Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
No G5's until (late) 2003
- Thread starter arn
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
No sweat. I understand completely. I was just making a bad attempt at putting a little humor into it(forgot the smiley). Rumors are all based on talk typically so sometimes it's necessary to call someone out on something to show some sort of facts to back up what they say.
Just keep in mind that these technologies are not unique to the Mac. PC's will have this too. Essentially then once motherboard technology is equal as we're talking, you come back to the cpu being a major bottleneck in comparison to the other cpu architectures.
For Apple to beat the others in performance(if they really need to), only something unique and not shared by the industry will accomplish that. Mac OS X, a rumored Apple video card, or a new high-performance PPC chip are about all that can accomplish this. I've stated this before but if Apple could beat the industry to dual channel ddr then they could at least beat the others at their own game by getting there first.
I'm wondering if it's time for the mods to lock this thread. While I like discussions to be open and honest, many of the comments seem to be taking a very negative spin.
People need to remember that performance isn't everything or we'd see everyone with Porsches and Corvettes. iMacs and your el cheapo PC's(under $500) would not exist. Not everyone can be the fastest. The key is for Apple in this case to learn how to sell without worrying about performance too much. They've done that somewhat just by having cool looking and easy to work on case design and providing a powerful OS with very easy to use software. I personally feel that Apple needs to put more Apple products in Windows users hands that are above average without a Mac and yet takes advantage of the Mac(when connected to it) and its features to be even better. ipod comes to mind and maybe even some sort of pda or portable device.
So in essence for what it's worth people might want to tone things down on the negativity. Honesty is ok but don't go overboard trying to get your point across. It does turn away new folks who could have fresh perspectives on things down the road. Most of us are frustrated but it's certainly not the end of the world for Apple. People may not have noticed this but they're not really the same Apple that we used to know. They are changing in many ways and I think their markets will be changing as well. That can have good and bad effects on us to bring out our frustration but we just need to make sure we don't go overboard about it.
At any rate my rant is done. The mods will do what they feel is best but I hope others consider what I have posted.
People need to remember that performance isn't everything or we'd see everyone with Porsches and Corvettes. iMacs and your el cheapo PC's(under $500) would not exist. Not everyone can be the fastest. The key is for Apple in this case to learn how to sell without worrying about performance too much. They've done that somewhat just by having cool looking and easy to work on case design and providing a powerful OS with very easy to use software. I personally feel that Apple needs to put more Apple products in Windows users hands that are above average without a Mac and yet takes advantage of the Mac(when connected to it) and its features to be even better. ipod comes to mind and maybe even some sort of pda or portable device.
So in essence for what it's worth people might want to tone things down on the negativity. Honesty is ok but don't go overboard trying to get your point across. It does turn away new folks who could have fresh perspectives on things down the road. Most of us are frustrated but it's certainly not the end of the world for Apple. People may not have noticed this but they're not really the same Apple that we used to know. They are changing in many ways and I think their markets will be changing as well. That can have good and bad effects on us to bring out our frustration but we just need to make sure we don't go overboard about it.
At any rate my rant is done. The mods will do what they feel is best but I hope others consider what I have posted.
Kethoticus
macrumors 6502
Discontinue the thread?
"I'm wondering if it's time for the mods to lock this thread. While I like discussions to be open and honest, many of the comments seem to be taking a very negative spin."
You're joking, right? Many of us here are negative because we're discouraged about the developments of our favorite platform. That's legitimate discussion about very relevant subject matter, and there's no sense in keeping people in the dark about our legitimate concerns. And don't you think that many of these newer people may have the same concerns?
If the "negativity" is bad enough to turn newer people away, then they have other issues that would manifest themselves at some point in the future anyway.
Let's save the locking up of threads for extreme things only, like uncivilized behavior and such.
"I'm wondering if it's time for the mods to lock this thread. While I like discussions to be open and honest, many of the comments seem to be taking a very negative spin."
You're joking, right? Many of us here are negative because we're discouraged about the developments of our favorite platform. That's legitimate discussion about very relevant subject matter, and there's no sense in keeping people in the dark about our legitimate concerns. And don't you think that many of these newer people may have the same concerns?
