Rumors Of MP PowerMac G4 Flying! 216
Maktoo writes: "Well, this has been a favorite rumour in the Mac world for quite some time, but with the approach of WWDC (next Monday) things are starting to heat up.
MacOSRumors, AppleInsider, and Go2Mac are all predicting MP G4s soon ... with Go2Mac actually claiming that CompUSA has SKUs for the systems. The keynote on Monday should be interesting. I don't see why Apple would release MP machines before MacOS X ... but we might get a demo at least. I'm excited enough that I'll be getting a copy of MacOS X Beta when I walk in the door ... but an MP G4 would be nice too."
Find the CompUSA SKU! (Score:2)
http://www.compusastores.com/products/product_i
where {SKU} is a six digit number. I'm guessing it will be in the 270000 to 280000 range. That's only 10K.
Of course, they could have added it to the system but flagged it such that it wouldn't get displayed on their web page.
Anyone care to check?
Re:Just for... (Score:1)
Re:NASTY LINK WARNING! (Score:1)
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
Re:The best SMP Mac (Score:1)
I think at best Apple will stay a niche player in the video and prepress arena. Apple knows it can't compete with Dell, HP, Compaq, etc for the enterprise marketplace, which means it will never be more than a funny-looking multimedia machine for the types of people that buy funny-looking multimedia machines (I work in advertising, I know who you are...)
If Apple had any brains, they'd take their overvalued stock and buy SGI. Buying SGI would give them access to hard-core visualization hadrware and software, and may let them back-door into the real computing world, where something serious gets done. It would also give them a cool new product, the SGiMac!
Re:YES!!! (Score:2)
There hasn't really been such a thing as SMP PPC Mac until now. Yeah, there were some early dual proc Macs, and IBM makes a slew of SMP PPC based systems, but you really can't make any comparison whatsoever to the hypothetical SMP G4 running the prototype OS/X. That said, you can rest assured it will prolly kill anything consumer market short of a quad Xeon.
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:1)
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Re:(OT: super-scalar argument) + Mac MPs (Score:1)
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Information (Score:1)
Like one ever week or two?
In my opinion, Apple is far worse than Microsoft when it comes to proprietary software.
How much software has Microsoft released into open source again? Apple has released Darwin, QuickTime Streaming Server, OpenPlay/NetSprocket and HeaderDoc. The Open Source Initiative in general, and ESR, specifically, have stated that the ASPL qualifies as a "true" open source license. Apple has also contributed to the Apache project.
Apple is after all the company that would like to control both hardware and software.
Dude, why do you think Macs tend to just work? Apple makes vastly less money on software then they do on hardware. It's not like they're just trying to grab all the profit. There's a real added value in having one developer create the entire product, not just assemble things piecemeal and hope to end up with a frankenstein that is able to walk.
But wait, Apple is joining the open source movement with Darwin. Unfortunately, all the other components are still proprietary, and they're probably going to stay that way.
So you're suggesting Apple just up and release their core assets into the public and watch the shareholders lynch Jobs? Huh? I don't think that's a very fair expectation. Apple is the first commercial computer company to release any major asset into an open-source compliant license. That's something not Microsoft, Sun nor Compaq have done.
Besides, the only reason that I can see why Apple is releasing the source code for Darwin is because their developers are not competent enough to continue development on the BSD Unix software they have ripped off.
Their "incompetent developers" include Avie Tevanian who had a large part in developing the Mach kernel, which was later handed over to the FSF. It was Tevanian who championed Apple's open source projects.
By the way, wasn't rhapsody the operating system that was going to show us all? Where is that NT killer these days?
The Rhapsody project, initialized by Gil Amelio, Steve Jobs's predecessor, was recognized by the current management staff as a recipe for disaster -- naming because it would force developers to completely rewrite their apps. Rhapsody was tranformed into what is available today Mac OS X Server.
Anyway, Apple and its devoted followers are scum as far as I'm concerned.
That's mature. Certainly lends creditability to your argument.
Besides, when was the last time Apple released anything other than their obnoxious QuickTime player and a new patch level for their dated operating system?
