<strong>Illustrator 10--No altivec, or even MP support. In fact its a performance pig. Though Chris Cox of Adobe hints that most Adobe apps will be getting Altivec optimizations next go around.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I have one word for you and it's the biggest and most important thing that is accelerated for Altivec that makes the biggest difference between the G3 and G4:
I have one word for you and it's the biggest and most important thing that is accelerated for Altivec that makes the biggest difference between the G3 and G4:
AQUA</strong><hr></blockquote>
And you are one of Apple's favorite customers.
The G3 handles Aqua well, and for a portable it does more than well, considering that its goal in life is to be small and compact and easy to take with you and not a high-end ultra-performing god-machine like the dual gigahertz G4 system.
[quote]I have one word for you and it's the biggest and most important thing that is accelerated for Altivec that makes the biggest difference between the G3 and G4:
AQUA<hr></blockquote>
BFD. Where are the Aqua G3/G4 benchmarks? Perhaps you mean Quartz, in which case only chip speed is going help. Crappy application performance is the biggest drawback to OSX right now.
BFD. Where are the Aqua G3/G4 benchmarks? Perhaps you mean Quartz, in which case only chip speed is going help. Crappy application performance is the biggest drawback to OSX right now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's more than just chip speed: bus speed counts for a lot, for one. The iBook gained a 33% performance increase on average when its bus went from 66 to 100MHz and the chip went from 500 to 600MHz.
If Apple optimized QUartz to utilize GPUs (on the graphics cards) QUartz would fly even on lower-end G3 machines.
I bought an iBook 600 when it came out. Finally an iBook at a good speed and 100MHz bus. Sold it after three months. My Powerbook G4 550 runs X MUCH better than the iBook 600 could ever.
<strong>Illustrator 10--No altivec, or even MP support. In fact its a performance pig. Though Chris Cox of Adobe hints that most Adobe apps will be getting Altivec optimizations next go around.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>I bought an iBook 600 when it came out. Finally an iBook at a good speed and 100MHz bus. Sold it after three months. My Powerbook G4 550 runs X MUCH better than the iBook 600 could ever.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The G4 is supposed to be 10-20% faster per cycle than the G3 afa floating and fixed math go. In fact, the FPU in the G4 is pretty much the same as the 604's.
Exactly. So that is why Apple will move away from the G3. It's obvious that they plan on this, don't live in denial. Jobs even said at the intro to the iMac that ALL of the digital hub software runs betteron a G4 because they are accelerated by AltiVec.
Won't most PC's be at equal or higher bus speeds by then? What do you think will be cheaper, older, PC 100-133 RAM that suppliers won't buy in volume, or RAM that most PC's will be using?
I just wanted to add that I think the G3 is very well suited for portable computing and that IBM seems to have its sh*t together regarding its G3 development roadmap. It was Apple who promised that OS X would run on any G3 Mac from the original iMac on up. I'm happy with the performance on my iBook, and I'm happier with its robustness and cool running temperature. Really, if I want a G4 in a portable computer, I'd buy a Powerbook G4 (which I'm planning, saving and scraping for). IBM's G3 roadmap shows that there is plenty of performance yet to be found in the G3. It'd be interesting to see how a 750FX at 1Ghz on a fast bus with lots of RAM and a good video chipset would perform, even when compared with an 800 Mhz G4 Powerbook. Taking into consideration factors like price, heat and battery life, the G3 PowerPC 750FX doesn't look too shabby .
<strong>I'd just like to say that the G3 has always been a favorite chip of mine.
Although some of this IBM documentation of the 750FX has been out for a while, I would suggest people take a look at it. The chip has SOI, SiLK, with a .13 micron process, and can run using only 3.6 W at 800 Mhz. That low power requirement blows my mind. You could make toast on a PIII at that clock speed.
IBM has show consistant performance and efficiency gains in the G3 since it's 1997 production. They countinue to find ways to modify the chip to perform a number of desktop and embeded functions. Hell, all the Jaguar automobiles from the past 4 years have G3 PPC variants running their diagnostics and telemetry. I'm just amazed how IBM can squeeze out so many performace increases and positive design modifications with a G3 chip architecture that is over 5 years old.
I wish Motorola could take a page out of IBM's development of the G3. IBM really knows how to stretch the techonolgy in a chip. I'm looking forward to these future G3's taht you mention. You can take a look at the FX specs here....definitely worth a look.
