If you think that i'm stupid to say that we must forget to compare Apple to Wintel,
let's say that Apple is stupid. They must include in their comparison SUN & SGI (if numbers are good )
Because if i follow your thinking: Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools, Shake, DVD Pro, Blast and maybe some other apps we don't know about are for PROsumers <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
I hope you know that some PCI cards are twice the price of the high-end PowerMac for doing some pro stuff.
oh and for some barefeats 'Quake 3' test:
Athlon 1.6 GHz GF4Ti - 218,4 fps
Pentium 1.8 Ghz Rad8500 - 177,0 fps
Dual 1000 GF4Ti - 190,6 fps
Pentium 2.5 GHZ GF4Ti - 293 fps
All I said is !!! WE NEED MORE BANDWIDTH !!!
is it stupid ? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
As Apple, IBM, and Motorola deal with the fallout from Apple's recent downgrade of its Power Mac G4 systems (see "A Downgrade for the G4" in this section), the companies are already making plans for a new generation of PowerPC processors that will blaze at speeds of up to 2GHz.
Motorola revealed its strategy for future PowerPC processor development during October's Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, California. The company says it is currently testing PowerPC G4 processors with AltiVec technology running at up to 700MHz. Eventually, Motorola says, the G4 design will hit speeds of up to 1GHz.
Waiting in the wings is the PowerPC G5, a 64-bit chip that will also support 32-bit processing to ensure compatibility with current applications. The G5, likely to be available in one to two years at speeds of up to 2GHz, will feature an extensible architecture, making it easier to develop specialized versions of the chip. Motorola says it will also offer a G6 processor, but has given no details on planned features.
Motorola plans to offer G3, G4, and G5 processors concurrently. In addition to developing the chips for Apple's Power Macs, Motorola will also target the growing market for embedded processors, which are used in a wide range of electronic devices.
Damage Control
While Motorola was busy laying out its processor road map, the company found itself performing damage control when Apple cited a shortage of 500MHz G4 processors as the main culprit behind the recent downgrade of its Power Mac G4 systems. In September, Apple predicted lower earnings due to an unexpected shortage of Motorola's G4 processors. Motorola issued a statement that pointed the finger back toward Cupertino, asserting that Motorola had regularly kept Apple apprised of G4 availability.
A month later, after Apple downgraded its systems and brought on IBM as an alternative supplier of G4 processors, Motorola appeared to eat some crow. In a terse statement released to the press, the company said, "Motorola continues to ramp G4 production to a higher volume each week and we are steadfastly committed to meeting our production goals for Apple Computer, and for all of our customers using this exciting new product. We are disappointed that we have not been able to meet all of Apple's demands to date, and are working diligently to rapidly remedy the shortfall. As we have said before, this is a temporary situation."
Big Blue
Meanwhile, IBM has its own plans for the PowerPC architecture. Although Motorola and IBM have both contributed to the PowerPC design, each is free to develop its own chip flavors, which is why IBM only recently signed on to manufacture G4 chips with Motorola's AltiVec technology. IBM will begin supplying the chips in the first half of 2000.
IBM manufactures its G3?and now its G4?chips with copper wiring instead of the aluminum used in Motorola's G3 and Intel's Pentium. Motorola has licensed IBM's copper technology for use in the G4 and will apparently employ copper in its future chip designs. Copper-based chips have the potential to run faster than equivalent aluminum-based chips, with less power consumption and heat emission. (Some of Apple's blue-and-white Power Mac G3 systems include copper-based chips from IBM, while others use Motorola's aluminum-based chips, but there's no performance difference because the chips all follow the same technical specifications.)
IBM won't discuss its development plans publicly, but sources close to the company told MacCentral that Big Blue still sees potential in the G3 processor and plans to offer versions running at up to 800MHz. These chips could find their way into future laptops; the current G4 design is too power hungry for use in portables, and Motorola has not said whether it plans to develop a low-power version of the processor. IBM sources also told MacCentral that the company is developing a low-cost version of the G3 that will sell for less than $100 in production quantities.
Although there's no telling when the new chips will find their way into Apple's Power Mac systems, Apple generally offers a 100MHz speed bump every six months or so, assuming the processors are available in sufficient quantities.
As Apple, IBM, and Motorola deal with the fallout from Apple's recent downgrade of its Power Mac G4 systems (see "A Downgrade for the G4" in this section), the companies are already making plans for a new generation of PowerPC processors that will blaze at speeds of up to 2GHz. !!!!!!!!!