Visit http://apple.com/pr/ [apple.com].
All I'm waiting for is a proper website to open about computer technology in general without the clearly biased opinions.
Unless they're Linux-biased, right?
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:News for Nerds, Not News for Losers. (Score:1)
Re:at risk of sounding trollish (Score:1)
I am still hoping that someone will port Darwin (and by extension MacOS X) to the RS/6000 [ibm.com] architecture. Those high-end IBM systems would complement Apple's hardware offerings quite nicely.
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Re:OT: Is anyone carbonizing Mozilla? (Score:1)
IE is already Carbon and will be on Mac OS X from the start. There's also the Omni browser, which is Cocoa, and descended from NeXTSTEP
There may also be a basic Apple browser included in Mac OS X. They have a ton of HTML and XML going on in the OS, so who knows? Mac OS X will also include Apple's (Cocoa) email app (from NeXTSTEP), which people seem to either love or hate.
Confusing my stories.. (Score:1)
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Re:YES!!! (Score:1)
I'm not sure about LinuxPPC, but mkLinux [mklinux.org] does support SMP, apparently very well, on the old MP Power Macs, which included:
Re:YES!!! (Score:1)
A universal set of widgets would make my life suck less.
You're getting this where? (Score:1)
Apple: As Closed Source As They Come (Score:1)
Consider:
- They won't let anyone else build Mac-compatible machines anymore.
- They won't let anyone else sell Macs online unlessthe store arranges for customers who already own a Mac to setup a password/account/etc
- If they had their way, nobody but Apple owners would have been able to use a graphical interface. (Bogus lawsuits, copyrights, patents on GUIs)
- Quicktime, all under Apple's control.
- FireWire® - registering a trademarked name for an IEEE standard. Only they can use the name if they so choose!
Apple is much worse than Microsoft. The difference between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is that Gates was smarter, and made more money. If Apple had its way, it'd be even more of a monopoly than the boys in Redmond.Re:Don't expect much from Linux support (Score:2)
i have never had a problem with my this box since i configured it.
das
Re:You're getting this where? (Score:1)
Re: What about Darwin!! (Score:2)
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Though I use a Macintosh, I am not a mac-bigot. I just hate Windoze.
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:1)
If you took all the possible different types of instructions possible with the x86 set (add is really "load memory, load memory, store memory; load mem, load reg, store mem; load reg, load reg, store reg...), you would get a higher instruction count than PowerPC indeed.
The AltiVec extensions are intended to speed specific operations that otherwise go slowly; RISC would be a bad philosophy to take in a vector processing unit. In terms of mode switching and cleanliness, AltiVec is simpler (more "reduced" than MMX or 3DNow!).
So, however you take it, PowerPC is really RISC. No marketing involved. (Besides, this is from Motorola, not exactly marketing masters...)
No, I'm not a mac bigot - I'm a PPC bigot. And yes, that's AltiVec assembler in my sig.
Ramble on!
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
Re:at risk of sounding trollish (Score:1)
Huh?
On Alpha I count:
Tru64 Unix / DEC Unix / whatever the hell its called this week
OpenVMS
Linux
WinNT -- ok discontinued... count as half
*BSD
On Mac I count:
Linux
MacOS
*BSD
You mean, 1985? (Score:1)
That said, your comments on preemptive multitasking and memory protection have some merit. Certainly the former is a major stumbling block to performance when multiple applications are running (which is pretty much all the time).
Your doubt about the veracity of Photoshop performance is ill-founded, however. Independant testers such as Henry Norr have found those photoshop results to be direct reflections of real-world performance for normal professional users. I have no trouble believing this because I have seen similar results with my own eye. They really are that fast. That shows the power of the processor, though, on a task not greatly slowed by the poor OS performance. Nutscrape Navigator, on the other hand, is a case in point about problems with the Mac - it's slow(even on wicked-fast G4s), it crashes a lot(often bringing the system with it), and it hogs CPU time even when idling.
