I miss my old B&W...adequately powered for surfing the net...but I still prefer my G4...although I wish it didn't put out so much heat
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I miss my old B&W...adequately powered for surfing the net...but I still prefer my G4...although I wish it didn't put out so much heat
If all you are doing with your machine is web surfing or processing data over the network, then hell, buy an iBook, but us FCP and Photoshop users (not to mention you gamers) have been FSB bottlenecked for soooo long. Dual channel DDR400 is going give us whiplash, especially if you can afford gobs of RAM. Imagine being able to cache 10+ min's of DV video in RAM and letting those AltiVec units go full throttle against 'em on renders and such.
I thought I'd keep mine forever - loved her dearly. Then I got a used Dual G4 500. Kicked the B&W to the eBay curb in a NY Minute!Originally posted by John Q Public
I miss my old B&W...adequately powered for surfing the net...but I still prefer my G4...although I wish it didn't put out so much heat
(Got $400 for her plus $140 for the 400 Mhz G4 too!)
Software that remains compiled for only the G4 scheduler will probably not see huge increases, but I personally think that the huge increase in FSB speed will speed up the whole OS so much, as with most comercial software being recompiled for the G5 , that the overall impression will be that it is much faster.
As to the "barely competes" comment about the AltiVec/VMX units - Hannible at ArsTechnica agreed with you untill he got the dirt on the G5 from IBM:
(Read the link for all the interview questions and whatnot.)
He goes on to talk about how the VMX units look a lot worse on paper than they will perform in real life and the IBM guys basically say that it will be much better in future chips.
well iguess i agree with you then, firewire is the way to go but has two pitfalls. one is firewire based exspansion is of course higher priced and adds clutter. #2 according to motu and others you can get mega bandwidth thru the pcix slots which means many more simutaneous 24 bit /192hz stereo tracks which is important to many pro audio guys but for joe public i agree firewire may be the way to go.Originally posted by mim
DaveG5-
Sorry, I didn't mean NO expansion slots
I was talking more about the need (or desire) to have 4 rather than 3, etc. Even with your example there are many things (like pro soundcards) that are starting to use firewire as an interface.
Thanks for the info on the tech specs. And ofc ourse you're right about it nice being able to have everything inside the case - but all I'm doing is questioning how often all those expansion bays and slots get used.
Mind you, I personally have got very good at minimizing my needs given the shoeboxes I've been living/working in for the past few years. It's very easy to get used to being very particular about what you "need" when you've got so little room to play with
Apple's hidden social strategy.
Pretty easy - depends on the model of G3/G4.
For Blue & Whte G3's and Graphite G4's here's a link: http://xlr8yourmac.com/G3-ZONE/hival52x/install.html
(QuickSilve G4's would probably be about the same I'd think)
Don't have a link for Mirror Drive door G4's but I'd presume they'd be even easier.
Basically, you pull the old drive, pop the DVD-R drive in and install iDVD.
On mirror drive machines, you wouldn't even have to remove the old drive as they can hold 2
the net-surfing and processing data over a network was an analogy...admittedly I mostly use mine for coding windoze apps in VS.NET (VPC: Win2000)...that was one of the biggest selling points for me (going to Mac completely) was Visual Studio running well enough under VPC...and a little video editing for tutorials in the software I'm write...but seeing that Reason and CuBase are Mac compatible I'll probably be hooking up my MIDI controller to the Mac too...
dropping a CD/DVD drive is a breeze...Apple has all the instructions (considering there are differences in each generation of cases) D/L'able in PDF format...only takes about 10 minutes after you lower the drawbridge to finish the project...in most cases you'll only need a #1 and #2 Phillips Screwdriver (maybe tweezers if you want to change the jumper settings on the drive)...
Mhz have little or no impact on performance, plain and simple.
I'll give you an example. SGI O2 uses an UMA (Unifed Memory Archictecture) structure of having one large pool of memory and everything that connects to that pool of or memory is hooked up via high speed connectors.
The memory is running a 66Mhz, HOWEVER, the bandwidth of the memory is 2100mbps.
It ulimately doesn't matter what the memory clock speed is, what is important is banwidth and if the memory bandwith is 13.7Gbps (IIRC), then who gives a flying continental whether or not the memory runs at 400mhz. All that happens is that 400Mhz moves more data per-clock cycle.