All I said is !!! WE NEED MORE BANDWIDTH !!! is it stupid ? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
</strong><hr></blockquote>
The comparisons you make are a joke, because I bet that when I configure a PC for the price of the dual 1ghz PowerMac I will get way more than 190 fps. For that amount of cash I can have a dual Athlon MP XP 1800+, iirc, and that's something the dual ghz can't stand against. Bandwidth is really not everything here. The Apple computers are nice and stuff, and I am saving up for one, but I seriously hope the G4/G5/Gwhatever is past 1.33 ghz by this year's end.
Apple should consider setting a dual G4 as the entry point, considering the eMac is a G4 already. If there is no G5, that is.
ok you want some 'take it with a LARGE grain of salt' infos? Here it is... from Japan Amiga User Group:
"Silicon Graphics' new machine will come with PowerPC G5? Silicon Graphics' OS "Irix7" runs with the G5 processor. The development of R16000 and R18000 of MIPS is said to be discontinued. This is thought as O3 workstation which presently is in the midst of developing.
In addition, CISCO's high-end rooter is said to use PowerPC G5 too."
"That Motorola make G5 processor should be surprising. Presently, the G5 processor is tested from 1.6GHZ in every 400MHz up to 2.8GHZ. The speed is hitting the level which exceeds the Intel Itanium 800MHz sufficiently.
They say it is exulted by the development team. The both are the same 64bit processors.
Jon Rubinstein, formerly of NeXt's man of hardware highest responsible and
presently Apple's hardware highest responsible, seems to like to make G5 Power-
Macintosh in the middle of December this year (prototype?) . In the middle of year 2003 G6 processor would be out. It will rise up to the 10GHz from the 4.5gHz. In the middle of year 2005 G7 processor would be out. Already
development G7 will get started. Speed would be above 20GHZ."
smells like crap. Amiga is a non-platform at this point, a truly pathetic group that will never again ship a working computer through a properly supported network. Dead. Anything they say is pure BS designed to stir up interest and perhaps suck in a last dim-witted investor or two. Crap.
"Motorola has started building prototypes of their next generation of PowerPC chips. The PowerPC 7500 or G5. The G5 is a true 64-bit processor, with deeper pipelines for higher clock rates (up to 2GHz+), twice the on-chip Level 2 cache memory of the latest G3 and G4 processors, an enhanced memory architecture, added processing units, and one killer feature -- the ability to produce up to four CPU cores on a single chip, reducing the cost and complexity of powerful PPC multiprocessing configurations. A new motherboard is in the works for Apple featuring 8X AGP, DDR memory, ATA-100 and 800Mbps Firewire. Also a full version of MacOS X was seen running on one of these chips but the system was highly unstable..."
My ps2 can beat most of the mid range PCs out there, and it's only 300mhz and can be configured to work with a nuke, your point?
And here's an easy questions, how many people ACTUALLY brought an custom configed PC instead of listing how great their prices are.
I did, I had a new spify althon 1.2ghz 4 months ago. Around $500 for the complete thing[nice price right? Decent specs all around]. This is not including ovbious components that were not suppose to be free, but I "somehow" recieved it free *cough--windows-- cough*
Want to know what I found out? Those cheaper parts worked fine for the first 5hours, then it overheated. So alright, it's not bad...then comes summer, it over heats every hour. So a new fan was brought[didn't take any chances. Recomended for 1.5ghz systems].
It helped but still crashes. Seems the ram over heats now, blasted cheap ram[did I mention medium grade motherboards these days have only 2 ram slots?]. So in comes new higher quality ram. It helped but still over heats(~2.5hours in 80f weather). SO new case and more fans.
My PC chucks along as a decent gaming machine, Going to try a geefore4MX later in the year, and of better quality(The heat made by my Geeforce3 from a cheap company tends to over heat too).
It's loud, it's decently fast, and I only spend a fraction of the time on it, unlike my mac which hasn't been turned off in 3 months.
SO for those people who show's me anything less then a ~$800 PC, of medium grade, I will personally slam the door in their face.
Macs and PCs aren't that far off when you total up things.
To my experiance with my PC, my Cousin's, my friend's 4 PCs, I would say PowerMACs are only about $150 to $200, behind comparable PCs. This doesn't include obvious overlooks such as WindowsXP, softwares, and what nots.
So if you skip the ramble, SHOVE IT WITH YOUR PC SPECs. They're loud, they're hot, and they crash much too often for the hype of XP.
