Apple to Announce the Power Mac G5 at WWDC? 633
a.ameri writes "Apple Insider is
reporting that Apple will announce computers based on IBM's 64 bit PPC 970 processor in the upcomming WWDC and will market them as G5. The new Power Mac G5s will sport a completely new motherboard design utilizing DDR 400 RAM as well as AGP 8x graphics, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0, sources said. "In the box" connectivity among the news systems is based on Hypertransport which provides 64-bit addressing and will replace Apple's multilevel bus architecture found in current systems. Initial offerings of the Power Mac G5 are said to boast 1.4 to 1.8GHz, single core PPC 970 processors, with the possibility of a dual 1.8GHz chips shortly thereafter."
No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does anybody have information about this ?
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:3, Informative)
You probably mean appletalk (network software, protocol, etc) support is still there.
Or am I mistaken?
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:4, Funny)
It just goes to show you that there are no winners in the Mac/PC debate, just whiners. (On both sides).
--Mike
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? Yes (Score:3, Informative)
HyperTransport [hypertransport.org] technology transfers data at 12.8 Gigabytes per second. It is designed to be approximately 48 times faster than PCI, 12 times faster than PCI X and 10 times faster than 4-channel Infiniband.
The current G4 suffers from a severe bus bandwidth bottleneck. This is
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:4, Informative)
Because my system acquires DV data far faster than I can transfer it over 100Mbps ethernet.
Re:No Gigabit Ethernet ? (Score:3, Insightful)
4 GB Photoshop files.
Probably true but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Probably true but... (Score:5, Insightful)
However this rumor seems to have enough other sites reporting generally the same thing to be true.
I'd say that that doesn't mean much because rumor sites will probably copy from each other without attribution.
JP
Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have tried to use the Distributed.net client on an AMD Athlon 1600 XP running Linux 2.4.10 and a G4 864 Mhz using Mac OS X 10.2. It seems that in terms of raw processing power, the G4 was actually more powerful, at over 10,260,280 nodes/sec, while the Athlon was only at 8,160,200 nodes/sec, and that's with no backgrounds processes running (besides the OS)
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:4, Informative)
But most folks don't run OS 9 anymore as their primary OS, for a number of good reasons. People run OS X. And OS X has Altivec optimization throughout the core of the system- in libmath and others. Anyone who has used both has noticed a signifigant speed increase in OS X when moving from, say, a G3/500 to a G4/500 that doesn't exist in OS 9.
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, if they were really caving, they would have gone with a processor with a few more RPM.. 1.8Ghz? That's pretty weedy in the world of x86.. That's actually pathetic as far as "new" machinew w
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:2, Informative)
It's kind of naive to equate OGR performance with "raw processing power". Computing OGR nodes is a very special case of computing something. There may
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:2, Informative)
And, AMD has done a pretty good job at disguising the real clock speed. I bought an Athlon 2400+ not too long ago. I couldn't find the real clock speed anywhere on the package, until suddenly a small note in a really tiny font size near the UPC label said: Operates at 2000 MHz.
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux certainly is optimised for x86, but no-one would claim that the x86 has been optimised specifically for Linux!
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:3, Informative)
Look at the dnetc client comparison database and you'll find some spectacular results for the MP Macs - a 2 way 1.42 Ghz G4 scores like a 16 way 1.05 Ghz Sun Ultra SPARC III.
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:5, Informative)
Stop using "Distributed.net" to compare microprocessor performance. It's a highly skewed benchmark that really only tests the speed of the "Rotate" instruction (which is on the critical path of the program).
Altivec supplies a data-parallel version of the Rotate instruction so processors with altivec can do many rotates in parallel which is why a G4 will beat anything else (no other processors have this data-parallel instruction because it is completely useless with the rare exception of this app). That is to say that most other computer designers felt that adding this instruction would be a complete waste of die area and power, since no other ISA supports it (x86, SPARC, MIPS, POWER etc...)
