and the P4 is not.

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by macrumors12345

Look, I honestly don't mean to offend you, but if you are thinking that these are real, you are just going to be disappointed.


Why would I be disappointed? Didn't you, yourself, say that, although you are sure that these benchmarks are fake, you believe that they are right around where real benchmarks will be? So even if I did believe that these benchmarks are definitely true (which I don't), I still wouldn't be disappointed when the real 970s come out, right? ;)


It is not true that we don't have a way to judge them. We do have a way to judge them: the scientific method.

Hate to say it, but your scientific method is grossly flawed. Let me elaborate...


(1) The G4/P4 benchmarks are clearly stolen from BareFeats. The only way that these benchmarks could then be valid is if the same tests were independently run on the 970.


Explained. (May be a BS explanation, but an explanation has been given.)



(2) The Bryce 5 benchmark shows a more than 2x increase in going from SP 970 to DP 970.
FACT: Bryce 5 is not multithreaded. Therefore, the DP 970 will not display an increase of that magnitude over the SP 970 in Bryce 5.

Again, explained. (Again, could be a BS explanation, but an explanation has been given.) And, indeed, there has been some corraboration of the existence of a Bryce6 beta.


(3) The Photoshop benchmark shows a more than 2x increase in going from the SP 970 to the DP 970.
FACT: The Photoshop benchmark is the BareFeats "Photoshop SP" benchmark, i.e. it only includes actions which do not take advantage of multiple processors. Therefore, the DP 970 will not display an increase of that magnitude over the SP 970 in this benchmark.

(Note, as you actually repeated this one, I ignored your first statement about this to address it here.)

I don't have an explanation for this. Indeed, what seems most likely is that the tester used some other PhotoShop test, as the likelihood of him/her having the BareFeats proprietary SP test suite seems unlikely. If that was the case, and whatever was used to test the 970SP and DP was multithreaded, then the fact that there was such a significant jump would make sense.



At the end of the day, therefore, the data is not consistent with the facts that we know to be true. Given that these facts are known beyond a reasonable doubt, we must reject the data. There is no other logically consistent choice.

At the end of the day, we don't have enough data to say anything other than that these results are very suspicious. There is a reasonable explanation that would give the same data as what we have that does not include the data being falsified. (It does tend to include the data being of much less significance as a comparison to the P4 and G4, and, if we assume that the tester was trying to create a solid comparison, paints the tester as a bit of a moron, but those are entirely different issues.)


The problem that you are having is that you refuse to accept the conclusion that the data is falsified.

I refuse to accept that because there isn't enough evidence to warrant accepting that.

Yes. I will grant that it is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that the data was falsified. However, there is not yet sufficient data to make that statement absolutely.

I understand that you are very attached to these benchmarks and that you want to believe the MacBd source has been telling the truth. We all want to believe it, myself included.

Honestly, I don't care one way or the other. Like you, I believe that the real benchmarks of the 970 will be quite impressive. I'm truly looking forward to seeing them. Whether these were faked or not doesn't ruffle a single hair on my head.

What does ruffle me is making absolute statements based on insufficient information.

However, in this case, the only reasonable conclusion is that the benchmarks are false.

If I had to place a bet on whether these benchmarks were falsified or not, I would, in all likelihood, bet that they were. However, that doesn't mean that I think that such a bet was a sure thing.

If you wanted to truly prove to me that there was falsehood going on here, then find me a copy of Bryce6 beta, and show me that it isn't multithreaded. That would punch a hole in the argument that couldn't be repaired. Then there would be enough information to say, with certainty, that someone is lying.

For the record, I am a scientist. Making judgements with insufficient information is one of the worst things you can do in a lab. It is something that is sure to get a research paper shot down in review, and such a paper will never see publication.

[NicoMan]

Originally posted by Kai
Well - if that's the case, they would need a serious lesson in technical background!

I don't wanna come off as arrogant (too late, eh? ;-)), but writing for a Mac-Magazine myself i would check and doublecheck Benchmark-numbers of supposed future Apple hardware atleast 4 times and apply a good can of logic derived from a certain technical background (Bryce != Dual-CPU is a pretty well known fact f.ex, as is the Barefeats-Photoshop-SP-Suite being Single-CPU only! Also average C4D-SMP-Factors should be common knowledge if you're publishing technical articles like this!) if some "reliable source" sent these results to me!

That's a very important (if not THE most important!) part of the whole journo-biz: You just don't publish anything just because someone sends it to you claiming he/she's a "reliable source"!

And for those saying "it's just a rumour, it doesn't mean anything, calm down": Did you see what a dive Apples stockprice took when the G5 wasn't presented in Jan02, cause loads and loads of sites all linked either directly or indirectly to Tony Smith's stories on TheReg where he told us just how amazing the G5 will be, Benchmarks and all, and that it certainly will be released in January? Do you remember just how disappointed the whole community was? And because of what? Apple never promised anything, in fact they even gave us a hint through saying "there's much life left in the G4", but back then we were all too excited about what good old Tony told us on TheReg to listen!
Just realize the impact one single source can have on the whole community, Apples stockprice and the public's perception of Apple!

Well, Apples stockprice is on the rise again finally, due to good news from the iTunes-Store-Front, and i don't know about you, but I for my part certainly don't want to see the whole story repeat when the P970 is not released on/after WWDC!

(It seems the whole G5-thing wasn't completely false because as we all know now Moto canned the G5 midway, so Tony shouldn't take all the blame, actually Moto is the main culprit! Still, he should've chosen a more careful wording when writing his articles and should've constantly pointed out that this is all just a possibility! Apple itself certainly isn't to blame for the disaster, nevertheless they got all the FLAK for it! And you really wonder why Apple has a grudge against the rumour-sites? Well, look at the nose-dive their shares took after the G5 didn't come and just imagine how many hundreds of millions a "simple" rumour cost them! Btw: A close third after Moto and Tony are we, the whole community that just bought the rumours without questioning! That's why we should've learned our lesson and i for my part am extra-suspicious about rumours for future Apple-CPUs now!)
Well maybe they were guilty of not checking every bit of information. So what? It's a BLOOOOODY RUMOUR. Now if you want to start attacking them on their technical abilities, be my guest: those guys have a history of hardware and software hacking on the Mac platform and their knowledge is rather extensive... But that doesn't mean they are always right. Keep that in mind and chill.

Nicoman

[NicoMan]

Originally posted by Kai
Rumours are great. I love em. I love discussing them. But, and here comes the important bit: If something is so obviously fake as this one (believe me: Barefeats was the first page i surfed to for comparison as i know that Photoshop/Bryce/C4D is their usual test-suite!) it simply angers me if the person publishing the "rumour" doesn't even apply the most basic common knowledge to verify the numbers before publishing!
If i get some "rumour" i check it thoroughly before publishing it, and i choose very careful wording in my article. Or if it's all over the newspages already i write about it and debunk it in the same article.
There are good fakes and bad fakes. I would never blame anyone for falling for a really well crafted fake, like e.g. the iWalk back then! However, this is a bad fake, and MB should've seen it themselves before publishing it!
I just hate it when such a bad fake gets such exposure as this one currently does! Oh look, it seems it's gone from Slashdot now! ;-) Good, finally someone took action against it!

For what it's worth, I've tried to go through other rumour sites that were commenting on Macbidouille's data. Almost everyone agrees that those numbers are somewhat inaccurate BUT they are in the right ballpark.
I personally believe that the source could have done his (her?) own test on the new machines and provide the barefeats number for reference, EVEN if those relate to different tests (which make those benchmarks irrelevent - note that I said that they are irrelevent, I cannot comment on their veracity), and I believe that is exactly what macBidouille have said; not more, not less.

Again, let's all chill a bit. I don't understand how people can become all wound up over this...

NicoMan

[fpnc]

Okay, it seems that the benchmarks that MacBidouille received may have been fabricated, but we can all be certain that the PPC970 will be better than anything that Motorola will do with the G4. So, that means that the Macintosh platform will get a very nice boost in performance when the PPC970 appears.

However, I think some of the recent discussions have overlooked a key issue. That is, who really knows when the PPC970-based Macintosh is going to be released? It seems that many are assuming that it will be very soon, or at the very least that there will be a demo or announcement at WWDC. However, I think that is far from certain. There might be some talk about it behind closed doors, but IMO Steve Jobs won't be speaking the number "970" or talking about a "G5" at WWDC.

If I had to guess when the PPC970 Macs will be available I'd say late this year or early 2004. There might be an announcement from Apple concerning the PPC970 before that time (a little before), but I don't think we'll see any significant numbers of these new machines for quite a while. In the interim there will probably be another bump in the speeds of the G4 and the iBooks.

And before anyone mentions the delay in WWDC as a "proof" that a PPC970 announcement is close at hand, I think Apple's explanation is the plain truth, the delay is related to the Panther developer release (OS X 10.3).

[fpnc]

ignore duplicate post. Server was updating and accepted duplicate.

[Kai]

So, that means that the Macintosh platform will get a very nice boost in performance when the PPC970 appears.


That's correct. It definately will, the P970 sure is a beast and will most likely be the biggest leap the Mac-Platform has ever taken (not even 68k -> PPC was that big, cause at that time all the existing code had to be emulated, meaning a huge Overhead! No emulation this time!)
I'm not really sure how these strange somehow "special" 5-ops-groups work out with existing code, but i guess IBM built a nice dispatcher that'll take care of the grouping. For more Info on what i mean read this most excellent John Stokes article: http://arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.html

To sum this up, if you look how "shallow" the P4 is concerning parallel execution and how "wide" the P970 is, while still being able to pump ops as fast as the P4, i guess it's a safe bet to say that even if the P970 can't form proper groups with existing code in the beginning and most groups contain only 1 or 2 ops it should be still as fast as a P4, with alot of potential to exploit for later on when IBM delivers the proper compilers! It could be like when the P4 was introduced, remember how it got trounced by P3s and Athlons bigtime, even though it had 50% more clock? And how this radically changed later on when Software started to emerge that had been compiled using Intels P4-optimizing compilers?