[ 04-11-2002: Message edited by: Maine Road ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
In defense of the G4 and Motorola....
Yes, the G4 did get off to a rocky and slow start. But then again, put yourself in Moto's shoes. You have this chip thats only being used in one quarter of Apple's computers. Why sink R&D into it? Its not worth it when Apple is only buying 700,000 or so a year.
But then, something amazing happened...
We got the PowerBook Titanium....Powered by a G4.
And everyone wants one of these sexy new laptops.
Suddenly Apple is buying twice as many G4's from you. (also note, that this is the same time that the G4 really started to scale). And thus that was the year 2001. Apple is buying a good portion of G4's from you. enter some R&D money. up to 867Mhz we go!
And then, the world was blown away by the new iMac, powered by none other than Moto's G4.
Whoa, suddenly the G4 is in 3 of the 4 products. Suddenly Apple is buying 500,000 or so G4's from Moto, PER QUARTER!!
Enter even more R&D money!! Up to 1Ghz we go (with 1.1Ghz coming out of the fabs)
and now we have the "mobile" G4 (7445? i think) going up to 1Ghz!
I'm not 100% sure, but i don't think IBM is even shipping a 1Ghz G3 in quantity yet. (i could be wrong)
Motorola is in the spotlight now with it's G4. Should be an interesting year.
Send all flame mail to: [email protected] ill be more than happy to clairify the above.
Yes, the G4 did get off to a rocky and slow start. But then again, put yourself in Moto's shoes. You have this chip thats only being used in one quarter of Apple's computers. Why sink R&D into it? Its not worth it when Apple is only buying 700,000 or so a year.
But then, something amazing happened...
We got the PowerBook Titanium....Powered by a G4.
And everyone wants one of these sexy new laptops.
Suddenly Apple is buying twice as many G4's from you. (also note, that this is the same time that the G4 really started to scale). And thus that was the year 2001. Apple is buying a good portion of G4's from you. enter some R&D money. up to 867Mhz we go!
And then, the world was blown away by the new iMac, powered by none other than Moto's G4.
Whoa, suddenly the G4 is in 3 of the 4 products. Suddenly Apple is buying 500,000 or so G4's from Moto, PER QUARTER!!
Enter even more R&D money!! Up to 1Ghz we go (with 1.1Ghz coming out of the fabs)
and now we have the "mobile" G4 (7445? i think) going up to 1Ghz!
I'm not 100% sure, but i don't think IBM is even shipping a 1Ghz G3 in quantity yet. (i could be wrong)
Motorola is in the spotlight now with it's G4. Should be an interesting year.
Send all flame mail to: [email protected] ill be more than happy to clairify the above.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with much of this (and btw, 1 GHz G3 is going out in small samples to "preferred customers" right now, it's not shipping), but you've forgotten the most important thing here: the memory bus. Neither G3 nor G4 supports anything higher than SDRAM 133 MHz right now, and that's pathetically low. I haven't seen any plans for adding DDR-support to the G3, which means that the G4 wins by default.
Also, let's try a bit of calculations wrt the pipeline length vs. clock speed. Twice the pipeline means twice the clock speed (pecause there's half the amount of work to doduring one cycle), so the Athlon, which has a 14 or 15 step pipeline, should have twice the MHz of the 7 step G4. The P4, with its 20 step pipeline, should be at three times the G4s MHz. A 1 GHz G4 should mean a 2 GHz Athlon - it's still at 1733 MHz IIRC. The P4 is at 2.4 GHz, but according to this, it should be at 3 GHz.
indeed, someone has been dragging their feet on the memory bus issue. Frankly, if the 7470 and 7500 all pan out this year, im not going to worry. But if we are still at 133Mhz at christmas, then its time to worry....
<strong>I agree with much of this (and btw, 1 GHz G3 is going out in small samples to "preferred customers" right now, it's not shipping), but you've forgotten the most important thing here: the memory bus. Neither G3 nor G4 supports anything higher than SDRAM 133 MHz right now, and that's pathetically low.</strong><hr></blockquote>The 750FX does support a 200Mhz bus, though. The iBook, if it used that chip, could have the fastest bus in the line right now.
[QB]I think it is funny that the majority of people that adamantly defend the G3 own iBooks or G3 iMacs. <hr></blockquote>I know you're just sorta kidding, but I don't think it's fair to imply that it's irrational to support a G3. (I guess I'd be a G3 defender, but I've got a dual 800 at work and a G3 iMac at home.)