Been lurking for awhile but the about post about Snappiness rang so true I had to register. I use ICQ, Safari, and occasionally Photoshop and Dreamweaver for light weight stuff. What is my next purchase? Dual G5 with Panther pre-installed. It's all about perceived speed.
I thought iDVD would work with an add-in DVD burner, so long as you added one of the models Apple shipped with their systems.
No practical experience here, but it seems like the only way Apple can keep iDVD working only on built-in drives would be to either use the model number (which is the same as the retail version; it doesn't have to be -- OEM's can add a "A" or "M" to the model number reported for high-volume customers ... but Apple doesn't appear to have taken this route, and the model number is identical to the retail version) OR Apple could "brand" the built-in drives with custom silicon (much easier to just ask Pioneer to add an extra letter to the model number though!) OR Apple could "brand" the motherboard of computers shipped with a built-in drive (which would be sinister, odd, and, again, far more costly than the first option above).
IMHO, it is quite unlikely that iDVD would know the difference between a retail drive and a built-to-order drive, so long as the model numbers match.
For a Pro rig, however, one that is going to last a few years, SATA is the way to go. You won't see any difference today, but as HD speeds increase (or cache RAM sizes increase
) you'll see the extra bandwidth being used.Also, the nice skinny SATA cables are much better for cooling airflow, and for assembling (or user modifying) than the flat IDE ribbon cables (and the round ones have data corruption issues ... acceptable for a throw-away box but not a PRO workstation!).
SATA drives are more expensive because they aren't used across the entire industry yet. They will go down in price as demand increases. SATA as an interface isn't more expensive than IDE as an interface for the HDD manufacturer.
AGP 8x is soon going to be the industry standard. It's hard enough finding AGP 1x cards out there already ...
1) The processor bus bottleneck has been taken care of quite nicely, thank you very much!
2) More memory (8GB, say) is better than faster memory if and only if you are running out of main memory (hence using much slower virtual memory). If your system only uses 256 MB of memory at any point in its lifetime then having 1 or 2 GB of RAM isn't going to help you at all.
3) Even if more memory is better, more and faster memory is a godsend!
And you plan on replacing your computer in a year? If so, then you are correct. Otherwise, you just proved the point you were trying to discredit.
No, $1799 is mid-range for a PC (1.6GHz G5 with the combo drive instead of super drive is $1799). $1999 (the 1.6GHz G5 as advertized) is upper-mid-range for a PC.
$4000 is high-end for a PC.
This has been fairly true for over a decade. The only thing that has changed recently is that the low-end PC market has gotten really low-end.
If I were to buy a development workstation today I'd spend upwards of $3000. If I were to buy a secondary computer for home, I'd spend in the $1500-2000 range. If I were to buy a cheapo computer with no bells or whistles for internet access and the occaisional word processing document, I'd spend less than $1000.
Two cables and 2-3 screws, once you flip open the side of the box (and make sure you are grounded/static-free!). Not as easy as plugging in new RAM, but certainly not brain surgery either.
Replacing an optical drive is very easy to do, as there are about three steps involved, and you "undo" them to remove the old drive, then "redo" them the other way around to put the new one in.
My father's replaced his own CD drive (on a Windows box, even!). That would tell you how easy it is if you knew my father and electronics
...where to begin...
Processor Bus (aka: Front Side Bus) only dictates Processor to "North-Bridge" of the motherboard's chipset.
Memory Bus is what the traces running from the Memory Hub/Controller (usually part of the "Northbridge" of the system's controller chipset)
System Bus is where the motherboard's Controller Chipset talks to everything else.
System Bus is NOT 800, 900, or 1000Mz.
System Bus is broken down based on Archetecture...if a system has a seperate "South Bridge" some of the functions are offloaded (ie PCI, ISA and IDE controllers).
If the System Controller is integrated where the functions of the traditional North/South Bridge archetecture are carried on to one location so as to make a cheaper alternative (usually only older/slower systems do this because of the obvious bottlenecks it creates...but I digress, I have worked with fast machines where integration helped rather than hindered but the exception rarely the rule)...
Maximum speeds you are able to acheive are thus:
Processor Bus: Based solely on processor and chipset manufacturer in the case of IBM...the PPC970's Processor Bus is half of the rated processor speed.