Distributed.net
1) Does not test branch predictors because it's a simple loop that is very easily predictable by even the most trivial preditctors
2) Does not test the internal L1/L2 cache hierarchy because all of the data fits in the L1 of most processors
3) Does not test the memory system (DRAM/Front-side-bus/memory-controller) because, as mentioned in #2, all of the data fits in the L1 cache.
4) It does not test the instruction cache performance because all of the code fits in the L1 instruction cache.
Stop using it to compare general-purpose computer performance. It is only important if the only app you care about is distributed.net
Your Athlon 1600 will spank the G4 at most everything else.
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:5, Insightful)
It has very short pipelines, perfect for a single loop. This hardly makes it "better" overall, it is simply the better choice for that particular task.
Re:Does the clock speed matter that much? (Score:5, Funny)
Will they still be behind Intel ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Will they still be behind Intel ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The comparison is not as stupid as it sounds, your argument is actually a lot worse. Not trying to flame here, but seriously, do you really think the amount of Ghz is what really counts nowdays ?
Re:Will they still be behind Intel ? (Score:5, Informative)
You're misunderstanding the analogy. The point isn't that engine RPM doesn't matter, because the law limits how fast you can go anyways. The point is that engine RPM is only one factor out of many that determine a car's overall performance. Similarly, clock speed of the CPU is only one factor out of many that determine a computer's overall performance.
Re:Will they still be behind Intel ? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the computer world, there is no speed limit.
Yes there is: you. Everything external to the CPU limits the computer these days, and responding to human events is like idling at a stop light; your raw RPM doesn't make a big difference. According to procinfo and top, my computers are idle a good 90% of the time. Everyone chasing clock speed really needs to take a step back and instead design an architecture that meets the burst processing pattern that most people have.
The other part of the analogy is not about performance, it's about packaging. You don't buy a car on speed alone. There are styling and comfort factors, and suitability to a purpose. What's really amazing is that Apple is one of the few that understands that; you'd think PC builders would be more inclined to do that sort of thing in order to differentiate themselves from all the other clones that are on shelves.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Will they still be behind Intel ? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Intel has shown that you can sacrifice too much chasing clock speed in the case of the P4. Look at the Centrino - the same performance of the P4M at 2/3 the clock speed.
With the G5 we are talking about a 64 bit CPU with clock speeds in the 1.2 - 1.8 GHz range. This is in fact quite competitive just on a clock speed basis with current 64 bit designs from AMD and Intel.
Re:Will they still be behind Intel ? (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to be missing the point - what good is the Centrino being just as fast at 2/3 the clockspeed if the P4 still has enough headroom to (say) quadruple it's clockspeed and the Centrino only has enough headroom to double it ?
CPU performance can be increased by (amongst other things) architectural improvements or by ramping clockspeed. Neither, in an of itself, is inherently superior to the other. A CPU that performs twice as fast per clock, but is only clocked at 1/3 the speed, is still slower.
Re:Will they still be behind Intel ? (Score:5, Funny)
It gets worse. The new 3GHz P4 has a thermal output of almost 80W, around four times the thermal output of a . How will Apple cope with a computer which produces so little heat? The average consumer won't care that you can leave a Mac on longer in order to heat up their room, or that they will actually be able to hear their music over the fan noise. All they will see is that the Mac costs more and they have to buy a heater to keeps their house warm as well.
nTh Post!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
They have long championed Firewire as superior (which it is, and is still included) but it is nice to see that they are willing to adapt and a more common USB2.
This acceptance of USB2 shows a willingness to accept standards, no matter how wrong they are.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:nTh Post!!! (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not *exactly* like FireWire. Actually it's not the same at all.
FireWire is a true peer-to-peer model and can work in a ring or star mode. USB uses a Host-Periphieral model where all data must go through the host and only operates in a tree mode with the host at the root. If it is both host and peripheral, it is a leaf on the peripheral end and the root of another tree on the host end.