Sorry, i got carried a bit astray there! ;-) What i was trying to say is, that ALL these "WWDC" and "P970 = mid-2002" rumours came ALSO from MacBidouille! Supposedly from the same "source"! So if this benchmark is bogus, it is highly likely all their other P970-information was, too!
So i just don't want to see anybody being "disappointed" when there's no trace of the P970 on WWDC!
IBM said Second-half/End-2003 for mass manufacturing! That's what i'm sticking with for the moment!.. And besides: Even though quite a few things outside MacBd hint towards Apple using the P970 (suspicious quotes from IBM, Altivec, certain logic) remember that we still don't have real PROOF that Apple will be using it!

I for my part certainly hope they will though!...

[The Shadow]

Originally posted by fpnc
However, I think some of the recent discussions have overlooked a key issue. That is, who really knows when the PPC970-based Macintosh is going to be released? It seems that many are assuming that it will be very soon, or at the very least that there will be a demo or announcement at WWDC. However, I think that is far from certain. There might be some talk about it behind closed doors, but IMO Steve Jobs won't be speaking the number "970" or talking about a "G5" at WWDC. (OS X 10.3).

I for one hope Apple have learned something from the PowerBook 17" fiasco, and do not shoot their mouths off too soon, or take orders for things before they're ready.

Then again, rumour sites like this must contribute to massive growing pressure on Apple to make announcements, any announcements, so I can simpathise.

We want it all!

[jeffosx]

Originally posted by The Shadow

Then again, rumour sites like this must contribute to massive growing pressure on Apple to make announcements, any announcements, so I can simpathise.

We want it all!

They could have been leaked by Apple to take the heat off. We can spend a couple of weeks yakking about the benchmarks instead of moaning about how much we all want one of these new machines.

We just got a PM with dual 1.2 GHz and that is the fastest, smoothest machine I have ever worked on. 20inch ASD doesnt hurt. The PC crowd at work are getting really pissed off at us very happy 2%ers...

I want a 970 in a PB (am still hoping) and if these things come close to the dual G4 I will be over the moon...

Cheers

[NicoMan]

Originally posted by Kai
Even though quite a few things outside MacBd hint towards Apple using the P970 (suspicious quotes from IBM, Altivec, certain logic) remember that we still don't have real PROOF that Apple will be using it!

I for my part certainly hope they will though!...

Absolutely. But in a way it wouldn't make sense for Apple to announce new chips for their Macs (i.e. making a statement about the 970) and not having the stores ready to take orders on those machines. The policy is to say: here is our new processor, you can place order right now on the Apple store. If they didn't have anything ready to accept order, they would be in trouble. Customers wouldn't want to buy machines soon to be obsolete and wouldn't be able to buy the new stuff... hence big problem.

Like you, I'm really hoping we will get the 970 announced at WWDC or soon after, so that we don't have to wait too long until those puppies ship (I know, there is a good chance we will have to wait until Panther is available anyway)...

NicoMan

[anonmac]

as for photoshop....

who can say what the benefit of 2x450 mhz busses are? (most say 900mhz bus, but it is actually 2x450, each unidirectional.) i would not want to be the one who said 'there is no way this is possible because of sp vs. mp processors test in photoshop' - the bus speeds, at 6.4GB/sec, are about 3-4x what the fsb is in the g4. so the mobo optimizations could be such that the 'sp' 970 COULD be 2x as high as the 'sp' G4. now i am not saying these ARE accurate, just that from my reading on the 970, i am open to the possibility that they MAY be accurate.

all you 'chip-producing insiders' who are quick to discount these 'rumours' as false, and made-up.... i am certainly glad i am not that closed minded. or perhaps you have found articles on the power4, power4+, power5 and ppc970 that i have not. if so, please reference so i can read what has 'put you in the know' because i have not only read all the press releases, pdf presentations by sandon, et al., (clayton and wang have EXCELLENT google postings) but followed lots of technical forum info. (from mac, linux, and ibm forums) as well. if i have missed something, please alert me- seriously. thanks.

[Kai]

I understand you want these numbers to be true. We all do. However, they're not.

We didn't mean the comparison G4/P970 but the comparison Single-P970 vs Dual P970!
Same Bus, same CPU, so there!..

And no, i don't have to be a chip designer myself to see that these Benchmark-"Results" are fake and made up... It's really just simple logic and a bit of common background knowledge, nothing more! It's got nothing to do with a closed mind, just with logic!..

P970 will be a great CPU, no doubt, but these are not true benchmark-results of it, that's all we're saying...

In case you haven't read the Arstechnica-Article i quoted earlier, i would really recommend that if you're such a P970-fan! ;-)

[ktlx]

Originally posted by anonmac
as for photoshop....

who can say what the benefit of 2x450 mhz busses are? (most say 900mhz bus, but it is actually 2x450, each unidirectional.) i would not want to be the one who said 'there is no way this is possible because of sp vs. mp processors test in photoshop' - the bus speeds, at 6.4GB/sec, are about 3-4x what the fsb is in the g4. so the mobo optimizations could be such that the 'sp' 970 COULD be 2x as high as the 'sp' G4. now i am not saying these ARE accurate, just that from my reading on the 970, i am open to the possibility that they MAY be accurate.

Your argument is difficult to make.

The numbers from BareFeats that were posted were for the SP Action filters. These numbers have shown that a second processor does not help performance, regardless of memory I/O available. However, the MacB numbers posted show that the difference between a 1.4Ghz PowerPC 970 and a dual 1.8Ghz PowerPC 970 is over a 100% increase in speed. That implies that either some other tests were run than the SP Action filters or that a new version of Photoshop was used that allows these filters to benefit by a second processor. You cannot get a 100% performance increase going from 1.4Ghz to 1.8Ghz on a single processor alone (regardless of the application).

In either case, the comparison of the numbers between the G4, P4 and PowerPC 970 is invalid. I am not saying the PowerPC 970 numbers are fake, because I have no idea. I am saying to achieve those results, you need to change a variable that renders the comparison useless. Either different tests were run or they were run on a different version of the software. The numbers may all be correct but useless for comparison because they were gathered differently.

Unless Apple is implementing some exotic memory access that no one else is using, the dual processors are not able to get any more memory I/O bandwidth than a single processor. The processors would still be memory I/O starved--just at a higher rate. The highest bandwidth implemented today is dual channel DDR400 which provides around 6.4GB/s. I am sure they could go to quad channel, I guess, but then you are requiring a minimum configuration of 1GB (four DIMMs at 256MB) memory just to use a system. They could go with something like DDRII or the new memory technologies ATI and nVidia are using for graphics cards but then how do you buy memory upgrades?

[anonmac]

('so there'-- kind of childish huh? i thought this was an intellectual discussion)

how about if the 'low-end' ppc 970 uses single channel ram and the dual processor uses two banks, as was said? that would account for some of the differences, and keep the low-end price down.

WE DON'T KNOW.
what i am saying is to simply discount these tests as bogus on the information given is no more educated of a decision that to simply believe them.

there are tons of possibilities...what are the backside cache levels- is it a similar thing to todays, where the high-end has 2x what the low end has (i.e. so really 4x in a dual?)? do the dual processors have 4x450 busses? do the duals share cache memory, like the power 4? what if all of these are true?

i don't know, and don't claim to. but they could certainly have huge advantages- especially based on the limited amount of info we have been given regarding the tests.

yup, read the ars article -- i also read the 'rebuttal' at david e's igeek.com, (it fleshed out a lot of things left unresolved or ambiguous by ars tech) and the recent 64-bit article at ars,. (ars is rarely as unbiased as they 'purport' to be, however still a good source to cull.)

[ktlx]

Originally posted by anonmac
how about if the 'low-end' ppc 970 uses single channel ram and the dual processor uses two banks, as was said? that would account for some of the differences, and keep the low-end price down.

While that is theoretically possible, having two different types of memory controllers for single vs. dual processor would require a lot of engineering and testing expense, for very little end user savings. Apple would have to design, engineer, manufacture and test two different memory controllers when the difference in price for the complete implementation is less than $100 (chipset, memory slot and additional DIMM). Not even Intel, which has much higher volumes, is doing new work on single channel memory controllers for desktops and workstations. They are just using what has already been designed, engineered and tested.

Since the 970 is completely new, Apple would have to develop two new ones (one single channel and one dual channel) from scratch. That combined with their relatively small volume, make the economics uncertain at best. I find it hard to believe that Apple would burn profit on crippling the memory I/O on single processor systems just because they could.


there are tons of possibilities...what are the backside cache levels- is it a similar thing to todays, where the high-end has 2x what the low end has (i.e. so really 4x in a dual?)? do the dual processors have 4x450 busses? do the duals share cache memory, like the power 4? what if all of these are true?

According to everything I have read, the PowerPC 970 is not equipped to support L3 cache. It only supports L1 and L2 like the G3s, Intels and AMDs and the sizes are all the same across the product line.

The problem I see with people wanting the comparisons to be valid so badly is the arguments have to resort to economically or logically infeasible situations in order to claim the comparison is valid. The far simpler conclusions either are they are fake or that the PowerPC 970 numbers are valid but use tests or software that makes comparison to the BareFeats numbers useless.

For me, I don't care which one is true because either case renders the numbers useless. I would expect to find a set of Adobe Photoshop tests that would nearly double in speed between a single 1.4Ghz and a dual 1.8Ghz so the comparisons within the PowerPC 970 family don't give me any new information. If the PowerPC 970 tests are not made up, then they must use either different filters or different software in order to get those results. In that case, I still cannot use the comparisons because the BareFeats numbers were gathered differently.

[anonmac]

as i undestand it, the ram architecture can be EITHER dual or single channel, but the dual requires interleaving. so a 'better' memory controller- if that were the only one developed, it would certainly still be capable of supporting the single channel architecture. that doesn't cost too much more does it? (kind of like the USB 2.0 chipset rumors in new macs-- they probably just couldn't get 1.1 controllers anymore (if it isn't true today- it will be. 2.0 sets will be just as cheap as 1.1-if 1.1 is available at all. why not use it?)

there are all kinds of things outside of what we know at this point that could influence these. let me reiterate for those who havent read. I DO NOT SAY THESE ARE TRUE- JUST THAT THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY. probability- no. but i always keep an open mind until someone presents me with ironclad proof ('the sun is the center of the universe' was a scientific fact until 1600's) that it could not be. so i say, argue on my friends perhaps we will come to a meeting of the minds, and i like the debate. thanks.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by anonmac
how about if the 'low-end' ppc 970 uses single channel ram and the dual processor uses two banks, as was said? that would account for some of the differences, and keep the low-end price down.


