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4-6 Processor Macs?

Re: No quads.

Originally posted by Brent Turbo
There will bo no quads.

1) Apple has never, and will not, overshadow their pro line with another system. And again, what's the purpose of a rack server in the first place? Small, efficient, inexpensive, scalable.

2) A quad processor G4 would cost somewhere in the ballpark of $3,499 (if not much more) and offer the performance of rack servers costing half that.

3) The current revision of the G4 chip has questionable, if not downright unstable performance in anything higher than a 2 chip configuration. Motorolla has yet to bring the chips into full compatibility with multiprocessing standards, much to Apple's shagrin.
Click to expand...

You're wrong there. Apple used to offer servers running AIX. Big towers with redundant power supplies and RAID. Rackmount servers are not necessarily small, efficient or expensive. They come in very small (blades) to very large (Sun Fire 4810-12 CPUS-$300 grand). I am 99.999% positive the G4 supports all 5-stages of the MERSI standard. So it can do MP well and transfer data chip to chip. The G3 only supported 3 stages. So in a nutshell, it's possible and hopefully they will release a quad processor (or higher) rackmount server. Maybe that will provide sufficient incentive for Oracle, IBM, Peoplesoft, etc to port their apps.
 
Originally posted by j763
It's about time for Apple to drop Motorola and use AMD. This isn't the whole x86 debate again -- just make it so that the OS always looks and checks that it's got the correct chip in it... It would be quite possible.
Click to expand...

I'm one to agree.

Motorola hasn't done it's job, has held Apple back to the point that it's really, really not funny any more!

Personally, given the roots of OS X I don't think moving to AMD iron is as complex as some think it is. It would not suprise me that buried deep within Apple somewhewre is a room that has equipment in it that is already running an x86 based version of MacOS X.

Those of us who have been around a while, especially at the Dealer level, remember the Apple Meetings with the fancy projection charts showing the x86 falling off, and the PPC shooting through the roof.

Well, the exact opposite has happened.

Folks, the x86 crowd is KICKING OUR ASS and it's time to accept that and resolve the problem.

If Motorola can't get off it's ass and do the right thing, then to hell with them. It's time to move on.

IMHO :)

TL
 
On AMD

My bet is on the first servers being G4s, probably 800 MHz to 1 GHz. If you look at the specs, the G4 just can't be pushed much further that 1 GHz. If you don't believe me just take a look at Moto's website, the have plenty of white papers to back this up. This of cource also means that you probably won't be seeing quads or six-packs anytime soon.

Since Moto hasn't yet stepped up to the plate with a G5 yet, I am guessing the guys at Apple are looking for alternatives. I wouldn't be a bit suprised to see AMD's bid on the table for the G5. It wouldn't take a whole lot of work to modify OS X for this purpose, and as long as Apple uses its own MotherBoard chip-set, it can remain very in house. The x86 hurdle is only one of many in the way of porting OS X to the WinTel world, there are still many chips on the motherboard that would have to be accounted for. It would be a major step, as another trasistion for software companies to move away from the velocity engine to the AMD 3D Now, or whatever, so soon after OS X, would be very expensive.

On the plus side, if you want a robust server, without going with SPARC, or Sun or something, x86 has always been better at handling file serving. [Flame on!]

My personal opinoin is I would love to see Apple use AMD, I'd also like to see a lot more nVidia on the Apple front. Do I think the AMD thing will happen? Well I give it maybe a 15% chance, better than nothing, put possible.

By the way, ever look closely at the parallels between the Gx series and the AMD chips. I suspect that if you take an AthlonXP and underclock it roughly by half, you would have a G4 @ 800 MHz. Less heat due to underclocking, so less heatsink, and fan is necessary. Also less power consumption.

Also, AMD probably can't buy Moto, but it could buy Moto's chip fab division!
 
x86-64

x86 will be replaced by x86-64 in the AMD world, which is even worse news for the PPC front, for all the shortfallings of x86 will be made up for with the new Opteron/Athlon release (as long as it is running an OS with applications that support the new instruction set.) I agree...Motorolla cannot compete with Intel/AMD/IBM in terms of fabrication, development, and reliability. The PPC architecture is great, but it is way behind where it should be in the scheme of things.