In FireWire if you have three devices device A can send and receive data directly to/from device C. If it's in a star mode you need a hub, but that doesn't put any load on any of the other devices and is essentially just routing. In ring mode device A sends the data to device B but it just passes it through at the hardware level to device C. You can combine stars and rings, but that is just phyiscal and not logical, as the data is essentially still just passed from one device to the other with no software processing required by any of the intervening devices.
In USB you have a Host and a Peripheral. First off, the host must essentially 'poll' each peripheral to see if it has anything to say. A peripheral cannot initiate a transaction. The polling happens each frame, which is 1 msec in USB 1.x. Secondly, if you want to send from device A to device C you really have to tell the host that you want to send the data to C, then it asks C if it is OK, then the host essentially brokers all the transactions. All the data has to go into the host, get buffered and prioritized and repacketized and peeked and poked and then is turned around to device C, mostly all in software running on the host processor.
FireWire uses a collision avoidance scheme on the virtually shared wire similiar to the way ethernet works. There is no host required to poll peripherals or broker and process all the transactions.
Devices that have both a host and peripheral controller means it has to have 2 connectors since they are different physically. (There is that USB2Go thing, but that's really just a repackaging of the hardware, while all the same host-peripheral and sofware issues remain.) While it is a peripheral it is at the mercy of whatever the host is allowing on that side of the fence. You don't really get a star, you get a messy tree with a slew of idiocsyncracies, and delivery times that become very unpredictable.
If you want to be a host, then you have to essentially replicate what the major OS vendors have done as far as driver support and such. Host controller software is infintely more complicated to implement than peripheral software. It has to have drivers for all the possible peripherals that may be connected to it, and possibly support loading of drivers (at least for updates and such, if not to work with mfg. exclusive-class peripherals). It has to be able to a whole bunch of stuff, hard stuff like scheduling for all the peripherals. If this custom host is also to be a peripheral of say a computer or other host, it has to deal with bridging between the other host and the peripherals connected to it. It has to intervene on every transaction. If you want any kind of throughput you have to have a pretty heavy duty microcontroller to do all that work.
Then there is the issue of drivers. The host has to have native drivers for all the peripherals it is to support. When the peripheral is plugged in it has to negotiate with a driver that knows how to talk to it. The host can't ID a device that it doesn't have a driver for. So if you had a camera, a printer and some weird host in between, that host would have to support both devices with drivers just to pass data between them. Do you think the scanner and camera manufacturers are going to provide drivers for every propietary host OS? It's hard enough to get drivers for Mac/Win/Linux/Unix OSs. In FireWire only the two devices that are communicating need to support a common protocol, since any other device in the ring or star would just be passing around the raw data and doesn't have to support each device.
Re:nTh Post!!! (Score:3, Informative)
While Firewire does stuff that USB2 cannot (because it's effectively dumb and requires the host CPU), they do compete in a LOT of markets.
Firewire only
Consumer digital video
Point to multi-point, hi-bandwidth networks
Firewire and USB2:
External storage connection - HD CD/DVD
Medium bandwidth imaging, scanners, printers and webcams
Point to Point networking - adhoc networking cables
Satellite peripherals - MP3 players, Handhelds(though I haven't seen a handheld to date that included firewire)
--
So the
G5 a good name? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thoughts, anyone?
Re:G5 a good name? (Score:5, Funny)
simple (Score:5, Funny)
The processors will continue from G5 to G9, and eventually to G9.2. The next processor after that will be GX 10.0.
Got it?
Shadow and Substance. (Score:4, Insightful)
The "Shadow" is the G5 and even the most die-hard mac fan would most likely utter the phrase:
I will believe it when I see it.
IMO, apple needs to figure out if they are going to keep/dump metadata...and stick with it.
I find it quite half-assed you can generate previews of images, but not store them.
(with the exception of Internet Explorer, but only one at a time)
(won't someone think of the pr0n collections?)
.
Re:Shadow and Substance. (Score:3, Funny)
I will believe it when I see it
Nah, the phrase we die-hard Mac fans use (when talking about the G5) is:
I want to believe
rumors (Score:2, Insightful)
Gone are the days of WorkerBee [inside-e-law.com].
