G4 Bug Keeps Them at 500MHz 165
Hal-9001 writes "I saw this link over at Ars Technica; apparently, the G4 has a bug that keeps it from running at 500 MHz or above. The story is over at MacWeek. "
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro
Re:Oh well (Score:1)
look to the net, there are many others
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
2. No, but as I said, its a side effect. The OS is poor, something I noted at. The new BSD derived OS should be far better. I'm sure Mac users would be happy to have the front end they love, and a back end that's worth they're love.
3. Sure it seems odd, but if we take them at their word and that it doesn't effect chips under 500mhz, than its ok. It sounds like it does, but they don't want to admit it.. or that they are giving an excuse for while the G4 500mhz chips will be delayed, but that its not a horrid problem that should scare customers away.
Re:The G4 does not need overclocking (Score:1)
Re:I'm not a pc lover I don't run windows (Score:1)
Re:The G4 does not need overclocking (Score:1)
Get out of your basement, there are users with more pressing needs than getting 600 fps out of QuakeIII who welcome real technological advancements such as AltiVec.
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
People have gotten so used to systems that crash on a regular basis that they don't realize that systems could be much more reliable than the crap sold at the local computer store.
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
Affordable Alphas and G4 Benchmarks (Score:1)
Unfortunately, Alphas have a reputation of being refridgerator-sized machines with
A good starting place. They have tons of links to vendors, list-archives, news, FAQ's, etc.
I've had good luck/great service from these guys. Alpha pricing starts at $1295 for a 533-mhz bare-bones kit.
The 466mhz model does over twice as well as a G4 in SPECfp. I seem to remember stumbling across a sale (from Compaq) for these little monsters for $2999, though I can't find the link now.
Never dealt with them personally, but they have fast machines and a all-around good reputation. They also sell quadputers and compilers
You can often find cheap Alpha hardware on eBay. Over 6 months ago, I put together a PC164-500/64mb system for about $600. Read the AlphaLinux.Org FAQ's, HOWTO's and HCL before you buy anything.
For reference, here are a few (single-cpu) spec*95 figures... (mostly from spec.org)
INT- FP-- processor
20.3 13.3 Mac G3/466mhz
22.3 15.1 Intel P-III/550mhz
21.4 20.4 G4-450 Mhz 7400
16.2 23.9 UltraSparc/450mhz
18.0 27.0 Alpha 21164/600mhz (very old now)
24.6 47.9 Alpha 21264/466mhz (new "low-end")
32.1 53.7 Alpha UP2000/667mhz
Re:Don't be hypocrites (Score:1)
minor correction: G4s => 450MHz are
Re:I'm not a pc lover I don't run windows (Score:1)
>when people put MACos or BEos, since when are the >meant to be capitalized? It's Mac OS and
>Be OS. Well I've had my say.
Thank you for finally pointing out the whole capitalization thing. Glad it's not just me thinking that. You can always tell an underinformed _____-bigot by their capitalization of the word MAC. For instance.
"MAC is going to go out of business any day now."
"If MAC had multitasking i'd use it."
"MAC's are too expensive and they dont have any software.
Huddle up to your nice warm Athlon Beowulf cluster running Linux, or go play with NetPositive under BeOS or whatever you prefer to rant off-topic about, and get your damn facts straight before you start trashing things. Even windows.
Re:Question (Score:1)
Re:Question (Score:1)
Re:Moderation gone havoc! (Score:1)
Yes I didnt mean it as a flame bait. I was refering to this add [apple.com]. Which I find hilarious
--
Re: Clarification (Score:1)
::praying:: (Score:2)
Steve Jobs should be on his knees begging IBM to make G4s. Motorola has made it abundantly clear that they can't meet deadlines, can't produce enough chips to meet even Apple's small demand, and can't keep up with Intel(much less AMD) in terms of clock speed and processing power
C'mon IBM, you can do it!
Question = Answer (Score:1)
I believe they are 1 GigaFlop machines (or at least at the high end), and they are value for money in speed terms.
