By Darthmole (Darthmole) (212.113.199.253) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 08:21 am:

What are people's opinion of the new G4s? I'm running a DP800, and that dual 1.42 is sorely tempting - what kind of performance increase do you reckon I'd get by upgrading, what with the larger backside cache, DDR RAM, and an ATI 9700...?

By longchin (Thekeeper) (24.163.28.122) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 10:13 am:

i have a dual 800, a dual 1000 and a g4500.
to use benchmarks(i know... i know)
as a reference the DP 800 takes 155 sec for the RT scene
Dp1000 <RT 125sec. the dual 1.25 will chew another 25 sec off of that @103sec.
so my simple simon brain sez...hmmm another 250MHZ per processor should
be pullin times within seconds of the fastests pentium you can buy?
for less than you gave for the DP 800...cant be all wrong.
I would not bet too much on the ATI9700 video card though(IMO)ATI's always blownin
smoke about their latest offering and it seldom pans out.
i have had way less OGL problems with nvidea but you can still "choke" them pretty
easily with LW. the dp 800 has a GF3 and the 100 has the GF4 ti and you cant tell any difference
except for the $400. hole in my pocket=)

go for it...

By Darthmole (Darthmole) (212.113.199.253) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 10:38 am:

Thanks for that. The BTO options include the ATI 9700 for another 250 UK pounds - if I'm not going to see any improvement in OpenGL, I can save a few quid by going for the 9000 (or keeping the GF3).

In fact, the whole thing comes in under £2,000 in that case. Real tempting...

Or should I wait for the legendary IBM-powered machines?

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 02:20 pm:

If you are price conscious enough to wait until the IBM based machines come out, then you'll be price conscious enough to baulk at the high price that those machines will be.

As for the 1.4GHz ones, they haven't been announced yet. It's only some rumor sites that have been speculating, though it does seem rather likely.

I would predict that the speed increase from the 1.2 to 1.4 GHz machines will be less than from 1.0 to 1.2 GHz. This is because the current 1.0 GHz DDR Macs have a smaller backside cache than the 1.2 GHz ones. Apple deliberately tried to make the speed difference between the two greater.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 02:23 pm:

Ah, I stand corrected. I hadn't seen the Mac news sites and didn't realize that the 1.4GHz Macs have just been released. Well, there you go! Rumor sites proved to be right!!!

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 03:01 pm:

After reading the specs of the new Macs, it should be noted that the 1.4GHz model now sports the 2MB L3 Cache which the 1.2GHz model previously had.

The new 1.2GHz model has now had it's L3 cache reduced to 1MB. I would expect that the new 1.2GHz model runs a bit slower than the older 1.2GHz model. In its advantage, the new model comes with other niceties like faster WiFi and Firewire800. Also note that the lower models don't come with the Pioneer Superdrive as standard, though you can get it as a build to order option. This will make them a bit more expensive.

The speed bump to 1.4GHz is fairly significant. It was only a few months ago that I purchased a dual 1GHz Mac (September, I think). At the time, this was the fastest Mac you could buy. Now there is no PowerMac that comes with processors slower than 1GHz. The speed bump to 1.4GHz is almost a 50% gain in a few months. Apple is gaining ground.

By ted devlin (Eblue) (12.149.3.2) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 04:18 pm:

then why am i so happy with my 933 single proc g4?
o wait i remember....
1gig o ram,
superdrive,
apple pro speakers (believe me they r good),
g4Ti nvidea card,
and a 17" apple lcd.
good lighting,
nice ikea "L" shaped desk

and 1 more thing... it beats the pants off of my cpu at work g4/500 (single proc)/640/20 gig ati rage pro agp2x


i guess its just nice to have fluid 3d interaction, and as long as i go to sleep at night and work during the day, i don't mind the slow (umm i guess its slow, i remember alias vers. 3.2... 2 hours for a frame, not raytraced!) renders. its all in what u need.

By Ted Lee (Tedlee) (66.156.11.244) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 04:22 pm:

At first glance the upgrades, combined with lower prices looked very appealing. However, after reviewing, it seems Apple cut some corners to achieve the lower prices...

The $1499 entry level Power Mac is the lowest price professional system Apple has ever made. However, it is also the only single CPU model in what was a complete dual CPU product line.

The $1999 mid level Power Mac doesn't offer a Superdrive in its standard configuration. You'll have to custom order it at a cost of $200.

