Apple launches the PowerMac G5

[Zero]

They always make their comp sound blazingly fast than it really is. For awhile I thought G3 when it came out was really awesome. It was awesome, but not as much as I thoguht it was.

[monolith94]

G3 was still alot better than the mac chips before it though. I was satisfied.

Time to start saving up!

[Q Classic]

they're sexy.

but the problem is, these macs are like the rich b|tch that every guy wants, but can't afford because she wants you for your money.

in any case, i'm happy with my delightful machine now.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by Asher
Yeah, once again their numbers are fishy.

For example:
P4 Xeon 3.06GHz: http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/...07-02060.html: SPECINTBase: 1089

not 836 like they say on their page.

Apple never changes...

Nonsense! The truth will come out as soon as spec.org posts the benchmarks of the new PowerMac G5 on it's website.

[Asher]

VERY good read: http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/

Apple user pissed off at Apple for deliberately misleading people about the G5's speed.

Familiar tune.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher
VERY good read: http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/

Apple user pissed off at Apple for deliberately misleading people about the G5's speed.

Familiar tune.

Seen it - the guy is full of **** and has been widely refuted elsewhere.

Part of his mistake is purposely ignoring the DP.

The only familiar tune playing here is yours.

[Sava]

apple = lame

[Mr. Nice Guy]

The good thing about this is that no matter what, Apple has the fastest 64-bit personal computer on the planet; but not just that, but the only 64-bit personal computer on the planet. AMD will be releasing it's 64-bit Opteron processor in August, but it will only top out at 1.8GHz. Steve Jobs has said that Apple will have 3GHz 64-bit computers in 12 months. It looks IBM and AMD will be fiercly competing in the 64-bit chip market for the next couple of years. Intel will be out of the picture for quite awhile, unless they decide to readopt x86 or invent some kind of miracle technology that will run 32-bit code on a 64-bit chip that is NOT x86 compatible (which is quite unlikely IMO). Eventually, though (if Intel stubbornly continues to use it's IA-64 platform), I think they will slowly emerge as a major competitor in the 64-bit chip market, but that won't happen until 64-bit applications become mainstream. By that time, though, it may be too late for Intel.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Seen it - the guy is full of **** and has been widely refuted elsewhere.

Link?

Part of his mistake is purposely ignoring the DP.

He's not ignoring the DP at all. Do you understand how SPECCPU works?

SPECint2000base and SPECfp2000base are single-processor only. Hence, they only show SP results.

SPECint2000rate and SPECfp2000rate are useful for gauging dual-processor performance, and he includes those as well.

The fact is, Apple intentionally used the slowest compiler they could find for the PC, ran it under the slowest OS they could find, disabled SSE2 optimizations (which is akin to disabling AltiVec), then ran it under the IBM-optimized-for-G5 version of GCC. They guised this under "playing fair", because technically it's the same compiler, nevermind that Intel ignores GCC and develops its own compiler and effectively the PowerPC and x86 GCC compilers are entirely different.

I'd like for you to show me a refutation of this article somewhere, because so far your brief refutation is laughable and very ignorant...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Cloud9
The good thing about this is that no matter what, Apple has the fastest 64-bit personal computer on the planet; but not just that, but the only 64-bit personal computer on the planet. AMD will be releasing it's 64-bit Opteron processor in August, but it will only top out at 1.8GHz.

Apple does not have the fastest 64-bit desktop CPU on the market. AMD's SPEC scores for Opteron already kick the G5's ass.

And you are right, Opteron becomes commercially available in early August and Athlon 64 in early September.

But guess what?

Apple doesn't ship the G5 PowerMacs until September 1st, 2003.

That means Apple doesn't have the only 64-bit PC, let alone the first one.

Steve Jobs has said that Apple will have 3GHz 64-bit computers in 12 months. It looks IBM and AMD will be fiercly competing in the 64-bit chip market for the next couple of years.

Intel's roadmaps put Prescott at around 5GHz+ in 12 months.