Still no go. If the test were limited by the bandwidth to main memory (unlikely...the MP and Altivec stuff is more likely to be limited than the SP stuff because a lot of data is being moved), then the P4 would have absolutely slaughtered the DP G4, since it more than triple the memory bandwidth. But it didn't (it was faster, but not THAT much faster). So your explanation does not work, even if you assume that the high end is using dual channel and the low end isn't (unlikely).

There is only one way to explain these benchmarks: the 970 results are faked, OR the 970 is running an ENTIRELY different test suite than the G4/P4. Either way, these results are completely worthless.

[fpnc]

The benchmarks and PPC970 timeline that MacBidouille has publish are highly suspect for one simple and unavoidable reality. There will never again be a single-processor Macintosh that will be able to outperform a top-of-the-line WINTEL/AMD PC (over a broad range of tasks). In fact, it will be a miraculous accomplishment even if they come anywhere near to parity. About the best we can hope for is that on any given task a dual-processor PPC970 will be somewhat faster than any single-processor PC. And by "faster," I'm talking about the ability to complete a broad range of processor-intensive tasks in a given amount of time (i.e. it's not clock speed).

Interestingly, I think this "reality" alone will pretty much determine how the PPC970-based Macs will perform in relationship to PCs, and it also places a limit on when they will be introduced (because Apple could not produce a single-processor PPC970 that outperforms any existing P4, eventually there will be a 970 that outperforms a 3.2 GHz P4, but by that time the PCs will be faster still). The reason I say this is that it seems highly unlikely that Apple will ever be able to overcome the massive advantages and lead that PCs have in hardware and software R&D and investment. So, we all need a reality check here, whenever the PPC970-based Macs appear they will not be faster than any then existing PC. These new Macs will certainly introduce a new phase in the processor performance "wars," but in my opinion there is no way that Apple is going to leapfrog over the entire PC industry. I'm not saying that the next generation Macs are going to be disappointing, they just aren't going to be world beaters.

So, that's the "bad" news (I guess). The good news is that the PPC970 will move us much nearer to performance parity with PCs (let's face it, today, desktop Macs are pretty far behind). The only remaining questions are exactly when are we going to see these machines and how much will they cost? My guess, not very soon and they will probably be pretty expensive. Any outcome other than this would probably mean a highly compromised offering (i.e. just shoehorn the 970 into the existing PowerMac hardware architecture).

[anonmac]

the tests at barefeats (latest) show that for concurrent processing the mac already beats the pc.

run tasks in succession and the pc beats the mac.
(by taking a '13%' beating- when processor speed is over 100% 'faster'.)

these are not my conclusions- SEE barefeats for yourself. then tell me about how far behind the mac is. i have been very polite because most of the people posting have been well informed and articulate. you are neither. READ about what you are saying BEFORE you say it and you may seem a little smarter.

[ktlx]

Originally posted by anonmac
as i undestand it, the ram architecture can be EITHER dual or single channel, but the dual requires interleaving. so a 'better' memory controller- if that were the only one developed, it would certainly still be capable of supporting the single channel architecture. that doesn't cost too much more does it?

Memory controllers do not work that way. You either have one that supports single channels (as in all SDR SDRAM and earlier and most DDR SDRAM implementations) or it supports two channels (as in the new DDR SDRAM and RDRAM implementations). The chips to handle the memory controller would have to be two different chips requiring two different manufacturing steps and two sets of system testing.

I am sure you could develop some sort of controller that senses whether it can run as a single channel or can run as dual channels (i.e. an even number and a matched set of DIMMs is inserted) but imagine how costly and complicated that would be. With 512MB PC2700 DIMMs going for $50, that would be a stupid route to take.

This is especially true since the rumors only have the PowerPC 970 going in PowerMacs at this time. The total system cost is high enough to support the additional price of dual channel DDR but the volumes are small enough to not justify multiple solutions.

Although it sounds like the discussion is moot at this point. New rumors from MacB say the motherboards use DDR400 with no mention of dual channels for anything. That would be too bad. It makes no sense having this great I/O link and then choking it down to DDR400.

But that may have been the price to get production started quickly. The jump from DDR333 to DDR400 is trivial compared to the jump from DDR333 to dual channel DDR400. None of the other motherboard features are large jumps either.

[fpnc]

Originally posted by anonmac
the tests at barefeats (latest) show that for concurrent processing the mac already beats the pc.

run tasks in succession and the pc beats the mac.
(by taking a '13%' beating- when processor speed is over 100% 'faster'.)

these are not my conclusions- SEE barefeats for yourself. then tell me about how far behind the mac is. i have been very polite because most of the people posting have been well informed and articulate. you are neither. READ about what you are saying BEFORE you say it and you may seem a little smarter.

Well, anonmac , I think you actually need to read what I said. First, I said clearly and in several places that I was talking about performance in a broad range of tasks. Never did I mention Photoshop. Second, numerous, independent benchmarks have been published over the last six months that show that the Mac is dramatically behind the PC in performance, even in areas where the Mac was once considered strong (for example, in video production and, yes, even in Photoshop). The fact that a few isolated Photoshop actions are competitive with PCs doesn't stand very well against the fact that even Adobe now recommends PCs over PowerMacs when considering workflow (performance) under Photoshop.

I'm completely amazed that anyone would try to suggest that the current PowerMacs are faster than PCs. Yes, a few examples can be found where PowerMacs do well, but I was talking about __reality__ not a few marginal cases which have practically zero impact on the vast majority of computer tasks.

By the way, I am not a Mac hater or PC troll. I like Macs, I use Macs, I own Macs, but if you need the highest level of processor performance you aren't going to find it in the current Mac lineup, at least not in comparison to what is available on PCs.

[anonmac]

DID YOU GO TO BAREFEATS OR NOT????????????????????

YOU LOOK FOOLISH.


*****NOT****** PHOTOSHOP RESULTS...CINEMA 4D, DATABASE, ETC.

[anonmac]

the 'independant' tests you speak of are digitalvideoediting.coms.

i saw the site three times, and everytime a 3.066ghz hyperthreading ad came up.

they are VERY unbiased and 'independant' (not to mention the kickback given when someone buys a dell with a dvediting 'clickthrough' link.)

if you have others why not post them. ill refute you one by one, and explain to you in simple terms why the 'supposed' results are inaccurate.

lets start now
DVediting: tested after effects--- little boost from multiple processors. graphs were wrong. you ate it up cause thats what you believe. good for you.

do some reading instead of just posting all the time. i can back all my assertions up-- WITH LINKS if need be.can you?

again i say GO READ THE BAREFEATS article.

i use macs, solaris, linux, aix, etc. does this make me smart? (how does it relate to our 'discussion'?)

as for your invalidation of my argument without seeing the site it is based on, what else could i expect from one who posits as you do.

[ktlx]

Originally posted by fpnc
The fact that a few isolated Photoshop actions are competitive with PCs doesn't stand very well against the fact that even Adobe now recommends PCs over PowerMacs when considering workflow (performance) under Photoshop.

That was with Adobe Premiere and not Adobe Photoshop. Many people believe that was driven by nothing more than Premiere getting its butt kicked by FCP.

[fpnc]

ktlx, I think you may be correct, the pcpreferred link that Adobe published may have specifically mentioned Premiere. However, I still stand by general belief that for the majority of tasks (including Photoshop and video editing) a top-of-the-line PC will outperform any G4 that Apple currently offers.

anonmac , as far as benchmarks, I've read plenty both on the internet and in print. And I can tell you that the consensus for quite some time has indicated that the PCs lead, sometimes by huge margins, while in only a __few__ cases the Macs are close or maybe a bit ahead. I'm not going to take the time to locate these sources, many were in print, but I'm fully satisfied that PCs are faster in most situations. Does that mean that they are "better," no, not necessarily.

Have you noticed that it has been a very long time (as technology goes) since Steve Jobs has talked about the PPC's "Pentium toasting performance?" When was the last time you saw a live demo from Apple comparing a PC's performance against a Mac? And as I recall even Steve Jobs recently admitted that Apple had some work to do to bring performance parity back to the Mac platform.

And please, anonmac, no more talk about WINTEL conspiracies to make the Mac look bad. Steve Jobs' reality distortion field was fun for a while, but we should all be past that by now.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by ktlx

Although it sounds like the discussion is moot at this point. New rumors from MacB say the motherboards use DDR400 with no mention of dual channels for anything. That would be too bad. It makes no sense having this great I/O link and then choking it down to DDR400.


Well, given that MacB's benchmarks are fakes, I'm not sure I would put much credibility in anything else they post. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be shocked if the first generation of 970s didn't have dual channel DDR400....sort of like Apple released the Yikes G4 machines initially. Also, unless they use a bit of L3 cache as a buffer between the SDRAM and the 970's FSB, it's not clear that going to dual channel would even help, because dual channel is a bidirectional and the 970 has two unidirectional buses.

[ktlx]

Originally posted by fpnc
ktlx, I think you may be correct, the pcpreferred link that Adobe published may have specifically mentioned Premiere. However, I still stand by general belief that for the majority of tasks (including Photoshop and video editing) a top-of-the-line PC will outperform any G4 that Apple currently offers.

I don't disagree with you on that statement. In fact, my own experience confirms this. However that is not what you said. You said that Adobe is telling people the preferred system is a PC for a Photoshop workflow. I simply pointed out that you were mistaken--they said Premiere and not Photoshop. And I also pointed out that many believe Adobe took that stand only because Apple has FCP.

[ktlx]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
Also, unless they use a bit of L3 cache as a buffer between the SDRAM and the 970's FSB, it's not clear that going to dual channel would even help, because dual channel is a bidirectional and the 970 has two unidirectional buses.

The PowerPC 970 does not support L3 cache according to IBM. That was one of the design tradeoffs to reduce power and cost.

The two unidirectional buses for CPU memory doesn't have anything to do with it. All SDRAM is bidirectional. That is the purpose of the system controller/north bridge. It converts the CPU's I/O signals into the appropriate memory signals. It will need to have some sort of buffer in order to arbitrate between CPU reads/writes and memory reads/writes but chip designers are able to handle that.

