970's, to single or to dual?

[MacManiac1224]

That is the question, isn't it? If Apple has this radical chip, why would they put duals on it? First of all, they have to have enough chips, so that already causes a problem, since this is a new chip. So, if these chips are so much faster then G4's, will they just slap a dual in the high end machine, and have a line up like this:
1.4
1.6
DP 1.8

I don't know, but I am guessing Apple is going to want to milk us for all we got, so they will lower prices a little, and give a line up like this. I hope this is not true, but it is possible. Personally if a dual 1.6 970 comes out, and it is hopefully below $1999, I am going to buy one.

What do you guys thiink?

 

[yzedf]

IMO, the point of updating the proc is to get away from dual machines, except for the true 'high end' machines. G4's are dual proc for one reason, lack of speed. Single proc 970's at a reasonable price, that can compete with the latest P4's on everything (not just a couple PS filters that are both dual proc and Altivec aware), would sell like mad. Having the option to buy a nice dual 1.8GHz like you suggest would be great.

This is all assuming that the 970 is something other than a flight of fancy...

 

[xelterran]

Surely, if they are comming from IBM they wont have a problem getting hold of enough chips to make duals?
Im guessing they will all be duals and perhaps a low-end cheaper one with just a single chip.

 

[GroundLoop]

There should be Duals

My guess is that there SHOULD be at least one dual processor offering from the beginning. It is true that Apple switched to duals because Motorola was hoorible at advancing the G4 line of processors. But Apple wasn't the only one upgrading. Many of the latest software release have included and even optimized for dual processors. I find it hard to believe that Quark would go through all of the trouble to get dual processor friendly (according to rumors) at the exact time when Apple decides to go back to a single processor configuration across the board.

All I am saying is software that has been optimized for duals are going to be hurt (slightly) by going to a single processor. The performance of the processor will offset this, but apple should offer at least one DP system so they can show favorable benchmark results.

Hickman

 

[Jimong5]

Originally posted by yzedf
IMO, the point of updating the proc is to get away from dual machines, except for the true 'high end' machines. G4's are dual proc for one reason, lack of speed.

I disagree with you here... Firstly, a Dual CPU Computer offerers no speed increase over a regular app unless its optimized. however, the Speed in not the point of duals, Duals are installed for multitasking mainly. The point of a Dual G4 system isnt so much blasting through PS filters, but more so Playing say, WarCraft 3 at full speed while doing so.

 

[ZeeOwl]

Duals? Maybe later...

My educated guess is that Apple will be releasing single-processor machines first. Followed by a dual model a few months later. Three reasons:

1) A single 970 is probably faster than a dual G4. So for marketing reasons, there's no need to go to duals right now. Besides, I would think that they won't want to make the G4 look like total crap. Image.

2) Initial demand for a new machine is always really high. Especially for something this much better. So they'll want to use the first processor shipments as efficiently as possible.

3) Apple is a for-profit corporation. They'll want to stretch the sales value of this as much as possible. i.e.: sell as many single-processor machines as they can, and then announce the dual (my guess is only 1 model with the highest clock rate for high-end apps), to sell as many of these faster machines as they can once market forces require it (as in faster PCs becoming available).

 

[yzedf]

Originally posted by Jimong5
I disagree with you here... Firstly, a Dual CPU Computer offerers no speed increase over a regular app unless its optimized. however, the Speed in not the point of duals, Duals are installed for multitasking mainly. The point of a Dual G4 system isnt so much blasting through PS filters, but more so Playing say, WarCraft 3 at full speed while doing so.

Which a Pentium 4 or newer AMD Athlon XP can do.

Thank you for making my point

Seriously... the G4 sucks. That is why (slow to ramp up the speeds, slow bus, slow memory etc) the PM had to go dual G4. No choice really. With the 970, if it exists for Apple to use, will erase the need for dual proc (if the PR benchmarks can be believed).

Think of it...

1. Faster processor
2. Less expensive PowerMac
3. Profit!!!

 

[Tim Flynn]

They need to keep the dual processor plan going. In the Intel world, they're going to the HyperThreaded (HT) models. We have to wait (apparently) for the 980 to get multi-threaded. So to keep up and hopefully ahead. The higher end should be dual 970s.
I like the followinf scenario :
- single 1.4 G 970
- dual 1.6 G 970
- dual 1.8 G 970 - top end.

( hopefully soon to be followed by the 2.5 G models)

The 980 duals will look like a quad processor machine.

I think the *nixes are more stable than the Windows OSes when running dual processors. So Apple keep the advantage.

 

[Zeke]

I think they'll have at least one dual since that's better for top end power. We'll see though, if they have singles they should be really affordable since IBM can manufacture these quite well.

 

[MisterMe]

Originally posted by Jimong5
I disagree with you here... Firstly, a Dual CPU Computer offerers no speed increase over a regular app unless its optimized. however, the Speed in not the point of duals, Duals are installed for multitasking mainly. The point of a Dual G4 system isnt so much blasting through PS filters, but more so Playing say, WarCraft 3 at full speed while doing so.