You can't bet on the rumormill- only steve knows what's going to happen.
I'm really not trolling, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
with an appropriate motherboard for folks who would like to run linux/bsd/ on them?
Re:I'm really not trolling, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
In point of fact IBM announced they would be selling PPC970 based systems running linux months ago. The announcement concerned blades, but I'd be willing to bet they'll build "low end" (compared to Power4 systems) workstations around them too, finally phasing out their old PPC604 low end workstations.
Of course, I wouldn't count on them matching/beating Apple's price point. Historically IBM's PPC based stuff has been *much* more expensive.
Re:I'm really not trolling, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
In 2004, IBM will produce a chipset and subsequently subcontracts a Taiwan motherboard company to produce boards for the White Box market. These boards run Linux/BSD/OSX. Price point for a single-CPU board is seeded (with a small subsidy from IBM) at about US$200.
Apple whines and whimpers, but their contract with IBM does not prohibit IBM from doing chipsets or motherboa
Re:I'm really not trolling, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
alas, no. IBM and Moto both manufacture PPC processors. Most G3's, for instance, were manufactured by IBM (IIRC, even the current iBooks sport IBM procs), but G4's are all from Motorola* because IBM refuses** to use the Altivec unit.
Anybody knows if Apple has been able to gain any market share in the rackmounted server market with its 1U servers? A 1U server build around the PPC970 may be a killer server.
well... before the XServe, Apple had 0% of this market. Selling just one would increase their market share. A friend of mine went to a Minnesota Wild hockey game and was telling me that the stadium luxury boxes are decked out with Apple hardware which you could use to watch instant replays and call up historical video of the various players. Supposedly the stadium has an XServe data center to host it all.
Shenanigans (Score:5, Funny)
No news really (Score:5, Informative)
macrumors [macrumors.com] (reliable, good forums)
macosrumors [macosrumors.com] (unreliable, bloated, no forums)
looprumors [looprumors.com](reliable, low traffic forums)
thinksecret [thinksecret.com](reliable, low traffic content, low traffic forums)
macwhispers [envestco2.com] (reliable, mostly hardware info, no forums)
macslash [macslash.com](slashdot for mac, mostly blahblah)
macbidouille [macbidouille.com](french, rather new, so reliability unconfirmed)
appleturns [appleturns.com](100% reliable news by Steve Jobs's alter ego)
Re:No news really (Score:5, Insightful)
appleturns(100% reliable news by Steve Jobs's alter ego)
Parent was probaly tongue in cheek, but for the uninformed: As the Apple Turns [appleturns.com], now back after a long hiatus, is nothing like an actual rumor site. It is an Apple themed 'soap opera', very funny, by a guy with a great sense of humor and writing skills to match.
JP
Don't forget CARS... (Score:5, Informative)
I visit them both daily.
Re:Appleturn by Jobs's alter ego? (Score:5, Funny)
No, i was joking. It's not a site done by Jobs himself, but it is a well known fact that many apple employees (supposedl including his steveness) are fan of appleturns. Especially the Polls
Re:No news really (Score:3, Interesting)
I myself, like many others, know someone who knows someone that works at Apple (+ another one at IBM) who had this rumor confirmed quite a while a go. The guy from Apple only had access to a G5 prototype once, about 6 months ago, and confirmed the machine to be a total screamer, esp for video thanks to the wickedfast bus and a huge gub of ram.
The only remaining issues now are : what will they b
More Rumors from the Article (Score:3, Interesting)
Take for instance, this snippet taken from the article: ""In the box" connectivity among the news systems is based on Hypertransport -- a universal chip-to-chip interconnect developed by AMD and partners..."...why don't we start the speculation that we're going to AMD chips? Hm...that could be fun. And to be honest, I'm surprised nobody brought it up yet.