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
eh...i disagree. if youre developing some program that makes heavy use of system resources and/or performs some extremely low level functions, it wouldnt be too unheard of for you to have to reboot after you discover a bug in your software that makes the system unstable or unusable.
slightly more reasonable, what if you (for whatever reason) decide to build a new kernel for your snappy open source OS?
People who think that copmuter can be rebooted to fix problems should be taught properly.
well, ive heard early version(s) of windoze95 had memory leak issues. so what do you suggest those who are stuck using the affected version(s) do once their system starts bogging down for lack of available memory? (note: answers like 'use [insert alternate os here]' are not acceptable for this question
the point is, no system is perfect. they all need a reboot every now and then, be it to fix a problem or to upgrade. the real issue is the length of time between reboots.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
humorous... (Score:1)
...with performance inscreasing at its usual pace, the new Power Mac G4 woudn't have arrived until 2003. Unfortunately, breaktroughs do happen...
maybe they should have waited till 2003 and done some more testing...
I know the quote refers to speed, but sometimes you have to slow down and make sure you aren't messing some things up too much...
Re:Hehe, hope Apple had fun while it lasted (Score:1)
--bdj
Re:::praying:: (Score:1)
Back when PPC was being developed, there was alot of hype how these three companies (IBM, Motorola, Apple) were going to revolutionize computing, to the benifet of the entire world (And IBM, Motorola, and Apple).
What has happened is there is colaboration amongst all three in the design phase. When it comes to actually SELLING the things, Motorola becomes Apple's "Preferred" supplier (i.e. 100%) and IBM gets left out in the cold.
Big Blue has refocused in more recent years to create embedded PPC, and has been doing a pretty damn good job of it. I'm sure there are still plenty of burned asses over at IBM that would love to stick it to Apple and Motorola, though...
Maybe one of the reasons IBM signed up with Nintendo to design and fab Dolphin?
So much for overclocking (Score:1)
Apple is ordering a couple million PowerPCs every year. I honestly don't see why IBM isn't taking that account more seriously. I'm sure there are good reasons for it. But they must be pretty serious for IBM to turn away all that business.
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
Re:It's possible to moderate and post in the same. (Score:1)
Unless I'm off-topic (in which case I'll promptly be moderated out of everybody's way), the subject line is always on topic. Would you prefer I put in a different meaningless filler line instead? How about for this one "G3 CPU" instead of "..." ? "..." is easier. Unless I'm going off-topic, I really don't even see the need to include a subject line - slash already breaks this down for you.
people will learn that character is one's greatest asset, that hurting others is wrong, and that there's no "i" in "Slashdot Comment System"
... Funny how just before this you run off and say I'm an arrogant bastard hell-bent on some kind of popularity contest... and then turn around and post a few lines of mean-nothing text, which is essentially a personal slam and get moderated up 2 points! Oh, the twisted irony...
Anyway, I find it just laughably funny that anyone would believe that I'm here to 'be popular'. Yeah.. right. Online? With a bunch of anonymous people I'll never meet? Just think about that alittle. I'm not sure whether you're the same person, or another, but alot of ACs have complained that my posts are "meaningless". I've even had a few moderators mark down perfectly good comments lately. Does this bother me? Not really. It's a curiosity, but little more. The only reason I mention it is because so many of you find it interesting.
Bottom line: If you disagree with me, fine. If you think my posts suck, fine. But the majority of people here don't believe that, and this is just a fact you are going to have to live with, unpleasant though it may be. If you really feel strongly about it, e-mail this guy [mailto] and let him know how you feel. While you're at it, how about suggesting an alternative moderation system.. maybe one that's more fair to people like you?
My e-mail address is, as always, attached to any post I make. Contact me off slashdot if you have some constructive criticism.
