Those are only up to April 2008. Since then new iMacs have been released. Primate labs lists even the slowest and cheapest iMac at only $1100 as scoring a 3220 with only 1GB RAM.
You are right, and this proves my point even more ! The professional Quad G5 is now floored by the amateur's iMac !
You are right, and this proves my point even more ! The professional Quad G5 is now floored by the amateur's iMac !
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3.06GHz : 3995
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz (entry level) : 3220
PowerPC G5 (970MP) 2.5 GHz (4 cores) : 3217
Wow! And remember: the G3 iMac didn't need a fan. The G4 iMac did need a fan. The G5 iMac had to be liquid cooled. Presumably, the G6 iMac, if there had been one, would have had to be kept in a separate, air-conditioned room and cooled with liquid helium! And a quad-core G6? The mind boggles! I don't think you have to look any further than that for the reason for the Intel transition.
Why are they people who is hoping Mac OS X to be on PCs? Cant you see that Apple wants to be in control of the hardware spec of their product.
They acquire PA to develop processor for the iPhone and iPod.
Anyway, I know some PPC users will be hurt with Apple move but hey, maybe the reason Apple is not really going to introduce any new big feature for Snow Leopard is cause they want to let the public know that they are moving towards Intel only support so asking the users to get ready to buy a new Mac the following year (Im talking after SL, Mac OS X 10.7 (Or Mac OS 11))
First off, I skimmed the page wheelhot links to in his/her sig (arguing Apple will never just sell software). Granted, I didn't read the whole thing in detail, but doesn't that author also claim on the same page that the switch to Intel won't happen? Not only is the article quite dated in its view point, it's wrong. Not very compelling.
Another critique on that article:
Quote:
The only way to see the Mac as unsuccessful is to compare it to Windows on Microsoft’s terms — market share and raw profit. And that’s exactly how analysts and the PC press cover the Mac.
What they miss is that the Mac’s primary purpose is to be better. Windows’s (sic) primary purpose is to be ubiquitous.
Both companies exist to make money, and certainly Apple wants Macs to be better. I think Apple will sell its OS to run on non-Apple hardware. This will make them a lot of money. When they do this, they will also make sure that Macs are better. This is how I see PA Semi fitting in. They will ensure that the OS is optimized for Apple hardware.
I haven't finished reading the thread about Steve's claim that PA is going to make iPhone chips, but my initial impression is that this is a weird comment to make when you've just introduced a new phone. A phone that obviously doesn't use this hardware technology. It seems like bait and switch to me. --Not that the statement is a lie. I just doubt that's the real reason.
Back to Snow Leopard:
I'm ambivalent in my opinion about whether or not PPC will be supported; I can see the argument from both sides and I feel strongly both ways. I'll need to cogitate on it more. However, I think PPC will ultimately be supported. My thinking is that the line of reasoning that says it's too hard (PPC 32 bit/64 bit & same w/Intel) is overblown. They've done it before and they've done it when they were working on big new projects--read: "iPhone". Sure, Leopard was delayed a while--a short while.
And here Apple has just finished with the new iPhone. They've already developed it and manufactured it. What's going to prevent them from concentrating on Snow Leopard for all relevant hardware? Those quad G5s are still relevant hardware. Also, I'm in agreement with those who can't see leaving Leopard as the last OS for the PPC--it's just not good enough for it.
10.6 for Intel only is not abandoning support for PPC as others have argued. So that mind-walk is moot. But the fact that Apple has committed to supporting the PPC for 5 years is ample reason to make Snow Leopard support PPC. That would be an easier way of providing support than having to maintain two different OSs for two sets of hardware. I submit that that approach would be harder to implement than just getting 10.6 to work on 32/64 PPC/Intel.
While I'm firm in my belief that Apple will open its OS to non-Apple hardware, I don't think this will happen straight-off with the release of 10.6. It will either be the next version of the OS or Apple will do it with 10.6 after some delay post introduction.
