Yeah, the progressive optimization of each incarnation of OS X makes you wonder if it's a grand scheme to get the new versions sold... you know. Speed benefits always perk the ears of the customer (myself included) 
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AMD lied about 64 bit OPERTON!
- Thread starter The Reaper
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Originally posted by io_burn
Meh, I registered here because I'm interested in purchasing a G5 and a PowerBook (as soon as the're revised) in the next few months to replace my PC's. It's just amazingly disappointing to see the complete Apple fanboys I'd be allying myself with. According to these forums, this is the only benchmark Apple needs to provide for the G5 to sell it to you guys:
And that's just kind of sad.
wait, wait, let me see if I understand what you're saying. It's sad to base computer purchasing decisions on what operating system the computer runs???
Ok, I've got a computer for you... a P4 at 5 Ghz with 4 gigs of RAM... but it can only run Windows 95. Do you want it?
No, my point is that it's silly that every aguement on these forums no matter how wrong or right either side may be is "Well can (whatever) run Mac OS X?"
Reminds me of back in gradeschool when the end-all of any quarrel was "Well my dad can beat up your dad."
Reminds me of back in gradeschool when the end-all of any quarrel was "Well my dad can beat up your dad."
Personally I just wish "Apple" would come out and say if they are going to write drivers for the Pro graphics cards for the G5 or not.If the answer is no then the 3D pros and studios are not going to buy the G5 anyway,and SJ is not going to elbow his way into that market.
Stu.
Stu.
-io_burn
Actually, it's a very viable argument. As most persons here will attest, myself included, we live in a Windows world, and many of us own Windows machines. We've been there. We have an understanding that Windows-only persons can't - it's just logic.
OS X is only a part of the equation, but it's a good one. If you are really interested in a purchase of a G5 and not just trolling, you will find yourself snacking (happily) on the words you've laid out here.
I then ask you this: If most Mac users also us PC's, why do we prefer the Mac?
Hmmm...
-Mac Kiwi
What 3D cards are you referring need Apple to make drivers for? If you are talking OpenGL's like nVidia or ATI, they already exist at the OS level, not tack-ons like drivers.
Can you prove that Itanium lacks price/performance? UltraSPARC III, Alpha, Power4, PA-RISC, and MIPS cpus all cost just as much if not considerably more than a Itanium 2 but I've yet to see any examples of any better performance on standard applications and benchmarks. What I do see is Itanium 2 outperforming most or all these chips in many areas commonly associated with these kinds of cpus (High Performance Computing, Database Transaction Processing, Computer Aided Engineering to name a few) and we're definitely not just talking about SPEC mind you.
Also, Intel's Deerfield Itanium processor will be a dual processor mid range-high end workstation slated for release mid-late this year so their will be some competition between it and the G5 considering that both systems will be used in similar tasks.
Have to agree with Patrick on this one, overall user experience is the one of the key points to consider when buying a personal computer (price being the other) and Macs have been well known to offer the best user experience out of all the desktop/laptop vendors. OSX being a solid, reliable, robust, and generally very well thought out OS (unlike Windows XP, which I use regularly for programming) has alot to do with this and I think thats the reason most of us feel so attached to it.
I agree with cubeboy, the Itanium has it's place. Playing games on it, running windows, stuff 99% of this board does on their computer, is not what it is designed to do. Regardless of what people on this board may think, Intel isn't stupid. They are very good at designing chips and fabricating them. The itanium has its place and does well for its price.
The main problem with the Itanium, as I see it, is not that it isn't sufficiently fast/powerful, as it is both. It is more to do with the fact that its architecture is so advanced compared to the majority of chips that it will be a good long time before a compiler is available that makes full use of its optimizations; the Itanium's VLIW (i hope I got my buzzword right) architecture depends on a lot of decisions formerly made at the CPU level being made during compilation; it is only with full usage of its architecture that the Itanium can really shine and as long as that remains elusive (as it is right now), the Itanium will be little more than a "could-be" processor, as with unoptimized code it behaves like the 1 ghz CPU it is.