Then again...it wouldn't really surprise me to have IBM's new chips in there (I'm still wondering what's going to happen with Motorola and their silly little antics). We've got FinalCut Pro 4 coming out, Panther (OS 10.3) coming out, a couple new updates just happened (ie, iSynch)...all setting the stage for something new.
Now if they'd just hurry up with the Windows version of the music service to ward off the Redmond fellows...
Pet rock. (Score:3, Interesting)
Translation: It's a pet rock until September, by which time production can be geared up and units will actually be available. Of course this will kill all sales until then, so announcing this early would be a very bad idea. So an announcement this early is unlikely.
But... we all know it's coming. Won't be cheap tho, but you get what you pay for in the OSX/Win/Linux world. Over 2 years and still not one crash on my Mac.
Announcing early not unprecedented. (Score:5, Informative)
I think that this time, however, Apple would be doing the right thing to release the G5 ASAP-- that way the hardware will be available during back-to-school time, one of Apple's busiest sales periods. If they do the announce-and-wait thing this time, they'll miss the back-to-school sales. They'll also piss off a lot of people who just blew their wad in August on a G4 with significantly less computing power for about the same money that now buys a G5.
As long as everyone who buys a G5 gets a voucher in the box for a free upgrade to 10.3, I see no problem with shipping the hardware a few months before the OS that takes full advantage of it debuts.
~Philly
USB2 not really surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Bob
Re:USB2 not really surprising (Score:3, Informative)
The Way Of Steve (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the way of Steve is complex and sometimes contradictory.
DDR Ram? (Score:3, Funny)
Rumors and more (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, it's a rumor, but this is a pretty substatiated rumor, that i think we can all agree is happening. One thing still in dispute, is if the new processor is gonna be called a G5 or not. I'm sure Apple wants to get away from the image that the motorola processor havee generated over the last few years.
I would expect to see the PPC 970 at WWDC, or shortly after, i.e. August. As for USB 2, it's coming. Apple has already started using USB 2 cards in its powermac lineup (just not supported by the OS). As for apple trying to catch up in the Mhz race, i don't see this. IBM is the one who's set the Mhz of the 970. I also agree with many rumor sites, stating that the 970 will not be any more expensive that the current G4 lineup. Apple is the only company getting anything based off the G4 motorola line, but IBM currently builds the 970 for it's own blade servers, thus they don't have to gear up just to make chips for apple.
Yeah, the P4 is up over 3Ghz, but looking back, crays are still uber fast, and they don't run ungodly mhz......
Also, i wouldn't count on Apple calling it a G5, as apple might go back to calling their chips by their developed name...ie-970
As for 10.3 and the 64-bit stuff, the 64 bit only comes into play when you start getting 64 bit software to run on the machine, that's why Panther is so big, it'll be a 64 bit OS. Also expect a 64-bit version of Project Builder to help move to 64-bit apps.
AMD is not the founder of hypertransport...They are part of a group who's developing it, and one of the last members to join if i recall...... And I don't think that the transition of an AMD chip is much more complicated than you make it out to be....
Personally, if the idea of a 970 makes your blood boil, wait until WWDC and make an informed choice...if you can't wait to buy a mac, but it now.....
How cany anyone say that the 970 is behind AMD/Intel? Last time i looked, IBMs own 970 is FASTER than the new opterons, aren't those supposed to be fast?
Sorry for the sarcasm, but i find that PC users bash what they don't understand. Apple is heavily imitated by the PC world, so the must be doing something right. Let's just all watch and see what happens at WWDC, and talk about it later. Gossiping about new Mac Hardware......$Free Writing Cocoa apps that screa.........$Free Showing your PC friends how must faster your PPC 970 is over their WINTEL box......$Priceless
Reminders of ALPHA hype (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reminders of ALPHA hype (Score:5, Insightful)
What was so infamous about the DEC Alpha? I worked for a large e-commerce company that used AlphaServers from the AS1000 up to the big 8400s and they were fast, solid boxes with great storage options. Having 64 bits available for databases was nice and the megahertz of these systems wasn't that bad either. Plus the fact that you got Tru64UNIX which despite some annoyances (most notably problems with AdvFS) had some nice features and was far more pleasant to work with than any variant of Slowlaris that I ever touched. The university where I worked also used a bunch of DEC hardware for number crunching, they were quite happy with them. As far as I can see the Alpha wasn't hyped, the 8400 with a bunch of Storageworks BA-370 arrays smoked everything on the market at the time. It's a pity that DEC's marketing department was run by the people who weren't smart enough to be in their engineering department, otherwise the Alpha architecture might still be alive instead of being discarded by HP.