If the "negativity" is bad enough to turn newer people away, then they have other issues that would manifest themselves at some point in the future anyway.
Let's save the locking up of threads for extreme things only, like uncivilized behavior and such.
EXACTLY. The problem is that you can only do this when performance isn't a serious issue. Right now, it is.
Personally, I hold out great hope for Jaguar. If Apple can address the piddly performance problems which really are a nuisance (eg, Finder and GUI responsiveness), they will be in good shape - even without blazing CPU speeds. Faster CPUs and better architectures would be a boon (imho, a big one).
It boils down to this: give Jane User enough power to do her everyday work without hindrance and you'll have satisfied customers.
There is a lot to be said for perceived performance.
Kethoticus
macrumors 6502
x86 Macs...
"Repeat after me, "Apple will not go to x86". It would be suicide for them. Their bread and butter is hardware sales with hefty margins. Going to x86 would at once force them to drop their margins to compete and increase support costs. It was bad enough with PPC clones, it would be orders of magnitude worse with x86."
How would going to x86 hardware force them to drop their prices and compete? I imagine that the x86 hardware is probably much cheaper than what they're currently using. So, if anything, they'd be able to make competitively-priced Macs more easily.
Besides, they could SLOWLY introduce such a system into the Mac world by selling x86 and PPC systems side-by-side, slowly phasing out the PPC as software developers catch up and produce OS X/x86 apps.
"What worries me is that at this stage, Apple doesn't have any of the factors in the performance equation going for them on the consumer end. I'm hoping XServe is merely the tip of the iceberg. We need DDR and HyperTransport in PowerMacs soon. Just these two technologies would make a world of difference in day-to-day computing on Macs."
Yeah, they would. But keep in mind that the PC cloners will also be having these subsystems in machines as well, PLUS the 2+ GHz CPUs.
Apple needs a fast CPU solution and the sooner the better. The more they fall behind in speed, the more their market share is likely to dwindle. What is it now, 3.7% overall, worldwide? Wasn't it about 5.2% two years ago? What happened since then?? They've been profitable, but they're not expanding their market. A little speculation here, but isn't possible that Apple is hurting their survival as a company by being greedy instead of being more concerned with spreading their platform around a bit more?
"Repeat after me, "Apple will not go to x86". It would be suicide for them. Their bread and butter is hardware sales with hefty margins. Going to x86 would at once force them to drop their margins to compete and increase support costs. It was bad enough with PPC clones, it would be orders of magnitude worse with x86."
How would going to x86 hardware force them to drop their prices and compete? I imagine that the x86 hardware is probably much cheaper than what they're currently using. So, if anything, they'd be able to make competitively-priced Macs more easily.
Besides, they could SLOWLY introduce such a system into the Mac world by selling x86 and PPC systems side-by-side, slowly phasing out the PPC as software developers catch up and produce OS X/x86 apps.
"What worries me is that at this stage, Apple doesn't have any of the factors in the performance equation going for them on the consumer end. I'm hoping XServe is merely the tip of the iceberg. We need DDR and HyperTransport in PowerMacs soon. Just these two technologies would make a world of difference in day-to-day computing on Macs."
Yeah, they would. But keep in mind that the PC cloners will also be having these subsystems in machines as well, PLUS the 2+ GHz CPUs.
Apple needs a fast CPU solution and the sooner the better. The more they fall behind in speed, the more their market share is likely to dwindle. What is it now, 3.7% overall, worldwide? Wasn't it about 5.2% two years ago? What happened since then?? They've been profitable, but they're not expanding their market. A little speculation here, but isn't possible that Apple is hurting their survival as a company by being greedy instead of being more concerned with spreading their platform around a bit more?
Re: x86 Macs...
Now imagine this scenario:
"White box" P4 2 GHz = $700
Apple "iIntel" P4 2 GHz = $2000
(all other specs the same - and they could be)
You can upsell OS X and everything that's great about a Mac... but it's going to be pretty fricken tough convincing Joe Sixpack that he's not being had by Apple.
I doubt if the price of parts (to Apple who sells millions of units annually) is appreciably different. Apple could make far cheaper machines right now! But they have shareholders who prefer fat dividends cheques. The reason they can get away with such high margins is that they have no direct competition. Who else sells a consumer-level PPC machine?
