New G5 Power Macs "Fastest Desktop In The World"

In the hardware part of his keynote address at WWDC, Jobs officially introduced the G5-based computers previously leaked on the Apple store.

The new G5 machines, with the IBM 970 processor, use the "world's first 64-bit desktop processor" (and the "fastest 64-bit processor ever") but run both 64-bit and 32-bit apps natively, and run up to 2GHz. The bus is 1GHz ("fastest ever") and it is designed for dual processing and full symmetric processing.

Beyond the many numbers, the bottom line is that the new machines have a new architecture, and that the memory speed is now the bottleneck, not the processor or bandwidth speeds. So they can have up to 8GB of 128-bit DDR RAM, as it is efficient to keep data in memory. The memory bandwidth is one of the most talked-about features of the new architecture.

USB 2.0 is now included, as are FireWire 400 and 800, Bluetooth, AirPort Extreme, and digital audio in and out. The 4x SuperDrive is now standard, and it can house up to 500GB of internal storage.

For video, the GeForce FX5200 is standard on low-end models, Radeon 9600 Pro on high-end models.

The case of the new machines is redesigned too, from the ground up, focusing on decreasing noise and heat. It is an aluminum enclosure, with ports for FireWire and USB on the front, and a door on the side to get into the box. It has four distinct "thermal zones" with computer-controlled cooling with its nine (yes, nine) independent fans. And it is much quieter than its predecessor.

The G5 is 10 percent slower than the P4 and Xeon in SPEC int scores in single-proc units, but 20 percent faster in FPU scores, and the dual-proc G5 beats the dual-proc Xeon in all SPEC scores.

The models are a single 1.6 GHz ($1999), single 1.8GHz ($2399), and dual 2GHz ($2999). They will ship in August. A 3GHz processor will be available from IBM in 12 months.

Apple notes that recompiling apps for the 64-bit architecture is easy, and in some cases can be done in minutes.

There was no word about the heavily anticipated redesign of the 15" PowerBooks.

Thanks

Thanks to iPalindrome on irc.arstechnica.com for his running transcript of the keynote address.

Re:Thanks

I wish I could get my greedy lil' paws on one of these toys. Quite a step up from the ol' 733MHz G4. Sigh.

Is it really powered by the souls of dead ancestors?

/I want an Oompa-Loompa NOW

Re:Thanks

The 400MHz G3 you can pass to me, so I can have something to play
with the Mac OS on, as currently all I've got is a PC (albeit a
pretty decent one) and a MicroVax. In exchange, I'm willing to
consider letting you have my ITT XTRA, despite my irrational
sentimental attachment to it. It's only 4.77 MHz, and the 20MB
hard drive is dead, but it has a full 640K of RAM, and the 360K
floppy drive still works! (Note: This is not the "pretty decent"
PC I was talking about, but my previous one.)

Re:Thanks

Can you pass me that ITT XTRA. I only have an stupid abacus. I tried to find a opensource unix for it but to no avail. At least with the ITT i could emulate a PDP11

Re:Thanks

If you're not using it any more, I'll take that abacus, as knotting these cords [slashdot.org] is starting to give me blisters.

Re:Thanks

oog oog gr oog oo oo gr ggr rg rock. urg gr gr oo oo stick. uur ggr oog. oog rock og stick urg oog og.
og og urug oo gr oo! :-)

Re:Thanks

IMHO, the best (fastest, most 'real-time') running transcripts of keynotes are those at MacMinute [macminute.com]. Today's transcript is at http://www.macminute.com/wwdc2003.html [macminute.com].

JP

New Apple PC Sun Workstation

The new Apple PC is far more than just a PC. It is a workstation in its own right and outperforms the workstations built by Sun. The new Apple PC is both (much) faster and (much) cheaper than a Sun workstation.

Just look at the specs of the new Apple PC. 1.6 GHz and only $1999. It also does UNIX and Linux. Steve Jobs lucked out -- again. There will a surge of demand for this machine from engineers, moving beyond the traditional Apple core users (i. e. educational institutions, graphic artists, etc.). Apple will supplant both Sun and HP as the new workstation company of Silicon Valley.

By the way, the bell tolls. It tolls ominously for Sun.

Re:New Apple PC Sun Workstation

The new AMD Opteron PC is far more than just a PC. It is a workstation in its own right and outperforms the workstations built by Sun. The new AMD Opteron PC is both (much) faster and (much) cheaper than a Sun workstation.

Just look at the specs of the new AMD Opteron PC. 1.4,1.6,and 1.8 GHz and only $649 for a complete system [pricewatch.com]. It also does UNIX and Linux. AMD lucked out -- again. There will a surge of demand for this machine from engineers, moving beyond the traditional x86 core users (i. e. educational institutions, graphic artists, etc.). AMD will supplant both Sun and HP as the new workstation CPU company of Silicon Valley.

By the way, the bell tolls. It tolls ominously for Sun.

Knock yourself out!

Power Mac page [apple.com]
Apple store [apple.com]

Re:Knock yourself out!

Actually, I think Slashdot has been Appled.

"Cyclops", now "Cheese Grater"

Is it just me, or does the new G5 look like a massive cheese grater from the front?

Unfortunately, it looks like they've abandoned the easy-access pull-down door that let you add ram and add-on cards with ease. Oh well, at least its *supposed* to be quieter...

Re:"Cyclops", now "Cheese Grater"

Is it just me, or does the new G5 look like a massive cheese grater from the front?

It looks more like an electic razor to me.

Unfortunately, it looks like they've abandoned the easy-access pull-down door that let you add ram and add-on cards with ease.

From the Apple web site:

Access is everything
Thatâ(TM)s why the Power Mac G5â(TM)s easy-to-open side panel unlatches in a snap, giving you fast access to the slots and bays inside. Designed for no-hassle expansion, the Power Mac G5 lets you add things like memory or an AirPort Extreme card without tools. And easy-to-use drive guides let you mount high-capacity hard drives as soon as your requirements grow. Additionally, a locking mechanism on the side door prevents unauthorized access, keeping the inside of your computer safe from tampering.

In other words, they didn't just keep it, they improved it.

Re:"Cyclops", now "Cheese Grater"

Is it just me, or does the new G5 look like a massive cheese grater from the front?

The new Apple Powercheesegrater 9000 guarantees to grate cheese 9.7x faster than any Intel lookalike. Gastronomically impress your friends with freshly grated parmesan, romano or limburger cheese by simply moving a cheese block along the front (or back!) of the Powercheesegrater case. The groundbreaking 64-bit G5 CPU gently heats your cheese while you continue to grate. This computer simply gives the greatest grate imaginable -- all from the folks who brought you the original Macintosh computer. Call 1-800-MY-APPLE today for more information, or to place an order.

Re:"Cyclops", now "Cheese Grater"

> Is it just me, or does the new G5 look like a massive cheese grater from the front?

No, you're thinking of Apple's new iGrate. It's the first of an insanely great line of personal kitchen tools from the industrial design wizards at Apple.

The iGrate is precision machined from a single block of aircraft-grade aluminum. Its ergonomic lines are presented in a satin-brushed finish with a non-slip handle inspired by Apple's revolutionary new G5 PowerMacs.

Elegance and design come together to make the iGrate the World's Fastest Cheese Grater. Cheddar...Monterey Jack...Romano...the iGrate does it all, and does it up to 30-percent faster than department store cheese graters.

The iGrate is available now from the Apple Store at a suggested retail price of just $99.50USD. One year of Apple Care for your iGrate can be purchased for an additional $99.50USD. Customer service support may also be purchased at $50.00USD per incident.

The iGrate. Finally, an Apple for your kitchen.

USB 2.0

Is this the *fast* USB 2.0 or the USB 2.0 that used to be USB 1.1 but got renamed USB 2.0 so as to not confuse consumers?

Re:USB 2.0

Well, considering they specify that there's a USB 1.1 port on the keyboard, I would assume that the 2.0 they speak of is the high-speed one.

If that's not the case, I as a consumer would be confused indeed.

Re:USB 2.0

It's the fast USB. Where they confuse you though is the model with the SuperDrive, which is actually the *old* superdrive, which allows you to use both 800K and 1.4M floppy disks.

Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Interesting tidbit there. Doesn't that make some people want to wait for the extra year? I thought hinting at anything to come in the future was very much against Apple policy.