what is the processor price point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what is the processor price point? (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple doesn't have a prayer of competing in the Joe IT Worker space. Wintel rules business operations, Unix still has a mindshare in web services, Linux is making a LARGE dent in web services, Mac is a non-player.
The first job of any Mac today is to PRESERVE market share in it's core demographics, Elementary Ed, Higher Ed, Graphics Artists, Publication, Videography. BTW, did you know that many hollywood and HBO/Showtime movies are edited with Final Cut Pro????
A PPC970 machine would obviously be a higher end offering for high-end customers that need serious CPU horsepower. Most of the market doesn't NEED 64-bit and probably won't take advantage of it for quite some time.
In the higher ed space, I see that a 64-bit processor could become a great tool for researchers who want to do simulation work on their desktops (and notebooks).
This is especially relevant as IBM starts putting PPC970 CPUs into super-computer rigs running linux variants. It becomes feasible to run the same large scale programs (at a dialed down resolution) on a G5 OSX Mac.
Re:what is the processor price point? (Score:3, Informative)
okay, so the 970 will absolutely BURY the G4 performance wise, and outstrip it on heat output as well (22w @ 1Ghz I think), so the G4 is pretty much a dead end at this point.
Re:what is the processor price point? (Score:3, Informative)
As I understand it, Apple has not been giving it's newer desktop machines very good underlying architectures as of late. There's a lot of speculation that this is because most of their hardware development effort was going into the
i'll buy one. (Score:3, Insightful)
the day quark xpress 6 comes out.
seriously. the only reason i and a good many other mac IT folks with purchasing power have still got previous generation macs on our desks is that f*ing quark xpress isn't X native yet. the new G4s don't boot in 9, so it's not an option to dual-boot or run 9 and wait to upgrade to X. everybody i've talked to pretty much agrees, apple needs to light a fire under quark. or maybe buy them, since apple seems to have eaten up all the companies that make video editing software to create final cut and dvd studio. maybe an apple iQuark...
anyhoo, the day xpress 6 is available, apple will immediately see a spike in sales of new systems and OS X boxes. i'd be willing to put money on it.
Quark has had 2+ years now to carbonize xpress. i thought adobe was lagging with photoshop being so late to the game, but quark makes them look like early adopters by comparison. and with every day they don't have a carbonized xpress, their market share in the heavy mac-using print graphics world is eroding away, given over in droves to adobe indesign.
probably off-topic, but i felt a rant coming on and this was a target of opportunity.
Mac niche markets (Score:3, Insightful)
The introduction of the PPC970 will no doubt improve Apple's fortunes in a very cut throat computer market led mostly by FUD, price sensitivity and monopoly practices. Allow me to explain.
As many here know, Linux is eating into Windows server marketshare in all areas, as it is becoming acceptable in business to actually think about what one spends the IT dollars on before one spends them. This is a market that Linux will almost certainly dominate in the next 4 to 5 years, as I cannot imagine that Redmond will be able to introduce technology spectacular enough for corporations to not consider using Linux in that space instead, as has been shown in numerous articles here on slashdot.
On the desktop there is also movement, particularly in civillian infrastructure IT such as local government offices, health departments etc, worldwide as the departments are increasingly having to cope with IT spending cuts and definitely get more bang for their IT buck with Linux than they do with Windows.
