<strong> but if they don't do it soon then they won't be able to catch up.</strong><hr></blockquote>
There ya go again with that truth stuff ... geez, just tell the hostess it's a lovely chrome dinette and get the hell out of there ... oh, hang on, we all live and depend on this house of Apple don't we?
Well then, that being the case, uh... what I'm trying to say is ... you see, well, it's just that, um ... I'm afraid a lot of this G4 ego puffery stuff that seems to fly around this place - 'cause it makes us feel good and all? Well, it's not doing any of us any good anymore, in fact, it's actually starting to make us all look a little silly ... the truth is, the G4 as it stands should've been relegated to the iMac last Summer.
You say this as though the main separation between Merc and BMW engines and Hundai engines is the speed at which they run. Not true at all. The main difference between these engines are that the high end ones perform better at similar speeds and use advanced technology to achive superior performance. One could argue that the G4 is the BMW of current processors because it is based on a more advanced design and is more powerfull than Pwhatevers at comperable speeds.
considering the amout of brain power that goes into a new intel chip compared to a new motorola I am constantly amazed the G4 is as good as it is.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Bad analogy. Rather than comparing the speed of the cars, compare the horsepower of the engine's. The Hyundi will have 125, the BMW M5 will have 300+. Apple's got the BMW price with a Hyundi engine. Let's hope they've got an ultra-modern 4.0L twin-turbo V6 with variable timing and direct injection up their sleeves and just waiting for production to ramp up...
[quote] Unfortunately I don't recall a time when Apple had fallen so far behind WIntel, and there certainly hasn't been a time when WIntel has been anything like this close in terms of usability. The latest x86 machines are really really fast, and with Win2K and WinXP many of the old performance bottlenecks are gone. I am optimistic that Apple can close the gap, if not jump ahead -- but if they don't do it soon then they won't be able to catch up.
<hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately, Programmer speaks the truth. Dark days loom on Apple's horizon. If they don't find a way to close the GHz gap soon, then that 5% market share will quickly drop to 1-2%, or worse.
What happens when Macs are so slow that they can't do the things that Wintel machines do? Currently, and disparities in OS and app functionality between Mac and Windows is primarily software based, and can be quickly changed. For example, any time Apple pulls ahead in GUI design or aesthetics, M$ can rip off the idea and code their own version overnight. But if PPC performance lags too far behind x86 performance, then feature disparities between Mac and windows won't be software based any longer. Apple programmers won't be able to implement certain features because the hardware isn't powerful enough. Application developers will have to neuter their Mac OS applications relative to their Windows counterparts, because the hardware is impotent.
The current state of affairs isn't this bad yet, but the time is rapidly approaching when a Mac won't be able to do what a Wintel does, because all of its apps are neutered, because the CPU isn't good enough to perform the needed tasks. When does this happen? When PPCs are clocked at 1/4 of the GHz of x86? 1/8? 1/10?
At the current rate of PPC development, we can look forward to Mac hardware clocked to 1/4th of the GHz of Wintels. I don't care how heavily an app is optimized for altivec...it's not going to make up for that kind of clockspeed difference.
The stink of it all is that Apple is rocking! OS X is finally beginning to mature, Mac hardware is the best it's ever been, except for CPUs. And did I mention that OS X rocks?
If Apple had GHz advantage right now, if PPC was ahead of x86 in performance, then this would be the time that Apple began to reclaim the market share that is rightfully theirs.
The G5 is either going be Apple's savior, or it will signal Apple's doom. Everything depends on the availability of G5s clocked to insane speeds.
I still think that this is a bit out of proportion. Saying that just because the clockrate on a P4 is so much faster than a G4 doesn't really mean as much as might seem at first glance. We need to look at the whole system. I know that at work our Flame* running on an old Octane with dual MIPS R10K chips at 250Mhz (yes, only 250Mhz), cleans the clocks of our dual G4 500Mhz machines. Everything is not based on processor speeds. Final Cut Pro on a G4 can do all it's effects in Real Time. Avid on a P4 needs a ton of special hardware that costs a lot of money. Or at least you have to buy a real-time processing board (Targa, Matrox Digisuite, etc.), and those cost money. So what will you take? A G4 with RT Final Cut, or that blazing P4 that has an insanely high clock rate and then needs another $1000 card to do real-time DV? If you look at that zdnet benchmark that you have linked to, you will notice that the G4 kicked the hind end of everything else on the list in the unsharp mask and the polar coordinates. It was only behind by a second in the gaussian blur (which is hardly anything). I'm not too sure about the other tests though. A web page that takes 4 1/2 minutes to load seems pretty bogus to me. Anyways, it's the whole system (motherboard, RAM, etc.), including software, that makes a machine, not just the processor that powers it
<strong>Faster RAM and OS 10.3 will help ALOT.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No it wont. There is no super fast OS X out there. There is no big change coming in OS X speed. We've seen nothing at all to make us think that Apple is going to ship a "fast" OS X. It's just not there.
