New PowerMac...thoughts? [Archive]

mischief

Aug 13, 2002, 10:45 AM

Look you whiney bunch of jerks. If you seriously expected BOTH a totally new case that doesn't look like a box of drives with holes in it AND a G5 you should seriously consider a new drug habit cuz whatever your smoking now has caused dammage.

Have you stopped to ask yourself:" Gee, I wonder how Apple got enough G4's to do universal Dual Processor Towers?"

Have you considered that perhaps IBM HAS ALREADY TAKEN OVER PRODUCTION??

As to the whole "Is is DDR or isn't it?" Why don't you go find out before whining? The Powermac page says the following:

"New Power Mac G4 systems use Double Data Rate synchronous dynamic random access memory, also know as DDR-SDRAM main memory. DDR-SDRAM allows the system to read and write data to and from memory on both the rising and falling edge of each clock cycle. This provides twice the throughput of single data rate SDRAM, which reads and writes only on the rising edge of the clock cycle. The resulting throughput between main memory and the system controller is up to 2.7GBps, more than double the throughput from the previous dual 1GHz Power Mac G4. DDR-SDRAM also increases systemwide memory bandwidth to the processors and all other elements of the system. At the same time, direct memory access allows system elements, such as a hard drive controller or a graphics processing unit, to send and receive data directly from main memory, without going through the processors. The added bandwidth allows system elements to function independently at high data rates, boosting total system performance."

Additionally, the PDF spec sheet details throughput of the 167 bus at:

• 1.3 GB/sec. throughput for the main bus.

• 2.7 GB/Sec. Processor-RAM throughput.

•4GB/sec. L3 Cache throughput.

So YES this is a significant increase in power and speed so SHADDAP!!!!
:mad: :cool: :D :eek:

xelterran

Aug 13, 2002, 10:47 AM

personaly i think the new machines are pretty good - maby the pricing is a bit off but 1.25ghz with DDR is pretty sweet...

I actually like the new case design better than the old one - just get used to it! Remember when the new imac came out and everyone was saying how ugly it was?

I dont think ill buy a new powermac just yet (i only just got the 933) - when they release the power4/g5 at 1.6ghz+ then ill concider buying.

funkywhat2

Aug 13, 2002, 10:54 AM

at first i thought it wqas ugly, but the case seems to grow on you. and those specs, they're pretty sweet, considering what i'm using now:D

but then again, anythings better than a gateway essential 500:(

wait a minute- i'm a member now! YAY!

eyelikeart

Aug 13, 2002, 11:00 AM

u guys...

QUIT YOUR BITCHING ALREADY!! :rolleyes: :eek: :D

I'm for the opinion that we are damned lucky to see dual processors all across the board...no one thought Apple would do that did they??

I admit...I'm a little disappointed in not seeing higher speeds....but they are dualies...makes a huge difference along with DDR & L3!! :D

Mr Jobs

Aug 13, 2002, 11:00 AM

new powermacs up cheek apple.com

the front plate has a crome (not sure how you spell that word) border around it this should make it a bit more presentable, plus cheek out the logo on the display its also crome coooool

oh yeah and headphones at the front

DaedalusDE

Aug 13, 2002, 11:12 AM

chrome... i think

funkywhat2

Aug 13, 2002, 11:14 AM

that would be right

spuncan

Aug 13, 2002, 11:21 AM

I agree w/ mischeif all thisfake DDR stuff is b.s. It says all over the main and powermac page upgrades through out and explain exactly how the ddr works. Why would Apple lie that much instead if it was just a DDR slot put on a old non ddr mobo why wouldnt they just push it off to the ste and mention it for short amounts of time?
Furthermore this is a major upgrade for hopefully the last of the powermac g4's 25%+ upgrade just in the cpu. No other company does that frequently unless theres a new chip. Then all the other factors which greatly reduce bottlenecks throughout the system causes it to be a much greater percent increase in performance. The only thing I would have liked to have seen was pci-x or something of the sort becuase that is still a major bottle neck in the system along w/ the ddr but u cant say anything against that seeing that it is currently that fastest available from prebuilt machines.

Spike Spiegel

Aug 13, 2002, 11:33 AM

Well, i just bought a new dual GHz, and i gotta say, looking at that thing for a bit while ordering, it grows on you. the front is kind of pleasantly crowded, and the monitor looks a little cooler. Also, the fact that the crystal clear savings go until sometime in September helped take the Lofty price down some. i only got the mid-range but the pricetag topped out at $4196.00!!! The sals tax blows horribly, but at least there is no shipping for ground delivery.

ibookin'

Aug 13, 2002, 11:43 AM

Did anyone notice that Audio In has returned to the PowerMac?

http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html

tortus

Aug 13, 2002, 11:45 AM

First of all, you can only move as fast as the system bus permits. In the case of the dual 867 with the 133 mhz and DDR, we are looking at 333 Mhz bus for the main memory.

But, with this said, I have yet to see benchmarks on the new systems. Apple's continued use of Photoshop and Quake 3 Arena as hack benchmarks does not cut it with me. I want to see real world performance marks compared to the marks of Intel/AMD machines.

The benchmark that I want to see is the comparison between the dual 867 and the older dual 1 Ghz machine. I want to see if the dual 867 can outperform the latter with DDR.

Apple is just biding there time until the new generation of PowerMacs are unveiled next year. I am thinking upgrade card at the moment. I think I can last until spring 2003.

LethalWolfe

Aug 13, 2002, 11:46 AM

Originally posted by spuncan
I agree w/ mischeif all thisfake DDR stuff is b.s. It says all over the main and powermac page upgrades through out and explain exactly how the ddr works. Why would Apple lie that much instead if it was just a DDR slot put on a old non ddr mobo why wouldnt they just push it off to the ste and mention it for short amounts of time?

No offense but the answer is kinda obvious. Apple can honestly say it's machines have DDR (even if it is a year or so late and a hack job). Do you think people are going to ask, "Well, is it *real* DDR or *fake* DDR?" (besides the geeks like us)? No. Regular consumers will see "DDR" and assume they are really getting all the speed bennifits that come along w/a proper DDR using computer. Apple did this for marketing reasons 'cause if they still advertised SDRAM they would be laughed at (more than they have been mind you).

Lethal

uae

Aug 13, 2002, 11:47 AM

Hmmm....www.macminute stated:

"processor heatsink is considerably larger than previous models, but lacks a fan "

Does this mean they're quieter?

topicolo

Aug 13, 2002, 11:50 AM

I'd like apple to add the ability to adjust the fsb and clock multiplier to the open firmware. I wanna overclock the hell outta those 1.25GHz babies. (push them up to 1.5Ghz with some watercooling or peltiers) :)

MacMaster

Aug 13, 2002, 12:03 PM

I just saw the heatsink in the VR movie. That's one big heatsink!!!!!!:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

bousozoku

Aug 13, 2002, 12:05 PM

pgwalsh

Aug 13, 2002, 12:15 PM

I'm psyched that new Macs are out!
I'm not sure whether to buy the 1 Ghz or 2 Ghz. I'm upgrading from an old b/w G3 400. Think I'll notice a speed increase? Just kidding.

I would like to put the new ATI Radeon 9700 card (when it comes out) in the machine, but I'm under the impression it's 8x AGP and you need the pro slot. However, the 9000 is a pro version. Does that use the pro slot?

Now to decide whether to go with the 22" or 23" screen… hmmm.

With Jaguar and all the great new apps loaded onto this computer, I don't see how anyone can complain. I'm running mainly Adobe products and Reason and they will be sweet on this new machine.

I'm tired of hearing about the ddr discussion. We have what Apple has offered and if you're happy then buy one and if you're not happy then buy one anyway. Ha! Please take the discussion on Ram to it's own forum. Please!

funkywhat2

Aug 13, 2002, 12:50 PM

they stil haven't updated the whole site-the airport game page still has the quicksilver cases.

http://www.apple.com/airport/airportgame.html

but then again, they also still have the cube on that page:)

barkmonster

Aug 13, 2002, 01:25 PM

The audio capabilities on these new towers are fantatic.

They beat both the Digidesign Audiomedia III and the Yamaha SW1000XG for sound quality (on paper at least)

24bit in/out
Frequency response 5hz - 20Khz in or 8hz - 20Khz out
Greater than 100db dynamic range
less than 0.0005 % harmonic distortion

You'll notice the sound quality even if you're listen through a cheap pair computer speakers.

They've obviously being listening to us audio folks whining all the time about the mac's lame audio spec and actually done something about it. I can forgive them for not using RCA connectors for the line in/out because it's far higher quality than I expected.

Rockridge

Aug 13, 2002, 01:31 PM

to dual processors on all desktops... it's a good move...

but will software makers rise to the task in time to save Apple's a$$?

D0ct0rteeth

Aug 13, 2002, 01:40 PM

considering how crowded their product lineup is with the

iMac g3
eMac
iMac G4
Powermac g4

i think making the powermacs all dual is a very necessary change.

I am also impressed with how often apple has been updating their hardware over the past few months. At this rate I beleive good things are to come. I just hope they keep the prices low... and they should be giving way the original imacs... 799 - 1024 for a CD ROM drive is insane.

Buggy

Aug 13, 2002, 01:42 PM

Yippeee! Audio jack is back.

I don't know which moron at Apple development ever ordered audio in off of the old G4's, but I hope this is a sign that they fired/his or her ass.

No if Jagaur has the audio functionality that OS9 has, then I will be completely inpressed, or at least have an audio system that worked as well as my computer from 1999 running OS9.

pgwalsh

Aug 13, 2002, 01:44 PM

Originally posted by barkmonster
The audio capabilities on these new towers are fantatic.

They beat both the Digidesign Audiomedia III and the Yamaha SW1000XG for sound quality (on paper at least)

24bit in/out
Frequency response 5hz - 20Khz in or 8hz - 20Khz out
Greater than 100db dynamic range
less than 0.0005 % harmonic distortion

You'll notice the sound quality even if you're listen through a cheap pair computer speakers.

They've obviously being listening to us audio folks whining all the time about the mac's lame audio spec and actually done something about it. I can forgive them for not using RCA connectors for the line in/out because it's far higher quality than I expected.

Couldn't find the Audio specs. I'm under the impression there isn't 5.1 surround. Not that it's that necessary for audio work, but it would be great for DVD etc. I also wouldn't mind having it for movies etc.

Pentium Killer

Aug 13, 2002, 01:45 PM

Fact is,that it has no DDR Frontside Bus,I would like to some tests,though.But I think they have not been seriously working that long on that machines,something else must have taken their time.....it will see the light of day in january(I hope)!

Buggy

Aug 13, 2002, 01:48 PM

I too am impressed how they are updating their lines. They are not always waiting for the "next big show", this new way seems much more natural to the way that technology evolves. Unfortunately Steve does not get as big of "wow" factors, but maybe that is a sign he is maturing... he does not need to get verification of his self worth by how many people he can control and surprise. OK maybe he still does this to his staff, but at least our purchases are not being as effected by his internal lack or self esteme.

billiam0878

Aug 13, 2002, 01:50 PM

What I Like:

Duel Configs Across The Board
ATA 100
DDR 333

What I Don't Like:

The Design
Low MHz Rating
Vertically Mounted HD's

Just my 2cents,
Bill

job

Aug 13, 2002, 02:16 PM

Originally posted by billiam0878

DDR 333

Is that for the dual 867 tower as well, since that's what I'm thinking of buying?

daveg5

Aug 13, 2002, 02:18 PM

I know, I know, I expected to much, like Dual 1.4's, 266 or faster bus to take advantage of ddr, 64 bit pci - like the Xserve, firewire2 and usb 2 and bluetooth ata 133 to take advantage of hard disk over 137MB WD has just released 200GB 7200 models. lower prices. firewire and usb ports up front
a newer than"99" case design, triples and quads, free.mac with purchase, 1 year phone support.
As it stands now the $2199 Dual 1GHZ-512-80GB-superdrive-2MBL3 cache from Janurary seems to be the best performance buy, but I will wait for the benchmarks.
Things I like duals on the entry model {still 133MHZ though uugh!}
Dual drive bays how many years have we begged, my 8600 has 3, 4 if you take the floppy out.
Sound in
ddr
2GB limit
chrime front
large heatsink istead of noisy fan
and thats about it

billiam0878

Aug 13, 2002, 02:23 PM

Originally posted by hitman

Is that for the dual 867 tower as well, since that's what I'm thinking of buying?

The bus on the dual 867 is 133MHz, so it should take DDR 266.

Bill

mischief

Aug 13, 2002, 02:32 PM

You're acting as if the mobo hasn't changed at all. The list of improvements is actually quite long:

• Fastest system bus in the industry (167Mhz)

• True DDR support for a sickeningly high throughput of 1.3 to 2.7 GB/sec. depending on what component is currently speaking.

• Dual Optical drives

• We get our 4th RAM slot back.

• Entirely new motherboard with features reminiscent of Hypertransport.

• Dual onboard HD controllers for a total of 6 drives hostable, stock.

• Improved low-noise cooling.

• Audio input @ VERY acceptable tolerances.

• New faceplate, love it or not it IS an improvement.

• Audio output on the FRONT. Finally!!!:D

• PCI slots moved to the top of the case where they belong so there will be less cable crossover and less reaching over the CPU to add cards.

• Speaker moved to the top of the case where you may actually get decent sound out of it.

• Latch assembly reworked to have more metal parts for reduced failure rates.

• Ethernet and Modem ports moved into a more logical arrangement which will be easier to describe on the phone to technophobes.

Did I miss anything?

:D ;)

johndz

Aug 13, 2002, 02:44 PM

The specs of the new towers not what most accepted. But they'll do for now. The towers match the leaked picture a few weeks back. The motherboard match the specs except the prototype color. But the daughter card has a single chip on a 45 degree angle. What chip is this? When all the new towers had dual proccessers I thought why would a test mule have only one? Maybe someone could explain, or maybe a different prototype? (See picture below)

eyelikeart

Aug 13, 2002, 02:52 PM

Originally posted by mischief

Did I miss anything?

:D ;)

yeah...

u forgot to tell them to QUIT BITCHING!! :D ;)

vniow

Aug 13, 2002, 03:02 PM

Good point, Ms. Macumors II.:D

TyleRomeo

Aug 13, 2002, 03:14 PM

ok what the *%$# is the deal with a 6-8 week wait for the dual 1.25. do they want people to not buy it. some people would like one for school in a few weeks and not in october. apple you better move up this date to a 2 week wait at most. i dont think the extra G4 power takes that long to get ready.

funkywhat2

Aug 13, 2002, 03:46 PM

lately, the updates have been coming along quite nicely; people moan about how these updates are minor and all, but its a big leap foward compared to how we were last year. now, all apple has to do is start getting revised machines out every two weeks like dull and.....(just kidding)

Geert

Aug 13, 2002, 04:06 PM

Originally posted by D0ct0rteeth
considering how crowded their product lineup is with the

iMac g3
eMac
iMac G4
Powermac g4

i think making the powermacs all dual is a very necessary change.

