Widescreen on the low end. intergrated sub on the 17" powerbook. I saw somwhere that Asus was making the new notebooks, and they already have a notebook like this.
Intergrated card readers, and colours OTHER than white. No Intel inside sticker.
...why do you assume they'll have intel-stickers? They're not yet made - and if they have: PEEL IT OFF!
Sorry if this is old news but I noticed there is a new slot-load drive from Panasonic that supports all formats including both DVD-R Dual Layer and DVD+R Double Layer as well as DVD-RAM.
Panasonic UJ-846-B
5X Speed DVD-RAM Writing
8X Speed DVD-R Writing
2X Speed DVD-R(DL) Writing
4X Speed DVD-RW Writing
8X Speed DVD+R 4.7GB Writing
2.4X Speed DVD+R (DL) Writing
4X Speed DVD+RW 4.7GB Writing
24X Speed CD-R Writing
16X Speed CD-RW Writing
24X Speed CD-ROM Reading
8X Speed DVD-ROM Reading
This would be nice to have in the next batch of PowerBooks!
If the PowerBooks are going to stay at 32-bit for the next couple of years, then I'd rather wait for a dual-core Yonah PowerBook than get a PowerBook with the new recently announced Freescale G4. With that in mind, could be possible that the new Freescale G4 processor would go into the iBooks (further blurring the difference between it and the PowerBook for a brief amount of time), and then, several months down the road, Apple would release Yonah PowerBooks? If not, would it make more sense if Apple just simultaneously released single core Yonah iBooks and dual-core PowerBooks (again, assuming that the plan is to stay at 32-bit for the next couple of years)?
If the plan is to move the PowerBook to a 64-bit processor, then whatever processor Apple plans to use is something we haven't heard of yet, considering it's pretty much official that the newly announced IBM processors will not be going into a PowerBook.
There really isn't anything wrong with 32bit processors. I understand that some very high end workstation need all the power they can get, but most computers, especially notebooks dont need it.
Add that to the fact the intel is (unlike apple) very open about what they are developing (how boring), we would of heard rumors at least of a 64bit Pentium M. unless I'm mistaken, which happens often enough.
They had Freescale primarily for the low-end and mobile solutions, and they really had IBM focus more on PowerBook, xServe and iMac. That's where we collaborated deeply with Apple.
So now we can say with some certainty that either Thinksecret is right in speculating that the G5 powerbook project was abandoned, or we can look forward to a portable companion to the G5 iMac.
If there's any truth in the latter, let's hope it's packing something a little more impressive than the the 970FX!
Will the first Intel PowerBooks be designed by a team of ex-Sony engineers? Could be. A reliable source tells us that Apple has been ?having trouble playing catch up with the learning curve for designing using the Intel platform? and that in order to have an Intel-based PowerBook out by next year they?ve been scrambling to recruit an engineering team with some experience building light and thin Intel-based laptops. And how are they going to do that? By poaching from Sony apparently, apparently they?ve hired a headhunting firm in Japan which has been trying to recruit as many current Sony VAIO and ex-Sony VAIO engineers as they can in order to have a team in place as soon as possible. Sounds a little crazy, but it wouldn?t be the first time that Apple?s turned to Sony for assistance ? you might recall that they had Sony help them design the very first PowerBook way back in 1991.
I just caught this tidbit myself. Interesting fodder for the discussion about what will come first for the Intel on Mac. I suspect, however, that Intel is also helping Apple engineer their processors into small form factors, like the mini and the PowerBook.
I certainly hope Apple does not DOWNGRADE the PB from a G4 to a Yonah. Should we really have to wait until Q2 '06 just to be stuck with a 32-bit, slow bus, AltiVec lacking chip after all this waiting time?
I have an x86_64-bit laptop already (AMD based), why would Apple put a low-end 32-bit cpu in a POWERBOOK in Q2 '06 when 32-bit cpu's will be even more old news???