Apple doesn't necessarily need to dump PPC, but it needs a new chip manufacturer that can drive development at a faster rate. I am sure Apple is just running out the life of the g4 line, and eventually the ties with Motorolla will be severed. A lot of interesting moves will be made by Apple over the next 6 months.
 
Originally posted by TechLarry
Motorola hasn't done it's job, has held Apple back to the point that it's really, really not funny any more!

Personally, given the roots of OS X I don't think moving to AMD iron is as complex as some think it is. It would not suprise me that buried deep within Apple somewhewre is a room that has equipment in it that is already running an x86 based version of MacOS X.

Those of us who have been around a while, especially at the Dealer level, remember the Apple Meetings with the fancy projection charts showing the x86 falling off, and the PPC shooting through the roof.

Well, the exact opposite has happened.

Folks, the x86 crowd is KICKING OUR ASS and it's time to accept that and resolve the problem.
Click to expand...
OK, I've asked this before, but no one answered.

Assuming that OS X can be ported over to the x86 architecture, would it run any faster? Let's say we put up a 2Ghz Athlon vs. the Dual 1Ghz G4. Would OS X run faster on the Athlon than the G4?

I remember reading an article that stated that the PowerPC chip was superior to an x86 when running Linux. Even when hampered by a slower (clock) processor and bus. Leads me to think that while the G4 is slower in clock speed, it runs faster than x86's.

Besides, if Apple had a version of OS X running on x86 chips, we'd have heard something. Perhaps they did get it working, but it was so pathetically slow that they did the right thing and stopped development.

Just my thoughts.
 
Re: On AMD

Originally posted by sturm375
Also, AMD probably can't buy Moto, but it could buy Moto's chip fab division!
Click to expand...
Only if Motorola were willing to sell it. Which I would highly doubt.

Something that most of you Anti-Motorola guys tend to forget is that Apple isn't Motorola's only customer for PowerPC chips. Last I looked, Cisco was looking to use a lot of G5 chips from Motorola.

And the thought of AMD producing chips based on PowerPC architecture is just ludicrous. I don't think that Motorola would allow that to happen. They don't want anyone else trying to come in to upsurp them in supplying chips to Cisco. That's partly the reason that I feel that Motorola is unwilling to liscence Altivec to IBM.

More and more, I'm starting to believe that IBM is out and Motorola is in with G5s. With everything being Altivec-enhanced and Motorola controlling the Altivec cards.

I'm just hedging my bets. Most of my money is still on IBM providing G5s for Apple with Altivec royalties going to MOT. As long as IBM agrees not to sell G5s to the communications market.

Aggghh, but what the heck do I know.
 
Originally posted by ftaok
OK, I've asked this before, but no one answered.

Assuming that OS X can be ported over to the x86 architecture, would it run any faster? Let's say we put up a 2Ghz Athlon vs. the Dual 1Ghz G4. Would OS X run faster on the Athlon than the G4?

I remember reading an article that stated that the PowerPC chip was superior to an x86 when running Linux. Even when hampered by a slower (clock) processor and bus. Leads me to think that while the G4 is slower in clock speed, it runs faster than x86's.

Besides, if Apple had a version of OS X running on x86 chips, we'd have heard something. Perhaps they did get it working, but it was so pathetically slow that they did the right thing and stopped development.

Just my thoughts.
Click to expand...

As with all questions like this, it all depends on what application you are talking about. Even taking for instance Adobe Photoshop. Run it on a G4 vs. the lates greatest Intel/AMD, and the G4 will blow the doors off the others. This is because Adobe has optimized for the V-Engine, which the others don't have. Take for instance straight file serving, which is what a rack-mount is primearly for, and you will find that the combination of Linux (command line only, take the GUI off), and the latest Intel/AMD will blow the doors off of the G4. For Webserving, nothing beats Lin/Unix on an x86 running in command line. Are you seeing a trend here? For a powerfull server, get rid of the candy coated graphics of OS X, and stick with the command line, which I believe you can do. I don't know how, but I have heard that you can boot OS X without the GUI.

Anyway, if you want to know who is faster, you first have to specify what you want to run faster. For 3D graphics, Macs rule. For heavy duty number crunching (3D/2D Computer Aided Drafting, Simulating nucular blasts, Weather simulations, etc) the way to go is x86 or Itanium/x86-64.
 
