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strider42

macrumors 65816
Feb 1, 2002
1,461
7
Re: new chip set announced?

Originally posted by kevin49093
I just got a notice from our school district that states apple will be be moving their entire line to a new chip set by June of this year. They say the new macs will only boot to X.

What is this all about?

http://jeffcoweb.jeffco.k12.co.us/itsr/Computer/apple_latestnews.htm

I think its just poorly worded. It almost assuredly refers to OS X booting only machines. You can still buy dual boot machines for education (I believe), but I assume thats going to stop in june.

Don't read anything into it other than that.
 

maradong

macrumors 65816
Mar 7, 2003
1,058
0
Luxembourg
Re: Re: new chip set announced?

Originally posted by strider42
I think its just poorly worded. It almost assuredly refers to OS X booting only machines. You can still buy dual boot machines for education (I believe), but I assume thats going to stop in june.

Don't read anything into it other than that.
right, that s also what i read in this aricle
 

kevin49093

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 27, 2002
166
0
Colorado
So will machines sold after this summer not be able to dual boot at all or will they be sold with only os X on them?

Our techies really hate macs and hate osX even more... I'm afraid they want to move to a single platform district, and will use this as fuel for their fire.
 

strider42

macrumors 65816
Feb 1, 2002
1,461
7
Originally posted by kevin49093
So will machines sold after this summer not be able to dual boot at all or will they be sold with only os X on them?

Our techies really hate macs and hate osX even more... I'm afraid they want to move to a single platform district, and will use this as fuel for their fire.

yeah, thats pretty much it. I don't know for sure it will be june, but eventually apple has to stop selling dual boot machines. They wanted to stop in january remember, but kept a limited amount available. After June I would expect there to be no more sold at all.
 

ericthemacpope

macrumors newbie
Mar 23, 2003
25
0
my friend in canada was talking with the guy at an apple store and he heard many things but from waht i have heard, apple will move there systems to only boot on os x. i also heard that they will be either be moving there chipset to a amd chip or a ibm, you guys heard anything?
eric
 

Catfish_Man

macrumors 68030
Sep 13, 2001
2,579
2
Portland, OR
Originally posted by ericthemacpope
my friend in canada was talking with the guy at an apple store and he heard many things but from waht i have heard, apple will move there systems to only boot on os x. i also heard that they will be either be moving there chipset to a amd chip or a ibm, you guys heard anything?
eric

Lots. IBM and AMD have both announced spiffy new chips. The AMD one isn't compatible with any current Mac apps though, so I'd say there's about a 0.001% chance they're going to use it. The IBM one looks just as spiffy, uses less power, and runs current Mac apps just fine, so it should be much better for Apple.
 

ericthemacpope

macrumors newbie
Mar 23, 2003
25
0
yeah that is what i figured, that was a pretty dumb question. so do you have any possible specs on it?
eric
 

Catfish_Man

macrumors 68030
Sep 13, 2001
2,579
2
Portland, OR
Originally posted by ericthemacpope
yeah that is what i figured, that was a pretty dumb question. so do you have any possible specs on it?
eric

The other link is a bit detailed for a casual browser, so here's a quick summary:

Based on the IBM POWER4+
1.2-1.8GHz initially, 1.8-2.5GHz later (first speeds from IBM, second from slightly suspect IBM sources + rumors)
up to 900MHz bus (6.4GB/sec)
512k L2 cache
96k L1 cache
No L3 cache
Two floating point units
Heavy use of out of order execution
8 instructions fetched per cycle
5 instructions dispatched/retired per cycle (1 must be a branch, and they're dispatched in groups of 5 rather than individually)
Altivec (old G4 style)
42 watts of power @ 1.8GHz
19 watts @ 1.2GHz
.13 micron SOI manufacturing process
SPECint score of about 950 @ 1.8GHz
SPECfp score of about 1050 @ 1.8GHz
for comparison, a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 gets 1100/1100 and a 1GHz G4 gets about 180/300
 

ericthemacpope

macrumors newbie
Mar 23, 2003
25
0
but would it be like "g mhz" compared to pentium where you basically multiply it by two, so 2ghz mac would be the same as 4 ghz pc? sounds dumb but hey i am 13
eric
 

irmongoose

macrumors 68030
Originally posted by ericthemacpope
but would it be like "g mhz" compared to pentium where you basically multiply it by two, so 2ghz mac would be the same as 4 ghz pc? sounds dumb but hey i am 13
eric

Ughh yeah and I'm 14 and I understand the concept!

Anyways, it's just the number of pipelines (sections) in the chip, and the pentium has many more than the G4 or the 970. All the processes go through these pipes. Now, once in a while there is a "bad" process, and whenever one of these happens, the whole batch of process has to start all over again. So, the more pipelines you have, the more time it takes for the batches to start all over again when a bad process occurs. This extra time it takes for the batches to start over adds up and eventually makes huge differences in clock speeds, and thus makes the less pipeline, 2 GHz processor the same speed as the more pipeline, 4 GHz processor.

Hmm.. got it?



irmongoose
 

ericthemacpope

macrumors newbie
Mar 23, 2003
25
0
oh yeah, i know about the pipelien thing, i got that from someone else a while ago, i was jus asking if the 970 had a shorter data pipeline then the p4. anyway thanks for taking the time to answer
eric
 
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