I am also impressed with how often apple has been updating their hardware over the past few months. At this rate I beleive good things are to come. I just hope they keep the prices low... and they should be giving way the original imacs... 799 - 1024 for a CD ROM drive is insane.

True, Pricing should be kept low, and new releases often :D
Apple is putting us back into race.

MacCoaster

Aug 13, 2002, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by mischief
Look you whiney bunch of jerks. If you seriously expected BOTH a totally new case that doesn't look like a box of drives with holes in it AND a G5 you should seriously consider a new drug habit cuz whatever your smoking now has caused dammage.

Have you stopped to ask yourself:" Gee, I wonder how Apple got enough G4's to do universal Dual Processor Towers?"

Have you considered that perhaps IBM HAS ALREADY TAKEN OVER PRODUCTION??
Nope. Still Motorola, AFAIK. They're able to do dual across the board because not many people are buying right now because the market for computers are way down now. That's called "taking advantage of Motorola's inability to deliver and the lagging market."

So YES this is a significant increase in power and speed so SHADDAP!!!!
:mad: :cool: :D :eek:
Yes, it's a big improvement, but Motorola continues to neglect them thanks to their other markets (Motorola is making good profits and they could without Apple). Until the Athlon/P4s are at a speed freeze right now allowing Apple/Motorola to catch up to around 2GHz, the Apple machines will be inherently slower.

MacCoaster

Aug 13, 2002, 04:14 PM

Originally posted by TyleRomeo
ok what the *%$# is the deal with a 6-8 week wait for the dual 1.25. do they want people to not buy it. some people would like one for school in a few weeks and not in october. apple you better move up this date to a 2 week wait at most. i dont think the extra G4 power takes that long to get ready.
Ahem. Motorola.

mymemory

Aug 13, 2002, 04:35 PM

I see something.

Apple have to add every single fancy feature (new enclosure, dual processor and even the return of the audio input) just because the speed is not enough.

I do not see G5 early next year, just imagine, Apple hasn't reach the 1.5 Ghz yet, not even 1.4. So, there is a distance to travel (1.6, 1.8, 2Ghz) and at this speed I may see G5 in a year from now as sooner, just based in the developing speed of these 2 last years.

The new line of Mac are worth for people that still in G3 or early G4, but if I have even a dual 450 or a 933, I can wait for the next line or spend money in a fancy new iMac.

In my case, I'm waiting for the new line of flat panel displays and I would add some ammount of ram to my dual 500 and to my Pismo.

The only almost good deal is the new dual 1Ghz, but I can wait.

snoopy

Aug 13, 2002, 04:58 PM

Originally posted by johndz
... The towers match the leaked picture a few weeks back. The motherboard match the specs except the prototype color. But the daughter card has a single chip on a 45 degree angle. What chip is this? When all the new towers had dual proccessers I thought why would a test mule have only one? Maybe someone could explain, or maybe a different prototype? ...
I like to think the test mule had an IBM G5 in it. These PowerMacs may just be a much needed update for now, until the G5 is in full production. Same case, maybe same motherboard, but a higher clock speed G5 in place of dual G4s.

jefhatfield

Aug 13, 2002, 07:46 PM

he he...did i post here ;)

well, here is goes...

good stats, but ugly, but who cares?...this is a BIG step in the right direction in catching up with the latest pentium 4 and the athlon xp desktops

and price is right, too

hooray, apple inc.

wildcat4100

Aug 13, 2002, 08:56 PM

I really like the new update...but still have some disappointments which they don't go to the front side of technologies...

ATA/66 and ATA/100...why not ATA/133 at least??
AGP4X....why not AGP8X??? Radean 9700 is AGP8X

anyone knows about the FSB of the new PM???

wildcat4100

Aug 13, 2002, 09:09 PM

Originally posted by weezerophile
i only got the mid-range but the pricetag topped out at $4196.00!!! The sals tax blows horribly, but at least there is no shipping for ground delivery.

man I'm so lucky there's no sale tax here in Hong Kong, I'm gonna get one when it has enough stock!!!:p :p :p :D :D :D

Tooth

Aug 13, 2002, 09:16 PM

A few things:

A 167MHz FSB is nothing to jump around about, especially when the Athlons are @ 266MHz (133MHz Double Pumped), and the P4's are @ 533MHz under RDRAM. It's certainly not industry leading.

And then, the bus is shared between 2 CPU's. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it.

You can have DDR memory running as fast as you like, but until your FSB can make use of the bandwidth properly, then you're pushing **** uphill.

And there's the perennial fact that SMP simply doesn't provide the performance under a lot of situations. Often, it's no better than one CPU plus a bit. Running a FSB/RAM intensive bandwidth operation on a SMP 167MHz FSB system is pointless. Once you bottleneck the bus, the second CPU will do two parts of nothing.

Using an SMP config (everywhere!!) to cover your lack of single CPU performance is nothing more than a joke.

If i owned a Mac, i'd be pissed.

wildcat4100

Aug 13, 2002, 09:29 PM

Originally posted by Tooth
A few things:

A 167MHz FSB is nothing to jump around about, especially when the Athlons are @ 266MHz (133MHz Double Pumped), and the P4's are @ 533MHz under RDRAM. It's certainly not industry leading.

And then, the bus is shared between 2 CPU's. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it.

You can have DDR memory running as fast as you like, but until your FSB can make use of the bandwidth properly, then you're pushing **** uphill.

And there's the perennial fact that SMP simply doesn't provide the performance under a lot of situations. Often, it's no better than one CPU plus a bit. Running a FSB/RAM intensive bandwidth operation on a SMP 167MHz FSB system is pointless. Once you bottleneck the bus, the second CPU will do two parts of nothing.

Using an SMP config (everywhere!!) to cover your lack of single CPU performance is nothing more than a joke.

If i owned a Mac, i'd be pissed.

man if this for real I'm really piss too, should I get mine or later???

Tooth

Aug 13, 2002, 10:10 PM

If you want a Mac, then it's your one and only option at the moment.

Like it or lump it, it's the unfortunate situation you've been put in. You have to pay for SMP, even if it's not going to help you much.

sumosanta

Aug 13, 2002, 10:12 PM

front page article

http://www.macosrumors.com/

has anyone else seen this. i just read it and i am having second thoughts about getting those new powermacs despite the fact that i have been sitting around waiting for the new ones. and if i choose to wait....how long will it be till another new line of macs comes out...?!:(

funkywhat2

Aug 13, 2002, 11:20 PM

Originally posted by sumosanta
front page article

http://www.macosrumors.com/

has anyone else seen this. i just read it and i am having second thoughts about getting those new powermacs despite the fact that i have been sitting around waiting for the new ones. and if i choose to wait....how long will it be till another new line of macs comes out...?!:(

who cares about mac rumors? all they ever do is bitch about how the updates are never good enough. all they look at is megahertz and marketshare. and before anyone starts flaming me, yes i know that megahertz are kind of important in terms of compting power, i meant it to repersnt how closed minded they are over there.

pgwalsh

Aug 13, 2002, 11:31 PM

Originally posted by wildcat4100
[BAGP4X....why not AGP8X??? Radean 9700 is AGP8X [/B]I checked ATI's website. The 9700 will work with 2X, 4X, and 8x slots. However you need to provide a power cable to the card. Tells you what a beast it is.

wildcat4100

Aug 13, 2002, 11:34 PM

Originally posted by pgwalsh
I checked ATI's website. The 9700 will work with 2X, 4X, and 8x slots. However you need to provide a power cable to the card. Tells you what a beast it is.

For sure it'll work but that's like using dual processor with OS9, wasted.

pgwalsh

Aug 13, 2002, 11:50 PM

Originally posted by wildcat4100
For sure it'll work but that's like using dual processor with OS9, wasted.

I doubt it will be wasted. You'll see a performance gain regardless. There's only a few boards in the PC world that will take full advantage of the 9700 right now anyway. However, you will see a gain on any 4x AGP computer. I'm not here to tell you what to do, but you really don't need to be so negative. The new machines kick arse. What are you doing or using that needs so much power?

wildcat4100

Aug 13, 2002, 11:58 PM

Originally posted by pgwalsh
What are you doing or using that needs so much power?

I do 2D and 3D graphic work and I want to play WC3 in no lag even there're 100+ unit on screen(my ibook 600 is uncontrollable when the screen has 30+ units)

pgwalsh

Aug 14, 2002, 12:09 AM

Originally posted by wildcat4100

I do 2D and 3D graphic work and I want to play WC3 in no lag even there're 100+ unit on screen(my ibook 600 is uncontrollable when the screen has 30+ units)
So the top end mac doing 167 fps is not fast enough? The real world figure may be slightly lower (145 -150), but you'll still get more with the 9700. You may even break the 180 fps mark. You could throw in the GeForce Ti if you need it now. That should eat your other computer for lunch and have you singing dixie with WarCraft III.

I have the Radeon 8500 64mb in one of my PC's and it seems to be humping along quite well. My pc is no where near as good as any of these Macs.

manirami

Aug 14, 2002, 12:37 AM

Originally posted by iamspooky

A design failure ??

What I have seen from apple is a nice steady progression in design from the Blue & White G3, through the G4's, to the quicksilver. This design has to be the worst yet.

You put it perfectly...a design failure!!!!:( :( :( :(

Paolo

Aug 14, 2002, 12:48 AM

Originally posted by Buggy
I too am impressed how they are updating their lines. They are not always waiting for the "next big show", this new way seems much more natural to the way that technology evolves. Unfortunately Steve does not get as big of "wow" factors, but maybe that is a sign he is maturing... he does not need to get verification of his self worth by how many people he can control and surprise. OK maybe he still does this to his staff, but at least our purchases are not being as effected by his internal lack or self esteme.

The reason he isn't after teh 'wow' and oos and aahhhs is because this is the pro range, he doesn't need to make it catch peoples eye's he just needs to show that the specs are good.

To all of you losers out there who think it's ugly.... have you ever thought, that maybe they concetrated more on making the inside better... instead of the outside. (it's not ugly anyway).
You buy a computer to use it not show it off! you idiots

If you want to show of yourt computer get an imac or a titanium. Let the pros do there stuff!

Paolo

Aug 14, 2002, 12:51 AM

Originally posted by manirami

What I have seen from apple is a nice steady progression in design from the Blue & White G3, through the G4's, to the quicksilver. This design has to be the worst yet.

You put it perfectly...a design failure!!!!:( :( :( :(

Yes a design failure of course. The twin processors and the ddr ram are just sheer failure.... what are they going to come up with next... probably yet another failure like an all round 64-bit chip.... complete failure. you morons!!!

Look at the computer, not it's shell!!!

Paolo

Aug 14, 2002, 12:55 AM

Originally posted by crazy_will

who cares about mac rumors? all they ever do is bitch about how the updates are never good enough. all they look at is megahertz and marketshare. and before anyone starts flaming me, yes i know that megahertz are kind of important in terms of compting power, i meant it to repersnt how closed minded they are over there.

what are you talking about... we only ever bitch about how the upgrades are never good enough!!! you ****** hypocrit!

wildcat4100

Aug 14, 2002, 12:59 AM

Originally posted by pgwalsh

So the top end mac doing 167 fps is not fast enough? The real world figure may be slightly lower (145 -150), but you'll still get more with the 9700. You may even break the 180 fps mark. You could throw in the GeForce Ti if you need it now. That should eat your other computer for lunch and have you singing dixie with WarCraft III.

I have the Radeon 8500 64mb in one of my PC's and it seems to be humping along quite well. My pc is no where near as good as any of these Macs.

you're talking about 167 fps for WC3? For which mac? I know I know my ibook only sports a 8Mb Rage, but I want top speed to make sure I'll still be doing ok for the next 2 yrs or so(since I used my 8500 for about 7 yrs now, not to mention my Dell Precision 6100's Intense3D Wildcat can't play WC3 'coz it's not support DirectX!!!!!!), that's why I want AGP 8X instead of the yesterday technology.

also for gaming, can't compare PC and Mac since in other thread about WC3, some guy run WC3 under his 3 yr old Dell still fast enough, also running it under OSX is about 30% slower then under OS9(by my own experience), hope jaguar will fix that performance problem with games...

Paolo

Aug 14, 2002, 01:03 AM

Originally posted by Tooth
A few things:

A 167MHz FSB is nothing to jump around about, especially when the Athlons are @ 266MHz (133MHz Double Pumped), and the P4's are @ 533MHz under RDRAM. It's certainly not industry leading.

And then, the bus is shared between 2 CPU's. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it.

You can have DDR memory running as fast as you like, but until your FSB can make use of the bandwidth properly, then you're pushing **** uphill.

And there's the perennial fact that SMP simply doesn't provide the performance under a lot of situations. Often, it's no better than one CPU plus a bit. Running a FSB/RAM intensive bandwidth operation on a SMP 167MHz FSB system is pointless. Once you bottleneck the bus, the second CPU will do two parts of nothing.

Using an SMP config (everywhere!!) to cover your lack of single CPU performance is nothing more than a joke.

If i owned a Mac, i'd be pissed.

You don't own a mac... so F- off!!!
You obiously don't see the point with apple.... there moto isn't 'make really fast chips that beat everything else' it's think different.
So just shut up... and stop saying your crap about multiprocesors not proforming because of bottlenecks.
I'm sure they'll proform alot better than the older G4's!!! which is the whole point of updates!

748s

Aug 14, 2002, 01:44 AM

Originally posted by MacMaster
What are they calling this new case anyway?

some people are calling it hannibal

manirami

Aug 14, 2002, 01:56 AM

Originally posted by Paolo

Yes a design failure of course. The twin processors and the ddr ram are just sheer failure.... what are they going to come up with next... probably yet another failure like an all round 64-bit chip.... complete failure. you morons!!!

Look at the computer, not it's shell!!!

The new 1.25GHz chips are overclocked PowerPC 7455 processors, not the PPC 7470 (Xserve). the PPC 7455 cannot take advantage of DDR memory. 1.3GB/s actual processor bandwidth despite 2.7GB/s memory bandwidth. Yeah, thats design failure!

manirami

Aug 14, 2002, 01:58 AM

Originally posted by 748s

some people are calling it hannibal

Hahahahahhahahahhahha!!!! That's great, just a perfect description. :D :D :D :D

Kethoticus

Aug 14, 2002, 03:00 AM

Well, my feelings are mixed. This is was a great overall announcement, I think, but it was lacking in some regards, taking some of the shine off. Here're some of my impressions:

Pros:

* Faster CPUs, duals across the board (doesn't hurt, even at 1.5x the single processor speed as opposed the the 2-fold many might think this means);

* DDR-SDRAM ('bout frickin' time!! And I'm not sure what some here are saying about it not being "real" DDR-RAM. It sounds like Apple's done exactly AMD's been doing for a long time now. Am I wrong?);

* Good graphics card options;

* Beautiful case, better, in my opinion, than any minitower design Apple's ever unveiled. It's sharp, modern.