Memory Bus: Partially determined by type of memory used DDR speed ratings are a misnomer...the actual speed is half the rating because of latency issues. Which is why PC2100 (DDR266) speeds are roughly equivalent to PC133 SDRAM...PC3200 is actually equivalent to 200Mz considering the archetecture. In the case of "Dual Channel" DDR, you're spreading/splitting instructions across two seperate memory busses, increasing bandwidth (which naturally increases speed), this is something that Intel got into trouble with using RAMBUS on the first generation Pentium4 (the memory hub for early RAMBUS wasn't fully up to the task...not to mention a 20 stage pipeline and inferior FPU in the processor didn't really help matters)
NOW we get to the System Bus...speeds on the system bus are limited to what they are connceted to.
ISA=8Mz
EISA=16Mz
PCI=33Mz
PCI (Enhanced)=66Mz (which was used on second generation G3's and Yikes G4 for video)
AGP=66Mz (it doesn't matter which flavor 1/2/4/8x...it's only 66Mz...where the differences in AGP formats resides...the width of the data path and how the Northbridge saturates the bus)
PCI-X=133Mz (although PCI-X has been out for nearly 2 years on Workstations and Servers, as a replacement for the aging PCI (Enhanced), there is still not adequate support...and unfortunately won't be until "Mainstream" PC manufacturers begin to build it into their systems...as a sidebar...the next generation of Video Card will be PCI-X because it allows higher bandwidth than the proposed AGP 16x)
And I'm not going to muddy the waters further with NuBus, Micro-Channel or VESA...
...to wrap...a CPU is an expensive calculator and it crunches numbers increasingly faster each generation...but to do its job, relies on components to perform optimally...there has been no machine produced since the first generation PPC's or Pentium (and clones) where the Processor and memory bus performed in parallel...likewise the System Bus in and of its components hasn't performed in parallel with the processor since 68030 and 80386...Likewise...the G5 is not using a Gz speed memory or system bus...although it's processors can each speak to the north-bridge at up to 1Gz (thus the Dual-FSB)...it's still the System Bus Chipset that allocates instructions to every other part of the system...the processor is the brain...but the System Bus is the Central Nervous System.
and yes...I did find your accusation of a lack of knowledge exceedingly rude...
you do know that most current chipset designs don't use the traditional Northbridge/Southbridge design philosophy anymore, right? P4 doesn't. The latest G4s don't. The G5 doesn't.
Here's a quote from a PC Tech site to illustrate "The 820 chipset employs the Accelerated Hub Architecture that is offered in all Intel 800 series chipsets - the first chipset architecture tomove away from the traditional Northbridge /Southbridge design."
.... er, sorry, it is 800MHz.
The HyperTransport protocol integrates thePower Mac G5s I/O subsystems and connectsthem to the system controller. Serial ATA, GigabitEthernet, FireWire, USB 2.0 and optical digital andanalog audio are all integrated through twobidirectional 16-bit, 800MHz HyperTransportinterconnects for a maximum throughput of 3.2GBper second. The system bus connects components with 800MHz HT busses. They have half the bandwidth of the processor busses as they are only 16 bit instead of 32bit.
You aren't helping your stance that you know what you are talking about.
a) the actual speed is half the DDR speed not because of latency, but because that's the actual speed.
b) ddr speeds are NOT equivilent to SDR speeds. There is a reason to use DDR over SDR, the effective bandwidth IS double what you get in SDR.
c) The latency IS generally higher in ticks, but that doesn't mean that the latency is longer in real time. If the memory controller would take 1 second (just for clear argument) to fetch an instruction.. the reasoning is, it will take twice as many ticks to get the data with DDR as SDR because with DDR there are twice as many ticks in a second. BUT, it still takes one second.
... and, you should probably be a little more clear when you discuss memory speed. Are you refering to frequency, bandwidth, latency? they are all different things.
why is most of this relevent? ISA and EISA? HUH? who gives a crap? EISA didn't even make it on the PC.
don't worry, you've done a good job of that already.
back to your points above...
PCI-X isn't mainstream yet, but it is completely compatible with PCI. Compatability and the fact that these are considered 'pro' machines are the reason why Apple went PCI-X. There are PCI-Express devices out now, but generally they are only running on PCI-X because they _actually_ need the bandwidth. By putting PCI-X into the G5s, Apple has not only extended the useable life of the chipset, but they've also prepped the machine for the use of high end interface cards like GigE, FibreChannel, Myrinet...