[3.1416]

Originally posted by fpnc
There will never again be a single-processor Macintosh that will be able to outperform a top-of-the-line WINTEL/AMD PC

What are you basing this on? "Never" is a pretty long time.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by ktlx
The two unidirectional buses for CPU memory doesn't have anything to do with it. All SDRAM is bidirectional. That is the purpose of the system controller/north bridge. It converts the CPU's I/O signals into the appropriate memory signals. It will need to have some sort of buffer in order to arbitrate between CPU reads/writes and memory reads/writes but chip designers are able to handle that.

Agreed. I was not implying that the PPC 970 itself would need L3 cache - simply that there needs to be some kind of buffer cache between the unidirectional buses and the bidirectional SDRAM.

[fpnc]

ktlx, I guess I was unclear in my response. Yes, you were right and I was wrong about the pcpreferred posting.

But, I'd like a clarification from you about your latest statement. You said, "I don't disagree with you on that statement. In fact, my own experience confirms this." Are you saying that in your hands PCs are faster for video and photo editing?

[BaghdadBob]

...I posted but decided to mute myself on this subject. Don't care to get caught up in the swirl of blanket-statement, short-sighted, status quo ad infinitum, mac-bashing ignorance...

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Didn't you, yourself, say that, although you are sure that these benchmarks are fake, you believe that they are right around where real benchmarks will be?

Yes, although I honestly doubt they will be THAT good. I would guess that initially the 970 will be a substantial improvement over the G4, but not quite as impressive as the SPEC scores would indicate (i.e. twice as fast as the G4 at a given clock speed). After all, it is an entirely new core (from the perspective of the Macintosh market), so the current code base is unlikely to run as efficiently on it as it could. But of course that will change as the code base changes to reflect the increasing number of 970 machines on the market.


Explained. (May be a BS explanation, but an explanation has been given.)


Yes. The problem is not that these results are technically impossible. It is that they cannot be explained without highly implausible explanations. While your explanations are technically possible, they are unlikely to be true. And the conjunction of the three events (and three respective explanations) is VERY unlikely to be true.


I don't have an explanation for this. Indeed, what seems most likely is that the tester used some other PhotoShop test, as the likelihood of him/her having the BareFeats proprietary SP test suite seems unlikely.

So then you admit that at the very least, many of these tests are completely worthless, as they are not even running the same test on both machines, no? And by extension the tester is clearly quite stupid (we both seem to agree on that...I mean, even assuming they are faked he is stupid because he didn't even bother to make convincing fakes!), which makes it a little strange that he actually has access to such advanced, pre-production machines...

There is a reasonable explanation that would give the same data as what we have that does not include the data being falsified.

Clearly you have a different definition of reasonable than I do!

If you wanted to truly prove to me that there was falsehood going on here, then find me a copy of Bryce6 beta, and show me that it isn't multithreaded.

Very funny. That could be pretty much impossible to do given that nobody has yet found any credible evidence that this mythical Bryce 6 beta exists (several people have searched Hotline, where the tester claimed it was available - there is no sign at all of a Bryce 6 beta).

For the record, I am a scientist....It is something that is sure to get a research paper shot down in review, and such a paper will never see publication.

Really? In what field? In the journals in my field (economics) we are are rarely able to amass such convincing empirical evidence against a particular hypothesis (though certainly not for lack of trying), but any hypothesis which had as much evidence going against it as these benchmarks do would certainly be dismissed by any academic who was not a complete crank.

[fpnc]

Originally posted by 3.1416
What are you basing this on? "Never" is a pretty long time.

Yes, "Never" is a long time but I think it's essentially correct because as far as the computer industy is concerned WINTEL is going to be around longer than Apple will, and I don't see any chance of the PCs losing their performance advantages while they are still dominating the business. I'm not saying that Apple will be going out of business, or that Apple won't be able to produce compelling machines, but the single-processor performance advantage will always be tipped towards the PC.

Of course there are other categories of computing hardware and consumer devices, so there is plenty of room for Apple and other players and thus I'm not predicting doom for Apple.

Besides, this is just my opinion, only time will tell. But for anyone who cares, I'll meet you back here in about another year and we'll compare notes again.

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by fpnc
But for anyone who cares, I'll meet you back here in about another year and we'll compare notes again.
Well, that's pretty close to infinity from now, isn't it? As a note, industry analysts have been predicting the death of Apple for 15 years. Because they would prefer it. It would simplify things.

As my final note in this forum, which has gotten way too "PC Snob Monthly" for me, I just went to chevyrumors.com and the consensus seems to be that there will never be a Corvette that will be faster than a Viper, no matter what. Dang, and it was so close there for a while. I guess Dodge is just that much better than Chevy. If only Chevy was as big and experienced as Dodge was they might stand a chance...*sigh*

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by fpnc
Yes, "Never" is a long time but I think it's essentially correct because as far as the computer industy is concerned WINTEL is going to be around longer than Apple will, and I don't see any chance of the PCs losing their performance advantages while they are still dominating the business.



Well, Intel can only maintain dominance by outspending on R&D (or just being much more productive with their R&D dollars than the competition). You do not maintain a performance edge via dominance; you maintain that edge via revenues folded over into R&D. Dominance is largely gained by the performance edge.

IBM isn't outspending and outproducing Intel by a wide margin, but it is by a small margin. Which is, of course, where the Power and derivative lines come in, and why IBM is getting pretty darned close to having 90nm manufacturing, etc.

On the long scale, IBM's processor arm has the ability and war chest to out-innovate Intel and regain the performance crown on the desktop, which of course helps Apple because IBM's processor architecture just happens to be the one they co-developed with Apple (and Motorola).

So, I'm not willing to say Apple will never outperform Intel. In fact, the 970 arguably gets us at least to P4 3.2+GHz parity, perhaps slightly beyond, and with more apparent headroom for rapid performance improvements (new processor design vs aging processor design). Given rough parity by EOY and more R&D being spent in the IBM camp than the Intel camp, I'm willing to guess that two years from now Intel will be quite noticably lagging in performance.

Anything can happen between now and then, and cross-platform benchmarks are always open to subjective interpretation, but that's how I see it.

[fpnc]

Okay, after some reflection on my "Never" statement, I'll admit that there are no absolutes and anything (given time) is possible. However, let me offer two somewhat fanciful arguments.

First, if you actually believe that sometime in the next five to ten years Apple will introduce a single-processor computer that is clearly shown to broadly out perform the then fastest available PCs in the same product category then you should immediately go out a buy as much Apple stock as possible. Because when that day comes you will stand to make a very good profit on your investment. This doesn't have to happen in three months, one year, or in five years, it just has to happen once for some relatively sustained period of time before you will profit.

Second, as far as the longer term, let me ask the following question:

Fifty years from now what is more likely to have surpassed the PC as the most efficient (powerful, fastest, or best) computing aid:

A.) An Apple Computer (Macintosh Extreme?)
B.) A bio-mechanical brain implant by company XYZ.
C.) A genetically enhanced super human.
D.) Something else (i.e. none of the above).
E.) What's a PC? (response when someone from fifty years in the future is asked this question).

I don't know the answer to this, but I'd suggest that B, C, D, and E are much more likely that A. In fact, the most likely answer may be E.

Of course, none of the above proves anything and in fact both arguments are somewhat silly. But I guess what I'm trying to suggest is that in the high tech industry "Never" doesn't have to extend for very long before in all practical purposes it __really__ is never.

As far as the suggestions of Mac bashing/hating. I don't see that anywhere here. All I see are two divergent viewpoints. One side seems to be satisfied with accepting the performance benchmarks and PPC970 timelines offered by MacBidouille. The other side seems to be somewhat skeptical and is cautioning against building hopes too high. In the case of the latter, I don't see how that qualifies as Mac bashing.

Frankly, I hope Apple does kick WINTEL's butt (that would be good for just about everyone). However, I'm highly skeptical. It will be good, maybe great, but it won't be top of the world.

[BaghdadBob]

OK, that said, it's not Apple Intel is up against here.

It's IBM.

And IBM doesn't ******* around like Apple does. I'm cautious too, but IBM is as much the 800 lb. gorilla that Intel is, unlike Motorola, and I guarantee you they would like to humble Intel. And I don't think it will be as hard as all that.

Especially because IBM's OS customer here is a lot more open to change than MS is. MS is going to have to be willing to stop using that "look! You can still use all your old DOS programs" crap and revolutionize their OS around a new architecture before Intel has it's hands undone and can even start to be on the same playing field as IBM. IBM is in a situation where Apple is asking for new architecture for a new OS, not a tired framework for a crap-piled-upon-crap operating system that just won't die.

You just need to take into account who the real players are here. And although the statement has been made that Apple loyalists are easily pleased (not true) they are used to paying considerably more for their computers.

So who has the real barriers to development here? Intel, making processors based on the decades-old x86 architecture, built for a decades-old OS that is afraid of change, for customers who expect to be able to buy an entire system for under $1000? Or IBM, arguably just as capable if not more at chipmaking as Intel, working with Apple who thrives on change, has adopted a completely new architechture in the last ten years, has built its (superior in its foundation) OS from the ground up in the last five years, and whose customers expect to pay through the asshole to enjoy their products?

I think the arguments are compellingly in Apple's favor for the near future. And I think one could argue the other way as well. But to discount with any level of security that there is a good chance Big Blue Apple is on it's way to catching up and passing Wintel with a fully overhauled OS and chipset, that is folly as much as expecting 286% performance from one 1.4 970 over a 3.0 P4.

That's all.

[skunk]

Originally posted by BaghdadBob
... whose customers expect to pay through the asshole to enjoy their products?
Puhleeze, "through the nose" sounds a lot less unpleasant! :( :p

[Kai]

About your reality check thing:
Well, I'm certainly (like you) someone who warns of expectations too high (afterall, only low expectations are never disappointing in the end, they're either met or surpassed, which is even greater! ;-), but:

1) IBM apparently just kicked Intels butt with the new 1.7GHz Power4. They certainly have the potential to do so also on the Desktop! They got the Knowhow, they got the patents (SOI, copper, FCBGA etc, all IBM! Hell, Intel and AMD both license certain patents from IBM afaik!), they got the manufacturing processes, they got the production facilities and they now (could) have the mass-market (or atleast a part of it in the beginning) to finance their R&D like Intel has for the past 25 years!
Motorola - never! IBM - most certainly!