You would be right if the Mac still shipped with System 5. MacOS X a multi-user, multi-tasking OS. Even if your primary application is the most CPU-hogging ill-behaved piece of code known to man, it can only grab one processor. The second processor is still available for everything else you want to do.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

its been stated a lot of times but i would suspect a 1.4, 1.8 and dual 1.8. Also i would like to point out that there has been very little mention as to what video cards these beauty's will be armed with???Lets hope mx crap is gone, and a top high end option like fx 5900 or ati9800. ???

 

[springscansing]

Originally posted by MisterMe
You would be right if the Mac still shipped with System 5. MacOS X a multi-user, multi-tasking OS. Even if your primary application is the most CPU-hogging ill-behaved piece of code known to man, it can only grab one processor. The second processor is still available for everything else you want to do.

Um.. did you read his whole post? He said that. Drop the 'tude, bitch.

 

[Cubeboy]

Single PPC970s for the low/mainstream Powermacs to compete with the P4/Athlon desktops

Dual PPC970s for the high end Powermacs to compete with the Dual Xeon/Dual Opteron workstations.

Quad/Eight/Sixteen PPC970s with larger caches for Xserves to compete with Deerfield/Opteron/Xeon servers.

 

[zuggerat]

why not have the option of dualing any processor in the line up while still having singles in every selection as well?

 

[Nermal]

Originally posted by zuggerat
why not have the option of dualing any processor in the line up while still having singles in every selection as well?

I think I read somewhere that the 970 is unlike the G4 when it comes to dualling. The G4 had one socket that you plugged 2 CPUs into, but apparently a dual 970 requires a motherboard with 2 sockets. And Apple may not want to ship every system with 2 sockets (at higher cost) just "in case" the user wants to upgrade to a dual.

While we're at it, in a dual system, do both CPUs have to be of the same speed?

 

[yzedf]

Originally posted by Nermal
I think I read somewhere that the 970 is unlike the G4 when it comes to dualling. The G4 had one socket that you plugged 2 CPUs into, but apparently a dual 970 requires a motherboard with 2 sockets. And Apple may not want to ship every system with 2 sockets (at higher cost) just "in case" the user wants to upgrade to a dual.

While we're at it, in a dual system, do both CPUs have to be of the same speed?

2 sockets is better than one. More choices for physical orientation on the board. It's not like making 2 different boards is big deal...

Not only same speed, but same model also.

 

[zuggerat]

if thats the case stock both motherboards since they take specific customer orders on the web store. think of the dual motherboard for people who have extra money to kill and like to up-grade till the end of time

 

[Sol]

There should be Duals, Quads & Octads

Originally posted by Brian Hickman
All I am saying is software that has been optimized for duals are going to be hurt (slightly) by going to a single processor. The performance of the processor will offset this, but apple should offer at least one DP system so they can show favorable benchmark results.

I believe that now, after years of dual-G4 systems, Apple will make the most of the software that is optimized for dual processors and Altivec. If one 970 is more powerful than the Pentium and AMD processors then imagine how far ahead Apple's PowerMacs will look with twice the 970.

Being multi-processor capable is something that has taken years to achieve in both hardware and software and now that the 970 is near should Apple simply throw away all those optimizations? I think not.

 

[seamuskrat]

Duals (I Hope)

Apple has so brainwashed us that dual G4 is better than single G4, I think they are committed to the dual high end line.
970 initial speeds will STILL be lower than P4 speeds, so in order to be competative, we still NEED duals for sales and switchers.
What is great is if the 970 is half as good as we hope, and we have two of them, then the high end system swill be quite spunky.

 

[adamfilip]

i can see Steve at the keynote

we have decided to introduce new PowerMacs

an all new case deserves and all new processor..

IBM make the 970 chips.. from our own internal benchmarks. the ibm 970 cpu at 1.6ghz is 2.3 times faster the the g4 1.4
making this the fastest processor we have ever used in a mac.

but for fun we just decided to throw in another one!

 

[Flynnstone]

Originally posted by Nermal
I think I read somewhere that the 970 is unlike the G4 when it comes to dualling. The G4 had one socket that you plugged 2 CPUs into, but apparently a dual 970 requires a motherboard with 2 sockets. And Apple may not want to ship every system with 2 sockets (at higher cost) just "in case" the user wants to upgrade to a dual.

While we're at it, in a dual system, do both CPUs have to be of the same speed?

The daughtercard into one socket on the mother board is more expensive than two sockets on the motherboard. Basically this dual arrangement was a hack (that works). What else could Apple do?
But since Apple was forced into duals, (to compete with the Wintels) they got plenty of experience with duals, so they should use it.

Apple's cost extra for the extra socket is a buck or two. They will likely leave the socket off on singles to prevent "us" from simply adding a second processor.