Cons:

* CPU upgrades not fast enough. I would have really been impressed if Apple had unveiled even a single 1.4GHz G4;

* The Mac needs more OpenGL graphics cards options than the hi-end gaming cards. For us 3Ders, that means a Mac-compatible Wildcat;

* No firewire 2 (aka 1394b). C'mon Apple, let's get goin' with this. I don't wanna hear about how USB 2.0 is starting to take away customers.

Well anyway, just my 3 or 4 cents.

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 03:47 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kethoticus

* DDR-SDRAM ('bout frickin' time!! And I'm not sure what some here are saying about it not being "real" DDR-RAM. It sounds like Apple's done exactly AMD's been doing for a long time now. Am I wrong?);

AMD's processors have a 133Mhz double data rate Frontside bus, which link to memory controller, which handles 133Mhz DDR memory

the PPC 7455 has a 133 or 167Mhz SINGLE data rate frontside bus, which links to the memory controller, which handles 133Mhz or 167Mhz DDR memory

the Athlon can utilise the 2.1GB/s the memory system can provide (oddly enough, if you pair an Athlon up with DDR333 you get a 0.01% speedup as the FSB is the bottleneck), the G4 on the other hand can only utilise 1.3GB/s of the memory bandwidth, and it's even worse with dual processors, as they only have 1.3GB/s between them. (whereas Athlon SMP has a seperate 2.1GB/s link to each processor from the northbridge.)

mmmdreg

Aug 14, 2002, 04:23 AM

I'm impressed...more resources for trying to switch friends :)...and the cases look pretty cool compared the the same/similar pictures posted a while ago for some reason...may be the light but anyway, overall I'm happy..

Tooth

Aug 14, 2002, 04:33 AM

Originally posted by Paolo
You don't own a mac... so F- off!!!
You obiously don't see the point with apple.... there moto isn't 'make really fast chips that beat everything else' it's think different.
So just shut up... and stop saying your crap about multiprocesors not proforming because of bottlenecks.
I'm sure they'll proform alot better than the older G4's!!! which is the whole point of updates!

If think different means 'accept whatever we do as fantastic, even if it doesn't make sense from a hardware point of view'.

They will perform better, but they're still crippled. And if Apple marketed it as a simple update, that would be fine. But they're not. They're showing one of two things:

1) A lack of understanding of the technology, which i doubt
2) A belief that their users will take whatever they're given as gospel.

I think you fall into the second category. And if apple thinks the majority of their users DO fit into the second category, then i think they're mistaken. Belief in Apple is a justified viewpoint for many, but not everyone is willing to put up with below-par hardware for ever.

The memory controller is a perfect point. Each CPU on an AMD MP system has FOUR TIMES the memory bandwidth that the G4 has.

AGP 8X isnt' a big issue - by the time that you start to need the system bus for AGP transfers, the latency and lack of bandwidth starts to hurt performance that much it's not an issue.

As for the appearance - does it really matter? I'm into computers for the computer, not for the box.

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 05:06 AM

Originally posted by Tooth

The memory controller is a perfect point. Each CPU on an AMD MP system has FOUR TIMES the memory bandwidth that the G4 has.

Four times the effective BUS bandwidth, not four times the memory bandwidth

AMD SMP Architecture - lame ascii art :

CPU <-> 2.1GB - \
**************| - memory controller - <-> 2.1GB - memory
CPU <-> 2.1GB - /

Each cpu hence gets about half the memory bandwidth to work with (but it can use the additional FSB bandwidth to do other things like talk directly to PCI/AGP devices etc)

G4 SMP Architecture - lame ascii art :

CPU - \
***** | <-> 1.3GB - Memory Controller <-> 2.7GB/s - memory
CPU - /

Each CPU gets around 1/4th the memory bandwidth, but between them they get half of the bus bandwidth each.

(so the G4 has _HALF_ the Athlons per processor bandwidth in an SMP config, not one quarter) (this of course excludes situations where more memory bandwidth to a single processor would be hugely beneficial.)

OTOH, the Athlon doesn't have any L3 cache, and that is BOUND to help a huge amount if the dataset fits into the L3 cache. (hmm, are the caches on the PPC 7455 inclusive or exclusive?)

the ideal (IMO) would be point to point links from the processors to the memory controller and a memory subsystem that could keep them both fed, like so :

CPU <-> 2.1GB/s \
**************|- Memory controller - 4.2GB/s - Memory
CPU <-> 2.1GB/s /

tcmcam

Aug 14, 2002, 06:41 AM

I just spent 2 hours with the new PowerMac yesterday at the Apple Store.

YES, it has a fan. It actually has 3, one big one that blows across the huge heatsink that cools the processors. Yes, this is a quiet big fan, horray Apple!! But, they blew it on the next two.

A second one blows across the internal CD/DVD drives.

A third fan inside the PowerSupply of the unit.

The POWER SUPPLY fan is VERY NOISY. This was a busy store and the whine of that fan was unmistakable. I walked over to an older PowerMac and it was quieter!!!

YIKES!! So don't congratulate Apple just yet. It's a really loud and noisy box.

But the 867 and 1 ghz boxes do perform well with the final release of Jaguar.

OTHER:
- They are now using IBM hard drives and not Seagate Barracuda's. Too Bad, Seagate's were the quietest drives on the planet. Guess they had to start buying IBM's hard drives to use IBM's PowerPC Processors.

- They still are not going to steal a single Windows XP user with a new PC with this box. They are only going to steal Windows 3.x users who haven't updated in a while and think that $3500 is a reasonable price for a computer!

- Wake up Apple, you're falling behind......

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 06:51 AM

Originally posted by tcmcam

- They are now using IBM hard drives and not Seagate Barracuda's. Too Bad, Seagate's were the quietest drives on the planet. Guess they had to start buying IBM's hard drives to use IBM's PowerPC Processors.

Eek, IBM's recent lineup of disks aren't known for their reliability..

Personally I think Western Digital WD1200JB's would be the way to go, 8MB of cache per disk. If only they'd add hardware RAID logic to the system controller :)

macwannabe

Aug 14, 2002, 09:24 AM

I think these new powermacs are finally good enough to get PC users like me to convert. Any PC user who knows a little about computers wasn't going to buy a computer without DDR and with an ATA66 drive, especially for the price. Finally Apple has sorted that out and coupled with the L3 cache these machines are now the first serious contenders to high end PCs (in my opinion) and well worth looking at.

macwannabe

Aug 14, 2002, 09:28 AM

Oh and BTW Apple hasn't updated the PowerMac datasheet on the UK Store website. They are still listing the specs of the old dual 1GHz as the fastest machine, doh!

drastik

Aug 14, 2002, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by pgwalsh

Couldn't find the Audio specs. I'm under the impression there isn't 5.1 surround. Not that it's that necessary for audio work, but it would be great for DVD etc. I also wouldn't mind having it for movies etc.

Mixing audio in 5.1 can get pretty freaking complicated, and I was edumicated in it for twelve weeks. I think 5.1 on computers is a little strange. Sure its nice for movies and games, but get a Suround system and a PlayStation if that's what you want, It's cheaper, and your TV is probably a tad bigger than our monitor.

Also, most of these 5.1 systems I see in stores for computers look lke crap, push about 40 watts, and many aren't 5.1, as they don't have a center speaker.:rolleyes:

PS. no offense pgwalsh, I was just ranting about the speakers, not your post.;)

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 09:43 AM

Originally posted by drastik

Mixing audio in 5.1 can get pretty freaking complicated

So you have dedicated hardware onboard that can take all the load away from the CPU Like the Nforce MCP (http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=nforce)

drastik

Aug 14, 2002, 10:23 AM

Originally posted by Chryx

So you have dedicated hardware onboard that can take all the load away from the CPU Like the Nforce MCP (http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=nforce)

I understand your point, I was just saying that the ability to mix in 5.1 is a little uneccesary for a stock machine, adn that the use of 5.1 in computers is very limited at this time.

To do real audio production, you need boards and good monitors and synths and HArd disk recorders. I don't think apple is going to throw in the fuinctionality of an O2R anytime soon, though it would be sweet.:D

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 10:26 AM

Originally posted by drastik

I understand your point, I was just saying that the ability to mix in 5.1 is a little uneccesary for a stock machine, adn that the use of 5.1 in computers is very limited at this time.

I personally think it could be a "useful addition" to the digital hub/college dormroom :) to be able to play back a DVD on an iMac and have full 5.1 sound out of it, in addition, if you've got the 5.1 speakers then games should be able to utilise them properly IMO (hence realtime 5.1 encoding)

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 10:30 AM

Originally posted by sumosanta
front page article

http://www.macosrumors.com/

has anyone else seen this. i just read it and i am having second thoughts about getting those new powermacs despite the fact that i have been sitting around waiting for the new ones. and if i choose to wait....how long will it be till another new line of macs comes out...?!:(

prolly mwsf or later

six months is not a long time to wait if you are wating for a new car model

but in the computer world, six months is an eternity

many, for sure, have thought there would be a g5 by now

Kethoticus

Aug 14, 2002, 10:48 AM

AMD's processors have a 133Mhz double data rate Frontside bus, which link to memory controller, which handles 133Mhz DDR memory

the PPC 7455 has a 133 or 167Mhz SINGLE data rate frontside bus, which links to the memory controller, which handles 133Mhz or 167Mhz DDR memory

the Athlon can utilise the 2.1GB/s the memory system can provide (oddly enough, if you pair an Athlon up with DDR333 you get a 0.01% speedup as the FSB is the bottleneck), the G4 on the other hand can only utilise 1.3GB/s of the memory bandwidth, and it's even worse with dual processors, as they only have 1.3GB/s between them. (whereas Athlon SMP has a seperate 2.1GB/s link to each processor from the northbridge.)

So why does Apple claim DDR memory? Or... DO they??? This sounds like nothing more than a slightly faster SDR FSB. How can Apple claim DDR??

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by Kethoticus

So why does Apple claim DDR memory? Or... DO they??? This sounds like nothing more than a slightly faster SDR FSB. How can Apple claim DDR??

a high end engineer (i am a low end one), explained it to me using his jargon and high math reasoning that double data rate ram is never truly double data rate in real world tests because of the way they manipulate the rise and fall of the sine curve

sure, there is an improvement, and the cost is ok, so no need to bother

it is kind of like some software engineers making minute distinctions on different versions of unix to the point that only "their" favorite flavor is really unix and all the others are "unix-like"

if you really want to get into it, ask a phd in computer science (really computer programming as us hardware types would see it) and ask them what constitutes a computer language...and then ask ten other computer scientists/professors

i say we should change their major to computer psuedo-science:p :p

mischief

Aug 14, 2002, 11:01 AM

You really are beginning to piss me off.

Macs don't have a Front Side Bus. Picking the closest parallel for comparisson is useless. Saying that a 167 main bus isn't fast because it isn't "Quad Pumped" is equally useless because there is NO conclusive evidence that it does ANYTHING to increase performance except on paper. Look at JUST the SDR numbers for a minute because MOST of the slowest components (like drives) don't do ANY kind of "Pumping". and DON'T talk to me about how SMP is slow because that's not what it's for. It's there to increase the number of simultanious operations that can be executed. When an x86 manufacturer takes two 1.5Ghz chips/cores and just adds the two numbers together THEY'RE LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.

Also: Before you go shooting your mouth off I suggest that you not only go read ALL the architecture data and then compare it to Hypertransport (remember that "custom ASIC?" I think you'll find them nearly identical); but that you also GO USE ONE FIRST.

In terms of "Why doesn't Apple put in the 6 most expensive technologies out there?" stop and think for a minute: would you buy a $10,000.00 tower? No, you'd whine about how expensive it is and how Apple has "lost touch with it's customers"

BTW: If you're still using an 8*00 PPC and you're waiting for Apple to have the latest, cutting edge tech in every aspect of their product design while staying inexpensive enough for the average hobo to purchase I suggest you sell that ancient POS and go buy an Athlon cuz it aint gonna happen.

If I see ONE MORE POST whining about how BAD this new design is for some stupid reason like it being ugly or too expensive I'll take you appart in ways you never thought possible in text. I bet most of you idiot whiners own Cammaros and SUV's because the HP numbers are BIG and ROUND. Guess what folks: Just like PC companies, Car manufacturers lie to you. The HP numbers are taken on the test courses without Governors or Emissions controlls so the actual street output is NO GREATER than any smaller Japanese car with a 1.8 Liter engine attatched to a smaller car.

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:06 AM

Originally posted by Kethoticus

So why does Apple claim DDR memory? Or... DO they??? This sounds like nothing more than a slightly faster SDR FSB. How can Apple claim DDR??

Because the _memory_ IS DDR.

pgwalsh

Aug 14, 2002, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by drastik

Mixing audio in 5.1 can get pretty freaking complicated, and I was edumicated in it for twelve weeks. I think 5.1 on computers is a little strange. Sure its nice for movies and games, but get a Suround system and a PlayStation if that's what you want, It's cheaper, and your TV is probably a tad bigger than our monitor.

Also, most of these 5.1 systems I see in stores for computers look lke crap, push about 40 watts, and many aren't 5.1, as they don't have a center speaker.:rolleyes:

PS. no offense pgwalsh, I was just ranting about the speakers, not your post.;)

Well I've already hooked myself up with the M&K s 150 Satellites and the MX-350 Sub (http://www.mksound.com/). I bought the system in dark cherry wood which are no longer available and were hand made. I also have the B&K AVR 305 receiver. So I've certainly taken care of myself when it comes to 5.1 surround sound.

This doesn't negate the need for 5.1 surround in a computer, especially if you're using Logic Audio, which supports 5.1 surround. Now, if I buy the 23" flat screen, which I plan to do, I'd like the option to watch a dvd or play a game with 5.1 surround. That's not asking too much when I'm paying over 7K for a computer. My PC's have it and as you said, it's not so great. However, Klipsch make some pretty awesome surround speakers for a computer. I remember someone else saying they like options and so do I. This is an option that Apple should include. Many manufactures are adding 5.1 and 6.1 surround to the motherboard. Apple should do the same.

Well I now would like to know if anyone has heard of a good surround sound card that can be used with OS X?

mischief

Aug 14, 2002, 11:21 AM

There haven't been Seagate drives in Macs since SCSI was standard on the mobo. That would be about 10 years ago so I get the feeling you haven't opened a Mac case in about that long so I suggest you either buy a new Mac, buy a new Athlon or at the very least SHUT UP AND LET ANYONE WITH A CLUE TALK.:rolleyes:

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:26 AM

mischief

Macs don't have a Front Side Bus.
Uh, yes, they do. they also have a backside bus (which the L3 cache connects to)

The only processor that springs to mind as "FSB-less" is AMD's Hammer series, which have Hypertransport links for I/O (PCI/AGP etc) and a direct core <-> memory interlink (on-die memory controller)

Saying that a 167 main bus isn't fast because it isn't "Quad Pumped" is equally useless because there is NO conclusive evidence that it does ANYTHING to increase performance except on paper.