Now imagine this scenario:
"White box" P4 2 GHz = $700
Apple "iIntel" P4 2 GHz = $2000
(all other specs the same - and they could be)
You can upsell OS X and everything that's great about a Mac... but it's going to be pretty fricken tough convincing Joe Sixpack that he's not being had by Apple.
Apple has a great history of reinventing their own platform and not losing every last developer they have. BUT, I think if they switched to x86 at this point in time - just when developers have finally managed to Carbonize and Cocoa-fy, not without some expense - they would successfully alienate all but the hardcore developers. Those who remain, would have their exit route clearly illuminated for them (once you eliminate the problem of writing code for two different architectures).
Undoubtedly. All the more reason for Apple to get on board NOW.
Again, remember Apple's raison d'etre: profits. Apple has successfully weathered a downturn that has just about every tech company reeling. Not only weathered it, but managed to stuff several billion into the proverbial coffers. Marketshare is important, but so is the bottom line. They've taken care of the latter, and with "Switch", it looks like they're starting to go after the former.
Grokgod
macrumors 6502a
sorry cappy!~
I despise it when a individual calls out for moderators to control what they think is negative thinking!
That is an incredibly juvenille perception!
THis is an actual discussion and sometimes in a debate people are going to say things that you may think are negative.
Taking the contrary postion in a subject is not always something that should be suppressed, because you feel that its negative. Your feelings are not the issue here!
So called Negative feedback is very important to deconstruct the issue, analyze it and extrapolate a course of action . With greater understanding and an appreciation of where the future may lies.
I will not try to stop what I consider your very negative words spouted in a childish attempted to call on moderation to water down the posts.
Maybe you think that we should all post only good things like mindless drones?
I will instead realize that your views are part of a total conversation in this thread and allow you, your rights of freedom of speech on this board.
Obviously if alot of people feel negative about what has been happening with APPLE then it needs to addressed!~
Hiding or pushing these things under the rug will create nothing but immense trouble for APPLE and could lead to it final downfall.
APPLE needs to hear the voices of its followers or soon there will be noone there.
There is NO doubt that APPLE is in trouble, they realize this and are trying to work it out. Wether or not they are successful is another story.
Just the idea tht the G5 is not coming out till 2003 has sparked this thread that has been viewed by over 5000 people, now thats the sign of a good thread!
I despise it when a individual calls out for moderators to control what they think is negative thinking!
That is an incredibly juvenille perception!
THis is an actual discussion and sometimes in a debate people are going to say things that you may think are negative.
Taking the contrary postion in a subject is not always something that should be suppressed, because you feel that its negative. Your feelings are not the issue here!
So called Negative feedback is very important to deconstruct the issue, analyze it and extrapolate a course of action . With greater understanding and an appreciation of where the future may lies.
I will not try to stop what I consider your very negative words spouted in a childish attempted to call on moderation to water down the posts.
Maybe you think that we should all post only good things like mindless drones?
I will instead realize that your views are part of a total conversation in this thread and allow you, your rights of freedom of speech on this board.
Obviously if alot of people feel negative about what has been happening with APPLE then it needs to addressed!~
Hiding or pushing these things under the rug will create nothing but immense trouble for APPLE and could lead to it final downfall.
APPLE needs to hear the voices of its followers or soon there will be noone there.
There is NO doubt that APPLE is in trouble, they realize this and are trying to work it out. Wether or not they are successful is another story.
Just the idea tht the G5 is not coming out till 2003 has sparked this thread that has been viewed by over 5000 people, now thats the sign of a good thread!
Have comfort the G4 is competitive
Waves makes professional audio SW processors for music and they are publishing performance figures for optimized versions of their plugs.
Waves figures for 1.7 GHz P4 and 933 G4 and dual 1GHz G4
P4 1.7
C4 16
Ren Comp 33
Ren EQ 102
Ren Reverb 10
Ren VOX 34
TrueVerb 20
G4 933
C4 12
Ren Comp 42
Ren EQ 54
Ren Reverb 7
Ren VOX 37
TrueVerb 13
Dual G4 1GHz
C4 22
Ren Comp 96
Ren EQ 109
Ren Reverb 12
Ren VOX 72
TrueVerb 24
The dual G4 is the champ in all categories by far although the 1.7GHz P4 is close in EQ and reverbs. The P4 beats the 933 MHz G4 in only 4 of 6 categories although it has double GHz.
