PowerLogic slams G5
I hate upgrade companies. It's well known they markup their products by ridiculously high amounts in order to rip people off, and yet they have the balls to slam the G5, saying a new G4 upgrade gives you more bang for you buck than a new G5 tower. Take a look at this article. They basically call Apple a liar, stating the G5 is barely faster than the current G4, and all of Apple's tests are bogus citing several anti-mac news sites as sources. They debunk the G5 arcitexture, saying it's not as fast as it sounds, and to prove their point list an obscure bechmark where the G5 doesn't completely kill the G4. After reading this press release, I am utterly disgusted and I have lost all respect for PL. They've been ripping people off for years, and since there's no way they will ever be allowed to sell G5 upgrades, they now feel the need to lie and throw cheap shots at Apple to insure they don't go out of business. 
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Originally posted by Kecksy
I hate upgrade companies. It's well known they markup their products by ridiculously high amounts in order to rip people off, and yet they have the balls to slam the G5, saying a new G4 upgrade gives you more bang for you buck than a new G5 tower. Take a look at this article. They basically call Apple a liar, stating the G5 is barely faster than the current G4, and all of Apple's tests are bogus citing several anti-mac news sites as sources. They debunk the G5 arcitexture, saying it's not as fast as it sounds, and to prove their point list an obscure bechmark where the G5 doesn't completely kill the G4. After reading this press release, I am utterly disgusted and I have lost all respect for PL. They've been ripping people off for years, and since there's no way they will ever be allowed to sell G5 upgrades, they now feel the need to lie and throw cheap shots at Apple to insure they don't go out of business.
Comments?
This from a company that has shipped crappy buggy reboot causing cards. Bollocks. My Powerlogix Card in my 7500 is nifty...when it's not causing Bombs.
Originally posted by skunk
You may well "hate upgrade companies", but the points made in the PL article were occurring to me when I read the Skidmarks (nice name - NOT!!) data provided by Apple: the performance increase does not seem anything like commensurate with the stated speeds of the processors and bus. Talk about "Megahertz Myth! How is it that with four times the raw processor speed (2x2GHz vs 1x1GHz) and in theory six times the bus speed, the scores only go from the 1 GHz's 100 to 172, 208 and 280? Something is wrong here, surely? Where is all that VERY EXPENSIVE extra performance being rubbed off? It just makes me think I'd be much better off sticking an upgrade in my Cube than shelling out x thousand quid for a very pretty but otherwise unimpressive lump like the G5. Can anybody tell me where my reasoning is faulty here? I know jack shit about the technicalities, but nothing I've seen yet proves unequivocally that the G5 is worth the money.
The thing is that nobody has a working machine on their hands (except for apple and few other guys), so just wait, when it ships there will be plenty of info on performance or lack of thereof.
I think 1ghz bus alone will make huge difference. Just be patient,
Originally posted by skunk
Talk about "Megahertz Myth! How is it that with four times the raw processor speed (2x2GHz vs 1x1GHz) and in theory six times the bus speed, the scores only go from the 1 GHz's 100 to 172, 208 and 280? Something is wrong here, surely?
Skidmarks GT doesn't measure both processors.
Originally posted by piwozniak
Just be patient,
I was quoting Apple's own figures. And yeah, I can certainly wait! My Cube and 22" are just dandy for now...
Originally posted by JLL
Skidmarks GT doesn't measure both processors.
Well why on earth does Apple use it to measure the G5's performance then????
Originally posted by Kecksy
I hate upgrade companies. It's well known they markup their products by ridiculously high amounts in order to rip people off, and yet they have the balls to slam the G5, saying a new G4 upgrade gives you more bang for you buck than a new G5 tower. Take a look at this article. They basically call Apple a liar, stating the G5 is barely faster than the current G4, and all of Apple's tests are bogus citing several anti-mac news sites as sources. They debunk the G5 arcitexture, saying it's not as fast as it sounds, and to prove their point list an obscure bechmark where the G5 doesn't completely kill the G4. After reading this press release, I am utterly disgusted and I have lost all respect for PL. They've been ripping people off for years, and since there's no way they will ever be allowed to sell G5 upgrades, they now feel the need to lie and throw cheap shots at Apple to insure they don't go out of business.
Comments?
The question is : do you think that Powerlogix has an agenda ?
Next question : when they will chip their new G4 upgrade processor card for the G5 (wih a 133 mhz mpx bus of course).
Last, but it's not a question. Do their upgrade worth the price ? Undoubtely i have bought a powerlogix 550 G4 upgrade card for my G3 350 (i use it as a 4D server) and i can swear that i did not see any real differences
Originally posted by skunk
Well why on earth does Apple use it to measure the G5's performance then????
Apple did not use this benchmark, i have a whole PDF file about the performance of the new G5 towers and Skidmark do not appear anywhere ....
But there is an interesting benchmark about photoshop using 45 effects (nearly half of what photoshop is able to do) and the result are quite impressive (the previous demo of photoshop from Apple only used a dozen of effects ...).
Now is the best time to buy an Apple machine in years for your desktop.
