Why doesn't Apple do $10k+ super-computers anymore?
It seems like way back when, Apple always had some ultimate computer that cost an insane amount of money but was unbelieveably fast.
There was the II, the IIfx, the Quadra 950, the Quadra 840av, the 8100, the 9500, the 9600, and then everything kinda cooled off once the G3 came out. Maybe Apple should just go all-out and win back the appropriate markets by putting a Power 4 (not a 970, a Power 4) in some huge case specially designed to handle it, and they can charge $7k-$10k for it. I mean, why not? Maybe I'm just crazy...
Maybe they could do the same with the portables. The PowerBook 3400/240 was something like $6400 when it came out. The 292 MHz G3 Series was about $7000 for the top end configuration.
Actually, computers are so much cheaper now probably because components are cheap, not because the high-end ones are not as good (proportinal to the low end). It would still be cool...
There was the II, the IIfx, the Quadra 950, the Quadra 840av, the 8100, the 9500, the 9600, and then everything kinda cooled off once the G3 came out. Maybe Apple should just go all-out and win back the appropriate markets by putting a Power 4 (not a 970, a Power 4) in some huge case specially designed to handle it, and they can charge $7k-$10k for it. I mean, why not? Maybe I'm just crazy...
Maybe they could do the same with the portables. The PowerBook 3400/240 was something like $6400 when it came out. The 292 MHz G3 Series was about $7000 for the top end configuration.
Actually, computers are so much cheaper now probably because components are cheap, not because the high-end ones are not as good (proportinal to the low end). It would still be cool...
Comments
At least it's new.
The POWER4 is nearing the end of its life, and it doesn't have AltiVec. The 970 can be set up in 8- and 16-way configurations if Apple so chooses. I see them taking that route instead for any ultimate machines. I consider it more likely that they'll take the "many hands make light work" approach and sell really fast machines that can be effortlessly and efficiently clustered for real horsepower.
And, frankly, I hope they continue to offer their latest and greatest for much less than $10K. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
The IBM 970 is an obvious choice for this "Powerstation", but with some bandwidth overhaul, a quad G4 machine with an appropriate graphics (Wildcat?) card could do the job nicely.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: Aphelion ]</p>
<strong>It seems like way back when, Apple always had some ultimate computer that cost an insane amount of money but was unbelieveably fast.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If it makes you happy, the Belgian chapter of the Apple Store offers a standard flavor of the XServe at the nice price of ?10149. Mind you, this is not BTO, just reasonably well equiped. (To add to this: the same machine costs only $7100 in the US Apple Store, so I understand your question. Seems we Europeans do have the privilege of being able to buy insanely priced equipment. Woohoo!).
The IIci was a few thousand, about the same price as the current highest-end PowerMac... so the IIfx, which was nearly twice as fast, would be like having a quad 2.0 GHz G4 available for $10k. I'm not saying to make the high end cost oodles, I am saying make the high end so insanely powerful that it is worth oodles.
<strong>I remember when I was like 16 or so and I was buying my first mac and we went to this place in the nyc and it was a choice between the iici and the fx which was like almost 10 grand or something crazy like that.... one was 20 megz and the the fx was like 40 megahertz which my computer science friend said was like Blazingly Fast... <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Ahhh yes, back in the day my dad had picked up the fx when it first came out. What a beast! It eventually made its way from his work to our house and sadly, it was just given away to Salvation Army. Fare thee well friend.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: Dank ]</p>
<strong>It seems like way back when, Apple always had some ultimate computer that cost an insane amount of money but was unbelieveably fast.
There was the II, the IIfx, the Quadra 950, the Quadra 840av, the 8100, the 9500, the 9600, and then everything kinda cooled off once the G3 came out. Maybe Apple should just go all-out and win back the appropriate markets by putting a Power 4 (not a 970, a Power 4) in some huge case specially designed to handle it, and they can charge $7k-$10k for it. I mean, why not? Maybe I'm just crazy...
Maybe they could do the same with the portables. The PowerBook 3400/240 was something like $6400 when it came out. The 292 MHz G3 Series was about $7000 for the top end configuration.
Actually, computers are so much cheaper now probably because components are cheap, not because the high-end ones are not as good (proportinal to the low end). It would still be cool...</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess they could follow the path of Silicon Graphics Inc.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: Brendon ]</p>
Conditions, they do NOT hamstring powermacs (alrady workstation priced) in order to move 5-10K machines. The market for those machines is just too limited to begin with, PM customers really can't tolerate any further price increase, they won't tolerate PM's without some downward price momentuum for much longer either. PM customers will just look elsewhere if they feel that they can't get adequate performance for 1000-3000USD.
If Apple wants to slap a brace of 8-16 PPC970's into a big case and sell it for 10 grand, great, go ahead, but it must never in any way impinge on positive progress in delivering faster machines at lower prices.
You must realize that increasingly adquate levels of power fall to cheaper and cheaper machines.
