Recent articles from Japan indicate that 2.4 Ghz Pentiums are now sampling in the electronics district. Every day AAPL waits to deliver the G5's their impact is diminished. Sure we will see them someday but at the present rate it will (hopefully) just be catch-up. Remember all the new mobo technologies such as RIO and HT will also be incorported by the PC competition.
Time has never been more important for AAPL if they really want to increase market share. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
I'm all for constructively thought out threads debating the future of the Mac, but this one doesn't qualify Bob. Here are three simple reasons why:
1. Regardless of what Wintel does or doesn't do (an announcements don't count for squat - everything they tout is vaporware until you can buy it off a store shelf), it has no bearing on all the things we will be able to do faster, more intuitively or differently with a G5.
2. We have only a vague idea of what kind of technologies and improvements a G5-based system will bring, so honestly it's hard to define the extent to which we will: do things faster, more intuitively, differently.
3. You can't avoid the fact that the "advantages of the G5" can only be defined in terms of what said platform does better than a G4 or G3, not a P4 or P3. I don't buy the idea that if we suddenly produce another batch of benchmarks showing how badly our best can smoke Wintel's best, that suddenly a bunch of people will defect and we'l get major marketshare. It hasn't worked that way in the past, doesn't work that way now, and won't work that way with the G5 either. To think otherwise is totally naive....
In reading these posts, I did not see mentioned that the main distinction of the G5 is that it is a 64 bit processor, not 32 bit. Higher clock speeds, faster bus and other enhancements can all happen with the G4. The fact that the G5 is 64 bits means that it will have a hugh impact, whenever it is introduced. Remember when processors were 16 bits, and the 32 bit processor was introduced? It will be an impact like that, and will have that much impact on performance.
Of course, who knows whether Apple and Motorola still plans to do a 64 bit processor. If they do not, they may name a future 32 bit processor the G5.
It seems to me that Apple has realized they can't beat them with speed at this time. SJ saying we will be kickin' a$$ is correct when you look at the ipod and the imac. Both consumer machines bringing in cash flow for investors and stock holders (which is what a Publicly traded company is suppose to be doing). They have gone after the consumer market full-speed with the new equipment and software. I think that they are trying to play down the power mac speed war. They will eventually get back in the race. They only have so many people and so much money for research and development.
The kickin' a$$ wasn't with regards to the speed war but the consumer war and apple market share.
<strong>In reading these posts, I did not see mentioned that the main distinction of the G5 is that it is a 64 bit processor, not 32 bit.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe, and maybe not.
If the G stands for "generation" (it does) then AIM (or Apple) could very well claim that the "G5" was basically a G4 ported to the new, modular Book E processor architecture that Mot and IBM have collaborated on. Mot (at Apple's urging) could offer 64 bit support simply by adding 2 x 64 bit support to AltiVec - then the specialized applications that really need double precision get it, at satisfactorily high speeds, but the rest of the architecture is still 32 bit, which is optimized for the most common case.
[quote]<strong>Of course, who knows whether Apple and Motorola still plans to do a 64 bit processor. If they do not, they may name a future 32 bit processor the G5.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Certainly. And there's the rub: A new generation of PowerPC does not imply 64 bit. The PPC spec has allowed for 64-bit architectures since its inception, and there's already been a 64 bit PowerPC: The IBM PPC 620, which is quite old at this point.
<strong>In reading these posts, I did not see mentioned that the main distinction of the G5 is that it is a 64 bit processor, not 32 bit. Higher clock speeds, faster bus and other enhancements can all happen with the G4. The fact that the G5 is 64 bits means that it will have a hugh impact, whenever it is introduced. Remember when processors were 16 bits, and the 32 bit processor was introduced? It will be an impact like that, and will have that much impact on performance.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No it will not. 16-bit means you can only address 64Kb of memory and can only process numbers up to 65536, both of which are far to low for practical use and necessitated slow workarounds (switching address spaces and breaking up large numbers). 32-bit allows you to address 4GB of memory and use really large numbers (up to 4294967296). Except for the most demanding of applications, this is sufficient for now (especially since the PowerPC uses 36 bit addresses and every app can thus have a full 4GB in a machine with up to 64GB of memory). For most applications, 64-bit will be up to 15% slower because caches will about half as effective. Please get your facts straight instead of believing that bigger is automatically better. Here is a good read:
Comments
Time has never been more important for AAPL if they really want to increase market share. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
1. Regardless of what Wintel does or doesn't do (an announcements don't count for squat - everything they tout is vaporware until you can buy it off a store shelf), it has no bearing on all the things we will be able to do faster, more intuitively or differently with a G5.