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

The difference in policy regarding announcements of future advances may be a result of the processors being made by IBM now. I think it is an IBM announcement more than an Apple one.

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Frankly, I think it's more the fact that they even *can* make such an annoucement while keeping a straight face. Try it:

Motorola will deliver a 3GHz G4 in 12 months.

See? You're laughing already.

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of Apple's relationship with Mot. The G5s are being manufactured by IBM in Fishkill, NY (see here [apple.com]).

Indeed it is laughable that Mot would be able to turn out something with that high of a clock rate a year from now, but for IBM I'd be highly surprised if it doesn't happen.

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Yes, and unless I suddenly win the lottery, or aquire a mass of wealth before then, I probably won't be getting one until it hits 4ghz. :-(

Time to start looking for my piggy bank

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Actually, the G5 is very very cheap! (price not quality, damn trolls)

I compared the specs with a Dual Xeon System from dell, and the G5 was almost $1000 less.

It's even cheaper to get a dual 2Ghz G5 than an "Ultimate" G4.

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Doesn't that make some people want to wait for the extra year?

I suppose some people might wait, but don't underestimate the pent up demand for a high performance Mac. Apple's customers have already been waiting a looooong time for this machine. I don't think announcing that there will be a speed bump in a year will do much to the short term sales of the new boxes. Maybe in six months people will start holding off for the promised 3GHz boxes, but not now.

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Maybe, but it's nice to know. And besides, we all know that processors will be twice as fast in 18 months. But that doesn't stop you from buying a PC.

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

There is a very important reason for announcing a 3Ghz processor for next year...

The G4 used to be very impressive compared to PCs of the time - but it's been around for far too long, with limited speed bumps...

Announcing a 3Ghz model is letting people know that there is a roadmap in place for ramping up the performance...

People want to know that there is a future... with many Mac owners and quite a few potential 'switchers' staying away from the dual G4s as they are past their sell by date, announcing a roadmap for G5 development - and not just new machines themselves - may well see an increase in current Mac sales...

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

Waitaminute, the new CPU is going to get faster?!?! But, but, but they can't do that, can they?

Okay, you convinced me then -- when the 3.0ghz model comes out, and it's the most super-duper top speed ever -- and not to be surpassed -- then I'll put down my shiny nickels.

You just lost yourself a sale, Jobs!

Re:Announcing 3Ghz within a year?

:-)

But anyone paying a shred of attention to the computer industry for any frame of time over the past fifty years or so would know that computers always get both faster and cheaper. The market knows that whether or not the megalomaniacal CEO spells it out for the paying conference audience or not.

The capabilities of the machines announced today are such a significant jump over what was available until now that pointing out that further improvements are on the horizon should hardly be that damaging to the sales spike that Apple must be hoping for. The people that would be scared off by a 1 year forecast are not only the ones that wouldn't have bought a new Mac until the until-now-mythical G5 came out, they're the ones that wouldn't have bought a new Mac until that G5 computer put the equivalent of a Cray monster on your desk -- i.e. the ones willing to wait a long, long time, and so really can't count as customers.

For everyone else, this can't have been much of a shocker...

Technical details here

Apple's site finally updated: here [apple.com]

-T

Re:Typical Mac (l)user

But can you get a dual processor Pentium? Of course the answer is "yes". Not only that, you can get 4x and 8x (and possibly more) Pentium and Xeon systems. You can also get 1x, 2x, and 4x, etc Opteron systems with a Hypertransport bus

Dude, ain't no such thing as a dual processor P4. They. Don't. Exist.

Dual 2GHz 970s for $2999

Sun should be very scared. Their Dual 1.2GHz 64bit offering is $14,995. Ouch!

Too bad I have to wait until August to pick one up. Oh well I guess that gives me time to think up a good excuse for why I need one and my wife should be okay with it.

Re:Dual 2GHz 970s for $2999

yeah, I'd never though I would say this but "Apples products are pretty cheap comparativly..."

Re:Dual 2GHz 970s for $2999

Oh yeah, and they can also run Mac OSX, OS9, and 64-bit UNIX scientific, math, and engineering applications at blazing speed and with unprecedented ease of use. So what's a Sun box good for again?

I'm no Sun evangelist (as a matter of fact, I hate their products lately), but let's at least stop displaying our abject ignorance. What's a Sun box good for? How about naming me a high-end manufacturing/engineering design package that runs on OS X first, then we can talk about what a Sun box is good for.

- A.P.

Re:Dual 2GHz 970s for $2999

I sat next to three guys from Dassault at the keynote, and about two rows back from a whole busload of guys from PTC. CATIA and the Pro-E products are going to be out on OS X by the time the G5's ship, or shortly thereafter.

Re:Dual 2GHz 970s for $2999

Software can always be ported to meet the demand. I would be pretty scared right now if I were sun, honestly. If people realize that an apple could be used for the same sorts of purposes as those extremely expensive sun boxes, they may just be tempted to switch. Does that mean it's guaranteed to happen? definitely not, but the mere fact that it's getting more feasable should be enough to at least freak out sun.

Re:Dual 2GHz 970s for $2999

"Sun should be very scared. Their Dual 1.2GHz 64bit offering is $14,995. Ouch!
"

Oh DO try to at least pretend to keep up.

$5,795 for sun's dual 1GHz 64-bit system (with 2GB of RAM, not the 512M G5 Macs start with).

Out of interest, how much is it for the 106-CPU version of the Mac, again?

Clue - Sun and Apple are targeting completely different markets.

I guess you don't actually read.

Sun Blade 2000 [sun.com]

The Single 900MHz is 7,595
The Single 1.2GHz is 9,995
The DUAL 1.2GHZ is 13,995 (whoops off by 7.5%)

What about Dual 2.0GHz don't you understand? They may not have been in the same market before now. However, that will soon change (there is your clue). As far as the 106 CPU Version Cluster the XServes the same way Sun does it. I said Sun should be scared. They no longer have a lock on the 64bit market.

I guess things never change in your world. Look out someone may be moving your cheese.

SUN's vs Apple's Markets

They may not have been in the same market before now.

They are in totally different markets!

SUN is in the "We sell really expensive hardware with pain in the ass UNIX software to anyone buying." market.

Apple is in the "We sell hardware for anyone up to any reasonable size, and it comes with friendly UNIX software. Some of it is a little expensive, but it all kicks ass." market.

Re:Dual 2GHz 970s for $2999

Out of interest, how much is it for the 106-CPU version of the Mac, again?

For the workstation market, it doesn't matter very much.

I have been a Sun fan for some time, now, but I see the dual PowerPC 970 Mac and dual Opteron workstations coming down the line and wonder. These, feature-for-feature, make Sun Blade, IBM RS-6000, SGI Fuel, etc., much harder sells.

The G5 is gorgeous and powerful (like a Bond girl). The Opteron will be white-box and powerful (like the neighborhood geek-girl:). There's probably something for everyone, here. For completeness, I suppose Windows on Itanium would be like some sort of beast woman who still gets guys, because she is easy (blecch).

Sun and Apple are targeting completely different markets.

This was very true three years ago. However, what would happen if PTC released Pro/E for OS X? It's really a matter of the applications. Not only that, but I would bet getting Motif on OS X isn't too hard (suddenly lots of UNIX applications on OS X becomes plausible).

The workstation is going through serious evolution, right now. 64-bits is no longer the domain of the "big guys." The next two years will be very interesting.

Enterprise versus Desktop

There is a big difference between Sun $14K offerings and Apply $2K offerings. The difference isn't predicated on speed, but on sustainability. Sun's expensive enterprise level machines have all sorts of hardware and software support to make sure they never EVER go down, at least not without warning.

You cannot just take an enterprise machine and replace it with a desktop, because eventually the desktop will fail, usually unexpectedly and usually at the worst possible time.

Desktop PC's are meant to go on DESKTOPS, where if they fail, the most you've lost is a few man-hours of work. Enterprise machines go in server rooms where if they fail you might have just lost a few million in sales, and pissed off your customer base.

Them are some graphics, eh?

For video, the GeForce FX5200 is standard on low-end models, Radeon 9600 Pro on high-end models. Canadian bias!

Image Mirror.

Head over to:

http://www.beosjournal.org/wwdc/ [beosjournal.org]

for some pictures of the new case.

Re:Image Mirror.

Here are some pics from Apple's site. I don't know what to think of it... Hmmmm.

