<strong>Designing computer hardware is generally faster than writing software, even if it involves making a special ASIC. Designing a new CPU or GPU, however, is far more demanding than making a new OS.
OSX has fallen in the Windows trap, becoming dependent on the advancement of hardware to become user friendly speedwise. It is only acceptable for a fulltime user when running on the fastest hardware presently available - and XP is faster at present in the user interaction department (measuring response, not control layout).
engpjp</strong><hr></blockquote>
This I find is a rather specious argument. I run OS X 10.2 Jaguar on a 266mhz iMac with 128MB of RAM and I LOVE IT. I run serious applications and the computer is over four years old. Try doing that on the MINIMUM specs (which is about where I am) for XP. It blows serious chunks.
In the end all this crap about the sky is falling WRT gigahertz doesn't mean jack. I see hundreds, if not thousands of people each week in the Apple store who LOVE these computers. If they have one they tell me how much they love it. If they don't they tell me just how much they'd love to have one. That's the most important factor. The love factor. Not the gigahertz factor. If you're a numbers kinda guy, go get a Dell. If you want to get some work done with a computer that works, doesn't crash, and has an operating system that stays out of your way, stick with Mac.
If Apple had given me one clue as to what was coming next year, I probably would have bought the 867. Or at very least waited 6 months. but there is just a big fat silence. I undertand WHY Apple needs to play this game, but ultimately the way things are going, it is not a game they will win.
I hope Apple does get 3ghz G5's on a RIO bus with DDR400 memory, I hope they get ATI/nVidia next gen cards first, and I hope everyone buys OSX and I'd love Apple to get 100% marketshare by next year.
I didn't want to buy a PC really, but there are just no compelling alternatives right now. I have to make the best purchase for my requirements, I cant afford to buy empty promises or RDF. If Apple shows for the next 3 years that they can compete with Parity with Wintel, Ill gladly come back. If it carries on as it is, Im glad I switched now.
I also wish that you write to Apple and let them know how you feel. But before you do so you should make yourself aware of certain realities.
Most of the reasons that you gave for Pro-PC purchansing have to do with PC upgrades and value maintenance. You want to maximize the value of your investment. PC upgrades represent an almost criminal mythology that the PC industry supports. First, on the PC side, you will find that the majority of significant upgrades that you want to apply either a) simply won't work (motherboard incompatibilities, new memory needed... etc), b) will be not worth the cost due to other needed "co-upgrades" or c) will unbalance your system such that you will be dissappointed with the results. Very few instances of the hardware upgrades I have seen in PCs--at least of the nontrivial kind--have produced the kind of results that were expected going in. I don't believe this will change, as it is in the interests of the hardware companies to make you feel like you are making a long term investment when you buy their box. Especially for the kinds of major changes you cited in your post (Hammer, etc.).
On the Mac side, however, you have machines that are sold as balanced (for the most part, and current perceived bandwidth issues aside) systems. The motherboard can't be upgraded because Apple won't let you. They won't let you because they see the "Cheshire Cat's smile" of hardware upgrading as the empty illusion that it is.
Moreover, the Mac retains it's value far longer than the PC without major upgrades. My nearly 4 year old B&W rev 1 with upgrades I can sell right now, with no problems for nearly $600. That money can be rolled into a new machine right now. There's no way a 4 year old PC has that kind of value.
So if preserving the useful lifespan of your investment is the real reason you are vacating the Mac platform, well, I wish you all the best with XP. But I believe you have made an error in judgement.
Well, let's take a look at that, shall we? I just bought a new dual 1 GHz tower with a GeForce 4 Ti. I sure as hell didn't pay $5000 for it, I didn't even pay HALF that for it. Why bother making that point when you know the Ti card can be BTO on any model Power Mac?
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I've always considered it a GOOD thing when companies give you options like that. I don't really see how it can be twisted into being a "bad" thing.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with you that you don't HAVE to pay $5000.00 for a PowerMac with the GeForce 4Ti. However, that was the reasoning for the:
I'm just about to upgrade the machine I got from gateway about 1 & 2/3 years ago. It's a 1Ghz thunderbird athlon with PC 133 memory.
I'm going to upgrade the mobo, memory, and cpu. I already have a good HSF. I have a good decent card (GF3Ti200).
I'll get an XP 2000 + cpu ($91 inc shipping)
I'll get an nForce mobo ($80 inc shipping)
I'll get 512 PC 2100 memory ($92 inc shipping)
(check pricewatch for these figures, if you're so inclined).
Between the faster cpu, memory, fsb... I should see a huge improvement in gaming and number crunching speed. All for $263.
It's not like my Hard-drives needs to be upgraded. Or the case. Or the video card. Or the OS. Or the keyboard. Or the mouse. I get sound, and network included.
$263 for a machine that should be more than 50% faster. Tell me that's not an attractive upgrade...
<strong>The G4 isn't imbued with magical Instruction Per Clock Cycle powers that allow it to do vastly more work per clock cycle than an Athlon or PIV.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually it is. You should look into the pipeline stages involved in the chips before you post on this stuff. The P4 has a 20+ stage pipeline (longer than the p3, which is what makes it slower per clock cycle than the p3), the last I heard the G4 has a seven stage pipeline.
