Concern For Apple - G5

kammackammac
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
I am in deep concern for apple since the MacWorld Expo. I feel that they are really in a bind because of the processor issue. I noticed that this was the first time that there was no speed comparison at the keynote. They have always shown how they were faster.



Apple/IBM has always introduced a new chip about the same time Intel did. For example the G3 came out the same year the PII was introduced (1997) and likewise for the G4 and PIII (1999). However Intel introduced the PIV in 2000 and just recently announced 2.2 Ghz. We are still running on G4 800Mhz announced in July 2001.



Will we see a new processor in the next 3 months? Will we ever see something over 1Ghz? This is something that I know Steve realizes we need, but we really need something under the hood.



Apple compares the 5% computer market share to that of BMW and Mercedes automotive market share. Apple has done a great deal of work on the design of the products and producing a show room for them, but we are getting to a point where we are running the 'BMW and Mercedes' type of machines with Hyundai engine.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 34
    fieldorfieldor Posts: 213member
    Yes we need a quad-turbo-V12 with 1200 BHP. That's going to be fast. Hope steve will announce this Machine In FEb.
  • Reply 2 of 34
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    In terms of production apps, the current machines are not behind anything. Just don't try to brouse the web:



    <a href="http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/download/0/1288/High-EndConsumerDesktops.pdf"; target="_blank">http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/download/0/1288/High-EndConsumerDesktops.pdf</a>;



    I really don't think we have to be too concerned. They are obviously going to come out with faster chips soon, and when they come out, they should be at the top of the heap.
  • Reply 3 of 34
    slackerslacker Posts: 127member
    If Apple can't get a high speed G4 or G5 out the door soon, I would think they would counter will all PMac's going back to dual processor. I would like to see them all be dual processor even if they are high speed though.
  • Reply 4 of 34
    jasonppjasonpp Posts: 308member
    What's up with that 4 minute page load!?!



    Weird.



    I think 1.2 1.4 and 1.6 Ghz G5's would be good next month. Then at MWNY they can break 2GHz, by offering 1.6 1.8 and 2Ghz machines.



    Now do I expect this to happen. NO. But that's what they need to gain some respect back.
  • Reply 5 of 34
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    All due respect to you, Sir, but that Sig sucks.



    That being a sidenote.



    I see teh lack of speed bump and comparison rather as a hint to a soon-to-come speed revolution.

    If Steve can deliver a 1.6GHz G5, and if the G5 is really that much faster as some sources told us, then he'll be glad to beat the P4 2.2GHz by a factor of 2 or even more.



    Of course that is the more optimistic version, the pessimist would say that Apple is going to be dead by 2003.



    G-News
  • Reply 6 of 34
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    [quote]I noticed that this was the first time that there was no speed comparison at the keynote. They have always shown how they were faster. <hr></blockquote>



    They never speed compare with the iMacs or portables. That's why the lack of bake offs. You will have to wait for the tower's release for the bake offs.
  • Reply 7 of 34
    supersuper Posts: 82member
    [quote] In terms of production apps, the current machines are not behind anything. <hr></blockquote>



    Err no. They are behind. See <a href="http://www.dv.com/magazine/2002/0102/hones_roundup_3_0102.html"; target="_blank">here</a> Not significantly but enough to make long time Apple pro users consider switching. I have enough confidence in Apple to believe they have something amazing planned. I don't have the same confidence in Mot.
  • Reply 8 of 34
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    [quote]Originally posted by super:

    <strong> I have enough confidence in Apple to believe they have something amazing planned. I don't have the same confidence in Mot.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    That's the line
  • Reply 9 of 34
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    [quote]Originally posted by super:

    <strong>



    Err no. They are behind. See <a href="http://www.dv.com/magazine/2002/0102/hones_roundup_3_0102.html"; target="_blank">here</a> Not significantly but enough to make long time Apple pro users consider switching. I have enough confidence in Apple to believe they have something amazing planned. I don't have the same confidence in Mot.</strong><hr></blockquote>





    I saw that article. Not only is that tested on 9, but those PCs don't have FCP. If you are doing video and you don't have enough money for an edit/combustion system you would be a fool not to buy a Mac with FCP. So it ends up being a stupid comparison, considering edit/combusion don't come together on Mac. Plus, the person I work on video with has edit/combustion on a brand new dual PC (I don't remember the speed, but they are both over a ghz) at her work, and it takes just about the same excruciating amount of time to render in combustion as it does on the Mac version we use on my single G4. So that DV article is just about meaningless to me. Not that I'm saying you are wrong. I agree that people in the market right now may avoid macs...



    Overall, the G4s are behind, if these benchmarks mean anything:



    <a href="http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/"; target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/</a>;

    [quote]Originally posted by super:

    [QB]Well i haven't seen a version of combustion for OSX yet.QB]<hr></blockquote>



    Actually, Super, combustion is out for osx



    [ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: giant ]</p>
  • Reply 10 of 34
    supersuper Posts: 82member
    Well i haven't seen a version of combustion for OSX yet. Im also not that big of a fan of the edit/combustion set-up anyway. My point, and the reason i linked that article, is that even on the After Effects test which should be Apples bread and butter, the G4 is a distant last. It's as simple as that.



    FCP is the reason that Apple can hang onto the video market. It's such a wonderful product IMO. In fact with a voodoo card i can do work at a quality equal to or better than any other system in the world.



