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ANOTHER reason NOT to choose Athlon64 over PPC970

Originally posted by Newdren It could have been easily discovered that the Athlon 64 does not "emulate" (as opposed to just run) x86 instructions as well if any reasearch had been done before putting forth such claims.

Windows XP for x86-64 (Athlon 64) is due in early 2004 apparantly though so were talking about a 3 month difference in times between getting 64bit operating systems to market. Most consumer applications utilising 64bits on both platforms probably wouldnt be available until late 2004 (by consumer apps, Im talking non CAD, more games and video creation)
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What does it matter whether the Athlon64 can run x86 code... it is usless to have a 64-bit chip if you don't have an OS that can do anything with it. Also... there is no Athlon64 YET and it won't be out and useful for a while to come. And don't get to ready for this "early" 2004 release of Windows, there is already worry that it might be pushed back a bit. Either way, you can buy a mac now or you can wait until 2004. I would like to see some facts about this copy of Windows everyone is talking about anyway. What will it do.. how will it work?
The only easy to find info on their site is about the Itanium windows so what else is there to base a laugh around?

What is most important about a 64-bit chip is the memory addressing (at least in the desktop/workstation arena)... 64-bit integers are not something most of us deal with in day to day life but there are MANY MANY people out there that would like to address more RAM. Don't be fooled, it is a HUGE market.
 
There is no G5 either "yet". They haven't shipped. Same as the Athlon-64, which will be shipping in September. And who says the 64 bit OS has to be Windows, Linux has had 64 bit support since like kernel 2.0 or something like that. Don't be fooled, the Athlon 64 will be a lot more systems than the G5 will be. Not because one is better over the other, but because of market share and price.
 
Originally posted by madamimadam
Tell me you didn't just say that... both X.2.7 AND Panther can handle 64-bit addressing. This does not make them 64-bit operating systems but it does mean that it can handle addressing the full 8GB. Apple has said this! Maybe you should recap what Apple has actually said because they tell me that they have done some work that allows this. I would trust Apple over something I read here any day.

Also, how did you manage to link G3s and G4 into a topic about G5s and Athlon64s?
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Addressing 64 bits of memory and using them are 2 very different things. Sure the OS may be able to address 64 bits of memory, but that doesn't mean it can assign them.

Think about it this way. I have 5 glasses (processes), each glass can hold 1 cup of water(memory). I can hold 20 cups of water in my jug(OS Addressing). No matter how hard I try I won't be able to put more than 1 cup of water into each glass.

G3s and G4s came into the discussion because the poster stated that if Panter is a 64 bit OS, it will not run on these computers. The same way you can't run OS 9 on a 64k. Because it is almost certain that apple will have panter running on G4s and G3s, that means it has to be 32 bit.
 
Originally posted by ColdZero
There is no G5 either "yet". They haven't shipped. Same as the Athlon-64, which will be shipping in September. And who says the 64 bit OS has to be Windows, Linux has had 64 bit support since like kernel 2.0 or something like that. Don't be fooled, the Athlon 64 will be a lot more systems than the G5 will be. Not because one is better over the other, but because of market share and price.
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Firstly, PowerMacs ship this month

Secondly, if people buy an Athlon64 in Sept they still don't have any 64-bit capabilities in Windows

Thirdly, as if everyone is suddenly going to switch to Linux, there are MANY reasons while Linux is still no where near ready for most people

Lastly, it was never stated that the G5 would sell more than Athlon based machines just that there is continually more reasons why people should switch to Apple.
 
Originally posted by ColdZero
Addressing 64 bits of memory and using them are 2 very different things. Sure the OS may be able to address 64 bits of memory, but that doesn't mean it can assign them.

Think about it this way. I have 5 glasses (processes), each glass can hold 1 cup of water(memory). I can hold 20 cups of water in my jug(OS Addressing). No matter how hard I try I won't be able to put more than 1 cup of water into each glass.

G3s and G4s came into the discussion because the poster stated that if Panter is a 64 bit OS, it will not run on these computers. The same way you can't run OS 9 on a 64k. Because it is almost certain that apple will have panter running on G4s and G3s, that means it has to be 32 bit.
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EDIT: for those who read what I wrote, I have found error in the logic without help. :)

Isn't, as a starting point, that plug-in from Adobe going to fix this problem?
 