It's obvious the single G5 2 gig is 3 times as fast (nearly) on FPU as the G4. So...a bench doesn't include a 2nd processor... Won't be the first time that's happened...
Apple says the dual G5 2 gigger is 6 times as fast. I kinda believe them. The bus. The fpu performance. Altivec on a bigger bus... Then the Panther optimisation to come...
Upgrade companies may be griping because they are getting the squeeze (by Apple) on G5 upgrade products.
That's business. They've done pretty well out of Apple during the G4 debacle I'm sure...
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by skunk
You may well "hate upgrade companies", but the points made in the PL article were occurring to me when I read the Skidmarks (nice name - NOT!!) data provided by Apple: the performance increase does not seem anything like commensurate with the stated speeds of the processors and bus.
The Skidmarks GT tests were provided by "a source within Apple" or something like that. Apple isn't publishing them formally.
Skidmarks is part of Apple's CHUD, which is a suite of low-level hardware profiling and emulation tools. Unless CHUD has been updated for the 970 already - and there's no indication whether it has - it might have been benchmarking the 970 as if it were a G4, when its design is radically different. Furthermore, the Skidmarks test purports to be a pure CPU test, ignoring the system bus and everything on the other side of it, so the dramatic improvement in bus bandwidth and system technologies is ignored by this benchmark.
Basically, it's not official, it's not measured by a tool that is known to be updated for the 970, and it ignores every aspect of system performance outside of the CPU itself. I wouldn't put any stock in it.
What you're reading in that paper, basically, is a desperate attempt by a company that's just realized that their market is going to start shrinking, fast. I wouldn't call it authoritative or objective.
If you're skeptical about the G5's performance, wait until they're released and see for yourself. I doubt you'll be disappointed.
Originally posted by Amorph
If you're skeptical about the G5's performance, wait until they're released and see for yourself. I doubt you'll be disappointed.
And you are not alone to share this advice
. Some people could read in ars technica what Hannibal wrote about the new G5. For the first time he said (and he was surprised to said this) that this new macs will be great as high performance desktop. He said also, that it's the second time (the first time it was for the powerbook 17) that Apple have good qualitie price ratio.
It does not serve any purpose, you can always question particular method, compiler, results, etc...
There's a lot of yakking about the _CROSS_platform tests, but there's really very little to be said about 970 v G4.
1.0 GHz G4+ SpecFP 0187
1.8 GHz 970 SpecFP 1051
2.0 GHz 970 SpecFP 840
Note that a big piece of the screaming is about how poorly GCC does on the x86 side, but just glancing at the above you can SEE how "good" it is on the ppc side. 250+ points difference based on compiler alone (IBM's slower chip tests versus VeriTest's tests) on the 970... and it _still_ crushes the G4 at floating point.
The SpecFP tests aren't 'thin air' tests like lots of the others - they basically outline huge areas of real honest-to-goodness computational work. I don't care how fast it performs the 'iCal window shuffling test' or whatever the test du jour is - I care how fast it calculates FFTs, esoteric polynomial forms, or other related 'compute bound' problems.
And 5x faster is respectable.
And these do not include any altivec optimization, and that is what makes it (ok, other things too) kick ass in many apps,
Give me photoshop, big file and 10 minutes with that thing...
that's what makes difference, not bunch of numbers, which are all debatable.
Looking at PPC970, you can assume it will crush G4, because of bus speed, out of order execution capabilities, etc, but to most mortals real life apps, that's what makes a difference.
*** venting mode on ***
Why for the love of good there are people care sooo damn much about that?
CPU is just a part of the system, i can have faster drives, or RAID and it will my my comp faster than other ome with higher mhz (to a degree of course)
Look at the whole system, how it is designed. If you need to run benchmarks, bench systems not CPUs alone
*** venting mode off ***
On a side note, i just got an iMac :-)
It's the coolest comp ever, i just keep staring at it :-)
I booted it in Target mode, connected through FW to my TiBook, used Carbon Copy Cloner, to clone entire HD from ti to that iMac, and in 45 min i had working system with all my settings, apps, and all junk :-)
Booted fine no problems at all, entire process takes few clicks, no tweaking, no fiddling, amazing.
Gotta love macs, so cool, try this with Win.
Please...
Change is never easy.
A paradigm shift that sends a compny into instant obsolescence is bound to bring out angry and irrational actions.
Z
Originally posted by Aquatic
I feel sorry for them. They should start making other cool things on the side like Sonnet did with Piccolo. But upgrading is just dumb considering prices. Sell your computer and get a new one, it's easy. Just post a message somewhere in a bit of advance before you want a new one and someone will respond, that is how I went from iBook to PowerBook 12".
You are right, upgrading is becoming useless now. The golden age of CPU upgrade card was the G3 aera. The G3 was so superior to the G1 or the 603 that a G3 upgrade really improved the overall performance of let's say a PPC 601 100 mhz. The golden age stopped with the introduction of the G4 sawtooth and the Mpx bus. The older mac did not take a great advantage of a new G4 chip.
The G5 is may be the end of the uprading market. The future of PC is more based now on very high bandwitch than anything else. Dual channel DDR ram have become a classical stuff in the high end PC market.