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New PowerMacs Released

Dr.Bimane:

True, a 2.5ghz P4 is not 2.5 times the speed of a 1ghz G4. Actuall difference in speed depends on what you are doing. For many things Macs are close enough that it doesn't matter (10.2 should help that some too).

I think it's time for me to get to work!
 
Originally posted by Dr.Bimane
Here is my $0.02...

I use both macs and pcs and honestly find the "speed difference" negligible.

But here is the interesting thing. PCs are up to 2.5 GHz while Macs are now around 1 GHz. So when these SPEC benchmarks periocially come out, a PC should be 150% (2.5X) faster than a mac on the various tasks but this is NEVER the case. At most, the mac loses by 20% or even comes out faster, depending on if the test uses Altivec.

I read those test results where TechTV or whomever says, "Macs are crushed by PCs" but when you look at the results, it is a mere 20% margin at most. When your clock speed is 2.5X, I think that you should be ashamed to be only 20% faster. It is obvious that intel has found a way to scale up their MHz without really increasing real-world speed.
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Yeah, it's called NetBurst by Intel but really it's just stretching the pipeline out to more stages in order to allow high operating frequencies so they can sell more chips to people who don't understand processor architecture.

And this whole thing about 150% faster because the clock oscillates at 2.5GHz, that's the whole reason they can sell them.
 
This would be an interesting test:

Take two computers by any PC company, say Dell.

Everything in both computers is identical except for the Intel chips: one is a P4 running at 2.5 GH and the other is a P4 running at 2.0 GHz. Will the faster chip do EVERYTHING 25% faster (as its clock speed would indicate)?

Does anyone know if this has been done?

I am willing to bet that it would not. I am sure it would be faster but only marginally so.....
 
What about the iMacs?

Was anyone else waiting for Apple to increase the speed of the iMacs?
I thought they were going to do it during MacWorld, but after this price drop, It's almost certain that it won't happen anytime soon :mad: I just think that a 200 mHz difference between the low end PM and the high end iMac is way too big (not even counting that the PM is a dual proccesor)

PS. www.memorytogo.com has cheap memory prices last time i checked. www.lowendmac.com has good deals also.
 
Does anyone know if this has been done?
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Yes. With just about every generation of processor.

I am willing to bet that it would not.
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You would be correct. Simply jacking the processor speed, while it will improve performance, won't improve it linearly. Most of the time, the processor is still waiting on the same set of other components which have been bottlenecking the system for years...
 
I just saw the pics on Apple's site and it looks like they had a shotgun frenzy on the back. If it cools the processor that way to make it quiet...i'm all for it. Besides, I'll barely see the back anyway.

My overall opinion....i''ll buy myself the dual 1Ghz with 1Gb Ram 120Gb HD and 17 inch display by Sept. 30.
 
Re: I got one

Originally posted by naumann
I bought a PowerMac dual 1 gigz on August 2nd. Luckily they hadn't shipped it yet, so they let me switch my order to the NEW dual 1 gigz.

So I got the new one with the Nvidia Ti, and 120 gig drive (the old one was going to have an 80 gig drive w/ the Nvidia Ti) for $600 less than I was going to pay for the old version. The dual processors are now way too good to pass up.


I did the same last night maybe they will let me have the new 1.25 since yesterday I paid for topline and today the 1.25 is topline. this is what I am hopiing for!
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Originally posted by Dr.Bimane
Here is my $0.02...

I use both macs and pcs and honestly find the "speed difference" negligible.

But here is the interesting thing. PCs are up to 2.5 GHz while Macs are now around 1 GHz. So when these SPEC benchmarks periocially come out, a PC should be 150% (2.5X) faster than a mac on the various tasks but this is NEVER the case. At most, the mac loses by 20% or even comes out faster, depending on if the test uses Altivec.
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing this out. The SPEC tests never use AltiVec, and as the NASA paper I quoted pointed out, that makes a big difference.


I read those test results where TechTV or whomever says, "Macs are crushed by PCs" but when you look at the results, it is a mere 20% margin at most. When your clock speed is 2.5X, I think that you should be ashamed to be only 20% faster. It is obvious that intel has found a way to scale up their MHz without really increasing real-world speed.
Click to expand...

Intel gets its high clock speeds by having a much longer pipeline. So even though the CPU is running faster, it's doing less per clock cycle in comparison to the G4. And if it makes an error, it has to wait for the instruction to flush from the long pipline. The G4 is doing something like 4 times as many instructions per clock cycle, and since it is a RISC processor, the instructions are shorter words as well. A typical x86 instruction is as long as 4 PPC instructions.