You clearly missed all the examples of Athlons and Pentium 4's being able to get more data to/from their memory subsystems.. hell, some P4's approach the L3 bandwidth of a 7455 (PC1066 RDram + Pentium 4B = +3GB/s EFFECTIVE memory bandwidth after taking into account efficiency), of course the L3 cache is lower latency, but even so... O_O

Look at JUST the SDR numbers for a minute because MOST of the slowest components (like drives) don't do ANY kind of "Pumping".

You can't do DDR or QDR on a drive, I'm thinking that you don't actually know what DDR means. it means that data is transferred on the rising AND falling edges of a clock cycle.

( . = data, the rest is self explanatory)
SDR (like the G4 front side bus) :

_./--\_./--\_./--\_./--\_./--\

DDR (like the EV6 bus) :

_./-\._./-\._./-\._./-\._./-\.

Data is transferred twice for each clock pulse, giving slightly less than double the throughput at the same clockspeed. (notice it's called double DATA rate, the commands are tied to the rising edge IIRC)

There isn't much point doing that with the interface logic for a harddisk since the platters are the bottleneck.

When an x86 manufacturer takes two 1.5Ghz chips/cores and just adds the two numbers together THEY'RE LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.

I've never seen an x86 manufacturer do that?

In terms of "Why doesn't Apple put in the 6 most expensive technologies out there?"

6 most expensive technologies out there?.. like what?

AMD Durons use the EV6 bus (@200Mhz - 1.6GB/s, point to point SMP architecture), I can buy one of those for $30

Nforce mainboards (which have Hypertransport tech on them) can be had for <$100

Anyway, I don't want Apple to use THE BESTEST THINGS EVER, I want them to follow up on this "balanced architecture" angle they seem to be going with by actually providing one, dual processors prevented from using their memory subsystem to it's fullest by a slow FSB doesn't count as balanced architecture in my book.

BTW: If you're still using an 8*00 PPC and you're waiting for Apple to have the latest, cutting edge tech in every aspect of their product design while staying inexpensive enough for the average hobo to purchase I suggest you sell that ancient POS and go buy an Athlon cuz it aint gonna happen.

Okay then, how about they just have tech _on a par with that Athlon_ whilst being inexpensive enough for the average Joe, ya think they could manage that maybe?

There is some really nice tech in the new Powermacs, and one huge gigantic flaw that stops it performing as well as Apple would like everyone to believe it does. that annoys me so much. (most of that annoyance is directed at Motorola though)

If I see ONE MORE POST whining about how BAD this new design is for some stupid reason like it being ugly or too expensive

It's a good design in that Apple did the most with what they had available to them, it doesn't mean that what they had available to them was optimal though.

BTW, I'm a fully paid up member of the "Apple should ditch Motorola and get their chips from IBM" club.

pgwalsh

Aug 14, 2002, 11:26 AM

Originally posted by mischief
BTW: If you're still using an 8*00 PPC and you're waiting for Apple to have the latest, cutting edge tech in every aspect of their product design while staying inexpensive enough for the average hobo to purchase I suggest you sell that ancient POS and go buy an Athlon cuz it aint gonna happen.
ha ha ha

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:29 AM

Originally posted by mischief
There haven't been Seagate drives in Macs since SCSI was standard on the mobo. That would be about 10 years ago

Could you please direct me to the universe where Febuary 1997 (http://www.apple-history.com/quickgallery.html?where=9600.html) was 10 years ago? my calculator makes that 5 years ago...

so I get the feeling you haven't opened a Mac case in about that long so I suggest you either buy a new Mac, buy a new Athlon or at the very least SHUT UP AND LET ANYONE WITH A CLUE TALK.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 11:36 AM

Originally posted by Chryx
Originally posted by mischief
There haven't been Seagate drives in Macs since SCSI was standard on the mobo. That would be about 10 years ago

Could you please direct me to the universe where Febuary 1997 (http://www.apple-history.com/quickgallery.html?where=9600.html) was 10 years ago? my calculator makes that 5 years ago...

come visit silicon valley..feb '97 could have just as easily been 100 years ago

this high tech field moves so fast that if you want a perfect example, come here and go to one of the six fry's locations and see the chaos

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:39 AM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
come visit silicon valley..feb '97 could have just as easily been 100 years ago

Is that where Steve tests his RDF generator technology? :)

mischief

Aug 14, 2002, 11:49 AM

Originally posted by Chryx
mischief

Macs don't have a Front Side Bus.
"Uh, yes, they do. they also have a backside bus (which the L3 cache connects to)"

Find me the words "Front Side Bus" ANYWHERE in the description of the new mobo and I'll relent. Finding it on a PC website doesn't cout, it must be from Apple's resources.

Saying that a 167 main bus isn't fast because it isn't "Quad Pumped" is equally useless because there is NO conclusive evidence that it does ANYTHING to increase performance except on paper.

You clearly missed all the examples of Athlons and Pentium 4's being able to get more data to/from their memory subsystems.. hell, some P4's approach the L3 bandwidth of a 7455 (PC1066 RDram + Pentium 4B = +3GB/s EFFECTIVE memory bandwidth after taking into account efficiency), of course the L3 cache is lower latency, but even so... O_O

Look at JUST the SDR numbers for a minute because MOST of the slowest components (like drives) don't do ANY kind of "Pumping".

You can't do DDR or QDR on a drive, I'm thinking that you don't actually know what DDR means. it means that data is transferred on the rising AND falling edges of a clock cycle.

( . = data, the rest is self explanatory)
SDR (like the G4 front side bus) :

_./--\_./--\_./--\_./--\_./--\

DDR (like the EV6 bus) :

_./-\._./-\._./-\._./-\._./-\.

Data is transferred twice for each clock pulse, giving slightly less than double the throughput at the same clockspeed. (notice it's called double DATA rate, the commands are tied to the rising edge IIRC)

There isn't much point doing that with the interface logic for a harddisk since the platters are the bottleneck.

Actually I am perfectly aware of how DDR and QDR works, my point is that you seem to be under the impression that there have been NO changes to chip architecture to support DDR, you are in fact GUESSING that the newest G4 has no DDR support. Again, back it up from the horses mouth and I'll leave you alone.

When an x86 manufacturer takes two 1.5Ghz chips/cores and just adds the two numbers together THEY'RE LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.

I've never seen an x86 manufacturer do that?

Look at any Intel CPU beginning with the P2 or most AMD CPU's recently. Have you ever wondered why the card is roughly the size of a VHS cassette and has 2 fans? There are 2 chips, and I can tell you right now that beginning with the P2 the common practice has been to just add the numbers up and call it a speed.

In terms of "Why doesn't Apple put in the 6 most expensive technologies out there?"

6 most expensive technologies out there?.. like what?

AMD Durons use the EV6 bus (@200Mhz - 1.6GB/s, point to point SMP architecture), I can buy one of those for $30

Nforce mainboards (which have Hypertransport tech on them) can be had for <$100

Anyway, I don't want Apple to use THE BESTEST THINGS EVER, I want them to follow up on this "balanced architecture" angle they seem to be going with by actually providing one, dual processors prevented from using their memory subsystem to it's fullest by a slow FSB doesn't count as balanced architecture in my book.

All this would actually mean something if a PPC used a mobo in exactly the same way as an x86 chip. I'm pretty sure you couldn't just stick a PPC daughter card on a PC mobo and magically get it to work. There is an inherent cost in the custom mobo neccesary to tie PPC to the data paths correctly. Not to mention the Unique socket issue of the ZIF tech.

BTW: If you're still using an 8*00 PPC and you're waiting for Apple to have the latest, cutting edge tech in every aspect of their product design while staying inexpensive enough for the average hobo to purchase I suggest you sell that ancient POS and go buy an Athlon cuz it aint gonna happen.

Okay then, how about they just have tech _on a par with that Athlon_ whilst being inexpensive enough for the average Joe, ya think they could manage that maybe?

There is some really nice tech in the new Powermacs, and one huge gigantic flaw that stops it performing as well as Apple would like everyone to believe it does. that annoys me so much. (most of that annoyance is directed at Motorola though)

See above. If you can find me a STOCK PC mobo that will fit an Apple daughtercard without modification I'll relent. Argueing that there are cheap alternatives without engaging the reality of HW R&D will just make it more obvious you are WAY more clueless than you'd like us all to believe.

If I see ONE MORE POST whining about how BAD this new design is for some stupid reason like it being ugly or too expensive

It's a good design in that Apple did the most with what they had available to them, it doesn't mean that what they had available to them was optimal though.

BTW, I'm a fully paid up member of the "Apple should ditch Motorola and get their chips from IBM" club.

Good disclaimer. the point there was aimed not at you but at the minor Trolls that have been toadying around your rather assenine posts.

snoopy

Aug 14, 2002, 11:53 AM

Originally posted by Chryx

It's a good design in that Apple did the most with what they had available to them, it doesn't mean that what they had available to them was optimal though.

I think that sums it up quite nicely.

Horne

Aug 14, 2002, 11:57 AM

When I insert my backup hard drive (IBM 75 GXP) into this NEW dual 1 GHz Mac, will it run on the ATA 100 at full speed?
Thanks in advance......
:)

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 12:03 PM

Originally posted by Chryx

Is that where Steve tests his RDF generator technology? :)

that's where steve races his plane against ellison's forgetting what happened to woz ;)

did you see charlie's angels...tim curry did a perfect, egotistical ellison...too funny:p

ftaok

Aug 14, 2002, 12:21 PM

Originally posted by mischief
I bet most of you idiot whiners own Cammaros and SUV's because the HP numbers are BIG and ROUND. Guess what folks: Just like PC companies, Car manufacturers lie to you. The HP numbers are taken on the test courses without Governors or Emissions controlls so the actual street output is NO GREATER than any smaller Japanese car with a 1.8 Liter engine attatched to a smaller car. mischief,

You may want to re-think that. In the US, the HP ratings are done with the emissions attached to the engine for all vehicles. Just because they do the ratings on a bench, doesn't mean it's not valid. Regardless of whether the car is American, German or Japanese, the ratings are done to SAE standards.

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 12:21 PM

Originally posted by mischief
Find me the words "Front Side Bus" ANYWHERE in the description of the new mobo and I'll relent. Finding it on a PC website doesn't cout, it must be from Apple's resources.

The fact that Apple doesn't call it the "front side" bus doesn't mean that it isn't one.

The frontside bus is the link from the processor to the system controller (and hence memory controller) the backside bus is the link from the processor to the L2 or L3 cache (well, both, I'm unsure if there are seperate backside buses on the G4 for the L2 and L3 caches.)

Actually I am perfectly aware of how DDR and QDR works, my point is that you seem to be under the impression that there have been NO changes to chip architecture to support DDR

If the bus interface on the G4's in the new PowerMacs is DDR, why are apple only claiming 1.3GB/s throughput for it?, are you suggesting they are using a 32bit DDR bus @ 167Mhz ?

you are in fact GUESSING that the newest G4 has no DDR support. Again, back it up from the horses mouth and I'll leave you alone.

167Mhz SDR / 64Bits wide = 1.3GB/s
Apple are claiming the Bus between the G4's and the system controller on the new Powermacs is?... 1.3GB/s

Apple Specs page (http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html)

"Up to 167MHz system bus supporting over 1.3GBps data"

Also note that all the parts that ARE DDR are labelled as such (the L3 cache and the memory)

Look at any Intel CPU beginning with the P2 or most AMD CPU's recently. Have you ever wondered why the card is roughly the size of a VHS cassette and has 2 fans?

I suggest you look at an Intel or AMD cpu released after the middle of '00

http://chryx.shacknet.nu/newbits/althonxp.jpg

Where's the second chip?, that's the only processor the machine I'm sitting at contains...

Failing that, here's an intel processor from 1998 with the heatsink removed

http://chryx.shacknet.nu/cel300a.jpg

There's only the one chip on that... (the backside is bare *ahem*)

There are 2 chips, and I can tell you right now that beginning with the P2 the common practice has been to just add the numbers up and call it a speed.

Total nonsense, the P2 slot 1 was a processor core and two external Sram chips (L2 cache) same for the slot A Athlon

If you can find me a photograph of a slot 1/A processor with multiple CORES on it that hasn't been photoshopped, I will be EXTREMELY impressed.

All this would actually mean something if a PPC used a mobo in exactly the same way as an x86 chip.

The bus logic is different, big deal.. you can't put a Pentium 4 on an Athlon board either, or a Pentium 3 on a Pentium 4 board, not only are the sockets physically different, but electrically too.

I'm pretty sure you couldn't just stick a PPC daughter card on a PC mobo and magically get it to work.
Obviously not, there is the endian issue, and the total electrical layout incompatability issue, doesn't mean it's impossible to rework the chipset to interface to a PPC bus however, especially if the chipset were a modular design anyway (Nvidia's Nforce exists in both GTL+ and EV6 versions for example)

There is an inherent cost in the custom mobo neccesary to tie PPC to the data paths correctly.

Your point?, there's an inherent cost to designing any new piece of circuitry.
(note, at what point have I suggested putting G4's on current x86 boards?... hint: never.)

Not to mention the Unique socket issue of the ZIF tech.

changing the physical layout of the socket is trivial compared to the work needed to reengineer the bus logic of the chipset.

Argueing that there are cheap alternatives without engaging the reality of HW R&D

The reality of R&D seems to be that Motorola can't be bothered to do any, they clearly know how to do DDR signalling, they just don't seem to think that the 74xx line is important enough to bother adding it to the main bus, even though it would DRASTICALLY improve altivec performance on large datasets.

a PowerMac is NOT cheap, and it is rather irking to pay a large sum of money for old tech, the new Powermacs even up a lot of that, but the processor <-> system controller bus (call it what you will) is still circa 1999 technology.. even if it is clocked a tad higher (gee whizz, 33Mhz extra!)

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 12:28 PM

By the way, if anyone wants conclusive evidence that DDR signalling actually increases memory performance, take a look at the first generation Geforce, first look at one with SDR memory ( @ 166Mhz) and then take a look at one with DDR memory (@ 166Mhz)

Notice how the DDR board will VERY confortably outrun the SDR board at higher resolutions.

mischief

Aug 14, 2002, 12:47 PM

It's good to have someone here who's willing and more importantly ABLE to back up inflamitory arguements with actual Data.

Now, as to the thrust of your arguement... That Moto is a stone around Apple's neck. That's absolutely true. But keep in mind that Apple has to be pretty gradual about shifting it's architecture so it's whole product support and engineering strategy doesn't fragment.

There's plenty of evidence to show that IBM is in the process of taking over for Moto and, in fact may be building the overclocked (sorry, I found another thread tagging the MPC7455 as current... my bad.) Moto chips currently in use.