I think the plan is to optimize Snow Leopard for the hardware that PA is going to add to Macs--not iPhones. At the same time, Snow Leopard will be optimized for multiple cores, period--be they PPC or Intel. They need both to provide enough hype and oomph to get people to buy it, because I agree there won't be very many owners of current hardware that will feel they really need it. Basically, Apple will hype how optimized it is for existing hardware. People will buy it. [EDIT]People with PPC computers will especially buy it if Apple says "this is it; no maintenance on any other OS X versions supported by PPC."[/EDIT] After they've milked it for all they can to existing Apple owners, then they'll open it to other hardware. And that's when they'll also unveil their own new hardware with PA stuff so that they can maintain the Mac performance edge and cachet.
I wouldn't worry too much about developers dropping PPC. Even if this happens, by the time it does the OS will work on anything and the requisite hardware will be inexpensive--more so than it already is. That's when the PPC will be obsolete. Even if they're still "relevant" machines, it will be so cheap to work with developer software that doesn't support PPC that the idea of there still being good G5s won't even matter. They'll go to JPL or whatever and the tax write-off will pay for the new systems.
You are right, and this proves my point even more ! The professional Quad G5 is now floored by the amateur's iMac!
Note: Someone will say it so I'm going to beat them to the punch... It should be made clear that PPC Macs are still quite viable machines. Benchmark tests and real world tests are different; there are undoubtedly several programs or processes within certain programs that would run better on a Power Mac G5 than the entry new level iMac. Also, your PPC Macs are obsolescing but are not obsolete. That word gets misused so often in the computer industry.
Wow! And remember: the G3 iMac didn't need a fan. The G4 iMac did need a fan. The G5 iMac had to be liquid cooled. Presumably, the G6 iMac, if there had been one, would have had to be kept in a separate, air-conditioned room and cooled with liquid helium! And a quad-core G6? The mind boggles! I don't think you have to look any further than that for the reason for the Intel transition.
Only the top model of the G5 Power Mac in three product iterations was liquid cooled (2.5 dual, 2.7 dual, 2.5 quad). The G5 iMac just had a regular heat sink as far as I remember. But it did run warm.
I think there are plenty of viable PPC based computers and I feel like Leopard is a viable OS for them.
If Apple decides to make Snow Leopard Intel only in it's finality I understand that decision. I think the decision would very much stem from resources at Apple. Up until a year ago Apple had but one OS platform to run. Now they have 3 and could end up with more.
I'm for putting Leopard into maintenance mode and maintaining security updates until 10.7 comes.
The main draw to Snow Leopard will likely be centered around Quicktime X, Grand Central and OpenCL.
While these features and further optimizations will be desired by PPC users their hardware, quite honestly, will not sufficiently benefit from the features in all likelyhood.
We really need to see what Apple can do when giving a more singular focus on optimizing OS X. The bugs in the API the niggling glitches and areas that haven't seen much work need to be be ironed out.
Eventually those PPC Macs will be replaced with Intel based Macs and at that time the PPC users who've felt abandoned will finally experience the fruits of Apple's labor and their own sacrifice.
Only the top model of the G5 Power Mac in three product iterations was liquid cooled (2.5 dual, 2.7 dual, 2.5 quad). The G5 iMac just had a regular heat sink as far as I remember. But it did run warm.
No problem, but your main point was valid in other ways. The G5 chip did run pretty hot. We got as good performance and much lower heat with the Core Duo iMac. The G5 quad was reputed to have a monster heat output, the Mac Pros consume considerably less power, and thus less heat output, for about the same compute strength and lower cost.
No problem, but your main point was valid in other ways. The G5 chip did run pretty hot. We got as good performance and much lower heat with the Core Duo iMac.
And power usage. I wonder how much money that saves over the lifetime of the Mac. Not a big difference in most upgrades but those were pretty substantial power usage differences as I recall.
My G5 has four cores. Quad 2.5 GHz and it's a damn fast machine. Much faster than the dual core intel iMac (with the stupid reflective screen) I have at work
your lighting must suck.
ive never ONCE had an issue with the screen. its really nice. get a new job. hahaha.