Apple G5 Gallery [apple.com]

Re:DDR?

Why does Apple use DDR as opposed to say RDRAM or some other higher-speed technology? I mean, it might not be 64-bit compatible, I don't know, but they don't put it in their 32-bit machines either.

RDRAM last time I checked had higher total bandwidth than DDR, but fails to be faster where it counts - latency. Latency on non-sequential read/write is where the memory bottle neck is.

The Dream System.

â Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
â 8GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 8x1GB
â 2x250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
â ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
â Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel)
â Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel) + Apple DVI to ADC Adapter
â AirPort Extreme Card
â Bluetooth Module
â SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
â Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
â Mac OS X - U.S. English
â Logitech Z-680 THX 5.1 Speakers & Monster 2-meter Cable
â AirPort Extreme Base Station (with modem and antenna port)
â APP for Power Mac (w/ or w/o display) - Enrollment Kit

Subtotal $12,632.95

Re:The Dream System.

The amazing thing here is that for less than $13k (cheaper educational), I can get a system with 2 big flat panels that absolutely SPANKS the $40k SGI Octanes. There is absolutely no reason that anyone in the sciences and engineering fields should consider any other workstation provided the software is available. Even that has been mitigated by Apple's inclusion of X11 in Panther now.

Boy, if SGI and Sun were in trouble before.......

Re:The Dream System.

The amazing thing here is that for less than $13k (cheaper educational), I can get a system with 2 big flat panels that absolutely SPANKS the $40k SGI Octanes.

Except that the Octane's bus is theoretically much, much faster. It has an end-to-end point speed of only about 3 and half GB/sec, but it can connect any of the individual systems to each other simultaneously at full speed; the memory can talk to the processor while the processor writes to the disk subsystem while the video card...and none of it ever has a collision and can operate at Crossbar's full point-to-point speed without effect from other subsystems.

Not only that, but as you add processor modules(which if I remember right, have memory on them?), you add Crossbar bus bandwidth; adding modules adds extra Crossbar channels(I think. It's been a long time since that technology briefing).

It's a quad-processor-capable system- so I don't think you are giving it a very fair shake; on a 4-processor system, I think each processor would have about +14GB/sec access to anything in the system(including memory), which is just a few GB shy of double the G5 which can only manage 8GB/sec for access to main memory. Oh, and let me remind you Crossbar is 5-6 years old...

Thanks, but if I want to push around multi-gigabyte datasets, I'll take the Octane. I find Hypertransport, at only 16 bits wide, destinctly unimpressive...

G5 System architecture lesson

Quote: Except that the Octane's bus is theoretically much, much faster. It has an end-to-end point speed of only about 3 and half GB/sec, but it can connect any of the individual systems to each other simultaneously at full speed Uh, for those of you on the short bus, Apple's new memory chip is also point-to-point. From the G5 (system, not chip) white paper: Advanced System Controller A new system controller is central to the overall performance of the Power Mac G5. This revolutionary application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)â"one of the industryâ(TM)s fastestâ"is built using the same state-of-the-art IBM 130-nanometer process technology as the PowerPC G5 processor. A superefficient point-to-point architecture rovides each primary subsystem with dedicated throughput to main memory, so massive amounts of data can traverse the system without contention for bandwidth. In contrast, subsystems that share a bus, as on other PCs, must deal with time-consuming arbitration while they negotiate for access and bandwidth across a common data path.

Re:The Dream System.

What? No iPod!!!

Re:The Dream System.

What? No iPod!!!

With a box like that sitting on your desk, where the hell are you gonna be going? I sure as hell wouldn't be 'mobile' for the next 2 months...

Re:Pfffft... Here's a real system:

To be fari, he did add in a digital sound system and a second 23 inch apple monitor.

Re:Pfffft... Here's a real system:

A couple things:

Yours only has 1 flat panel instead of two-- add another $2205. Also, you'll be unable to hook both DVI monitors up via the Radeon 9800-- you'll need to get a slower PCI video card to hook the other up.

Yours doesn't have a 3 year support contract, does it?

Also, the Apple you could get much more cheaply if you were to use third party RAM. Vendor RAM is always expensive.

Finally, as to "2 much faster machines"-- the dual 2GHz PPC G5 is 41% faster in SPECfp_rate_base2000 than a dual 3.06GHz Xeon, which IMO is the most important SPEC benchmark. It's faster in all the others, too, except single processor integer performance.

Let me think-- I could pay $12k and get two of the nicest LCD panels available and the fastest dual processor workstation available in the world made by a vendor with great fabrication quality and customer support. Or I could spend $9k to get two good (but not as nice as the Apple) LCD panels and machines that are only 71% of the speed from a no-name vendor. I think I'd pick Apple.

Worlds first 64bit desktop ?

So this is just my imagination ?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/ [microsoft.com]

Re:Worlds first 64bit desktop ?

So this is just my imagination ?

What PC and Mac users can't seem to understand is that 64-bit desktops were commonplace in the early 90s among the very large technical computing market - everything from universities to engineering firms to Hollywood studios. I am incredulous at all the hype that both Apple and Intel are spreading - for almost 10 years, it's been unusual for me to only use 32-bit processors!

I wonder how one of these Apples would stack up against an SGI Fuel with an R16K.

Re:Worlds first 64bit desktop ?

That's not a desktop that's a workstation, and hardly commonplace. When was the last time you ran down to Walmart and picked up a DEC Alpha or SGI?

mo

First? As if!

"world's first 64-bit desktop processor"

I am quite sure there are some people out there who used Alpha-based workstations back when Digital made them.

Re:First? As if!

"world's first 64-bit desktop processor"

I am quite sure there are some people out there who used Alpha-based workstations back when Digital made them.

I'm sorry there appears to to have been an error. Please check all power connections and restart your computer. If you are still experiencing trouble with your Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field please contact Apple and marketers will be on hand to help you with any problems you may be having.

Re:First? As if!

I think the keyword is "desktop" as opposed to "workstation".

Impressive, technica blog says 3 Ghz in a year

I have to hand it to Apple, the machines look to meet and beat the performance of the fastest PC (3 Ghz Xeon) on a bake-off of photoshop. Thus the performance args against the Mac desktops are addressed. Part of the ArsTechnica blog indicates 3Ghz in a year.

Of course, issue is still price. $3000 at the top line is about 30% rich in my opinion, but Apple likes its margins fat, what can you say.

G5 Will Not be Released until Q3

Apparently, the G5's aren't entirely house-broken, yet.

G5-based computers previously leaked on the Apple store

Arg! I'm obsolete...

As a PC user, I was used to buying a machine and having a processor with double the clockspeed a year down the line... And now Apple has pulled the same trick :(

Oh well. I'm not going to complain... The specs on those machines were unbelievable - I'm just glad Apple is no longer lagging behind in the specs anymore, and the prices on those machines are reasonable to boot.

Gimmie.

are they pretty?

All that technical jargon...they didn't even tell us what colors they come in!

Hey, SockLegend!

1998 called. I think it wants its joke back.

Re:Hey, SockLegend!

Wait a second. The year 1998 manifested itself into a tangible form, picked up a phone, and placed a call? To hell with the joke, we've got more important things to worry about now.

I share your concern.

Fortunately, as soon as I recieved the call, I alerted the appropriate government authorities, and I'm sure that our boys in Los Alamos have their spatiotemporal specialists on the job right now.

If not, we may have to...consider...activating Task Force Crimson Bravo, although I'm sure I'm as loathe to do that as you are.

Re:Yeah right.

I'd like to see some independently-verified benchmarks before I believe that it's the "Fastest desktop in the world". I seriously doubt ol' bullshitter Stevo would tell the full truth.


Well, the problem is... Steve is telling the truth.
Go to www.spec.org and look at the SpecINT and SpecFP ratings for the Power4 (single core benchmark).
Okay, the PPC970 is based on this core and yes, at 1,6 Ghz it runs around an 3 Ghz P4.
Okay, now take a look at the SpecINT and SpecFP ratings for the alpha 21264 and 21364.
Those processors are a real match for the P4.
With a 1.5 times slower clock they are as fast as most 1.5 higher clocked P4's.
The thing is, that intel doesn't have a decent 64 bits processor.
Their itanium II is a joke with a performance which is equal to most 64 bits processors 2 or 3 years ago.
Contrary to intel ibm knows how to build fast 64 bits processors without all the tradeoff's intel had to make with the P4.
Second, if you look at the price of the PPC970 and compare it with the P4 you will see that the P4 is almost 2 times as expensive as the PPC970.
Let's face it, at the moment there is no 64 bits or 32 bits processor available which is faster than the PPC970 (i mean for desktop systems).
It will take intel at least more than a year to get the itanium near the PPC970 2 Ghz..
But then they are no match to the PPC970 3 Ghz. which will be available then.