What this means is that the instuctions get stuck in the pipeline for one cycle per pipeline stage. ie 20+ cycles for a p4, and ~7 for a G4. This means that, if fully utilised (flooded), a p4 has to have approx 3 x the MHz of a G4 just to keep up.
Shorter pipelines are more efficient. If my figures are not quite right, the G4 pipeline is at least half that of the p4 - so the argument still holds.
<strong>That's the problem right there. Apple (and Jobs) know they have a cult of diehards willing to put up with almost any level of BS just cause they love macs. If you really want to help Apple, you'll buy a PC and make sure they know why.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's not the answer. Just don't buy new hardware if it doesn't offer compelling upgrades - or if you're going to get stuck with a system you can't use.
<strong>"That's an isolated scenario from a HUGE Chip vendor and even then I'd venture to say Intel as a whole has more Software Engineers in volume."
ok mr. hmurchison smart guy - I speak with authority when I say Intel has more electrical engineers than Software Engineers in head count. Don't venture - your wrong. As for merced being an isolated instance: so is OSX. You speak over that which you do not know. Again, in simple english: it cannot be said that designing hardware vs. designing software is easier or harder, faster or slower, or that it requires more people or less people - it depends on the project. simple as that. There is no global rule.
"Nvidia, ATI and almost any company that has HW that requires drivers will have more software Engineers on staff than hardware. My point still stands...and strong."
the only thing that stands strong is your ignorance. Your blanket statements show the little you actually know about the industry. Just slow down tiger. Why don't you take a trip down San Thomas and stop at Intel and Nvidia (which is practically across the street, in case you didn't know), and politely ask them how many EE's and programmers they have in each company, and then ask "excuse me, which is harder - software or hardware?" - or - why don't you just shut the fck up?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Get over your classroom dreams. The CEO of Nvidia himself said in Wired that they have many more Software Eng. You know ATI and plenty of other companies are the same. I new a guy that worked for Sonnett Tech that said they had like 4 or less HW Engineers.
I guess we can agree to disagree? Don't get your panties in a bunch Man it's not my fault you live in California.
MarcUK-
Don't stress it. There's nothing "evil" about PC..just Microsoft
I also wish that you write to Apple and let them know how you feel. But before you do so you should make yourself aware of certain realities.
Most of the reasons that you gave for Pro-PC purchansing have to do with PC upgrades and value maintenance. You want to maximize the value of your investment. PC upgrades represent an almost criminal mythology that the PC industry supports. First, on the PC side, you will find that the majority of significant upgrades that you want to apply either a) simply won't work (motherboard incompatibilities, new memory needed... etc), b) will be not worth the cost due to other needed "co-upgrades" or c) will unbalance your system such that you will be dissappointed with the results. Very few instances of the hardware upgrades I have seen in PCs--at least of the nontrivial kind--have produced the kind of results that were expected going in. I don't believe this will change, as it is in the interests of the hardware companies to make you feel like you are making a long term investment when you buy their box. Especially for the kinds of major changes you cited in your post (Hammer, etc.).
On the Mac side, however, you have machines that are sold as balanced (for the most part, and current perceived bandwidth issues aside) systems. The motherboard can't be upgraded because Apple won't let you. They won't let you because they see the "Cheshire Cat's smile" of hardware upgrading as the empty illusion that it is.
Moreover, the Mac retains it's value far longer than the PC without major upgrades. My nearly 4 year old B&W rev 1 with upgrades I can sell right now, with no problems for nearly $600. That money can be rolled into a new machine right now. There's no way a 4 year old PC has that kind of value.
So if preserving the useful lifespan of your investment is the real reason you are vacating the Mac platform, well, I wish you all the best with XP. But I believe you have made an error in judgement.</strong><hr></blockquote>
While I hear what you are saying, consider this. For the most part a PC consists of Motherboard, Ram, Processor and Video Card.
Now, go to any large 'parts' vendor and price up a good highend set of these components, I'd bet that ALL of this will come to about the same cost as a Powerlogix 1GHZ G4 upgrade.
I think I make my point clearly enough.
I have bought a very nice case and very decent Powersupply unit. Personally I cant really see the advantage of upgrading a 16x cd writer to a 100x if it were available. A decent soundcard now, will probably not really change much in the next 10 years, so why throw all these useful things away.
Apples are a locked system, that pretty much means that when you want to upgrade, you just buy a brand new one.
As too the other point of macs holding their value longer, well Im glad I can sell my mac for 2/3 of my new PC's price, but if the PC is 3 times cheaper too start with, I wont be too sad, if I could only get £250 for it in 5 years time.
I've followed MarcUk's posts for a while. I sympathise.
He certainly should e-mail his thoughts to Apple. They may learn something about the 'errosion' of customers from their heartlands.
It's hard to defend Apple's premium pricing when you're not getting premium performance. You shouldn't have to pay a premium to have the Mac OS. It's ridiculous.
