The Intel Powermac / Powermac Conroe / Mac Pro thread - Page 10

Anand did a good analysis of Core vs netburst vs K8, with pleasing conclusions.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2748&p=1

Saw that. I've yet to see a bad review of core architechure. I hope I'm not disappointed when it finally arrives.

What joke am I missing?

I think the joke is how boring that article was. I never even made it to the second page. Plus he right away mentioned he was comparing the the core architecture vs. the AMD K8, but was going to use the netburst, and pentium M architectures as a substitutes, or something. Right there it's like a completely useless reading anyway.

Maybe you should have read the later pages...

I think I've read enough on these processors over the past few months to already know enough to suffice my hunger for knowledge. I'll wait to see them in action for my desert.

I passed 70-290 with 1000/1000 today, and I can refer a good site, pass4sure.com

I am a fresh man for the certification, and my company need employee get MCSE2003 cert in 3 month, I start with some MOC books and frustrated with huge contents. and I failed at the first try for 70-290, but I met a friend who taking 70-290 also, he passed easily, and I know from him a good site named pass4sure.com, I used 70-290 from Pass4sure, every questions WORD 4 WORD was on the test. Unlike testking where you have to read huge number of questions (which more than half will never be on the test) these were easy to read b/c only about 200 even fewer questions. They also don't change any wording or layout like testking.

Uh oh. The spam seems to be everywhere!

It's time for the moderators to put an end to this crap.

Delete the posts. Send a little email reminding poster of forum rules.

I doubt the poter is ever cming back. He had 6 posts, and they were all spam. Need to BAN the IP.

I thought the moderators were reading the posts on a regular basis, but perhaps not.

Banning the IP is only effective if the IP is coming from a broadband account that doesn't change their IP. Otherwise, you will effectively cut off someone else who doesn't deserve it.

The spamming level on AI isn't really that bad, thanks god. Anyway back on track... WTF is Woodcrest?? only a few weeks away from the launch date and nothing has leaked out at all. All the hype and rumors have been about Core 2 (Conroe and Merom) but I think Woodcrest will be the daddy, just would like to see some numbers.... even the usual suspects like HPEC and xtremesystems have nothing...
Just to add some content to this post . I still believe Apple will be the first to ship Woodcrest, the Powermac needs to do some serious catchup on Opterons.

The only problem I have with a 64 bit chip launch is how is Apple going to handle the 32 bit OS question?

Remember that the G5 was a full 32 bit chip as well in its instruction set. 100% backwards compatable.

The 64 bit Intel chips aren't!

That's why XP 32 won't work on the 64 bit machines, and visa versa.

Does anyone here know for SURE, that OS X 10.4.6 Intel will work on a 64 bit Core chip?

No quessing please! No assumptions! If you KNOW please say. If you don't, well, then you don't.

Minis have been upgraded (hack via drop in) to Merom powered recently.. does that count?

double postage..

Not really. We don't know if the Mini can see the 64 bit chip properly, or if the board impliments all of the lines. Necessary tests haven't been conducted.

The 32 bit version of windows works fine on 64 bit intel processors. It doesn't take advantage of the additional features but it will run just fine. I expect at release Apple will be the same then with Leopard they will probably add support for the 64 bit extensions. They could package support with whatever OS they ship with new computers once the processors appear in Apple products if they so desired though.

Just want to point out that the MacBook uses shared memory video, as the realists predicted. The realists are batting 1000, the dreamers are batting zero. Realists still say no Woodcrest in Macs.

Ahh excuse me... Who says what? I figured the new iBook would use the same graphics as the MacMini, and I know the difference between a workstation, and a Desktop. Unlike You.

For the first few months. the assumption was that Apple would use Conroe in the new towers. I've been saying during that time that they SHOULD, not necessarly would, use the Woodcrest. Those very same writers are now saying that Apple will use Woodcrest. I'm not a dreamer, as anyone here can attest to.

But, the realities are such, that the toweres will be competing with Woodcrest and Opteron machines, and that Conroe will show up in $1,000 dollar PC's, and possibly, especially a short while after they come out, in $750 machines as well.

Will Apple see that as a good comparison? That is, a $3,000+ machine against a $750 machine? Even if the $3,000+ machine has two chips?

I don't think so!

Right now the PM, even the Quad, is getting plastered in video editing tests. The top of the line Xeon machines are 20$ faster, and the top of the line Opterons have been up to 40% faster.

Apple has to close, or leap over that gap. If they use Conroes, then they will again, lag behind the new Woodcrest Xeons. If the Xeons are as fast, or possibly even faster than the Opterons, Apple may lag behind both again!

Let me tell you, video editing, particularly on the higher end of the spectrum is not only done on Mac's. That is not a done deal. People, and companies, look at these rendering times, and count them in terms of the $200 to $2,000 an hour that it is costing them. They will switch platforms if they see a big savings based upon these render differences.

The Mac is by no means sacred here.