The upcoming Power4 based chip from IBM looks suspiciously like the mythical G5 and would be announced in time for new Powermacs in February. There's also evidence that the new Mobo is based on either Rapid I/O or nForce with Hypertransport and is simply a bridge in engineering to the mobo changes taking place to allow for the G5.

The overall cost of adapting these technologies must be taken into account. ith a smaller marketshare and smaller part runs from suppliers it's only to be expected that Apple will have disproportionately high R&D costs for the same technology.

In reguards to my remarks about cars: If that's the case, I apologize... I was pissed. My personal experience in test drives has been that no matter how large the engine, outside of true Supercars there was almost no difference in acceleration between cars like the Mustang or Firebird and the cars like Celica. They just made more noise and had more mass.

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 01:01 PM

Originally posted by mischief

In reguards to my remarks about cars: If that's the case, I apologize... I was pissed. My personal experience in test drives has been that no matter how large the engine, outside of true Supercars there was almost no difference in acceleration between cars like the Mustang or Firebird and the cars like Celica. They just made more noise and had more mass.

ooh, i really like the 250k+ bentley...a heavy car, but very respectable accelaeration unlike most heavy cars...and said to be quiet, too

many large american cars are real dogs...i will rent one next week for trip to la

but the engine is 25k alone on a bentley!

i guess you get what you pay for...i hate that statement since it's so true...i want an expensive tibook:p ;)

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 01:02 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mischief
It's good to have someone here who's willing and more importantly ABLE to back up inflamitory arguements with actual Data.

<under breath> nice backtrack!</under breath>

Now, as to the thrust of your arguement... That Moto is a stone around Apple's neck. That's absolutely true. But keep in mind that Apple has to be pretty gradual about shifting it's architecture so it's whole product support and engineering strategy doesn't fragment.

They manage to keep multiple lines with different hardware in them right now, if the replacement were ISA compatible (as the IBM chip should be, so no recompilation for things to work (though recompilation might give speed benefits, that's a seperate issue)) then it would be no bigger a shift in product support than it is to release the towers they released yesterday which are vastly different from the Quicksilvers on several levels. (albeit fairly similar to the Xserve on a lot of levels)

There's also evidence that the new Mobo is based on either Rapid I/O or nForce with Hypertransport and is simply a bridge in engineering to the mobo changes taking place to allow for the G5.

I've not seen any evidence that it is Nforce based aside from something utterly stupid (someone saw a G4 mounted at 45 degrees and went "HEY MY NFORCE ICP IS MOUNTED LIKE THAT!!!!"), it's possible the northbridge contains gluelogic for RapidIO, but it's doubtful, as it would increase the production costs (by increasing the system controller die size, I can't see Apple doing that with silicon they aren't even planning to use for 6 months)

a smaller marketshare and smaller part runs from suppliers it's only to be expected that Apple will have disproportionately high R&D costs for the same technology.

The R&D that needed doing to 'fix' the problem with the new towers isn't Apple's responsibility, it's Motorola's (adding DDR bus signaling to the 7455)

Motorola are hemmoraging cash tho' :/
But then, having processors on the market that underperform isn't going to help their bottom line any..... (and revamping the bus logic for DDR signaling is relatively simple compared to.. ooh, designing an entirely new chip :)

It should be noted..
PowerMacs aren't cheap, and are increasingly built from commodity (or slightly modified commodity) parts (harddisks, ram, AGP cards, PCI cards etc etc..), I'd like to think that the extra cost of a Mac at least somewhat goes towards covering the economy of scale differences.

vmaloney

Aug 14, 2002, 01:22 PM

OKay has anyone noticed that they new processor from IBM has a vector proccessing unix called VMX. When Alti-Vec came out it was originally called VMX. It is a no brainer that IBM is making the next chip. I know this is always what happens in these threads, but if IBM is making the next chip and it is unvieled in October. New G5 lines are at the furthiest away MW Summer 2003.

http://www.eetimes.com/news/98/1007news/apple2.html

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 01:26 PM

Originally posted by vmaloney
OKay has anyone noticed that they new processor from IBM has a vector proccessing unix called VMX. When Alti-Vec came out it was originally called VMX. It is a no brainer that IBM is making the next chip. I know this is always what happens in these threads, but if IBM is making the next chip and it is unvieled in October. New G5 lines are at the furthiest away MW Summer 2003.

Um, there's only been about a dozen threads about it in the hardware rumors section of the forums?

And yeah, It's got me going "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG" :)

Been a long time since I've been able to look at a Powermac and honestly think "that computer is astonishly fast no matter what you run on it"
I think the last time I looked at a Mac like that was the first time I saw a DP PowerMac 9500 in 1995/6, I had a Pentium 100 on my desk and they had a pair of 180Mhz 604e's

alex_ant

Aug 14, 2002, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by mischief
If I see ONE MORE POST whining about how BAD this new design is for some stupid reason like it being ugly or too expensive I'll take you appart in ways you never thought possible in text.
Looks like somebody missed his cup of coffee this morning.

The new Power Mac is ugly. Wank.

mischief

Aug 14, 2002, 05:26 PM

Originally posted by alex_ant

Looks like somebody missed his cup of coffee this morning.

The new Power Mac is ugly. Wank.

Actually I had 2 HUGE cups. It just erks me ad nauseum to see soo much complaining about a significant improvement.

Plus the question of it's looks is pretty lame. The freaking thing will most likely live under a desk anyway so who cares? I'm under the impression that it's not a matter of it being ugly per se. it's just DIFFERENT which usually draws a negative reaction first. ;) :rolleyes:

voicegy

Aug 14, 2002, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by MacMaster
What are they calling this new case anyway?

Believe it or not, this machine is referenced as:

PowerMac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors

guess that's to keep us all from getting mixed up with older towers:p

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75343

MacCoaster

Aug 14, 2002, 06:11 PM

I simply call it "QuickSilver h4x0r3d-DDR."

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 08:07 PM

Originally posted by Chryx
[QUOTE]Originally posted by mischief
It's good to have someone here who's willing and more importantly ABLE to back up inflamitory arguements with actual Data.

<under breath> nice backtrack!</under breath>

come to silicon valley for one second brother and you might discover humility

i am working on my master's in cs and i don't know jack shyza and my old boss invented arpanet and one of my customers i helped as a kid was david packard and i got to know him well...and you know what, no one knows it all

so finish junior high school, grow some pubic hair, learn to jack off properly and wake up and smell the roses...cockiness does not work in this field

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 08:21 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
i am working on my master's in cs and i don't know jack shyza and my old boss invented arpanet and one of my customers i helped as a kid was david packard and i got to know him well...and you know what, no one knows it all

Perhaps you meant to aim that at Mischief.. ya know, the guy claiming that Pentium 2's were SMP on a cartridge.. and when I disprove him he comes up with "It's nice to have someone who can back up their arguments!"... if that isn't backtracking WTF is?

Of course nobody knows everything, the trick is to not run around spouting blatent untruths that you can't even find misinterpretable background information for...

If I started claiming PowerPC processors were overclocked 6502's, and you corrected me, and I replied with "I knew that all along, I'm glad you took the time to research it!".. exactly how would you react?.. hmm?

so finish junior high school, grow some pubic hair, learn to jack off properly and wake up and smell the roses...cockiness does not work in this field

Oh, I see, so you don't really have any valid points to make, you just made a post as a platform to launch a personal attack... ?

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 08:35 PM

Originally posted by Chryx

Perhaps you meant to aim that at Mischief.. ya know, the guy claiming that Pentium 2's were SMP on a cartridge.. and when I disprove him he comes up with "It's nice to have someone who can back up their arguments!"... if that isn't backtracking WTF is?

Of course nobody knows everything, the trick is to not run around spouting blatent untruths that you can't even find misinterpretable background information for...

If I started claiming PowerPC processors were overclocked 6502's, and you corrected me, and I replied with "I knew that all along, I'm glad you took the time to research it!".. exactly how would you react?.. hmm?

backtracking makes you keep you job in IT ;)

here is my famous backtracking story

when i got this new mac many years ago, it was performa model and the manual said it had an 040 processor

at the time, that was good and i spouted it all over town and many years later, i found out it was really an 030 processor...i was a victim of a typo made by apple

when i think i am 100 percent sure of something, concerining a customer for my computer business, i always get as many facts as possible...and even then i make mistakes...i don't try to rely only on education in the classroom, either since my main competitor is a phd/mcse and he makes mistakes, too and i have got his customers and i am sure he has got some of mine

a comptia manual and the intel and amd websites had issues on what a true 7th gen pc processor was and i got my butt kicked on that one

right now, network engineers are fighting over a tcp/ip model vs an osi model for networking and there is no absolute

there are two types of techies/engineers in the field, the useful one and the dangerous one, and you know what...they usually know about the same amount of information...it's just that the useful one know his limitations

perhaps you were right and he was wrong, but don't be so sure...did you know ddr does not "double" any speed just like two processors does not exactly double the speed of a computer?

this field is so confusing sometimes and it can really suck big time since it's newness does not leave any long term established standards

the best source i know is scott mueller's "upgrading and repairing pcs" for the general stuff

i should say i am sorry for coming on like my original mentor, spikey...but then you may say i am a backtracker or wanker, too:p

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 08:41 PM

Originally posted by Chryx

Oh, I see, so you don't really have any valid points to make, you just made a post as a platform to launch a personal attack... ?

no valid points, and i can't really remember when the damn hair grew in anyway...but i pick on trolls and the last time i did that was when joeyj was onboard ;)

since i believe eyelikeart or amibitious lemon is the moderator of this forum, he will probably kick me ass for picking on a youngun:p

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 08:50 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
backtracking makes you keep you job in IT ;)

Fine, I don't work in IT all that much anyway (I do the occasional system build/maintence job, but nothing I can call a job as such), my speciality involves more cameralike type hardware :)

See Here (http://chryx.deviantart.com/)
here is my famous backtracking story

when i got this new mac many years ago, it was performa model and the manual said it had an 040 processor

at the time, that was good and i spouted it all over town and many years later, i found out it was really an 030 processor...i was a victim of a typo made by apple

That's understandable though, there's a big difference between that and claiming that Slot 1 cpu's are big because they have two cpu cores... exactly how do rumors like that start anyhow? :)

a comptia manual and the intel and amd websites had issues on what a true 7th gen pc processor was and i got my butt kicked on that one

I'd argue that generational gaps between ANY processors are kinda hard to define... especially since processors have taken on an evolutionary approach.... eg, does the presence of SIMD hardware set a P3 and a PPro apart generationally, even though the underlying core in the P3 IS a PPro?

Some people would argue yes, some would argue no.. others would throw their hands in the air and go to the bar.

right now, network engineers are fighting over a tcp/ip model vs an osi model for networking and there is no absolute
I find that two cups and some taut string works better than computer based networks :p

perhaps you were right and he was wrong, but don't be so sure...did you know ddr does not "double" any speed just like two processors does not exactly double the speed of a computer?

Of course, DDR isn't 100% efficient, I believe I mentioned that in another (or maybe this?) thread earlier today actually :), the two processors thing is a bit more complex though (I imagine you know that already though), some tasks do get a 99-100% speedup, simply because the processors work within their own cache on chunks of the dataset. of course, that isn't the same as 2x1Ghz = 2Ghz which just doesn't happen.

this field is so confusing sometimes and it can really suck big time since it's newness does not leave any long term established standards

And all the technologically cool/nifty stuff has a habit of being trodden on by Microsoft..

BeOS
Amiga
etc..

i should say i am sorry for coming on like my original mentor, spikey...but then you may say i am a backtracker or wanker, too:p

No, apologising isn't the same as backtracking. in much the same way that admitting you were wrong isn't the same as backtracking.

Backtracking, to me, implies a sense of revisionist "I knew that all along"..

Imagine if, when finally corrected on your Performa CPU situation, you'd said "I knew that all along, I was testing you"... see what I'm getting at :)

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 08:52 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield

no valid points, and i can't really remember when the damn hair grew in anyway...but i pick on trolls and the last time i did that was when joeyj was onboard ;)

You think I'm a troll?

maybe you missed the post in which my "nemesis" stated something utterly wrong and then told everyone to **** unless they checked their facts and knew what they were talking about first?

G5orbust

Aug 14, 2002, 08:55 PM

Well looks like we have a good ol' fashioned semi-newbie verses old timer war. You two are going at it, but i suggest you step it down a notch, or else, as you said before, the moderator might bust asses for starting an arguement in the middle of a thread.

Dont get me wrong, im not trying to interfear at all, so dont get mad at me, but im just trying to keep you guys from getting out of hand.

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 08:59 PM

Originally posted by Chryx
[QUOTE]Originally posted by jefhatfield
[B]

Backtracking, to me, implies a sense of revisionist "I knew that all along"..

Imagine if, when finally corrected on your Performa CPU situation, you'd said "I knew that all along, I was testing you"... see what I'm getting at :)

this is off topic, but bob brinker, the radio financial analyst, never admits to being wrong

"i didn't say that"...and for some strange reason, it works

i think oliver north did a masterful job in never backtracking, or backtracking too much, that after it was all said and done, he came out a hero

do i have you mixed up with one of the high school kids or are you older?...because if you are in high school and you already know what you know, you will be a force to rekon with when you are in the field

but if you are smart, do something else besides IT/IS because having weekends off and staying married or being with the kids is 100 times more important in the long run

i want to eventually get out of the computer scene, and when i turn 50, i will become a newbie in some other field...but is still don't know what...i will tell you when i grow up:p

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 09:04 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jefhatfield

do i have you mixed up with one of the high school kids or are you older?...because if you are in high school and you already know what you know, you will be a force to rekon with when you are in the field

FYI I'm 20

but if you are smart, do something else besides IT/IS because having weekends off and staying married or being with the kids is 100 times more important in the long run

1) See Here (http://chryx.deviantart.com/)
2) I REALLY don't want kids, this is a cruel and harsh world, and I consider it a cruel thing to force someone else to endure it.

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 09:07 PM

Originally posted by G5orbust
but im just trying to keep you guys from getting out of hand.

I think we've pretty much fizzled out already..

hmm, better make this an on topic post..

IBM PowerPC G5's, Yay or Yay?

If anyone says "Which one means yes, I'll shoot them myself!" :p

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 09:48 PM

Originally posted by G5orbust
Well looks like we have a good ol' fashioned semi-newbie verses old timer war. You two are going at it, but i suggest you step it down a notch, or else, as you said before, the moderator might bust asses for starting an arguement in the middle of a thread.

Dont get me wrong, im not trying to interfear at all, so dont get mad at me, but im just trying to keep you guys from getting out of hand.

sorry for that, g5orbust...just reliving the old spikey, kela, and john123 days...he he

i just checked out chyrx's website he linked me too...and he has a remarkably similar background to spikey...hmm, i wonder;)

but good website, nonetheless

i am not mad at him, i just put him on my buddy list, literally after i put mischief there not too long ago (mischief and i are going to do a crop circle for dukestreet soon)

oh, and i also adopted king cobra:eek:

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 10:14 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield

i just checked out chyrx's website he linked me too...and he has a remarkably similar background to spikey...hmm, i wonder;)

Who the hell is Spikey?