According to this site : Primatelabs, Mac performance (april 2008), the 4 cores PowerMac G5 has a compound score of 3217 while the Dual Core Intel iMac have a compound score between 2652 (Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0 GHz, early 2007) and 3608 (Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 2.8 GHz, mid 2007).
It depends on what you benchmark - the G5 has much higher throughput performance. The iMac is still a laptop remember and I find that the G5 is still generally faster.
Anyway, the major issue will be that the Mac Pro was released in August 2006. This will be less than 3 years after someone could have bought a G5 tower - in other words, it could still have Applecare warranty.
It's fair enough to drop support for old machines like G4 towers but not machines still under warranty.
I still think they should do it though because Snow Leopard is a performance upgrade and could easily just be the Intel optimized version of Leopard. Leopard works on PPC already. There will be no new features to speak of that PPC Leopard owners will be lacking relative to the Intel counterparts.
So I don't think it's so much dropping support as just focusing optimization on the Intel architecture. The real question will be whether you can target universal binaries from Snow Leopard and whether those binaries run ok on Leopard. If both are true then PPC owners have nothing to worry about.
Some people are quite concerned as to whether the cooling systems in those things would hold up for very long.
rightly so. i had a quad g5 and two of my friends had dual 2.5s. all three machines failed within a couple months of each other this year. all three were replaced with macpros. i like my mac pro much more than i did my quad g5. i can hear other things in the room again, which is nice.
im not sure what all the complaints are for. if it's just like a SP, 10.6 will be useless to most people and in their eyes, not worth the 130-150 dollar price tag.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bedouin
I'm an Apple fan, but charging $139 for what seems to be the equivalent of an MS service pack doesn't jive too well with me.
I love the way people keep listing the price of a developer preview of software that's at least a year away from release.
Either way I think that the irritation of the Leopard experience and the news that they are looking to stabilise it and power it up, not to mention the quite-exciting-sounding new technologies, will bring forth the $NZ199 from me quite easily .
True. However, the point stands that looking at the requirements for a Developer Preview of a technology as the final requirements is not valid.
Again true, but it does not imply that the PPC will be finally supported (of course you don't say that either). In fact, although I did not follow this from the beginning, I remember that the 867 MHz G4 requirement for Leopad showed up in some development builds many months before release and guess what, that was it.
Weighing other factors too explained before by the others here, I am inclined to believe that Kasper is right.
I'm not surprised at this development at all. I have a maxed-out Dual-1GHz G4, and since installing Leopard, my machine's response has become appallingly sluggish. Running iTunes, Mail, Safari and iPhoto will slow the machine to a crawl, especially when changing apps. In addition, my 2GB of RAM is almost always running about 1200-1300MB used. Pre-Leopard OS X didn't every use this much RAM, even with a dozen apps running simultaneously.
Mind you, your system is a little above the minimum requirements for processing power (G4 867 MHz). Plus, Leopard eats RAM for breakfast. Really. 2 GB will give you pain because of frequent page outs if you do anything demanding or keep the machine running without rebooting for a long time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CajunMike
Leopard appears to be quite disk-intensive on the PPC platform;
I see no reason why this would be so, but with "only" 2 GB you probably have many page outs. This will slow down considerably even a fast system, let alone yours. Check out what is listed in /var/vm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CajunMike
maybe the code to run Leopard on PPC is not at all efficient, not to mention the processors simply don't have the firepower of the Intel chips.
Although I don't know, I would not be surprised to find out that this is the case. Apple has to move on and focus on Intel optimizations.
No one is being forced in any way, you are being offered enhanced OS's and software if you choose to upgrade your equipment.
Chevy does not force you to upgrade to the new model year, but you don't get the latest improvements unless you do. Again, a choice.
Of course, and you can safely bet that there will be frequent Leopard updates (mostly about security and individual applications) even after the Snow Leopard release. Today and occasionally, some updates show up even for Panther.
Comments
Those are only up to April 2008. Since then new iMacs have been released. Primate labs lists even the slowest and cheapest iMac at only $1100 as scoring a 3220 with only 1GB RAM.