The G4 is still competitive.. Fear the G5!!
So the fine Pentium with all the DDR memory and much faster processor isn't that fast.
Micael
Waves makes professional audio SW processors for music and they are publishing performance figures for optimized versions of their plugs.
Waves figures for 1.7 GHz P4 and 933 G4 and dual 1GHz G4
P4 1.7
C4 16
Ren Comp 33
Ren EQ 102
Ren Reverb 10
Ren VOX 34
TrueVerb 20
G4 933
C4 12
Ren Comp 42
Ren EQ 54
Ren Reverb 7
Ren VOX 37
TrueVerb 13
Dual G4 1GHz
C4 22
Ren Comp 96
Ren EQ 109
Ren Reverb 12
Ren VOX 72
TrueVerb 24
The dual G4 is the champ in all categories by far although the 1.7GHz P4 is close in EQ and reverbs. The P4 beats the 933 MHz G4 in only 4 of 6 categories although it has double GHz.
The G4 is still competitive.. Fear the G5!!
So the fine Pentium with all the DDR memory and much faster processor isn't that fast.
Micael
Micael,
Too bad you're comparing a $2700 G4 with a $800 PC. Apple needs to do something to make up the speed difference.
Too bad you're comparing a $2700 G4 with a $800 PC. Apple needs to do something to make up the speed difference.
I agree. All my friends that work for IBM and SGi think the itaniums are pure trash. Basically Intel and MS needed something fast so they can actually try and compete in the real server market (high end aix, irix, solaris) and they rushed out a 64 bit processor and archetecture.
It's not a very capable archetecture.
The biggest thing apple could do to win this war is do away with bus speeds like SGi's and other higher end servers. That requires more intelligent components that can talk directly to each other at full speed, but if they could get that at an affordable cost, their systems would fly...
Micael,
On some of those tests, the dual Ghz is only 20% than an 18 month old PC. PCs have been at 2.4Ghz for some months now. So a fair comparison would be with a dual 2.4. So just take all you results for the PC, double them, then add another 30% for the clockspeed difference, and you can see that the mac is not impressive at all.
Yes, certain benchmarks like RC5 can show high end macs are faster, and by all means, if all you want to do with your PC is run RC5 all day, then go for the high end mac.
The true Mhz myth now is that Mhz do not matter. Of course they do. Yes, scaling Mhz generally does not get you a one to one improvement, but you do get an improvement. And macs suffer the same as PCs, as the 733 Mhz G4s were only slightly faster than the older 533 because of more pipeline stages. But it WAS still faster. Maybe all this Mhz myth stuff was a decent argument 3 years ago when the P3 was at 600Mhz and the G4 was at 450, even though the G4 was still only faster at Altivec optimized functions. To say today that a 1Ghz G4 is faster than a 2.4Ghz P4 is just delusional. I wish G4s were faster, but they aren't, and no PC users is going to "switch" once they try out a machine that is slower in the UI than the PC they through out 2 years ago and costs 2-3 times more!
On some of those tests, the dual Ghz is only 20% than an 18 month old PC. PCs have been at 2.4Ghz for some months now. So a fair comparison would be with a dual 2.4. So just take all you results for the PC, double them, then add another 30% for the clockspeed difference, and you can see that the mac is not impressive at all.
Yes, certain benchmarks like RC5 can show high end macs are faster, and by all means, if all you want to do with your PC is run RC5 all day, then go for the high end mac.
The true Mhz myth now is that Mhz do not matter. Of course they do. Yes, scaling Mhz generally does not get you a one to one improvement, but you do get an improvement. And macs suffer the same as PCs, as the 733 Mhz G4s were only slightly faster than the older 533 because of more pipeline stages. But it WAS still faster. Maybe all this Mhz myth stuff was a decent argument 3 years ago when the P3 was at 600Mhz and the G4 was at 450, even though the G4 was still only faster at Altivec optimized functions. To say today that a 1Ghz G4 is faster than a 2.4Ghz P4 is just delusional. I wish G4s were faster, but they aren't, and no PC users is going to "switch" once they try out a machine that is slower in the UI than the PC they through out 2 years ago and costs 2-3 times more!