It just comes down to an evaluation of price, performance, battery life, heat, size, and the like.
At this point, the 750FX has more advanced technology than the G4 - .13 size being the main one (though there are others). That means a much cooler, cheaper, and less power-consuming chip. That's good in a portable, no? When the G4 can do the same, that would be preferable due to Altivec. I'm still somewhat skeptical of X's supposed overall increased performance due to Altivec, but obviously at the least some specific apps see a nice advantage with Altivec. But the G4 is not a slam-dunk over the G3 at this point, IMO.
.13u should be cooler, lower power, and faster. Perfect for Apple desktops and laptops, and better for Cisco routers and the like too!
.13u should also make it easier to produce more chips faster and cheaper: more CPU's per wafer.
WTF is going on over there at mot?
Not that IBM is much better, for all their talk, they've shipped and produced exactly diddily sqwat that competes with G4.
I think AIM needs to get some fabbing help. And Apple might have to kick in some resources to get an acceptable DDR capable chip/mobo combination out of somebody. If 7460, 7470, and 7500 are true, we need them yesterday!
<strong>I know you're just sorta kidding, but I don't think it's fair to imply that it's irrational to support a G3. (I guess I'd be a G3 defender, but I've got a dual 800 at work and a G3 iMac at home.)
It just comes down to an evaluation of price, performance, battery life, heat, size, and the like.
At this point, the 750FX has more advanced technology than the G4 - .13 size being the main one (though there are others). That means a much cooler, cheaper, and less power-consuming chip. That's good in a portable, no? When the G4 can do the same, that would be preferable due to Altivec. I'm still somewhat skeptical of X's supposed overall increased performance due to Altivec, but obviously at the least some specific apps see a nice advantage with Altivec. But the G4 is not a slam-dunk over the G3 at this point, IMO.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not kiding at all.
[quote]At this point, the 750FX has more advanced technology than the G4 - .13 size being the main one (though there are others). That means a much cooler, cheaper, and less power-consuming chip. That's good in a portable, no? <hr></blockquote>
While I have openly expressed in this forum that I believe that IBM has FAR SUPERIOR R&D and Fab Processes, the G4 is just much better than the G3 in OSX. Cooler? Cheaper? Less power consuming? Yeah that is all good and great but if OSX runs like crap on it than I do not care what temperature my laptop is running at, if the OS runs slow on it...then it's slow.
Let's look at the layers of OSX:
AQUA
CLASSIC CARBON COCOA JAVA
QUARTZ OPENGL QUICKTIME
DARWIN
The entire second layer from the bottom is accelerated by AltiVec, the most important one being OpenGL which runs Aqua. I am telling you that a G3 running in an iBook at 1 GHz compared to a G4 550 Powerbook will not keep up with the Powerbook in OSX.
Comments
<strong>Illustrator 10--No altivec, or even MP support. In fact its a performance pig. Though Chris Cox of Adobe hints that most Adobe apps will be getting Altivec optimizations next go around.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I have one word for you and it's the biggest and most important thing that is accelerated for Altivec that makes the biggest difference between the G3 and G4:
AQUA
<strong>
I have one word for you and it's the biggest and most important thing that is accelerated for Altivec that makes the biggest difference between the G3 and G4:
AQUA</strong><hr></blockquote>
And you are one of Apple's favorite customers.
The G3 handles Aqua well, and for a portable it does more than well, considering that its goal in life is to be small and compact and easy to take with you and not a high-end ultra-performing god-machine like the dual gigahertz G4 system.
AQUA<hr></blockquote>
BFD. Where are the Aqua G3/G4 benchmarks? Perhaps you mean Quartz, in which case only chip speed is going help. Crappy application performance is the biggest drawback to OSX right now.
<strong>
BFD. Where are the Aqua G3/G4 benchmarks? Perhaps you mean Quartz, in which case only chip speed is going help. Crappy application performance is the biggest drawback to OSX right now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's more than just chip speed: bus speed counts for a lot, for one. The iBook gained a 33% performance increase on average when its bus went from 66 to 100MHz and the chip went from 500 to 600MHz.
If Apple optimized QUartz to utilize GPUs (on the graphics cards) QUartz would fly even on lower-end G3 machines.
<strong>Illustrator 10--No altivec, or even MP support. In fact its a performance pig. Though Chris Cox of Adobe hints that most Adobe apps will be getting Altivec optimizations next go around.</strong><hr></blockquote>
How many years will that be.