Panther will not be a 64-bit OS, but it will have libraries that enable properly compiled applications to use 64-bit RAM addressing. Not EVERY process will be able to use the addressing because not all will be compiled to do so. Many won't even need it--does AppleWorks really need 512 GB of RAM (which I believe is the theoretical maximum with 64-bit addressing. Correct me if I'm wrong). To refine ColdZero's analogy:

I have five glasses (processes), each of which can hold one cup of water (4 GB RAM). I have a one-cup pitcher (4 GB system RAM). My head (the operating system) can only handle working with one cup of water at a time.

Then, suddenly, I gain the insight to handle more than one cup of water! Now I can handle 128 cups of water (512 GB of RAM), and I was given a nice pitcher that can handle that much water to boot! Not only that, but the manufacturers of some of the glasses sent me new glasses. Now I have three glass that can still hold one cup of water, but two of them can hold 128 cups.

Maybe the refined analogy still doesn't tell the picture (and if it is so, please tell me what's wrong with it) but that's my understanding as gleaned from Apple's own sources.

Furthermore, were Panther a true 64-bit OS, it would not run on any 32-bit processors (i.e. the G3 and G4) since it would be compiled for sixty-four bit instructions, integers, FPs, and so on.

I will not speak about XP64 or Athlon64 since I don't know anything about them.
 
Originally posted by sturm375
Here is a partial list of vendors for the AMD Opteron Workstations:

http://www2.amd.com/us-en/sbl/searc...Method=3&fpRange=&fpZipPostCode=&fp_pagenum=1

"Is the Opteron selling?"


http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10758

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10711

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10652

With the above three confirmed purchases, AMD is suspected to have already surpased the total sales of the Itanic and ItanicII.

IMHO the Opteron is selling, and will continue to sell due to continueing evidence that it routenly whips the Xeon at any level, and is very competitive in performance with the Itanic, and for thousand$ less. I can't wait to see a true user level comparison between the G5 and AMDs offerings.
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I've read the same info. Just because it's selling better than the Itanium, doesn't mean it's selling well. I would expect the Athlon64 to do better. If it's any good.

And if it ever comes out (feel that way about the G5, too).

I did a search for high end Opterons, and didn't see too many available. I'm sure there are plenty of places, but what I meant was that AMD should be out there more. You barely hear of it. I'm sure there are ads somewhere, too, but I haven't seen any. You can buy them, you can find them, but it's not as easy as it should be.

People call Apple a niche product, at least I've seen some exposure.
 
yeah the exposure the opteron gets...it's crap. Though this one magazine i was reading in Borders the other day, some kind of mag talking about how Linux and AMD 1600xp's in a renderfarm made Hulk.

That SAME magazine had at least 2-3 ads of BOXX opteron blader servers. I was surprised b/c i almost never see AMD ads in magazines...but more than one, in the same magazine? crazy.

Tomshardware, a predominantly intel website, made the same point about the lack of exposure that the Opteron is getting...

here's the link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/business/20030730/index.html
 
Originally posted by Daveman Deluxe
Panther will not be a 64-bit OS, but it will have libraries that enable properly compiled applications to use 64-bit RAM addressing. Not EVERY process will be able to use the addressing because not all will be compiled to do so. Many won't even need it--does AppleWorks really need 512 GB of RAM (which I believe is the theoretical maximum with 64-bit addressing. Correct me if I'm wrong). To refine ColdZero's analogy:

I have five glasses (processes), each of which can hold one cup of water (4 GB RAM). I have a one-cup pitcher (4 GB system RAM). My head (the operating system) can only handle working with one cup of water at a time.

Then, suddenly, I gain the insight to handle more than one cup of water! Now I can handle 128 cups of water (512 GB of RAM), and I was given a nice pitcher that can handle that much water to boot! Not only that, but the manufacturers of some of the glasses sent me new glasses. Now I have three glass that can still hold one cup of water, but two of them can hold 128 cups.

Maybe the refined analogy still doesn't tell the picture (and if it is so, please tell me what's wrong with it) but that's my understanding as gleaned from Apple's own sources.

Furthermore, were Panther a true 64-bit OS, it would not run on any 32-bit processors (i.e. the G3 and G4) since it would be compiled for sixty-four bit instructions, integers, FPs, and so on.