RC5 not the only place it is fast
Photoshop, and Genentech Blast. And if you want to go further
the folks at Yellow Dog Linux http://www.yellowdoglinux/ have made Black Lab Linux which is Altivec optimized. So before you get to saying the G4 1 Ghz is not faster than the Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz, there are many other applications that use Altivec where it is faster. And it is those applications which require it, are where it counts. The Mhz myth is a myth, and we should ask how many floating point calculations a second the Pentium and AMD can do. The G4 dual 1 Ghz machine can do 15 billion floating point calculations a second. Now to get those developers to learn how to use Altivec to their best advantage. They focus too much on graphics cards and not on the processors.
Photoshop, and Genentech Blast. And if you want to go further
the folks at Yellow Dog Linux http://www.yellowdoglinux/ have made Black Lab Linux which is Altivec optimized. So before you get to saying the G4 1 Ghz is not faster than the Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz, there are many other applications that use Altivec where it is faster. And it is those applications which require it, are where it counts. The Mhz myth is a myth, and we should ask how many floating point calculations a second the Pentium and AMD can do. The G4 dual 1 Ghz machine can do 15 billion floating point calculations a second. Now to get those developers to learn how to use Altivec to their best advantage. They focus too much on graphics cards and not on the processors.
Grokgod
macrumors 6502a
~what the ROBGUZ
Either its TOO early in the morning for me or RobGuz is suffering from a massive delusion!
Double the results for the Pcheese?
Why? 1.7 and 1.7 doesnt equal 2.4 it equals 3.2...
then add 30% !!>??
What in the world are you talking about?
APPLE has a plan to speed up the UI its called QE.
I am really pleased to see that the dual 1 ghz are out running the 1.7 p4.
It shows what the g4 can really do even without DDR , which is coming this MWNY! When that happens we will really see some interesting benchmarks.
Also good to see some truth in what APPLE is always saying about MAC clock speed being different.
Doesnt this prove it yet again.
And you complaining that the test needs to add more to the score of the P4
I think your missing the point here, totally!
As for the costs! We already know that MAC's cost more!
Thats one of the reasons I buy them, they are better SO they cost more.
Either its TOO early in the morning for me or RobGuz is suffering from a massive delusion!
Double the results for the Pcheese?
Why? 1.7 and 1.7 doesnt equal 2.4 it equals 3.2...
then add 30% !!>??
What in the world are you talking about?
APPLE has a plan to speed up the UI its called QE.
I am really pleased to see that the dual 1 ghz are out running the 1.7 p4.
It shows what the g4 can really do even without DDR , which is coming this MWNY! When that happens we will really see some interesting benchmarks.
Also good to see some truth in what APPLE is always saying about MAC clock speed being different.
Doesnt this prove it yet again.
And you complaining that the test needs to add more to the score of the P4
I think your missing the point here, totally!
As for the costs! We already know that MAC's cost more!
Thats one of the reasons I buy them, they are better SO they cost more.
Re: French Translation
Could the "spare parts" be referring to redundant power supplies? This would make sense since most servers have this feature anyway.
If raw performance is your bag then quit looking at consumer computers and move on over to SGI, Sun, IBM, etc.
Apple has never been about performance but the user experience which they win hands down. It would be nice to see a more advanced architecture though. This would mean the ENTIRE architecture not just the processor.
Could the "spare parts" be referring to redundant power supplies? This would make sense since most servers have this feature anyway.
If raw performance is your bag then quit looking at consumer computers and move on over to SGI, Sun, IBM, etc.
Apple has never been about performance but the user experience which they win hands down. It would be nice to see a more advanced architecture though. This would mean the ENTIRE architecture not just the processor.
etoiles
macrumors 6502a
replace PowerPC with x86/AMD ?
Could Apple start using x86/AMD cpu's but still build macs (propriatory box, does not run windows) ? OSX would still only run on Apple's machines...
I do not understand a lot about hardware, so this is a question more than a suggestion 😉 I understand that the software side of things could be a bit tricky, but I am sure they could come up with something...(remember the time when Windows was running on different processors intel, alpha ?)