The $2699 model features a ATI Radeon Pro 9000 Graphics Card. You can switch this to a GeForce 4 Titanium for $300 more, or the soon to be released ATI Radeon 9700 Pro for the same amount. Both upgrades feature 128MB of RAM (versus the 64MB in the Radeon 9000). No time table is given on the 9700 Pro's release, and anyone who remembers waiting for the GeForce 3 Titanium cards will tell you it could be awhile....I'm also told that the 10.2.4 upgrade due soon will address the driver issue for the GeForce cards, giving the GeForce 4 Titanium a significant boost under OS X. Currently the GeForce driver doesn't offer any real speed advantage between the G4MX and the Ti.

I have a G4/800DP w/ 1.5GB RAM and a GeForce3 Ti card. It's now about 18 months old (I also have a new PBG4/1ghz that I've been using LW on quite happily). My general rule of upgrading is to wait for a machine with double the mhz of my current workstation. With that rule, I'm waiting for a 1.6ghz dual processor G4 (hopefully a G5). Hopefully that will be achieved in 6 months (the general interval between upgrades).

By Darthmole (Darthmole) (81.86.131.124) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 02:47 am:

Yeah, that was my reckoning too (double the Mhz before upgrading). Maybe I should wait six months and see what's happening - if the IBM chips come storming in at some significant clock speed, then I'd want to upgrade again.

Also, my DP800 is a really nice machine (Superdrive, 1.12Gb RAM), so perhaps a graphics card update will suffice in the mean time...

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 04:25 am:

You'll never get the IBM processor, then, because it will come with a lower clock speed than the G4. It will also be faster than the G4.

By John A. Johnson (Johnny) (199.4.18.2) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:21 am:

I'm holding out for the 970-powered Macs, mainly bcs my dual 450 does a kick-a** job for me still, and because I'm not going to fork for a new rig until/unless there's a HUGE leap in performance..

Not 2x, not 4x...more like 10x or more. given that the bus speed is something like 7 times what current macs have, does anyone know if the 970-equipped macs will be 10x as fast as they are now?

J

By ted devlin (Eblue) (12.149.3.2) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:50 am:

doubt it, but maybe they will be 10x faster than a dual 450.

By ingo (Ingo) (213.39.144.190) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:58 am:

>> I'm holding out for the 970-powered Macs,..

Well its not even clear that Apple will use IBM's 970 processor, due to contracts with Motorola. And if i believe that we will see them first in X-Serve Macs, because thats what they are made for, servers i mean. And dont forget the pricing.

Just my 2 cents

(still pushing my G4 450 single till it smokes)

By John A. Johnson (Johnny) (199.4.18.2) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 10:42 am:

contract with Motorola...I don't recall hearing anything that Apple couldn't buy from IBM..Apple Moto and IBM are supposed to be equal partners in the PPC alliance..

from what I've read, it's the Power 4 that's the server chip; the 970 is the non-server version..unless I'm missing someething.

J

By ted devlin (Eblue) (12.149.3.2) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 11:27 am:

apple is aiming for incremental increases in performance, they'd love to leap ahead of everybody, but it just puts a much larger price tag on everything.
they are obviously pissed at the state of the g4, but they are also trying to keep price down.

I've noticed an increase on their end at making Software better (faster) it will be interesting to see how far they take that, but i think apple is wary about the economy, and demand... i don't see them ever realeasing a product so much faster than everything else that its unaffordable.

look for clever bridges, software/hardware innovations, that release stored potential that already exists in the machine, and hardware that furthers that advantage.

current examples:
adc connector,
the opengl implementation finder acceleration,
iapps
ipod

are these things 3d specific? most of em no. but i've noticed vast resources at apple being poured into getting Quicktime and OpenGL closer and closer, and thats already bearing fruit, perhaps we'll start seeing a trickle down effect into the 3d market, maybe even some neat hardware.

gotta love speculation

By Ted Lee (Tedlee) (139.76.65.132) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 12:13 pm:

The 970's initial runs are supposed to top out at about 1.8ghz...

So, if the 970 does get used in the next rev. towers (let's call them Summer 2003 Macs), having a lineup of 1.4ghz, 1.6ghz and 1.8ghz isn't out of the question. Although, I'm sure yields of the 1.8 are lower than the others, and will require a slight delay of 4-6 weeks before they deliver them.

Apple won't switch to the 970 if it can't get them at G4 or higher speeds. They are already fighting mhz perceptions against AMD/Intel, they can't risk comparisons to their own chip offerings...

By John A. Johnson (Johnny) (63.215.118.239) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 07:10 pm:

=i don't see them ever realeasing a product so much faster than everything else that its unaffordable. =

I can see your point, but I think that given the current situation (that of Macs getting the snot whipped out of them by PCs), Apple needs to do some catch-up in the 'how fast is it' department - whether you measure in Mhz, I/O, or widgets per second.