You don't have any freedom with a PowerMac.
Let's try add some SCSI drives inside the G5 tower, not possible.
You have to buy some lame external SCSI enclosures to make it happen.
Well in my tower i can have up to 9 SCSI drives.
What you buy from Apple is what you get, and that's, don't touch, please can i add some more RAM?
Yes but you have to ship the PowerMac to us.....
I don't really like the attitude of Apple, do they think all Mac users are dumb?
Well, the majority non-Mac users think so if you ask, is it the users fault? No, it's Apple's fault.
You buy expensive Apple hardware that they built, later on if you want something faster you buy something called "Overdrive" or something....
In x86 world you just buy the motherboard and CPU that fits you best and you install it yourself, and voila! you have a new computer.
If my powersupply get burned i just buy a new PSU, i don't need to call stupid Apple Support hotline that tells me that i am stupid and wait for the PSU in 4 weeks or more.
With x86 hardware i can run any OS nearly, i can make FreeBSD act and work like MacOSX, you just need brains then it's up to you.
Opteron is nice CPU and it's the same performance as the G5, so you are totally wrong.
Opteron is better because you can run 64-bit Linux with it, specially SuSE 64-bit.
I am really frustrated as you can see but i am really tired of reading all messages and almost all here seems so friggin handicaped when it gets more advanced and Apple can't help you.
Now i'm telling myself to shutup before i get any further.....
Let's try add some SCSI drives inside the G5 tower, not possible.
You have to buy some lame external SCSI enclosures to make it happen.
Well in my tower i can have up to 9 SCSI drives.
What you buy from Apple is what you get, and that's, don't touch, please can i add some more RAM?
Yes but you have to ship the PowerMac to us.....
I don't really like the attitude of Apple, do they think all Mac users are dumb?
Well, the majority non-Mac users think so if you ask, is it the users fault? No, it's Apple's fault.
You buy expensive Apple hardware that they built, later on if you want something faster you buy something called "Overdrive" or something....
In x86 world you just buy the motherboard and CPU that fits you best and you install it yourself, and voila! you have a new computer.
If my powersupply get burned i just buy a new PSU, i don't need to call stupid Apple Support hotline that tells me that i am stupid and wait for the PSU in 4 weeks or more.
With x86 hardware i can run any OS nearly, i can make FreeBSD act and work like MacOSX, you just need brains then it's up to you.
Opteron is nice CPU and it's the same performance as the G5, so you are totally wrong.
Opteron is better because you can run 64-bit Linux with it, specially SuSE 64-bit.
I am really frustrated as you can see but i am really tired of reading all messages and almost all here seems so friggin handicaped when it gets more advanced and Apple can't help you.
Now i'm telling myself to shutup before i get any further.....
You are essentially correct in your understanding of VLIW, basically, the compiler breaks down program instructions into very basic operations (of which the CPU can perform many simultaneously). The operations are than put into a Very Long Instruction Word (hence the term VLIW) and sent to the CPU where it is taken apart and passed off to the appropriate device.
HP and Intel compilers both do a pretty good job of producing code for the Itanium, hence the excellent showings in SPEC/Linpack/Lapack, I would doubt that 2000+ points on SPECfp is possible with a compiler that produces hostile code especially considering how much VLIW depends on the compiler.
I don't think it's as much Itanium reaching it's full potential as it is beating it's RISC competitors which it does a pretty good job of already. As long as it continues to provide top notch performance in areas associated with these chips, the Itanium market can only grow.
AMD don't sell the Opteron in a single processor config do they? just wondering about that...
about the Itanium... if it is a dual-processor system can it use one processor to run in 32-bit mode and the other proc to run in 64-bit mode? would this allow 32-bit and 64-bit apps to run at the same time without any emulation?
about the Itanium... if it is a dual-processor system can it use one processor to run in 32-bit mode and the other proc to run in 64-bit mode? would this allow 32-bit and 64-bit apps to run at the same time without any emulation?
Yes their is the Opteron 140 (140, 142, 144) series which are designed to run in single processor configurations.