Also the Floating Point unit on the P4 also doubles as the Vector unit, so even though it can do double precision vector processing, it has a latency time involved due to switching modes. The MPC 7450 has 4 Altivec units, each handling 128-bits, as well as a double precision FP unit.


But all this aside, will one be able to type a paper or report 3 times faster on a 3 GHz PC (when it becomes available) than on a 1 GHz PC? Oh, I bet you would be able to type up an e-mail and send it faster....give me a break.
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Well it will Blue Screen a bit faster ;)

Most people don't need or even use all the speed anyway.
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I agree! The big bottle neck was the memory bus, but the Xinet benchmarks show the XServe out performing P4 servers. If these G4's are really using the MPC7470 (MacOS Rumors say they are not) then all the more better!

The PPC is a better CPU, but we DO need much faster clock speeds.
 
Originally posted by Dr.Bimane
This would be an interesting test:

Take two computers by any PC company, say Dell.

Everything in both computers is identical except for the Intel chips: one is a P4 running at 2.5 GH and the other is a P4 running at 2.0 GHz. Will the faster chip do EVERYTHING 25% faster (as its clock speed would indicate)?

Does anyone know if this has been done?

I am willing to bet that it would not. I am sure it would be faster but only marginally so.....
Click to expand...

Yeah, check out all the PC benchmarking sites. www.tomshardware.com is a good start (massive ad content alert!) Check the CPU Guide section.

For the lazy, in one benchmark (Sysmark 2002) the 2.4GHz P4 with 100Mhz bus and 400Mhz memory scores 236, while the 2.0GHz version with same bus/memory scores 207, for a difference of 29 points, or a 14% increase, even though the Mhz has been upped by 20%.
 
Re: Here,here

Originally posted by soilchmst
I have seen processor speeds soar, but my 366 ibook performs about the same as the 1. something pc's. The difference is, that while pressenting a technical paper in Orlando, my computer did just fine with the PowerPoint, and the PC before me crashed, and had to use a slide projector. ;)
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Precisely!
 
Originally posted by Shrek
I'm hoping that IBM brings even faster RAMBUS memory to the PowerPC platform! What do you think?
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Maybe, but I highly doubt Intel would let them. It's overrated anywayz, I've got in on my VC820 Intel MB and it's not THAT impressive. A 7200 rpm hard drive makes a MUCH bigger difference than 800 MHz RAM. The hard drive is the bottle neck in any computer, most everything else can run faster than it. Oh, well. Maybe if some rich guy bought four RAID cards, 12 1gig Compact Flash cards/w IDE enclosures, then maybe we'd see a difference. :p
 
Originally posted by Ibjr


And yes using windows is a hellish nightmare, but until we see how these DDR macs perform a mac will not cut it for any professional use.
Click to expand...

Now thats not fair. Ask all the music producers out there running ProTools or Logic on their DP Macs if their Macs are suitable.

Some things still cannot be done well on Windows. Audio systems are notoriously more stable on Macs than PCs.

And for god's sake, you dont even know how the new machines stack up yet. At first glance, the update doesnt look like much, but who knows?

But please dont make general statements like this. I run Logic and Cubase on my iMac 600 and I can produce 24-track masters with tons of plug ins and virtual instruments. And this G3 is definitely not a "pro machine".
 
NO FAN!

Originally posted by ShaolinMiddleFinger
I just saw the pics on Apple's site and it looks like they had a shotgun frenzy on the back. If it cools the processor that way to make it quiet...i'm all for it. Besides, I'll barely see the back anyway.

My overall opinion....i''ll buy myself the dual 1Ghz with 1Gb Ram 120Gb HD and 17 inch display by Sept. 30.
Click to expand...

I just read on macminute that it has NO FAN! wow. It should be nice and quiet... now the major vents in the front make more sense.
 
RAM specs?

Does anyone know any detailed RAM specs for the new machines? When buying RAM, aren't you technically supposed to match things like cas latency across all DIMMs?

I called Apple to ask about it, and even after talking to a "product specialist" the drooly on the phone couldn't tell me anything.

I notice that Crucial's PC2700 DIMMs all seem to be CL=2.5, but I've seeb some mfrs offering CL=2.0. Anyone know what's in these bad boys?

I ordered a dual 1GHz this morning - can't wait to get my hands on it!
 
Re: NO FAN!

Originally posted by soosy


I just read on macminute that it has NO FAN! wow. It should be nice and quiet... now the major vents in the front make more sense.
Click to expand...

maybe macminute is wrong. The QTVR certainly seems to show a fan.
 