--
Freeze (Score:5)
Statements like this worry me. Restarts are NOT ok, and i'm sickened that people think they are. Especially when they're frequent like it sounds like this bug would make them. The world is not windows, if it were then everyone including me would have no problem with an occasional restart. But more importantly, G4's are usually going to be used as servers. Reboots are NEVER acceptable in a server, it can mean 20 minutes of downtime on a website which can mean lost revenue. It can mean lost e-mails within a company which is a VERY bad thing. Get the picture? I'm glad they're delaying the release, of course, as this is not a good bug. OK my rant is done
Patrick Barrett
Yebyen@adelphia.net
Re:Freeze (Score:3)
Indeed, another source said, this issue might never evince itself in Macs, since the OS doesn't manipulate data rapidly enough to cause the problem -- the glitch would more likely effect more-efficient embedded operating systems. Even if data corruption should occur, a source said, the result would be nothing more than a system freeze, easily fixed with a restart.
#1) i dont like the fact that they assume MacOS is the only os that runs on macs
#2) this seems to suggest (to me anyway that current versions of MacOS arent fast enough to keep up with the faster G4s..
#3) yes, rebooting, while an "easy" task, is not something id gladly do often, especially since its entirely possible i could lose data in any open applications that hadnt been saved
all in all, this whole article makes it seem like theyre taking a rather relaxed attitude toward this.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
Better than Intel (Score:3)
Intel hasn't been *that* kind (read: professional) with the Pentium class processors... Remember the first series (60, 66, 90)??? They tried, but ultimately had to replace a helluva lot of them...
Re:Freeze -- Unacceptable for a server (Score:1)
Re:...Use one of those grading programs (Score:1)
Re:Better than Intel (Score:1)
Re:This Is Not Apple's Fault (Score:1)
The G4 does not need overclocking (Score:1)
IBM did not want to support AltiVec way back when Apple was in more dire straits and the market could not be foreseen as being so lucrative. I'm sure the 'Its' over at IBM are kicking themselves now.
"That kind of errata isn't unusual for new ships from any manufacturer," said Keith Diefendorff, editor in chief of the Microprocessor Report in Sunnyvale, Calif. He said that Motorola's warnings don't necessarily portend serious problems: "Motorola, as a company, is relatively conservative, and they like to have everything perfect." --from the MacWeek article
I agree with the poster down below that people wanting to buy these machines are lucky that Motorola takes its quality so seriously, so they don't have to be replaced later (like the pentiums).
MKLinux or LinuxPPC (Score:1)
The bit you quoted was preceeded by "the glitch would more likely effect more-efficient embedded operating systems."
Could it be that Linux on Macs can be affected it is more efficient than MacOS(X)? Or is that just non-embedded OS's against embedded ones?
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
I hate to say this, but... (Score:1)
That said, i am currently a PC owner, and as such still have some loyaylty to intel.
I feel this must be said.
Someone is bound to, it might as well be me.
Wintel/Linux on Intel/AMD PC's rejoice. For once more, we have a legitamate reason to feel supperior (though, whether this reason will last for long, i know not...
We can, now, if for a brief moment, stick our tongue's out at Mac users and brag about us being able to get higher processor speeds (yes, yes, BYTEmark integers would love to argue with me, i know, but then this isn't exactly a serious post)!
That said, i have a few opinions on why Mac's are worth the extra price (not that i'd complain should they decide to price *more* competitively)
1st: They crash less
2nd: No need for Virtual Memory (or atleast you can turn it off and still be able to run your MacOS of choice) and 3rd: Power...they *are* faster, and in general run smoother.
I no doubt have now invoked the wrath of users of any computer, and as such, will now sit peacefully, hoping that my mail client doesnt tell me i have 100+ new messages!
Amen (Score:3)
I mean, people can live without the 500 MHz version for a couple of months.
It would be far worse if they just decided to quietly go ahead and release it and hope no one notices. (Or if they didn't even do enough testing to detect it in the first place.)
Quicken Clone (Score:1)
I know this bug!!! (Score:3)
cache corruption. This happens, to some extent,
at lower frequencies too!
That's right. G4 processors from Motorola crash.
IBM adds capacitors and other junk on top of
the chip to deal with this, but even they don't
really know the cause.
Thus, the G4 is a bad buy.
I'm serious, and have fairly direct inside
knowledge of this -- please fix the score on
this post, since I obviously must be an AC.