Intel will be out of the picture for quite awhile, unless they decide to readopt x86 or invent some kind of miracle technology that will run 32-bit code on a 64-bit chip that is NOT x86 compatible (which is quite unlikely IMO).

*sigh*
Prescott has x86-64 capability built in, as evidenced from the die shots that we've seen. They remain disabled for political reasons until a 2004 Xeon chip.

Meanwhile, IA-64's x86 support is set to perform equivalently to a ~2.8GHz Pentium 4 in some upcoming chips. Intel's cranking up the x86 speed on the Itaniums because in 2005-2006, IA-64 is coming to the desktop.

And Itaniums are the fastest chips in the world, bar none.

By that time, though, it may be too late for Intel.

Of course, it'll be too late for Intel.
Lord knows that they've only got the fastest chip on the market, dominance in the desktop market, fastest growing supercomputer chip manufacturer (set to outpace IBM), growing dominance in the server and workstation industry...

IBM's the one that's a bit scared. It's why they're so desperate to get contracts to manufacture AMD, Apple, Nvidia, etc's chips. They see how Intel is steamrolling over everyone else and want to get their foot in the door.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

Link?

Have a look around some Mac forums. I'm not going to do your work for you.

I'd like for you to show me a refutation of this article somewhere, because so far your brief refutation is laughable and very ignorant...

What's laughable is that anyone would take your opinion seriously, given your fanatical support for MS and Intel. In the past you've proved that you'll do anything to support your position - even post evidence from sites without reading them first. All your vaunted computer knowledge is worthless if no-one can take you seriously - and there is good reason not to, since you'll say anything to get your way. So why should this be any different?

It's hardly surprising that Apple would want to put the best spin on its products - but hell, every manufacturer does that.

I have no idea how well the G5 performs and I won't until I sit down and use one. I suggest you wait until you see for yourself.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Have a look around some Mac forums. I'm not going to do your work for you.

Right...
Face it, no one has debunked it, because it's truth. Mac zealots have, no doubt, attempted it with foolhardy explanations and excuses, but they only debunk it for their own peace of mind.

It's hardly surprising that Apple would want to put the best spin on its products - but hell, every manufacturer does that.

Take a look at Intel's page -- they don't compare their processors to other competitor's. You know why? Integrity. They realize how shameful it is to distort results to make chips look faster than they actually are, something AMD and Apple both do regularly.

I have no idea how well the G5 performs and I won't until I sit down and use one. I suggest you wait until you see for yourself.

But I have seen!

Here are some real, comparison benchmarks. Using the compilers (Intel, IBM) that real programs will use in the real world. Source for the IBM ones are: http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/t...256C5200611780

SPEC fp 2000 scores:
Pentium 4 3.2GHz: 1252
Athlon XP 3200+: 1044
PowerPC 970: 1051

SPEC int 2000 scores:
Pentium 4 3.2GHz: 1221
Athlon XP 3200+: 873
PowerPC 970: 937

Additional PowerPC 970 benchmarks:
Dhrystone MIPS: 5220
Peak scalar GFLOPS: 7.2
Peak SIMD GFLOPS: 14.4
RC5: 18M keys/sec

Keeping in mind that the G5 will become commercially available at the same time as the new Athlon 64s, and a month before the new Pentium 5 -- it doesn't look all too spectacular, 'specially for the price...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

Apple's charging users, again, to upgrade to OS 10.3.

And why shouldn't they? All versions of X have been cheaper than XP Pro, which is its competitor.

So that's at least 4 OSes Mac users had to buy in the time period where Windows XP came out and offered free updates.

This is a flat out lie. No one had to buy any of them. Your computer will run just fine if you run 10.1 or 10.2. If you upgrade to 10.3 I'm sure that the others won't magically stop working.

Moreover, the upgrade from 10.0 to 10.1 was free. All it cost me was a 2 block walk to the local Mac Store.

Based on the improvements in Jaguar the asking price was well worth it (I got it on a student deal anyway). Panther looks like being an even more radical improvement - even though I'll have to get rid of the awful brushed metal Finder windows.

