Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Dual 1.8GHz PowerMac Released

Re: 64-bit premises...

Originally posted by tortoise
Unfortunately, OS X v10.3 does not take advantage of the 64-bit architecture, so the dependency has little to do with developers outside of Apple's OS group. Panther is essentially a 32-bit OS with PAE running on a 64-bit processor, which is unfortunate, and that is what it looks like from a developer's perspective.
Click to expand...


This is not entirely true. The kernel (and hence any kernel extension you are running) operates in a 64-bit memory space. This isn't extended to applications for various reasons

I've made multiple complaints and requests to Apple about the lack of a 64-bit OS option for the G5 that hopefully will get turned into action sooner than later. Without a 64-bit version of OS X that we can target for our software applications, all of our big software systems have to run Linux on Opterons. Apple is selling hardware for which they provide no means for developers to actually use it in its native mode. Even if it breaks some amount of backward compatibility, this option should at least be available for developers and companies that need it. It is a simple recompile of the operating system (the internals are 64-bit clean), so it is little more than a marketing decision.
Click to expand...

The internals are 64-bit clean, and running in a 64-bit memory space. However, the internals don't extend far beyond the kernel yet. You still need to revise all of the system APIs to be 64-bit clean, which is neither instant nor overnight. It essentially doubles the amount of code running at any one time, and causes nightmares for the people that have to test all that code. If Apple could have given you a true 64-bit OS for Panther, they would have. But it was simply not technically possible to do that. Apple knows that they will eventually need a 64-bit OS, and they will want one sooner. But that doesn't mean that it will happen before it is technically feasible. It was NOT simply a marketing decision.
 
I happen to hear on Tech Tv that apparently Apple is currently working on 64 bit OS and maybe released next yr. I only can hope so but I think they will wait until almost all the topend models are using the G5 before doing this. So that means until the PB's go G5.
 
Originally posted by ITR 81
I happen to hear on Tech Tv that apparently Apple is currently working on 64 bit OS and maybe released next yr. I only can hope so but I think they will wait until almost all the topend models are using the G5 before doing this. So that means until the PB's go G5.
Click to expand...
Pure speculation, but i think it's going to be OS X server... I don't see any immediate need for 64bit OS on the desktop.. Of course math and the medical industry would argue this, but they can use Xserve 64 bit clusters when available.
 
I almost bought the 1.8 last week. I'm glad I waited. I picked up my dual 1.8 today at Comp USA. I cant wait to get it home and out of the box (I'm stuck at work).:D
 
Originally posted by t500
I almost bought the 1.8 last week. I'm glad I waited. I picked up my dual 1.8 today at Comp USA. I cant wait to get it home and out of the box (I'm stuck at work).:D
Click to expand...
lucky bastard :D
 
Cut Prices

I bought G5 1.6 two weeks ago. Today the price had dropped $200. So I called Apple Canada, they told me the policy had changed and now it's 7 days to claim for the difference. I also called the reseller that sold it to me"BMac" Montreal, they
never called me back. Not all that impressed with Apple for not posting something for people that have just purchased their products and they decided to cut the prices.
 
Re: Cut Prices

Originally posted by lucarelli
I bought G5 1.6 two weeks ago. Today the price had dropped $200. So I called Apple Canada, they told me the policy had changed and now it's 7 days to claim for the difference. I also called the reseller that sold it to me"BMac" Montreal, they
never called me back. Not all that impressed with Apple for not posting something for people that have just purchased their products and they decided to cut the prices.
Click to expand...
In Canada and the US it used to be the following at the Apple Store...
Should Apple reduce its price on any shipped product within 10 days of shipment, you may contact Apple Sales Support at 1-800-MY-APPLE to request a credit of the difference between the price you were charged and the current selling price. To receive the credit you must notify Apple within 14 days of shipment. In the event a credit is given to you, the same credit card that you used to make your purchase will be credited.
Click to expand...
So if you did order a couple weeks ago you'd probably be out-of-luck anyhow. If Apple changed the policy.

Though if they can, they'd better hop on the phone by the end of the week. Just-in-case.
 
Re: Re: 64-bit premises...

Originally posted by Rincewind42

This is not entirely true. The kernel (and hence any kernel extension you are running) operates in a 64-bit memory space. This isn't extended to applications for various reasons
Click to expand...

The generally accepted definition of a 64-bit OS is that you can compile LP64 code for it, something which is not yet supported. Many 32-bit processors (or 64-bit processors running in 32-bit mode) support >4Gb of kernel RAM; it has been available on Intel for years. In this sense, it offers nothing in the memory department versus other 32-bit OSen on 32-bit machines. The only 64-bit property you can really exploit on the G5 currently is an L64 compiler mode which is among the least useful benefits of a 64-bit machine.