Itanium can be used in single, dual, quad and larger configurations, their is support for IA32 but it's fairly bad right now and I doubt it can run one processor in 32 bit and the other in 64 bit by default.
Originally posted by io_burn
Actually, I use both PC's (at work) and Macs (at work and at home) of varying speeds. I would MUCH RATHER use a 600Mhz G3 than a 3GHZ P4. Why you ask? My very educated, long-term experience (which in no way is simply following a herd) leads me the simple conclusion that for DESKTOP USE (ie MULTIPLE simultaneous application use) there is no comparing the user experience of Windoze to the user experience of Mac OSX AT ANY SPEED.
To each their own, but THANK YOU very much for a clear, concise benchmark graphic that demonstrates very intelligently why the phrase "but will XX run OS X" appears here on a regular basis!
Originally posted by Likvid
Now i'm telling myself to shutup before i get any further.....
-Likvid
You've said quite enough. Clearly you have zero experience with Macs.
Let's try add some SCSI drives inside the G5 tower, not possible.
You're right, I'll grant you, one has room for only two drives in this enclosure. That's not to say one cannot be a SCSI though.
You have to buy some lame external SCSI enclosures to make it happen.
Umm. No. But you can if you really want. Are you that married to SCSI?
Well in my tower i can have up to 9 SCSI drives.
That's great, how's your power supply? If it can, in fact, handle 9 drives plus the MoBo, how's the heat? And if you machine can handle the power requirements of the drives and the fans to manage the heat, I hope you have a 20-amp circuit breaker on that outlet, and not just a 15.
What the H*** are you doing with 9 SCSI drives?!? Oh, right. You don't have 9 drives - nor have any plans to own that many. You're trying to make a point, but using false pretenses.
What you buy from Apple is what you get, and that's, don't touch, please can i add some more RAM?
Patently wrong here. Sure, go ahead.
Yes but you have to ship the PowerMac to us.....
What are you talking about?!?
I don't really like the attitude of Apple, do they think all Mac users are dumb?
Not all, but there are dumb people everywhere
Well, the majority non-Mac users think so if you ask, is it the users fault? No, it's Apple's fault.
Can you clarify this? Clear as mud.
You buy expensive Apple hardware that they built, later on if you want something faster you buy something called "Overdrive" or something....
Wow. I don't know where you get your info, but I think it's about 10 years old - at least in this case. I just buy a new Processor card.
In x86 world you just buy the motherboard and CPU that fits you best and you install it yourself, and voila! you have a new computer.
Oh, right, I forgot, that processor card allows me to go from one processor to two. Can the Wintel world do that? No. And forget running XP on a DP system anyway.
Explanation of the Processor card: It's called a Processor Daughtercard and has the caches on board. It's more than a ZIF processor slot (Macs have been there - done that)
If my powersupply get burned i just buy a new PSU, i don't need to call stupid Apple Support hotline that tells me that i am stupid and wait for the PSU in 4 weeks or more.
Neither do we. But if we are under warranty or Applecare, we will call to get a FREE one. And we'll get it in three days.
With x86 hardware i can run any OS nearly, i can make FreeBSD act and work like MacOSX, you just need brains then it's up to you.
Riiiight. Sure you can. Calling Apple for IP violations...
Opteron is nice CPU and it's the same performance as the G5, so you are totally wrong.
Totally wrong about what? Same performance? No.
Oh, and don't forget the 1ghz busses, two processors, and AltiVec.
Opteron is better because you can run 64-bit Linux with it, specially SuSE 64-bit.
Better because I can run 64-bit Linux with it? Ok, clearly you have an issue. You were just saying you could write your own version of OS X - now you want 64-bit Linux?
How do you know it won't run on the G5?
I am really frustrated as you can see but i am really tired of reading all messages and almost all here seems so friggin handicaped when it gets more advanced and Apple can't help you.
Handicapped. This wasn't even a good trolling. Thanks for playing, don't smack yourself with the door.
Originally posted by Likvid
You don't have any freedom with a PowerMac.