A sadder fact is that becuse OS X is slow and ships a the default now the new PowerMacs are "slower" than the old ones.
The G5 will begin with 800 Mhz as say the roadmap. iMac high end is 800 Mhz. Is that not a sign that the next PM will be a G5 from 800-1200 Mhz and before the year end 1.2-1.6 GHz. That will close the gap with AMD and Intel and the iMac will have Apollo at MWNY.
i reckon the G5 will be out by end of the year, just how early i cannot speculate, but i reckon Apple have to pull the rabbit out the hat cos otherwise they are gonna lose a lot of respect in the pro market.
I have a P3 700, 512Mb RAM and a Pinnacle DV500 board.
It was just on MacNN that the Swedish website of Epson mentioned the G5 on their driver page for the latest Epson printer.
There are a lot of non-believers out there, but I say if this is indeed a hoax, it is the most elaborate one ever of the new century.
If you leave aside the MOSR and Register rumors, there's still a lot more information coming out about the G5. I believed in the G5 when Architosh said their sources had test machines. They've never been a rumor site.
That and the fact that Apple has been the laughingstock of the computer industry with the relative performance of the G4s recently, and no matter what he says about the Mhz myth or what carefully selected bake-offs he presents, Steve must be looking for a solution to this problem.
The thing is, that it seems that Apple's product development cycles are a little longer than we would expect them to be, which might turn out to be a problem in the future even if the G5 does ship real soon and is the sort of super-chip it's rumored to be.
Steve said in the analysts meeting after MWNY back in July that "they had brought back the PPC allience that was in ruins when he came back to Apple". He said that PPC development had stalled at that point and that they'd re-ignited it, but that "it took some time to get the fruits of those efforts and they were just beginning to see them."
I think the G4+ was just to hold off people for a little while longer until the real thing was supposed to show up.
If you look at the fact the the new iMac has been in development in two years, it's insane to believe that the people at Apple have just been sitting around since 1999 and waiting to see what kind of new chips Motorola or IBM will surprise them with, when the CPU is the single most important part of a computer.
On <a href="http://www.architosh.com"; target="_blank">Architosh</a> you can see that that their rumor source and common sense are right . G5 is comming and those so much talked about G4 apollo are for the next generation iMacs( rev b). Who will get this new PPC in the summer or sooner, but that's not possible i guess.
G5 are going to be announced soon!! <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
Comments
<strong>Pro shops aren't going to change their entire workflow and os just on the occasional bad Mac processor year.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What about the bad processor quarter decade?
<strong> but if they don't do it soon then they won't be able to catch up.</strong><hr></blockquote>
There ya go again with that truth stuff ... geez, just tell the hostess it's a lovely chrome dinette and get the hell out of there ... oh, hang on, we all live and depend on this house of Apple don't we?
Well then, that being the case, uh... what I'm trying to say is ... you see, well, it's just that, um ... I'm afraid a lot of this G4 ego puffery stuff that seems to fly around this place - 'cause it makes us feel good and all? Well, it's not doing any of us any good anymore, in fact, it's actually starting to make us all look a little silly ... the truth is, the G4 as it stands should've been relegated to the iMac last Summer.
<strong>
You say this as though the main separation between Merc and BMW engines and Hundai engines is the speed at which they run. Not true at all. The main difference between these engines are that the high end ones perform better at similar speeds and use advanced technology to achive superior performance. One could argue that the G4 is the BMW of current processors because it is based on a more advanced design and is more powerfull than Pwhatevers at comperable speeds.
considering the amout of brain power that goes into a new intel chip compared to a new motorola I am constantly amazed the G4 is as good as it is.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Bad analogy. Rather than comparing the speed of the cars, compare the horsepower of the engine's. The Hyundi will have 125, the BMW M5 will have 300+. Apple's got the BMW price with a Hyundi engine. Let's hope they've got an ultra-modern 4.0L twin-turbo V6 with variable timing and direct injection up their sleeves and just waiting for production to ramp up...
<hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately, Programmer speaks the truth. Dark days loom on Apple's horizon. If they don't find a way to close the GHz gap soon, then that 5% market share will quickly drop to 1-2%, or worse.
What happens when Macs are so slow that they can't do the things that Wintel machines do? Currently, and disparities in OS and app functionality between Mac and Windows is primarily software based, and can be quickly changed. For example, any time Apple pulls ahead in GUI design or aesthetics, M$ can rip off the idea and code their own version overnight. But if PPC performance lags too far behind x86 performance, then feature disparities between Mac and windows won't be software based any longer. Apple programmers won't be able to implement certain features because the hardware isn't powerful enough. Application developers will have to neuter their Mac OS applications relative to their Windows counterparts, because the hardware is impotent.
The current state of affairs isn't this bad yet, but the time is rapidly approaching when a Mac won't be able to do what a Wintel does, because all of its apps are neutered, because the CPU isn't good enough to perform the needed tasks. When does this happen? When PPCs are clocked at 1/4 of the GHz of x86? 1/8? 1/10?
At the current rate of PPC development, we can look forward to Mac hardware clocked to 1/4th of the GHz of Wintels. I don't care how heavily an app is optimized for altivec...it's not going to make up for that kind of clockspeed difference.
The stink of it all is that Apple is rocking! OS X is finally beginning to mature, Mac hardware is the best it's ever been, except for CPUs. And did I mention that OS X rocks?
If Apple had GHz advantage right now, if PPC was ahead of x86 in performance, then this would be the time that Apple began to reclaim the market share that is rightfully theirs.
The G5 is either going be Apple's savior, or it will signal Apple's doom. Everything depends on the availability of G5s clocked to insane speeds.
Apple's judgment day--it's here, this year.
<strong>Faster RAM and OS 10.3 will help ALOT.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No it wont. There is no super fast OS X out there. There is no big change coming in OS X speed. We've seen nothing at all to make us think that Apple is going to ship a "fast" OS X. It's just not there.
A sadder fact is that becuse OS X is slow and ships a the default now the new PowerMacs are "slower" than the old ones.
<strong> Pro shops aren't going to change their entire workflow and os just on the occasional bad Mac processor year.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Tell that to SGI.
<strong>
The G5 is either going be Apple's savior, or it will signal Apple's doom. Everything depends on the availability of G5s clocked to insane speeds.
Apple's judgment day--it's here, this year.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Its like a movie
Is that a good theory? :-)
I have a P3 700, 512Mb RAM and a Pinnacle DV500 board.
total cost: $1500.
realtime DV effects galore.
Apple need to compete with that.
if a 700 can do it, why buy a Mac?
There are a lot of non-believers out there, but I say if this is indeed a hoax, it is the most elaborate one ever of the new century.
If you leave aside the MOSR and Register rumors, there's still a lot more information coming out about the G5. I believed in the G5 when Architosh said their sources had test machines. They've never been a rumor site.
That and the fact that Apple has been the laughingstock of the computer industry with the relative performance of the G4s recently, and no matter what he says about the Mhz myth or what carefully selected bake-offs he presents, Steve must be looking for a solution to this problem.
The thing is, that it seems that Apple's product development cycles are a little longer than we would expect them to be, which might turn out to be a problem in the future even if the G5 does ship real soon and is the sort of super-chip it's rumored to be.
Steve said in the analysts meeting after MWNY back in July that "they had brought back the PPC allience that was in ruins when he came back to Apple". He said that PPC development had stalled at that point and that they'd re-ignited it, but that "it took some time to get the fruits of those efforts and they were just beginning to see them."
I think the G4+ was just to hold off people for a little while longer until the real thing was supposed to show up.
If you look at the fact the the new iMac has been in development in two years, it's insane to believe that the people at Apple have just been sitting around since 1999 and waiting to see what kind of new chips Motorola or IBM will surprise them with, when the CPU is the single most important part of a computer.
G5 are going to be announced soon!! <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />