Maximum PC Dual Processor Showdown!

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Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I am the official mac zealot at my company. Some anonymous person here placed a photocopied article from the March 2003 issue of Maximum PC on my desk while I was away. It is a pretty scary article. Well scary for me since my IT guy here (who controls the purchasing of any and all tech) has threatened to replace our macs with peecees. Anyway back to the article.



Scroll to the bottom of this link and one of the posts has the entire article:

http://www.xforums.net/Forum4/HTML/000073.html



Is the 970 supposed to make that big of a leap that our macs could compete with the dual Xeon machine. God, I hope so...

I am not trolling. Those numbers are just pretty hard to argue with. I have threatened to quit if they take my mac away.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    Yes, the 970 will roxor. When I cannot tell.



    What do you do?
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  • Reply 2 of 26
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Just curious, how much did the different machines cost?
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  • Reply 3 of 26
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Maximum PC is literally the Mac Addict of the PC world. They're not impartial, and they don't even try to be.



    Just FYI.
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  • Reply 4 of 26
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    I think when the 970 comes out it will meet or exceed those scores. According to available information, the new 970 PowerMacs will debut at 1.4 GHz and top out at 1.8 GHz. That makes the low-end pro Mac tower more than twice as fast as the fastest pro Mac tower currently offered by Apple -- the G4 dual 1.42 GHz.



    The 1.2 GHz 970 would double (or cut by one half) each of those scores in the referenced article, which brings the Mac within striking distance...nevermind the fact it will debut faster than 1.2, at 1.4, and top at 1.8. The end of June couldn't come faster!
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  • Reply 5 of 26
    I am the creative director/ Prepress manager at a printing company.



    I hope that the 970 is all that we hope it is. I just can't wait to have some power specs back on our side.
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  • Reply 6 of 26
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    I may be preaching to the choir, but why should the tech. support department determine which tools you get to use?
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  • Reply 7 of 26
    stoo, you are preaching to the choir. I have tried and continue to try and convince those who make such decisions that this is a bad practice. I have slowly been making enroads in this department.
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  • Reply 8 of 26
    existenceexistence Posts: 991member
    Chilleymac, here's another site you should check out.
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  • Reply 9 of 26
    I say our FSB is the main reason.. Give me a 2x2.0 Ghz G4 on a 533 Mhz FSB and it'll scream...
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  • Reply 10 of 26
    billybobskybillybobsky Posts: 1,914member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by T'hain Esh Kelch

    I say our FSB is the main reason.. Give me a 2x2.0 Ghz G4 on a 533 Mhz FSB and it'll scream...



    oh god yes, FSB at this point is the slowest part of the current macs and it really limits the processor
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  • Reply 11 of 26
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chilleymac

    I am the creative director/ Prepress manager at a printing company.



    I hope that the 970 is all that we hope it is. I just can't wait to have some power specs back on our side.




    The 970 will indeed have a sickeningly fast integer unit, and it doesn't take much to beat the x86 in FPU. By why you'll need all that power for prepress I'll have no idea.
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  • Reply 12 of 26
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,464member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by T'hain Esh Kelch

    I say our FSB is the main reason.. Give me a 2x2.0 Ghz G4 on a 533 Mhz FSB and it'll scream...





    Yes of course the G4 is only a 7 Pipe Cpu. I think FSB has to make a big difference as well but it still would have a hard time beating a 970 at the same clock.



    At any rate I'm ready for a new shiny processor.
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  • Reply 13 of 26
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member
    Why would your tech manager make you buy a new machine, all updates on all your software and more for a more expensive duel xeon machine?



    Nick
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  • Reply 14 of 26
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    By why you'll need all that power for prepress I'll have no idea.



    Aqua?
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  • Reply 15 of 26
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bunge

    Aqua?



    (1) Quark Xpress isn't even OS X native at this point, and I don't think a lot of the stuff in the prepress world is.



    (2) Quartz Extreme makes Aqua fast



    As far as I can tell, a 1Ghz G4 with a Radeon 9000 is more than enough for doing publishing work. (And yes, I am quite familiar with publishing)
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  • Reply 16 of 26
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    bunge was being humorous.



    jeez.
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  • Reply 17 of 26
    gargoylegargoyle Posts: 660member
    I always find intel bus speeds a bit crappy... that 533 is quad pumped which only happens INSIDE the chip. I am 90% sure the bus from the chip to the memory and everything else is still only 133.



    IMO the things that are gonna determine the speed of the future computers will be:-



    FSB

    Memory

    HD (Bring on 4Gbit SATA)

    PCI bus (Bring on the next gen of PCI)
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  • Reply 18 of 26
    the generalthe general Posts: 649member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Stoo

    I may be preaching to the choir, but why should the tech. support department determine which tools you get to use?



    unfortunately, many companies are like that..

    where I work, since the it manager is a big dell fan(yes, DELL FAN, he loves them, I keep goofing on em, especially when he gets his new dell every few months with these cool new features, like "wireless networking" and dvd burner..ooh(anyways)... most IT people seem to me mindless zombies that love microsoft and cheapo pc companies.
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  • Reply 19 of 26
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    The P4's bus is quad pumped between the CPU and the chipset.
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  • Reply 20 of 26
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R

    bunge was being humorous.



    jeez.




    Yes I was, thanks for the backup.
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