The emac. Looks cool. 'power'Mac 'looks' cool. iMac. Looks cool etc. But the cpu question really needs addressing. We know the answer won't come this year.
Until then, XP on my 1.6 Athlon is 'good enough'.
What is the most annoying thing is the deafening silence regarding the road map for CPUs.
The 'secrets game' has worked in terms of Apple's recovery for many things.
But of late, it's starting to back fire on them. I'd like to be able to plan a 'power'Mac purchase. I'm even more paranoid of buying now. We know a G5 Mac is gonna come...it could be Jan'...or Summer next year. Who knows. It's frustrating. I think Apple lose more custom this way. My opinion.
The scary thing is that XP is now 'good enough'. And I can assure you that's the first time I've said that about a M$ product.
You should have to pay almost 3K for half the performance of a 2.5 gig Pentium for less than half the price.
My school? Just got back from the Summer holidays. A new suite of computers. XP. 2 gig P4s, 40 hard drive, loads of USB ports, Firewire, 15 inch flat screens etc. Cost? £1,000. They bought 15 of these babies. Made to order.
I just think Apple should have a long hard look at their business model. It's too rigid. Too rigid to reach 10%. I'd like to be proven wrong.
Anyhow. I hope Marc will find it in him to come back to the fold with a low end G5 when it comes, hopefully, in 2003.
Hmmm. Y'know, I sometimes wish Apple would just merge with someone like IBM and let them make the guts and Apple just 'design' the experience, facia, integration and software.
[quote]Actually it is. You should look into the pipeline stages involved in the chips before you post on this stuff. The P4 has a 20+ stage pipeline (longer than the p3, which is what makes it slower per clock cycle than the p3), the last I heard the G4 has a seven stage pipeline.<hr></blockquote>
mmm, it's all so simple, isn't it?
Since you have a good handle on these things, and obvious technical expertise, maybe you could explain to the folks gathered here why AMD's Hammer Chips will sport a longer pipeline (2 stages, IIRC) than the current Athlons, yet will have higher IPC?
I feel like the guy who's got the most gorgeous, loving, caring chick in the whole world. But she gone off the old in-out, in-out for a while, and I went too the hooker to satisfy my urge. I want too keep it a dirty secret, and hope my chick works out her problem
<strong>If Apple had given me one clue as to what was coming next year...
I didn't want to buy a PC really, but there are just no compelling alternatives right now...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple never really comments on what's coming - all we know about is the OS, and they are pretty upfront in that department.
You bought a PC because that's what you wanted to buy. Personally I couldn't afford to do that because the cost in new software/upgrades/crossgrades would far outweigh the cost of the hardware itself - your mileage may vary.
While I've been pleasantly surprised by PC hardware recently, I still think the Windows OS is a horrible piece of junk. If you've never had a PC before I suppose you'll find out pretty soon what TCO (total cost of ownership) is all about and why a PC technician's standard support strategy is "reformat the hard drive and re-install everything".
To respond to the title of this thread: You're right. Apple has no hope. They'll be out of business in 6 months at the outside. You know, people have been saying Apple is going out of business every day, every month and every year since 1984, and you know what? They've been right! Apple has gone out of business approximately 6,570 times now, and if they keep going out of business like that they might actually fail!
So of course Michael Dell was right the 4 or so times he publicly proclaimed Apple was going under, the various industry pundits have been correct every time they've predicted Apple's demise, and now with this thread we can with clear conscience state that no, there is no hope for Apple. They're doomed, and they have been for 18 years now.
Since you have a good handle on these things, and obvious technical expertise, maybe you could explain to the folks gathered here why AMD's Hammer Chips will sport a longer pipeline (2 stages, IIRC) than the current Athlons, yet will have higher IPC?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Because they will also have higher clockspeeds?
It's not a simple trade-off, longer pipelines are slower, shorter are faster... other issues make a difference too, ie bit-depth (aren't new Hammers 64-bit, completely different architecture anyway?). But the message is clear, pipeline length and MHz are important issues, just look at the controversy over the P3 and P4.
To respond to the title of this thread: You're right. Apple has no hope. They'll be out of business in 6 months at the outside. You know, people have been saying Apple is going out of business every day, every month and every year since 1984, and you know what? They've been right! Apple has gone out of business approximately 6,570 times now, and if they keep going out of business like that they might actually fail!
So of course Michael Dell was right the 4 or so times he publicly proclaimed Apple was going under, the various industry pundits have been correct every time they've predicted Apple's demise, and now with this thread we can with clear conscience state that no, there is no hope for Apple. They're doomed, and they have been for 18 years now.
While I dont think I've ever flat out said Apple will be out of business in x amount of time, if you add up what known knowledge there is, it doesn't fill you with a sense of confidence.
There is no Hardware roadmap. From this you can only look at previous performance. We have had a 750 mhz improvemnt in 3 years. We were stuck at 500mhz for 18months. Likewise we've had pretty much the same MB for 4 years. Consider.
What happens if we get stuck at 1.25ghz until 2004/5?