In conclusion: PowerPC=very fast. MacOS subsystems=very crappy. I think that's more or less where you were going with this anyway. But those benchmarks are for real, and those Macs were not overclocked, nor were the PCs crippled.
-N
wow, conclusive, exhaustive testing there.... (Score:1)
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:YES!!! (Score:1)
I hear what you are saying and I look forward to playing around with MacOS X. Hopefully, _POSIX_C_SOURCE works under MacOS X for all aspects of POSIX. But I still believe that I will have problems with widgets. Legacy code dating back 10 years can sometimes be difficult to maintain.
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:1)
As far as I call tell, either apple was claiming that G4s are superscalar and pentiums are not, or apple marketing staff smokes a lot of cheap crack.
I think you're wasting your time correcting someone who bases their understanding of CPU architecture on Apple advertisements.
Re:RT(F)A (Score:1)
Of course this is Photoshop-specific; Microsoft Orifice will always run faster on Microsoft operating systems, because Microsoft wants it that way. I couldn't point you to a good thorough benchmark that's cross-platform, sorry.
Re:Just in time for mac OS X... (Score:1)
Nope, I never thought it wasn't fair. Please read the quote from my original post above.
I see it this way: When new generation Pentium, Sparc or Alpha processors come out, you don't have to recompile things to make them take advantage of the speed increase. Sure, recompiling them might make them faster, but with the Velocity Engine, you actually have to modify the program where as with the processors mentioned above, they can take advantage of the speed increase without any changes.
I do enjoy the fact that Photoshop can take advantage of this special feature with just a plugin, however I don't beleive the vast majority of applications can do this (a simple plugin).
Re:Who Cares about the G4 once the William Tell Co (Score:1)
MP Macs = good (Score:1)
Though I haven't gotten much info on OS-X I've heard is based partialy on Unix. So I wonder if the kernel will need to be rebuilt for an MP style system and has Apple given the ability to alter that in OS-X? Or will it be prebuilt with an added on/off software switch? Either way, I can see some very stable Mac servers on there way. I feel that this is an area that Apple has been very slow in approching. How often do you hear about the new high performance Mac webserver?
All I can say is that I think it's a great idea, since if nothing else, you can always slap a copy of yellow dog or ppc-Linux on it.
Re:Slothlike Mac Software (Score:1)
Never say something dosn't have enough software (Score:1)
Macs have a number of software titles and also have the ability to emulate intel machines with the software. Also you can run linux on them which is a plus.
Re:Pricing Speculations (Score:1)
The trouble is you are not Apple's perfect customer. The graphic design industry is full of people more concerned with maximium power than cost, and it's been a surprisingly long time since there has been anything capable of running indstry standard apps in the over $4000 range, so there is a pent up demand for this sort of machine, and it seems Apple will have this sector pretty much to themselves for the forseeable future, therefore they won't have to price these boxes too keenly.
So, who will pay over $4000 for the top Macs? Simple - the same people who bought $4000+ Macs last time Apple made them... I vaguely recall my old MacIIfx set-up was in that bracket.
- Andy R.
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:4)
The real difficulty in benchmarking two different architectures, IMHO, is that the processor is just one of dozens of crucial variables. Ok, so Photoshop or Netscape run slower on a Mac with a processor a than on a PC with processor b. So what? Maybe Adobe and Netscape don't work as hard on the Mac versions of their products to optimize them (true, esp for Netscape). Maybe the MacOS is just slow and outdated (true, esp for OS 8). Maybe the PC compilers are better (certainly possible, though hard to tell). See what I mean?
That said, I think the best way to compare is to look at price/performance and other benchmarks on EXACTLY the applications you use. So, the Photoshop test is meaningless to me, because I don't particularly do graphics. But it's not meaningless to a graphic artist, who could care less what specific components cause the machine to run PS well.
--JRZ
Multiple Processors? Why not Multiple Cores? (Score:1)
So What? (Score:1)
Re:Best way to accelerate a Mac is 9.8m/sec^2 (Score:1)
Yeah, but when the Linux fad, like bell-bottoms before it, dies down, you can still format your hard drives and throw Win2K on there, assuming that you're not one of the few non-x86 Linux users. If you got a Mac, though, you're kinda screwed. ;)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Re:Monopoly (Score:2)
FYI, marketshare is not the defining factor in a monopoly. A monopoly is made when a company has a command over the market, no substitutes exist, and entry by other firms is barred.