[quote] This is something I don't really understand. On the face of it, it doesn't seem right that cheap game consoles can play games faster than grown-up personal computers. <hr></blockquote>
To which it was answered:
[quote]Consoles are dumped at a loss. Hard to pirate games at $50 and up are where the money is made. The video game market is larger than the movie industry. <hr></blockquote>
Gafferino, if you're seriously suggesting that it costs more to manufacture a GameCube than a dual GHz Quicksilver, then I have to disagree with you.
For what it's worth, I've worked out the implications of some of the things that were carefully explained to me via sock-puppet pantomine (Simpsons reference) in <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001752"; target="_blank">the MP chook thread</a>. What's holding Apple back from producing faster mobos is Motorola's MPX bus: I presume that IBM's 60x bus isn't much better. If I understand Programmer et al correctly, Apple isn't just at the mercy of Moto and IBM with regard to the parts it gets, it also has to make do with the memory interfaces built into each company's CPUs.
So in a way it is correct to say that the reason why game consoles boast better throughput than desktop Macs is because of the relative size of each market. If Apple commanded a greater market share, it would surely be able to demand more competitive memory interfaces from its suppliers.
Over in the Ars Tech BB BadAndy corrected my assumption that the needs of high-end embedded chips overlapped those of general purpose CPUs: in his view Apple's needs are increasingly at odds with those of Motorola's other (embedded) clients. I feel that I'm starting to understand where he's coming from.
The upshot of all this, so far as I can see, is that Apple's relationship with Motorola is nearing its use-by date. Given that Apple is apparently not able to demand such things as a timely DDR implementation from Motorola, hopefully IBM will take up the slack. It must be easier to trickle down server technologies to the desktop than to attempt to make a silk purse out of embedded pigs' ears (ala XServe).
<strong>Gafferino, if you're seriously suggesting that it costs more to manufacture a GameCube than a dual GHz Quicksilver, then I have to disagree with you.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The R&D cost involved in developing a console is quite high. The components however are not _that_ pricey because they come at a large quantity (Sony wouldn't develop a PSX 2 only to sell some 100.000 per quater). But the cost of a console is way higher than the 300 $ one pays for it, however if you buy more than say 4 games I think the console making companies are making profit already (hence the price of the games).
Besides the PSX 2 is a system developed to play games and has some 3 processing units (iirc) to do only that. It's not really technology you can put in a general purpose computer that you want to connect to a printer, scanner, cd burner, add a hard disk or two or three, upgrade ram and maybe change the sound card. It's unfair to compare those, it's like comparing a Honda Civic to the Honda Formula 1 car and ask the dealer why Honda wont make the Civic go 200 mph.
But I bet if Apple made the same proportional loss when selling a PowerMac as the loss of console makers is they'd have the cheapest computers around. But surely you wouldn't like to pay 100 $ per OSX update..
Of course it's fair to compair Macs to PCs. Apple is the one doing it. They are even thinking about putting PCs in Apple stores. If you think such comparisons are unfair, tell Apple to quit doing it.
There are a bunch of reasons why consoles are cheaper and appear to perform better than modern desktops...
- The margins are very slim, to none, or even to a small loss at the beginning of their production run. They aren't that much less, see the description of a super-cheap built-from-parts PC described in a message above.
- The consoles have 40 - 64 megabytes of soldered RAM, usually no hard disk or controller (XBox being an exception), no PCI slots, less cache, and a low-cost version of whatever CPU they are using (e.g. 500 MHz G3, 300 MHz MIPS, 733 MHz Celeron). There are no controllers provided for expansion purposes.
- The graphics system in a console is designed to drive a TV (640x480 @ 60 Hz, with some support for higher modes), plus it is hardwired onto the motherboard and doesn't have to go through the PCI or AGP bus.
- There is often some specialized hardware in the processor intended specifically to help game developers... and the developers can count on it being there in every single machine of that type. These machines are stamped out in identical form by the millions, and game developers can focus on making it perform as well as possible in every single case because there is only one case.
- The CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives used in consoles are the cheapest, lowest end units available.
- They don't run an OS with a GUI and multiple processes running in the background. There is no driver model because the hardware is exactly known, and the software usually talks to it directly. The memory management unit is not used. There is only one address space.
If you add all these factors up you will see how consoles can accomplish more with slower, cheaper hardware. 4 years ago the consoles clearly had better graphics hardware than most PCs, but the desktop 3D graphics chipsets have corrected that and by this fall none of the consoles will be able to hold a candle to the latest video cards -- but the console games will still look better than most of the PC/Mac games for many of the above reasons.