What happens if the speed only increases to 2ghz by 2006?
You can shout about 2 ghz G5's all you like, but when has Apple ever confirmed a G5? When did they ever say the G4 would ever clock higher than 1.25?
Moto itself said the G4 would top out around 1ghz (but then ironically said it had plenty of legs left). When did Apple confirm that they would move to RIO? When did moto confirm they had RIO compatible chips. When did Apple confirm they were moving to IBM's Power4? When did IBM confirm that said Power4's were mac compatible and the SIMD was altivec compatible? When did Apple confirm they had plans to move to faster DDR memory? When did Apple confirm that new GPU's were available at the same time as the PC's. When did Apple ever tell you anything related to the future other than what you can buy at their store.
The answer over the last few years, is that Apple have told us exacltly FVCK ALL, yet they expect us to keep buying their machines.3 years ago, we had parity with the PC platform. 18 months ago, we were about 1/2 the real-world performance of Wintel, Today it stands about 1/4 $ for $. Extrapolate this 5 years, When PC's are 10x more powerful than macs, do you think Apple will be in good shape then?
Apple got itself in the shite before, because of mismanagement, Good management sorted out the problem AT APPLE when the Mac platform had a distinct advantage over Wintel. Today there is no advantage. Good management cannot sort out the problems of lame-ass suppliers. If Steve-o has been all over MOTO's ass for the last 3 years to produce something, they've been laughing in his face, for they've produced what amounts to sweet FA in relation to the rest of their industry.
Everything Positive we hear about Apple, is just a RUMOUR. Rumours are not fact until you can buy them. The latest rumour is that IBM's Power 4 is NOT altivec compatible, and Apple are not interested in these chips. Apple as usual said Nothing. Seeing as Apple hasn't given any indication of using these chips, would you buy a mac on the premise that IBM might have some nice chips available maybe in about 6 months, but hey maybe 2 years if were unlucky, that may be altivec compatible, but probably not as IBM already ditched Altivec once, and they might be running at 2ghz, but as far as we know could be running at 200mhz, and if all this goes up the fan, you might be able to buy a 1500mhz Powerlogix upgrade for your twice as expensive, twice as slow mac, in two years time that will cost 3/4 the cost of a new mac.
I agree. Secrecy has worked for apple in the past. But not any more! They need a roadmap of what is to come. If they have nothing coming then they need to come up with something fast. People have been crying over a G5 for more than a year now and yet there still is no G5 or any real proof of one. Just RUMORS of an IBM chip but no info whatsoever. This leads me to believe that there is no G5 or similar replacement CPU. WE NEED SOME SOLID INFO ABOUT APPLE'S FUTURE! PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMORE! Motorola can't do shit anymore and apple is hurting because of it. We are to far behind in MOBO design and CPU speed. I do not think apple is doomed but if they really plan to get another 5% they need to be even with the PC side. Otherwise people feel like they are being ripped off.
\tI used to think I liked computers then I realized that I just liked macs. But lately it has been hard to feel good about any future investments in the platform.
\tYes I know PC's suck. All my friends with them are constantly crashing ect. But to them this is not annoying. They are so used to it when their comp crashes they don't even consider it a problem.
\tMy point is that apple can tote their OS as much as they like but the PC people have nothing to compare it to. All they are able to compare is Mhz and to them no matter how efficient the G4 is its still not as fast as their P4 and it costs more. They don't have a point of reference to go buy that is the problem. (If I tell a friend to buy a new PowerMacG4 because the OS is stable and never crashes they just say it costs twice as much, I'd rather crash. And laugh at me)
\tI will never buy a PC. Apple has very little worries about losing any existing customers because we know what the PC side is.
1.It's run speed disk at beginning of week.
2. by end of week the computer is slow and crashes all the time.
3. restart and reinstall ect buy in of month.
h
is is what almost all of my PC using friends do. THEY DO NOT THINK THIS IS COMPUTER TROUBLE. THEY THINK THIS IS NORMAL!
Those of us who've watched the roadmaps at Intel - to pick a name out of the air - have watched deadlines slip and slide, specs degrade and change, projects vanish altogether. I'm not picking on Intel - well, not much. IBM's and Mot's roadmaps are usually obsolete six months after they're published. Anyone who watched the process that led to the selection of Max as the G4 is aware that plans mean nothing. They guarantee nothing. More than, say, 6 months out, they're worth nothing. Well, actually, they're quite useful as FUD, as MarcUK's posts attest, and as his purchasing decision proves.
But when was what became Itanium due? Originally?
Plans change. Markets change. Things happen that are completely out of your control. If Apple had published a three year strategy in 2000 - based, as they would have to be, on the roadmaps at IBM and Mot - how silly would they have looked when the Athlon ignited the race to 1GHz? The fact is that nobody is telling you what they'll be doing in a year. Apple is just honest about it, however unintentionally.
Incidentally, MarcUK, I know a guy who uses Cubase on a PC. It's optimized not only for the Pentium III, but for a particular gaming board (I can get the manufacturer and model if you're interested), which he has. He says that his 733MHz P3 rig outruns even the latest Athlons in Cubase, and so he's eyeing a P4. I don't know how well the latest version performs, but I wouldn't be surprised if at this point it's optimized for an Asus board running a P4.