    Im not leaving the Mac platform as so many others have threatened, i just look foward to exciting announcements sometime in the very near future.
  • Reply 11 of 34
    twinturbotwinturbo Posts: 58member
    I saw the same thing with the DV article, and here's my theory. The dual 800's, to get their peak performance, need to use programs optimised for the newer Altivec unit and the use of the L3 cache. I don't believe AE 4.1 (which the tests were done on) takes advantage of any of these since it came out around two years ago (during the 500Mhz G4's). I'd personally like to see the benchmarks done using AE 5.0 or 5.5 which has now be tweaked for the newer G4's. Also AE is pretty bandwidth intensive unlike Photoshop which (now that RAM is so ubiquious) is basically limited by physical RAM and processor. The slower RAM on the Mac may have a lot to do with those AE scores and also the Hard drives. I know that if I render something off my Harddrive array versus the internal drive, it is much, much faster loading off the array. Does that all of a sudden make my processor slower if I use the internal drive? No, I was limited by something else. So frankly, I don't really believe that those AE test show he inferiority of the G4 versus the Pentium, but rather PC133 versus RDRAM and DDR RAM. (and the lack of optimization for L3 cache and the new Altivec).
  • Reply 12 of 34
    supersuper Posts: 82member
    I have no doubt that it's not just the processor at fault. Your point perfectly highlights the need for the next generation mobo from Apple as soon as possilbe. Apollo chips will suffice until the G5 is ready.
  • Reply 13 of 34
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    [quote]Originally posted by giant:

    <strong>In terms of production apps, the current machines are not behind anything. Just don't try to brouse the web:



    <a href="http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/download/0/1288/High-EndConsumerDesktops.pdf"; target="_blank">http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/download/0/1288/Hi gh-EndConsumerDesktops.pdf</a>



    I really don't think we have to be too concerned. They are obviously going to come out with faster chips soon, and when they come out, they should be at the top of the heap.</strong><hr></blockquote>





    That was a slap in the face.

    The only category the dual G4@800MHz lead in was Unsharpen Mask. The rest of the machines did every other task about twice as fast if not faster than that. I wonder how the 867 does. I read it was faster in most categorys vs. the 800, but I doubt it can touch the stats that the Athlon @1.52Ghz gets. (thats the Athlon1800 I think)

    <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
  • Reply 14 of 34
    krassykrassy Posts: 595member
    anyone recognizes that there's a 1000 G4+ in one of those benchmarks ?!!!
  • Reply 15 of 34
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    In straight non-vector code, a G4 is not substantially faster than an Athlon at the same clock rate. Maybe 20%, depending on what the code is doing. The Athlon is about 25% faster than a Pentium4 at the same clock rate. This means that if your app isn't multi-threaded, your 800MHz Dual G4 is going to get its clock cleaned (technical term) by a 1.6GHz Athlon or a 2.0GHz P4. The better memory subsystems in the newer WIntel boxes tends to exaggerate this even further on memory intensive applications (e.g. video processing and large image processing).



    The AltiVec unit in the G4 is outstanding, but it can't overcome the huge clock rate disparity that has developed over the past 2 years, nor the memory subsystem difference.



    A year ago it may have been valid to talk about the MHz myth, but now the WIntel guys have more than enough MHz and memory advantages to overcome the PowerPC's greater per-clock performance.



    I don't like it anymore than the rest of you, but that's the way it is.
  • Reply 16 of 34
    overtoastyovertoasty Posts: 439member
    [quote]Originally posted by Programmer:

    <strong>



    I don't like it anymore than the rest of you, but that's the way it is.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hey, if you don't like the truth, there's always the news ... does this Dual G4 make me look fat? Be honest ...
  • Reply 17 of 34
    overtoastyovertoasty Posts: 439member
    [quote]Originally posted by Programmer:

    <strong>



    I don't like it anymore than the rest of you, but that's the way it is.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    note to programmer ... my little message above is just my way of saying "right-on" 'n such, sorry about any potential crypticism experienced there (new word?)



    xo
  • Reply 17 of 34
    macgregormacgregor Posts: 1,434member
    Faster RAM and OS 10.3 will help ALOT. Dualies should become standard at some point with OSX around and Apple should skimp on their margin for a little while...they have enough cash!



    The speed thing goes back and forth every few years and if you are deciding on leaving or staying with Macs on a yearly basis based on that, then you really need take some Buddhism classes and chill a bit. Pro shops aren't going to change their entire workflow and os just on the occasional bad Mac processor year.
  • Reply 19 of 34
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    Unfortunately I don't recall a time when Apple had fallen so far behind WIntel, and there certainly hasn't been a time when WIntel has been anything like this close in terms of usability. The latest x86 machines are really really fast, and with Win2K and WinXP many of the old performance bottlenecks are gone. I am optimistic that Apple can close the gap, if not jump ahead -- but if they don't do it soon then they won't be able to catch up.
  • Reply 20 of 34
    mike dmike d Posts: 57member
    [quote]Originally posted by KAMMAC:

    <strong>we are getting to a point where we are running the 'BMW and Mercedes' type of machines with Hyundai engine.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    You say this as though the main separation between Merc and BMW engines and Hundai engines is the speed at which they run. Not true at all. The main difference between these engines are that the high end ones perform better at similar speeds and use advanced technology to achive superior performance. One could argue that the G4 is the BMW of current processors because it is based on a more advanced design and is more powerfull than Pwhatevers at comperable speeds.



    considering the amout of brain power that goes into a new intel chip compared to a new motorola I am constantly amazed the G4 is as good as it is.
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