Kethoticus

Aug 14, 2002, 10:46 PM

Who the hell is Spikey?

He's the primary reason the site administrators decided to implement a civility policy for our posting language.

I seriously doubt that you are him. If you are, then you're one hellevan actor.

alex_ant

Aug 14, 2002, 11:05 PM

Originally posted by Chryx
You think I'm a troll?

maybe you missed the post in which my "nemesis" stated something utterly wrong and then told everyone to **** unless they checked their facts and knew what they were talking about first?
I've been following this thread and I think jefhatfield must have misattributed who said what to the quoting or something, and means to be talking to mischief instead. Don't worry, he's like 96 and half senile, so we give him a little leeway. :)

There are plenty of great trolls on this site. You're lucky you got an "it's nice to see someone who backs himself up" out of your opponent, because rarely does that even happen. Usually you'll get someone who either stops posting once their ************ is disproven (therefore not conceding) or someone who refuses to admit their wrongness and resorts to "you're an idiot and I refuse to discuss this with you anymore" type statements etc. It takes a big man/woman to admit being wrong, which leads me to conclude that Macrumors is comprised largely of children. :)

Alex

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 11:17 PM

Originally posted by alex_ant

I've been following this thread and I think jefhatfield must have misattributed who said what to the quoting or something, and means to be talking to mischief instead. Don't worry, he's like 96 and half senile, so we give him a little leeway. :)

There are plenty of great trolls on this site. You're lucky you got an "it's nice to see someone who backs himself up" out of your opponent, because rarely does that even happen. Usually you'll get someone who either stops posting once their ************ is disproven (therefore not conceding) or someone who refuses to admit their wrongness and resorts to "you're an idiot and I refuse to discuss this with you anymore" type statements etc. It takes a big man/woman to admit being wrong, which leads me to conclude that Macrumors is comprised largely of children. :)

Alex

sometimes i feel 96 LMAO...i love it...that would make 3rd path 100 since he's four years older than me...i was six years too young to go to vietnam so i am not really that old compared to some, but on chat sites about computers, i often am the oldest one logged on

and i learn more from the young posters than from seasoned pros or college grads

more than anything, being a pc guy in the real world, i like to use my ibook and be in the mac world, where things work

wouldn't that be nice if the other 95 percent had macs?

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:27 PM

Originally posted by Kethoticus

I seriously doubt that you are him. If you are, then you're one hellevan actor.

Well, I like to think I'm one hell of an actor anyway, but no, I'm not him. (since I don't know who "him" is I can't even play the part of being him.)

Aside from that, I can be tracked back on assorted other sites using the Chryx moniker for over a year :)

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:29 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
wouldn't that be nice if the other 95 percent had macs?

Well, no, because then Apple would have nothing to go 'hey, we're BETTER THAN THEM!' at :p

Personally I'd really like a Mac on my desktop, but I'm not going to take the plunge until the hardware is suitably beefy (the current towers would maybe have hit the mark if the FSB had been DDR, I'm not going to trade my Athlon for a chip with a slower FSB, it just doesn't make sense from where I'm sitting) so ATM it looks like I'm going to wait for the IBM PPC-64 chip.

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:33 PM

Originally posted by alex_ant
There are plenty of great trolls on this site. You're lucky you got an "it's nice to see someone who backs himself up" out of your opponent, because rarely does that even happen. Usually you'll get someone who either stops posting once their ************ is disproven (therefore not conceding) or someone who refuses to admit their wrongness and resorts to "you're an idiot and I refuse to discuss this with you anymore" type statements etc. It takes a big man/woman to admit being wrong, which leads me to conclude that Macrumors is comprised largely of children. :)

You should go check out comp.sys.amiga.advocacy sometime.

Steve Gionevella ("SG") brings blind zealotry to a new level

"The 604e is the most advanced microprocessor ever used in a personal computer" - SG

This is AFTER we've sent him to the PPC7455, AthlonXP and P4 product pages... :rolleyes:

jefhatfield

Aug 14, 2002, 11:39 PM

Originally posted by Chryx

Well, no, because then Apple would have nothing to go 'hey, we're BETTER THAN THEM!' at :p

since i am 96 and remember silicon valley when it was literally apple orchards, there was a time when most people who had personal computers had apple machines

then some sort of super elitist attitude came along and being a business was being like those other guys, microsoft, and later apple's smallness became a point of pride

well, the rest is history and apple will never get near the whole market again

for now, i am happy with my mac and my pc with it's amd processor in it...somehow, i have never been a big fan of intel, so if i buy a pc for my business, it will be another amd machine

Chryx

Aug 14, 2002, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
since i am 96 and remember silicon valley when it was literally apple orchards, there was a time when most people who had personal computers had apple machines

At that point (well, 1985 or so), they should have had Amiga's instead of Macintoshs :)

Preemptive multitasking.. mmmm..
It (the lack of it) was a big reason that I didn't previously like Macs all that much, the hardware was cool but the OS was clunky compared to what I was used to...

Right now the OS is cool and the hardware needs a slightly bigger kick than the one it just got :)

Tooth

Aug 15, 2002, 12:02 AM

Sorry, i'm still getting over that "i'll take you apart in text like you've never seen before in text" part, which followed up the section about having two processors on a single package, and the two fans being on the heatsink being justification for it...

Dude, step back, and do some research. And if the PPC doesn't have an FSB, then i'm stumped as to how it works.

Anyone with real architectural interest and / or reasons why Apple has made a GOOD move with a single data rate FSB, sharing the bus between 2 CPU's (sure, 650MB/sec is enough) and putting all your eggs in the SMP basket is a good idea, then let me know.

I'd love someone to run a dual 1GHz machine vs a single 1GHz machine on something other than filters in photoshop.

In most tasks, if you get more than 50% increase in performance, i'll go he.

If DDR333 over a 1.3GB/sec bus between 2 CPU's is 'balanced'...

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 12:03 AM

Originally posted by Chryx

At that point (well, 1985 or so), they should have had Amiga's instead of Macintoshs :)

79 to 83 with the apple II series

amigas really rocked the user world, too

and radio shack actually had this machine, i think the trs-80, which i heard about and saw

in 1985, i saw this user with a macintosh and i didn't know why he refused to call his machine a computer...actually then, they all called it the macintosh and i didn't hear the term "mac" until sometime later

i got reacquainted with the mac in '93 and then everybody in the mac lab were calling them macs

then came imac, ibook, and tibook and those names seem to stick more than just calling them macs...i use the term mac so much that when i think back on the two apple IIs i had, i call them macs since the term is so related to apple inc

mischief

Aug 15, 2002, 10:48 AM

I much prefer to keep my animosity out where you can see it. When folks get backhanded it gets personal.

You are an arrogant little proto-Geek but you've got a lot of nonmac data to bring to the table and caught me in an inaccurate assumption. My impression of the P2 was from observing one being replaced. I have never considered it good policy to go ripping the top off someone else's processor card to find out what's under it so I went with what I could see. Being that I loathe Windows/DOS and have never owned a Wintel machine, there's a lot of guessing and hearsay involved. When I said "Good to see you can back it up" I was also saying "Thank you for correcting me". Being an ass about my phrasing really doesn't help you.

BTW: Taking an oppertunity to make a number of disparaging remarks about my character and intelligence while I'm offline, at home and asleep is not only dishonorable, backhanded and immature but downright lame. Shame on both of you.

Alex: What is your mother****ing problem? You've been all over my ass for a good while now and I'd like to know why. If you have a problem with me just say it. Don't just go toadeying around taking oppertunities to kick me when I'm down. I know when I'm being an idiot cuz Alpha is usually there ahead of anyone else. I don't like his methods but I am willing to see when he's right. Perhaps you should think about the term Troll and consider which of the two of us it may actually apply to based on the content of our posts.

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by mischief
I much prefer to keep my animosity out where you can see it. When folks get backhanded it gets personal.

You are an arrogant little proto-Geek but you've got a lot of nonmac data to bring to the table and caught me in an inaccurate assumption. My impression of the P2 was from observing one being replaced. I have never considered it good policy to go ripping the top off someone else's processor card to find out what's under it so I went with what I could see. Being that I loathe Windows/DOS and have never owned a Wintel machine, there's a lot of guessing and hearsay involved. When I said "Good to see you can back it up" I was also saying "Thank you for correcting me". Being an ass about my phrasing really doesn't help you.

BTW: Taking an oppertunity to make a number of disparaging remarks about my character and intelligence while I'm offline, at home and asleep is not only dishonorable, backhanded and immature but downright lame. Shame on both of you.

Alex: What is your mother****ing problem? You've been all over my ass for a good while now and I'd like to know why. If you have a problem with me just say it. Don't just go toadeying around taking oppertunities to kick me when I'm down. I know when I'm being an idiot cuz Alpha is usually there ahead of anyone else. I don't like his methods but I am willing to see when he's right. Perhaps you should think about the term Troll and consider which of the two of us it may actually apply to based on the content of our posts.

when chryx went after you, i went whoopass on him, and it was like spikey, kela, and john 123 again

i am not good at flamewars like spikey and alphatech

i am sure the new mood of macrumors, with moderators, has made things much more civilized than in 2000 and early 2001:)

alex_ant

Aug 15, 2002, 11:11 AM

Originally posted by mischief
BTW: Taking an oppertunity to make a number of disparaging remarks about my character and intelligence while I'm offline, at home and asleep is not only dishonorable, backhanded and immature but downright lame. Shame on both of you.
SHAME ON ME! I forgot to PM you and ask when the best time would be to make my disparaging remarks.
Alex: What is your mother****ing problem? You've been all over my ass for a good while now and I'd like to know why.
Losing your temper and threatening to "take others apart in ways they've never seen before in text" when you yourself are posting ************ pertaining to subjects which by your own admission you know nothing about gets old quite fast. "Macs don't have a front side bus!" I am confounded as to why when you said "Shut up and let anyone with a clue talk," you yourself didn't stop talking. "We" might not be on you like this if you weren't behaving like such a miserable child. Maybe you were only having a bad day, and that's understandable, but when you so freely bring your "animosity" out into the open, you should be prepared to receive the same animosity in return instead of whining about how others are conspiring against you behind your back. A little humility and politeness never hurt anybody.

Alex

alex_ant

Aug 15, 2002, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
i am not good at flamewars like spikey and alphatech
You could always practice... Your mother is fat and ugly. There you go, I just gave you a great opening, have at it! :)

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 11:22 AM

Originally posted by mischief
You are an arrogant little proto-Geek but you've got a lot of nonmac data to bring to the table and caught me in an inaccurate assumption.

An inaccurate assumption AND your "NOBODY SAY ANYTHING THAT ISN'T BACKED UP" attitude is bound to lead to trouble, have you thought about that?

My impression of the P2 was from observing one being replaced. I have never considered it good policy to go ripping the top off someone else's processor card to find out what's under it so I went with what I could see.

And what you could see was, what, that the cartridge+heatsink was big enough for two fans.. that's hardly conclusive evidence of anything.

Here (google) Pentium 2 (Klamath 233-300Mhz) casing removal (http://www.benchtest.com/klamath1.html)

Notice the Sram discretes and the single core.

Being that I loathe Windows/DOS and have never owned a Wintel machine, there's a lot of guessing and hearsay involved.

You might want to cut down on that and make more use of google :)
There's plenty of information out there, you just have to look for it (it's advisable to source your information from multiple sources, inaccuracies do crop up.)

When I said "Good to see you can back it up" I was also saying "Thank you for correcting me". Being an ass about my phrasing really doesn't help you.

Think.
Your phrasing didn't LOOK like "thankyou for correcting me", it looked like backtracking.

if it wasn't, then I apologise.

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by alex_ant

SHAME ON ME! I forgot to PM you and ask when the best time would be to make my disparaging remarks.
[/b]
Losing your temper and threatening to "take others apart in ways they've never seen before in text" when you yourself are posting ************ pertaining to subjects which by your own admission you know nothing about gets old quite fast. "Macs don't have a front side bus!" I am confounded as to why when you said "Shut up and let anyone with a clue talk," you yourself didn't stop talking. "We" might not be on you like this if you weren't behaving like such a miserable child. Maybe you were only having a bad day, and that's understandable, but when you so freely bring your "animosity" out into the open, you should be prepared to receive the same animosity in return instead of whining about how others are conspiring against you behind your back. A little humility and politeness never hurt anybody.

Alex [/B]

if you look at the threads from the beginning, chryx was trolling this thread like some other pc users in the past

that is why i trolled him back (defensively)

i don't think you, mischief, or me, even though our language may have seemed inappropriate to some, was never considered an offensive troll attack (since we have all been here longer than chryx)

i believe mischief was looking for some techie facts while chryx was lurking under the bridge ready to blow it up when mischief crossed it...i think it was all about intent

the high tech field, which i am in, is a lot more complex than frontside bus, backside cache, level 2 cache, etc when you have compTIA, mueller, oreilly, and others saying contradicting things...we may complain about the ddr thing but i am sure far more qualified engineers or students than us (at apple inc) thought this out very carefully and i could see them saying/thinking,

"but the armchair engineers will not like this";)

mischief

Aug 15, 2002, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by alex_ant

SHAME ON ME! I forgot to PM you and ask when the best time would be to make my disparaging remarks.
[/b]
Losing your temper and threatening to "take others apart in ways they've never seen before in text" when you yourself are posting ************ pertaining to subjects which by your own admission you know nothing about gets old quite fast. "Macs don't have a front side bus!" I am confounded as to why when you said "Shut up and let anyone with a clue talk," you yourself didn't stop talking. "We" might not be on you like this if you weren't behaving like such a miserable child. Maybe you were only having a bad day, and that's understandable, but when you so freely bring your "animosity" out into the open, you should be prepared to receive the same animosity in return instead of whining about how others are conspiring against you behind your back. A little humility and politeness never hurt anybody.

Alex [/B]

Okay, I'll cop to that. I WAS actually having a pisser of a morning and I WAS being a bit of an overbearing ass...:( My bad.

I just get a bit rabid about the backlash after every release.... as if there's been absolutely NO improvement. I see so much whining and so many remarks about how Apple should just give up and be another generic PC manufacturer I go all Tazzy.

Apple is doing the best it can with a limited marketshare and a Chip supplier that seems determined to sit at the bar and let Apple get beaten to death in the back of the room by lame ass companies like Dell and (the company formerly known as Compaq).

Mainly I guess I was lashing ourt because I feel helpless to stop Apple getting pummelled. The really frustrating thing is that we're doing dammage to a company we all love by exposing where they're cutting corners. No other company in the industry gets the kind of close scrutiny we give Apple.