Well, well ...

Even though the FSB is still the same old bus, the benefits of DDR memory and the DMA scheme will still speed up a lot of operations which benefit from the increased bus speeds.

Everyone expected the XServe architecture to appear on the desktop, looks like you got it. But I saw way too many complaints about it -- too bad.

This system architecture is a lot like the Yikes machine, a small step on the way towards the next bus evolution. It's a little hard to expect Apple to lead with the introduction of a RIO or Hyptertransport system today, when Apple has show repeatedly that they lag the market in PC adoption.

Sure Apple has adopted some PC standards far ahead of the curve, but it should be expected that Apple will wait on the bus awhile to get an idea where the market is heading.
 
Finalize the PC vs Mac price debate

:)

Make no mistake, I have both a g4 and a PC. And I use them, regardless of speed, for different things. The Mac is for "work" (flash, photoshop, fireworks, after effects, and FCPro), the PC is for play and coding (wolfenstein, homeworld, VisualStudio.NET). The MacOS lets you work, Windows wants to "help" so much that working is impossible. But... Here's a breakdown for the "expensive PC" yakkers.

The Mac
Power Mac G4 Dual 867MHz w/133MHz system bus
• 512MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM - 1 DIMM
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive
• Optical 1 - Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
• Optical 2 - None
• NVIDIA GeForce4 MX dual-display w/32MB DDR
• Apple Pro Keyboard - U.S. English
• Mac OS - U.S. English

straight from the apple website: cost $1870

The PC
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8GHz actual on 266MHz FSB)
MSI motherboard w/ onboard hardware RAID, usb2
512Mb PC2700 (333MHz) RAM
80Gb 7200rpm ATA100 HD
Nvidia GeForce4MX-420 (64Mb)
16x DVD-rom
32x12x40 CD-RW
CreativeLabs Audigy 5.1 w/ IEEE1394 (for 400Mbs firewire)
Kinda nice speakers (4 speakers w/ subwoofer 5.1 from Altec)
Floppy
10/100 Nic (didn't have option for Gigabit, so add $80)
keyboard&optical mouse
!!3 year warranty!!
winXP Pro

Straight From CyberPowerInc: cost: $1120

caveats: they didn't have combo drives on CyberPower, but 2 drives are better anyway. Didn't have gigabit NICs, but throw in another $80 for GbCU and you come to about $1200.

So... I have nothing to say about comparative performance. NOTHING. They would both keep up with me and my workflow just fine. The question is, is MacOS X and 2 years off the warranty worth $700?

Not at this time, no. I'll stick with my ancient G4-500AGP and my Athlon 1800+.

Dharvabinky loves both.
 
Apple is trying to save you money...

...by helping to negate the cost to hea yer home in the winter (assuming you are in a cold climate). :D

My home office (converted bedroom) is probably 10'x12' (something like that) and after running my DP 1gig for a 3-4hrs the room is easily 3 degrees warmer than the rest of the house (this is with the door open, and the monitors asleep).


Lethal
 
Whats that? The new PowerMacs are exactly the same as the spy shots?

:eek:

I think groove buster needs to apologise.....!:D
 
Originally posted by MacArtist
Here is a similarly specced DIY Athlon MP system :

2x$122-- Athlon MP 1600
$167-- Tyan S2460 Dual Athlon MP/ATX mboard
$111-- PC2700 DDR 512MB
$149-- ATI Radeon 9000 pro
$128-- Sound Blaster Live Platinum 5.1
$60-- Belkin 1394 firewire controller
$50-- D Link Gb Ethernet
$250-- Pioneer DVD-R drive
$113-- case
$20-- keyboard
$20-- mouse
$299-- Windows XP Pro
$84-- EIDE 80.0GB
_________________
$1695

There are some other parts that are required to build this system from nothing so the price is approximate. prices pulled off of pricewatch


The Prices on the new PowerMacs aren't that outragious. After all, they are workstations, not your run-of-the-mill consumer PC. And I'd like you to price of a brand name Athlon MP or Intel Xeon workstation. The price will be very close.

Like another poster stated earlier, if you think the systems are too expensive, your not Apple's target market, and you don't have to buy one.

And those of you who are saying "I'm waiting till MWSF" I wouldn't get your hopes up. With a release this late in the year I'd be surprised to see a blow your socks off update until at least MWNY.
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I'm assuming those prices aren't all pulled from the same site. In which case you'll have to pay seperate shipping for each item which will jack your price. I tried building a PC through Pricewatch and the trick is finding a site that has the best overall prices. Which I'm assuming, is not what you have listed there.
 
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