Depending on the quality of the Mac port, that might explain why there's such a performance disparity. Code optimized for an x86 will do poorly on a PPC.
Comments
<strong>Designing computer hardware is generally faster than writing software, even if it involves making a special ASIC. Designing a new CPU or GPU, however, is far more demanding than making a new OS.
OSX has fallen in the Windows trap, becoming dependent on the advancement of hardware to become user friendly speedwise. It is only acceptable for a fulltime user when running on the fastest hardware presently available - and XP is faster at present in the user interaction department (measuring response, not control layout).
engpjp</strong><hr></blockquote>
This I find is a rather specious argument. I run OS X 10.2 Jaguar on a 266mhz iMac with 128MB of RAM and I LOVE IT. I run serious applications and the computer is over four years old. Try doing that on the MINIMUM specs (which is about where I am) for XP. It blows serious chunks.
In the end all this crap about the sky is falling WRT gigahertz doesn't mean jack. I see hundreds, if not thousands of people each week in the Apple store who LOVE these computers. If they have one they tell me how much they love it. If they don't they tell me just how much they'd love to have one. That's the most important factor. The love factor. Not the gigahertz factor. If you're a numbers kinda guy, go get a Dell. If you want to get some work done with a computer that works, doesn't crash, and has an operating system that stays out of your way, stick with Mac.
I hope Apple does get 3ghz G5's on a RIO bus with DDR400 memory, I hope they get ATI/nVidia next gen cards first, and I hope everyone buys OSX and I'd love Apple to get 100% marketshare by next year.
I didn't want to buy a PC really, but there are just no compelling alternatives right now. I have to make the best purchase for my requirements, I cant afford to buy empty promises or RDF. If Apple shows for the next 3 years that they can compete with Parity with Wintel, Ill gladly come back. If it carries on as it is, Im glad I switched now.
No flames. Just a comment.
I also wish that you write to Apple and let them know how you feel. But before you do so you should make yourself aware of certain realities.
Most of the reasons that you gave for Pro-PC purchansing have to do with PC upgrades and value maintenance. You want to maximize the value of your investment. PC upgrades represent an almost criminal mythology that the PC industry supports. First, on the PC side, you will find that the majority of significant upgrades that you want to apply either a) simply won't work (motherboard incompatibilities, new memory needed... etc), b) will be not worth the cost due to other needed "co-upgrades" or c) will unbalance your system such that you will be dissappointed with the results. Very few instances of the hardware upgrades I have seen in PCs--at least of the nontrivial kind--have produced the kind of results that were expected going in. I don't believe this will change, as it is in the interests of the hardware companies to make you feel like you are making a long term investment when you buy their box. Especially for the kinds of major changes you cited in your post (Hammer, etc.).
On the Mac side, however, you have machines that are sold as balanced (for the most part, and current perceived bandwidth issues aside) systems. The motherboard can't be upgraded because Apple won't let you. They won't let you because they see the "Cheshire Cat's smile" of hardware upgrading as the empty illusion that it is.
Moreover, the Mac retains it's value far longer than the PC without major upgrades. My nearly 4 year old B&W rev 1 with upgrades I can sell right now, with no problems for nearly $600. That money can be rolled into a new machine right now. There's no way a 4 year old PC has that kind of value.
So if preserving the useful lifespan of your investment is the real reason you are vacating the Mac platform, well, I wish you all the best with XP. But I believe you have made an error in judgement.
<strong>
Well, let's take a look at that, shall we? I just bought a new dual 1 GHz tower with a GeForce 4 Ti. I sure as hell didn't pay $5000 for it, I didn't even pay HALF that for it. Why bother making that point when you know the Ti card can be BTO on any model Power Mac?
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I've always considered it a GOOD thing when companies give you options like that. I don't really see how it can be twisted into being a "bad" thing.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with you that you don't HAVE to pay $5000.00 for a PowerMac with the GeForce 4Ti. However, that was the reasoning for the:
(preconfigured)
after the price tag. please refer to <a href="http://store.apple.com"; target="_blank">http://store.apple.com</A>; for the PowerMac that I'm referring to.
Regards,
-theMagius
P.S. In case you missed it, I'm proposing that Apple should have MORE configurable options on machines under $1700.00.
I'm just about to upgrade the machine I got from gateway about 1 & 2/3 years ago. It's a 1Ghz thunderbird athlon with PC 133 memory.
I'm going to upgrade the mobo, memory, and cpu. I already have a good HSF. I have a good decent card (GF3Ti200).
I'll get an XP 2000 + cpu ($91 inc shipping)
I'll get an nForce mobo ($80 inc shipping)
I'll get 512 PC 2100 memory ($92 inc shipping)
(check pricewatch for these figures, if you're so inclined).
Between the faster cpu, memory, fsb... I should see a huge improvement in gaming and number crunching speed. All for $263.