There's a catch 22 here: We all want the G5 and truly exceptional Macs but if we don't buy the present half-assed ones Apple won't have the funds to advance and excell. So for all of you who have not switched yet or are still using an Ancient machine: Please, just buy an overclocked dual-Optical tower. It'll be worlds better than what you have now and get Apple that much closer to having the cash to build the dream machine we all want.

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 11:32 AM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
if you look at the threads from the beginning, chryx was trolling this thread like some other pc users in the past

How exactly is it trolling to say why I think the current PowerMac architecture is sub-optimal?

Or do you classify anything that goes against "Apple are good, Apple are right" to be trolling?

(see, THAT ^^^ was a trolling statement :)

i believe mischief was looking for some techie facts while chryx was lurking under the bridge ready to blow it up when mischief crossed it...i think it was all about intent

Aren't you overdramatising a juuuust a little?

besides that, if Mischief were looking for techie facts, why wasn't he asking for them instead of spreading disinformation?

the high tech field, which i am in, is a lot more complex than frontside bus, backside cache, level 2 cache, etc

Indeed, you have to consider the relationships between all of the above. :)

when you have compTIA, mueller, oreilly, and others saying contradicting things...we may complain about the ddr thing but i am sure far more qualified engineers or students than us (at apple inc) thought this out very carefully and i could see them saying/thinking

My thoughts are that Apple couldn't get G4's with DDR bus signaling, if they could I can't think of a single reason why they wouldn't use them, and the speedup from DDR not being exactly 100% doesn't detract from the fact that it would be a speedup.

Speedups are good, ya know.

"but the armchair engineers will not like this";)
I doubt APPLE engineers liked that, they probably want some lovely DDR lovin' just as much as the rest of us :)

jelloshotsrule

Aug 15, 2002, 11:38 AM

interesting point about the if we don't buy now, we won't get better in the future..

which is true to a large extent.

but we can only say that for so long...

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 11:39 AM

Originally posted by mischief
I just get a bit rabid about the backlash after every release.... as if there's been absolutely NO improvement.

There is an improvement, it's just that x86 hardware is still faster overall at the moment.

I was hoping to see a proper whoopass upgrade, rather than an (admittedly pretty big) incremental, hopefully we'll see it at or around MWSF

I see so much whining and so many remarks about how Apple should just give up and be another generic PC manufacturer I go all Tazzy.

I agree, that and the MacOSX on x86 stuff just don't make any sense. it would be the quickest way for apple to kill themselves :/

No other company in the industry gets the kind of close scrutiny we give Apple.
Plenty of scrutiny goes on, it's just that it tends towards component manufacturers rather than box shifters like Dell.

Go to the aceshardware tech forum and you'll find people discussing things, and generally being disparaging towards the Pentium 4's x87 FP hardware :)

There's a catch 22 here: We all want the G5 and truly exceptional Macs but if we don't buy the present half-assed ones Apple won't have the funds to advance and excell.

I must have being mistaken about that $4B warchest that Apple are sitting on?, you think they don't have the funds for 6 months/1year of R&D?

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 11:40 AM

Originally posted by Chryx

"but the armchair engineers will not like this";)
I doubt APPLE engineers liked that, they probably want some lovely DDR lovin' just as much as the rest of us :)

this could have been a cheap quick fix by apple, but i want to wait and see the reviews, benchmarks, and actual input from the users of the new g4 hannibal series towers

i hope the hannibal lechter moniker does not stick but i have a feeling that it already has:D

oh, alex, my mother is not fat and ugly...i am but i am trying to lose weight

i have been likened to looking like an english bulldog (at 180+) and if i keep losing weight, i will be a french bull (165), and if i reach an ideal weight body mass index of 24, then i will be a trim boston terrier at 150-154 lbs

alex_ant

Aug 15, 2002, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by mischief
Okay, I'll cop to that. I WAS actually having a pisser of a morning and I WAS being a bit of an overbearing ass...:( My bad.

I just get a bit rabid about the backlash after every release.... as if there's been absolutely NO improvement. I see so much whining and so many remarks about how Apple should just give up and be another generic PC manufacturer I go all Tazzy.

Apple is doing the best it can with a limited marketshare and a Chip supplier that seems determined to sit at the bar and let Apple get beaten to death in the back of the room by lame ass companies like Dell and (the company formerly known as Compaq).

Mainly I guess I was lashing ourt because I feel helpless to stop Apple getting pummelled. The really frustrating thing is that we're doing dammage to a company we all love by exposing where they're cutting corners. No other company in the industry gets the kind of close scrutiny we give Apple.
OK, no hard feelings then... Everybody has bad days.

Another way to think of it (maybe a less stressful way) is that instead of Apple being hurt by all this negative reaction to its new product announcements, it is actually helped by the constructive criticism and the push the Mac community gives it to improve. I worry that the Mac faithful will become so sympathetic to Apple's plight that they will gratefully accept whatever they can get. That opens up the door for Apple to exploit its Mac loyalists - "They'll take whatever we give them, so why innovate?" But I'm sure there's an equilibrium somewhere, and I'm pretty sure Apple is close enough to it.

Damn, I was hoping for a good flamewar to come out of this, but no such luck... :( :D

Cheers,
Alex

alex_ant

Aug 15, 2002, 11:52 AM

"The new Power Macintosh G4: It eats the Pentium 4's liver with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti."

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 11:57 AM

Originally posted by alex_ant
"The new Power Macintosh G4: It eats the Pentium 4's liver with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti."

or it su*** like a white house intern:p

mischief

Aug 15, 2002, 12:02 PM

Originally posted by Chryx

No other company in the industry gets the kind of close scrutiny we give Apple.
Plenty of scrutiny goes on, it's just that it tends towards component manufacturers rather than box shifters like Dell.

Go to the aceshardware tech forum and you'll find people discussing things, and generally being disparaging towards the Pentium 4's x87 FP hardware :)

There's a catch 22 here: We all want the G5 and truly exceptional Macs but if we don't buy the present half-assed ones Apple won't have the funds to advance and excell.

I must have being mistaken about that $4B warchest that Apple are sitting on?, you think they don't have the funds for 6 months/1year of R&D? [/B]

The thing is: Apple does the whole shebang. Even issues that trace back to Moto get attributed to Apple when the whiners start keening, so in essence Apple gets a disproportionate amount of criticism.

$4 Billion dollars isn't that much money for a company the size of Apple. The amount of operating capital needed to startup even a small company is easily in the millions of dollars just in having cash on hand to pay out expenses if Income drops into the red. Apple having $4 Billion in the bank isn't likely to be a warchest... it's insurance against bad times so when sales dip they can keep the lights on and the product flowing in Cupertino's 6 (or so) buildings, Cork's campus, Austin's Campus, Sacramento's Factory, Taiwan's Factory, China's Factory, Mexico's Factory and of course Steve's house. ;)

alex_ant

Aug 15, 2002, 12:03 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield

or it su*** like a white house intern:p
Luckily, those two activities are not mutually exclusive... it can do both. :)

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 12:11 PM

Originally posted by alex_ant

Luckily, those two activities are not mutually exclusive... it can do both. :)

but those four holes are not big enough...ooh , that was bad

about apple's 4 bil war chest....it was 6 bil in 2001 but i know apple bought an armload of companies...i am asking why that is though

when they almost bit the dust under the helm of ceo gil, they had 6 bil then but had a quarter with a billion dollar loss

perhpas apple will break out of their financial funk

now that their gear is not stuck at 500 mhz forever, apple needs to do some creative, yet legal, accounting

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 12:19 PM

Originally posted by mischief
The thing is: Apple does the whole shebang. Even issues that trace back to Moto get attributed to Apple when the whiners start keening, so in essence Apple gets a disproportionate amount of criticism.

I blame Motorola for lack of development with the G4, I blame Apple for not bitchslapping Motorola earlier and going to IBM for processors :)

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 12:24 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
about apple's 4 bil war chest....it was 6 bil in 2001 but i know apple bought an armload of companies...i am asking why that is though

Why they've been buying companies?, because it's quicker to buy something and tweak it from a UI standpoint (so it has that legendary 'ease of use' thing going on) than it is to write something from scratch?

perhpas apple will break out of their financial funk

I honestly don't think they'll manage that until they have the raw performance lead again, which I think IBM can make happen.

Which the original G3 they had a chance to, but MacOS was starting to look very old and tired by that point.
With a combination of a lickable OS and hardware that goes to 11, they might just manage it.

now that their gear is not stuck at 500 mhz forever, apple needs to do some creative, yet legal, accounting

"Steve purchased a Mars bar before delivering the keynote.. um.. deduct it, he used the energy it gave him during a company presentation!!!"

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 12:48 PM

when moto was stuck at 500 mhz, spikey and i were big ibm fans but a lot of people flamed us then...pcs were headed into the 1.3-1.5 ghz territory and threatening to triple us in clock speed, which i don't think they achieved from what i saw

but now the gap has somewhat narrowed to about fifty percent with pc at 2.53 ghz and mac at half that at 1.25 ghz...still a major gap though but an improvement from the 18 month drought at 500 mhz

and who will care when pcs at at 5.8 ghz and we are at 4.0 ghz?

ibm closed their retail division and is only online now and they have started their downsizing of 15,000 employees which never has proven to be a good move in american business

ibm may not have what it takes to make apple catch up...why would ibm want it any more than motorola?

i say stay with ibm and motorola thru next year and then see where we are at...maybe ibm will get their money matters in order to be able to pay attention to a minor company like apple with 7,000 employees

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 12:57 PM

Originally posted by jefhatfield
and who will care when pcs at at 5.8 ghz and we are at 4.0 ghz?

That's a smaller gap, and if the processor isn't bandwidth starved (which the current G4's are) then the IPC difference will let it hang even (at least)

ibm closed their retail division and is only online now and they have started their downsizing of 15,000 employees which never has proven to be a good move in american business

IBM are a _BIG_ company, the seperate divisions (of which semiconductors is one) act independently of one another...

ibm may not have what it takes to make apple catch up...why would ibm want it any more than motorola?

IBM already have what it takes to make Apple catch up.

IBM have :

1) a working .13 SOI process
2) chip designers that know how to make processors that scream

By the way, the POWER4 isn't a POWER architecture chip, it's a PPC-64 implementation (so in theory, you could just install MacOS X on a current POWER4 machine :).. one of those on a .13 process (even in it's dual core incarnation) could well be a 1.7-1.8Ghz chip with _managable_ heat output (especially with a HS the size of the new PowerMac one), the _current_ .18 part @1.3Ghz outruns anything anyone else can bring to the table, Intel included.

Also, IBM need to replace the 604e's that they are _still_ using in some of their own workstations, the presence of Vector hardware on their upcoming POWER4-lite, which they've never shown any interest in, would indicate that the chip is at least Intended to find its way into Apple machines as well.

Unless someone else wants it, or IBM have changed their minds about it's usefulness.. (which is a possibility)

i say stay with ibm and motorola thru next year and then see where we are at...maybe ibm will get their money matters in order to be able to pay attention to a minor company like apple with 7,000 employees

Like I said, IBM is a big multidivision company, one area doing badly doesn't mean they all are.

IBM have the knowhow and the means to make real Intel-killing chips for Apple, the question is will/are they make(ing) them

jefhatfield

Aug 15, 2002, 01:06 PM

IBM have the knowhow and the means to make real Intel-killing chips for Apple, the question is will/are they make(ing) them

a don't know if a 300,000 person company would care right now about a 7,000 person company

the layoffs are still twice+ the number of people that apple has in total

moto has stepped up in a small way, i say give them a chance, and if they fail, then put moto in for ibook and imac/emac, and let ibm do the high end stuff and scale apple into 2+ ghz territory

either combo is fine with me, and i think for purposes of commerce, speeds up to 3 ghz will be watched by buying public but after that, people will smarten up and then look at featues more

right now, speed still is top selling point (maybe?) and 2.53 ghz sounds fantastic

pgwalsh

Aug 15, 2002, 01:11 PM

As opposed to Megahertz's shouldn't we be more focused on Application providers supporting Alti-vec and Dual Processors. Applications that currently support this seem to run extremely well and therefore negate the need for massive megahertz's. I keep hearing two things. Fist, Intel processors are just bumping up MHz/GHz and not really utilizing the latest technology and therefore they're not as good as PPC at the same frequency. 2) We need to catch them in Megahertz/Gigahertz.

If Inters chips are not as fast at the same frequency then we should stay focused on the technology that gives PPC the edge. We should be harassing application providers to support dual processor and Alti-Vec. I've heard the argument that we're never going to win over the WinTel power users with small frequency range. If we're so focused on frequency rather than what's really important, then we'll never get there. I think we need to educate people whenever possible. We already know that Intel is going to have to do something with their new mobile processors and AMD has been screaming this for a while. Why not push this. I agree we'd all like to see a PPC crush the ***** out Intel and AMD processors, but that's not going to happen for a while. So let's push Application providers and educate consumers.

Just my 2 Cents... I'd like to see the software side optimized.

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 01:28 PM

jefhatfield
a don't know if a 300,000 person company would care right now about a 7,000 person company

Read my post again, IBM need a cheaper high speed chip for their OWN systems to replace the 604e, if they can offset some of the R&D costs of that by selling some to Apple, why wouldn't they?

moto has stepped up in a small way

have they?

either combo is fine with me, and i think for purposes of commerce, speeds up to 3 ghz will be watched by buying public but after that, people will smarten up and then look at featues more

I'm more bothered by actual speed, not clockspeed (I'm using an Athlon rather than a P4 afterall)
the problem is, the G4 can't hang with the Athlon or P4 in overall performance.. (there's even benches up on barefeats that back that up.)

Sure, altivec code operating on data that'll fit in the L2 or L3 cache is fast as hell, but how much code fits those criteria?

Now, OSX is very nice, and It's made me consider getting a Mac, but it won't be a non-laptop (lower speed with EXTREME battery life and a nice featureset is a good thing for a laptop, and nobody on the x86 side makes high spec laptops with relatively slow/cool processors) until the desktops have LOTS of grunt, rather than just "quite a bit of" grunt.

right now, speed still is top selling point (maybe?) and 2.53 ghz sounds fantastic

Not to me it doesn't, the P4 still has a woefully inadequate floating point unit.

Chryx

Aug 15, 2002, 01:29 PM

Originally posted by pgwalsh
As opposed to Megahertz's shouldn't we be more focused on Application providers supporting Alti-vec and Dual Processors.

megahertz isn't the problem with the G4, the execution core itself is a blazingly quick piece of silicon, the problem is bandwidth, altivec needs more of it... much more.

a dual 1Ghz G4 with a 10GB/s system bus would be sight to behold :)

jefhatfield

Aug 16, 2002, 02:02 AM

Originally posted by Chryx

megahertz isn't the problem with the G4, the execution core itself is a blazingly quick piece of silicon, the problem is bandwidth, altivec needs more of it... much more.

a dual 1Ghz G4 with a 10GB/s system bus would be sight to behold :)

bandwidth is definitely key

TheCat

Aug 16, 2002, 03:36 AM

if you're into games, then u may wanna consider the future?? The latest games, like Doom3, will be best on a card with more than 64mb vram. The ATI 9700 wouldn't cut it, the GF4-Ti @ 128mb would be the better option atm.