2. We have only a vague idea of what kind of technologies and improvements a G5-based system will bring, so honestly it's hard to define the extent to which we will: do things faster, more intuitively, differently.
3. You can't avoid the fact that the "advantages of the G5" can only be defined in terms of what said platform does better than a G4 or G3, not a P4 or P3. I don't buy the idea that if we suddenly produce another batch of benchmarks showing how badly our best can smoke Wintel's best, that suddenly a bunch of people will defect and we'l get major marketshare. It hasn't worked that way in the past, doesn't work that way now, and won't work that way with the G5 either. To think otherwise is totally naive....
<img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Of course, who knows whether Apple and Motorola still plans to do a 64 bit processor. If they do not, they may name a future 32 bit processor the G5.
The kickin' a$$ wasn't with regards to the speed war but the consumer war and apple market share.
<strong>In reading these posts, I did not see mentioned that the main distinction of the G5 is that it is a 64 bit processor, not 32 bit.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe, and maybe not.
If the G stands for "generation" (it does) then AIM (or Apple) could very well claim that the "G5" was basically a G4 ported to the new, modular Book E processor architecture that Mot and IBM have collaborated on. Mot (at Apple's urging) could offer 64 bit support simply by adding 2 x 64 bit support to AltiVec - then the specialized applications that really need double precision get it, at satisfactorily high speeds, but the rest of the architecture is still 32 bit, which is optimized for the most common case.
[quote]<strong>Of course, who knows whether Apple and Motorola still plans to do a 64 bit processor. If they do not, they may name a future 32 bit processor the G5.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Certainly. And there's the rub: A new generation of PowerPC does not imply 64 bit. The PPC spec has allowed for 64-bit architectures since its inception, and there's already been a 64 bit PowerPC: The IBM PPC 620, which is quite old at this point.
<strong>In reading these posts, I did not see mentioned that the main distinction of the G5 is that it is a 64 bit processor, not 32 bit. Higher clock speeds, faster bus and other enhancements can all happen with the G4. The fact that the G5 is 64 bits means that it will have a hugh impact, whenever it is introduced. Remember when processors were 16 bits, and the 32 bit processor was introduced? It will be an impact like that, and will have that much impact on performance.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No it will not. 16-bit means you can only address 64Kb of memory and can only process numbers up to 65536, both of which are far to low for practical use and necessitated slow workarounds (switching address spaces and breaking up large numbers). 32-bit allows you to address 4GB of memory and use really large numbers (up to 4294967296). Except for the most demanding of applications, this is sufficient for now (especially since the PowerPC uses 36 bit addresses and every app can thus have a full 4GB in a machine with up to 64GB of memory). For most applications, 64-bit will be up to 15% slower because caches will about half as effective. Please get your facts straight instead of believing that bigger is automatically better. Here is a good read:
<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=112"; target="_blank">The myths and realities of 64-bit computing</a>
[ 03-28-2002: Message edited by: wfzelle ]</p>
533MHz FSB and PC1066 Rambus RAM.
Their RAM will be faster than the Mac's processor!?!?
Something needs to be done about this...and SOON!
Read the full article <a href="http://theregister.co.uk/content/3/24645.html"; target="_blank">here</a>.
[ 03-30-2002: Message edited by: Carbon3 ]</p>
<strong>Coming to a Pentium 4 near you this summer...
533MHz FSB and PC1066 Rambus RAM.
Their RAM will be faster than the Mac's processor!?!?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not quite, PC1066 RDRAM runs at clock-doubled 533MHz rather than "true" 1066MHz.
Bye,
RazzFazz
[ 03-30-2002: Message edited by: RazzFazz ]</p>