Re:Yeah right.

The Power4+ uses 128MB of L3 cache so it is not a fair or direct comparison, the G5 needs about 33% faster clockrate to equal the performance of the Power4+. Currently the highest Specfp_base2000 other than the Power4+ 1.5Ghz is the 1Ghz Itanium 2, amazing that Intel's workstation/big server processor manages to perform about as well as Power4+ with a 50% higher clockrate, guess they can design a decent core when they aren't going after the consumer crowd with the Ghz matters.

Re:For what?

Well, these are a start:

• FinalCut Pro [apple.com]
• Logic Platinum [apple.com]
• Shake [apple.com]

When you're throwing around cinematic quality film clips, the more power the better.

Photoshop, for one thing

What do you run on Macs nowadays that needs this speed?

Well, Photoshop, for one thing...yes, Macs are still used for graphics, dontchaknow.

Try editing CMYK graphics at 600 or 1200 dpi for high-end print work sometime. With layers. And masks (which are essentially added layers). Running filters. The whole she-bang.

Such a file can easily get into hundreds of megabytes in size, and Photoshop generally needs 2x to 3x as much RAM as the actual file size to efficiently work; even then it starts to bog down at those file sizes.

My dual G4/450 with 1.5 GB RAM and Radeon 9000 already gags on that enough so that it's a hassle when I have to design and edit that kind of stuff. Believe me, I'm going to be first in line as soon as I scrape together the $2500 or so for a new G5 system with added RAM (the more RAM, the merrier -- Photoshop is VERY hungry for RAM).

Not to mention video editing and 3D, both of which are markets that the Mac has generally been strong (if not dominant) in for some time.

I might add that you could ask the same question about P4-based PCs. Who needs that kind of firepower? Not many (mainstream) people, really -- aside from perhaps gamers. The vast majority of users just do e-mail, web surfing and word processing, maybe a little photo editing. A P2 or P3 running Linux or an older version of Windows would be more than enough in those cases. Hell, even an old Pentium with a smallish Linux installation would be enough in many cases.

OTOH if you give users and developers the added power of new processors and mainboards (strange that HyperTransport hasn't gotten much mention here), people will find a way of using it. One example: Apple's predicted that video editing will be the next mainstream computing revolution, like desktop publishing was twenty years ago. If you think about it, they're probably right.

Most newer computers can easily handle basic video editing now; the question is just how to make it easier for Joe Sixpack to edit his family videos (and maybe make Junior a budding David Lynch).

Cheers,

Ethelred

Overtaking the "Slashdot effect"

For those of you who were trying to get regularly updated info on the release of the G5, you may have noticed that most of the Mac sites are specifically requesting their users do not refresh the page continually. Likewise, most sites have taken their forums offline (even Ars Technica, who is not a "Mac-only" site).

Is this the new Slashdot effect? Mac users going ballistic over Apple's latest release and posting and reloading their favorite sites continually?

On a side note, is it just me, or is the new design very "bland," even "unoriginal."

For music

Damn you Steve Jobs. You introduce something perfect for the Music world yet again. The Emagic 1000 note demo was very cool, but thinking about all the plugins one could use in Protools or other programs.....plus Optical Inputs.....the drool factor is extreme.

So, Steve, I'm going to be saving my money again to get one of your products. The last one, a 9500 bought in 1996 has lasted very well. I wish I could say the same for the Pentium PC I bought in 1997.

I look forward to making tons of recordings and music with this new rig!

Re:For music or otherwise

Heck, I put down the PC laptop from 1998 to write my thesis on a Powerbook 540c from 1994.

That's the painful part about Macs. They keep putting out these machines with a high drool factor that you just have to buy, but the old one is still more than adequate. What to do, what to do. . . .

Re:For music

Optical Audio scares me.

Only a former(former? current?) San Franciscan based LSD head could invent a computer where you could see the music.

And so it goes...

Mac arguments through the years:

1994: Your peecees suck so bad because they're soooo slow. Our CPU benchmarks kick your butts. We are the speed kings!

1999: So what if your peecee CPUs are faster than ours. It's not about speed, it's about quality. Speed is totally irrelevant. You're all just speed whores.

2004: Your peecees suck so bad because they're soooo slow. Our CPU benchmarks kick your butts. We are the speed kings!

SPEC results

The SPEC results are really interesting. Single-processor integer performance (which matters most at least for me, although CPU performance is hardly interesting for me these times) is slightly worse than Intel's flagships, but the clock rate is also significantly lower.

However, the most interesting part is that they used GCC to compile the SPEC suite, and not some special compiler to make hardware look good in benchmarks (in contrast to some vendor compilers). Given that all the software I run has been compiled by GCC (with the exception of a few Lisp programs), the numbers are a bit more relevant than the usual SPEC results for me.

On the other hand, you could claim that Apple chose GCC on the Intel platforms to make them look bad in this comparison...

SPEC results are bogus

Compare Apple's numbers against the official SPEC results [aceshardware.com] from other companies.

Re:SPEC results are bogus

Apple used GCC 3.3 to run the SPECmarks on the Intel processors too, so the results are indeed valid.

A comparison between ICC on the Intel and GCC on the G5 is interesting to determine how fast your code might run out-of-the-box on a P4 vs G5 but ultimately flawed for comparing CPU performance.

AltiVec

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these new systems will be seeing how AltiVec performs now that the processor has a bus with sufficient bandwidth to keep the AltiVec unit supplied with instructions and data. On the older G4s the AltiVec unit could execute instructions faster than the bus could supply it with instructions and data to process.

Looking for a job?

Apparently someone got sacked over last week's "leak".

Looking for a new job [apple.com] as a Web Publishing Manager? Apply at Apple Today!

Oh, man - about time!

Aluminum cases? Yeah BABY -- no more cheesy plastic! For years now I've been impressed by Apple's being the only computer shop doing anything whatsoever with industrial design. Ever since I saw the original Mac in the mid-80s I've been impressed by the 'fit and finish', for want of a better term, of Macintoshes versus the basic generic shitbox clone PCs. However, ever since the iMac New Way I've been really, really disappointed by the cheapness of the desktop cases, especially of the high-end towers. If you want me to pay extra, give me something that looks worth the price.

From what I can tell of the WWDC pictures, things have finally changed. These things look sweet, even if they do look just like the last 5 years worth of towers. Plus it sounds like they kick ass performance-wise. All I have to do now is convince myself why I should go and drop 3 grand I can't afford for no other reason than to connect with the iPod I don't have.

Re:Why only 8GB RAM?!

Well, maybe the full 4294967296 GB of RAM didn't fit in the case.

Apple's marketing hype is just rediculous

The new G5 machines, with the IBM 970 processor, use the "world's first 64-bit desktop processor" (and the "fastest 64-bit processor ever")

Wow, I'm sure people who had Alpha workstations back in the day will be surprised. Even the n64 had a 64 bit processor, the MIPS r4300. The chip was $35 dollars in bulk in 1996. Iâ(TM)m pretty sure this chip has been used in PDAs in the past few years.

The only reason that they havenâ(TM)t been used in desktops so far is that A) There is a huge legacy base to support and B) The speed increase isn't even that great. I mean, you don't need more then 32 bit ints for the vast majority of the calculations you need to do on a PC (whereas on a 16 bit computer, you need to use several instructions to calculate 'both halves' of the number anytime you needed to do math with numbers larger then 64k.). And anyway, all of the major CPUs available today have instructions that deal with huge amounts of data for floating point and SIMD multimedia stuff.

I'm suppressed apple isn't claming that their machines do 'twice as much work' because they have twice as many bits. This subversion of technical facts for marketing purposes is something apple is constantly guilty of, and it's really annoying. Because you know you're going to have some idiot mac zealot come back at you with something like "yeah, well this is the first 64-bit desktop EVAR" Just like how they claimed the g4 was the first "Desktop supercomputer" or something like that, because it met some obsolete government export restrictions, the same restrictions that the playstation two had surpassed months before.