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
>ok, and i'm sickened that people think
>they are. Especially when they're frequent like
>it sounds like this bug would make them.
>The world is not windows, if it were then
>everyone including me would have no problem
>with an occasional restart. But more importantly,
>G4's are usually going to be used as
>servers. Reboots are NEVER acceptable in a
>server, it can mean 20 minutes of
>downtime on a website which can mean lost
>revenue. It can mean lost e-mails within a
>company which is a VERY bad thing. Get the
>picture? I'm glad they're delaying the
>release, of course, as this is not a good bug. OK
>my rant is done
A few points here:
1. The server model of the G4 (as I recall) isn't even shipping yet. (someone correct me as I'm wrong.) Currently, the G4 isn't as much intended as a server as it is for home use. (See recent Apple TV ads.)
2. You make it sound as if the bug is already hurting people... unless someone *actively* overclocks their G4, there doesn't seem to be any indication that this error would do any harm at all. And anyone with the skill to overclock a G4 would surely be able to research about the bug.
3. The reason the article is lax about the bug is that, other than a possible shipment delay, the bug isn't important yet.
- James Schend
Corrections (Score:2)
I'm really sick of Apple apologists...
I'm really sick of Apple critics that don't understand what they're offering advice on.
A hokey press release claiming that this might not affect MacOS users is just plain stupid
Who put out a press release? This was all from MacWeek's "sources." Apple and Motorola had absolutely nothing to do with MacWeek's analysis that "this issue might never evince itself in Macs."
Not to mention that atop all of this, Apple isn't offering any highly-clocked, discounted G3, nope
Pretty off-topic, but I'll address it. You can get a G3/400 for $1299 with DV stuff of in the form of an iMac. I'm sure there are still G3 towers around from various retailers. Selling G3s and G4s at the same time would cause unnecessary product line confusion.
just more G4 marketing hype... "Yeah, the AltiVec velocity engine will help AppleWorks with all of that vector math you'll be doing".
Right. Most people buy a G4 to use AppleWorks.
The least Apple could do would be to investigate the possibility of selling real workstations, based on MacOS X and powered by a Power3, Alpha, or maybe K7.
I agree. Apple should spend 6-12 months porting Mac OS X to Alpha, Power3 or K7, and concince developers to do the same. In the process they can alienate and confuse their customers, piss off wallstreet by radically altering their business strategy without warning, and lose the ease of administration Macs enjoy from tight software/hardware intregration, and ultimately elminate Apple's value proposition.
By why stop there? Why not just outsource the hardware manufacturing to Dell and just focus on software? Maybe Apple could work on some applications to compete head-on with MS Office, or maybe write a web browser. It should also open source everything and just sell the service contracts.
One more thing -- Linus should be the CEO.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Re:errata? (Score:1)
RedHat.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Why do they even bother telling us??? (Score:3)
Re:Question (Score:1)
The integer performance, while quite good, is not vastly different than the G3. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a match in the wintel world with the kind of performance you get from the AltiVec (Velocity Engine) vector unit. It is the vector unit that pushes the G4 past the sustained one gigaflop mark (burstable to 4 gigaflops I believe).
For example, every G4 comes with a Photoshop plugin on its hard drive that allows the application to take advantage of AltiVec. I have no benchmarks handy, but the results are phenominal. The same is true for SETI@home and Media Cleaner Pro (digital media encoding) -- the performance is incredible with a G4. And those were just the optimized apps announced at Seybold. I haven't kept tabs on what has popped up since them.
If you're just running xterms, it probably doesn't matter, but if you're doing a lot of digital media manipulation or scientific calculations, it's a little slice of heaven in a cool-looking case.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Freeze is better than corruption (Score:2)
Re:The G4 does not need overclocking (Score:1)
Re:Question (Score:1)
Second the SPEC for a G4 costing 3000 is around the SPECS for an Athlon 700 costing 2000
Re:MHz != Performance (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:I'm not a pc lover I don't run windows (Score:1)
Re:I'm not a pc lover I don't run windows (Score:1)
Re:I hate to say this, but... (Score:2)
"No need for Virtual Memory?" Help!