Originally posted by sturm375
...For a powerfull server, get rid of the candy coated graphics of OS X, and stick with the command line, which I believe you can do. I don't know how, but I have heard that you can boot OS X without the GUI....
Click to expand...

Hold down Command + S on startup to boot into single user mode.
 
Originally posted by sturm375
As with all questions like this, it all depends on what application you are talking about. Even taking for instance Adobe Photoshop. Run it on a G4 vs. the lates greatest Intel/AMD, and the G4 will blow the doors off the others. This is because Adobe has optimized for the V-Engine, which the others don't have. Take for instance straight file serving, which is what a rack-mount is primearly for, and you will find that the combination of Linux (command line only, take the GUI off), and the latest Intel/AMD will blow the doors off of the G4. For Webserving, nothing beats Lin/Unix on an x86 running in command line. Are you seeing a trend here? For a powerfull server, get rid of the candy coated graphics of OS X, and stick with the command line, which I believe you can do. I don't know how, but I have heard that you can boot OS X without the GUI.

Anyway, if you want to know who is faster, you first have to specify what you want to run faster. For 3D graphics, Macs rule. For heavy duty number crunching (3D/2D Computer Aided Drafting, Simulating nucular blasts, Weather simulations, etc) the way to go is x86 or Itanium/x86-64.
Click to expand...
I'm not talking about applications or servers or such. I'm asking whether the basic operating system would run better on a PPC or x86.

People are proposing that Apple switches over completely from PPC to x86. I'm asking whether OS X (the basic GUI interface) would run better on a Dual 1Ghz G4 system or on a 2Ghz Athlon. I'm just suggesting that maybe Apple has already done this and the performance of the GUI was unnacceptable. I don't know, as I'm not an insider.
 
Originally posted by ftaok
I'm not talking about applications or servers or such. I'm asking whether the basic operating system would run better on a PPC or x86.

People are proposing that Apple switches over completely from PPC to x86. I'm asking whether OS X (the basic GUI interface) would run better on a Dual 1Ghz G4 system or on a 2Ghz Athlon. I'm just suggesting that maybe Apple has already done this and the performance of the GUI was unnacceptable. I don't know, as I'm not an insider.
Click to expand...

It depends greatly on how much work is put into the project to optimize for the respective machines. If you just take out the V-Engine that accelerates some graphics and port to x86, sure it will run slower. However if you also use some standard OpenGL API calls, and use a decent Graphics card (like a TNT2 or better), you should get equal if not better preformance.

The preformance of OS X is heavily tied to graphics. Thus it took the better part of a year to get it to run good enought for consumers (10.1). The same preformance tweaks must be done, for other graphics chips for the preformance to match on the WinTel side.

Another thing I hadn't thought of until now, imagine if 90+% of the computer users could "print to PDF". What would Adobe thing about that? Thinking about that, I would bet that Adobe would put some major pressure on Apple Not to persue porting to the WinTel world.
 
Darwin is cool

I could imagine Apple possibly (very remotely possibly) having a server that ran on some x86 hardware, ran the Darwin Kernel, and did not run Quartz. Server Apps should work just fine. The beauty of the Microkernel.

There could be some decent admin apps on the machine, It could run xfree86 with windowmaker or sawfish. It could also be administered through a secure encrypted connection from a server admin app from a real OS X machine. The even cooler benefit of the encrypted connection would be that you would be able to run the admin app over wireless.

The beauty of OS X with servers is that you can also fire up SSH and get a console connection, and with any decent server app, be able to twiddle any config bit and restart processes.

It would be like the Apple server they had that run on AIX. That was a beast. It sure was purty ;)
 
Originally posted by ftaok
I'm not talking about applications or servers or such. I'm asking whether the basic operating system would run better on a PPC or x86.

People are proposing that Apple switches over completely from PPC to x86. I'm asking whether OS X (the basic GUI interface) would run better on a Dual 1Ghz G4 system or on a 2Ghz Athlon. I'm just suggesting that maybe Apple has already done this and the performance of the GUI was unnacceptable. I don't know, as I'm not an insider.
Click to expand...