And as for Apple/Motorola and the future of the PowerPC: sure they are behind at the moment, but they could introduce something next week which changes all that (and given the level of secrecy Apple demands, it wouldn't surprise me). Motorola isn't interested in speeding up MPX, while Apple would like it too, but that's because they are busy heading to the next step -- RapidIO + on-chip memory controller. With that kind of a setup Apple will be able to compete in terms of bandwidth. If Apple isn't happy with what Moto is doing, I'm sure they have laid alternate plans -- these companies have to plan quite far in advance, and they have the advantage that their competition is quite public about what they are doing (i.e. Intel/AMD). Intel/AMD have to be public about it since all the PC makers must plan their future based on it, and they can't keep it a secret without giving some competitive advantage to some of the PC makers (which is considered an unfair business practice).
[QBIf this holds true, considering the fact that it is supposed to start at 2GHz+ rated at 3600+[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
Actually all indication put forth has been that it will be released at 3400+. Remember that this was A0 silicon, the BIOS and drivers have not been optimized yet. And keep in mind that the K7 team has begun work on the K9 for release in '04.
And here's an easy questions, how many people ACTUALLY brought an custom configed PC instead of listing how great their prices are.
*raises his hand*
Other than a few hard drive problems from getting those fcukers at atic to build it (I was using them as it was the first PC part site that came to mind), its worked flawlessly (other than the various problems with the POS OS they call windows). No over heating, though it does make a lot of noise (cheap ass power supply those atic folk put in, I should have spent hte extra $50 for a good one). However Ill admit that mine cost just under $3000 can ($2000 us) because I decided to go all out with a VERY good monitor, a GF3 (which was brand new at the time), an expensive firewire card with editing software (that ive never used... DAMN IT!) and various other expensive bits (especially my KB and mouse... gawd...
One thing Ill give the iMacs, they are about the same price as a good PC with a LCD monitor, too bad you cant put a good video card in them.
But I always stay away from the PCs they build.
They are cheap. But they break down very frequently. Plus their sales staffs' attitude really disgust people big time.
Agreed. I learnt the hard way, I had to rebuild mine, but I know several other (good) places that charge $20 to build a PC, so the building fee is a non issue. Personally I sugest just building them your self, its not that hard (though the processer can be a bit tricky).
I was being an idiot and trusted them to build mine, they ripped off all the screws that come iwth the motherboard! So now I cant add PCI cards without taking a screw from my case (not really a big deal since my case has enough screws to put together a small tank).
As for the sales staff... the guys attitude was "I dont have to deal with you", it really angered me. We gave him a list of parts and he said "I cant take that, well only do orders via the web ordering system". Needless to say Im not going back there.
The consummer gear:
eMac, iMac, iBook (here we can complaint about)
Well, except for the price those are all VERY good (especically the iBook). Youhave to remember that you really do get what you paid for... that iMac... wow...
If we look at what target Apple goes with the xserve and Mac Os Xand some apps like Final Cut, Cinema Tools, Shake... I think we can say they goes after SGI and SUN. Do you know the price of a SUN workstation ? It's USD 15.000,-
Ok, lets say they model them selves after sun, that still is not an excuse for the price to perfrmance ratio of macs these days.
It's kind of funny how here in Toronto (and I suspect Vancouver is the same) just about every small computer assembler has a line on some form of pirated OS.
The other problem with ATIC (<a href="http://www.atic.ca"; target="_blank">website</a>) is their use of the classic "bait-and-swtich" scam.
If you check out their RAM prices you'll notice that they list two or three prices per size, on the basis that it's from different manufacturers. However, for some strange reason, they never seem to stock the lower priced units.
Or take hard disks, they list current Maxtor drives (ne Quantum), but HAVE NEVER CARRIED THEM. Thus when you go in and ask for a particular model they inform you that the website is out of date (despite having been updated last week for the recent Maxtor model) and that they haven't carried Maxtors for a few years. However, they do happen to have a really nice IBM disk at the same price...
Then there's the issue of gray market pieces. Chances are if you've bougth components from them in the past some of those were only meant for resale in Asia. It gets really fun explaining that to Seagate on a warranty call...
Ya, these guys include it with a CD.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You really think anyone pays the development costs for Windows? Piracy, now that's a sustainable strategy for funding Software development. Gee, why doesn't Apple try that?