Where does the Mac fit in here? Recently, here in Switzerland, I had to buy a new car after trashing my old one, and in my tour of various used car lots, came across a wierd phenomenon: The majority of the offices of said used car lots were using Filemaker database applications on Macs for their bookkeeping, inventory tracking etc. This would be similar to the windows world of Access applications, except the people claimed that the Macs "just work" when asked why they weren't using newer PC's with Access.
The Mac, with it's simplicity and robustness, makes friends even today where Windows can often be a royal pain in the butt to administer (my job) . Not only this, but Mac OSX is very compatible to Linux and the execs and management in a company would be more amenable to running a Mac with a hyped to the extreme PPC970 (the marketing is important in these areas) than a beige box if they thought that it could be used to bolster their egos ("the PPC970 is much faster than any Intel", "My Powerbook goes so well with my metallic Audi TT"). It is kind of elitist, but I've never known Management types not to fall for status symbols, and this status symbol would actually be worth something of true value as opposed to the chrome cufflinks and platinum Rolex.
Liklihood of G5 name? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why no G4? Because, apparantly, Apple had discussions and pursuaded them to skip "G4".
So
Re:"New!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Go!
Which wintel motherboards have fw 800 and hypertransport? I'd be interested.
Appleinsider is a rumour site, btw.
Re:"New!" (Score:4, Interesting)
I wasn't really going to comment on this, but since it got modded up 5, Insightful...
nForce, nForce2
You might be further interested in knowing that hypertransport [everything2.com] was primarily designed by AMD and is used in all of their Opteron systems, and will also be used in all Athlon64 systems. I guess that's not wintel per se... but it's a PC motherboard nonetheless.
Furthermore, if there is a demand for fw 800 on PCs, they will have it... a small upside of not being at the whim of a single company *cough*Apple*cough*.
Re:"New!" (Score:2)
Re:"New!" (Score:3)
About the same time the virulently anti-Mac trolls
showed up. So yeah, they've been here since the start.
They're here, some of their cases are clear, get used to it.
Re:"New!" (Score:3, Informative)
400Megabits/second = 50 Megabytes/second
a fair few higher end ATA disks can top that on sustained reads/writes
and you're assuming that only one device is attached to the bus.. that's not always the case.
Re:Eh... (Score:3, Informative)
I think the real news...current Mac supports USB2 (Score:5, Informative)
Also the current Macs with PCI slots or ANY Mac that can run OSX with a PCI slot has been able to support USB 2.0 for almost a year.
Re:damn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:damn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:damn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:damn (Score:5, Funny)
That's gotta be worth SOMETHING...
Re:damn (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I didn't like it (Score:5, Informative)
Similarly, you're used to having the Windows right-click. Apple thought about adding that and decided that it would make more sense to have a single mouse button and give it modifier key support. Think about the mouse as having a key instead of a button. I know, it doesn't seem to make much sense, but I find that the Windows way makes much less sense to new users.
Also, remember that the Mac OS has built-in support for something like twelve mouse buttons. You just have to get a mouse with more than one.
As for hosting a web site, surely you don't use IIS for that, do you? OSX has all sorts of great server software like Apache. You just have to install them and turn them on.
For surfing, OSX has easily the coolest browser that I've ever seen. Safari beats Mozilla hands down in speed and it's more standards compliant than IE. Essentially, it's everything that Mozilla Firebird is, but it's built by the people who made the OS.
Macs are widely acknowledged to be the best computers for all sorts of multimedia stuff. If you want to edit video, there's iMovie, CinePaint, Final Cut, After Effects, and loads of other tools. For stills that could be used on a website, you have all of the standard tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Page Maker, Painter, and CorelDRAW, and the myriad Macromedia applications and quite a few that I've never seen for Windows such as Combustion. For audio creation and editing, you can use Logic, Deck, Cubase, Peak, Reason, and Spark, just to name a few. For 3D modeling, Maya is the only one that I know about, but I don't exactly research that.
If you just meant playing multimedia, I have found that QuickTime and iTunes do a far better job of that than Windows Media Player.