Another point. Could you provide some backup to your contention that newer AGP ports are actually only run at 66MHz? I was always under the impression that an AGP 4x slot actually ticked off at 266 million cycles per second.
huh?
the first pentiums ran on 60 and 66MHz sys buses... only the first two (complete crap) models ran on a 1:1 ratio. The first PPC chips ran at 1:2 from the start. My Powermac 6100/66 had a 33MHz system bus. There has NEVER been a PPC that ran at a 1:1 cpu to system multiple.
The G5 is not using GHz memory, but it is using 400MHz memory on a 128 bit bus. The processors (in the 1.8GHz for example) run on two, one way, 32 bit 900MHz buses. The effective bandwidth of the 1.8 GHz processor bus is essentially equal to the memory bus (due to routing overhead on the HT BASED processor bus). And, because of the one way, 32 bit nature of the processor buses... the CPU can actually only read data at half the rate of the memory (same with exclusive writes).
I don't like name calling (unless the person is REALLY an idiot and they just keep coming ;-)
I'm not sure you've put up a good rebuff for that other person's slam yet though.
SATA is hot swappable. It has one cable and it's faster. The drives will eventually be cheaper when volume goes up because the interface is physically more simple. SATA also does away with the slow master/slave arrangement. Every device gets its own data channel
this is very misleading. In real world tests, agp 8x cards aren't much faster than 4x cards. This doesn't mean, in any way, that the 8x agp standard is not twice as fast as 4x AGP. In the opinion of people like Tom Pabst (tom's hardware.com), one big issue is related to poor driver performance... the current vid cards just don't take advantage of the available bandwidth.
Other related point... the speed of the AGP bus typically serves two purposes... as a buffer, you have to move texture and frame buffer data to the vid card. The more complex the textures and the scenes, the more bandwidth you need. AGP was also designed from the ground up to allow for DMA for caching in the system memory when the on board vid memory runs out. They doesn't typically happen with modern video cards since hardware vid card makers are usually ahead of the curve when it comes to how much on board memory the current (and near future) games need. This is why there is generally no performance difference between the high end 128MB and 256 MB gaming vid cards. This is also why, in real world tests, the GeForce4 64MB cards tend to be faster than the 128MB versions.. since the games today don't use more than 64MB and the 64MB versions of the GF4s generally have slightly faster clocked memory.
Apple's choice of AGP 8X is a smart move. It may not be needed now, but there is room to use it in the future. Why? Because vid chipsets evolve VERY quickly, because you'll be able to fetch textures and data from 128bit wide DDR 400 to the on board vid memory, and because Apple is beginning to court the higher end market... Apple mentioned support for 'pro' video cards comming to the G5. We might see Mac Quatros soon.
There is a reason why Apple has a consumer line. Just because you don't need 6.4 GB/sec of memory bandwidth or more than 2GB doesn't mean that there aren't a whole lot of people who do. Open up a 500MB image, work on it for a while with multiple levels of undo, then do a 22 degree rotate on it and see how fast it is on a G4.
Actually, AGP is being supplanted by PCI-Express, which to the best of my knowledge, is a different standard than PCI-X.
I have to say that you've made a pretty silly argument against the G5. I can't believe that anyone has their panties in a bunch because Apple made the G5 too nice.
There are other machines available for you if you don't want that much power or bandwidth. Get an iMac or an eMac... Apple still makes the G4 for god sake.
That doesn't mean that there isn't a market for scary fast computers. No one [at my job] would have asked my opinion on the G5 if it would have been launched under the slogan "The G5, just 'good enough' in every way"
OK, let's go point-by-point here...
Latency is another can of worms, and I believe you are correct that DDR memory can have higher latency. Also, the G5 architecture (with the U3 controller) has higher latency on RAM accesses than the G4 architecture (with U2) did.
It still seems to me that you haven't studied the block diagram and accompanying description in the Preliminary Developer Note. That was the main reason why I accused you of not knowing what you're talking about.
As I review my post and this thread, I see that while I was typing ffakr made several of my points for me. But, since I've invested a fair amount of time in this post, I think I'll hit "Submit" anyway.