Comments
eMac, iMac, iBook (here we can complaint about)
The pro gear:
PowerMac, PowerBook
If you think that i'm stupid to say that we must forget to compare Apple to Wintel,
let's say that Apple is stupid. They must include in their comparison SUN & SGI (if numbers are good
Because if i follow your thinking: Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools, Shake, DVD Pro, Blast and maybe some other apps we don't know about are for PROsumers <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
I hope you know that some PCI cards are twice the price of the high-end PowerMac for doing some pro stuff.
oh and for some barefeats 'Quake 3' test:
Athlon 1.6 GHz GF4Ti - 218,4 fps
Pentium 1.8 Ghz Rad8500 - 177,0 fps
Dual 1000 GF4Ti - 190,6 fps
Pentium 2.5 GHZ GF4Ti - 293 fps
All I said is !!! WE NEED MORE BANDWIDTH !!!
is it stupid ? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
[ 06-08-2002: Message edited by: jeromba ]</p>
MOTOROLA DISCUSSES FORTHCOMING POWERPC G5 PROCESSOR
By Stephen Beale
As Apple, IBM, and Motorola deal with the fallout from Apple's recent downgrade of its Power Mac G4 systems (see "A Downgrade for the G4" in this section), the companies are already making plans for a new generation of PowerPC processors that will blaze at speeds of up to 2GHz.
Motorola revealed its strategy for future PowerPC processor development during October's Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, California. The company says it is currently testing PowerPC G4 processors with AltiVec technology running at up to 700MHz. Eventually, Motorola says, the G4 design will hit speeds of up to 1GHz.
Waiting in the wings is the PowerPC G5, a 64-bit chip that will also support 32-bit processing to ensure compatibility with current applications. The G5, likely to be available in one to two years at speeds of up to 2GHz, will feature an extensible architecture, making it easier to develop specialized versions of the chip. Motorola says it will also offer a G6 processor, but has given no details on planned features.
Motorola plans to offer G3, G4, and G5 processors concurrently. In addition to developing the chips for Apple's Power Macs, Motorola will also target the growing market for embedded processors, which are used in a wide range of electronic devices.
Damage Control
While Motorola was busy laying out its processor road map, the company found itself performing damage control when Apple cited a shortage of 500MHz G4 processors as the main culprit behind the recent downgrade of its Power Mac G4 systems. In September, Apple predicted lower earnings due to an unexpected shortage of Motorola's G4 processors. Motorola issued a statement that pointed the finger back toward Cupertino, asserting that Motorola had regularly kept Apple apprised of G4 availability.
A month later, after Apple downgraded its systems and brought on IBM as an alternative supplier of G4 processors, Motorola appeared to eat some crow. In a terse statement released to the press, the company said, "Motorola continues to ramp G4 production to a higher volume each week and we are steadfastly committed to meeting our production goals for Apple Computer, and for all of our customers using this exciting new product. We are disappointed that we have not been able to meet all of Apple's demands to date, and are working diligently to rapidly remedy the shortfall. As we have said before, this is a temporary situation."
Big Blue
Meanwhile, IBM has its own plans for the PowerPC architecture. Although Motorola and IBM have both contributed to the PowerPC design, each is free to develop its own chip flavors, which is why IBM only recently signed on to manufacture G4 chips with Motorola's AltiVec technology. IBM will begin supplying the chips in the first half of 2000.
IBM manufactures its G3?and now its G4?chips with copper wiring instead of the aluminum used in Motorola's G3 and Intel's Pentium. Motorola has licensed IBM's copper technology for use in the G4 and will apparently employ copper in its future chip designs. Copper-based chips have the potential to run faster than equivalent aluminum-based chips, with less power consumption and heat emission. (Some of Apple's blue-and-white Power Mac G3 systems include copper-based chips from IBM, while others use Motorola's aluminum-based chips, but there's no performance difference because the chips all follow the same technical specifications.)
IBM won't discuss its development plans publicly, but sources close to the company told MacCentral that Big Blue still sees potential in the G3 processor and plans to offer versions running at up to 800MHz. These chips could find their way into future laptops; the current G4 design is too power hungry for use in portables, and Motorola has not said whether it plans to develop a low-power version of the processor. IBM sources also told MacCentral that the company is developing a low-cost version of the G3 that will sell for less than $100 in production quantities.
Although there's no telling when the new chips will find their way into Apple's Power Mac systems, Apple generally offers a 100MHz speed bump every six months or so, assuming the processors are available in sufficient quantities.