Apple is claiming Fastest SPEC

just thought i'd point out that Apple is claiming [apple.com] fastest SPEC benchmarks.

normally they just brag about photoshop. but this time they're actually breaking out SPEC.

Dual 2.0 GHZ G5 is supposedly 3% faster in interger and 42% faster in FPU than a dual 3 Ghz Xeon. might be worth the premium that Apple charges.

though come to think of it, $3000 is pretty sweet. i can't imagine where you'd find a dual Xeon for $3000.

Watch WWDC before you start making things up...

First off, GCC is probably better optimized for x86 then it is for the PPC 970 by virtue of the fact that it's been running on x86 for so much longer. So, even using the same compiler, the field is still tilted in the direction of x86.

Second, the test is of the speed of the processors, not the quality of the optimizing compilers for them.

Third, the "fastest" comment was made with respect to the dual-processor configurations. The numbers you site are for the single-processor version.

Yes, in single-processor land Apple lost in intspec by about 10%, but won in floating-point land by about 30%. This is using a compiler that is better optimized for the competitor. And they still came out ahead.

In dual-processor land they came out ~10% ahead in integer land and over 40% ahead in floating-point land. A tremendous difference.

The real-world tests they performed seemed to back up these results with Photoshop, Mathematica and a few other programs running an average of 2x faster on the PPC 970.

This may sound incredible, but it is just a matter of bandwidth, and the G5 has plenty of it.

The dual-processors have completely independant busses, a 1Ghz FSB, 400Mhz 128-bit DDR memory, two independant floating-point units and two independant integer units. The PPC970 is capable handling over 120 in-flight instructions, that is, instructions which can be worked on and processed in parallel. In P4-land only a few dozen instructions are can potentially be run in parallel.

Do you really think that Apple would hire a company like VeriTest to verify their results and then lie about them? If they didn't actually have better spec scores they just wouldn't have used those tests...

Justin Dubs

Sure the G5 is fast but...

I doubt it can beat this one [k12.va.us] in the quarter mile.

Already The Idiots Are Out There

I hope the uninformed writers won't discourage potential buyers. I offer the following example from a Business Week post [businessweek.com] in the last hour as an example. I'm sure /.'ers will quickly find more to offer.

For several years, Apple has lagged in the megahertz race. Motorola's G4 processors have only slowly improved in performance, while Intel and Advanced Micro Devices crank out ever-faster chips at a much swifter clip. Megahertz isn't everything when it comes to performance, but increasing the clock speed generally does boost chip and computer performance.

Yeah the writer eventually says megahertz isn't everything, but fails to grasp that megahertz isn't anything. The only scale that matters is how much work the system can do. Megahertz doesn't even have to enter into the discussion.

Btw, for the record, I'm a PC owner/user who probably won't switch, but still thinks these new Macs, along with the AMD Opteron chips, are the best news to come along in a good long while for all of us!

"world's first 64-bit desktop processor"

Sun Ultrasparc I - 64 bit.

Introduced: 1995

Aquired, used, for a few hundred bucks and running on my desktop: 1998

iSight and iPod

Am I the only one who thought, immediately after hearing about the high quality firewire based iSight (not to mention that new video codec), that there ought to be able to connect that sucker to your iPod to record on the road? So your webcam can double as a REAL cam?

Of course it would be much easier if you could display color video on your iPod... and generate it on the fly...

The SPEC benchmark comparison is disingenuous

Apple lists some rather low scores for the intel xeon on their website as compared to the scores listed on www.spec.org (889 vs. 1164 in base-integer, 693 vs. 1213 in base-fp). The fine print on apple's web page says that the scores were generated with gcc on both platforms. Give me a break. Intel should be penalized because they have better compilers?

Also, the opteron, using intel's compiler, manages to beat the 970 in int and fp.

Fastest desktop processor? No.

Re:The SPEC benchmark comparison is disingenuous

Actually, if you look at the benchmarks, the GCC scores are actually pretty close (for the FP benchmarks). Where the Intel side really fails is with the Fortran compiler, which is generally considered to be a pretty good Fortran compiler.

Given that if you are comparing Linux vs. OS X, the vast majority of your code will have been compiled with gcc, and the number of man years spent optimizing gcc's x86 performance, I think this is actually a pretty fair benchmark.

Re:The SPEC benchmark comparison is disingenuous

Here's the deal: if you want to know how one computer compares to another, you have to use the same compiler.

not true at all. See below.

I mean, you just have to. Otherwise the test is meaningless. You can only test for one variable at a time if you want to get results that mean something.

Say you have compiler A which rocks for architecture A and sucks hard for architecture B. You run SPEC with this compiler, and A wins.

The next day you have compiler B which rocks for architecture B and sucks hard for architecture A. You run SPEC, and B wins.

How are these results meaningful? They say absolutely nothing about the two architectures independent of the compiler used. If you used completely different compiler brands for each architecture, you'd end up with the same thing: Results that are dependent on the compilers used.

The fact of the matter is, cross-architecture comparisons suck no matter what you do. GCC 3.3 for IA32 and GCC 3.3 for the G5 need to be treated as completely different compilers in any valid testing methodology. It doesn't matter that they have the same name and version number -- if they're compiling for different architectures, they're doing things differently. using "the same compiler" to try to feign fairness is simply a sneaky marketing trick.

So what is one to do? Well it depends on the result you want:

-- if you always use GCC 3.3 to compile your high speed apps and want to know which CPU GCC 3.3 works best for, then apple's (Veritest's) results are perfect for you. However, those results really say more about how good GCC is at optimizing for the separate architectures, rather than anything about the merits of the architectures themselves.

-- trying to compare the merits of the architectures themselves is the tricky part. Generally, modern processors need their code to be very well optimized to fully exploit the power of the processor. Therefore, a fair comparison would be between The Best Compiler for Architecture A vs The Best Compiler for Architecture B. This is the only way to even come close to comparing "What architecture A can do" vs "What architecture B can do". And this is what most people want out of a benchmark.

(Of course one has to make sure that the compilers used aren't cheating on the spec benchmarks to give huge results. This is where the base vs peak distinction is important.)

Finally, on a somewhat related note, if the speed of specific applications is most important to you, then of course you'd be looking at application benchmarks and not SPEC.

The joke around the office:

Was that Steve Would address the attendees like a mad Principal addressing a class called in for detention:

Steve: "We WERE going to sell 10.3 for $129, but since one of you had to go and ruin it for the rest of you, it'll be $200."

Attendees: Awwww!

One guy punches another guy in the arm in the back row.

Trolls?

Either I'm surfing /. at too high of a threshold, or the anti-Apple trolls seem to have run away in fear today... :^)

Apple's G5 Performance Spec Page

The benchmarks for the new G5 PowerMacs can be found here [apple.com].

Summary: It not only beats up the P4 and Xeon, it takes their lunch money as well.

n âoeSPEC rateâ tests, the dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 completed the set of floating-point calculations 95 percent faster than the Pentium 4 â" based system and 42 percent faster than the dual Xeon-based workstation. Integer performance was also far superior to the Pentium 4 â" based system and 3 percent faster than the dual Xeon-based system.

It did even better at DNA matching: "Testing BLAST with common searches using a word size of more than 11, the Power Mac G5 far outperformed the Pentium 4-based system and the dual Xeon-based system, and nearly five times faster at the long word length of 40."

Safari 1.0

Safari 1.0 is now available through Apple's software update.

The new version seems noticibly faster and has no bug button, but there is still a "Report Bugs To Apple" option under the Safari menu.

That's great....

Happy the Apple people are fairly cutting edge. Nice to see ATI and nVidia options.

Why only 8-gig of RAM? 64-bit CPUs supports terabytes. I guess it's not a server, but 8 gig isn't that much any more.

Some comparisons with the Opteron (or, to be more fair, Athalon64) would be nice. Of course, since you can (or will be able to) select from a slew of motherboards, it will be tough to get a decent comparison.

One other thought just struck me (I can feel a bruise developing) - Apple never releases their stuff to independant hardware vendors. Never seen an Apple product (other than an iPod) reviewed at Anandtech, Toms Hardware, TechExtreme, Ars Technica, etc. Would be interesting to hear what a site like that had to say.

Re:That's great....