Meanwhile Windows users have to wait until 2005 (or even 2006) to get a UI with decent graphics and transparency and all the other radical Microsoft "innovations" (or whatever sobriquet they will use for their Quartz ripoff) which OS X has had since day one.

By then Apple will probably have released 2 more versions of OS X and be streaks ahead. I hope you are still posting here then, I'd like a laugh.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher


But I have seen!

How amazing! The G5 isn't commercially available yet and has been news for precisely one day and yet Asher, a CS undergraduate from Calgary, has miraculously been using one himself.

If you'd given it a couple of weeks for the hype to die down, you might have some credibility.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
And why shouldn't they? All versions of X have been cheaper than XP Pro, which is its competitor.

Eh? OS X and XP Pro don't compete. 90% of XP users have, and are happy with, XP Home...

This is a flat out lie. No one had to buy any of them.

LOL!
Well of course not, Agathon, but it's still ridiculous to charge every year for a new OS.

Moreover, the upgrade from 10.0 to 10.1 was free. All it cost me was a 2 block walk to the local Mac Store.

Ah, my mistake.

Meanwhile Windows users have to wait until 2005 (or even 2006) to get a UI with decent graphics and transparency and all the other radical Microsoft "innovations" (or whatever sobriquet they will use for their Quartz ripoff) which OS X has had since day one.

1) The Windows UI now offers decent graphics, it's your problem if you don't want to change them to something else
2) Windows has offered hardware-accelerated transparency since Windows 2000 (since "day 1"), something it took until OS 10.1 to get.
3) Quartz is analogous to the Windows GDI+, Windows has had that since before OS X has had it. Apple branded it a fancy name and acted like it's some radical innovation, it's not.
4) Look into the Longhorn UI, and you'll see just how incredibly radical it is from OS X's.
5) Look into Longhorn's filesystem, and you'll see just how incredibly radical it is from OS X's.
6) Look at DirectX 10, and see how incredibly radical it is from anything available on OS X.

By then Apple will probably have released 2 more versions of OS X and be streaks ahead. I hope you are still posting here then, I'd like a laugh.

Apple's little additions to OS X have been laughable.

Ohhh, we skinned the finder to look worse. We now bundle X11 with it. We've released a new version of iChat that finally is comparable with MSN Messenger, only we're going to charge you $30 instead of offering it for free. We've finally implemented threadable views in our mail client. We've provided a new update to a free, open source browser...

Give me a break.

Why aren't you discussing all of the stuff Apple ripped off from MS, BTW?
Like shipping a first party webbrowser for the OS?
Like how the new iChat ripped out features blatantly from MSN Messenger?
Like how Panther has Fast User Switching (something XP has had since day one)?

And when will Apple have a customizable user interface like XP?
When will Apple have a journalling filesystem like XP?
When will Apple have a database-based filesystem like Longhorn?
When will Apple completely runs the interface off graphics cards like Longhorn?

There's plenty more stuff for Apple to steal. The thing is, they'll do it with expensive yearly updates while MS will offer in one upgrade in 4-5 years from the XP launch.

Apple robs you, and you don't even care.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
How amazing! The G5 isn't commercially available yet and has been news for precisely one day and yet Asher, a CS undergraduate from Calgary, has miraculously been using one himself.

If you'd given it a couple of weeks for the hype to die down, you might have some credibility.

I've never used one myself, I've just got an idea for real-world performance.

It's an incredibly silly excuse to dismiss performance claims "until you've used it yourself". The texture of the mouse and keyboard doesn't increase the speed.

The Benchmarks given were by IBM themselves, who designed the chip, using their compiler in their optimal lab conditions. As were the Intel and AMD benchmarks.

The simple fact is, the G5 isn't a very fast chip compared to the current PC chips. It's about mid to high end. But the big problem with that, is Prescott is supposed to be much faster than the current Pentium 4, and will come out around the same time...