It's not like my Hard-drives needs to be upgraded. Or the case. Or the video card. Or the OS. Or the keyboard. Or the mouse. I get sound, and network included.
$263 for a machine that should be more than 50% faster. Tell me that's not an attractive upgrade...
neye
<strong>The G4 isn't imbued with magical Instruction Per Clock Cycle powers that allow it to do vastly more work per clock cycle than an Athlon or PIV.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually it is. You should look into the pipeline stages involved in the chips before you post on this stuff. The P4 has a 20+ stage pipeline (longer than the p3, which is what makes it slower per clock cycle than the p3), the last I heard the G4 has a seven stage pipeline.
What this means is that the instuctions get stuck in the pipeline for one cycle per pipeline stage. ie 20+ cycles for a p4, and ~7 for a G4. This means that, if fully utilised (flooded), a p4 has to have approx 3 x the MHz of a G4 just to keep up.
Shorter pipelines are more efficient. If my figures are not quite right, the G4 pipeline is at least half that of the p4 - so the argument still holds.
<strong>That's the problem right there. Apple (and Jobs) know they have a cult of diehards willing to put up with almost any level of BS just cause they love macs. If you really want to help Apple, you'll buy a PC and make sure they know why.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's not the answer. Just don't buy new hardware if it doesn't offer compelling upgrades - or if you're going to get stuck with a system you can't use.
<strong>"That's an isolated scenario from a HUGE Chip vendor and even then I'd venture to say Intel as a whole has more Software Engineers in volume."
ok mr. hmurchison smart guy - I speak with authority when I say Intel has more electrical engineers than Software Engineers in head count. Don't venture - your wrong. As for merced being an isolated instance: so is OSX. You speak over that which you do not know. Again, in simple english: it cannot be said that designing hardware vs. designing software is easier or harder, faster or slower, or that it requires more people or less people - it depends on the project. simple as that. There is no global rule.
"Nvidia, ATI and almost any company that has HW that requires drivers will have more software Engineers on staff than hardware. My point still stands...and strong."
the only thing that stands strong is your ignorance. Your blanket statements show the little you actually know about the industry. Just slow down tiger. Why don't you take a trip down San Thomas and stop at Intel and Nvidia (which is practically across the street, in case you didn't know), and politely ask them how many EE's and programmers they have in each company, and then ask "excuse me, which is harder - software or hardware?" - or - why don't you just shut the fck up?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Get over your classroom dreams. The CEO of Nvidia himself said in Wired that they have many more Software Eng. You know ATI and plenty of other companies are the same. I new a guy that worked for Sonnett Tech that said they had like 4 or less HW Engineers.
I guess we can agree to disagree? Don't get your panties in a bunch Man it's not my fault you live in California.
MarcUK-
Don't stress it. There's nothing "evil" about PC..just Microsoft
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
I took a break and built a couple Frankenboxes myself. Great learning experience.
<strong>MarkUK,
No flames. Just a comment.
I also wish that you write to Apple and let them know how you feel. But before you do so you should make yourself aware of certain realities.
Most of the reasons that you gave for Pro-PC purchansing have to do with PC upgrades and value maintenance. You want to maximize the value of your investment. PC upgrades represent an almost criminal mythology that the PC industry supports. First, on the PC side, you will find that the majority of significant upgrades that you want to apply either a) simply won't work (motherboard incompatibilities, new memory needed... etc), b) will be not worth the cost due to other needed "co-upgrades" or c) will unbalance your system such that you will be dissappointed with the results. Very few instances of the hardware upgrades I have seen in PCs--at least of the nontrivial kind--have produced the kind of results that were expected going in. I don't believe this will change, as it is in the interests of the hardware companies to make you feel like you are making a long term investment when you buy their box. Especially for the kinds of major changes you cited in your post (Hammer, etc.).
On the Mac side, however, you have machines that are sold as balanced (for the most part, and current perceived bandwidth issues aside) systems. The motherboard can't be upgraded because Apple won't let you. They won't let you because they see the "Cheshire Cat's smile" of hardware upgrading as the empty illusion that it is.
Moreover, the Mac retains it's value far longer than the PC without major upgrades. My nearly 4 year old B&W rev 1 with upgrades I can sell right now, with no problems for nearly $600. That money can be rolled into a new machine right now. There's no way a 4 year old PC has that kind of value.
So if preserving the useful lifespan of your investment is the real reason you are vacating the Mac platform, well, I wish you all the best with XP. But I believe you have made an error in judgement.</strong><hr></blockquote>
While I hear what you are saying, consider this. For the most part a PC consists of Motherboard, Ram, Processor and Video Card.
Now, go to any large 'parts' vendor and price up a good highend set of these components, I'd bet that ALL of this will come to about the same cost as a Powerlogix 1GHZ G4 upgrade.
I think I make my point clearly enough.
I have bought a very nice case and very decent Powersupply unit. Personally I cant really see the advantage of upgrading a 16x cd writer to a 100x if it were available. A decent soundcard now, will probably not really change much in the next 10 years, so why throw all these useful things away.