"Why ... only ... 8-gig ... of ... RAM"!?

Okay, that's it. It's now official. I'm old .

You would need...

17,179,869,184 DIMM sockets to max out the 64 bit address space with 1 GB DIMMs!

I *know* I'm going to complain to Apple on this one.

More impressive benchmark numbers

Steve Jobs also noted in his speech that the new G5 outperforms a comparable Xeon system on the all imporant "Duke Nukem Forever" time demo. Attaining the impressive score of 233fps compared to just 147fps on the Intel system. As verified by the idependent test lab Pixar Studios.

However SCO has sued to challenge these results.

Apple + IBM

Does anyone else find the slightest hint of irony in the emphasis on the partnership between Apple and IBM?

Maybe upon consideration of the ad that signaled the launch of the first Macintosh?

Anybody?

I'm Jealous

The machine is fast and the OS is advanced. But what irks me to no end is that Apple seems hell-bent on keeping the Mac in its little niche market. It doesn't make much sense but Apple refused to capitalize on people's migration from traditional Unix to the more "user friendly" NT. As an example I'll use the situation I am most familiar with but keep in mind this sort of thing is probably similar across dozens of industries. Computer hardware and electronics design. The most popular tools today are probably those from Cadence [cadence.com] and Synopsys [synopsys.com]. Both have powerful software suits available for 32-bit and 64-bit versions Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, and NT(32)/XP. For some reason people started migrating from Unix to NT. So now I'm stuck using design and verification tools on 2000. When I use Mentor Graphics ModelSim and Cadence's Layout and PSpice I have to install all this extra stuff like Cygwin, and Perl just to try to imitate the functionality avaialable in Unix. I'm sure many other people do this. Plus, these third party tools are so poorly integrated into the rest of the OS.
With Mac OS X, it's all there. The complete Unix toolset and environment comes standard, the Macs are good for graphics as it is (which is what all these new design tools focus on anyway), and the UI is a dream to use. It's simply a better platform in a lot of different ways. Check out Sun and SGI's third party applications pages, then look at Apples. There are whole industries missing.
Here's where Apple needs to come in and sell these people on their product. Users want better software, software companies want a larger use base and better product and Apple wants to ship more units. Why is this not being done?
The funny thing is that in-house ASIC design at Apple is probably done on Solairs, HP, or NT. I'm sending e-mail Cadence and gang. Everyone who doesn't want to see this whole industry to be swallowed by NT and wants to move to OS X should do the same.

Here's some specifics...

According to Apple's web site [apple.com], they tested their machine against two Dell Intel boxes (Dell Dimension 8300 (P4) and Dell Precision 650 (Dual Xeon)) running Red Hat Linux 9.0 Professional [redhat.com] (at Apple's request).

Intel states [intel.com] that Red Hat Linux 9.0 Professional is one of the Linux OS's currently available that "include optimizations for HT Technology and are currently eligible to carry the Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology logo".

Apple commissioned the benchmark from a company called Veritest. The full report [veritest.com] (in .PDF format) including all hardware and software used is available from Veritest's web site.

This could make Intel take notice! Of course, this benchmark comes on the same day that Intel announces the 3.2GHz Pentium IV [intel.com] (and Xeon) processors. Go figure!

Of the published data on both (in SPEC [spec.org] processor benchmarks), Apple's Power Mac G5 [apple.com] generated a SPECfp_base2000 score of 840 and SPECint_base2000 score of 800, while Intel claims [intel.com] that their new 3.2 GHz processors get a SPECfp_base2000 score of 1252 and a SPECint_base2000 score of 1221.

And the SPIN goes on!

Academic prices for G5 Powermacs...

For students and/or educators (personal purchases), the Powermac G5 line goes like so in prices:

1.6GHz - $1,899
1.8GHz - $2,299
Dual 2GHz - $2,849

The discounts are consistent with previous Apple academic discounts. These are the same configurations as the corresponding non-educational priced retail systems:

1.6GHz - $1,999
1.8GHz - $2,399
Dual 2GHz - $2,999

Comparison for Mid-High End Gaming machine?

My completly self-serving question is: How does it stack up to a machine I can buy myself for gaming in terms of price performance? Here's the system I'm about to build myself -

$85 - AMD XP 2600+
$140 - 1 Gig (2x512) Kingston 2700 DDR ram
$150 - Chaintech Nforce2 board (raid 0, surruond sound, ethernet)
$160 - 160 GB (2x80) Western Digital Special Edition drives, 7200rpm, striped raid 0 for speed
$360 - Radeon 9800 pro 128
$230 - Sony DRU-500A mutliformat DVD burner
$120 - some descent computer case
$180 - Win XP
$50 - Descent keyboard and mouse


Total - $1475

A comparable (except obvious diff of OS and processor) 1.6 Ghz Apple system comes to $2820, and that's without the raid harddrive setup. How much better is the apple system going to do at games? I realize that's not the entire (or even a big part) of the computer market, but it is MY market :), and I'd be interested to know.

The base model is actually $1799...

...if you configure it with Combo Drive instead of SuperDrive:

Combo Drive (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) [Subtract $200] [apple.com]

G5 configurations just an overclock?

Am I going crazy, or are all three systems using the same CPU?

Given that BusSpeed * ClockMultiplier = Processor Speed

Apple's three configurations:
1.6 Ghz - 800 Mhz bus
1.8 Ghz - 900 Mhz bus
2.0 Ghz - 1000 Mhz bus

Means that all three systems have the same multiplier on the chip. Which strongly implies to me that they're all the exact same chip. We'll have to wait and see how easy they are to overclock, but if you could just change the 800Mhz bus system to 1Ghz bus, you'd save yourself $1000 in the process.

Mind blowing stuff

No other company can pull off so many cool things so quickly like Apple, not MS, not Sun, not HP, not even IBM, and certainly not Dell the box maker.

You have to watch Steve in QuickTime to fully appreciate how many amazing things Apple has done. Panther Developer Preview has already left Longhorn (Windows 2005) firmly in the dust bin: the new user-centric Finder, search-as-you-type, Expose, fast user switch, iChat AV, FileVault, Xcode, FontBook, and so on.

The PowerMac G5 is just amazing, 2 GHz 64-bit CPU with 2 independent FPUs and Velocity Engine, 1 GHz FSB, PCI-X, Serial ATA Drive, FireWire 800 & 400, USB2, Bluetooth, 802.11g, etc.

In terms of SPEC2000 floating point performance, the 2 GHz G4 is 21% faster than the 3.06 GHz P4, and the dual 2 GHz G5 PowerMac is 41% faster than a dual 3 GHz Xeon Dell which cost $1000 more. In real world tests (PhotoShop, Mathematica, 3D rendering, music), the PowerMac is more than 200% faster than the Dell.

It's clear that Apple has all the vital pieces nailed - harware, OS, applications, developers, Apple Retail Stores, iTune Music Store, iPod. It's time to buy some more Apple shares.

denied

After looking at these machines, the prices, and available configurations, it seems to me that the middle configuration is the winner.

The low end one does not have PCI-X, and at $2000, it's pretty pricey, though you could remove the superdrive, modem, and load it up with cheap 3rd party RAM (only up to 4 gig tho). Does not seem to be competitively priced with Wintel.

The dual 2 GHz seems nice for the price, but you can't get less than 512 megs of RAM, or 160 gig HD, to save yourself a few bucks that you don't need to spend. So if you're frugal, Apple gets that little "dig" into you for at least a few hundred anyway. WHY do they do this. Are they just anal control freaks? Some people like to do all they can to minimize PORK items from a purchase, so why won't Apple throw us a friggin bone here?

But the middle-system is ok, because you can unload some of that way-overpriced Apple RAM, the combo drive, the modem, and get it down to around $2200, which is only slightly more expensive than the overpriced bottom model, + PCI-X and no RAM limit (and a trivially faster CPU, which you're going to upgrade in 3 years anyway).

Where is the PB G5 15"?

The longer Apple waits to update the 15" PB, the more likely it will be a G5 for lots of reasons.

1. The 12" (or perhaps the 17") motherboard could fit in the 15" case, so from a tech standpoint, I can't see the motherboard design being 6+ months behind that of the 12" (or 17"), it would be nearly impossible to be that far behind.