At least they would not have to worry about matching PC processor speeds any longer...
Could Apple start using x86/AMD cpu's but still build macs (propriatory box, does not run windows) ? OSX would still only run on Apple's machines...
I do not understand a lot about hardware, so this is a question more than a suggestion 😉 I understand that the software side of things could be a bit tricky, but I am sure they could come up with something...(remember the time when Windows was running on different processors intel, alpha ?)
At least they would not have to worry about matching PC processor speeds any longer...
Re: replace PowerPC with x86/AMD ?
Current impediments for clone makers:
I don't think Apple could avoid clones if they went to x86, for the following reasons...
Current impediments for clone makers:
- PowerPC sluggishness - Apple has a hard enough time convincing people that PPC is acceptable - no 3rd party would be insane enough to try this too
- All the great software is compiled for PPC - there is no decent way to interpret PPC binaries on x86 and (see #1)
- Mac ROM is proprietary
- OS X is written by Apple to run on Apple machines
[/list=1]If Apple moves to x86, they will immediately eliminate problems 1 and 2. Problem 3 would likely be solved by a competent reverse-engineering team in short order. The only remaining hurdle is getting OS X to run on the fictional clones.
One of several things could happen:- Manufacturers could not attempt to clone, citing OS X compatibility as a concern
- Clones could happen with third-parties providing patches or drivers for OS X
- Apple could decide to support third-party clones
[/list=1]Of this list, I think #1 is quite likely. But there's always a chance that somebody could decide to go after a piece of the Apple pie (I'm so witty). Who would have thought there would be ANY aftermarket CPU upgrade providers for Mac? Much less competition. But there is.
So we're faced with the possibility of either third-parties doing all the support of their own products (and subsequent problems when Apple releases updates) or Apple supporting even more hardware (and subsequent problems when Apple releases updates).
The end result is poorer stability and a general devaluation of the Mac experience. People would begin to confuse hardware issues with software issues. The buck gets passed and customers get pissed. The way it is now - we know who to blame if something doesn't work. That's a GOOD THING.
Maybe Apple could come up with a way to make an x86 Mac proprietary in some way. But I doubt it could last. More likely, measures aimed at locking down the Mac platform would probably just embitter their customers and competitors alike.
alex_ant
macrumors 68020
Re: RC5 not the only place it is fast
Wooptie-doo!
Agreed. But generally, the G4 is much slower than pretty much all of its competition.
That's according to Apple marketing, with perfectly tuned code under perfectly controlled conditions. It's also 15 billion single-precision, not double-precision, FLOPS. If you want to listen to Apple marketing, that's fine, but if you want to listen to reality, here's a little dose of that for ya:
SPEC_CPU2000 - the most widely accepted and accurate CPU benchmark currently in existence:
1GHz PowerPC G4: 306 int / 178 fp (peak, per CPU)
1.13GHz Pentium III: 461 int / 320 fp (base - peak is higher)
2.2GHz Pentium 4: 790 int / 779 fp (base - peak is higher)
Why, the 1GHz G4 can't even hold its own against the Intel Sh*tanium:
800MHz Itanium: 358 int / 715 fp (base - peak is higher)
Of course AltiVec will make those results less embarrassing, but ONLY with single-precision floating point code. So the G4 excels at a few specific, limited tasks - it really does suck at most everything else.
Alex
Wooptie-doo!
Agreed. But generally, the G4 is much slower than pretty much all of its competition.
That's according to Apple marketing, with perfectly tuned code under perfectly controlled conditions. It's also 15 billion single-precision, not double-precision, FLOPS. If you want to listen to Apple marketing, that's fine, but if you want to listen to reality, here's a little dose of that for ya:
SPEC_CPU2000 - the most widely accepted and accurate CPU benchmark currently in existence:
1GHz PowerPC G4: 306 int / 178 fp (peak, per CPU)
1.13GHz Pentium III: 461 int / 320 fp (base - peak is higher)
2.2GHz Pentium 4: 790 int / 779 fp (base - peak is higher)
Why, the 1GHz G4 can't even hold its own against the Intel Sh*tanium:
800MHz Itanium: 358 int / 715 fp (base - peak is higher)
Of course AltiVec will make those results less embarrassing, but ONLY with single-precision floating point code. So the G4 excels at a few specific, limited tasks - it really does suck at most everything else.