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No substitutes exist
Apple has no more than 10% of the market. Many people are daily faced with the prospect of buying either a Mac or a PC, both of which perform more or less the same functionality. When the competition receives 90% of the business, you can't be a monopoly.
Really, all you've done is defined monopoly. It's still the same thing.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
Re:YES!!! (Score:1)
Re:Mac rumor sites (Score:1)
Man, 5 whole years without a "significant" upgrade. Sorta reminiscent of the '80-'95 period - 15 years of DOS without a significant upgrade while Apple showed us some truly revolutionary stuff.
In the last 5 years we got Win95, WinNT4 (a slightly improved "industrial strength" version), Win98 (a new layered version of 95), and Win2k (merging 95 and NT back together). Really, one big step with refinements.
It also depends on what you consider significant, I suppose. Some of the user features rolled out in OS 8 and 9 were pretty nifty. And don't forget that virtually the entire OS was rewritten for a different hardware during this period, with essentially no impact to end users! That's pretty remarkable in itself.
Apple made the step to a friendly UI 10 years earlier than MS did. (Apple did a better job, IMO.) Apple is making the step to a "modern" core 5 years later than MS did. (And Apple is doing a better job here, too, IMO.)
Yeah, I'm an Apple enthusiast, and don't have a lot of love for MS. (I'll give them credit when its due, but I don't think Gates is the godsend so many have claimed him to be.) It just seems that people bashing Apple for being behind MS the last 5 years seem to forget the 11 years before that.
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:2)
Re:(OT: super-scalar argument) + Mac MPs (Score:1)
-jcl
Re:Information (Score:1)
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Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:1)
G4 500Mhz != K7 750Mhz.
The K7'll be faster. I'm terribly sorry. I think Motorola chips are cute. I even used to have a Motorola cellular telephone. But factz are factz. Don't take it too hard. No empire lasts forever. It won't even matter in a few decades. All this will seem like old technology, and all arguments over technology like this will seem quite humourous. The archeologists of 3000 will say:
"I say ol chap! look at this crap!" (pointing to a PIII and G4 lying next to eachother). Eventually, they'll pack up, leave the excavation site, and go home to their wives.
"You'll never believe what we saw today. Ancient technology." He'll go on to describe the chips to his wife, she'll be amazed at the simplicity of the chips.
The next day, he'll go to the site, and scale the chips for himself, so that one day, when he has a child of his own, he can say to that child: "This is an ancient peice of technology, guard it well, for it is a classic." His parter will take the other chip. Both would become heirlooms to their respective family lines.
All that was long ago, though. Currently, no technology actively survives. Only 2 chips - a PIII and a G4. They have been passed down from generation to generation. The world is now a desert wasteland. But the man you see before you wears a talisman containing a single chip - the G4. To him, it's no longer a simple, ancient peice of technology. But a marvel of another age.
Re:Apple: As Closed Source As They Come (Score:2)
Apple is putting MP's (Score:1)
Of course we true make users know Mhz doesnt mean anything.
tcd004
Re:I just want to know ... (Score:1)
Re:NASTY LINK WARNING! (Score:1)
Re: The G4MP's they would kick some serious ass but I'm not going to hold my breath. I can remember when the Mac IIfx was just a roumor and yet that came through. Damn I think I have my poster I got at a Mac World in SF of the Mac IIfx's motherboard back when it was unveiled. Had a tagline something to the effect of Necessity is the mother of invention. If Apple really intends to get into the Server market then having a MP system is a necessity.
PS I wish SETI would make their client use the Velocity engine, I'd like to see if my G4 can do fast fourier transforms faster than my 4 way Sun Enterprise 4000.
