Actually it wasn't the G4 intro that was the problem, it was that the G4 stayed where it was introd for like 18 months.
And they might have been ahead of intel , but that doesn't mean any of those chips were on time. And some chips never came (wasn't there a partnership working on something called Taligent, or was that just an OS? And didn't some company proclaim that they could make the G3 better then before, better, stronger, faster, sort of a bionic G3 chip, only to have it turn out they could barely squeeze a couple of extra % in the speed category?)
I started to use Macs the end of '91 or so, when I bought my 950. Until Jobs announced that Apple was going to bring the speed of the G4 AGP series down by 50MHz because Moto couldn't meet the speeds promised, Apple didn't have a problem getting chips on time, or at speed. This was the first time this happened since I started with it.
Before that Moto always met its dates. It was Intel that had problems, and AMD was just a joke.
Taligent was just software. Yes there was a company that wanted to license the PPC design. They made a lot of claims. I read extensively about it at the time. They had some special technology where they were going to use bipolar transistors. It seemed strange because they use more power. I thought I still had the link but I don't
There was also another company that supposedly had a Mac running at much higher speeds using some new cooling technology. They had photos and demoed a unit, I think, but disappeared as well.
I started to use Macs the end of '91 or so, when I bought my 950. Until Jobs announced that Apple was going to bring the speed of the G4 AGP series down by 50MHz because Moto couldn't meet the speeds promised, Apple didn't have a problem getting chips on time, or at speed. This was the first time this happened since I started with it.
They may have met their own schedule with the early G3's and the first G4, but Motorola was still already losing ground to Intel. The high water mark was the 604e, I think. I remember groaning when the much-ballyhooed G3 intro'd at a slower clock (266 v. 350) with only ideosyncratic per-clock gains. Heck, it had a slower clock even than its immediate ancestor, the 603e. Yeah, it was a better designed chip, the savior of portable Macs, and the beginning of the low-power trend that's now taken over; but it was also a sign that Mot was losing the fab wars to Intel. Intel would have been able to keep cranking out higher-clocked 604 derivatives; Mot couldn't. But the shit really hit the fan when Mot couldn't even scale the G3/G4. We went a big nowhere, performance-wise, from the time the 350MHz 604e's debuted to when Mot finally pushed the G4 past 400Mhz in any quantity. It was a long, long time in between.
Holy crap: I didn't even remember exactly how long: two-and-a-half years between the debut of the 350MHz 9600 in Aug '97 and of the (for-real) 450 and 500MHz PMG4's in Feb '00. Wow. Bad, bad times.
I've been a reader for a long time here... And I really don't see Jobs steering Apple in the wrong direction but it certainly is WEIRD SQUARED talking about Intel hoo haa on here.
Next thing you know they'll be virus patches released for Tiger every 2 days \
Quote:
Originally posted by jasenj1
I'm sorry, it's just wrong - wrong I tell you - to see Intel CPU announcements on an Apple-oriented site.
They may have met their own schedule with the early G3's and the first G4, but Motorola was still already losing ground to Intel. The high water mark was the 604e, I think. I remember groaning when the much-ballyhooed G3 intro'd at a slower clock (266 v. 350) with only ideosyncratic per-clock gains. Heck, it had a slower clock even than its immediate ancestor, the 603e. Yeah, it was a better designed chip, the savior of portable Macs, and the beginning of the low-power trend that's now taken over; but it was also a sign that Mot was losing the fab wars to Intel. Intel would have been able to keep cranking out higher-clocked 604 derivatives; Mot couldn't. But the shit really hit the fan when Mot couldn't even scale the G3/G4. We went a big nowhere, performance-wise, from the time the 350MHz 604e's debuted to when Mot finally pushed the G4 past 400Mhz in any quantity. It was a long, long time in between.
Holy crap: I didn't even remember exactly how long: two-and-a-half years between the debut of the 350MHz 9600 in Aug '97 and of the (for-real) 450 and 500MHz PMG4's in Feb '00. Wow. Bad, bad times.