HTH
WM
Yes.
Yes.
OK, that's not the term I usually see used, but hey, people can have different terms for the same thing...so I'll give you this one.
Actually, it is. It's a 16-bit HyperTransport link running at 800 MHz effective (400 MHz DDR). (That's 16 bits each direction, to be exact.)
OK, yes.
OK.
In the ArsTechnica interview with some IBM engineer-types, one of them pointed out that actually the FSB speed can be 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, or 1/6 of the processor speed (IIRC). But obviously in the current machines we only see the FSB running at 1/2 the processor speed, like you said.
No, not because of latency issues. DDR400 RAM has an actual clock speed of 200 MHz, but it transmits data on both edges of the clock cycle--so the effective speed is 400 MHz (thus the 400 in DDR400).
Latency is another can of worms, and I believe you are correct that DDR memory can have higher latency. Also, the G5 architecture (with the U3 controller) has higher latency on RAM accesses than the G4 architecture (with U2) did.
No, I'm pretty sure you're wrong here. See above.
Yes.
Can't comment on that.
I'm not sure about this "saturating the bus" part, but otherwise, it looks good to me...
Can't speak to this last part, but that all sounds good too.
Not sure what you mean by "in parallel". I believe the 601 Power Macs generally had a FSB that ran at half or a third of the processor speed (my 6100's FSB, for example, runs at 30 MHz).
Yup.
Sorry to hear that. I think I mainly take issue with your use of "System Bus" to describe the interface between the north and south bridges and your assertion that it's anything other than HyperTransport, which always (AFAIK) runs at 800 MHz.
It still seems to me that you haven't studied the block diagram and accompanying description in the Preliminary Developer Note. That was the main reason why I accused you of not knowing what you're talking about.
As I review my post and this thread, I see that while I was typing ffakr made several of my points for me. But, since I've invested a fair amount of time in this post, I think I'll hit "Submit" anyway.
HTH
WM
I appreciate the backup, man.
And there's been plenty of other BS and/or FUD spouted in this thread (people crapping on the G5's performance when at this point there are essentially NO ACCURATE, USEFUL BENCHMARKS of it...); I guess this time I just kind of snapped.
Also note that I didn't actually call him a name--I was honestly making a suggestion that he do just a little more research before posting. Obviously it didn't come across that way, which isn't totally unexpected...
And one more thing: I've noticed that John Q Public uses "Mz" or "Gz" a lot, instead of "MHz" or "GHz". To me, that's not very accurate, or respectful to Mr. Hertz...I'll grant people their shorthands, but really...
Thanks for being on my side
WM
edit: added Hertz link and clarified stuff near the end
Really? I mean, OK, there are three main ASICs instead of two (U3, the AMD-made PCI[-X] bridge, and K2), but it doesn't seem all that different to me...
To be really, super nit-picky, only the bus between U3 and the PCI bridge is 16-bit. The one between the PCI bridge and K2 is only 8-bit.
I think he may be right about the 66 MHz thing, or something like it. AGP 4x uses DDR, at the very least, and there may be some pretty fancy other stuff going on there too. This is kind of out of my league, though...
To avoid any confusion: I was talking about a 6100/60 (actually a Performa 6115CD, but they were basically the same thing...).
Yup.
Me neither. I don't like to pick on people for no reason, but when people start spouting BS I feel like I have to step in.
And there's been plenty of other BS and/or FUD spouted in this thread (people crapping on the G5's performance when at this point there are essentially NO ACCURATE, USEFUL BENCHMARKS of it...); I guess this time I just kind of snapped.
Also note that I didn't actually call him a name--I was honestly making a suggestion that he do just a little more research before posting. Obviously it didn't come across that way, which isn't totally unexpected...
Heh
And one more thing: I've noticed that John Q Public uses "Mz" or "Gz" a lot, instead of "MHz" or "GHz". To me, that's not very accurate, or respectful to Mr. Hertz...I'll grant people their shorthands, but really...
Thanks for being on my side
WM
edit: added Hertz link and clarified stuff near the end
Wow! someone is really bitter. Instead of spreading FUD and spite why don't you check your facts? The reason Apple is selling the MDD instead of the MDD FW800 is because MDD boots into OS 9 and the FW800 doesn't. Considering that Apple stated that had no plans to support OS 9 in any computer this year, it's obvious that the MDD are still being released to satisfy the practical reality (that a lot of people use OS9) in the face of the official policy.
Besides, the MDD gives up very little to the FW800. The G5 design addresses all the people on the other spectrum as you who complained their the MDD so much that they dubbed it the "Wind Tunnel". (I'm sure the MDD's that Apple produces now have tweaks to address some of these issues.)
The new PowerMac G5 is a well-designed machine. The cable routing and compartmentalization show definite influences from the blade servers. I'd be surprised if the PC world doesn't start copying some of this in the near future, just like Dell and others took the latch down cases from the G4 and SFF PCs took the all-in-one motherboards from the iMac/Cube. They can start by using cheap aluminum instead of the huge one piece sheets of high quality aluminum that Apple uses. Nobody will notice in the PC world, in the Mac world everyone would claim how "discolored" or "flimsy" their new machine is (or some other assorted whine).
IMO, the dual-G4 MDD and FW800 are excellent machines. The case design alone has lasted since the B&W G3! Dual Opteron and Dual Xeon machines in the PC world are far more expensive (oh, you can try to put them together on the cheap, and you pretty much hit Apple's MDD price point when you're done). The only main weakness was that certain applications like video and audio tasks use a huge amount of bandwidth and the shared bus of the G4 and its tiny CPU memory bandwidth meant that the CPUs were data starved no matter how large you made the memory bus. Hence hacks like a L3 cache.
Every CPU has some give/take. I remember when the Athlon was considered a monster and then FSB speeds started to go through the roof and show its weaknesses. It still wins raw number crunching tests, but now is widely agreed to have been eclipsed by the latest P4s for all practical purposes except price/performance.
On a more relevant note, these benchmarks bode very well for the G5. I'm actually pretty shocked that a DP 1.45Ghz didn't beat the runt of the G5 litter (single CPU 1.6Ghz). There was a serious question about the hacked nature of the vector unit (Velocity, Altivec, or VMX depending on who you talk to) in the 970...
As for the 1 optical drive and 2 SATA limitation, study your history. Geez, it wasn't until QuickSilver that Macs supported 2 optical drives! Eventually, Apple will probably introduce G5s with more bays and until then you can buy a G4 via eBay or from Apple (MDD) or you can be a bit smarter and get another useless optical drive or drive array (FW800, SCSI with a card, NAS, or Fibre Channel). My bet is, even among graphics, video and scientific computation people, there is very little demand for two internal optical drives.
And there are about 10 reasons why SATA is better than IDE, and only about 1 reason why it isn't (about $20 saved/drive). I'm tired of rehashing them so you can just search the internet if you like. Even the PC world is moving to SATA, and that pace will quicken now that Apple has entered.
(Oh yes, I build my own AMD and Intel PCs too. 2/3 of the machines I personally own are x86 boxen and I work with them all the time. I fail to see how putting together some off-the-shelf parts and tweaking a bios is relevant to anything. Nobody is holding a gun to your head saying you have to buy a Mac.)
my apologies to WM. and ffakr for a couple mistakes...
The only early PPC's that I've been exposed to were the delapidated PM 6100's a company I worked for provided as reference machines for a couple pieces of software we used...hardly a machine to be appreciated when using PIII's...so I defer to your knowledge there where I should have noted 68040's instead...
DDR vs SDR...Bare Feats shows the difference between a DDR and SDR speeds in "Real World" apps...I'll let his tests prove that point...
http://www.barefeats.com/pmddr.html
SATA...The biggest argument against the G5 and SATA for me (you'll have to reference back a few days) is lack of expandability...and NOT being able to use the ATA100 drives out of my deceased B&W G3...and if you already have ATA Drives and want the new G5...there's no way you can add them...short of buying a FireWire or USB case for each of them...
This is why there is generally no performance difference between the high end 128MB and 256 MB gaming vid cards.
...actually the 256MB Gaming Cards are marginally slower than their 128MB counterparts...but only by a few fps (because of addressing issues)
why is most of this relevent? ISA and EISA? HUH? who gives a crap? EISA didn't even make it on the PC.
pardon me...but EISA is the 16bit slot you found in MOST PC's for many years...
ISA was the tiny 8bit slot about the same size as a PCI slot...
...and I do need to correct my own typos on a point...