I will not speak about XP64 or Athlon64 since I don't know anything about them.
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I prefered the other analogy... sorry

I thought it was MUCH more than 512GB... maybe I'm wrong, though.
 
That's four teraBITS, not teraBYTES. Four terabits is 512 gigabytes. Yes, I KNOW Apple's website says four terabytes, but 2^42 gives you the number of bits (not bytes) that can be addressed. My calculator says that 2^42 = 4.398046511 x 10^12. That's four terabits. Then again, my calculator says that 2^32 is good for only 512 MB of RAM, so the lesson learned is that I suck lots, or at least that I'm missing a crucial element to figuring out how much RAM can be addressed. :confused:

As for my analogy sucking, yeah, it's a pretty bad analogy (it's too complicated), but technically it's more accurate than the original water analogy. The fact remains that apps recompiled for 64 bits in Panther will be able to address the full load of RAM.
 
Originally posted by madamimadam
Firstly, PowerMacs ship this month

Secondly, if people buy an Athlon64 in Sept they still don't have any 64-bit capabilities in Windows

Thirdly, as if everyone is suddenly going to switch to Linux, there are MANY reasons while Linux is still no where near ready for most people

Lastly, it was never stated that the G5 would sell more than Athlon based machines just that there is continually more reasons why people should switch to Apple.
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"Most People" aren't who 64 bit computers are targeted at. My mom doesn't need to run 64 bit panther or linux with 8gb of ram. She runs windows with 256 mb of ram. A server on the other hand, which could very well be running linux, and a large number do, need 64 bit addressing and more than 4gb of ram. By the time 64 bits is targeted at "most people" both Apple and Microsoft will have true 64 bit operating systems to work with it.
 
Originally posted by Daveman Deluxe
That's four teraBITS, not teraBYTES. Four terabits is 512 gigabytes. Yes, I KNOW Apple's website says four terabytes, but 2^42 gives you the number of bits (not bytes) that can be addressed. My calculator says that 2^42 = 4.398046511 x 10^12. That's four terabits. Then again, my calculator says that 2^32 is good for only 512 MB of RAM, so the lesson learned is that I suck lots, or at least that I'm missing a crucial element to figuring out how much RAM can be addressed. :confused:
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What you're missing is that's 2^42 addresses, but each address points to a byte of memory, not a bit.

Mike.
 
Originally posted by solvs
I've read the same info. Just because it's selling better than the Itanium, doesn't mean it's selling well. I would expect the Athlon64 to do better. If it's any good.

And if it ever comes out (feel that way about the G5, too).

I did a search for high end Opterons, and didn't see too many available. I'm sure there are plenty of places, but what I meant was that AMD should be out there more. You barely hear of it. I'm sure there are ads somewhere, too, but I haven't seen any. You can buy them, you can find them, but it's not as easy as it should be.

People call Apple a niche product, at least I've seen some exposure.
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In defence of AMD, there have been some really tough barriors put up by Intel in opening the Opteron Market. Case in point, at the release of the Opteron (The event several months ago), many vendors that were expected to be there got a threatening phone call from Intel just before the event. Even now many motherboard manufactures are being heavily pressured by Intel into downplaying any Opteron offering they have. Also, keep in mind, this was truely ment to compete against Xeons, not P4s. The people in the know, have seen the benchmarks, and the real world preformance, and are slowely buying the Opterions. Heck, even IBM, maker of the Power4, Power5, PPC 970, bought Opterons instead of in-house stuff. It's just a matter of time before the FUD coming from Intel is ignored.

Apple controls the manufacturing of most of the board level details for producing G5 Powermacs. Therefore I am not suprised that it is much easier for them to get to market before AMD, which only controls the CPU, and some, not all, of the Chipset.
 
Just the beginning

Originally posted by madamimadam
Either way, you can buy a mac now or you can wait until 2004.
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Well you can buy a Mac now but nobody knows for sure when you will get it. Think of Apple's history in this matter.

Some rumors suggest the Athlon 64 will be shipped so it arrives to customers on its release date.

My oppinion is that both the Athlon 64 and G5 are just the beginning, and we will just have to wait for it to all make sense.