Re:NASTY LINK WARNING! (Score:2)
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
MP? (Score:1)
MP: Multi-Processor or Multiple Processor machine (Score:1)
Re:This is NOT "news for nerds" (Score:1)
One of the best pieces of software for the MacOS is BBEdit, the best text editing software I've had the pleasure of working with. It integrates nicely with the Mac versions of Perl and Python, and the SSH and FTP tools you can get are the nicest I've worked with on any platform. There is a usability aesthetic to the design of Mac software that both the Win and Lin worlds would do well to emulate.
On the Linux partition -- yup, I've got one -- I use Yellow Dog Linux, which on a 300MHz iBook runs circles around an equally RAM- and drive-equipped Toshiba 400MHz Celeron running Red Hat. And yes, it knows what do to with a two- and three-button mouse...
As for iBook style, nobody said that nerd != stylin'.
Re:MP? (Score:2)
Re:Best way to accelerate a Mac is 9.8m/sec^2 (Score:1)
on a primarily linux site...
hehe...
im doubting that too, its not a fad, why would it be a fad when people see the better alternative? a fad would be just getting on the bandwagon to be like others. thats not whats happening.
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
Why is this news? (Score:5)
Since WWDC is just a week away, why not resist and wait a week?
Re:Unlike with Macs, Linux HW/SW choices are growi (Score:1)
since the imac ports to macs have gone up, they may be going back down a little now, or going up and down at the same time, meaning virtually staying the same...
***But*** wouldn't most much rather use macintosh hardware? Or should I say IBM, Motorola chips and stuff, I think most can agree how much better the G4s are...and how much better IBM [and Motorola] is at innovating and inventing...and making chips than AMD and Intel.
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
NASTY LINK WARNING! (Score:1)
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
Don't expect much from Linux support (Score:3)
Other people have gotten other kinds of SMP macs to boot, some even have no problems. But there's probably only about 5 people in the world running SMP linux on macs.
In short, don't expect any linux to work on this architecture for years. 2004 would be a reasonable guess for full support, iff people actually care enough to try to get linux to work at all. Which is still doubtful, esp. considering that you can run MacOS X on these by the time you will be able to buy them. Who would invest time in porting yet another unix clone to a system that only a few thousand people will be able to buy? LinuxPPC.org hasn't gotten any support from Apple in about 2 years, why should they change anything now?
Re:Macs just suck (Score:1)
Re:Mac rumor sites (Score:1)
Tom
Re:(OT: super-scalar argument) + Mac MPs (Score:1)
- Sinistral @ Fractal Edge
Re:Pricing Speculations (Score:1)
Tom
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:1)
Re:Best way to accelerate a Mac is 9.8m/sec^2 (Score:1)
blah blah blah Macs are dead blah blah blah Linux rules blah blah blah they're just toys blah blah blah Mine is the most tumescent system of all time
man, the anti-mac postings on here sound suspiciously like homophobic rants by men who are too insecure in their manliness. i'm about done with
I have heard of MP G4's from other sources as well (Score:1)
Re:NASTY LINK WARNING! (Score:2)
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:1)
Re:Apple: As Closed Source As They Come (Score:4)
Nothing's really stopping you. They don't license their designs anymore, but that doesn't mean you couldn't build a compatible machine. No guarantees that future releases of MacOS would work on it, but the same goes for any OS running on hardware that the OS creators don't specifically say will be supported in the future.
* They won't let anyone else sell Macs online unlessthe store arranges for customers who already own a Mac to setup a password/account/etc
Ok, I don't quite understand what you're saying here. I see lots of places selling Macs online, and they just have the normal sign-in-so-we-can-ship-the-thing-to-you system.
* If they had their way, nobody but Apple owners would have been able to use a graphical interface. (Bogus lawsuits, copyrights, patents on GUIs)
Conceded.
* Quicktime, all under Apple's control.
QuickTime itself is a completely open specification. You are confusing the format with the codec, like I see all over the place. QuickTime is just a format for mixing various time-dependent media. The thing everyone really should complain about is the Sorenson Video codec and the QDesign audio codecs, neither of which were created by Apple. Now Apple may have entered into some exclusive agreement with them in exchange for shipping the codecs standard with QuickTime, I don't know.