I think you're right that technology companies want/need to make $ off of today's technology before they release tomorrow's...Apple needs to release Today's technology to us..um...now!

What first-time computer buyer (or switcher) is going to opt for the computer that gets the snot whipped out of it by the other platform??

Man, I say it's time to open the vault, pull out the Warp engines and start clipping some wintel 'nads!

J

By Ed Mag (Ed_M) (152.163.189.134) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 11:06 pm:

John, I agree with you... Apple needs to leapfrog the competition at least for a while. I'm sure Steve is aware of the chatter on the news forums and rumor sites -- he's gotta be fed up. I keep thinking that since his *other company* (Pixar) is a SERIOUS 3D design house, it's likely that he'd want to go ALL Mac. To do that you need some beefy hardware. Still the machines aren't selling... Be it Macs or PCs. There doesn't seem to be anything so compelling that people feel the need to upgrade. Perhaps there is an extreme pent-up demand for MONSTER-Macs among people in the Mac community though..We'll see. Still I expect Apple to do some really *wild* things with the 970 and it's relatives... Perhaps even running on Power5 and Power6 systems eventually. Again, we'll see...

The fact is that as machines become ever more powerful, the endusers, particularly the masses of joe-shmoes will need to upgrade entire machines less and less. What is Apple going to do? How can Apple increase the life expectancy of their machines and still continue to make money? Well, I have an idea that I've been discussing on various boards for a while now.... The answer might be in steady upgrades, but instead of whole machines, think components ... perhaps even some type of "backplane" configuration that allows users to simply add another daughter card with additional processors (up to a certain limit) that can be added to the system over time let's say. This is similar to how backplanes are used in mainframes and such. I guess what I'm saying is that with IBM, Apple has a great chance of truly bringing SMP to the desktop in a HUGE way; effectively killing the competition with sheer numbers. People are going to compare the 970 to whatever the competition has at the time; most likely on a single-CPU basis... This is a mistake. If a 970 *is* released at 1.8 GHz and can keep up with the competition imagine what a dual or quad configuration will do. IBM has already stated that their 970 machines will be released in a 4-way config. If Apple released a 4-way SMP config, the competition will be extremely hard pressed to catch up. They'd be tripping over their silicon wafers ... the competition is pretty much at the wall it would seem. It's going to get interesting.

--
Ed

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 04:32 am:

IBM releasing 4-way machines running Linux will be competition enough! (IBM have already stated that these machines will be running Linux).

I agree that Apple's secret weapon will be multi-processor machines. OS X is more efficient at this than WindowsXP is.

Up until a few years ago, Apple machines had more megahertz (and more power per megahertz) than Pentium machines. The Windows fans weren't exactly tripping over themselves to switch then, yet they use the megahertz as a reason to go with Windows.

I think the stars will align for Apple this year (metaphorically). They already have the best OS. The megahertz gap has narrowed a bit with the latest G4s, and the 64-bit IBM processor will cause a lot of excitement midyear.

By Ed Mag (Ed_M) (205.188.208.43) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 01:31 pm:

[[[(IBM have already stated that these machines will be running Linux). ]]]

That's right.. LINUX, which *sitll* after over 10 years of open source development hasn't turned into anything but a really good server OS. It's penetration into the mass-market of home users is nearly nil. It wasn't designed to be a consumer desktop.

I'll cut and paste a few words from some friends of mine that I chat with on a somewhat regular basis. I've posted this around the various boards before and always find that I get e-mail from people who picked-up on it for the first time; furthermore, after reading what the excerpts said, they agreed that the post makes perfect sense...And since I'm too damn blaze to retype the basic points I'll just copy-paste the words from another post, it's just much easier and the points still get across. Again, I'll post it here again in the hopes that I'll get some more feedback on it.



[[[First, Linux has been around for about 10 good years or so; its even been on the Amiga. It has been around for x86 machines for a LONG time and probably has a good installed base already. The point is that the people who are using the OS aren't in the market that developers and OEMs need to make money... And you can forget about support. The people who use Linux are the "geeky types" and solderheads. Not people at home (which is the BIGGEST market). So if you don't have mainstream apps like Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, Maya, AutoCAD etc... Apps and a User Interface that's consistent and familiar ALREADY (i.e. today), the outlook for the apps coming in the NEAR future is bleak. Linux has been around too damn long already and really hasn't amounted to anything but a really nice low to midrange server OS and is just now breaking into the desktop? What took so long?

