Think about this:

[MacManiac1224]

They say that the G4 has a lot of life left in it, that is all well and good, becasue the consumer lines are going to need them. The pro line has traditionaly offered something the consumer line does not have: what is the difference now? more ram, 200mhz faster processors, come on people, that is not much of a difference. The G4 needs to have a lot of life, becasue it is going to carry the consumer line for the next 2-3 years. The pro line needs a refresh, and I think that has to be done in MWNY. The lastest sign of this is the G4 promo. They want to clear of the lines, becasue once the G5 comes out, people are not going to buy pro G4's, even at reduced prices. They could also put them in thier rackmounts, and start getting some high end servers, maybe like 10 processors or more in one server.

What do you guys think?

[TyleRomeo]

i completely agree

I wrote a similar post a few weeks ago. If the G4 has all this life in it then use it the iMacs and Powerbooks. while the pro guys and gals can have their G5s and when the G4 tops out then the other lines can go G5 but by then we will have over 2 GHZ G5s

i hope steve comes through this July

[AlphaTech]

How can you say only 200MHz difference, when the top end G4 tower is a DUAL GHz system??? Dual means TWO 1GHz processors.

Don't just look at the speed numbers, also look at the L3 cache differences (1MB on the new TiBook and 2MB on the tower). I know, from past experience, that a cache increase like that makes a huge difference for system performance. Add up all the differences and you see that the tower does do much better over the laptops. Granted, I own a laptop now, with now plans in the seeable future to get a tower again. I am very happy with the 800MHz TiBook and all that it offers me. I value portability, right now, over raw power. I would estimate that I will have a new tower within a year or so, depending on what comes out and when.

FYI, I was informed that a 1.4GHz processor functions at the speed of light. With that being the case (not sure if it is true, so take it with a grain of salt, or two), I wonder how chips are exceeding that speed. That could be the reason why we are seeing larger and larger heat sinks, and better chip fans coming out. I can only imagine what will be used for cooling of 4GHz systems (AMD is working on a 4.4GHz chip and is projecting having it on the market in the next year or two).

Either way, there is a reason for towers, and a reason for laptops. Towers also have much better expansion, and upgrade potential then laptops do. With towers, you can install up to five hard drives (four on the base and one in the zip drive slot), plug in a slew of PCI cards, and keep it humming for a long time. Laptops, can ,typicallly, take one extra PCMCIA card, you can give it up to 1GB of RAM, and only swap out the single hard drive. There are more differences, but I am not going to list them all, since I have neither the time, nor the desire to.

It is time to get on my Harley and ride. :D

[alex_ant]

Originally posted by AlphaTech
FYI, I was informed that a 1.4GHz processor functions at the speed of light. With that being the case (not sure if it is true, so take it with a grain of salt, or two), I wonder how ships are exceeding that speed.
Whoa, ships are exceeding the speed of light now?!? I thought planes were still the fastest form of transportation. :)

Seriously though, seeing as how nothing in the universe can travel faster than light (probably), and seeing as how CPUs use electricity instead of light anyway, "speed of light" is nothing but a marketing term.

Alex

[cb911]

Originally posted by alex_ant

Whoa, ships are exceeding the speed of light now?!? I thought planes were still the fastest form of transportation. :)

Seriously though, seeing as how nothing in the universe can travel faster than light (probably), and seeing as how CPUs use electricity instead of light anyway, "speed of light" is nothing but a marketing term.

Alex

actually, if processors used optical instead of electricity, they would be going at "the speed of light".;)

[aggemam]

Originally posted by cb911


actually, if processors used optical instead of electricity, they would be going at "the speed of light".;)

Not the processors, but the data inside. Hah! :-)

I should spend my time on some more useful right now, like, sleeping (it's night over here)

[Ensign Paris]

Has anyone ever seen the optical version of the SGI Indigo2? I once saw a demo unit at a show, I am not sure if they ever came into production. Atleast, my Indigo doesn't have optical connections inside :(

Ensign

[alex_ant]

Originally posted by Ensign Paris
Has anyone ever seen the optical version of the SGI Indigo2? I once saw a demo unit at a show, I am not sure if they ever came into production. Atleast, my Indigo doesn't have optical connections inside :(
What do you mean by "optical version"? The Indigo2 was discontinued in '96, so that show must have been quite a while ago.

[Paolo]

Indigo?
What was the indigo, and what were these optical connections?

[alex_ant]

The Indigo was SGI's main desktop workstation from 1991-1993. In 1993, SGI split its desktop workstation lines up into a high end and a low end, and released the Indigo2 on the high end and the Indy on the low end.

The only optical "part" of these I can think of would be the Fibre Channel, FDDI, or maybe HIPPI interfaces... The rest of the system was all electrical, though. I don't think any optical computers exist yet.

Alex

[Paolo]

Would optical computers, run faster than electrical ones!? or would they just bottle neck at the processer?

[Ludicrosity]

Originally posted by AlphaTech
That could be the reason why we are seeing larger and larger heat sinks, and better chip fans coming out.

You should hear my PeeCee, I'm using the HSF bundled with my Thunderbird made by AMD (I guess?) and it's over 50dB. Add my PSU and I get about 80dB (so says this $10 sound meter from radio shack). I see sites that say under 50 is good, I think it's just loud.


I can only imagine what will be used for cooling of 4GHz systems (AMD is working on a 4.4GHz chip and is projecting having it on the market in the next year or two).

http://www.koolance.com, I doubt this will ever become the cooling norm but if this company can stay in business then they must be selling these rig's. I surely wont ever own one of these but I sometimes want one so I can sleep AND have my computer on at the same time :(

What ever the future holds for us, be it faster G4's or G5's, I hope that Apple doesn't let their computer's sound like Cold War period air conditioners...

[AlphaTech]

I powered up my game system tonight for the first time in it's new case, and with it's new power supply. Between the Cooler Master ATC110's 4 fans (two in front, one in the back and one on top) and the two on the power supply (Antec true power 380 watt) it's still a lot quieter then my old case. The construction of the case helps to keep it quiter then the old one (all heavy gauge aluminum, and very tight fitting). I would suggest getting one of their cases if you want to reduce the amount of noise coming from the peecee.

[Rower_CPU]

For me the fan on the heatsink is the main culprit...I mean, the little guy is going 7000RPM for crying out loud!

It's a high pitched whine that can cut through most other noise. I've learned to tune it out, but damn, all that just to keep my CPU from frying? People have no reason to complain about noisy Quicksilvers!

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
For me the fan on the heatsink is the main culprit...I mean, the little guy is going 7000RPM for crying out loud!

It's a high pitched whine that can cut through most other noise. I've learned to tune it out, but damn, all that just to keep my CPU from frying? People have no reason to complain about noisy Quicksilvers!

There are adapters to allow larger fans to be placed onto heat sinks (at least on the peecee side). I have found that coolermaster fans are much cooler then any other brand. I don't have a db meter, or I would check and see what the new case rates at. I do know that is is much quieter with more fans then my old case (the old one had two case fans, where the new case has four).

It might be interesting to see if anyone has replaced their fans inside their G4 tower with CoolerMaster fans. I would wager that the system would get quieter. It would also be interesting to find out if an Antec True Power fan can go into a G4 tower (quieter then the stock ones).

With my pc being more silent now, I will be using it more. Before, it was an ear sore, now it's not nearly that bad. I would even venture to say that it makes less noise then my G4 tower used to, and the G4 had less drives inside of it.