2) People used to say similar things about AMD using the same logic: "AMD is not big enough, they could never afford the R&D to make faster chips than big bad Intel" etc.. Now flashback to 1999, enter the Athlon! ;-)
Dirk Meyer and his team came (from Alpha), saw and conquered (the performance crown)! From what i know they even built the K7 in just a few weeks from scratch!

So I wouldn't rule Apple owning the performance crown some day completely out! Others did it before and looking at IBM i would certainly say it'd be possible Apple does it!

[anonmac]

fpnc said "And please, anonmac, no more talk about WINTEL conspiracies to make the Mac look bad. "

i never said anything about conspiracies...

just that the site that headlines their articles "Macs Blown away by PC's again" HAS links where you can buy the machine that supposedly 'blew away' the macs.

how do you explain the graphs that adobe used being SOOOOO blatantly wrong that they had to remove them after a couple days? if the guy testing (charlie white) can't even MAKE A GRAPH CORRECTLY, you still weant to believe his testing methodology is valid / believeable? if you are not completely closed minded, i ask you this: Would someone who sells a certain product have a vested interest in seeing it do better in a review? OF COURSE. would they rig the test? only if they were unscrupulous.

and yes, i have print references as to speed,like the aberdeen report that showed a dual 1.25 was much faster running concurrent tasks than a similar pc. also-webpage where (xinet.com) the xserve is shown 'blowing the doors off' a comparable dual dell box. do a search there and you will find its true.
or don't and continue to live in ignorance, just saying things like 'i don't have time to look up things'.

HAVE ANY OF YOU ****EVER**** BEEN TO BAREFEATS.COM? they do have the benchmarks i'm talking about. also see xinet.com, and ALMOST EVERY APPLE KEYNOTE, where the photoshop-off is held. (admittedly, like charlie white, they stand to gain from better benchmarks for THEIR product.)

[3.1416]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by fpnc
I'm not saying that Apple will be going out of business, or that Apple won't be able to produce compelling machines, but the single-processor performance advantage will always be tipped towards the PC.

I just don't think that's a universal truth. Wintel has always been dominant over the last 10 years but there have been numerous occasions when Macs had the performance edge, most recently when it was the G3 against the Pentium 2. Motorola screwed up big time with the G4, but IBM isn't Motorola.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by fpnc
Yes, "Never" is a long time but I think it's essentially correct because as far as the computer industy is concerned WINTEL is going to be around longer than Apple will, and I don't see any chance of the PCs losing their performance advantages while they are still dominating the business. I'm not saying that Apple will be going out of business, or that Apple won't be able to produce compelling machines, but the single-processor performance advantage will always be tipped towards the PC.


That doesn't really make too much sense. In the worst case scenario, PowerPC would never catch up with or exceed x86, despite the fact that the POWER architecture that it is derived from is currently matching or beating even the mighty Itanic (see the recently released 1.7 Ghz Power 4+...this will match up very nicely with Itanic, even when Intel cranks the clock to 1.5 Ghz at the end of the year), and has a bright future ahead of it (Power5, etc.). But fine, assume that PPC for some reason always lags x86. Even in that worst case scenario, what would probably happen is that Apple would port OS X to x86. Remember, this is years in the future, so nobody is writing Carbonized apps anymore to support OS 9, so changing chip architectures, while not trivial, would be relatively easy for developers (certainly MUCH easier than going from x86 to Itanic would be for the Wintel world). At that point, Apple and Windows would be running on the same hardware, so it would be strange to assert at that point that Apple's hardware is intrinisically slower than PC hardware. A does not equal A? I don't think so. So I would really caution you against making the statement that Apple will NEVER be faster than PCs in single threaded, scalar integer benchmarks.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Kai

1) IBM apparently just kicked Intels butt with the new 1.7GHz Power4. They certainly have the potential to do so also on the Desktop!

Yes, another thing you (fnpc) should consider is that the only reason that the P4 core will be able to match or beat the 970 (on scalar integer calculations) is that Intel is moving to the 90 nm manufacturing process more aggressively than IBM (or anyone else) is. The P4 has clearly maxed out at 3.0 or 3.2 Ghz on the 130 nm process. However, it is pretty clear that the 970 will easily scale to 2.5 Ghz, if not beyond, on the 130 nm process (this comes both from the IBM press release and from the fact that the Power4+, a chip that is intrinsically less capable of high clock speeds than the 970, has already reached 1.7 Ghz on 130 nm). And a 2.5 Ghz 970 should outperform a 3.0 Ghz P4 by a significant margin in scalar integer code (and a larger margin for floating point code, and totally blow away the P4 on vector code and in terms of scalability - P4 can't even be used for MP).

Now, I'm not saying that it somehow shouldn't "count" that Intel is planning to move to 90 nm ahead of other companies. However, to assume that IBM will not move to 90 nm as well anytime in the forseeable future, or to assume that Intel will always move to smaller processes earlier, is a real leap of faith. But your claim that the P4 core will be able to keep ahead of the 970 core is specifically based on the assumption of Intel always being on a smaller process. That isn't something that I would be so certain about.

[skunk]

Further information from MacBidouille (with a health warning): the 970 mother-boards will have 6 PCI slots in addition to the AGP, and maybe a 5.1 sound card. The bus will be rated at 200MHz and will support 3200DDR. According to an internal source at IBM, the 970 will surprise the public greatly. This information came through before the fabled benchmarks, and from a different source.

Make of it what you will.....:rolleyes:

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
...which makes it a little strange that he actually has access to such advanced, pre-production machines...


Well, I don't know about that. I've know of people of varying levels of intelligence that have access to some pretty cutting edge stuff in other industries, so just because he's 'stupid' or has approached presenting this information is 'stupid' means anything about whether or not he would have access to such a machine.


Very funny. That could be pretty much impossible to do given that nobody has yet found any credible evidence that this mythical Bryce 6 beta exists (several people have searched Hotline, where the tester claimed it was available - there is no sign at all of a Bryce 6 beta).


Well, as I noted, there has been further evidence of a beta version of Bryce6 in existence. Whether or not it is currently available on Hotline (and who can say whether or not it was available on Hotline?), is another issue.


Really? In what field? In the journals in my field (economics) we are are rarely able to amass such convincing empirical evidence against a particular hypothesis (though certainly not for lack of trying), but any hypothesis which had as much evidence going against it as these benchmarks do would certainly be dismissed by any academic who was not a complete crank.

Physics. And what I was objecting to was not saying that the majority of evidence suggests that these benchmarks are fake. I was objecting to the statement that they have been 'proven' fake. In Physics, the Standard Model of elementary particles is considered one of the most reinforced theories in existence (with some of the predicted values being verified out to dozens of decimal places). However, it is not considered 'proven'. Indeed, there are physicists who devote themselves to finding something that definitively disproves the Standard Model.

Now, if you had said, from the beginning, "Clearly, the majority of evidence leads to the conclusion that these are fake benchmarks", I might have agreed with you. (In the beginning, before more of the evidence came out, I might have still drawn some exception, but, now I would certainly agree with this statement.)

If you want to 'prove' it, present me with some evidence that cannot be explained by some other, however unlikely, set of events. If you want to argue it, then make it clear that that is what you are doing.

[Cubeboy]

Originally posted by Kai
About your reality check thing:
Well, I'm certainly (like you) someone who warns of expectations too high (afterall, only low expectations are never disappointing in the end, they're either met or surpassed, which is even greater! ;-), but:

1) IBM apparently just kicked Intels butt with the new 1.7GHz Power4. They certainly have the potential to do so also on the Desktop! They got the Knowhow, they got the patents (SOI, copper, FCBGA etc, all IBM! Hell, Intel and AMD both license certain patents from IBM afaik!), they got the manufacturing processes, they got the production facilities and they now (could) have the mass-market (or atleast a part of it in the beginning) to finance their R&D like Intel has for the past 25 years!
Motorola - never! IBM - most certainly!

2) People used to say similar things about AMD using the same logic: "AMD is not big enough, they could never afford the R&D to make faster chips than big bad Intel" etc.. Now flashback to 1999, enter the Athlon! ;-)
Dirk Meyer and his team came (from Alpha), saw and conquered (the performance crown)! From what i know they even built the K7 in just a few weeks from scratch!

So I wouldn't rule Apple owning the performance crown some day completely out! Others did it before and looking at IBM i would certainly say it'd be possible Apple does it!

What are you comparing the Power4 with, of course it's going to cream any desktop processor in server/scientific apps but it's not going to be much against Intel's or Alpha's server chips, namely Itanium 2 and 3. Also, Alpha now works for Intel developing Itanium chips, when Compaq let go of Alpha, Intel acquired all but one member of the entire team. PPC970 could well take back the performance crown but I wouldn't hold my breath on it.

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Kai
...People used to say similar things about AMD using the same logic: "AMD is not big enough, they could never afford the R&D to make faster chips than big bad Intel" etc.. Now flashback to 1999, enter the Athlon! ;-)
Dirk Meyer and his team came (from Alpha), saw and conquered (the performance crown)! From what i know they even built the K7 in just a few weeks from scratch!

I'm glad that someone pointed this out. It goes to the fact that there is more involved than just market dominance and $ spent on R&D. There is also skill of the engineers involved, benefit from design decisions (push the MHz higher vs. making more performance per clock cycle), and there is a certain degree of luck involved. Arguably, from what we've heard, IBM has had a fair amount of luck with the production of the 970 having many fewer problems than expected.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Whether or not it is currently available on Hotline (and who can say whether or not it was available on Hotline?), is another issue.

Who is to say whether it is available on Hotline? Well, as MacBd reported it, the tester specifically said it was available on Hotline! Who did you think was making the claim? This isn't something that other people were randomly coming up with.

[anonmac]

the list of top500 supercomputers is available at top500.org for anyone who wants to know where the power really is.

out of the top40 supercomputers:
21 are ibm
5 are alpha
6 are intel
2 are nec (notably #1, the earth simulator)
and 2 are cray.

so, to answer the question of whether ibm can scale the wall of intel performance, i would say 'wall scaled, game over.'