Why should they? Where's the market? They've optimized Photoshop and FCP and whatever other niche products, but where is their incentive to completely re-write and fork the fp-intensive parts of their code to make them faster on the Mac but incompatible with x86, when they can write that code once and have it run almost as fast as it possibly could on what comprises 95%+ of the desktop market without any special optimization whatsoever. This is why I say PPC needs a robust and capable FPU in the place of, or alongside, AltiVec.
Alex
Still there is a good point
Waves have used a lot of effort optimizing the performance both for Pentiums, Athlon XP 1700 and the G4. Using Altivec and also the counterparts in the other processors and the G4 is not behind. Actually there are no big gap between the 700 MHz P3 and the 1.7 GHz P4 the performance gain is clearly less then doubled (about 50-70%). The AMD is more or less equal to the 1.7 Pentium.
A calculated 2.53GHz Pentium would do a 3-3 vs the dual G4.
The point is that Intel is by extending the pipeline increasing the MHz without getting proportional performance gain. And then fooling people by marketing to think their new processor is that much more powerful. It is a clear myth.
OK there is performance gain but not by far compared to the MHz gain..
Also it is not cheap to buy a dual processor workstation with Intel 2.4 GHz processors.
So there is a company doing processor intensive realtime SW trying hard to optimize their plugs for both platforms and the latest plugs v3.5 show these results. Also the PC market is probably much bigger so there is no reason to think they focysed more on G4 optimization..
Waves have used a lot of effort optimizing the performance both for Pentiums, Athlon XP 1700 and the G4. Using Altivec and also the counterparts in the other processors and the G4 is not behind. Actually there are no big gap between the 700 MHz P3 and the 1.7 GHz P4 the performance gain is clearly less then doubled (about 50-70%). The AMD is more or less equal to the 1.7 Pentium.
A calculated 2.53GHz Pentium would do a 3-3 vs the dual G4.
The point is that Intel is by extending the pipeline increasing the MHz without getting proportional performance gain. And then fooling people by marketing to think their new processor is that much more powerful. It is a clear myth.
OK there is performance gain but not by far compared to the MHz gain..
Also it is not cheap to buy a dual processor workstation with Intel 2.4 GHz processors.
So there is a company doing processor intensive realtime SW trying hard to optimize their plugs for both platforms and the latest plugs v3.5 show these results. Also the PC market is probably much bigger so there is no reason to think they focysed more on G4 optimization..
Well I can't stand Windows! But, sometimes the major downside I am starting to see in all of this besides Windows and having to buy new software and moving to the darkside and saving a lot of money and getting more power and getting an uninspiring design is:
Fan Noise.
My god those PC boxes are louder than my fridge, louder than a car almost! I used to live in a loft, which was literally a 1600 square foot room. Sometimes I had the PC box on, and the thing was SO loud I could hear it through earplugs and through my door to my bedroom. And for some reason, all the CD drives in PC's these days sound like they're going to take off they're so loud.
So if anything, I couldn't ever change because of the fan noise 😀 😀 😀
Fan Noise.
My god those PC boxes are louder than my fridge, louder than a car almost! I used to live in a loft, which was literally a 1600 square foot room. Sometimes I had the PC box on, and the thing was SO loud I could hear it through earplugs and through my door to my bedroom. And for some reason, all the CD drives in PC's these days sound like they're going to take off they're so loud.
So if anything, I couldn't ever change because of the fan noise 😀 😀 😀
Apple is intersted in making money, and only secondarly(sp?) what the consumer wants. To that end, you will never see an Apple on the market with an x86 processor. Even though it would benifit the conusmer greatly, it would open Apple up to much more compitition, and thus Apple would be forced to reduce prices, and "loose" money.
I am a hardware geek and love the WinTel world (sits down and waits for the WA [Windows Annonomus] meeting to start). I have no doubt that MS screws us, and have already sworn off Intel( I only buy AMD). However there is much more room for a tinkerer like myself in this world. As soon as I learn Linux well enough, I will be spending much more time in that OS than Win2K. At that time I will belong to the LinAMD world😀
You will never see Apple fully adopt de facto standards because they want you to buy their stuff at inflated pricing. Of all the computer manufactures, Apple produces the most, so don't tell me that thier hardware costs them more, on the contrary, I'll bet they spend less for each motherboard that Dell, or Compaq.