Let's try add some SCSI drives inside the G5 tower, not possible.
You have to buy some lame external SCSI enclosures to make it happen.
Well in my tower i can have up to 9 SCSI drives.
What you buy from Apple is what you get, and that's, don't touch, please can i add some more RAM?
Yes but you have to ship the PowerMac to us.....
I don't really like the attitude of Apple, do they think all Mac users are dumb?
Well, the majority non-Mac users think so if you ask, is it the users fault? No, it's Apple's fault.
You buy expensive Apple hardware that they built, later on if you want something faster you buy something called "Overdrive" or something....
In x86 world you just buy the motherboard and CPU that fits you best and you install it yourself, and voila! you have a new computer.
If my powersupply get burned i just buy a new PSU, i don't need to call stupid Apple Support hotline that tells me that i am stupid and wait for the PSU in 4 weeks or more.
With x86 hardware i can run any OS nearly, i can make FreeBSD act and work like MacOSX, you just need brains then it's up to you.
Opteron is nice CPU and it's the same performance as the G5, so you are totally wrong.
Opteron is better because you can run 64-bit Linux with it, specially SuSE 64-bit.
I am really frustrated as you can see but i am really tired of reading all messages and almost all here seems so friggin handicaped when it gets more advanced and Apple can't help you.
Now i'm telling myself to shutup before i get any further.....
You should've told yourself to shut up before you started to type.
The G5 has no need for SCSI. Instead of supporting that, they went with serial ATA, and if I am correct, they are the first computer manufacturer (I'm not talking about build-it-yourself systems) to include serial ATA standard. Serial ATA is much better than SCSI, and Apple is really helping you out, to get you to migrate from an older, slower system to a newer, faster one.
Adding RAM in any Mac these days is a no-brainer. If you have to send your computer to Apple to put RAM in, yet you can build your own PC, you are just plain stupid. You can also upgrade using the PCI card slots (and with the last PowerMac G4, I believe you could add 4 SCSI drives with a PCI card...)
As for the processor upgrades, the latest PowerMacs use zif sockets to hold the processor card. Want to upgrade? Just take out the old processor and put in the new. As long as the new processor is designed to work with you're system, everything will work.
The reason you can't just rip out the mobo in your PowerMac, and put in a new one, is called quality control. Apple builds the computers with certain parts, knowing that they will work together properly. This lets Apple squeeze more performance out of almost every part of the system. Instead of designing their OS to run on many different types of systems, they can design their OS to run on their hardware, offering you a level of compatibility hardly seen in the windows world. Besides, only Apple, and a few other companies use or even make PowerPC motherboards and processors.
Once again, with the power supply, Apple wants to ensure that you are using the right parts with their product. While you may know what you're doing, there are people out there who might not know that messing with different power supplies can seriously screw up their computer, or cause even more problems. This again, is called quality control.
The purpose of Apple is not to make a computer that you can rip apart and put back together. For that type of thing, go build your own PC.
Apple makes computers that people like graphic designers, artists, movie makers, teachers, students, businessmen, and tons of other people can use without having to worry about what's under the hood, or setting up hardware, or configuring the BIOS to work with your CPU. These things, while almost normal in the PC world, are a pain in the ass, and if you're actually trying to get work done, you don't want to have to be screwing around with your computer's settings.
Just a couple of days ago, I was at a LAN party, where there was a computer that blew a power supply. Why did it blow? Because he was using it incorrectly. He put too much strain on it, and it just died on him. While he was able to put in another power supply, he also had to tinker with his BIOS settings, since his processor wasn't working right, and his computer wouldn't recognize some of his hardware. This guy was A+ certified, and so was another guy who was helping him. They also had to re-install windows at a LAN party!. This would've never (ok, so maybe there's a one in a hundred-million chance) happened with a Mac, because Apple puts in the right parts so that they can work together without any problems, so you can do what you want to with your computer, and I know for sure that I want a computer I can use, not just take apart and put back together again.
Now, can anybody tell me where this swarm of n00b trolls has come from?