You are right, and this proves my point even more ! The professional Quad G5 is now floored by the amateur's iMac !
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3.06GHz : 3995
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz (entry level) : 3220
PowerPC G5 (970MP) 2.5 GHz (4 cores) : 3217
You are right, and this proves my point even more ! The professional Quad G5 is now floored by the amateur's iMac !
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3.06GHz : 3995
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz (entry level) : 3220
PowerPC G5 (970MP) 2.5 GHz (4 cores) : 3217
Wow! And remember: the G3 iMac didn't need a fan. The G4 iMac did need a fan. The G5 iMac had to be liquid cooled. Presumably, the G6 iMac, if there had been one, would have had to be kept in a separate, air-conditioned room and cooled with liquid helium! And a quad-core G6? The mind boggles! I don't think you have to look any further than that for the reason for the Intel transition.
Why are they people who is hoping Mac OS X to be on PCs? Cant you see that Apple wants to be in control of the hardware spec of their product.
They acquire PA to develop processor for the iPhone and iPod.
Anyway, I know some PPC users will be hurt with Apple move but hey, maybe the reason Apple is not really going to introduce any new big feature for Snow Leopard is cause they want to let the public know that they are moving towards Intel only support so asking the users to get ready to buy a new Mac the following year (Im talking after SL, Mac OS X 10.7 (Or Mac OS 11))
First off, I skimmed the page wheelhot links to in his/her sig (arguing Apple will never just sell software). Granted, I didn't read the whole thing in detail, but doesn't that author also claim on the same page that the switch to Intel won't happen? Not only is the article quite dated in its view point, it's wrong. Not very compelling.
Another critique on that article:
The only way to see the Mac as unsuccessful is to compare it to Windows on Microsoft’s terms — market share and raw profit. And that’s exactly how analysts and the PC press cover the Mac.
What they miss is that the Mac’s primary purpose is to be better. Windows’s (sic) primary purpose is to be ubiquitous.
Both companies exist to make money, and certainly Apple wants Macs to be better. I think Apple will sell its OS to run on non-Apple hardware. This will make them a lot of money. When they do this, they will also make sure that Macs are better. This is how I see PA Semi fitting in. They will ensure that the OS is optimized for Apple hardware.
I haven't finished reading the thread about Steve's claim that PA is going to make iPhone chips, but my initial impression is that this is a weird comment to make when you've just introduced a new phone. A phone that obviously doesn't use this hardware technology. It seems like bait and switch to me. --Not that the statement is a lie. I just doubt that's the real reason.
Back to Snow Leopard:
I'm ambivalent in my opinion about whether or not PPC will be supported; I can see the argument from both sides and I feel strongly both ways. I'll need to cogitate on it more. However, I think PPC will ultimately be supported. My thinking is that the line of reasoning that says it's too hard (PPC 32 bit/64 bit & same w/Intel) is overblown. They've done it before and they've done it when they were working on big new projects--read: "iPhone". Sure, Leopard was delayed a while--a short while.
And here Apple has just finished with the new iPhone. They've already developed it and manufactured it. What's going to prevent them from concentrating on Snow Leopard for all relevant hardware? Those quad G5s are still relevant hardware. Also, I'm in agreement with those who can't see leaving Leopard as the last OS for the PPC--it's just not good enough for it.
10.6 for Intel only is not abandoning support for PPC as others have argued. So that mind-walk is moot. But the fact that Apple has committed to supporting the PPC for 5 years is ample reason to make Snow Leopard support PPC. That would be an easier way of providing support than having to maintain two different OSs for two sets of hardware. I submit that that approach would be harder to implement than just getting 10.6 to work on 32/64 PPC/Intel.
While I'm firm in my belief that Apple will open its OS to non-Apple hardware, I don't think this will happen straight-off with the release of 10.6. It will either be the next version of the OS or Apple will do it with 10.6 after some delay post introduction.