2. Steve wants to be the first to ship a 64 bit portable. (No one is closer than Apple now).

3. Bluetooth, AirPort Extreme. Plenty of people want those in a portable, but don't want a 12" screen or a 17" screen. (me for one :-) ).

All this points to the fact that something significant is going on. It is something like the G5 or, perhaps, a higher-density screen. I doubt it would be the higher-density screen because that should NOT be that huge a tech issue, and I can't believe they'd delay the product 6+ months for that when they could've shipped it with a regular screen and then updated it now.

My scenario about the 15" delays is this:
They intentionally held back on the 15" in Jan/Feb 2003 and kept it as it was so that if there were huge problems with the 12" and 17" (e.g. long(er) delays, engineering/manuf issues etc) they'd have a proven machine that was shipping. They were planning that the PB 15 was supposed to be updated in May at WWDC with a G5 (or very shortly thereafter) and so didn't waste any design and engineering resources on updating it to the specs of the current 12" and 15" because (back then it would have been May 2003 for WWDC, so only about 3 months wait for it). They intended to make it the 1st 15" G5 and have it ready with the PM G5s.

However, they are a little behind for some reason, just like they were with the PM G5s - that's why they pushed back WWDC a month.

Until they know when they can ship them in volume they're not announcing it for at least two reasons: avoid killing 12", 15" and 17" sales; and so they'll get even more bang for the buck when the announce "the world's first 64-bit portable," just like they got with the "world's 1st 17 inch portable". It will be on its own and won't get overshadowed by the PM G5s.

Face it, Apple loses sales because of some of the factors above and they don't want to lose sales. Therefore there is some BIG reason for the delay. The only logical one is a 15" PB G5, followed as quickly thereafter as possible with a 17" ("The world's 1st 64-bit 17 inch portable) and a 12" ("The world's smallest 64-bit portable). Followed thereafter by G4 iBooks.

I can see a 15" PB G5 announcement within 1-3 months (e.g. by the end of the summer). Apple *has* to do something to update the 15" PB to current specs (speed, AEX, Bluetooth) and if they've invested engineering in the PB G5 they don't have time to go back and do the engineering to make it a G4 - which is why I think it will be soon. If it was going to be > 3 months then they'd have time to do a 15" G4 to match the 17", BUT then they would've done it well before now.

I don't think it is wishful thinking because Apple is not dumb. They wouldn't hold up 15" PB sales for more than 6 months without a great reason. (Plus I read somewhere that 15" PB supplies were low.)

Re:Apple blowing smoke up everyones arse again!

As noted earlier, both systems used GCC 3.3. That is where most of the loss can be attributed.

As for the question about HyperThreading. On a SPEC int or fp run, the test is single threaded. HyperThreading in this case only serves to help with the OS overhead a bit.

In the case of a SPEC rate run, hyperthreading actually hurts performance. This is due to the fact that to fully load down the system, a copy of SPEC is run for each processor the system sees (in the case of a Dual Xeon with HT, 4). Considering SPEC int and fp tests use all the available units of the respective type, HT would be unable to do anything useful as a single thread would be using all the particular units and the second thread on the processor gets stalled.

So, if you disable HT and run only 2 copies of SPEC for a rate run, the overall throughput is greater because the threads complete faster since they aren't stalling.

My only concerns

This is the machine that I have been waiting for (and have been putting off upgrading my G4/450).

Still, there are a few things I would like to have seen different, that I think are a step back from my Sawtooth:

1) Only one outward-facing drive. My Sawtooth can only have one optical and one 3.5" (A now-nearly-useless Zip drive for me), but the last generation of G4s had those dual optical drive bays. Given how cheap standard IDE CR burners etc are, it would be great to have that upgradeability option. In my quest to convert my friends, this has been a sticking point for many of them (most have at least two optical drives). Externals work, yes, but are much more expensive, and take up much more space.

2) Two hard drive bays. Even my Sawtooth has room for four internal hard drives. Again, IDE hard drives are cheap (Serial ATA not as much, but still....) and not everyone wants to pay a $100 premium for an external firewire box, just to do a drive upgrade. In many cases, that doubles the price of the bare drive. There are PC cases out there (ugly ones, natch) which give six front-facing bays and as many hard-drive bays.

3) The G4s were notoriously easy to access. The one side just flipped down and BAM! there was your whole motherboard. While the side of the G5 may be easy to remove, you still have to cram your hands into that tiny space to reach anything. Having everything fold out was a great innovation that I'm sad to see go.

4) The handles look OK in my opinion but are fairly thin metal. I can't imagine these things not hurting your hands if you're carrying a G5 around. I know you don't move a tower case that much, but if you're going to bother putting on handles, at least put on comfy ones.

5) As others have said, it would be nice to see a 128MB graphics card in the high end. But that's a minor quibble, really.

6) No reset button on the front. I know OS X crashes quite rarely, but sometimes this thing comes in handy. And it's a lot easier and more intuitive than holding the power button.

That said, I think these are fabulous machines, and will do Apple proud. Aside from the obvious blazing speed, a few other touches I liked:
1) front-mounted USB & firewire. Finally!

2) Optical digital audio ports. Also finally! Crossing my fingers that this means there's a 5.1-enabled DVD player app en route.

3) I think the cooling system is a stroke of genius. Nine fans sounds like a lot, but it gives much more custom air circulation patterns.

4) Eight RAM slots! I will likely never need 8 gigs of RAM (at least not before the Power Mac G7 in 2008 :), but having that many slots allows you to upgrade at your desired rate. ie: you are less likely to have to pull out chips to make room for new ones. My G4's slots are all full right now, so if I wanted to add RAM, I'd have to ditch one chip.

All my whining aside, this is a great machine! Now if only I had some money...

Re:Oh baby

*ahem*

This geek has been waiting 'til he can buy a apple or apple clone motherboard down at the local computer shop, plus CPU. 'til then, there's very little chance I'll try out the mac platform.

Re:Oh come on!

I hate to bust your bubble, but there is no such thing as SMP P4. Intel designed the P4 to be only single processor. Xeon is for SMP applications.

Also, with SMP you can't just double the speed of one chip to come up with a benchmark. You double it, and take 10-15% off the top. You see, there is overhead in SMP because the two processors need to communicate to make sure they are on the same page, so to speak.

Re:SPEC scores.. Xeon?

According to Apple's website, they're specing against a dual 3.06Ghz Xeon.

See for yourself [apple.com].

Re:SPEC scores.. Xeon?

The SPEC benchmark programs that Apple ran were all compiled by GCC 3.3 -- the benchmarks on the SPEC website are different because they use different compilers. Chill out. :^)

Re:SPEC scores.. Xeon?

They benchmarked against the 3 Ghz Xeon, not the 2 Ghz, which you'd know if you paid attention before posting.

Re:If it's that fast...

The same fools who need more than 640K of memory.

Re:Oh come on!

but strangely only to a SINGLE-CPU P4 machine?

Gee why could that be?

BECAUSE you can't have anything BUT a single P4 machine. There are no dual P4's - the chip just doesn't support multiprocessing.

Re:Oh come on!

Gee, why could that be?

Perhaps because there is no such thing as a Dual-CPU Pentium 4. Just a hunch.

Double those bottom numbers from the P4 and it handily beats the Dual-G5...

And multiply the numbers from a TRS-80 Model 4 by 10,000 or so and it absolutely wipes the floor with the Dual G5. Your point being?

Re:Speed is good... but price?

Actually IBM is selling them for alot cheaper then Motorolla was selling their overpriced G4's. I personally believe they overcharged Apple because they had a monopoly on the CPU's for so long.

Anyway lets wait and see. I assume with integrated bluetooth and pci-x bus it isn't going to be cheap. But a 3.2 ghz pIV are not cheap either.

The cpu itself is what $500 ?? If you can afford Maya or your a professional artist or engineer then you could probably afford this. I wish I could :-(

My guess is the 1.6 ghz versions will be affordable like the $1599 867 mhz ones today.

I read online about a guy who tried to build a top pIV with bluetooth, dvd, firewire, gig ethernet, etc, and it become more expensive then the equilivant mac.

I kind of agree with you on desktops but I am hoping for the best.

Laptops its a different matter. Powerpc processors use something like %20 of power then a pentiumIII-M. I hope to go to a university in 2004 while I am in community college now. Anway if my university has wireless acess my choice of a laptob is a no brainer. Apple laptops last for years and do not brake down as much as pc ones. Especially IBM's or Dell's.