No kidding?!
No kidding!
I think from now on if you haven't made at least 20 productive posts to this forum then you simply cannot post at all!
heh
No kidding!
I think from now on if you haven't made at least 20 productive posts to this forum then you simply cannot post at all!
heh
-G4scott
Methinks they are compelled to flood the Mac boards from the Land of Wintel Sour Grapes since the anouncement of the upcoming recrowning of the Mac with the Speed/Power mantle.
Personally, I find it kind of funny that that come at us with such drivel - rumor at worst, outdated information at best.
I actually had a little evil fun debunking Likvid's trolling.
I almost fee dirty. Almost.
17 monkeys locked in a room throwing their sh*t at the answer key could pass the A+ exam. Its not really a measure of how much somebody knows about a computer. As for all that other stuff that happened at the LAN party.....sh*t happens. And it was his fault for running too many things on the P/S. I think its a dumb thing to say that "there is a hundred million in one chance that this would happen on a mac" because macs run within specifications too, if you run them outside of those, they will break. Its not a PC or a Mac problem if I put 10 scsi drives a P4 and an AGP Pro card on a 150 watt powersupply....its me being dumb. If you use the right parts in a PC, quality ones like apple does, then it will happen once in a hundred million times as well.
No, that's fine. What's poor is performance on Itanium machines running regular applications, not hand-tweaked benchmarks using compilers unavailable to the public.
How does Photoshop perform on an Itanium production shipping computer, running Windows? Anyone know? Come on, out with it.
As for the Opteron fans, I think the Opteron will be a good processor. It will run both 32- and 64-bit code at acceptable speeds, and will be the processor of choice for the Windows crowd. But I have yet to see one, whereas I have seen dozens of G5s... and I don't expect to see an Opteron machine, whether custom-built or Dell, anytime soon. If you think you can get a mobo, go ahead.
That's the point . . .
The point of this thread (or one of them) is to differentiate between the DESKTOP (i.e. multiple uses like Word Processing, Photoshop, email, etc., etc.)
Your point is precisely appreciated in the fact that the Itanium is NOT a Desktop processor due to software optimization issues. This may change in the future but it is not a competitor to the G5 as of now.
The point of this thread (or one of them) is to differentiate between the DESKTOP (i.e. multiple uses like Word Processing, Photoshop, email, etc., etc.)
Your point is precisely appreciated in the fact that the Itanium is NOT a Desktop processor due to software optimization issues. This may change in the future but it is not a competitor to the G5 as of now.
First of all do you even know what "hand tweaking" means? I mean my god, if I could "hand tweak" SPEC why the heck would I need to spend millions on a compiler to look for optimizing opportunities for my processor? Especially considering how bad compilers are at finding opportunities in code these days. This is just flat out wrong, you can't "hand tweak" SPEC even if you tried due to the very nature of SPEC's source code (large data blocks instead of little snippets).
Second, exactly when was ICC not available to the public? If your a developer and want to look at technical documentation for ICC or buy a copy by all means go ahead! Exactly who's stopping you? Intel? they've got a specific section of their site dedicated to explaining and marketing ICC/IFC. The fact is, ICC is a production software compiler, just like GCC or VC or BCC, and their are many developers (IBM, Oracle, Newtek, Wavefront/Alias, CERN, Music Match, SGI to name a few) who use it to produce production software (DB2, Lightwave, Maya, Jukebox, ROOT to name a few) for various reasons (performance mostly).
Third, have you even seen how Itanium performs compared to a Alpha, Power4 or any other RISC cpu in *ANY* software associated with these kinds of high-end server chips. Oh I don't know, any engineering apps (MCAE, CAE etc) HPC apps (NAS Parallel, Gaussian, MM5, Star-CD, NW Chem etc), various enterprising apps, java business apps, transaction processing etc etc. If you must know how Itanium does in video editing et al, a 1 GHz Itanium renders complex scenes in POV-ray well over 3 times faster than a Opteron or Xeon.
http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=55000263
Now tell me exactly where did you get the idea that the Itanium is slow?