In the case of one 2000+ Athlon vs. two 1 GHz G4 the advantage is dependent on the use but the G4 will probably win in most cases. The fact is, though, that the G4 is nowhere near half as expensive as the Athlon chips, so a more honest evaluation would be two 2000+ Athlons to two 1 GHz G4s. In that case, yes, Athlons win hands down. For some reason people want to compare chips rated at the same clock speeds when they should be comparing chips at the same price. No one would demand that when looking at servers you should compare UltraSPARC III systems only to Pentium or Athlon systems with processors at the same speed and in the same number. Why? Because a machine with two UltraSPARC III's @ 750 MHz costs $13,000 and a machine with two 1.13GHz Pentium III's costs $2100. From a monetary perspective it's not a sensible comparison. Neither is two top of the line G4s versus 1 top-of the-line Athlon. Currently in a cost comparison the only place PPC's win out is in the heat generation and power requirements. BTW, this doesn't mean I put even the smallest amount of faith into the idea that Apple would switch to x86.
 
Originally posted by ftaok
I'm not talking about applications or servers or such. I'm asking whether the basic operating system would run better on a PPC or x86.

People are proposing that Apple switches over completely from PPC to x86. I'm asking whether OS X (the basic GUI interface) would run better on a Dual 1Ghz G4 system or on a 2Ghz Athlon. I'm just suggesting that maybe Apple has already done this and the performance of the GUI was unnacceptable. I don't know, as I'm not an insider.
Click to expand...

Just to clear things up. Darwin (ie. no GUI) will run on x86. Aqua will not. I would suspect OS X with no gui will run faster on the Athlon. Single/Dual G4 vs. Single/Dual Athlon. Altivec would provide no advantage in this situation so the winner would be the higher clocked AMD (or Intel) chip. Who knows. In any case, you can't just throw OS X on an Athlon. EVERY application would need to be recompiled and I can bet you they haven't ported Aqua or Quartz to x86. They haven't gotten it to work correctly on PPC.
 
target market/pricing; alt CPU producer; SMP

A number of posts have explicitly and implicitly ruled out quad processors because of price. I strongly disagree with that belief because its all a matter of target market. Most people that read this forum do NOT qualify; most of us do not use or need to use racked servers.

Those who do employ racked servers tend to have much deeper pockets. Undoubtedly, Apple will stagger their rack product line to align with different sub-segments. Most potential customers would be satisfied with single and dual CPU solutions. Other firms, such as those that desire rendering farms, would happily shell out more than say an educational facility that only needs to host an intranet and Internet websites.

So, I expect at least three different rack offerings: single, dual, and quad CPU's.

As for CPU type, I say that the probability for the G4 driving these servers is in the upper 90%. Further, I don't know if the CPU's will be replaceable within the blades themselves. Apple doesn't seem to like such upgrades. But this is a different market segment. Removable CPU's might give us a little hope that G5's are near.

As pointed out in this thread, the G3 only complies with three of the five MERSI standards. So, no G3 as we know it. I don't know about the G3 Sahara or the other G3's from IBM that Apple hasn't employed.

As for AMD producing CPU's for Apple, this would only happen if Apple moves to the x86. I haven't verified this myself but I have read that AMD has little excess capacity to add another production line. Apple cannot guarantee high enough volume to AMD to justify the risk and cost of this.

Apple is very unlikely to abandon AltiVec. So, I expect that Apple will finally exercise the rumored option that it has with Motorola, if it feels that Motorola cannot be relied upon (not a tough sell for most of us BTW). The question that I have never seen answered is what intellectual property would this so-called option include? Would it include AltiVec? SOI? What else?

If Apple exercises the rumored option, then Apple can outsource production to IBM, Matsu****a, or any one or more of many other proficient manufacturers. This would probably require Apple, however, to play a greater role in semiconductor design. Given its increasingly close relationship with nVidia, this sounds reasonable.

An O'Reilly article states that Apple heavily encouraged developers to cater to SMP in their coding. Not that this is anything new, but with Apple possibly strategically moving their low-end products to G4, Apple significantly increases its volume to Motorola, decreasing unit costs.

Quartz Extreme may represent a new means that the masses can more readily understand for Apple to differentiate between consumer and product lines because Motorola's been slow to offer faster G4's or new G5's. Consumer models would have slower video cards, pros faster (nothing terribly new of course). But Quartz Extreme makes this more important.