Apples are a locked system, that pretty much means that when you want to upgrade, you just buy a brand new one.
As too the other point of macs holding their value longer, well Im glad I can sell my mac for 2/3 of my new PC's price, but if the PC is 3 times cheaper too start with, I wont be too sad, if I could only get £250 for it in 5 years time.
He certainly should e-mail his thoughts to Apple. They may learn something about the 'errosion' of customers from their heartlands.
It's hard to defend Apple's premium pricing when you're not getting premium performance. You shouldn't have to pay a premium to have the Mac OS. It's ridiculous.
The emac. Looks cool. 'power'Mac 'looks' cool. iMac. Looks cool etc. But the cpu question really needs addressing. We know the answer won't come this year.
Until then, XP on my 1.6 Athlon is 'good enough'.
What is the most annoying thing is the deafening silence regarding the road map for CPUs.
The 'secrets game' has worked in terms of Apple's recovery for many things.
But of late, it's starting to back fire on them. I'd like to be able to plan a 'power'Mac purchase. I'm even more paranoid of buying now. We know a G5 Mac is gonna come...it could be Jan'...or Summer next year. Who knows. It's frustrating. I think Apple lose more custom this way. My opinion.
The scary thing is that XP is now 'good enough'. And I can assure you that's the first time I've said that about a M$ product.
You should have to pay almost 3K for half the performance of a 2.5 gig Pentium for less than half the price.
My school? Just got back from the Summer holidays. A new suite of computers. XP. 2 gig P4s, 40 hard drive, loads of USB ports, Firewire, 15 inch flat screens etc. Cost? £1,000. They bought 15 of these babies. Made to order.
I just think Apple should have a long hard look at their business model. It's too rigid. Too rigid to reach 10%. I'd like to be proven wrong.
Anyhow. I hope Marc will find it in him to come back to the fold with a low end G5 when it comes, hopefully, in 2003.
Hmmm. Y'know, I sometimes wish Apple would just merge with someone like IBM and let them make the guts and Apple just 'design' the experience, facia, integration and software.
Lemon Bon Bon
[quote]Actually it is. You should look into the pipeline stages involved in the chips before you post on this stuff. The P4 has a 20+ stage pipeline (longer than the p3, which is what makes it slower per clock cycle than the p3), the last I heard the G4 has a seven stage pipeline.<hr></blockquote>
mmm, it's all so simple, isn't it?
Since you have a good handle on these things, and obvious technical expertise, maybe you could explain to the folks gathered here why AMD's Hammer Chips will sport a longer pipeline (2 stages, IIRC) than the current Athlons, yet will have higher IPC?
neye
I feel like the guy who's got the most gorgeous, loving, caring chick in the whole world. But she gone off the old in-out, in-out for a while, and I went too the hooker to satisfy my urge. I want too keep it a dirty secret, and hope my chick works out her problem
<strong>If Apple had given me one clue as to what was coming next year...
I didn't want to buy a PC really, but there are just no compelling alternatives right now...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple never really comments on what's coming - all we know about is the OS, and they are pretty upfront in that department.
You bought a PC because that's what you wanted to buy. Personally I couldn't afford to do that because the cost in new software/upgrades/crossgrades would far outweigh the cost of the hardware itself - your mileage may vary.
While I've been pleasantly surprised by PC hardware recently, I still think the Windows OS is a horrible piece of junk. If you've never had a PC before I suppose you'll find out pretty soon what TCO (total cost of ownership) is all about and why a PC technician's standard support strategy is "reformat the hard drive and re-install everything".
Good luck.
To respond to the title of this thread: You're right. Apple has no hope. They'll be out of business in 6 months at the outside. You know, people have been saying Apple is going out of business every day, every month and every year since 1984, and you know what? They've been right! Apple has gone out of business approximately 6,570 times now, and if they keep going out of business like that they might actually fail!
So of course Michael Dell was right the 4 or so times he publicly proclaimed Apple was going under, the various industry pundits have been correct every time they've predicted Apple's demise, and now with this thread we can with clear conscience state that no, there is no hope for Apple. They're doomed, and they have been for 18 years now.
When will people learn?
[ 09-10-2002: Message edited by: Xaqtly ]</p>
<strong>To Clive:
mmm, it's all so simple, isn't it?
Since you have a good handle on these things, and obvious technical expertise, maybe you could explain to the folks gathered here why AMD's Hammer Chips will sport a longer pipeline (2 stages, IIRC) than the current Athlons, yet will have higher IPC?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Because they will also have higher clockspeeds?
It's not a simple trade-off, longer pipelines are slower, shorter are faster... other issues make a difference too, ie bit-depth (aren't new Hammers 64-bit, completely different architecture anyway?). But the message is clear, pipeline length and MHz are important issues, just look at the controversy over the P3 and P4.
<strong>Marc... that was just weird.
To respond to the title of this thread: You're right. Apple has no hope. They'll be out of business in 6 months at the outside. You know, people have been saying Apple is going out of business every day, every month and every year since 1984, and you know what? They've been right! Apple has gone out of business approximately 6,570 times now, and if they keep going out of business like that they might actually fail!