The uber market is one that eventually everyone will have to abandone. Today a 399 PC admirably runs a GUI, Office, e-Mail, web browser etc etc... Time ago, such a thing would have cost you 10K. The sub K machine will eventually come knocking at the door of high-end 3-D realism, compositing, HD video rendering, and sophisticated scientific application. The DoD might buy up your 10-100K super comps, but there just aren't tht many DoD's around.
<strong>Higher priced workstations are not the future of computing. There's just less and less reason to buy high-end workstations, even in the PC world.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed.
But... it is a heck of a place to maintain one of your niches.
This is an area where Apple could probably best Dell _in_price_. The Xeons, which you need past 2 CPUs, cost. The G4 could compete there - it (reportedly) has a well set up list of SMP features, and the chip is relatively cheap... the problem is the FSB is too slow for anything past 2x CPUs.
The 970 _should_ alleviate that, have better SMP support built in (for IBM's purposes), and have a reasonable cost. And be 64-bit. With 2x double precision floating point units. -> As one of those engineers, I'd buy one. A quad if possible. And I don't care if it is actually sold by IBM, so long as the OS isn't Red Hat or AIX, but Mac OS X.
Ok, maybe I do care if it was sold by IBM, you think _Apple_ has a reputation of overcharging
They seem to want to fail in spite of themselves.
1K, fast SP G4 box with full internal expansion. Add your own display, upgrade at will.
you wanna pay more for your computer - I'll sell you one. Or two.
<strong>Hey Luca Rescigno,
you wanna pay more for your computer - I'll sell you one. Or two.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Great, here's what I need.
I need double precision floating point out the wazzu. Being able to do some other single precision fp at the same time would be a bonus.
I'm thinking I'd like a SpecFP2002 to exceed 4000. Yes, that's the correct number of zeros. Yes, I know the G4 scores in the low 200s. 64bitness a strong plus, but I do NOT want to even recompile any of my existing programs.
I'd like 12 vector units and 16GB of RAM. Please don't apply if the individual CPUs can't achieve the rated throughput due to an inadequate bus/cache archetecture. Hard drives/optical drives/lickability all negotiable.
But I would pay $10,000 for that. 6 mo a good time scale for you? Thanks. One should do me, but manage that and I can probably find you a couple of people interested in larger orders.
(That's a quad ppc 970 with more RAM, nothing fancy needed.)
No, I do not want to pay more for my computer. The point of this topic was mainly me wondering why Apple no longer just raised the bar and made better systems. In fact, price should have taken a back seat to performance in this discussion... instead of saying "we need a new $10,000 computer just like the 840av or the IIfx," I really should have been saying "we need a new super-powerful Mac that is much, much more powerful than the PowerMac G4 and is worthy of a $10,000 price tag."
I don't know why people didn't seem to understand that. I never once said that Apple should raise the prices on their equipment, I just said maybe they should consider raising the bar for their highest-of-the-high end systems and just totally forgetting about price. Apparently, super-powerful, super-expensive workstations aren't really practical any more, partially because cheaper and lower end computers can do much more today than they could way back when. Going from an iMac to a PowerMac, for example, is a lot less of a difference than going from a IIci to a Quadra 950, which is why such hugely expensive computers existed at all.
So, to reiterate, I never said that we should pay more for our computers. I think we should pay less of course.
<strong>Apparently, super-powerful, super-expensive workstations aren't really practical any more, partially because cheaper and lower end computers can do much more today than they could way back when. Going from an iMac to a PowerMac, for example, is a lot less of a difference than going from a IIci to a Quadra 950, which is why such hugely expensive computers existed at all.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you just answered your own question. Plus I'm not sure that it would economically feasible for Apple to spend a lot of money developing a machine that has a very limited audience.
<strong>
I think you just answered your own question. Plus I'm not sure that it would economically feasible for Apple to spend a lot of money developing a machine that has a very limited audience.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think they'll do it when they have the right processor. They made a blade server, and the market for that isn't huge. They'll make a "high end workstation" to support their video market and for mind share. If they're selling the fastest personal computers in the world, it will matter less if their iMac is still a little slower than an eMachine (do they even still exist?)
<strong>
I think they'll do it when they have the right processor. They made a blade server, and the market for that isn't huge. They'll make a "high end workstation" to support their video market and for mind share. If they're selling the fastest personal computers in the world, it will matter less if their iMac is still a little slower than an eMachine (do they even still exist?)</strong><hr></blockquote>
The Xserve is not a blade server.
which components, that is being delivered today, do you think should be included in a "super" PM making it worth 10K$?
If moto or ibm were able to supply Apple with such components today, don't you think that we be clicking in the Applestore.com instead of this site?
However, as I said, big expensive workstations aren't really practical anymore given the increasing power of the standard home computer. Many times it's more practical and cheaper to set up ten or twenty computers costing $1000-$2000 than it is to buy a single $10k-$20k supercomputer. I heard that clustered home computers are something like twice as powerful as supercomputers for the money. So even if the components were available to Apple, they might not choose to develop such a workstation.
See? I just refuted my very own topic. There. Happy now?