* FireWire® - registering a trademarked name for an IEEE standard. Only they can use the name if they so choose!
Sony has its own name for it too. I don't know if it's trademarked or not, though. Apple did invent the whole 1394 thing, so I think they deserve to call it whatever they want.
Re:Just in time for mac OS X... (Score:1)
By that standard, it's not fair that you should actually have to learn to drive just to use a car....
I'm pretty impressed that Photoshop can be compiled to run on non-Altivec processors, but can still take advantage of G4s with a simple plug-in.
Re:Apple is... -- The G4 beats Athlon & Pe (Score:1)
Squeak [squeak.org]
Since it's platorm independent, you'll get a truer reflection of what the case really is. (course, you'll still need to worry to a certain extent about the state of the C compilers for the various platforms), but it'll be a better indication than Photoshop, for sure.
Re:at risk of sounding trollish (Score:2)
Linux
MacOS
*BSD
You forgot:
WinNT (discontinued also, count as half)
MacOS X/MacOS X Server/Darwin/whatever -- should really count as separate from the traditional MacOS, even if they are made by the same company.
BeOS -- doesn't work on newer machines, pretty much discontinued, but it ought to count for something.
Alright, I'm sure we're forgetting some on both ends, I just wanted to even it out a little.
socratic, can you imagine.... (Score:1)
Re:Mac rumor sites (Score:1)
Re: What about Darwin!! (Score:2)
This is presuming that the SMP libraries are to be included in Darwin...
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:2)
It may not be a fair test for the PC platform as a whole, but it's a great test for Photoshop users
D
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Re:Just in time for mac OS X... (Score:3)
And to think they were bragging about it when they added that feature . . .
MP in current macos (Score:2)
Still believe the MacOS doesn't have system level preemptive multiprocessing support? go here:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1176.
Re:Apple: As Closed Source As They Come (Score:2)
did you ever _use_ a Mac clone? amalgamations of piles of commodity parts loosely patched together into something resembling something that looked like a functional computer. they _sucked_, badly, and because they were associated with Apple because of the OS, they contributed to much of Apple's bad press and consumer appeal of the mid-1990's.
They won't let anyone else sell Macs online unlessthe store arranges for customers who already own a Mac to setup a password/account/etc
Poorly reported, misread, misrepeated, misunderstood and complete _myth_. Well, either that, or no one's paying attention to the "rule" or whatever. Take a moment to look at a few Mac online stores.
If they had their way, nobody but Apple owners would have been able to use a graphical interface. (Bogus lawsuits, copyrights, patents on GUIs)
What lawsuits are still around? Apple hasn't pushed a lawsuit since they sued Microsoft, which Apple pursued only in the same vane that Sony persued Connectix and Bleem! for PSX emulators... not because they could win. They sued to keep anyone from getting any ideas about doing anything that would _seriously_ infringe on their turf.
Quicktime, all under Apple's control.
Someone else pointed out before me that QuickTime is a suite of codecs and bundling technologies that are largely open. Unfortunately, the Sorenson Codec is the one everyone is hot to trot for... and that one is not Apple's intellectual property.
FireWire® - registering a trademarked name for an IEEE standard. Only they can use the name if they so choose!
Well gee, they only _invented_ the damned thing. It was "FireWire" long before it was IEEE 1394, and the global Digital Multimedia saw what it was and what it could do, so Apple submitted it to the IEEE with Sony (who calls it "iLink"), and got it approved. Anyone can make an "IEEE 1394" card w/o paying royalties. If you want to call it "FireWire," you have to pay for the brand recognition.
Pray tell... you can download Red Hat Linux and modify it and sell it as your own distributions. It's Linux, jah, but can you market it as "Red Hat"?
Re:Pricing Speculations (Score:2)
Why should they? They are a monopoly in every sense of the word except marketshare.
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Am I the only one who sees the inherant discord in this statement?
The independant bookstore on the corner is a monopoly in every sense of the word except marketshare as well. Somehow I don't think Amazon or Barnes & Noble care very much.