So of course Michael Dell was right the 4 or so times he publicly proclaimed Apple was going under, the various industry pundits have been correct every time they've predicted Apple's demise, and now with this thread we can with clear conscience state that no, there is no hope for Apple. They're doomed, and they have been for 18 years now.
When will people learn?
[ 09-10-2002: Message edited by: Xaqtly ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
---------------
I never said apple was going out of business. My thread is about what they need to release to get that much needed 10% and when we will get it.
There is no Hardware roadmap. From this you can only look at previous performance. We have had a 750 mhz improvemnt in 3 years. We were stuck at 500mhz for 18months. Likewise we've had pretty much the same MB for 4 years. Consider.
What happens if we get stuck at 1.25ghz until 2004/5?
What happens if the speed only increases to 2ghz by 2006?
You can shout about 2 ghz G5's all you like, but when has Apple ever confirmed a G5? When did they ever say the G4 would ever clock higher than 1.25?
Moto itself said the G4 would top out around 1ghz (but then ironically said it had plenty of legs left). When did Apple confirm that they would move to RIO? When did moto confirm they had RIO compatible chips. When did Apple confirm they were moving to IBM's Power4? When did IBM confirm that said Power4's were mac compatible and the SIMD was altivec compatible? When did Apple confirm they had plans to move to faster DDR memory? When did Apple confirm that new GPU's were available at the same time as the PC's. When did Apple ever tell you anything related to the future other than what you can buy at their store.
The answer over the last few years, is that Apple have told us exacltly FVCK ALL, yet they expect us to keep buying their machines.3 years ago, we had parity with the PC platform. 18 months ago, we were about 1/2 the real-world performance of Wintel, Today it stands about 1/4 $ for $. Extrapolate this 5 years, When PC's are 10x more powerful than macs, do you think Apple will be in good shape then?
Apple got itself in the shite before, because of mismanagement, Good management sorted out the problem AT APPLE when the Mac platform had a distinct advantage over Wintel. Today there is no advantage. Good management cannot sort out the problems of lame-ass suppliers. If Steve-o has been all over MOTO's ass for the last 3 years to produce something, they've been laughing in his face, for they've produced what amounts to sweet FA in relation to the rest of their industry.
Everything Positive we hear about Apple, is just a RUMOUR. Rumours are not fact until you can buy them. The latest rumour is that IBM's Power 4 is NOT altivec compatible, and Apple are not interested in these chips. Apple as usual said Nothing. Seeing as Apple hasn't given any indication of using these chips, would you buy a mac on the premise that IBM might have some nice chips available maybe in about 6 months, but hey maybe 2 years if were unlucky, that may be altivec compatible, but probably not as IBM already ditched Altivec once, and they might be running at 2ghz, but as far as we know could be running at 200mhz, and if all this goes up the fan, you might be able to buy a 1500mhz Powerlogix upgrade for your twice as expensive, twice as slow mac, in two years time that will cost 3/4 the cost of a new mac.
[ 09-10-2002: Message edited by: MarcUK ]</p>
\tI used to think I liked computers then I realized that I just liked macs. But lately it has been hard to feel good about any future investments in the platform.
\tYes I know PC's suck. All my friends with them are constantly crashing ect. But to them this is not annoying. They are so used to it when their comp crashes they don't even consider it a problem.
\tMy point is that apple can tote their OS as much as they like but the PC people have nothing to compare it to. All they are able to compare is Mhz and to them no matter how efficient the G4 is its still not as fast as their P4 and it costs more. They don't have a point of reference to go buy that is the problem. (If I tell a friend to buy a new PowerMacG4 because the OS is stable and never crashes they just say it costs twice as much, I'd rather crash. And laugh at me)
\tI will never buy a PC. Apple has very little worries about losing any existing customers because we know what the PC side is.
1.It's run speed disk at beginning of week.
2. by end of week the computer is slow and crashes all the time.
3. restart and reinstall ect buy in of month.
h
is is what almost all of my PC using friends do. THEY DO NOT THINK THIS IS COMPUTER TROUBLE. THEY THINK THIS IS NORMAL!
But when was what became Itanium due? Originally?
Plans change. Markets change. Things happen that are completely out of your control. If Apple had published a three year strategy in 2000 - based, as they would have to be, on the roadmaps at IBM and Mot - how silly would they have looked when the Athlon ignited the race to 1GHz? The fact is that nobody is telling you what they'll be doing in a year. Apple is just honest about it, however unintentionally.
Incidentally, MarcUK, I know a guy who uses Cubase on a PC. It's optimized not only for the Pentium III, but for a particular gaming board (I can get the manufacturer and model if you're interested), which he has. He says that his 733MHz P3 rig outruns even the latest Athlons in Cubase, and so he's eyeing a P4. I don't know how well the latest version performs, but I wouldn't be surprised if at this point it's optimized for an Asus board running a P4.
Depending on the quality of the Mac port, that might explain why there's such a performance disparity. Code optimized for an x86 will do poorly on a PPC.