Linux development is moving more slowly than people think... Again, it's been out in the open-source community for how long now?? A very long time.

So, the question still remains, who is going to bring all these new and wonderful apps to the platform? Which apps will they be? Which flavors of Linux will these apps be compatible with? How long will it take the apps to develop and mature on this new platform? Will there be consistency of interface through ALL flavors of Linux UI? The questions keep mounting... OS X on the other hand is a completely different story...

OS X has been out for a very short time and has ALREADY passed Linux in probably every functional way imaginable and its evolution is progressing at an incredibly fast rate. OS X is mature and consistent on the desktop TODAY and it will only get better. It has a UI that's far more robust, advanced and usable than ANYTHING on Linux AND it's more familiar to people AND it has a larger installed base (OS X is the #1 shipping UNIX in volume -- commercial or otherwise). It's had its shakedown period and more importantly... It already HAS A LOT OF GREAT COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS as well as developer commitment. Can Linux even begin to say that? No.

And lets not forget this article:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24060.html

Or this article:

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2773365,00.html

To quota a few of my friends on their views of LINUX...

[[[On the grand scheme of things, people just don't trust Linux enough to bet their entire livelihood on it. They toy with it, prod it, but in the end, they don't switch their entire computer base over to it. Without that kind of commitment, Linux will remain in the hobbyist arena (when talking home desktop). ]]] - Pamela J. Miles

[[[There's a lot more to a desktop platform than just the OS; it's the entire infrastructure that matters. A solid desktop OS needs all manner of support from font foundries, file conversion utilities, installers and a general ability to open and work with documents across all other platforms in friendly fashion.

In general, my personal experience has been fairly grim when it comes to these issues. OS X provides an answer to all this that is so strong that the question of desktop LINUX has gone from "How?" to "Why?" Those who like X86 boxes will slide glacier-like to Windows while the independent folks will tend to Macintosh, OS X and a mainstream Unix with a robust interface and mature applications.]]] - Del Miller, Aerospace Engineer )(MacOpinion)

[[[Linux, and Unix interfaces in general are designed by committee. Large groups of people hashing, arguing, testing ideas, until they get the one that they can all agree on.

Examples of this are: KDE CDE OpenWindows WorkPlace Shell Gnome Windows...

All of them horrid.

To design a good interface, you need talent, but you also need vision. Committees never have vision. They have meetings. ]]] - John C. Welch


[[[There's sort of a fallacy with LINUX. LINUX never has been, and never will be a viable consumer desktop. To be such, it would have to be designed for the consumer.

LINUX is what it has always been -- a reasonable implementation of a UNIX based operating system, that is not bad as a low-end server (that has grown into the mid-end -- and may someday grow higher). It is not a bad foundation to build a turnkey system for some enterprises to use (as turnkey solutions go. IBM?). But that is not the same as "consumer desktop".

The ultimate operating system is not a command line with a thin graphics shell on top. So, LINUX has never really been anything close to a desktop solution (let alone a consumer desktop solution) by anyone but the completely self-deluded. ]]] - David K. Every

[[[OSX is already the unit leader in terms of a UNIX distribution, BUT... Other people that rely on UNIX (corporate entities et. al.) are learning that IT IS ALREADY THE INTERFACE LEADER as well. And this is 12 months out of the gate. Jaguar looks to fix/improve many things... And in another 12-18 months, I think it will be the standard by which most UNIXXES are measured... OSX delivers today on what LINUX has been promising for 10 years... ]]] - Dave K. Every

[[[I'm one of the few people that believes that Linux is at a point where it (as an operating system) *is* worthy of desktop status... but kicker is that people don't use operating systems... they use applications... until more consumer friendly software starts appearing for Linux... it will have little impact... and by consumer software... i don't mean products like word, a web browser, and quicken... (there are already open source products like that already ... instead, there needs to be more kids software and stuff accessible from companies that issues software to use their hardware as well as other application... when these products come about... then Linux will be able to start functioning in the desktop arena. ]]] - Kelly McNeill (former EOC of OSOpinion)

So, the larger picture shows that people simply don't trust Linux as a viable solution. Sure, People will always mess around with it and there will always be open-source development and such, but in the end, I'm not convinced that these people and organizations are going to trust it enough to switch their entire computer base over to it. Simply put, it isn't what Linux was intended for and there are just too many additional hurdles to clear before any of this can even begin to sound viable. Will everyone be doing their own in-house, specialized development and support? I doubt it.]]] -- Ed M.



So, does anyone disagree with any of the above points?

OK, moving on...

[[[, yet they use the megahertz as a reason to go with Windows.]]]

Because that's all they really have... OS X is maturing at a staggering rate and will continue to do so; not only that, but Apple is embracing open-source and open and industry standards... They aren't following the proprietary nature of Microsoft. Isn't ironic that these Wintel folk were bashing Apple and the Mac because they claimed it was a proprietary platform? Now you'd be hard pressed to find a platform more proprietary than Windows and people now try to backpedal their way around that fact. It's quite funny actually. Just imagine when Palladium hits LOL Everyone is going to be FORCED to buy new hardware whether they want to or not because this OS will be tied directly to the hardware; therefore, people wanting to take advantage of the new features and other fluff will need to upgrade (again).

--
Ed M.

By Michael Fessenden (Mfessenden) (63.89.65.110) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 02:37 pm:

Ed, you might get a kick out of this then...

Interestingly, one of the rumors I heard from a friend in sales at IBM was that Apple is in talks with the Big Blue right now in regards to IBM's upcoming 970-based servers. The speculation is that IBM might sell the machines with OSX Server as an option. Seems a lot of companies are taking a look at X Server as it has matured into a very viable option.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 02:53 pm:

I don't know if Linux and OS X are really a threat to each other. Linux has gained a lot of ground in Hollywood, where many companies are loath to use Windows. Hopefully OS X will get used more in this area too (Apple is trying very hard).

I think there is money for developers with Linux. Especially hardware sales. People running Linux are more likely to buy high-end hardware, wheras the average home user doesn't need a more powerful computer. There are a lot of large systems running Linux in mission critical situations. Look at what IBM is doing.

Windows is the real threat. People mindlessly gravitate to it, and don't care if industry standards are destroyed. Most Windows users don't care one iota about this. Neither Linux or Apple can afford the funds necessary to pay the Democrat and Republican parties the "political donations" (bribes) necessary to get government support (ie swaying decisions in the courtroom.)

Sure, Mac OS X is easier to use than Linux on the desktop. That would be hard to dispute. I'd like to see Apple separate its hardware and software businesses, like Palm recently did. I think Apple would gain more dollars from OS sales than they would lose from hardware sales. This would put them in Microsoft's firing line, but recent "iApps" would help them sustain this.

By Nigel Critten (Ncritten) (195.92.67.75) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 04:36 pm:

I currently looking to make the switch to the Mac, I wish I'd done it a long time ago but the PC hardware was and is cheaper, I'd certainly buy OS X for i386 but would much rather have a G4 or 970 sitting there because I'm not a fan of the Pentium either

Apple would never make a living licensing the Mac hardware, so OEMs could build them in the same way any idiot can build a Windows PC, I seem to remember they tried it a few years back and gave it up as a bad job.

Nigel
www.100tinsoldiers.com

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 07:31 pm:

What Apple did a few years ago (under the leadership of former CEO Gil Amelio) was to licence their hardware design, allowing manufacturers like Power Computing, Motorola and others to make cloned Apple boxes. What I suggest is a little bit different.

I don't think Apple would do it, but I think they should sell versions of OS X that run on various processors and non-Apple boxes. I think Apple could still maintain the majority of its hardware sales anyway. People could still buy Apple machines, such as iMacs, and IBM970 based PowerMacs.

By Ted Lee (Tedlee) (66.156.14.17) on Friday, January 31, 2003 - 09:51 pm:

With all of Apple's "under the radar" statements about CPU speeds, one has to believe that they have a game plan in place, and it either involves the IBM 970 or a jump to x86.

Actually, I believe both will be a part of the future Mac platform. The 970 will arrive later this year, and if reports of it's yields are true, should top out at 1.8ghz. While not a huge increase, the 970's big selling point will be it's dual core. Essentially, it's two CPUs on one die. So you get a speed increase, plus you essentially get dual CPU throughput, without the massive dual CPU power consumption.

I also believe that Apple will dip it's toe in to the x86 world with a Mac OS X Server for x86. It won't run on vanilla x86 boxes, but rather an Apple branded x86 machine (probably a rackmount). This will be Apple's way of signaling it's developers that the x86 route is coming, and it would be a good idea for them to prep their apps for the recompile. It will also light a fire under Moto and IBM to take seriously Apple dumping them in favor of x86.

This would allow Apple to be fully prepped should Moto and IBM continue to fall too far behind the competition. It would also allow Apple to continue to sell PPC machines while it gets it's developers on board with recompiling their apps....