Marketshare is the single defining factor of a monopoly. By definition a company cannot be a monopoly if they have low marketshare.
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I've always hated Apples, and when they cut out the clones why that just justified my hatred of them.
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By chance did you own a clone? So did I (PowerTower Pro 225 - a kick ass machine for its time). I was pissed too, but at the time their company was leaking 700+ million a quarter with no end in sight. In the end, it's hard to argue against Jobs' turnaround.
I too feel that clones are essential to the growth of the Mac platform. But, Apple should make sure they've taken up as far as they can before they open the floodgates again, and next time be more careful about it. If you haven't noticed, recent technological changes in the OS and hardware have made it much easier for cloners to exist.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
FYI (Score:2)
Whether you got a motherboard with two CPU slots, or a motherboard with one slot holding two CPUs, or a motherboard with one single-CPU slot was quite another matter, of course.
The same system logic was used in all of the Apples shipped, whether high- or low-end, desktop or laptop. Have a look under the hood and check out the part number on the north bridge to see for yourself.
Linux Support (Score:3)
For those of you who are asking the inevitable question, "What about linux support"? I think you should have some faith in the good people of the world out there. You might want to see some of the stuff that TerraSoft Solutions is doing with YellowDog Linux [yellowdoglinux.com] and BlackLab Linux [blacklablinux.com]. I'm not sure how much a lot of this applies, but they've gotten it to run on some of CSP's Quad G4 boards and other nifty configurations.
Pricing Speculations (Score:2)
Are you listening, Apple?
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
MP Macs will rock if the OS supports it. Simple. (Score:5)
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Re:Just in time for mac OS X... (Score:2)
I've heard of this before. Are you referring to the "vector processing unit" or Velocity Engine? For those of you who haven't seen the benchmarks, here [sfgate.com] is a link to an article with a few benchmarks.
The only thing I don't like about this is the fact that in order to beat the PIII's, a special Photoshop plugin is required to make use of the Velocity Engine.
What does this mean? Quite simply, an application must specifically be written (or re-written) to take advantage of the Velocity Engine. I'm not saying this is unfair, or lying or a half truth or anything like that since Intel has MMX, but I feel it's a somewhat skewed view of things.
Many video cards are like this as well. I remember reading an interview with one of the programmers at iD (Gremme I beleive) where he stated the largest problem with game performance is having to write code that works with all sorts of video cards. Many individual cards such as 3Dfx have propritary APIs such as Glide that gives a great performance boost, but obviously Glide apps will only run on 3Dfx cards (wrappers non-withstanding).
Thus, I have nothing against Macs (hey, progress is progress, and people everyone likes or hates things for his or her own reasons), however I don't think that just Photoshop benchmarks with a plugin which makes use of a Mac specific co-processor tell the whole story.
Re:What is an SKU? (Score:4)
This is similar to a Universal Product Code, which is the barcode found on virtually everything these days.
Both refer to a number. A UPC has a standard barcode and numbering system. A SKU isn't universal, and can be different no matter where you are.
SKUs sometimes include letters, too, whereas UPCs are strictly numeric.
I think.
Re:Apple: As Closed Source As They Come (Score:2)
Clearly this could be used to build a Mac-compatible machine. At worst, just make it run a PPC linux and then get this program working, although that would fairly suck. The problems are that there would be no guarantee of compatibility with future OS releases, and Apple handles the current demand for Macintosh computers plenty well.
Mac rumor sites (Score:5)
At the upcoming Macworld|Seybold|WWDC, Apple will announce:
new Powerbooks (or not)
new 17" iMacs (or not)
MP PowerMacs (or not)
an Apple PDA (or not)
MacOS X is shipping (or not)
In other words, these guys predict anything that could possibly happen, so some of it is bound be true.
Re:OT: Is anyone carbonizing Mozilla? (Score:2)
YES!!! (Score:2)
Has anyone seen any good benchmarks for G4's vs Sparc, Alpha, etc... I have done a but of altivec programming, and golly, that vector unit is sweet. You just can't beat the RISC architechure.