January 2000
Wow Up to 2Ghz!!!
hang on, isn't wintel already past that? . . .
the motherboard is there responsibility..
apples hardware needs a BIG kick up the jacksy pronto !!!
and despite Stevie-boy RDF spin to the contrary,
AN UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL OF USER DISSATISFACTION!
The hardware performance just doesn't match the asking price, so much so that even distinct software advantages are being quickly negated.
<strong>oh and for some barefeats 'Quake 3' test:
Athlon 1.6 GHz GF4Ti - 218,4 fps
Pentium 1.8 Ghz Rad8500 - 177,0 fps
Dual 1000 GF4Ti - 190,6 fps
Pentium 2.5 GHZ GF4Ti - 293 fps
All I said is !!! WE NEED MORE BANDWIDTH !!! is it stupid ? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
</strong><hr></blockquote>
The comparisons you make are a joke, because I bet that when I configure a PC for the price of the dual 1ghz PowerMac I will get way more than 190 fps. For that amount of cash I can have a dual Athlon MP XP 1800+, iirc, and that's something the dual ghz can't stand against. Bandwidth is really not everything here. The Apple computers are nice and stuff, and I am saving up for one, but I seriously hope the G4/G5/Gwhatever is past 1.33 ghz by this year's end.
Apple should consider setting a dual G4 as the entry point, considering the eMac is a G4 already. If there is no G5, that is.
"Silicon Graphics' new machine will come with PowerPC G5? Silicon Graphics' OS "Irix7" runs with the G5 processor. The development of R16000 and R18000 of MIPS is said to be discontinued. This is thought as O3 workstation which presently is in the midst of developing.
In addition, CISCO's high-end rooter is said to use PowerPC G5 too."
"That Motorola make G5 processor should be surprising. Presently, the G5 processor is tested from 1.6GHZ in every 400MHz up to 2.8GHZ. The speed is hitting the level which exceeds the Intel Itanium 800MHz sufficiently.
They say it is exulted by the development team. The both are the same 64bit processors.
Jon Rubinstein, formerly of NeXt's man of hardware highest responsible and
presently Apple's hardware highest responsible, seems to like to make G5 Power-
Macintosh in the middle of December this year (prototype?) . In the middle of year 2003 G6 processor would be out. It will rise up to the 10GHz from the 4.5gHz. In the middle of year 2005 G7 processor would be out. Already
development G7 will get started. Speed would be above 20GHZ."
"Motorola has started building prototypes of their next generation of PowerPC chips. The PowerPC 7500 or G5. The G5 is a true 64-bit processor, with deeper pipelines for higher clock rates (up to 2GHz+), twice the on-chip Level 2 cache memory of the latest G3 and G4 processors, an enhanced memory architecture, added processing units, and one killer feature -- the ability to produce up to four CPU cores on a single chip, reducing the cost and complexity of powerful PPC multiprocessing configurations. A new motherboard is in the works for Apple featuring 8X AGP, DDR memory, ATA-100 and 800Mbps Firewire. Also a full version of MacOS X was seen running on one of these chips but the system was highly unstable..."
<strong>The speed is hitting the level which exceeds the Intel Itanium 800MHz sufficiently.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Which shouldn't be that hard to do now, would it?
And here's an easy questions, how many people ACTUALLY brought an custom configed PC instead of listing how great their prices are.
I did, I had a new spify althon 1.2ghz 4 months ago. Around $500 for the complete thing[nice price right? Decent specs all around]. This is not including ovbious components that were not suppose to be free, but I "somehow" recieved it free *cough--windows-- cough*
Want to know what I found out? Those cheaper parts worked fine for the first 5hours, then it overheated. So alright, it's not bad...then comes summer, it over heats every hour. So a new fan was brought[didn't take any chances. Recomended for 1.5ghz systems].
It helped but still crashes. Seems the ram over heats now, blasted cheap ram[did I mention medium grade motherboards these days have only 2 ram slots?]. So in comes new higher quality ram. It helped but still over heats(~2.5hours in 80f weather). SO new case and more fans.
My PC chucks along as a decent gaming machine, Going to try a geefore4MX later in the year, and of better quality(The heat made by my Geeforce3 from a cheap company tends to over heat too).
It's loud, it's decently fast, and I only spend a fraction of the time on it, unlike my mac which hasn't been turned off in 3 months.
SO for those people who show's me anything less then a ~$800 PC, of medium grade, I will personally slam the door in their face.
Macs and PCs aren't that far off when you total up things.