ISA=8Mz
EISA=16Mz
PCI=33Mz
PCI (Enhanced)=66Mz (which was used on second generation G3's and Yikes G4 for video)
AGP=66Mz (it doesn't matter which flavor 1/2/4/8x...it's only 66Mz...where the differences in AGP formats resides...the width of the data path and how the Northbridge saturates the bus)
PCI-X=133Mz (although PCI-X has been out for nearly 2 years on Workstations and Servers, as a replacement for the aging PCI (Enhanced), there is still not adequate support...and unfortunately won't be until "Mainstream" PC manufacturers begin to build it into their systems...as a sidebar...the next generation of Video Card will be PCI-X because it allows higher bandwidth than the proposed AGP 16x)
that last reference to PCI (Enhanced) should have been PCI (Extended)...
Enhanced being the 32bit 66Mz
Extended being 64bit 33Mz
(and my apologies to Dr Hertz...several companies I've worked and consulted for over the years simply used "z" as shorthand for hertz)
...and other "Titles" I use (such as differenciating Processor, System and Memory busses) go back about 15 years
when I first started working in the industry...admittedly my bread and butter is still WinTel based (and I love the looks of horror when someone asks what kind of computer is on my desk at home)...I can add some knowledge on certain "Industry Standard" technologies that I work with extensively...
lastly ffakr...I didn't view WM.'s debate as a "Slam" as you've so stated...it's called intellectual discourse...where people agree and disagree until both sides have equal understanding of the other's viewpoint and logic...I simply found one statement a little offensive...
The only early PPC's that I've been exposed to were the delapidated PM 6100's a company I worked for provided as reference machines for a couple pieces of software we used...hardly a machine to be appreciated when using PIII's...so I defer to your knowledge there where I should have noted 68040's instead...
DDR vs SDR...Bare Feats shows the difference between a DDR and SDR speeds in "Real World" apps...I'll let his tests prove that point...
http://www.barefeats.com/pmddr.html
SATA...The biggest argument against the G5 and SATA for me (you'll have to reference back a few days) is lack of expandability...and NOT being able to use the ATA100 drives out of my deceased B&W G3...and if you already have ATA Drives and want the new G5...there's no way you can add them...short of buying a FireWire or USB case for each of them...
This is why there is generally no performance difference between the high end 128MB and 256 MB gaming vid cards.
...actually the 256MB Gaming Cards are marginally slower than their 128MB counterparts...but only by a few fps (because of addressing issues)
why is most of this relevent? ISA and EISA? HUH? who gives a crap? EISA didn't even make it on the PC.
pardon me...but EISA is the 16bit slot you found in MOST PC's for many years...
ISA was the tiny 8bit slot about the same size as a PCI slot...
...and I do need to correct my own typos on a point...
ISA=8Mz
EISA=16Mz
PCI=33Mz
PCI (Enhanced)=66Mz (which was used on second generation G3's and Yikes G4 for video)
AGP=66Mz (it doesn't matter which flavor 1/2/4/8x...it's only 66Mz...where the differences in AGP formats resides...the width of the data path and how the Northbridge saturates the bus)
PCI-X=133Mz (although PCI-X has been out for nearly 2 years on Workstations and Servers, as a replacement for the aging PCI (Enhanced), there is still not adequate support...and unfortunately won't be until "Mainstream" PC manufacturers begin to build it into their systems...as a sidebar...the next generation of Video Card will be PCI-X because it allows higher bandwidth than the proposed AGP 16x)
that last reference to PCI (Enhanced) should have been PCI (Extended)...
Enhanced being the 32bit 66Mz
Extended being 64bit 33Mz
(and my apologies to Dr Hertz...several companies I've worked and consulted for over the years simply used "z" as shorthand for hertz)
...and other "Titles" I use (such as differenciating Processor, System and Memory busses) go back about 15 years
when I first started working in the industry...admittedly my bread and butter is still WinTel based (and I love the looks of horror when someone asks what kind of computer is on my desk at home)...I can add some knowledge on certain "Industry Standard" technologies that I work with extensively...
lastly ffakr...I didn't view WM.'s debate as a "Slam" as you've so stated...it's called intellectual discourse...where people agree and disagree until both sides have equal understanding of the other's viewpoint and logic...I simply found one statement a little offensive...