The real power of 64-bit computing is that your VM can map a single contiguous address space across multiple types of memory/physical storage up to a very large size. It allows for some lovely optimizations and simplifications that simply aren't possible on 32-bit machines.

I love OSX, but this one thing really limits the applications I can reasonably use it for.
 
Re: Cut Prices

Originally posted by lucarelli
I bought G5 1.6 two weeks ago. Today the price had dropped $200. So I called Apple Canada, they told me the policy had changed and now it's 7 days to claim for the difference. I also called the reseller that sold it to me"BMac" Montreal, they
never called me back. Not all that impressed with Apple for not posting something for people that have just purchased their products and they decided to cut the prices.
Click to expand...

Bad luck but get used to it. The Price of RAM and PC CPU's, and other hadeware is always fluctuating, It's just something your going to have to wear like the rest of us.
 
Re: Re: I'm the guy

Originally posted by Sun Baked
Yes, there is no socket.

Nope, no empty socket.

And the machine requires a thermal calibration, using the Apple Service Tech's "Apple Service
Diagnostic for Power Mac G5," every time a processor is moved to a new socket.
Click to expand...
Hrm. I just opened up my G5 for the first time, and it looks like there's a spot where another processor could be mounted. I would assume for the sake of economics that all of the motherboards are exactly the same.

The thermal calibration bit makes sense, though.

(BTW, even with the case off, the G5 is basically entirely silent! Holy crap!)
 
Originally posted by 3.1416
You will as soon as you have two apps running at once...
Click to expand...

Very true. I dinged MacAddict on that one, as they always focus on one application (usually Photoshop), when part of the joy lies in being able to run multiple apps really quickly.

I have around 10 or so MP systems (from Macs to Alphas to SPARCs to even a BeBox) at home, and I prefer 'em. OS X is quite well-threaded, and allows multiple applications to crank along at a good clip on my G5 DP (2.0).

It also works well for the MacRumors folding team. :)
 
Call me a PC user for too long before switching, but I still feel that dual processors in most of the powermacs is Apple hype.

I came to this conclusion the other day at my job when one of my boss was shopping for powerbooks, and he asked "do they come with two processors yet?" This is a man who knows very little about computers, and like most consumers he feels that two is better than one.

Windows XP Pro has native support for multi-processors... but how many Abit or Asus boards do you see supporting them? Very few and far between.

I gurantee you that if the G4 line didn't stutter so bad a few years back and they had to release duals for marketing reasons, none of the G5s today would even have dual processors.

You don't know how many times I've read in the forums that a dual processor system has twice the bang for the buck as a single processor system at the same price...
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Windows XP Pro has native support for multi-processors... but how many Abit or Asus boards do you see supporting them? Very few and far between.
Click to expand...

I dont mean to steal your thunder, I currently use an AMD PC so This is not from a mac zeolite.

Many Abit, Asus, MSI, Giga-byte and especially Tyan Motherboards support dual processors just look under 'work station/server' motherboards. However you can't run a P4 or Athlon XP in dual configuration, you need an intel Xeon, or Athlon MP. The xeon uses a different socket while the Athlon MP has mods to make it work better in Dual configuration. The same goes with the New Athlon 64 FX and Opteron. The opteron can be run in single config, but the FX can't be run in dual. There are even different Opterons for upto 8-way processing.
 
Originally posted by manitoubalck
I dont mean to steal your thunder, I currently use an AMD PC so This is not from a mac zeolite.

Many Abit, Asus, MSI, Giga-byte and especially Tyan Motherboards support dual processors just look under 'work station/server' motherboards. However you can't run a P4 or Athlon XP in dual configuration, you need an intel Xeon, or Athlon MP. The xeon uses a different socket while the Athlon MP has mods to make it work better in Dual configuration. The same goes with the New Athlon 64 FX and Opteron. The opteron can be run in single config, but the FX can't be run in dual. There are even different Opterons for upto 8-way processing.
Click to expand...

Granted, but you're gliding over my point. Extreme PC builders don't even use multiprocessors, and I believe you used a key word "WORKSTATION."
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Call me a PC user for too long before switching, but I still feel that dual processors in most of the powermacs is Apple hype.

I came to this conclusion the other day at my job when one of my boss was shopping for powerbooks, and he asked "do they come with two processors yet?" This is a man who knows very little about computers, and like most consumers he feels that two is better than one.

Windows XP Pro has native support for multi-processors... but how many Abit or Asus boards do you see supporting them? Very few and far between.