To my experiance with my PC, my Cousin's, my friend's 4 PCs, I would say PowerMACs are only about $150 to $200, behind comparable PCs. This doesn't include obvious overlooks such as WindowsXP, softwares, and what nots.
So if you skip the ramble, SHOVE IT WITH YOUR PC SPECs. They're loud, they're hot, and they crash much too often for the hype of XP.
~Kuku
[quote] This is something I don't really understand. On the face of it, it doesn't seem right that cheap game consoles can play games faster than grown-up personal computers. <hr></blockquote>
To which it was answered:
[quote]Consoles are dumped at a loss. Hard to pirate games at $50 and up are where the money is made. The video game market is larger than the movie industry. <hr></blockquote>
Gafferino, if you're seriously suggesting that it costs more to manufacture a GameCube than a dual GHz Quicksilver, then I have to disagree with you.
For what it's worth, I've worked out the implications of some of the things that were carefully explained to me via sock-puppet pantomine (Simpsons reference) in <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001752"; target="_blank">the MP chook thread</a>. What's holding Apple back from producing faster mobos is Motorola's MPX bus: I presume that IBM's 60x bus isn't much better. If I understand Programmer et al correctly, Apple isn't just at the mercy of Moto and IBM with regard to the parts it gets, it also has to make do with the memory interfaces built into each company's CPUs.
So in a way it is correct to say that the reason why game consoles boast better throughput than desktop Macs is because of the relative size of each market. If Apple commanded a greater market share, it would surely be able to demand more competitive memory interfaces from its suppliers.
Over in the Ars Tech BB BadAndy corrected my assumption that the needs of high-end embedded chips overlapped those of general purpose CPUs: in his view Apple's needs are increasingly at odds with those of Motorola's other (embedded) clients. I feel that I'm starting to understand where he's coming from.
The upshot of all this, so far as I can see, is that Apple's relationship with Motorola is nearing its use-by date. Given that Apple is apparently not able to demand such things as a timely DDR implementation from Motorola, hopefully IBM will take up the slack. It must be easier to trickle down server technologies to the desktop than to attempt to make a silk purse out of embedded pigs' ears (ala XServe).
<strong>Gafferino, if you're seriously suggesting that it costs more to manufacture a GameCube than a dual GHz Quicksilver, then I have to disagree with you.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The R&D cost involved in developing a console is quite high. The components however are not _that_ pricey because they come at a large quantity (Sony wouldn't develop a PSX 2 only to sell some 100.000 per quater). But the cost of a console is way higher than the 300 $ one pays for it, however if you buy more than say 4 games I think the console making companies are making profit already (hence the price of the games).
Besides the PSX 2 is a system developed to play games and has some 3 processing units (iirc) to do only that. It's not really technology you can put in a general purpose computer that you want to connect to a printer, scanner, cd burner, add a hard disk or two or three, upgrade ram and maybe change the sound card. It's unfair to compare those, it's like comparing a Honda Civic to the Honda Formula 1 car and ask the dealer why Honda wont make the Civic go 200 mph.
But I bet if Apple made the same proportional loss when selling a PowerMac as the loss of console makers is they'd have the cheapest computers around. But surely you wouldn't like to pay 100 $ per OSX update..
- The margins are very slim, to none, or even to a small loss at the beginning of their production run. They aren't that much less, see the description of a super-cheap built-from-parts PC described in a message above.
- The consoles have 40 - 64 megabytes of soldered RAM, usually no hard disk or controller (XBox being an exception), no PCI slots, less cache, and a low-cost version of whatever CPU they are using (e.g. 500 MHz G3, 300 MHz MIPS, 733 MHz Celeron). There are no controllers provided for expansion purposes.
- The graphics system in a console is designed to drive a TV (640x480 @ 60 Hz, with some support for higher modes), plus it is hardwired onto the motherboard and doesn't have to go through the PCI or AGP bus.
- There is often some specialized hardware in the processor intended specifically to help game developers... and the developers can count on it being there in every single machine of that type. These machines are stamped out in identical form by the millions, and game developers can focus on making it perform as well as possible in every single case because there is only one case.
- The CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives used in consoles are the cheapest, lowest end units available.
- They don't run an OS with a GUI and multiple processes running in the background. There is no driver model because the hardware is exactly known, and the software usually talks to it directly. The memory management unit is not used. There is only one address space.
If you add all these factors up you will see how consoles can accomplish more with slower, cheaper hardware. 4 years ago the consoles clearly had better graphics hardware than most PCs, but the desktop 3D graphics chipsets have corrected that and by this fall none of the consoles will be able to hold a candle to the latest video cards -- but the console games will still look better than most of the PC/Mac games for many of the above reasons.