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Re:I hate to say this, but... (Score:1)
In terms of Virtual Memory, the G3's and G4 at my school run with 96mb of ram and do not recquire Vitrual Memory turned on, in fact they run fantasticly.
As for older macs at school (which have 64 mb of ram), they can run without wm as well, but, truth said it does help perfomance
Re:Why do they even bother telling us??? (Score:3)
Why MacWeek decided to publish it is another question. They did so because it appears that this will delay Apple's plans to ship 500MHz G4 systems. Obviously Apple can't ship these until the bug is fixed, and that's not scheduled to happen until after Apple's planned shipping date. Thus it looks like Apple will be forced to delay the introduction of the new systems.
/peter
Alpha is Bi-Endian (Score:1)
Re:Freeze is better than corruption (Score:1)
Patrick Barrett
Yebyen@adelphia.net
So what? (Score:1)
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
Statements like this worry me. Restarts are NOT ok, and i'm sickened that people think they are.
Yes, *but*, although not well written, in its original context, the rest of your comment isn't really relevant.
The bit you quoted was preceeded by "the glitch would more likely effect more-efficient embedded operating systems."
Its not clear what the original "source" was asked, or talking about, but an "embedded operating system", is not what you're going to run your e-commerce website on.
(tho maybe it _is_ what you'd use on a $170 million probe going to mars
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Virtual Memory and the Code Fragment Manager (Score:1)
This is incorrect.
The reason that Mac OS applications (appear to) consume less memory with virtual memory on is that enabling virtual memory allows the OS to swap out the application's code with file-mapping. With VM off, the code data must always remain resident because the MMU is inactive and thus cannot deal with page faults (accesses to inactive memory). Thus, while you have precisely the same amount of data with VM off instead of on, more of it can be paged out to disk, reducing real memory concumption (somewhat).
It's worth noting that, while with VM on, applications do use less memory, it's not as much less as the Get Info window's memory panel advertises or the About This Computer window reports. This is because some of the code has to be resident for the programs to run. However, none of the memory pages mapped to code are part of the application's heap and thus precisely zero of them are reported in heap-based memory usage statistics (such as the Finder's About This Computer window).
If you have enough RAM, though, there's no reason to run your Mac with VM on; the Mac OS has fairly static memory requirements and generally deals with memory exhaustion more reliably than UNIX applications (where not checking for null pointers is quite common). Turning it off removes one more slight performance hit.
Addressing the resource fork memory usage issue, purgable resources (and handles in general) are always purged if memory constraints are encountered. This mechanism is made possible by the wonderfully screwed up world of handle-based memory allocation.
Just be glad you don't have to make the above code pre-emptable and/or re-entrant.
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
Defense of a dead horse. (Score:1)
I can't afford much more than a 9 year old mildly souped up Amiga, I'd like to think of myself as a power user none-the-less. Lest it be forgotten that the only major problem with this platform (aside from its age, which isn't really a major problem) is the
'buggy closed-source shareware net application that uses a crappy non-OS GUI API movement'.
Amigans get to use G4s too!
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
I'm a Mac Bigot, and I'm typing this on a rev. A iMac.
Seriously, this is a non-story. A chip has been delayed because of a bug. Even if you clock-chip your current G4 it won't matter because the OS can't load the chip enough to cause the error.
Re:I hate to say this, but... (Score:1)
and G4s aren't out yet
G4/400s are quite available. G4/450s supplies are constrained, but are out there. This really is more of Motorola's problem, but it gets handed down to Apple.
Isn't it time for Jobs to jump ship, sell all his shares, and send the company plunging into oblivion again?
Yes. That makes lots of sense.
Maybe he's waiting until they are a bit more over-valued.
Many analysts feel that Apple is actually a bit underated at this point. Just start doing a survey of analysts, and watch all the "buy" recommendations pop up.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
G4's *are* out (Score:1)
Re:Freeze (Score:1)
alt+sysRQ + l
that sigkills everythign including INIT. rather silly mind you.