I gurantee you that if the G4 line didn't stutter so bad a few years back and they had to release duals for marketing reasons, none of the G5s today would even have dual processors.

You don't know how many times I've read in the forums that a dual processor system has twice the bang for the buck as a single processor system at the same price...
Click to expand...
Actually, OS X, which is based on the Mach kernel and freeBSD, is very well threaded and very efficient on DP configurations, much more so than XP BTW. All you have to do is look around at some of the public benchmark postings to bear this out. Oh, and then there's the VT Supercomputer DP G5 cluster, ranked #3 in the world. Yea, I guess it's just marketing hype.
 
Originally posted by daveL
Actually, OS X, which is based on the Mach kernel and freeBSD, is very well threaded and very efficient on DP configurations, much more so than XP BTW. All you have to do is look around at some of the public benchmark postings to bear this out. Oh, and then there's the VT Supercomputer DP G5 cluster, ranked #3 in the world. Yea, I guess it's just marketing hype.
Click to expand...

No reason to be patronizing... I am quite aware that OS X as well as *nix systems are well threaded...

so you would say a DP 1.8 to DP 2.0 GHz is worth $500?
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Call me a PC user for too long before switching, but I still feel that dual processors in most of the powermacs is Apple hype.
Click to expand...

It all depends on your uses. Obviously, web browsing, iTunes, word procesing don't require dual processors. However, many graphics and video applications really get a boost out of dual processors. If your really working on multiple things at once you also noti ce the benefis of dual processors. Much depends on how well the software is written to take advantage of both processors. Despite the hype, Adobe Photoshop doesn't always benefit, but I've noticed that Studio Artist benefits a lot. When rotoscoping video, your computer can never be fast enough.
 
Originally posted by MOM
It all depends on your uses. Obviously, web browsing, iTunes, word procesing don't require dual processors. However, many graphics and video applications really get a boost out of dual processors. If your really working on multiple things at once you also noti ce the benefis of dual processors. Much depends on how well the software is written to take advantage of both processors. Despite the hype, Adobe Photoshop doesn't always benefit, but I've noticed that Studio Artist benefits a lot. When rotoscoping video, your computer can never be fast enough.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I definately agree with you.

Its funny that most of the programs that due truly benefit from it are written by Apple.
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Granted, but you're gliding over my point. Extreme PC builders don't even use multiprocessors, and I believe you used a key word "WORKSTATION."
Click to expand...

If you by some stretch of the imaganiation think for one second the the DP G5's are 'desktop' computers you are sorely mistaken. They are a highend WORKSTATION.

note: I can price together a DP Opteron 2.0GHz with R9800XT and a gig of ram for the price of a G5.
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
No reason to be patronizing... I am quite aware that OS X as well as *nix systems are well threaded...

so you would say a DP 1.8 to DP 2.0 GHz is worth $500?
Click to expand...
We were talking SP vs DP, not GHz. No, I wouldn't pay that premium (1.8 vs 2.0); the DP 1.8 is the best deal (upgrade to the Radeon 9600 for US$50).
 
Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Call me a PC user for too long before switching, but I still feel that dual processors in most of the powermacs is Apple hype.
Click to expand...

My first dual processor system was a Pentium-100 running NT. I've generally bought dual processor systems for my desktop systems and workstations ever since.

Dual processors isn't a gimmick in any decent OS (e.g. OS X or Linux), and is a cheap way to extend the useful life of a system in my opinion. One of the really important differences is that SMP systems handle hardware interrupts differently than single processor systems and perform better and more usably under many conditons (it is one of the reasons SMP is essentially mandatory for high load network servers independent of any nominal CPU load requirements). For many types of uses, it is better to have the extra "width" of 2+ processors that the OS can schedule for than to have one processor that is twice as fast because of differences in hardware behavior under those two conditions.

The best reason to buy SMP systems is that they age more gracefully. When running an application that is a bit too much for whatever processor you have, it doesn't adversely impact the user interface or other applications in the way it does if you have only one processor that also has all the interrupts being shoveled on it. Even with a preemptive multitasking OS, you'll still feel the pain if you have an overloaded processor with a decent interrupt load -- it will stop multitasking effectively -- but it rarely makes an SMP system behave in any way other than normal.

Since I routinely stress my systems, SMP is mandatory to have a system that handles severe abuse gracefully. For people that just do routine light usage, I agree that SMP isn't particularly necessary. That said, dual processor systems almost always feel smoother and better behaved than single processor systems, especially if you make it work a little bit. For the marginal cost over single processor systems (usually a few hundred bucks) I find it to be well worth it as it makes the system last longer before I need to replace it and makes the general user experience subtly yet noticeably better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back