Just a thought:-)

Steve

Originally posted by pgwalsh
I'm psyched that new Macs are out!
I'm not sure whether to buy the 1 Ghz or 2 Ghz. I'm upgrading from an old b/w G3 400. Think I'll notice a speed increase? Just kidding.

I would like to put the new ATI Radeon 9700 card (when it comes out) in the machine, but I'm under the impression it's 8x AGP and you need the pro slot. However, the 9000 is a pro version. Does that use the pro slot?

Now to decide whether to go with the 22" or 23" screen… hmmm.

With Jaguar and all the great new apps loaded onto this computer, I don't see how anyone can complain. I'm running mainly Adobe products and Reason and they will be sweet on this new machine.

I'm tired of hearing about the ddr discussion. We have what Apple has offered and if you're happy then buy one and if you're not happy then buy one anyway. Ha! Please take the discussion on Ram to it's own forum. Please!

Chryx

Aug 16, 2002, 08:09 AM

Originally posted by TheCat
if you're into games, then u may wanna consider the future?? The latest games, like Doom3, will be best on a card with more than 64mb vram. The ATI 9700 wouldn't cut it, the GF4-Ti @ 128mb would be the better option atm.

um, the Radeon 9700 smacks the Geforce 4 Ti4600 silly...

If you mean Radeon 9000 however, you'd be right, since that's the value part :)

-JB

jefhatfield

Aug 16, 2002, 10:26 AM

Originally posted by Chryx
Originally posted by TheCat
if you're into games, then u may wanna consider the future?? The latest games, like Doom3, will be best on a card with more than 64mb vram. The ATI 9700 wouldn't cut it, the GF4-Ti @ 128mb would be the better option atm.

um, the Radeon 9700 smacks the Geforce 4 Ti4600 silly...

If you mean Radeon 9000 however, you'd be right, since that's the value part :)

-JB

that's what i love about ati and nvidia...they are always besting each other back and forth, and we, the consumers, are the winners:D

pgwalsh

Aug 16, 2002, 11:42 AM

The ATI 9700 isn't listed as available for the mac and I'm not sure if it will. It requires a seperate power connection similar to a cd rom drive etc. Does anyone have a clue if ATI will release a mac version? If they do then I'd get the current pm with a 9000 and then upgrade in a couple months. Maybe you can sell or stick the 9000 in an older mac.

TheCat

Aug 19, 2002, 02:26 AM

ohh i've lost track of all the different ATI cards out/coming out atm.. which is best again?? :-/
Anyway, all i meant was that you'd need a kickass gfx card with *more* than 64mb ram on it. GF4/ATI/whatever - i just wanna play Doom 3 :-)

pgwalsh

Aug 19, 2002, 10:44 AM

Originally posted by TheCat
ohh i've lost track of all the different ATI cards out/coming out atm.. which is best again?? :-/

Best ATI card is the Radeon 9700. (coming soon)
Best nVidia card is a GeForce4 Ti 4600
Best Matrox card is the Parhelia 512

topicolo

Aug 19, 2002, 11:05 AM

To shorten all of that, you could've just said that the Radeon 9700 was the best card.

G5orbust

Aug 19, 2002, 11:06 AM

Originally posted by pgwalsh

Best ATI card is the Radeon 9700. (coming soon)
Best nVidia card is a GeForce4 Ti 4600
Best Matrox card is the Parhelia 512

And the all powerful 3dLabs (which, btw, was gobbled up by Creative) Wildcat Series. The best card, i believe, was the WildcatIII-6110; maxing out at 512 MB of RAM.

topicolo

Aug 19, 2002, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by TheCat
if you're into games, then u may wanna consider the future?? The latest games, like Doom3, will be best on a card with more than 64mb vram. The ATI 9700 wouldn't cut it, the GF4-Ti @ 128mb would be the better option atm.

Just a thought:-)

Steve

According to Carmack, anything better than a GF3 with more than 80mb of ram (that's how much textures Doom 3 uses) will do.
Besides, the Ati DEFINATELY cuts it, since id was running their DOOM 3 demos on a Radeon 9700 and Carmack specifically said that the 9700 was better than the GF4Ti

pgwalsh

Aug 19, 2002, 11:09 AM

Originally posted by topicolo
To shorten all of that, you could've just said that the Radeon 9700 was the best card. Yes, Sir Donkey Butt.

G5orbust

Aug 19, 2002, 11:12 AM

Originally posted by pgwalsh
Yes, Sir Donkey Butt.

lol

TheCat

Aug 20, 2002, 03:15 AM

nice1, an ATI 9700 it is then.. so when is it out on the Mac? I've gotta play Doom3 in all it's gory err glory :D

wildcat4100

Aug 20, 2002, 03:23 AM

Originally posted by TheCat
nice1, an ATI 9700 it is then.. so when is it out on the Mac? I've gotta play Doom3 in all it's gory err glory :D

When is Doom3 gonna release anyway?

TheCat

Aug 20, 2002, 03:48 AM

good point, this is why i can wait for the newest gfx card.. whatever is the best.
But when Doom3 is released i'll be ordering the 'then best' gfx card a week b4.. hopfully the 9700, but a GF4Ti will do:)

G5orbust

Aug 20, 2002, 12:21 PM

Yes, i guess the Geforce4 TI is just OK. ;)
If tehy used the 9700 on the Doom demo, im hooked. Im saving up my money already.

But i have a question.

Which is better:
the old geforce 4MX (w/ 64 MB)
or
the new radeon 9000 in the new powermacs?

ATI's site is tricky and chock full of flash scenes, so its hard to get the actual, plain text data sheet on the graphic card.

me hate windows

Aug 20, 2002, 01:36 PM

If the new G4 and the SpongeBob computer both had the exact same specs: processor, ram, TWO optical bays, all the ports, graphics card, yadayadayada. Which one would you purchase based on design, the SpongeBob or the chrome drive bay G4?

topicolo

Aug 20, 2002, 02:01 PM

G5orbust: the 9000 is marginally faster

me hate winows: SpongeBob! SpongeBob!
:)

Ovi

Aug 20, 2002, 03:26 PM

pgwalsh

Aug 20, 2002, 03:37 PM

Originally posted by Ovi
If you are a proffesional and use Photoshop, then you should be pretty happy with OS 9 and an older G4. No need to upgrade. This is the second upgrade this year which is rather pitiful.

The iMac screen is too small for me with regards to PhotoShop, Illustrator, GoLive, Premier etc etc etc. I just updated all my apps and they're ready for OS X, however I'm on 9.2.2. I'm running a G3 400 ouch! So, I think this update is needed. Even if I were running a duel G4 533 I would consider upgrading.

I do agree the iMac is tempting, but I'd like a larger screen then 17".

Ovi

Aug 20, 2002, 03:59 PM

G5orbust

Aug 20, 2002, 04:14 PM

Originally posted by topicolo
G5orbust: the 9000 is marginally faster

me hate winows: SpongeBob! SpongeBob!
:)

thank you

pgwalsh

Aug 20, 2002, 04:28 PM

Originally posted by Ovi
If I were to upgrade the dual 867 mghz is your best deal. Personally I am running a G3 500 iBook. It is great for everything from Photshop to Internet.

I worked on the dual 1ghz and the increase in speed does not justify the $2200 price tag.

I'll keep the dual 867 Machine in mind. That may be decent upgrade and then I could get an iBook too.

Right now I'm moving so slowly that I'm watching the screen move a graphic after I took my hand off the arrow key. This is in LiveMotion. It's too damn slow. However, I checked out OS X and think it's pretty cool. I heard you can't customized the Apple menu which bothers me.

Ovi

Aug 20, 2002, 04:43 PM

pgwalsh

Aug 20, 2002, 04:53 PM

Originally posted by Ovi
If you have the money to get an iBook. I think the iBook would make a nice secondary machine. I like the fact that it's small etc. I wish the speed was a bit faster. We know IBM has a 1Ghz G3 and that would be an easy decision for me. I'm not sure how well AI or GL would fair on that machine. I think I'll turn my old PM into a workgroup sever. It's not fast, but it has scsi drives and will be fine for staging and inhouse work.

Ovi

Aug 20, 2002, 05:14 PM

MacBandit

Aug 21, 2002, 01:51 AM

I ordered my G4/dual gig the day they were released on an edu discount. I then got to thinking about it and unearthed my reciepts for my B/W G3 400 rev. B. Guess what I paid only $100 more for my new machine then I did for my old one. Think about that and how much more you get with this new machine over the old now pathetic G3.

jettredmont

Aug 21, 2002, 03:17 AM

Originally posted by mischief
As to the whole "Is is DDR or isn't it?" Why don't you go find out before whining? The Powermac page says the following:

...
The resulting throughput between main memory and the system controller is up to 2.7GBps, more than double the throughput from the previous dual 1GHz Power Mac G4. DDR-SDRAM also increases systemwide memory bandwidth to the processors and all other elements of the system. At the same time, direct memory access allows system elements, such as a hard drive controller or a graphics processing unit, to send and receive data directly from main memory, without going through the processors. The added bandwidth allows system elements to function independently at high data rates, boosting total system performance."

Additionally, the PDF spec sheet details throughput of the 167 bus at:

• 1.3 GB/sec. throughput for the main bus.

• 2.7 GB/Sec. Processor-RAM throughput.

•4GB/sec. L3 Cache throughput.

So YES this is a significant increase in power and speed so SHADDAP!!!!
:mad: :cool: :D :eek:

You misread the PDF. 1.3 GB/sec from the processor(s) to the System Controller means that no matter how fast main memory is, the processor's only going to get it 1.3GB/s at a time. That leaves 1.4GB/s for the rest of the system (AGP+PCI) to chomp on using direct memory access. Since 33MHz PCI offers about 1GB/s of total throughput, most likely two things are true:

1) You'll never use the 2.7 GB/sec throughput to main memory

2) Your PCI devices will never collide with your processors in reading memory, even while transfering a 100MB chunk of data over your gigabit ethernet.

TheCat

Aug 21, 2002, 03:24 AM

Originally posted by G5orbust
Yes, i guess the Geforce4 TI is just OK. ;)
If tehy used the 9700 on the Doom demo, im hooked. Im saving up my money already.

But i have a question.

Which is better:
the old geforce 4MX (w/ 64 MB)
or
the new radeon 9000 in the new powermacs?

ATI's site is tricky and chock full of flash scenes, so its hard to get the actual, plain text data sheet on the graphic card.

i'm guessing the ATI?? Isn't the GF4MX just an old & cutdown version of the GF2 ?

MacBandit

Aug 21, 2002, 09:59 AM

Originally posted by TheCat

i'm guessing the ATI?? Isn't the GF4MX just an old & cutdown version of the GF2 ?

No the GF4MX is faster then the GF2 it's actually almost as fast as th GF3 but not quite. I'm not sure what is faster the ATI 9000 pro or the GF4MX I do know that there isn't a lot of difference in speed if there is any. I just know that I didn't really want either and I don't want to spen $300+ on a current top of the line graphics card I'm holding out for the 9700 or the GF5. Either way the GF4MX was much cheaper then the ATI 9000 when ordering the new dual so I opted for it saving my money for the next generation of high end Graphics Cards.

mnkeybsness

Aug 21, 2002, 10:19 AM

actually GF4mx is about the same as a GF2...ATI 9000 will be better and faster

GF4Ti are still PROBABLY the best

jettredmont

Aug 21, 2002, 11:32 AM

Originally posted by mischief
There's plenty of evidence to show that IBM is in the process of taking over for Moto and, in fact may be building the overclocked (sorry, I found another thread tagging the MPC7455 as current... my bad.) Moto chips currently in use.

Just a minor correction. The current G4s are NOT overclocked! "Overclocked" means that they are running at a higher-than-rated speed. Every indication is that the 1GHz+ PPC chips are actually rated as 1GHz+, not rated at, say, 867MHz and overclocked to 1GHz+. As a point of fact, it is by definition impossible for a chip manufacturer (say, IBM), to "overclock" a chip, as it is their quality control definition which determines the rated speed of the chip. A 1.255GHz chip is most likely absolutely no different than a 1.0GHz chip, other than the fact that one passed the 1.255GHz quality test and the other only the 1.0GHz quality test (I say "most likely" because sometimes manufacturing process differences cause the jump in rated speeds, as with the AMD 2200+ to 2400+/2600+ chips).

Now, if one can give definitive evidence that the quality control standards have been seriously relaxed so that more high-rated chips come off the assembly line, please show it here. Otherwise, please stop asserting that Apple, IBM, or Motorolla is "overclocking" the chips that they manufacture and distribute.

topicolo

Aug 21, 2002, 11:34 AM

The GF4MX has the same features as the GF2 (no programmable pixel shaders, etc), but it is only a tiny bit slower than the 9000. I think you should just go for the cheapest one with the most memory if it's down to those 2

G5orbust

Aug 21, 2002, 04:58 PM

Originally posted by topicolo
The GF4MX has the same features as the GF2 (no programmable pixel shaders, etc), but it is only a tiny bit slower than the 9000. I think you should just go for the cheapest one with the most memory if it's down to those 2

the Geforce4 Mx that i have has 64 Mb of VRAM, idead of the puny 32 in the new ones.

Its a great card and i was just wondering if the Radeon 9000 is better in any significant amount. Tahnks for ur input. And, if you put the GF4 MX in a GF2 arena, it would probably be called the GF2 Ti [insert # here]. But if you compare the specs of the gf3 (origional) and the gf4 Mx 440 (the one i have), ull see the gf3 only beats it by a little bit and the gf4 beats the gf3 ti 200 by only a little bit. The only reason they're better cards is because of the independent shader functions that the gf4 mx series lacks.

MacBandit

Aug 21, 2002, 11:39 PM

Originally posted by G5orbust

the Geforce4 Mx that i have has 64 Mb of VRAM, idead of the puny 32 in the new ones.

Its a great card and i was just wondering if the Radeon 9000 is better in any significant amount. Tahnks for ur input. And, if you put the GF4 MX in a GF2 arena, it would probably be called the GF2 Ti [insert # here]. But if you compare the specs of the gf3 (origional) and the gf4 Mx 440 (the one i have), ull see the gf3 only beats it by a little bit and the gf4 beats the gf3 ti 200 by only a little bit. The only reason they're better cards is because of the independent shader functions that the gf4 mx series lacks.

Something I'm curious about is that the GF4MX in the new DDR PowerMacs is only 32 megs where as the new ones were 64megs. What I'm wondering is if we'll see much of a speed difference. Obviously we'll see some but the card can access the DDR ram with Direct Memmory Access with not a whole lot more delay or slow down in speed then the onboard memmory giving it all the memmory the system can give it at as fast as AGP 4x can give it.