<strong>I bought an iBook 600 when it came out. Finally an iBook at a good speed and 100MHz bus. Sold it after three months. My Powerbook G4 550 runs X MUCH better than the iBook 600 could ever.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The G4 is supposed to be 10-20% faster per cycle than the G3 afa floating and fixed math go. In fact, the FPU in the G4 is pretty much the same as the 604's.
Of course AltiVec can speed things up even more.
<strong>I think an iBook with a 150 or 200MHz bus and a 1000MHz 750FX would be an excellent system.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe, but how much do you want to pay for RAM?
<strong>I'd just like to say that the G3 has always been a favorite chip of mine.
Although some of this IBM documentation of the 750FX has been out for a while, I would suggest people take a look at it. The chip has SOI, SiLK, with a .13 micron process, and can run using only 3.6 W at 800 Mhz. That low power requirement blows my mind. You could make toast on a PIII at that clock speed.
IBM has show consistant performance and efficiency gains in the G3 since it's 1997 production. They countinue to find ways to modify the chip to perform a number of desktop and embeded functions. Hell, all the Jaguar automobiles from the past 4 years have G3 PPC variants running their diagnostics and telemetry. I'm just amazed how IBM can squeeze out so many performace increases and positive design modifications with a G3 chip architecture that is over 5 years old.
I wish Motorola could take a page out of IBM's development of the G3. IBM really knows how to stretch the techonolgy in a chip. I'm looking forward to these future G3's taht you mention. You can take a look at the FX specs here....definitely worth a look.
<a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/FBEAAB9F7A288ED787256AE200622214/$file/PowerPC750FXmpf.pdf"; target="_blank">IBM G3 Info</a>
[ 04-11-2002: Message edited by: Maine Road ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
In defense of the G4 and Motorola....
Yes, the G4 did get off to a rocky and slow start. But then again, put yourself in Moto's shoes. You have this chip thats only being used in one quarter of Apple's computers. Why sink R&D into it? Its not worth it when Apple is only buying 700,000 or so a year.
But then, something amazing happened...
We got the PowerBook Titanium....Powered by a G4.
And everyone wants one of these sexy new laptops.
Suddenly Apple is buying twice as many G4's from you. (also note, that this is the same time that the G4 really started to scale). And thus that was the year 2001. Apple is buying a good portion of G4's from you. enter some R&D money. up to 867Mhz we go!
And then, the world was blown away by the new iMac, powered by none other than Moto's G4.
Whoa, suddenly the G4 is in 3 of the 4 products. Suddenly Apple is buying 500,000 or so G4's from Moto, PER QUARTER!!
Enter even more R&D money!! Up to 1Ghz we go (with 1.1Ghz coming out of the fabs)
and now we have the "mobile" G4 (7445? i think) going up to 1Ghz!
I'm not 100% sure, but i don't think IBM is even shipping a 1Ghz G3 in quantity yet. (i could be wrong)
Motorola is in the spotlight now with it's G4. Should be an interesting year.
Send all flame mail to: [email protected] ill be more than happy to clairify the above.
<strong>
In defense of the G4 and Motorola....
Yes, the G4 did get off to a rocky and slow start. But then again, put yourself in Moto's shoes. You have this chip thats only being used in one quarter of Apple's computers. Why sink R&D into it? Its not worth it when Apple is only buying 700,000 or so a year.
But then, something amazing happened...
We got the PowerBook Titanium....Powered by a G4.
And everyone wants one of these sexy new laptops.
Suddenly Apple is buying twice as many G4's from you. (also note, that this is the same time that the G4 really started to scale). And thus that was the year 2001. Apple is buying a good portion of G4's from you. enter some R&D money. up to 867Mhz we go!
And then, the world was blown away by the new iMac, powered by none other than Moto's G4.
Whoa, suddenly the G4 is in 3 of the 4 products. Suddenly Apple is buying 500,000 or so G4's from Moto, PER QUARTER!!
Enter even more R&D money!! Up to 1Ghz we go (with 1.1Ghz coming out of the fabs)
and now we have the "mobile" G4 (7445? i think) going up to 1Ghz!
I'm not 100% sure, but i don't think IBM is even shipping a 1Ghz G3 in quantity yet. (i could be wrong)
Motorola is in the spotlight now with it's G4. Should be an interesting year.