I think a standard will emerge on the PC side, and something, like the Athlon 64, will fade away into the wasted purchase catagory (like the 23" CD the day before it dropped $1500 in price:p )

I think Apple is already starting a new standard with the G5, but I wouldn't be surprized if they went to a new architecture or dropped native 32 bit support soon. Slow emulation would be fine for the programs you don't need speed on, and the software upgrade cost would be worth it on 3D, video, and image editing software.
 
Originally posted by benixau
64bit addressing has a theoretical limit of:

4TB
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By theoretical limit do you mean flat addressing?
32 bit=2(binary)^32(bit) bytes= 4 billion bytes= 4 GB
64 bit=2(binary)^64(bit) bytes= 4 quintillion bytes= 18*10^9 GB

If I still remember my numerical terms right, that would be 18 exabytes. Which translates into 18 billion GB.

Most 32 bit processors after the Pentium Pro have PAE or Physical Address Extensions which allows them to address 2^36 bytes of memory (but still limits them to 4 GB/thread). This goes along with the segmentation mentioned before (creating multiple independent address spaces).
 
The G5 cannot address 18 exabytes of RAM because the address itself is only 42 bits long. The other 22 bits are reserved for (I think) an initialization vector. Not positive about the nature of the vector, but I am positive about only 42 bits per address. http://www.apple.com/g5processor/architecture.html

Edit: So while it is reasonable to say that 64-bit addressing has a theoretical limit of eighteen exabytes, the G5 can only address four terabytes.
 
Originally posted by Cubeboy
By theoretical limit do you mean flat addressing?
32 bit=2(binary)^32(bit) bytes= 4 billion bytes= 4 GB
64 bit=2(binary)^64(bit) bytes= 4 quintillion bytes= 18*10^9 GB

If I still remember my numerical terms right, that would be 18 exabytes. Which translates into 18 billion GB.

Most 32 bit processors after the Pentium Pro have PAE or Physical Address Extensions which allows them to address 2^36 bytes of memory (but still limits them to 4 GB/thread). This goes along with the segmentation mentioned before (creating multiple independent address spaces).
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Just to be nit-picky

32-bit = 4294967296 Bytes Addressing (4 GB)
64-bit = 1.8446744074e+19 Bytes (16 Exabytes)

Remember 1 Kilobyte = 1024 bytes

yottabyte = 1 yottabyte
= 1024 zettabytes
= 1048576 exabytes
= 1073741824 petabytes
= 1099511627776 terabytes
= 1125899906842624 gigabytes
= 1152921504606846976 megabytes
= 9223372036854775808 Megabits
= 1180591620717411303424 kilobytes
= 9444732965739290427392 Kilobits
= 1208925819614629174706176 bytes
= 2417851639229258349412352 nibbles
= 9671406556917033397649408 bits

http://my.execpc.com/~sfritz/stuff/memory.txt
 
Why don't we nitpick more and note that according to the IEC recently, factors of 1024 should be metricised in kibibytes (KiB), mebibites, (MiB), etc. 'bi" is short for binary.

Megabits (Mb) and such are generally proper factors of 1000- another way to make the numbers look bigger then they really are. Heh heh.
 
FYI, Windows does have a native 64bit version. I've been running it since 1994 on a desktop class machine. The only caveat is that it runs on an Alpha machine (not Intel, not AMD, etc...) I find it humourous that all these companies are throwing around statements that are factually untrue for the sake of marketing and then marginalizing any other (past) products. (Sites such as the Inquirer have mentioned Apples inaccuracies in passing)

If anyone's interested, the Alpha processor architecture can run x86 code through a very unique (transparent) emulation which actively compiles code in segments and stores that recompiled code each time the application is run. Eventually you end up with about 80% native code from original x86 code. (It's called FX!32) It's a process that has been attempted to be duplication by Apple for quite some time.
 
Originally posted by DeadlyBreakfast
While we are all have our correction hats on I figured I'd chime in...


The above statement is totally incorrect...

IBM PC = 1981
Apple Lisa = 1983
Apple Mac = 1984
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You misinterpreted what I said, lets not forget the Mac had the performance crown before the PC had it. Not the Mac was around before the PC. It was refering to the PowerPC architecture when it was first used in Macs and how many in the industry thought the architechture would be then end of x86. (Hence why there was a version of Windows NT4 for the PowerPC)

Sorry if you got the wrong end of the stick
 
Ahhh.....I dig it...



** Borrows stick from Newdren and beats self **
 

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