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
Re:The G4 does not need overclocking (Score:1)
Re:Better than Intel -- Bull! (plus other goodies) (Score:3)
I am really sick of PC bigots jumping the gun without reading the article.
first of all, the processor is soldered down
First of all you are wrong. These things are on Zif sockets.
This is not better than Intel
Secondly this bug is affecting nobody because Motorola is delaying release. Unlike Intel which releases stuff then does field replacements.
Re: (Score:1)
Overclocking G4s (Score:1)
Re:So much for overclocking (Score:2)
It doesn't matter. The G3 upgrades don't require changing the jumpers - upgrade manufacturers came up with their own way to reclock the CPU. I am sure that the same techniques would work with G4's.
VM Off? (Score:2)
Ummm.... the general rule on the Mac is that you leave virtual memory on unless you really need the .5% of extra performance taken up by the overhead. As long as you're not pushing applications beyond your actual, built-in RAM, you really don't notice the speed hit, even in Photoshop.
On PowerPC Macs, having virtual memory on forces applications to leave their resource forks on disk rather than loading them into RAM. Resource forks can get mighty huge. Photoshop 5.5, for example, requires about 7000 K more RAM with VM off than it does on and I think Excel 98's RAM usage ballons by 11MB with VM off. (Then again, this is from the same company that brought us Microsoft RAM Gobbler 4.5, the web browser which, when left running for 6 hours, will suck every last bit of RAM for itself.)
Of course, I always turn VM off when doing a render :-)
Re:Alpha is Bi-Endian (Score:2)
BTW, PPC is also bi-endian.
Re:Question (Score:1)
Re:Question (Score:1)
Re:Better than Intel -- Bull! (plus other goodies) (Score:1)
I'm really sick of Anonymous Coward flamebait. I mean, there is nothing remotly intelligent in your post. Kindly grab your ears and pull your head out of a dark place! (I'll leave the rest of that image up to the reader, and there is more then one way to interpret that. <g>)
Bzzzt! And our runner's up will recieve... a whack in the head! You would of been right a few years ago, but Apple has been using ZIF sockets for awhile now.
Kindly take your BS elsewhere. Thank ye.
Re:... (Score:1)
Patrick Barrett
Yebyen@adelphia.net
Don't get too worried about 'Relaxed Attitude' (Score:2)
This kind of attribution means the writer didn't talk to someone worth naming. Had the comment been from Apple or Motorola, it would have been attributed that way. Evidently, the "information" came from:
1) someone at the MacWeek watercooler
2) someone on IRC or comp.sys.mac.geek.at.home
3) a bum on the street (there's lots in SF)
4) the writer's kid
MacWeek frequently attributes quotes to nobody in such a way as to make it sound authoritarian. (e.g. "according to sources close to Apple"--what the hell does that mean? Nothing!)
Don't put too much stock into journalism. It's just an exercise in creative writing to fill pages.
It's possible to moderate and post in the same... (Score:2)
Simply selecting the "post anonymously" checkbox won't allow you to moderate and post in the same article. However, logging out does allow such a thing. I've done it.
Learn a bit about how Slashdot works and you will learn these things!
I guess the fellow does have a point, it's painful seeing all these "..." subjects, usually with no real content attached, always moderated up to 5. It reaffirms the dream of a Slashdot killfile!!
This 11 fellow is already violating at least one of the rules that he sees every time he posts: "use a clear subject that describes what your message is about." Hardly a role-model for the community.
Maybe someday, arrogant bastards won't be moderated up for being arrogant bastards, moderation won't be based on popularity, and moderation WILL be based on whether or not someone has something productive to say. Maybe someday, people will learn humility, people will learn to serve others before they serve themselves, people will learn that character is one's greatest asset, that hurting others is wrong, and that there's no "i" in "Slashdot Comment System"
Yeah, right!
Re:Freeze (Score:3)
#2 - What's wrong with the suggestion that the current Mac OS isn't capable of keeping up with the G4? Mac OS 8.6 (I haven't used 9 yet) is a great OS in terms of usability, but if it were capable of saturating a CPU 100% of the time without crashing, then there'd be no need to wait (and wish) for OS X to arrive...