Don't forget that two years ago Jobs said, in an interview, that it hurt every time he wrote out a check to Dell for machines to render, for Pixar.

If he is going to write a check to Apple instead, he has to make the case that it will save them money. Now that Pixar is owned by disney, that is even more true today.

havnt the time to see if this has already been posted, but if you want some indicator of the performance of Conroe, then look here

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardw...ict183765.html

We do know what the Conroe is like. It's pretty much the SP version of a woodcrest with a slightly lesser FSB. But it wont do dual sockets. That is the Woodcrest domain. Supreme Workstation. Until Kensington/Clovertown anyway.

If he's writing checks to Dell, performance isn't his top priority. He would be writing checks to Boxx. The choice of Intel over AMD shows you Apple's priority isn't performance either. Just wait and see, you guys. Be disappointed yet again.

I can't wait to be disappointed by Conroe.

I'm sure there will be a SP version at some point with a Conroe, but the real PowerMac/Mac Pro will be using the Woodcrest. Resale value on the SP Conroe version wont be that great shortly either. Once intel introduces the 4 way Kensington/Clovertown processors in SP, and Dual Configurations, the SP Conroe PowerMac will be in about as much demand, and as usefull as an iPod sock used as a nose warmer.

For render farms it depends on your footprint and density requirements. They probably got a decent deal on a 1,024 CPU blade cluster. At that point its usually who's offering a better bulk discount.

Hmmm...in 2003 maybe Sun was making AMD blades but I'm thinking few others. HP maybe hadn't transistioned yet from Transmeta. Dell was definately no. I recall that we couldn't get AMD blades when I got my bladeserver from IBM. Just Xeon and PPC.

Vinea

Show me one large rendering farm that uses Boxx. Or one supercomputer.

Good luck.

Mr. melgross is correct. You wont find a large renderfarm using BOXX systems. BOXX is a pro workstation computer and that's all IMO. They make a render box, but for the most part it's only for show. Apples Xserves, Cluster nodes, Xsan, and Xserve RAID are highly praised industry wide on both platforms, and Xserve RAID is probably the best deal in town.

For us that bought a loud G4 tower a Conroe will be a different level. A "low end" prosumer tower will be plenty for many users, with the additon of a top end GPU it will be a fantastic gaming rig as well. A 8 core top of the line monster will have fwe benefits outside rendering and some few applications. Even the current G5 towers are hindered in some applications by the kernel design and file systems, especially server rellated stuff.

The last time Apple had CPUs made by a company that really wanted to make the best desktop CPU and was willing to invest in that was in 1990 with the IIfx and Motorola 68030/40 MHz

68040 failure, forced migration to PPC
601 stopgap measure
603 not impressive
604 Brifly very good compared to PII, then decent
G3 Was shining brightly in the B&W but then severly beaten
G4. Started with a flop and was allways beaten by a wide margin by Pentium III, P4 and Athlons
G5. After an impressive start it fails to keep up

The best thing with Intel is that Apple will now be able to focus on its real strength, OS X.

Apple had to to sort of port OS 7-8-9 from 68k to PPC and at the same time worry about the interest of Motorola and later IBM and Frescale to make computer CPUs.

I really have a hard time beliving that Intel do like Motorola, Freescale and IBM and lose interest in computer CPUs

I assume you meant "few benefits"

We wont see that (8 core workstation) until the Kentsfield/Clovertown arrive in 2007. But the lack of an application to take advantage of SMP benefits are not because it has few benefits to offer, it's a problem with lazy developers that lack SMP programming knowledge and skills.
Apple really lead the way in SMP when the G4 was so far behind that they started developing Dual G4 Machines. I believe Apples use of Dual socket systems forced the hand of intel to do the same, and lead to intels development of HT, which in turn lead developers on both platforms to take advantage of SMP in one form or another. Now after seeing it's advantages both computer, and processor manufacturers are taking this to a whole new level. Multi core Processors will be in every computer made within a year; which in turn makes it necessary for all developers, including the ones that are late to the SMP programming game, to step up their multi processor programming skills to take advantage them or their apps will fail miserably comparatively.

I passed 70-290 with 1000/1000 today, and I can refer a good site, pass4sure.com

I am a fresh man for the certification, and my company need employee get MCSE2003 cert in 3 month, I start with some MOC books and frustrated with huge contents. and I failed at the first try for 70-290, but I met a friend who taking 70-290 also, he passed easily, and I know from him a good site named pass4sure.com, I used 70-290 from Pass4sure, every questions WORD 4 WORD was on the test. Unlike testking where you have to read huge number of questions (which more than half will never be on the test) these were easy to read b/c only about 200 even fewer questions. They also don't change any wording or layout like testking.

There's actually been three versions announced:

Core (Conroe)
Core Extreme (????)
Woodcrest (Core Xeon?)

Core Extreme might be better for a 2-core workstation than Woodcrest (higher clock speeds).