NOTE (AND CHECK THE FACTS) THIS:

#12 is a 3,328 processor IBM box that runs at 375mhz (power **3** not the newer power 4)

#15 is an intel box (when i say box here i refer cluster) with 9,632 processors at an undisclosed speed.

if the power3 runs at 375, and has LOTS less processors, why IS IT ALREADY FASTER than what intel cobbled together? (i must assume they are not using p3, as that is about where 375 mhz would be.)

so to all who say IBM will never do it...you couldn't be more wrong, they already have, and the facts are right there, waiting for you to look at them, and then disregard the testing as 'well, in the real world, we all know...'(fill in the ellipses with whatever garbage you are spouting today that you really do not understand.)

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Cubeboy
What are you comparing the Power4 with, of course it's going to cream any desktop processor in server/scientific apps but it's not going to be much against Intel's or Alpha's server chips, namely Itanium 2 and 3.

What on earth are you talking about?

Here are the respective SPEC scores of the fastest available version of each chip. Keep in mind that these scores correspond to the performance of A SINGLE CORE (i.e. what you would see if there were only a single user on the server running a single thread):

SPECint2000:
Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz: 1113
Alpha 21364 @ 1.15 Ghz: 877
Itanium 2 @ 1 Ghz: 807

SPECfp2000:
Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz: 1699
Alpha 21364 @ 1.15 Ghz: 1482
Itanium 2 @ 1.0 Ghz: 1431

Clearly the Power4+ core has a significant performance margin over both Alpha and Itanic at this time. However, more importantly, the Power4+ packs TWO CORES per chip, whereas Alpha and Itanic each have only one. This means that in the server market each Power4+ chip has MORE THAN TWICE as much processing power as each Itanic or Alpha chip.

In terms of the future, Intel is claiming that the process shrink of Itanium 2, which supposedly will ship towards the end of the year, will improve performance by 30 to 50%. If that is true, then the 1.5 Ghz Itanium 2 will match the integer performance of a single 1.7 Ghz Power4+ core and beat the floating point performance by 10 to 20%. However, Itanic will still only be single core, so the Intanic 2 chip will still have substantially less processing power than the Power4+ chip. Furthermore, IBM claims that the Power5 chip, due to ship by next year, will quadruple the performance of the Power4+ (300% increase). If the numbers are anywhere close to that, then clearly Power will maintain or even widen its lead on Itanic. So it is quite unlikely that Itanic is going to be beating the POWER architecture in the area of server class chips anytime in the near future. As for Alpha, well, HP is sending that chip to its grave (for marketing reasons, of course, not because it is a crappy design...quite the opposite, in fact, as the benchmarks show that it is still capable of competing with the best of them).

These numbers are all publicly available on the web. You really ought to use Google before you post strange claims like "Power cannot compete at all with Itanic and Alpha."

[anonmac]

we seem to think along the same lines when it comes to power vs intel/alpha/ et al.

nice post. i too think some ***RESEARCH*** should be done by the wintelites before posting how superior they are to the rest of the world (at least to themselves.)

i guess if you don't have real references, you just make stuff up "hey in 2050 the intel pentium 17 (still 32 bit) will kick the power4+ ass!"

yup, maybe by then ;^>

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Cubeboy
What are you comparing the Power4 with, of course it's going to cream any desktop processor in server/scientific apps but it's not going to be much against Intel's or Alpha's server chips, namely Itanium 2 and 3. Also, Alpha now works for Intel developing Itanium chips, when Compaq let go of Alpha, Intel acquired all but one member of the entire team. PPC970 could well take back the performance crown but I wouldn't hold my breath on it.

You are confusing Power4 (specifically Power4+, the reduced-process and increased-frequency version of the Power4) with the 970.

The PPC 970 is a desktop-oriented "lite" version of the Power4, and, no, would not blow away an Itanium 2 or an Alpha (although it happily will not require its own power substation and two tons of insertion force to put it on the motherboard). Intel had planned on bringing out a desktop-oriented version of Itanium 2 this fall (Deerfield), but those plans appear to have been scrapped. If you have an Itanium 2 on your desktop, yes, you will have more power than your Mac-loving neighbors.

The Power4+/1.7GHz blows away the fastest Alpha and Itanium 2 systems quite nicely.

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
Who is to say whether it is available on Hotline? Well, as MacBd reported it, the tester specifically said it was available on Hotline! Who did you think was making the claim? This isn't something that other people were randomly coming up with.

Sorry, you missed my point. It's possible that the beta of Bryce6 was available on Hotline, but isn't currently available.

Anyway, I think that this discussion has outlived its natural life by a significant amount. Shall we call an end to it? Peace? ;)

[BaghdadBob]

No. I'm going to extend it by almost two hours, so there.

And hydrogen SUCKS! HA! :p

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by BaghdadBob
No. I'm going to extend it by almost two hours, so there.

And hydrogen SUCKS! HA! :p


Ah, these boards are a never ending source of entertainment... :D ;)

[matznentosh]

Originally posted by skunk
Further information from MacBidouille (with a health warning): the 970 mother-boards will have 6 PCI slots in addition to the AGP, and maybe a 5.1 sound card. The bus will be rated at 200MHz and will support 3200DDR. According to an internal source at IBM, the 970 will surprise the public greatly. This information came through before the fabled benchmarks, and from a different source.

Make of it what you will.....:rolleyes:

Am I wrong or is a 200 mhz bus much slower than what everyone has been talking about? I've seen 800 mhz thrown around a lot, with the suggestion that the high bus speed would be a considerable part of the extra processing power. So unless the bus is quad pumped or something, it won't be that much faster than a 167 mhz bus.

As I've said before, I still think a conservative estimate is more likely, that a 970 Macintosh would be 1.5 times as fast as a G4 at the same clock speed.

[Dave Marsh]

An excellent question. I had the same thought last night and read intently as a number of the board's better techs talked around this issue, but no one nailed it for the less tech savvy like me.

There was talk that the 3200 memory mentioned was DDR400, which is consistent with what others have said earlier was needed for this CPU, which was comforting. Then there was confusion over whether the 200MHz mentioned related to the memory or the PCI bus, but most settled on the side of the CPU bus.

If I understand properly, the 970 doesn't use a traditional bus, but rather has two one-way links for memory access. But, even then, two concurrent paths sharing the DDR400 over a 200MHz bus, for an equivalent (?) 400Mhz shared path, would still appear far slower than the talked about "half the CPU speed bus" discussed earlier (900MHz for 1.8GHz CPU). Also, I'm not sure what "double pumped" or "quad pumped" means, although a number of people here throw around those terms frequently...perhaps that will have some bearing on the answer to this question.

I really doubt that Apple would cripple their new CPU, after years of suffering the effects of the bus starved G4s (which are really pretty good chips, by the way), but we'll have to wait for the techs to join in to clear this up. :confused:

I'm also hoping MacBidouille returns with the promised board/system specs on the 15th, although I'm a bit anxious on that after all the grief they took from some of the "experts" on the boards following their last posting. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though.:cool:

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by matznentosh
Am I wrong or is a 200 mhz bus much slower than what everyone has been talking about? I've seen 800 mhz thrown around a lot, with the suggestion that the high bus speed would be a considerable part of the extra processing power. So unless the bus is quad pumped or something, it won't be that much faster than a 167 mhz bus.


The 200MHz bus speed refers to the memory bus, using DDR-400 memory, not the FSB, or bus from the CPU to the system controller.

The 970 at 1.8GHz has a 900MHz FSB (two half-width unidirectional buses). Discounting overhead, that 900MHz bus can transfer 6.4Gb/s of data, which is equivalent to an 800MHz no-overhead bus. Note that the latest P4s also have an 800MHz bus, although that is "raw" speed, not discounted for bus overhead (which I believe is less significant with the P4 anyway).

Contrary to what some people have said here and elsewhere, we really don't know what the bus speed is on any other PC 970 chip, just that the 1.8GHz model will be set at 900MHz. It is more likely that the 900MHz will go roughly across the entire 970 line than that the FSB speed will be exactly half the processor speed (FSB speeds don't scale as easily as processor speeds, and the main thing to consider here is that a faster FSB means a redesigned system controller chip, which is fairly expensive for speed-bumping).

The 200MHz memory bus is pure supposition right now, as that is completely in Apple's domain, and as you know Apple doesn't give details out about what it is planning. However, the choices there are a 200MHz bus using DDR-400 memory (which is essentially what top-of-the-line PCs will be using soon), a 167MHz bus using DDR-333 memory, a 133MHz bus using DDR-266 memory, or a 100MHz bus using DDR-200. If memory serves, the current top-of-the-line Macs use DDR-333 on a 167MHz memory bus (which is the same frequency as the FSB to the G4).

[Dave Marsh]

Thanks jettredmont! That actually helped a lot and makes sense to me.:D

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Dave Marsh
If I understand properly, the 970 doesn't use a traditional bus, but rather has two one-way links for memory access. But, even then, two concurrent paths sharing the DDR400 over a 200MHz bus, for an equivalent (?) 400Mhz shared path, would still appear far slower than the talked about "half the CPU speed bus" discussed earlier (900MHz for 1.8GHz CPU). Also, I'm not sure what "double pumped" or "quad pumped" means, although a number of people here throw around those terms frequently...perhaps that will have some bearing on the answer to this question.


1) The FSB of the 970 is a 900MHz bus. That bus is 32-bits in each direction (most modern buses are 64-bits bi-directional). I do not believe that this bus is double- or quad-pumped, but I may be wrong about that (IBM's 970 PDF introduction doesn't say if the bus is single-, double-, or quad-pumped). It has an 800MHz effective data rate after overhead (6.4GB/s). I can't see any reasonable way to describe this bus as 200MHz, even if it were a quad-pumped 220MHz(?) bus at heart. 200MHz bus can only refer to the memory bandwidth, matching with a DDR-400 memory implementation.

2) Double-pumped (or double data rate) means that essentially twice as much data is pushed through the bus in one cycle as in a single-pumped bus. However, latency is as high in the "400MHz" DDR bus as in the 200MHz SDR bus (and higher than in a true 400MHz SDR bus). In other words, you're still waiting 1/200M of a second for your data, but you get twice as much of it. This makes a DDR bus twice as effective for burst data as the SDR bus but offers no increase in one-off data reads/writes. Fact is, you're usually writing more than just 32 or 64 bits of data at once, so the latency issue tends to even out and DDR is about twice as fast as SDR.