#3 - You use Macs, I use Macs. It's a fact of life, not all apps are well behaved. You can force quit som "cleanly". Others will take down your machine when they crash. It's a sad fact of life. I just reconcile that by setting all my apps to autosave every 5 minutes. I rarely have to reboot my machine, but when I do, "Oh no! I only lost 5 minutes worth of work...". No matter which OS you use, you need to save your work regularly, because a great OS does not subsitute for poorly written apps.
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
No, they're not. Apple is not aiming at the server market. The people buying G4's are users of Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Infini-D, Strata StudioPro, Premiere, Quark, et al.
You only realize how slow your machine is when you're sitting there, watching the progress bar crawl across the screen. And don't blame the MacOS for it. It's simply that the hardware is still trying to catch up with the demands of publishing professionals.
Re:Freeze (Score:3)
I'm not apologizing for the reboot problem - it's unacceptable from any standpoint - but I think there will be a lot of workstation usage out of G4's. Even with MacOS X, it's just not a big server platform...
...yet.
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
Ouch.
Press Release: The new bug will not likely affect your computer, the OS blows so hard you'll never notice.
Indeed M$ has further reaching effects than ever (Score:2)
lockups and crashes were adamantly avoided at all
costs. Even today it's a vital role and is the way OS's should be designed.
This blatant statement:
Indeed, another source said, this issue might never evince itself in Macs, since the OS doesn't manipulate data rapidly enough to cause the problem -- the glitch
would more likely effect more-efficient embedded operating systems. Even if data corruption should occur, a source said, the result would be nothing more than a
system freeze, easily fixed with a restart.
Makes me sick to hear as it's read by people
who don't know better (having used buggy OS's for years)
and take it as a norm, thus compounding the problem
of getting companies to write apps and OS's that DON'T
crash every time you turn around.
I LIKE setting up a server, firewall, workstation
what have you and having it run for a year without
a re-boot.
I find it ridiculous that a popular OS must be rebooted
every other time a new program is installed.
Fortunately things are starting to turn around.
Linux (for me) is becoming more and more viable as
an alternative every day. Why.. it's been a week
since I had to boot into lose98.
quite happy.
OSS clone of QuickBooks/Quicken, anyone?
Please??!!
errata? (Score:3)
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
2. The MacOS was critisized before OS-8 that it had an extremely poor backend. The OS still isn't that great, but far better than it used to be. One has to wonder why the MacOS doesn't do it at top speed, but obviousely, here, it helps stability.
3. Rebooting is only if your on a 500mhz chip, which isn't availalbe. If your overclocking, than you made the choice. Motorola obviously is concerned and is taking the steps so you don't have to reboot. They merely said that for most users, it would be a minute annoyance at worsed.
Re:Hehe, hope Apple had fun while it lasted (Score:2)
Yes, it's changable via a simple flag switch (meant to allow emulation, so task switching can easily put the processor in the right mode).
Heh. Talking about 50W processors... I used to remember when the Pentium MMX came out, several manufacturers put the *real* chip in, not the "mobile" version.
I think it's time to optimize the x86 so they don't draw so much power, on the processing-power/electrical-power ratio.
Re:Question (Score:2)
21.4 SPECint95
20.4 SPECfp95
For those who care they claim typical power dissipation of 5W @ 400Mhz.
For comparison a Pentium III @ 500Mhz:
20.6 SPECint95
15.1 SPECfp95
So the integer performance looks comparable and floating point is better for G4.
One of the big features of the G4 that doesn't show in these benchmarks is the altivec simd/vector unit. There are no standard benchmarks I am aware of for extensions like these (or MMX/SSE/3DNOW). Apple has posted some results here that compare Pentium III/SSE @ 600Mhz to G4/altivec @ 500Mhz and show the G4 to be 3X faster on this subset:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/processor.html
Obviously YMMV but for some algorithms altivec is much faster than the Intel SIMD unit.
Re:So what? (Score:3)
In addition, mindless Mhz comparision fails to take into consideration things like different operating systems, application quality and the design of the surrounding PC hardware system.
