G3 vs G4

[AmbitiousLemon]

iPat take a look at this thread

who knows if it is true or not (seems a bit too good to be true), but his talk about updating the G3 line is exactly what you seem to be in favor of. We can only wait and hope at this point.

 

[iPat]

That would be fantastic if it's true. Like I've been saying it's a solid if not outdated design. I little tinkering here and there to bring it up-to-date and I think they have winner. Adding VMX is natural as it's obvious that Apple and IBM are going to back it well into the future. Put a 1.8 GHz and 1.6 Ghz in the iMac and a 1.2 in the iBook (with a 400 MHz bus and true DDR ram) and I think they have some very solid consumer machines that would be drastically faster than what they have now and favorably priced.

Seperate the pro/server and consumer lines by offering pro users 64 bit OSX, increased amount of RAM (at or above 4 GB), an 800Mhz bus, etc and charge them what a good workstation costs.

I think a major problem with Apple right now is that the above average (but less than poweruser) consumer or gamer has to but what Apple would like to sell as a workstation for professionals to get decent performance and they don't want to pay workstation prices. If Apple's implementation of the PPC970 is truly good, and a 1.8 Ghz PPC970 is somewhere in the ball park of even a P4 @ 2.5 GHz (I know this is probably an underestimate) and dual processor machines are offered, there is no need for the average to above average user to purchase a Powermac as were looking at a dual P4 @ 2.5 Ghz = P4 @ 5Ghz. Top this off with rumors that the highest PowerMac maybe a dual in the 2.0 + GHz range and that is overkill for all but the most demanding users and these people should be charged accordingly.

Now if the G3 derivative can even compete with a 2.0Ghz P4 (regardless of clock speed) then that should be more than enough for consumers and Apple should try and sell these ata competitive price.

I don't need 64 bits, I don't need dual 2.3 Ghz PPC 970s, I don't need 8GB of ram, and I don't need a $3000.00 + sticker price. I need a reasonably priced computer that will surf the internet, allow me to use iApps, and at most allow me to play all but the most demanding video games at 40+ fps.

 

[Cubeboy]

Originally posted by iPat
That would be fantastic if it's true. Like I've been saying it's a solid if not outdated design. I little tinkering here and there to bring it up-to-date and I think they have winner. Adding VMX is natural as it's obvious that Apple and IBM are going to back it well into the future. Put a 1.8 GHz and 1.6 Ghz in the iMac and a 1.2 in the iBook (with a 400 MHz bus and true DDR ram) and I think they have some very solid consumer machines that would be drastically faster than what they have now and favorably priced.

Seperate the pro/server and consumer lines by offering pro users 64 bit OSX, increased amount of RAM (at or above 4 GB), an 800Mhz bus, etc and charge them what a good workstation costs.

I think a major problem with Apple right now is that the above average (but less than poweruser) consumer or gamer has to but what Apple would like to sell as a workstation for professionals to get decent performance and they don't want to pay workstation prices. If Apple's implementation of the PPC970 is truly good, and a 1.8 Ghz PPC970 is somewhere in the ball park of even a P4 @ 2.5 GHz (I know this is probably an underestimate) and dual processor machines are offered, there is no need for the average to above average user to purchase a Powermac as were looking at a dual P4 @ 2.5 Ghz = P4 @ 5Ghz. Top this off with rumors that the highest PowerMac maybe a dual in the 2.0 + GHz range and that is overkill for all but the most demanding users and these people should be charged accordingly.

Now if the G3 derivative can even compete with a 2.0Ghz P4 (regardless of clock speed) then that should be more than enough for consumers and Apple should try and sell these ata competitive price.

I don't need 64 bits, I don't need dual 2.3 Ghz PPC 970s, I don't need 8GB of ram, and I don't need a $3000.00 + sticker price. I need a reasonably priced computer that will surf the internet, allow me to use iApps, and at most allow me to play all but the most demanding video games at 40+ fps.B]

I think you've hit the nail on the head with your post, most desktop users don't need anymore than a G3 to do all their work. The only people who will really need the dual PPC970s are the professionals who require powerful systems to do their work productively.

Unfortunately, dual processor configurations doesn't quite work that way, the only ways to actually benefit from having two processor is a)have a well threaded program, or b)multiprocessing. OSX is well threaded which is definitely a plus, there are also lot of well threaded programs for professional work. However, most desktop programs and games aren't threaded at all, and even the best threaded programs such as final cut pro give around a 70% boost to performance when using 2 processors. Programs that aren't threaded at all will actually recieve a penalty to performance when using a dual processor configuration.

Barring that, P4s are mainly used in desktop, professional work like video editing and rendering are mostly done on PC workstations using Dual Xeon configurations, the Dual PPC970 equipped powermacs main competition will be dual Noconas (next xeon) and dual Opteron equipped workstations.

 

[iPat]

I realize I simplified my 2.5 x 2 = 5.0 P4. But even at 70% a dual 1.8 PPC970 (with performance close to a 2.5 Ghz P4) is pushing close to a 3.5 Ghz P4 (again probably an underestimate as I have seen numbers that put the 1.8 closer to a 2.8-3.0 P4. This would still be a nice pro machine with (as you point out) appropriately coded software.....I think Apple fans have a lot to look forward to in the next couple months....should be exciting!