Send all flame mail to: [email protected] ill be more than happy to clairify the above.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with much of this (and btw, 1 GHz G3 is going out in small samples to "preferred customers" right now, it's not shipping), but you've forgotten the most important thing here: the memory bus. Neither G3 nor G4 supports anything higher than SDRAM 133 MHz right now, and that's pathetically low. I haven't seen any plans for adding DDR-support to the G3, which means that the G4 wins by default.
Also, let's try a bit of calculations wrt the pipeline length vs. clock speed. Twice the pipeline means twice the clock speed (pecause there's half the amount of work to doduring one cycle), so the Athlon, which has a 14 or 15 step pipeline, should have twice the MHz of the 7 step G4. The P4, with its 20 step pipeline, should be at three times the G4s MHz. A 1 GHz G4 should mean a 2 GHz Athlon - it's still at 1733 MHz IIRC. The P4 is at 2.4 GHz, but according to this, it should be at 3 GHz.
[ 04-24-2002: Message edited by: Bodhi ]</p>
<strong>I agree with much of this (and btw, 1 GHz G3 is going out in small samples to "preferred customers" right now, it's not shipping), but you've forgotten the most important thing here: the memory bus. Neither G3 nor G4 supports anything higher than SDRAM 133 MHz right now, and that's pathetically low.</strong><hr></blockquote>The 750FX does support a 200Mhz bus, though. The iBook, if it used that chip, could have the fastest bus in the line right now.
[QB]I think it is funny that the majority of people that adamantly defend the G3 own iBooks or G3 iMacs.
It just comes down to an evaluation of price, performance, battery life, heat, size, and the like.
At this point, the 750FX has more advanced technology than the G4 - .13 size being the main one (though there are others). That means a much cooler, cheaper, and less power-consuming chip. That's good in a portable, no? When the G4 can do the same, that would be preferable due to Altivec. I'm still somewhat skeptical of X's supposed overall increased performance due to Altivec, but obviously at the least some specific apps see a nice advantage with Altivec. But the G4 is not a slam-dunk over the G3 at this point, IMO.
Why is the G4 still made on a .18u process?
.13u should be cooler, lower power, and faster. Perfect for Apple desktops and laptops, and better for Cisco routers and the like too!
.13u should also make it easier to produce more chips faster and cheaper: more CPU's per wafer.
WTF is going on over there at mot?
Not that IBM is much better, for all their talk, they've shipped and produced exactly diddily sqwat that competes with G4.
I think AIM needs to get some fabbing help. And Apple might have to kick in some resources to get an acceptable DDR capable chip/mobo combination out of somebody. If 7460, 7470, and 7500 are true, we need them yesterday!
<strong>I know you're just sorta kidding, but I don't think it's fair to imply that it's irrational to support a G3. (I guess I'd be a G3 defender, but I've got a dual 800 at work and a G3 iMac at home.)
It just comes down to an evaluation of price, performance, battery life, heat, size, and the like.
At this point, the 750FX has more advanced technology than the G4 - .13 size being the main one (though there are others). That means a much cooler, cheaper, and less power-consuming chip. That's good in a portable, no? When the G4 can do the same, that would be preferable due to Altivec. I'm still somewhat skeptical of X's supposed overall increased performance due to Altivec, but obviously at the least some specific apps see a nice advantage with Altivec. But the G4 is not a slam-dunk over the G3 at this point, IMO.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not kiding at all.
[quote]At this point, the 750FX has more advanced technology than the G4 - .13 size being the main one (though there are others). That means a much cooler, cheaper, and less power-consuming chip. That's good in a portable, no? <hr></blockquote>
While I have openly expressed in this forum that I believe that IBM has FAR SUPERIOR R&D and Fab Processes, the G4 is just much better than the G3 in OSX. Cooler? Cheaper? Less power consuming? Yeah that is all good and great but if OSX runs like crap on it than I do not care what temperature my laptop is running at, if the OS runs slow on it...then it's slow.
Let's look at the layers of OSX:
AQUA
CLASSIC CARBON COCOA JAVA
QUARTZ OPENGL QUICKTIME
DARWIN
The entire second layer from the bottom is accelerated by AltiVec, the most important one being OpenGL which runs Aqua. I am telling you that a G3 running in an iBook at 1 GHz compared to a G4 550 Powerbook will not keep up with the Powerbook in OSX.
[ 04-24-2002: Message edited by: Bodhi ]</p>
And if they have actual production parts @ 1 GHz who has bought them??