Re:Speed is good... but price?

If you don't care about your time or the quality of the software you use, you should stick with windows.

It's as easy as that.

Re:Speed is good... but price?

First off, your English unfortunately is working against your making a point. I think you meant to say that Macs cost 30% more than PCs, which is simply ignorant to state. Second, you are dead wrong on price/performace. I work in a lab doing bioinformatic analysis of the bovine genome. The OLD G4 Xserves gets twice the performance per dollar as any linux-based workstations, built in-house or otherwise. In many ways they are faster to use for our jobs than shared-memory supercomputers to which we have access. Third, I also compose music, do some game development (including some 3D graphics work), and have done so on Macs and PCs. Even on an older Mac, I am far more productive, but back to the point: Configure a somewhat equivalent Dell and compare the price to a G5. Not only is the price competitive, the performance is superior with the Mac. Your attempted point on bang-for-buck is outright false. In any case, no one has suggested you buy a Mac in the first place, so why are you so defensive?

Re:Speed is good... but price?

Because the Mac is cheaper... go to dell.com and configure a dual Xeon 3.06 with a DVD burner and the same vidcard/RAM...

Guess what, the Mac is over 1k cheaper! That's why... better performance, and a cheaper price...

_CMK

Re:Speed is good... but price?

Um, 8GB of RAM?

PCI-X expansion?

Quiet?

I mean, name a PC where you can get more quiet for less money?
Or more PCI-X for less money?
Or more RAM expansion for less money?

Are those not all 'bang for the buck' metrics?

Or do you only count watts of heat generated as 'bang'?

You can re-arrange your original question this way:
Is the 30% price difference worth the lack of RAM capacity, PCI-X, extra noise, extra heat, dual 900MHz FSB, Firewire 800, BlueTooth, etc. You talk about value; value is not *only* raw HP, or you'd be buying and driving big rig trucks (500HP engines), and if you only valued HP/$, you'd be driving some really *ugly* and low *quality* cars.

Try it, all the really high HP/$ cars cheap, low quality vehicles. Producers know that if you add quality, people will buy more. It's nearly the definition of quality, in a way.

Re:Speed is good... but price?

I don't care about the Mac's legendary ease of use, I'm not braindead.

You know, I think that's one of the most ignorant comments I've heard on Slashdot-- and that's saying something!

I certainly don't consider myself braindead and I love using my Mac. I think the user interface of OS X is leaps and bounds beyond that of Windows or any of the latest Linux desktops.

I also know of plenty of very intelligent people who use Macs simply because they are easier to use and it allows them to focus on the task at hand. Not everyone takes the slop they're fed and feels that it's "good enough" (which is basically what you are saying). Some of us actually don't mind paying a little bit extra-- if even there is any extra to be paid. $3,000 for a dual 2GHz 64-bit machine is pretty damn low IMHO.

Of course, my guess is your needs are different than mine. My needs dictate that I have a fast and easy to use UNIX system. The cheapest computer meeting those needs is a PowerMac.

Perhaps instead you are interested in playing the latest whiz-bang gaming title-- in that case you want a Pee Cee.

Re:Speed is good... but price?

I just went to Dell's site and configured a dual-processor 3.02GHz Xenon with 240 Gigs of 7200RMP IDE, disk, DVD-RW, and a Gig of RAM. Cost: $4,351

I went to Apple's site and configured dual-processor 2GHz G5 with 250 Gigs of 7200RMP IDE disk, DVD-RW, anda Gig of RAM. Cost: $3,374

So, let's see, the Mac is 10-25% faster, and costs 30% less.

If you care about bang for the buck, you should buy a Mac. (Of course, after replacing all your software, you'd be behind. See if they'll let you switch platforms on the next upgrade cycle.)

Re:Speed is good... but price?

My list isn't going to be exhaustive but should provide some pointers:

Software:

1- Nicer Interface. Admit that Aqua looks much better than Luna.

2- Unix-based. You can run pretty much any Unix software on OS X with X11.

3- Stability. I have to say WinXP and OS X are pretty much similar there, but better than other Windows versions.

4- The Apple iApps. Nothing beats iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, and iDVD.

5- Ease of install and software update/upgrade. Much easier to install OS X than Windows, software updates are much more reliable (and rarer) than MS. Updating to a new OS version or reinstalling if necessary is painless, whereas XP almost forces you to reformat.

6- Security. Most security-conscious tools and applications in OS X are open-source and/or Unix-based, and as we all know security failures are rarer for those, and patching is faster and more reliable.

7- You don't support Microsoft unless...

8- You can still run a recent version of Office if you need to, OpenOffice or Appleworks work well otherwise.

Hardware:

1- Although Apple sometimes is late to adopt certain standards (USB and USB 2 are examples), they are still the only manufacturer to implement firewire across their entire product line, and have firewire 800 on all high-end machines, as well as (now) serial ATA.

2- They're nicer to look at, and STILL easier to work inside than most PCs I've seen (exception for the iBooks, they're an horror to work in).

3- They're very robust, mostly apply to the laptops but still an important factor for some.

4- You just KNOW it's all gonna work together.

Note that I like PCs too, not just Macs, but you mostly asked for the Mac's strong points, so I'm not gonna be PC's advocates now.

Re:Speed is good... but price?

Why should I pay for something that is 10%-25% faster when it costs 30% as much as a PC? I care about value over absolute top performance.

I see lots of posts around here in the form of "Feature X of my PC is Y% {better,faster,shinier} than on the Mac, so why should I pay the Z% premium?", and rarely do I see good answers. It is a very hard thing to explain. But I will give it a shot. What follows is my (totally subjective) rant about why I prefer Macs:

I've used both Mac and PC (meaning Wintel) systems regularly and equally for almost twenty years now. I used to build PCs and sell them for extra cash years ago, and I've used every Mac from the 512K to the latest G4.

I have to use PCs at my job every day (I am a software engineer). But whenever I buy a system for myself, I always, ALWAYS, buy a Mac.

Why?

It's really hard to convey to someone else, because it's not based on anything specific or concrete but on years of experience using the two systems. There aren't a lot of specific details that I can give you that explain why I always go with the Mac. But after twenty years of using PCs and Macs, I can tell you this: Macs feel good to use in a way that PCs do not. I know this sounds silly, but it really is true. It's not that the operating system or the hardware have specific features that contribute to that effect. Instead, it's almost the opposite: when I'm doing something on my Mac, the operating system and the hardware never enter my mind. They are transparent and I can focus on the work, instead of the tool. There's something about the incredibly tight integration of the hardware with the OS that make it a joy to use, primarily because it never gets in my way.

Well, there's also the fact that everything I want to do with a computer I can do on my Mac. If that weren't true, it would be moot, of course. :)

Believe me, I understand how cheap and easy it is to build a PC from scratch, or how cheap it seems to just upgrade the one part of a PC that is lacking. But I also understand how frustrating it is to try and get everything to work together flawlessly. Personally, I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with problems with the system itself. I get to do that all day at work. :) When I sit down at the computer, there's something I want to do, be it analytical or creative, and the last thing I want to think about is why some stupid driver won't load or why a program I need to run won't start because I installed something new.

The cost issue is irrelevant. As others have pointed out elsewhere, it evens out over time. I bought my current Mac almost 4 years ago, and it will last another year until I get a new one. I have friends who have sunk thousands of dollars into upgrades to their PC in the same amount of time. Certainly as much as I've spent on my system, including the minimal upgrades I've had to make (RAM and video card - total of $200). And I've been saving my pennies and next year I'll buy a new Mac with them, I'm sure.

For me, it just works, and that's all I need to know. The value of that is priceless. If what you have at the moment works for you, then by all means, stick with it. But if you're less interested in the machine than what you can do with it - and I mean creatively, not customizing the UI and such - try out a Mac. You may find it useful. Give it a few months, and if it works out, great. If not, sell it on eBay - they hold their value rather well.

Finally, yes, I've used XP (really, I should say I use XP) and it is indeed an improvement over previous versions of Windows, but I still don't like using it. And again, there's nothing terribly specific to complain about. Instead it is a death of a thousand cuts, and after extended bouts with XP, I tend to get rather irritable. It seems, for lack of a better term, condescending. It seems to treat me as if I am not of sufficient intelligence to be using a compuer, but out of some noblesse oblige it will allow me to do a