I think the plan is to optimize Snow Leopard for the hardware that PA is going to add to Macs--not iPhones. At the same time, Snow Leopard will be optimized for multiple cores, period--be they PPC or Intel. They need both to provide enough hype and oomph to get people to buy it, because I agree there won't be very many owners of current hardware that will feel they really need it. Basically, Apple will hype how optimized it is for existing hardware. People will buy it. [EDIT]People with PPC computers will especially buy it if Apple says "this is it; no maintenance on any other OS X versions supported by PPC."[/EDIT] After they've milked it for all they can to existing Apple owners, then they'll open it to other hardware. And that's when they'll also unveil their own new hardware with PA stuff so that they can maintain the Mac performance edge and cachet.
I wouldn't worry too much about developers dropping PPC. Even if this happens, by the time it does the OS will work on anything and the requisite hardware will be inexpensive--more so than it already is. That's when the PPC will be obsolete. Even if they're still "relevant" machines, it will be so cheap to work with developer software that doesn't support PPC that the idea of there still being good G5s won't even matter. They'll go to JPL or whatever and the tax write-off will pay for the new systems.
You are right, and this proves my point even more ! The professional Quad G5 is now floored by the amateur's iMac!
Note: Someone will say it so I'm going to beat them to the punch... It should be made clear that PPC Macs are still quite viable machines. Benchmark tests and real world tests are different; there are undoubtedly several programs or processes within certain programs that would run better on a Power Mac G5 than the entry new level iMac. Also, your PPC Macs are obsolescing but are not obsolete. That word gets misused so often in the computer industry.
Wow! And remember: the G3 iMac didn't need a fan. The G4 iMac did need a fan. The G5 iMac had to be liquid cooled. Presumably, the G6 iMac, if there had been one, would have had to be kept in a separate, air-conditioned room and cooled with liquid helium! And a quad-core G6? The mind boggles! I don't think you have to look any further than that for the reason for the Intel transition.
Only the top model of the G5 Power Mac in three product iterations was liquid cooled (2.5 dual, 2.7 dual, 2.5 quad). The G5 iMac just had a regular heat sink as far as I remember. But it did run warm.
If Apple decides to make Snow Leopard Intel only in it's finality I understand that decision. I think the decision would very much stem from resources at Apple. Up until a year ago Apple had but one OS platform to run. Now they have 3 and could end up with more.
I'm for putting Leopard into maintenance mode and maintaining security updates until 10.7 comes.
The main draw to Snow Leopard will likely be centered around Quicktime X, Grand Central and OpenCL.
While these features and further optimizations will be desired by PPC users their hardware, quite honestly, will not sufficiently benefit from the features in all likelyhood.
We really need to see what Apple can do when giving a more singular focus on optimizing OS X. The bugs in the API the niggling glitches and areas that haven't seen much work need to be be ironed out.
Eventually those PPC Macs will be replaced with Intel based Macs and at that time the PPC users who've felt abandoned will finally experience the fruits of Apple's labor and their own sacrifice.
Because it's not that old a platform, and the increase in speed isn't all that much yet. The quad G5s are still faster than most intel models.
um, no. our 2.4 core2duo imacs here smoke our quad g5's in encoding, and most - if not all - other non-GPU uses.
Only the top model of the G5 Power Mac in three product iterations was liquid cooled (2.5 dual, 2.7 dual, 2.5 quad). The G5 iMac just had a regular heat sink as far as I remember. But it did run warm.
Sorry, my bad!
Sorry, my bad!
No problem, but your main point was valid in other ways. The G5 chip did run pretty hot. We got as good performance and much lower heat with the Core Duo iMac. The G5 quad was reputed to have a monster heat output, the Mac Pros consume considerably less power, and thus less heat output, for about the same compute strength and lower cost.
No problem, but your main point was valid in other ways. The G5 chip did run pretty hot. We got as good performance and much lower heat with the Core Duo iMac.
And power usage. I wonder how much money that saves over the lifetime of the Mac. Not a big difference in most upgrades but those were pretty substantial power usage differences as I recall.
My G5 has four cores. Quad 2.5 GHz and it's a damn fast machine. Much faster than the dual core intel iMac (with the stupid reflective screen) I have at work
your lighting must suck.
ive never ONCE had an issue with the screen. its really nice. get a new job. hahaha.