Off-topic: BTW, I don't think that QE is only about performance. I suspect that it also has a LOT to do with improved graphics display quality for the GUI.

Eirik
 
quad

Dude, of course they're gonna be quads

They have to be more powerful than the pro line. If they release G5s for the towers, they'll leave the Racks, Tibooks, ibooks, imacs, emacs, etc etc in the G4 mark.....and then they need to make the racks more powerful before they come out with dual processor tibooks

but thats another story

the point is: quads are really likely, and they will be most excellent and rock

Thanks.
 
Originally posted by sturm375
...For a powerfull server, get rid of the candy coated graphics of OS X, and stick with the command line, which I believe you can do. I don't know how, but I have heard that you can boot OS X without the GUI....
Click to expand...

Yeah - that's called Darwin - go download it at http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/darwin

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


Hold down Command + S on startup to boot into single user mode.
Click to expand...
That works, but it's not something you want to do for a server.
 
[About single user mode]
Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
That works, but it's not something you want to do for a server.
Click to expand...

Unless you totally foul up your server so that it won't boot. Someone at work did it for one of our DNS servers, they were trying to compile in a new ethernet driver and it hung the machine on start up <doh>
 
Call me stupid, but if I really had to bet my life on this I would bet the next Apple processor will be based on PowerPC not x86...anybody willing to bet their life different???? Common someone has to step up to the plate. When the PowerPC G5 is here we will see how many suggest that Apple should go with x86 and AMD and Intel.

POWER PC RULEZ NO MATTER WHAT ALL YOU x86 lovers think...(okay I am drunk...but hey I stick behind Macs and PowerPC's because I think different)
 
drunk!!!

Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
Call me stupid, but if I really had to bet my life on this I would bet the next Apple processor will be based on PowerPC not x86...anybody willing to bet their life different???? Common someone has to step up to the plate. When the PowerPC G5 is here we will see how many suggest that Apple should go with x86 and AMD and Intel.

POWER PC RULEZ NO MATTER WHAT ALL YOU x86 lovers think...(okay I am drunk...but hey I stick behind Macs and PowerPC's because I think different)
Click to expand...

Pity you're evidently in S. Dakota. I could use a few beers about now!

:cool:
 
Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
POWER PC RULEZ NO MATTER WHAT ALL YOU x86 lovers think...(okay I am drunk...but hey I stick behind Macs and PowerPC's because I think different)
Click to expand...

Better watch out, the anti-zealot committee might here you.
 
OSX on AMD

Originally posted by j763
It's about time for Apple to drop Motorola and use AMD. This isn't the whole x86 debate again -- just make it so that the OS always looks and checks that it's got the correct chip in it... It would be quite possible.
Click to expand...

The big problem here is that even if Apple got OS X to run on an x86 CPU (and they can, since NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP did), you would need all new software, since your PPC applications would not run on the new processor.

This is the same deal with Linux x86 vs. Linux PPC, except you can't recompile most Mac software.

Apple needs to do something though, and fast!
 
Re: OSX on AMD

Originally posted by DavidRavenMon


The big problem here is that even if Apple got OS X to run on an x86 CPU (and they can, since NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP did), you would need all new software, since your PPC applications would not run on the new processor.

This is the same deal with Linux x86 vs. Linux PPC, except you can't recompile most Mac software.

Apple needs to do something though, and fast!
Click to expand...

?????

I'm not a programmer anymore and I never wrote a major application. BUT, as I understand it, one programs to the operating systems API's. So, if Apple and partners were to develop compilers for MacOS on x86, then it should recompile. Now, Apple may have to lose and gain a few API's, however. But then again, AltiVec is very generalized matrix operations as opposed to x86 SIMD.

So, I don't understand your post. As far as I know, even Adobe doesn't program to a specific CPU.
 
Originally posted by peterjhill
[About single user mode]
Unless you totally foul up your server so that it won't boot. Someone at work did it for one of our DNS servers, they were trying to compile in a new ethernet driver and it hung the machine on start up <doh>
Click to expand...
Yeah - that's exactly what it's for.

I just meant you wouldn't want to do it to make your OS-X box a gui-less server.

As a side note, I tried running the dnetc ( www.distributed.net ) benchmarks under single user mode and the benchmarks were, basically, the same as when I normally run them from the terminal app. Kinda wierd.
 
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