As for the release of the G5, does it really matter. The Mac fanatics, for all their whinning, will still not give up on Apple. They could tease the G5 until 2010, and still hold onto 2.5% of the market share, as long as SJ can hold up his favorite PhotoShop filter and say "Still beats the P VIII, using XYZ filter, under a blue moon, without fans, and looks cool on your desk!"
And before I get flamed to death, I do own a Mac: TiPB 500. I waited until OS 10.1 came out to get it, because I have come to dispise OS 7,8,9.x as well as Win 3.x, 9x, Me. Face it, crashing sucks!. Why deal with it when OSs out there, available to the public, have 99% solved that problem.
It all depends on what you want in a computer. I like to tinker, so I use a self-built Athlon PC Desktop. I want a portable reliable stable notebook, with enough power to be competitive for 3-5 years: TiPB. The irony is that I have already had the logic board of the TiPB replaced once. Not a single hardware problem with my desktop!
Lets talk fans. I have 7 fans in my desktop, by choice. It breaks down like this: 2 standard case fans, one optional. 2 processor fans (dual processor MotherBoard). One processor on the GeForce3 Ti200. One fan in the 400 Watt Powersupply. Yes it is noisy, I like it that way. It's like having a muscle car, you want to be noticed for the loud exauhst. Those of you who hate all that noise, pay your extra money to Apple, and don't complain when the noisy PC beats your butt in benchmarks. Simple law of physics, the faster a machine runs, the more heat it generates. Innovations in streamlining will only go so far. And by the way, my TiPB's fan is noisier than any single fan on my PC, plus it is true, I could almost cook on the back of my notebook.🙄
Flame ON!
I am a hardware geek and love the WinTel world (sits down and waits for the WA [Windows Annonomus] meeting to start). I have no doubt that MS screws us, and have already sworn off Intel( I only buy AMD). However there is much more room for a tinkerer like myself in this world. As soon as I learn Linux well enough, I will be spending much more time in that OS than Win2K. At that time I will belong to the LinAMD world😀
You will never see Apple fully adopt de facto standards because they want you to buy their stuff at inflated pricing. Of all the computer manufactures, Apple produces the most, so don't tell me that thier hardware costs them more, on the contrary, I'll bet they spend less for each motherboard that Dell, or Compaq.
As for the release of the G5, does it really matter. The Mac fanatics, for all their whinning, will still not give up on Apple. They could tease the G5 until 2010, and still hold onto 2.5% of the market share, as long as SJ can hold up his favorite PhotoShop filter and say "Still beats the P VIII, using XYZ filter, under a blue moon, without fans, and looks cool on your desk!"
And before I get flamed to death, I do own a Mac: TiPB 500. I waited until OS 10.1 came out to get it, because I have come to dispise OS 7,8,9.x as well as Win 3.x, 9x, Me. Face it, crashing sucks!. Why deal with it when OSs out there, available to the public, have 99% solved that problem.
It all depends on what you want in a computer. I like to tinker, so I use a self-built Athlon PC Desktop. I want a portable reliable stable notebook, with enough power to be competitive for 3-5 years: TiPB. The irony is that I have already had the logic board of the TiPB replaced once. Not a single hardware problem with my desktop!
Lets talk fans. I have 7 fans in my desktop, by choice. It breaks down like this: 2 standard case fans, one optional. 2 processor fans (dual processor MotherBoard). One processor on the GeForce3 Ti200. One fan in the 400 Watt Powersupply. Yes it is noisy, I like it that way. It's like having a muscle car, you want to be noticed for the loud exauhst. Those of you who hate all that noise, pay your extra money to Apple, and don't complain when the noisy PC beats your butt in benchmarks. Simple law of physics, the faster a machine runs, the more heat it generates. Innovations in streamlining will only go so far. And by the way, my TiPB's fan is noisier than any single fan on my PC, plus it is true, I could almost cook on the back of my notebook.🙄
Flame ON!