According to this site : Primatelabs, Mac performance (april 2008), the 4 cores PowerMac G5 has a compound score of 3217 while the Dual Core Intel iMac have a compound score between 2652 (Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0 GHz, early 2007) and 3608 (Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 2.8 GHz, mid 2007).
It depends on what you benchmark - the G5 has much higher throughput performance. The iMac is still a laptop remember and I find that the G5 is still generally faster.
Anyway, the major issue will be that the Mac Pro was released in August 2006. This will be less than 3 years after someone could have bought a G5 tower - in other words, it could still have Applecare warranty.
It's fair enough to drop support for old machines like G4 towers but not machines still under warranty.
I still think they should do it though because Snow Leopard is a performance upgrade and could easily just be the Intel optimized version of Leopard. Leopard works on PPC already. There will be no new features to speak of that PPC Leopard owners will be lacking relative to the Intel counterparts.
So I don't think it's so much dropping support as just focusing optimization on the Intel architecture. The real question will be whether you can target universal binaries from Snow Leopard and whether those binaries run ok on Leopard. If both are true then PPC owners have nothing to worry about.
The last generation of PowerMac G5s had dual core PPCs.
So the answer "one" would have worked.
Meanwhile all but one model of Intel Macs has multiple cores (the Core Solo Mac Mini).
Why develop legacy compatibility for an entire OS if it will only benefit one obscure model?
-Clive
Some people are quite concerned as to whether the cooling systems in those things would hold up for very long.
rightly so. i had a quad g5 and two of my friends had dual 2.5s. all three machines failed within a couple months of each other this year. all three were replaced with macpros. i like my mac pro much more than i did my quad g5. i can hear other things in the room again, which is nice.
im not sure what all the complaints are for. if it's just like a SP, 10.6 will be useless to most people and in their eyes, not worth the 130-150 dollar price tag.
I'm an Apple fan, but charging $139 for what seems to be the equivalent of an MS service pack doesn't jive too well with me.
I love the way people keep listing the price of a developer preview of software that's at least a year away from release.
True. However, the point stands that looking at the requirements for a Developer Preview of a technology as the final requirements is not valid.
Again true, but it does not imply that the PPC will be finally supported (of course you don't say that either). In fact, although I did not follow this from the beginning, I remember that the 867 MHz G4 requirement for Leopad showed up in some development builds many months before release and guess what, that was it.
Weighing other factors too explained before by the others here, I am inclined to believe that Kasper is right.
With all this cutting back why is Snow Leopard a 8gb install?
Because it is still under development?
I'm not surprised at this development at all. I have a maxed-out Dual-1GHz G4, and since installing Leopard, my machine's response has become appallingly sluggish. Running iTunes, Mail, Safari and iPhoto will slow the machine to a crawl, especially when changing apps. In addition, my 2GB of RAM is almost always running about 1200-1300MB used. Pre-Leopard OS X didn't every use this much RAM, even with a dozen apps running simultaneously.
Mind you, your system is a little above the minimum requirements for processing power (G4 867 MHz). Plus, Leopard eats RAM for breakfast. Really. 2 GB will give you pain because of frequent page outs if you do anything demanding or keep the machine running without rebooting for a long time.
Leopard appears to be quite disk-intensive on the PPC platform;
I see no reason why this would be so, but with "only" 2 GB you probably have many page outs. This will slow down considerably even a fast system, let alone yours. Check out what is listed in /var/vm.
maybe the code to run Leopard on PPC is not at all efficient, not to mention the processors simply don't have the firepower of the Intel chips.
Although I don't know, I would not be surprised to find out that this is the case. Apple has to move on and focus on Intel optimizations.
No one is being forced in any way, you are being offered enhanced OS's and software if you choose to upgrade your equipment.
Chevy does not force you to upgrade to the new model year, but you don't get the latest improvements unless you do. Again, a choice.
Of course, and you can safely bet that there will be frequent Leopard updates (mostly about security and individual applications) even after the Snow Leopard release. Today and occasionally, some updates show up even for Panther.