But go ahead, Agathon, plug your ears and tell me we don't know anything unless we have our hands on a craptastic Apple keyboard and our palm on a hockeypuck.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Asher
So that's at least 4 OSes Mac users had to buy in the time period where Windows XP came out and offered free updates.

Uhm, WinXP is an update. Win2K = NT5. WinXP = NT5.1

You're right though, the case is rather fugly. Makes me think 1980s.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by Agathon


Have a look around some Mac forums. I'm not going to do your work for you.



What's laughable is that anyone would take your opinion seriously, given your fanatical support for MS and Intel. In the past you've proved that you'll do anything to support your position - even post evidence from sites without reading them first. All your vaunted computer knowledge is worthless if no-one can take you seriously - and there is good reason not to, since you'll say anything to get your way. So why should this be any different?

It's hardly surprising that Apple would want to put the best spin on its products - but hell, every manufacturer does that.

I have no idea how well the G5 performs and I won't until I sit down and use one. I suggest you wait until you see for yourself.

Good points you got there, Agathon.

By the way, Asher, it's too soon to say that Spec puts the Opteron way faster than the G5; we haven't even seen the results of the G5 benchmarks on the Spec.org site.

You should go to the Apple website and pretend like you're ordering a new PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0Ghz. When you get to the shopping cart screen the ship date says "August."

Oh, and about Prescott being x86-64 compatible: Link please?

By the way, I said it might be too late for Intel in a couple of years. I didn't say it would be.

[Q Classic]

When will Apple have a journalling filesystem like XP?
When will Apple have a database-based filesystem like Longhorn?

i think osx's native filesystem does have journaling.

as for winfs, it's not out yet, so...

[Asher]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Uhm, WinXP is an update. Win2K = NT5. WinXP = NT5.1

Thanks Che, I didn't know that!

Of course WinXP is an update, I was referring to subsequent updates: Service Pack 1, Windows .NET Framework 1.0, Windows .NET Framework 1.1, DirectX 9.0, Windows Media Player 9.0, MSN Messenger 5.x, 6.x, etc.

Stuff like that Apple charges for yearly, while MS offers them as free downloads.

As for the case, it looks like a cheese grater. Hideous. I hate it more the more I see it.

The elevated look is just terrible, too.

[Q Classic]

i have to say, wintel pcs can come in much swoobier and sexier cases. lianli, or xoxide, for instance.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Cloud9
By the way, Asher, it's too soon to say that Spec puts the Opteron way faster than the G5; we haven't even seen the results of the G5 benchmarks on the Spec.org site.

That's because Apple wanted it to be kept secret. You can find the official PowerPC 970 SPEC benchmarks in the IBM.com link I've listed above. Which indeed makes it a fair comparison.

(the 3.2GHz P4s aren't up there yet either, it takes them weeks to update)

You should go to the Apple website and pretend like you're ordering a new PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0Ghz. When you get to the shopping cart screen the ship date says "August."

August 31st. The actual release date is September 1st, if you'd do your research. Who cares if it ships at the very end of August if it arrives in September?

Oh and about Prescott being x86-64 compatible: Link please?

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/story/OEG20020425S0033
http://www.chip-architect.com/news/2...r_Yamhill.html

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by Asher

Thanks Che, I didn't know that!

Of course WinXP is an update, I was referring to subsequent updates: Service Pack 1, Windows .NET Framework 1.0, Windows .NET Framework 1.1, DirectX 9.0, Windows Media Player 9.0, MSN Messenger 5.x, 6.x, etc.

Stuff like that Apple charges for yearly, while MS offers them as free downloads.

As for the case, it looks like a cheese grater. Hideous. I hate it more the more I see it.

The elevated look is just terrible, too.