3) Quad-pumped is an obvious extension of DDR (four times as much data as SDR instead of twice). There is also triple-pumped, although that's not done very often.

[Cubeboy]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
What on earth are you talking about?

Here are the respective SPEC scores of the fastest available version of each chip. Keep in mind that these scores correspond to the performance of A SINGLE CORE (i.e. what you would see if there were only a single user on the server running a single thread):

SPECint2000:
Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz: 1113
Alpha 21364 @ 1.15 Ghz: 877
Itanium 2 @ 1 Ghz: 807

SPECfp2000:
Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz: 1699
Alpha 21364 @ 1.15 Ghz: 1482
Itanium 2 @ 1.0 Ghz: 1431

Clearly the Power4+ core has a significant performance margin over both Alpha and Itanic at this time. However, more importantly, the Power4+ packs TWO CORES per chip, whereas Alpha and Itanic each have only one. This means that in the server market each Power4+ chip has MORE THAN TWICE as much processing power as each Itanic or Alpha chip.

In terms of the future, Intel is claiming that the process shrink of Itanium 2, which supposedly will ship towards the end of the year, will improve performance by 30 to 50%. If that is true, then the 1.5 Ghz Itanium 2 will match the integer performance of a single 1.7 Ghz Power4+ core and beat the floating point performance by 10 to 20%. However, Itanic will still only be single core, so the Intanic 2 chip will still have substantially less processing power than the Power4+ chip. Furthermore, IBM claims that the Power5 chip, due to ship by next year, will quadruple the performance of the Power4+ (300% increase). If the numbers are anywhere close to that, then clearly Power will maintain or even widen its lead on Itanic. So it is quite unlikely that Itanic is going to be beating the POWER architecture in the area of server class chips anytime in the near future. As for Alpha, well, HP is sending that chip to its grave (for marketing reasons, of course, not because it is a crappy design...quite the opposite, in fact, as the benchmarks show that it is still capable of competing with the best of them).

These numbers are all publicly available on the web. You really ought to use Google before you post strange claims like "Power cannot compete at all with Itanic and Alpha."

Perhaps you should the news yourself before you post, Itanium 3 has already been introduced, at 1.5 ghz, SpecInt Base is 1250 and SpecFP Base is 2150. Tanglewood, the Itanium being worked on by alpha and intel teams is estimated to be 10x as powerful as Itanium 3 and will feature both Alpha EV8/EV9 and Itanium technologies. It will be out in around 2 years. As I've said before, Alpha is already dead, Compaq disbanded the Alpha design team a while back, Intel has acquired all but one member of the original Alpha team.

SPECint2000:
Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz: 1113 (base or peak?)
Power4+ @ 1.4 Ghz: 884/910
Itanium 2 @ 1 Ghz: 807/807
Itanium 3 @ 1.5 Ghz: 1250/1250

SPECfp2000:
Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz: 1699 (base or peak?)
Power4+ @ 1.4 GHZ: 1221/1295
Itanium 2 @ 1.0 Ghz: 1431/1431
Itanium 3 @ 1.5 Ghz: 2150/2150

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Cubeboy
Perhaps you should the news yourself before you post, Itanium 3 has already been introduced, at 1.5 ghz, SpecInt Base is 1250 and SpecFP Base is 2150.

Really? Well, you had better run and inform the Intel Corp. of this, because they seem to have forgotten to post information about this "already introduced" on their website. See http://www.intel.com/eBusiness/products/server/processor/index.htm. I guess they just don't want to announce it because they actually might sell some if they did announce it, huh? I mean, geez, if they actually posted information, they might sell as many as 1,000 of these chips or something. That would be about 100 times the total number of Itanic 2 and Itanic 1 processors that they have sold to date, so I don't know if they would be able to ramp up the Itanic production lines fast enough. It could be a real problem - no wonder they don't want to announce that it's already available!

In contrast, the 1.7 Ghz Power4+ has actually been announced and can actually be viewed on IBM's website today (May 9, 2003). See http://www-132.ibm.com/content/home/store_IBMPublicUSA/en_US/eServer/pSeries/high_end/pSeries_highend.html

But hey, if we are just making up processors, then I bet you didn't know that the Power17+++ at 158 Ghz was just introduced an hour ago on a .01 micron process! It has 128 cores per chip, simultaneous multithreading that allows for virtual 16 processors per core (i.e. 2048 virtual processors per chip), and still consumes under 100 watts. Each core is rated at a SPECint2000 of 758,231 and SPECfp2000 of 1,255,539. Apparently a single Power17+++ based p690 high end server has more processing power than all the computers in the world combined did as of yesterday.

Look, seriously, I have no doubt that Madison (the 1.5 Ghz Itanic 2 that you are strangely dubbing "Itanium 3", even though Intel hasn't assigned it that name and HP is still referring to it as Itanic 2) will ship some day, presumably before the end of the year. But that day has not yet come.

And as I said earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if Itanic 2 @ 1.5 Ghz had a small but measurable (maybe a little over 10% or 15%) advantage over Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz in SPECfp2000. However, since Madison is still only single core, whereas Power4+ is dual core, Power4+ will unquestionably be a far more powerful server chip.


Tanglewood, the Itanium being worked on by alpha and intel teams is estimated to be 10x as powerful as Itanium 3 and will feature both Alpha EV8/EV9 and Itanium technologies. It will be out in around 2 years.

Not quite. You are probably thinking of Montecito, the first dual core Itanic. It is the chip that is supposed to ship in 2 years; see http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7729 The Tanglewood chip will not ship for at least another 3 to 4 years; see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/30411.html And it had better have AT LEAST 10 times the performance of Madison, otherwise it is not going to be even remotely competitive with Power6!

Incidentally, if you want to see some REAL benchmarks (both in the sense that they are not made up numbers and in the sense that it is a real server benchmark, not a single core benchmark like SPECint/SPECfp) on machines that should be shipping concurrently later in the year, go to http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_results.asp?resulttype=noncluster&version=5. HP has submitted TPC numbers their 64-way 1.5 Ghz Madison system (what you are calling "Itanium 3") that they are planning to release at towards the end of the year. You can see that it puts in a very respectable showing, but is edged out by the Power4+ based p690. The key thing to note, however, as I have told you before, is that the p690 has only 32 processors (64 cores), i.e. HALF the number of the HP Itanic 2 Superdome! Once again, the Power4 packs twice the processing power of Itanic on a per chip basis. This is also apparent in the fact that IBM can ship 8 Power4+ processors (16 cores) in the 4U size p655+ server, whereas HP can only manage to fit 4 Itanic 2 processors (4 cores) in the same 4U space (i.e. two 2U HP rx2600 servers - each holds up to two Itanic 2 processors) . In other words, Power4 based rack mounted servers pack FOUR TIMES the processing power into one rack that Itanic 2 based rack servers do. That, quite frankly, is d*mn impressive.

Now, clearly Itanic has made good strides since the pathetic performance of Itanic 1. However, it is also clear that it has a ways to go before it can catch, let alone surpasses, the POWER architecture in the server space. Furthermore, as an entirely new architecture, there's very little software available for it. Put those two facts together, and you will quickly realize why the number Itanic units that ship each quarter is so tiny.

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by jettredmont
1) The FSB of the 970 is a 900MHz bus. That bus is 32-bits in each direction (most modern buses are 64-bits bi-directional). I do not believe that this bus is double- or quad-pumped, but I may be wrong about that (IBM's 970 PDF introduction doesn't say if the bus is single-, double-, or quad-pumped). It has an 800MHz effective data rate after overhead (6.4GB/s). I can't see any reasonable way to describe this bus as 200MHz, even if it were a quad-pumped 220MHz(?) bus at heart. 200MHz bus can only refer to the memory bandwidth, matching with a DDR-400 memory implementation.


It is 450 MHz double pumped. I don't remember the exact references, but I have read that in several places (real articles, not rumor articles). Anyway, it would have to be double pumped in order to get 6.4 GB/s of bandwidth (keep in mind that it is 64 bits wide...actually, 2x32 bits, as it is 32 bits each direction).

[mathiasr]

Originally posted by ktlx
According to everything I have read, the PowerPC 970 is not equipped to support L3 cache. It only supports L1 and L2 like the G3s, Intels and AMDs and the sizes are all the same across the product line.
Intel Xeon MPs support up to 2 MiB of L3 cache (this is a server oriented CPU):
http://www.intel.com/products/server/processors/server/xeon_mp/index.htm?iid=ipp_srvr_proc_xeon+xeon_mp&

And some one said it was not possible to build a dual Pentium4 system. In fact you need to take Xeon CPUs, but there is virtually no difference between a 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 and a Xeon (excepted price):
http://www.intel.com/products/server/processors/server/xeon/index.htm?iid=ipp_srvr_proc_xeonmp+info_xeon512&

Some could argue that running a dual processor PowerMac against a single processor Pentium 4 is not fair. A dual Xeon 3.06 GHz XP box would cost more than $4,000, but dual 2.8 or 2.66 GHz systems could land in the same ballpark as high-end PowerMacs...

[mathiasr]

Originally posted by jettredmont
The Power4+/1.7GHz blows away the fastest Alpha and Itanium 2 systems quite nicely.
It certainly will, it's not available yet. IBM actually only announced those new servers, they will ship by the end of July.

[mathiasr]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
It is 450 MHz double pumped. I don't remember the exact references, but I have read that in several places (real articles, not rumor articles). Anyway, it would have to be double pumped in order to get 6.4 GB/s of bandwidth (keep in mind that it is 64 bits wide...actually, 2x32 bits, as it is 32 bits each direction).
http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A1387A29AC1C2AE087256C5200611780/$file/PPC970_MPF2002.pdf

Ars Technica said it would be a 450 MHz DDR bus.

Have you noticed that the IBM document states "up to 900 MHz bit rate"; Apple could stay with a more conservative 800 MHz (400 MHz DDR), especially if they intend to introduce 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 GHz machines (respectively x3.5, x4 and x4.5 a 400 MHz bus speed).

[Dave Marsh]

Earlier today jettredmont explained to me that the memory bus (between the CPU and the DDR400 RAM) is 200MHz, per the MacBidouille rumor. The FSB (between the CPU and the system controller) has been announced at 900MHz for the 1.8GHz CPU, and is the one that provides the 6.4GBps (not 6.4Gbps, right?) throughput.