The fact the x86 processors have higher clock speeds isn't useful in itself. Apple has frequently advertised various other measurements that the idiot public hasn't paid much attention to. Besides the BYTEmarks the PC-lovers love to hate, you can take a look at:
a) independant testing that shows Mac users are more effecient that Windows users because the OS is more consistant and easier to use.
b) Intel benchmarks that Apple ran against the new G4s. Mostly Photoshop filters, which the G4's Velocity Engine is best at, that whomp the PIII. (Look at apples' G4 web pages).
Because the idiot public would rather rely on megahertz, Apple now is pushing PPC development to higher clock speeds rather than just higher performance (note they are not the same goal).
Of course, the Wintel group can boast faster speed in certain areas due to flaws in the MacOS. Or features: Windows is often faster at file system "Finder" work, because it isn't managing a desktop database of metadata, doesn't handle resource forks, and doesn't calculate the size of directories. This speed trade off means you lose much of the Mac feel and features of the Finder. But it's marginally faster.
Apple can charge more because they're doing more. They sell a whole product, not just clone a basic design and outsource the software to Microsoft. In turn, you have a richer system that's less crapped together. It's suprising that Macs aren't more; this is another result of the idiot public buying only by price, not by quality. Imagine if the BMW M3 was within 10% of the price of the Ford Escort. What would you drive?
I'd like to see BeOS on both x86 and G4 for comparison. Comparing two OS on the two chips is already doable, and pointless as a hardware comparision.
Compare Mac Word98 to Win Word2000. Then compare QuickTime4 on the PC and Mac. That's interesting.
Then compare FinalCut Pro on the Mac to... the PC just sitting there overclocked to 1000Mhz creating heat. Task: edit video. The Mac wins!
Getting Impatient (Score:3)
From a software development and architecture view, I much prefer the Motorola product line to Intel's. Its so much cleaner and IBM/Motorola have really taken a lot of the best ideas and put them into a single core without having to carry the baggage of the 8088 along with them.
The availability of Linux for the new platforms will make platform-independence a critical decision point from a marketing perspective. To translate for you Anti-BillGates types, this means that Windows will likely start losing serious marketshare as they're really tied into the Intel architecture and other proprietary PC technologies that Linux can pretty much ignore. If you're a commercial software developer and you have to decide what OS to write for, Linux starts looking all the more attractive if you see customers buying up those PowerPC boxes.
This Is Not Apple's Fault (Score:4)
Typical Slashdot reaction -- anything remotely bad happens to Apple and it's immediately Apple's fault. Steve Jobs could have a cold and, by gawd, Apple is going to go down the crapper.
Let's look at this at face value, okay?
I'm not saying that this isn't a bad thing -- just saying that everyone is making it out to be far worse than it actually is.
Re:Question (Score:2)
I'm one of the mac idiots. While other ppl in my groupt are bitching about i/o problems, I get to bitch about problems with linuxppc. I think that I'm winning the battle as linuxppc is pretty good if you have prior experience with linux. However, just mentioning that using a PowerPC chip based system makes ppl that I have to work with, want to puke.
Re:Hehe, hope Apple had fun while it lasted (Score:2)
Of course, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, may play a role in all of this.
... (Score:4)
What suprises me is that they haven't had more problems!
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Re:Hehe, hope Apple had fun while it lasted (Score:3)
A LOT more goes into selecting a microprocessor than mere performance benchmarks:
In this case, Apple was migrating from M68k's. A big-endian processor. Both x86 and Alpha are little endian and while Alpha (at least the newer ones) can mode switch to bid-endian. I doubt that DEC's chipset didn't support it. More cost there.
Also, DEC doesn't have the fab capacity to meet Apple's demand - not even close.
Thirdly, Apple kindof wants to have a notebook presence. Putting a 50watt chip in a notebook would likely yield several McDonald's-like lawsuits.
Tom
This is new? (Score:2)
Windows users could get very used to this.
Having it affect embedded OSes sounds scarier. (Score:2)
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Freeze (Score:2)
Re:errata? (Score:2)