Just because Apple doesn't go from version 10 to 11 doesn't mean that these are not upgrades. Apple uses a different version upgrading system than Microsoft. I guess because it's whole 'nother culture. If you want updates for Jaguar you can get them. They are 10.2.1, 10.2.2, 10.2.3, 10.2.4, and 10.2.5. These updates are all FREE downloads. They did the same with 10.1 and will do the same 10.3.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Cloud9
Just because Apple doesn't go from version 10 to 11 doesn't mean that these are not upgrades. Apple uses a different version upgrading system than Microsoft. I guess because it's whole 'nother culture. If you want updates for Jaguar you can get them. They are 10.2.1, 10.2.2, 10.2.3, 10.2.4, and 10.2.5. These updates are all FREE downloads.

Hey, no kidding?!

The point is, the updates provided from OS 10.1 to 10.2, and from 10.2 to 10.3 are comparable to what's been given out for free already by MS for Windows.

They did the same with 10.1 and will do the same 10.3.

10.3 is not free. Unless I misread you, and you meant the tiny point releases are free still? Which is hardly something to brag about...

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by Asher

That's because Apple wanted it to be kept secret. You can find the official PowerPC 970 SPEC benchmarks in the IBM.com link I've listed above. Which indeed makes it a fair comparison.

(the 3.2GHz P4s aren't up there yet either, it takes them weeks to update)

Oh yes, it will take a few weeks. Guess it's going to be awhile before the G5 specs are up there as well. You assume too much.

August 31st. The actual release date is September 1st, if you'd do your research. Who cares if it ships at the very end of August if it arrives in September?

Link please?

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/story/OEG20020425S0033
http://www.chip-architect.com/news/2...r_Yamhill.html

If you follow the logic in these reports, you will find that they are rumors and should be taken with a grain of salt. And where does it say 5Ghz, by the way?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Cloud9
Link please?

I'm at work on a dialup. I can check it out when I get home because it's in my browser history there.

If you follow the logic in these reports, you will find that they are rumors and should be taken with a grain of salt. And where does it say 5Ghz, by the way?

Don't have the link offhand, but it wouldn't be hard to find.
Intel gives general roadmaps for when they plan to retire cores. They plan to retire Prescott in September 04 or thereabouts, and they also say Prescott scales past 5GHz. So you put two and two together.

Hell, even right now people are getting their hotter, 130nm Northwood cores up to 3.6-3.8GHz with the stock Intel cooler. Prescott is on 90nm with strained silicon and stuff, will run much cooler and scale much higher.

And the Yamhill stuff are more than just rumours. Intel sources confirmed the existence of it, then they denied it, and the official stance right now is "No comment." Not only that, but it makes business sense and fits into Intel's history, not to mention the high-res die photos of Prescott (from Intel themselves!) which show the presence of 64-bit components.

It's simply unofficial because Intel doesn't want to talk about it.

Intel also denied that HyperThreading was present in all P4s, and just recently enabled. But the rumours and same Intel sources said it was so, as did die photos, and it turns out they were absolutely correct.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by Asher

Hey, no kidding?!

The point is, the updates provided from OS 10.1 to 10.2, and from 10.2 to 10.3 are comparable to what's been given out for free already by MS for Windows.

You think that 150 new features from 10.1 to 10.2 is comparable to this? Panther will introduce 100 new features when it comes out.

10.3 is not free. Unless I misread you, and you meant the tiny point releases are free still? Which is hardly something to brag about...

What I said was that Apple will likely use the same updating system for 10.3 (ex: 10.3.1, 10.3.2, 10.3.3, 10.3.4, 10.3.5).

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

Well of course not, Agathon, but it's still ridiculous to charge every year for a new OS.

Who's making you buy it? A friend of mine still runs 10.1 - it does everything he wants it to do.

Apple doesn't force anyone to upgrade. Some people find they have to upgrade because developers have written their software to work only with Jaguar or later. Why blame Apple for that?

You also have to upgrade to use some of the free iapps. But no one is making you do it.

1) The Windows UI now offers decent graphics, it's your problem if you don't want to change them to something else

The whole thing looks like crap.

2) Windows has offered hardware-accelerated transparency since Windows 2000 (since "day 1"), something it took until OS 10.1 to get.