That being true, I think we need to be careful about which we are addressing, or those of us who are trying to understand, will get truly lost.:)

[mathiasr]

Originally posted by Dave Marsh
Earlier today jettredmont explained to me that the memory bus (between the CPU and the DDR400 RAM) is 200MHz, per the MacBidouille rumor. The FSB (between the CPU and the system controller) has been announced at 900MHz for the 1.8GHz CPU, and is the one that provides the 6.4GBps (not 6.4Gbps, right?) throughput.
Not exactly, since the PowerPC 970 has no build-in memory controller (compared to the AMD Opteron), it does all it's input/output through its front buses.
The front buses lead to the system controller (what the PC users call the Northbridge), and one of the features of this controller is to handle memory access. The traditional AGP/PCI bus could be replaced by an HyperTransport link with AGP and PCI-X tunnels.
Take a look at the illustration made for the Xserve:
http://www.apple.com/xserve/performance.html

The main difference is that two PowerPC 970 will not share the same bus (since its a point to point link), and there are no backside L3 caches.
The slow 64 bits 167 MHz bidirectional bus from the G4 machines should become two 32 bits 800/900 MHz unidirectional buses on the new Mach64 mobo, on a dual 970 system you would have four of these buses !


PPC970 PPC970
|| 400 / 450 ||
\\ MHz DDR //
\\ //
Controller
/ | \
200 / | HT \
MHz DDR | AGP |
RAM PCI-X Ethernet, ATA...

[Cubeboy]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
Really? Well, you had better run and inform the Intel Corp. of this, because they seem to have forgotten to post information about this "already introduced" on their website. See http://www.intel.com/eBusiness/products/server/processor/index.htm. I guess they just don't want to announce it because they actually might sell some if they did announce it, huh? I mean, geez, if they actually posted information, they might sell as many as 1,000 of these chips or something. That would be about 100 times the total number of Itanic 2 and Itanic 1 processors that they have sold to date, so I don't know if they would be able to ramp up the Itanic production lines fast enough. It could be a real problem - no wonder they don't want to announce that it's already available!

In contrast, the 1.7 Ghz Power4+ has actually been announced and can actually be viewed on IBM's website today (May 9, 2003). See http://www-132.ibm.com/content/home/store_IBMPublicUSA/en_US/eServer/pSeries/high_end/pSeries_highend.html

But hey, if we are just making up processors, then I bet you didn't know that the Power17+++ at 158 Ghz was just introduced an hour ago on a .01 micron process! It has 128 cores per chip, simultaneous multithreading that allows for virtual 16 processors per core (i.e. 2048 virtual processors per chip), and still consumes under 100 watts. Each core is rated at a SPECint2000 of 758,231 and SPECfp2000 of 1,255,539. Apparently a single Power17+++ based p690 high end server has more processing power than all the computers in the world combined did as of yesterday.

Look, seriously, I have no doubt that Madison (the 1.5 Ghz Itanic 2 that you are strangely dubbing "Itanium 3", even though Intel hasn't assigned it that name and HP is still referring to it as Itanic 2) will ship some day, presumably before the end of the year. But that day has not yet come.

And as I said earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if Itanic 2 @ 1.5 Ghz had a small but measurable (maybe a little over 10% or 15%) advantage over Power4+ @ 1.7 Ghz in SPECfp2000. However, since Madison is still only single core, whereas Power4+ is dual core, Power4+ will unquestionably be a far more powerful server chip.

Not quite. You are probably thinking of Montecito, the first dual core Itanic. It is the chip that is supposed to ship in 2 years; see http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7729 The Tanglewood chip will not ship for at least another 3 to 4 years; see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/61/30411.html And it had better have AT LEAST 10 times the performance of Madison, otherwise it is not going to be even remotely competitive with Power6!

Incidentally, if you want to see some REAL benchmarks (both in the sense that they are not made up numbers and in the sense that it is a real server benchmark, not a single core benchmark like SPECint/SPECfp) on machines that should be shipping concurrently later in the year, go to http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_results.asp?resulttype=noncluster&version=5. HP has submitted TPC numbers their 64-way 1.5 Ghz Madison system (what you are calling "Itanium 3") that they are planning to release at towards the end of the year. You can see that it puts in a very respectable showing, but is edged out by the Power4+ based p690. The key thing to note, however, as I have told you before, is that the p690 has only 32 processors (64 cores), i.e. HALF the number of the HP Itanic 2 Superdome! Once again, the Power4 packs twice the processing power of Itanic on a per chip basis. This is also apparent in the fact that IBM can ship 8 Power4+ processors (16 cores) in the 4U size p655+ server, whereas HP can only manage to fit 4 Itanic 2 processors (4 cores) in the same 4U space (i.e. two 2U HP rx2600 servers - each holds up to two Itanic 2 processors) . In other words, Power4 based rack mounted servers pack FOUR TIMES the processing power into one rack that Itanic 2 based rack servers do. That, quite frankly, is d*mn impressive.

Now, clearly Itanic has made good strides since the pathetic performance of Itanic 1. However, it is also clear that it has a ways to go before it can catch, let alone surpasses, the POWER architecture in the server space. Furthermore, as an entirely new architecture, there's very little software available for it. Put those two facts together, and you will quickly realize why the number Itanic units that ship each quarter is so tiny.

Just moved from Wisconsin to New Jersey so I was unable to make a timely response to this post, as I've clearly stated before, read the news before you post, HP already HAS a 64 way 1.5 ghz Itanium server out, now tell me honestly, if a 1.5 ghz Itanium wasn't even introduced than exactly HOW can it already be in a HP server. And by the way it IS Itanium 3, a full upgrade cycle has passed since Itanium 2 and the naming schemes used by intel hasn't changed. Also, in case you haven't noticed Power4 has been pretty much been on the behind Alpha and Itanium solutions for much of the past year, now that I think about it, ever since the Alpha 21364 was introduced. The numbers are their, until now, Power architecture was quite clearly surpassed by Alpha and Itanium architecture.

However, you are correct, that with the release of dual core Power4's, IBM has the most powerful server chip, sorry my information is a bit old and rusty, until Intel releases dual core Itaniums, it looks like IBM will remain uncontested.

[hacurio1]

Originally posted by matznentosh
Am I wrong or is a 200 mhz bus much slower than what everyone has been talking about? I've seen 800 mhz thrown around a lot, with the suggestion that the high bus speed would be a considerable part of the extra processing power. So unless the bus is quad pumped or something, it won't be that much faster than a 167 mhz bus.

As I've said before, I still think a conservative estimate is more likely, that a 970 Macintosh would be 1.5 times as fast as a G4 at the same clock speed.

200Mhz? Not the FSB though!

[Cubeboy]

Another thing to note generally is the price, the IBM P-690 turbo (Power4 1.7 ghz) server costs 7.6 million dollars and performs 680,613 transactions per minute, the HP Superdome (Itanium 3 1.5 ghz) server costs 6.4 million dollars and performs 658,277 transactions per minute. Your paying nearly 1.2 million dollars more for a 3% increase in performance.

[MisterMe]

Originally posted by Cubeboy
Another thing to note generally is the price, the IBM P-690 turbo (Power4 1.7 ghz) server costs 7.6 million dollars and performs 680,613 transactions per minute, the HP Superdome (Itanium 3 1.5 ghz) server costs 6.4 million dollars and performs 658,277 transactions per minute. Your paying nearly 1.2 million dollars more for a 3% increase in performance. Do you have a clue what else might be included for that $1.2 million?

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by MisterMe
Do you have a clue what else might be included for that $1.2 million?
Yeah, no kidding. with that kind of logic just go buy a PC.

Hell, save yourself even more, go buy a Compaq. I mean, what's the performance difference you're paying for? There aren't any other factors that go into a computer's worth, after all :rolleyes:

[anonmac]

you can actually GET a p690 with the tested config.

on the hp side, they are not yet shipping 64way itanium systems (and, UNISYS will be first when it happens (they may already have- HP has not.))- they are only in the testing stage with 64way.

now, the SGI altira (sp?) HAS shipped with 64 itaniums, BUT running linux--- NOT windows. this looks to be an impressive machine-- again, VERY high priced.

[Cubeboy]

Originally posted by MisterMe
Do you have a clue what else might be included for that $1.2 million?

Unfortunately I really don't know, both machines are equipped to be competitive to each other, they both have 512 GB of memory, comparable disk controllers, storage, terminals, server and client software, the Power4 clients used by the P690 ARE expensive but they helped create the TPC score and don't change the overall picture. Remember, we're talking about multimillion dollar servers meant to run 24 hours a day, not desktops, quality and stability are not problems here. If someone can ascertain the price of a 1.7 ghz Power4 I might be able to solve the price difference. Also, Anonmac, what exactly is the cost of the SGI Altix?

[skunk]

According to Macbidouille today, Apple have officially confirmed to some customers that the G4 will be around for another three months.....

[anonmac]

4way is around $70,000.

total costs for fully config. system is around $1million.

the whole write up is in linux journal. (but the price seems only to be on the newsstand, not the web...)

[Cubeboy]

it seems that fine-tuning was all that was needed for HP's superdome to reclaim the TPC-C crown, the tuned Superdome performs 48,825 more transactions/minute than the original Superdome and 26,489 more transaction/min than the IBM P690 turbo.

Tuned Superdome (1.5 ghz Madison)
unit price: $6,453,433
transactions/minute: 707,102
price/transaction: $9.13/transaction

IBM P-690 Turbo (1.7 ghz Power4++)
unit price: $7,574,961
transactions/minute: 680,613
price/transaction: $11.13/transaction

Original Superdome (1.5 ghz Madison)
unit price: $6,453,432
transactions/minute: 648,277
price/transaction: $9.80/ transaction

[anonmac]

so everyone running tpc code in production should go buy one. that means...unhhhh....NO ONE.

[Cubeboy]

Originally posted by anonmac
so everyone running tpc code in production should go buy one. that means...unhhhh....NO ONE.

Hmm, did I say that, no, since we were on the subject of servers, and the top TPC scores in particular, I brought up the newest tpc submission just to provide the most up to date information. Now if you for some strange reason don't like this news, than just don't read the post.