And as for Apple/Motorola and the future of the PowerPC: sure they are behind at the moment, but they could introduce something next week which changes all that (and given the level of secrecy Apple demands, it wouldn't surprise me). Motorola isn't interested in speeding up MPX, while Apple would like it too, but that's because they are busy heading to the next step -- RapidIO + on-chip memory controller. With that kind of a setup Apple will be able to compete in terms of bandwidth. If Apple isn't happy with what Moto is doing, I'm sure they have laid alternate plans -- these companies have to plan quite far in advance, and they have the advantage that their competition is quite public about what they are doing (i.e. Intel/AMD). Intel/AMD have to be public about it since all the PC makers must plan their future based on it, and they can't keep it a secret without giving some competitive advantage to some of the PC makers (which is considered an unfair business practice).
They are cheap. But they break down very frequently. Plus their sales staffs' attitude really disgust people big time.
[QBIf this holds true, considering the fact that it is supposed to start at 2GHz+ rated at 3600+[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
Actually all indication put forth has been that it will be released at 3400+. Remember that this was A0 silicon, the BIOS and drivers have not been optimized yet. And keep in mind that the K7 team has begun work on the K9 for release in '04.
*raises his hand*
Other than a few hard drive problems from getting those fcukers at atic to build it (I was using them as it was the first PC part site that came to mind), its worked flawlessly (other than the various problems with the POS OS they call windows). No over heating, though it does make a lot of noise (cheap ass power supply those atic folk put in, I should have spent hte extra $50 for a good one). However Ill admit that mine cost just under $3000 can ($2000 us) because I decided to go all out with a VERY good monitor, a GF3 (which was brand new at the time), an expensive firewire card with editing software (that ive never used... DAMN IT!) and various other expensive bits (especially my KB and mouse... gawd...
One thing Ill give the iMacs, they are about the same price as a good PC with a LCD monitor, too bad you cant put a good video card in them.
But I always stay away from the PCs they build.
They are cheap. But they break down very frequently. Plus their sales staffs' attitude really disgust people big time.
Agreed. I learnt the hard way, I had to rebuild mine, but I know several other (good) places that charge $20 to build a PC, so the building fee is a non issue. Personally I sugest just building them your self, its not that hard (though the processer can be a bit tricky).
I was being an idiot and trusted them to build mine, they ripped off all the screws that come iwth the motherboard! So now I cant add PCI cards without taking a screw from my case (not really a big deal since my case has enough screws to put together a small tank).
As for the sales staff... the guys attitude was "I dont have to deal with you", it really angered me. We gave him a list of parts and he said "I cant take that, well only do orders via the web ordering system". Needless to say Im not going back there.
The consummer gear:
eMac, iMac, iBook (here we can complaint about)
Well, except for the price those are all VERY good (especically the iBook). Youhave to remember that you really do get what you paid for... that iMac... wow...
If we look at what target Apple goes with the xserve and Mac Os Xand some apps like Final Cut, Cinema Tools, Shake... I think we can say they goes after SGI and SUN. Do you know the price of a SUN workstation ? It's USD 15.000,-
Ok, lets say they model them selves after sun, that still is not an excuse for the price to perfrmance ratio of macs these days.
It's kind of funny how here in Toronto (and I suspect Vancouver is the same) just about every small computer assembler has a line on some form of pirated OS.
You really think any one buys windows?
Ya, these guys include it with a CD.
If you check out their RAM prices you'll notice that they list two or three prices per size, on the basis that it's from different manufacturers. However, for some strange reason, they never seem to stock the lower priced units.
Or take hard disks, they list current Maxtor drives (ne Quantum), but HAVE NEVER CARRIED THEM. Thus when you go in and ask for a particular model they inform you that the website is out of date (despite having been updated last week for the recent Maxtor model) and that they haven't carried Maxtors for a few years. However, they do happen to have a really nice IBM disk at the same price...
Then there's the issue of gray market pieces. Chances are if you've bougth components from them in the past some of those were only meant for resale in Asia. It gets really fun explaining that to Seagate on a warranty call...
End rant.
[ 06-08-2002: Message edited by: JustAGuy ]</p>
<strong>You really think any one buys windows?
Ya, these guys include it with a CD.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You really think anyone pays the development costs for Windows? Piracy, now that's a sustainable strategy for funding Software development. Gee, why doesn't Apple try that?