I really wish that I had a Mac, but I'm WAY to cheap to actually buy one new.
Re:I didn't like it (Score:3, Informative)
All you have to do is check the "web sharing" box in the sharing panel.
If you uncomment the appropriate lines in your httpd.conf file you can get php going too.
Re:I didn't like it (Score:5, Informative)
Damn, yeah, it's too bad you can't run mandrake on them. [linux-mandrake.com]
Or SuSe [suse.com].
Or Debian. [debian.org].
Fuck, they don't run anything, do they?
Re:Someone call Osborne (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Someone call Osborne (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, no. It was Osborne himself who torpedoed sales of his current model by saying how great the forthcoming one would be. History would only be repeating itself if Steve Jobs had been saying for three years that the G5 would be coming soon and would be significantly better than the current G4s. The rumor sites can say whatever they want, but the official word com
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why doesn't Apple switches to Windows ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um, point of order... (Score:5, Informative)
Yah, if you neglect the fact that AAPL split twice during this period of time, the price is the same. In actuality the value of a share of stock purchased in 1987 is 4 times higher today.
Re:Um, point of order... (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on your perspective. If you are interested in the market cap of the company, total number of shares x market price indicates the valuation of the company is 12x what it was in 1987. If you are interested in shareholder return, then the number is 4x.
Either way it shows that the original post is totally off-base.
Re:Um, point of order... (Score:5, Interesting)
If the prices are that low I wouldn't expect Apple to lower prices though. The pro models have been fairly consistent at their current price point for some time. I'm sure other costs have gone up with new features like Hypertransport, Firewire 800 and USB 2.0 (how much does Intel charge for that?). All o fthis si specualtion until the hardware actually comes out of course.
As for the stock comment, prices go up and down. I seem to recall a stock split [macobserver.com] a few years back. The stock has gone up recently with the iTunes sales announcements. However I think stock price is one of the least indicators about how well a company is doing - and certainly has nothing to do with the price of mac hardware.
Re:stock prices (Score:4, Informative)
First, my original post is correct: adjusted for splits, AAPL is stagnant since 1987. This chart [yahoo.com] clearly shows it. Notice that the blue line is upbroken. If it were not adjusted for splits (ALL charts are adjusted for splits, but apparently you don't know WTF you're talking about, so I'll inform you), the blue line would take have a break (down to half the preceding day's price) every time there was a split. So, nyah, nyah, nyah.
Second, in reply to this particular post, stock price is always indicative of a company's perceived prospects, relative to the other financial opportunities available. The fact that AAPL never makes any sustained headway is due to the fact that they have had NO sustained increase in earnings. Their profits rise and fall with their hardware cycles, but they never improve market share or margins for long.
I was trying to use a widely-accepted proxy for a business's past success and current prospects--its stock price--as a quick way to make my point, but apparently people just took it as a red herring. Let me be more specific: Apple Computers, Incorporated has been struggling for over a decade--poor profit picture, poor market share. I don't actually give a shit about Macs one way or the other. I was only pointing out that it's important for the company that these machines succeed (i.e. turn a profit and increase market share), and to do that they must be reasonably priced.
(To those who posted that the 970 may actually be cheaper than the Moto chips, I thank you for the information. We'll know shortly, I suspect.)
Re:Thanks but no thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thanks but no thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thanks but no thanks (Score:3)
If you're not smart enough to send your machine off to Apple Service, don't blame them.
Re:Plumbing (Score:3, Informative)
No. It would make no difference. The bus protocol makes no difference. They could not simply pull out the PPC970 and drip in a Hammer and expect it to work (different package sizes for one), so a new motherboard would be required. After that 'all' that they'd need to do would be is recompile the OS (easy), optimise the OS so that it actually took advantage of the Hammer fe
Re:binary compatibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't assume that being 64-bit makes things incompatible...instruction set is still the same.
And look at the 68K tricks Apple did when they introduced PPC, too.
-psy