The G3 was a much more powerful chip than either the 603E or the 604E. The 9600 with the 350MHz chip had so many problems it didn't last for a very long time.
At the time I bought my daughter the G4 450 AGP machine in 1999, it was about 30-40% faster than Intel's fastest chips in integer, about 50-70% faster in floats, and several times faster in anything that could use Altivec. We got the original 450 because we had ordered it from TekServe under the imposed deadline, so Apple couldn't switch it to a 400.
It took Intel until almost the middle of 2001 until it caught up with it in performance, and the end of the year until it passed it in everything except vector. It took until the end of 2002 until it could be said that even Altivec was surpassed by the latest SSE.
I had bought almost every generation of machines for my company and am very familliar with the performance issues.
might be fast, but as far as I can tell not 64 bit.....anyone think that cold be a problem?
Not so much for portables. With the limitations that now exist even in x86 implementations, 64 bits have a way to go. The first use to fall is the 4+GB limitation. Until memory can be supported above an even lower limit in a portable, the main reason to go 64 bit won't exist. 64 bits might also require more power. Unless the chip can turn off the high 32 bits it's just more heat being produced.
Actualy I looked it up in Dictionary and found this
verb [ trans. ] (usu. be architected) Computing design and make : few software packages were architected with Ethernet access in mind. ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French architecte, from Italian architetto, via Latin from Greek arkhitekt?n, from arkhi- ?chief? + tekt?n ?builder.?
Comments
Originally posted by Louzer
Actually it wasn't the G4 intro that was the problem, it was that the G4 stayed where it was introd for like 18 months.
And they might have been ahead of intel , but that doesn't mean any of those chips were on time. And some chips never came (wasn't there a partnership working on something called Taligent, or was that just an OS? And didn't some company proclaim that they could make the G3 better then before, better, stronger, faster, sort of a bionic G3 chip, only to have it turn out they could barely squeeze a couple of extra % in the speed category?)
I started to use Macs the end of '91 or so, when I bought my 950. Until Jobs announced that Apple was going to bring the speed of the G4 AGP series down by 50MHz because Moto couldn't meet the speeds promised, Apple didn't have a problem getting chips on time, or at speed. This was the first time this happened since I started with it.
Before that Moto always met its dates. It was Intel that had problems, and AMD was just a joke.
Taligent was just software. Yes there was a company that wanted to license the PPC design. They made a lot of claims. I read extensively about it at the time. They had some special technology where they were going to use bipolar transistors. It seemed strange because they use more power. I thought I still had the link but I don't
There was also another company that supposedly had a Mac running at much higher speeds using some new cooling technology. They had photos and demoed a unit, I think, but disappeared as well.
Originally posted by popmetal
does this make it likelier that we'll see Intel based PowerMacs sooner?
Paxville is Pentium IV based.
It's unlikely Apple will use them at all.
Woodcrest is the name of the game
Originally posted by Mike Moscow
The new powerbook is coming... ITS COMING!
XEON for the XServe maybe, but not the PowerBook.
Originally posted by kwsanders
XEON for the XServe maybe, but not the PowerBook.
It's already been said. He doesn't need it repeated I'm sure he can read.
Originally posted by Wondering
yo, Xeon does not equal Powerbook.
Originally posted by onlooker
It's already been said. He doesn't need it repeated I'm sure he can read.
And we can grant him a little enthusiasm.
Originally posted by onlooker
It's already been said. He doesn't need it repeated I'm sure he can read.
Thanks. I had not read the post of that before I replied. I am sure it will not hurt you if I post it again.
- Jasen
which has been architected for dual-core performance
architected is not a word!
Originally posted by melgross
I started to use Macs the end of '91 or so, when I bought my 950. Until Jobs announced that Apple was going to bring the speed of the G4 AGP series down by 50MHz because Moto couldn't meet the speeds promised, Apple didn't have a problem getting chips on time, or at speed. This was the first time this happened since I started with it.
