inconsistencies at Apple... my pet peeves

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
There's some odd inconsistencies with our fruit flavored company, which just don't make sense to me:



- Macs are bus-starved, and a relatively easy way to eak more performance WITHOUT increasing clock speed is to speed up the bus. 3 out of four Mac quadrants have a paltry 256kb cache, with no L3 cache. What is the point of having 256kb cache running at 800 mhz, if it is on a 100 mhz system bus?!! The processors in all mac models (except PERHAPS iBook) are starved for data/instructions. :confused:

Remember when 300MHZ G3s had a 3:1 bus ratio? We now have 8:1 in the imac. For every EIGHT processor clock cycles, there is one memory cycle.



- The Pro line-up is weak. You'd have to be insane to shell out $5000 (canadian) for a dual 800mhz system.That DOESN'T include a monitor, either. 867mhz is the FASTEST mac processor available.



The sad thing is that I'm certain that although the G5 is near-ready, the next Powermac will be a 1ghz (+-) G4, for no reason other than Apple insists on dragging their heels with tiny increments. Whoop-dee-do. I Pray that these are not on a 133mhz bus.



133mhz bus, Geforce 2MX, and sub-GHZ speeds are all OLD PC technology, and this is available in Apple's HIGH END.



-Lack of commitment to games. For christ's sake, the imac came with a Rage 128 until yesterday! The Powermac's have OLD PC graphics cards. They should come standard w/ GeForce 3, and possibly GeForce 3 Ti.



The Powerbook, for $5000 (again, canadian) should have a Radeon 7500 with 32 MB ram, so it would actually play games at a decent speed. The ibook should have the older, cheaper Radeon with AT LEAST 16 MB vram, as the rage 128 is old and weak.



AGP 4X should be STANDARD on all macs, as it, too, is old PC tech.



I see no commitment from Apple whatsoever in terms of gaming. Framerates suck, performance sucks, AGP 2x sucks, clockspeeds between 500Mhz (iBook) and 867 (powermac, the fastest mac) are weak.



- Screens: Why is it the Cinema Display is wide, the PBG4 display is wide, yet the imac is 4:3? Apple are either moving towards wide aspect ratios, or they aren't. I wish they'd make up their mind either way.



Apple could have cut costs on their 15.1 "mega-wide (WTF?)" screen by using the same one in the imac. They would be buying 2-3X as many, and thus could get them cheaper, but no.



Moreover, Why do Apple REFUSE to use higher dpi displays? The only high dpi display is on a 12.1 inch ibook. They bump the iBook display size, increasing the size and weight of the iBook, and it has the same freakin res! The same number of pixels, but larger and chunkier. Sigh.



Apples Pro laptop, which is far more expensive, comes with a display almost the same size. They tack 130 pixels on the side, and tout what a sweet display it has. There are PC laptops that are 14.1 inches with 1400 x 1050 resolutions for far less. They fit far more on their non-'mega-wide' screens. There are POS Dells with 1600x1200 displays. DELLS!



-the iBook should be a sweet sub-note book. It should get smaller, not bigger! When I heard they would get larger screens, I was elated! I figured they'd removed some of the chunky border casing around the screen, so it looks like the border on the PBG4 Ti. But instead, they make the ibook LARGER, HEAVIER, and give it a 'bigger' screen with the SAME RESOLUTION! Arrgh!



I have no intention of parting with thousands of dollars for a computer, when I know my investment will be obsolete NEXT MONTH, let alone in 3 years.



The Pro Models should be cutting edge, no holds barred, high performance machines. They really SHOULD BE faster, not just in Job's RDF bake-off Photoshop tests, but in real-world terms. 133mhz bus, GeForce 2 MX, ATA 66 and a flippin' 867MHZ processor aren't it.



I'm a Pro, and a Mac-lover. I have a wallstreet 250 PBG3 from 3.5 years ago. I have no intention of upgrading,as it would be a waste of money, and if I did, I'd get an iBook with a 12.1 inch display. Because it's smaller, ligher, and about 2X faster than my 3.5 year old wallstreet. Not a 14.1 inch iBook, which oddly enough weighs about the same as my Wallstreet, not an iMac on a 100mhz bus, with a 15 inch display, and sure as hell not a Powermac.The pro computers are bloody expensive, ALREADY on the verge of hardware obsolescence, and nowhere near fast enough to justify the 'pro' label.



that's my rant.



thank you.

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