Wow, I had a transparent terminal in 10.0

3) Quartz is analogous to the Windows GDI+, Windows has had that since before OS X has had it. Apple branded it a fancy name and acted like it's some radical innovation, it's not.

It's better.

4) Look into the Longhorn UI, and you'll see just how incredibly radical it is from OS X's.

I wish I could, but it won't be out for TWO YEARS!!!!

5) Look into Longhorn's filesystem, and you'll see just how incredibly radical it is from OS X's.

I wish I could try it for myself, but it won't be out for TWO YEARS!!!!

6) Look at DirectX 10, and see how incredibly radical it is from anything available on OS X.

Is this out yet, or do I have to wait TWO YEARS!!!!!

Apple's little additions to OS X have been laughable.

Bizarre. The speed has improved notably, even on my machine which is now a bit long in the tooth (new one in late 2004 I think). And all the other improvements count for nothing. You don't even use OS X as was demonstrated by your ignorance of the way the Dock works, even though various Apolyton Mac users were telling you so.

Ohhh, we skinned the finder to look worse.

No - it's a whole new Finder.

We now bundle X11 with it.

X11 is free from Apple's site if you want to run it on your current system. Bundling it just makes it easier. You probably don't have to install it if you don't want to anyway.

We've released a new version of iChat that finally is comparable with MSN Messenger, only we're going to charge you $30 instead of offering it for free.

This is laughable. Windows XP costs more than OS X, but you will get ichat AV free with 10.3. Only a skinflint would pay the $30 upgrade - it's better value to get the whole thing.

We've finally implemented threadable views in our mail client. We've provided a new update to a free, open source browser...

One could ask where the decent junk mail filter is in Outlook Express.

And Safari is a good browser. In fact it seems to me to be faster than IE for XP (based on yesterday's horrible experience). It isn't bloated and it has tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking (which MS doesn't want you to have).

And the only reason they developed it is that MS made such a poor job of IE on the Mac. Face it, nobody who knows anything has used IE as their default browser on OS X. There were always better competitors available (Omniweb, Chimera and now Safari).

Like shipping a first party webbrowser for the OS?

Which they had to do since IE performed so poorly. Apple gave developers two years to come up with a worthy browser for OS X and they weren't happy with the results. So they decided to use their own. That's a whole lot better than MS's reason for trashing Netscape.

Like how the new iChat ripped out features blatantly from MSN Messenger?

So sue them/

Like how Panther has Fast User Switching (something XP has had since day one)?

Which Jobs admitted in his keynote. Who cares anyway? Panther's fast user switching is way cooler than XP's.

And when will Apple have a customizable user interface like XP?

It does - you just use a freeware haxie to enable it. You can get plenty of free themes on the web and enough UI addons to keep anyone happy. Apple doesn't want to be seen supporting this since they think that the Aqua interface is a recognisable selling point and they want it to be seen.

When will Apple have a journalling filesystem like XP?

Had it since 10.2.2

When will Apple have a database-based filesystem like Longhorn?

Probably before it comes out.

When will Apple completely runs the interface off graphics cards like Longhorn?

No idea, but they have plenty of time to implement it.

There's plenty more stuff for Apple to steal. The thing is, they'll do it with expensive yearly updates while MS will offer in one upgrade in 4-5 years from the XP launch.

Which you'll probably have to rent.

Apple robs you, and you don't even care.

Microsoft wants to own our lives and you don't care.

Anyway, this is all bullshit. You are comparing a version of OS X which will probably ship in November 2003 (perhaps earlier) with an OS that won't ship until at least 2005 and probably 2006.

Of course I don't know what Apple's developers have in store for 2005, but if you want to make a fair comparison you should know.

[Asher]

Oh yes, it will take a few weeks. Guess it's going to be awhile before the G5 specs are up there as well. You assume too much.

I've no idea what you're talking about -- did you not see the IBM PDF I linked to?

Not only does it give very detailed G5 specs, it gives the official SPEC benchmarks.

What am I assuming?

[Mr. Nice Guy]

oops. triple post.