They may have met their own schedule with the early G3's and the first G4, but Motorola was still already losing ground to Intel. The high water mark was the 604e, I think. I remember groaning when the much-ballyhooed G3 intro'd at a slower clock (266 v. 350) with only ideosyncratic per-clock gains. Heck, it had a slower clock even than its immediate ancestor, the 603e. Yeah, it was a better designed chip, the savior of portable Macs, and the beginning of the low-power trend that's now taken over; but it was also a sign that Mot was losing the fab wars to Intel. Intel would have been able to keep cranking out higher-clocked 604 derivatives; Mot couldn't. But the shit really hit the fan when Mot couldn't even scale the G3/G4. We went a big nowhere, performance-wise, from the time the 350MHz 604e's debuted to when Mot finally pushed the G4 past 400Mhz in any quantity. It was a long, long time in between.
Holy crap: I didn't even remember exactly how long: two-and-a-half years between the debut of the 350MHz 9600 in Aug '97 and of the (for-real) 450 and 500MHz PMG4's in Feb '00. Wow. Bad, bad times.
I've been a reader for a long time here... And I really don't see Jobs steering Apple in the wrong direction but it certainly is WEIRD SQUARED talking about Intel hoo haa on here.
Next thing you know they'll be virus patches released for Tiger every 2 days
Originally posted by jasenj1
I'm sorry, it's just wrong - wrong I tell you - to see Intel CPU announcements on an Apple-oriented site.
- Jasen
Originally posted by Towel
They may have met their own schedule with the early G3's and the first G4, but Motorola was still already losing ground to Intel. The high water mark was the 604e, I think. I remember groaning when the much-ballyhooed G3 intro'd at a slower clock (266 v. 350) with only ideosyncratic per-clock gains. Heck, it had a slower clock even than its immediate ancestor, the 603e. Yeah, it was a better designed chip, the savior of portable Macs, and the beginning of the low-power trend that's now taken over; but it was also a sign that Mot was losing the fab wars to Intel. Intel would have been able to keep cranking out higher-clocked 604 derivatives; Mot couldn't. But the shit really hit the fan when Mot couldn't even scale the G3/G4. We went a big nowhere, performance-wise, from the time the 350MHz 604e's debuted to when Mot finally pushed the G4 past 400Mhz in any quantity. It was a long, long time in between.
Holy crap: I didn't even remember exactly how long: two-and-a-half years between the debut of the 350MHz 9600 in Aug '97 and of the (for-real) 450 and 500MHz PMG4's in Feb '00. Wow. Bad, bad times.
The G3 was a much more powerful chip than either the 603E or the 604E. The 9600 with the 350MHz chip had so many problems it didn't last for a very long time.
At the time I bought my daughter the G4 450 AGP machine in 1999, it was about 30-40% faster than Intel's fastest chips in integer, about 50-70% faster in floats, and several times faster in anything that could use Altivec. We got the original 450 because we had ordered it from TekServe under the imposed deadline, so Apple couldn't switch it to a 400.
It took Intel until almost the middle of 2001 until it caught up with it in performance, and the end of the year until it passed it in everything except vector. It took until the end of 2002 until it could be said that even Altivec was surpassed by the latest SSE.
I had bought almost every generation of machines for my company and am very familliar with the performance issues.
Originally posted by timmy o'tool
might be fast, but as far as I can tell not 64 bit.....anyone think that cold be a problem?
Not so much for portables. With the limitations that now exist even in x86 implementations, 64 bits have a way to go. The first use to fall is the 4+GB limitation. Until memory can be supported above an even lower limit in a portable, the main reason to go 64 bit won't exist. 64 bits might also require more power. Unless the chip can turn off the high 32 bits it's just more heat being produced.
Originally posted by guslg
architected is not a word!
Actualy I looked it up in Dictionary and found this
verb [ trans. ] (usu. be architected) Computing design and make : few software packages were architected with Ethernet access in mind. ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French architecte, from Italian architetto, via Latin from Greek arkhitekt?n, from arkhi- ?chief? + tekt?n ?builder.?