I wonder what version of LinuxPPC will support it. How developed is SMP in the PPC world?
In closing, man these rummors better be true, hmmm.... maybe I will use my free WWDC pass after all...
Peace out.
Ryan
--"Yup."
Re:News for Nerds, Not News for Losers. (Score:2)
Just for... (Score:2)
(OT: super-scalar argument) + Mac MPs (Score:2)
My big worry for Macs is that these things will be RIDICULOUSLY expensive. A nice G4-450 (not the fastest G4 out there) will run you noticeably over $2500. Remember how expensive multi-processor PCs were a few years ago before they started cranking 'em out in bulk? Plus, even OS-X won't be particularly well optimized for multiple processors, considering this is the first release and the developers had a lot of more important issues than SMP to consider (like getting it to run). I'd expect the price/performance for these machines to be pretty unimpressive, especially when compared with other, more mature SMP-solutions.
Now, I wish they could just boot some next-generation, 64-bit MacOS on RS6000 PPC hardware. I mean, come on, if you REALLY want to run photoshop fast, and price isn't an object, why not shell out for a $100,000 IBM workstation? Mmmm... 8 GB of RAM... 32 MB of L2 cache. . .
--JRZ
Re:Pricing Speculations (Score:2)
I wonder if Apple pricing is impacted in any way by Steve Jobs' income. I know that the more I earn, the less $ 1,000 seems to matter. If he's selling primarily to the top 1% of incomes in this country, his pricing is really about right. Since Steve himself is somewhere at the top
D
----
Re:MP? (Score:3)
Mutha Phucka
Military Police
Maybe Purple
Multiple Processors
Medium Power
of course it really is...
Metallica Pirates
Just in time for mac OS X... (Score:5)
However, I don't think Apple's going to be SELLING these machines in May or June. I think Apple's going to be demonstrating them to developers, showing what a boost Mac OS X gets with a dual or quad G4 machine - and what a boost a dual or quad machine gets under OS X. Since OS X is slated for release sometime this summer (probably Macworld Expo New York in July), that will likely tie the two together. I'm sure these machines will run Mac OS 9 as well, but don't expect too much.
That said, the G4 is still far ahead of twice-as-'fast' Pentium IIIs - several reviews have shown that, with Altivec-native programs like Photoshop, a G4 at 450MHz creams a Pentium III at 1GHz, by 30% in some instances. With Mac OS X on dual or quad G4s, and with much better G4s (dual altivec units, and deeper pipelining to allow higher clock speeds) coming this fall, the Mac platform's about to get a massive boost.
That said, I fear that Apple will price these dual or quad machines way out of reach. An additional processor doesn't add that much to the price - maybe $500 reasonably. The smart approach with MP is not to double up on the very fastest chips; they just cost too much. Rather, it's better to step down the clock speed a little bit to allow for more processors at a reasonable price point. Thus, I think dual G4s at only 400 or 450MHz would make a lot of sense, and could be reasonably priced. I say could be; I have little faith in Apple to do this, though Apple's been much better about price-performance lately than they used to be.
Re:What is an SKU? (Score:2)
(internally multiplied to 450-ish)
it does about 1.2 Mkeys/sec for rc5.
Re:Apple is putting MP's (Score:2)
If you want to see an unbiased comparison of Macs, PCs, Alphas, etc., look at the published SPEC performance at spec.org. (Although Apple will not publish official SPEC numbers since they are so low; you can find the Motorola G4 scores at the Motorola website.)
All modern processors are superscalar ("perform multiple operations per clock"), not just Macs.
Re:NASTY LINK WARNING! (Score:2)
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
Re:Mac rumor sites (Score:2)
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Is synthesis of rumor a fake ad ? (Score:2)
macnn.com feature on 'espionage' ad [macnn.com]
Why Before Mac OS X? --The Answer (Score:3)
I imagine if anything it's because half of the OS X equation has already been released...OS X Server, which I believe supports multiple processors. Since it seems to make quite a bit of sense to me to have MP server boxes, I see this as a great thing (if/when it happens).
-fp