Apple's gotta have something better than Yonah up it's sleaves for the next powerbook. My first choice would be the new 970FX, or at least a mobile Althon 64 like my PC notebook. Intel's mobile chips have been getting slower and slower in performance if you check the benchmarks (although power consumption has improved). If we're waiting until Q2 '06 for an Intel PB, Intel should be supplying it with a DUAL CORE 64 BIT mobile cpu. It doesn't make sense to put a chip thats slow by today's standards in tommorow's machine.
Apple can be expected to try not to upset its pro customers. The worst thing they could do is bring out an Intel based PowerBook that has more issues than anything. The software transition will be painful enough, so the hardware must be rock solid.
Therefore I'm hesitant to believe we will see an Intel based PowerBook soon. Apple will likely transition iBooks and/or Mac Minis first, iron out the remaining bugs and only then upgrade the pro lines, PowerBooks first and PowerMacs last.
In that respect 32-bit Yonah's will do fine for those iBooks and Mac Minis.
On top of that Apple will likely keep one PPC PowerBook model in their product range for a little while parallel to Intel based PowerBooks. Much like they did with OS 9 booting PowerMacs. Just to give pro customers a choice, so they can make a purchasing decision on whether the software they use has been updated to universal binaries or not.
If Apple were to wait for dual core Pentium M's for the PowerBooks this would likely mean another 12-15 months wait. Can Apple wait that long? And if not, will they bother bringing out a stop-gap G5 PowerBook? Does that make sense?
But in all that we don't even know how far long OS X on Intel really is. It could very well be that OS X is still a few months off to be solid on Intel. And even if OS X is almost finished perhaps the iApps have just barely been tested on Intel and still need a lot of work.
And once the hardware chipset has been finalized (probably not done yet) everything has to be tested again.
All this takes more time than we would like it to take, so I think we're kidding ourselves if we expect Intel based PowerBooks in 6-9 months.
OS X running on Intel isn't the issue, that's pretty much a flip of the switch as OpenDarwin already runs on both. It's the 3rd party apps. that are taking the time in terms of software. The biggest problem developers are voicing in that their code just plain doesn't run as fast on Intel as it did on PPC at least with media intensive apps. SSE3 appears to be litterally 1/3rd as fast as Altivec. So switching to Intel ends up being a significant downgrade performance wise, even in the Desktop market. At least initially. It's two bad IBM didn't act quicker.
I strongly believe Apple should unleash a PowerBook G5 in the meantime while Intel improves it's cpu performance. I don't even think "Yonah" is a worthy project for Intel, they already have a ton of low end mobile 32-bit cpu's. Intel should consolidate it's product line into 64-bit cpus for mobile apps and 64-bit cpus for desktops. And if dual core technology is availible, make new chips dual core and drop the single core product lines.
Common Imagine if Ford continued it's Model-T line along with it's new vehicles. Intel should drop it's Celeron line and Celeron D lines. Just sell the P4 HT as the low end cpu, and the P4 HT Extreme Edition and Pentium D's as the mid range desktop cpus. And Xeons and Itaniums for the high end.
And for mobile cpu's there's too many choices as well. They have a Celeron M and a Pentium M and a Pentium 4 M with more lines on the way.
The biggest problem developers are voicing in that their code just plain doesn't run as fast on Intel as it did on PPC at least with media intensive apps. SSE3 appears to be litterally 1/3rd as fast as Altivec. So switching to Intel ends up being a significant downgrade performance wise, even in the Desktop market.
OS X running on Intel isn't the issue, that's pretty much a flip of the switch as OpenDarwin already runs on both. It's the 3rd party apps. that are taking the time in terms of software. The biggest problem developers are voicing in that their code just plain doesn't run as fast on Intel as it did on PPC at least with media intensive apps. SSE3 appears to be litterally 1/3rd as fast as Altivec. So switching to Intel ends up being a significant downgrade performance wise, even in the Desktop market. At least initially. It's two bad IBM didn't act quicker.
I strongly believe Apple should unleash a PowerBook G5 in the meantime while Intel improves it's cpu performance. I don't even think "Yonah" is a worthy project for Intel, they already have a ton of low end mobile 32-bit cpu's. Intel should consolidate it's product line into 64-bit cpus for mobile apps and 64-bit cpus for desktops. And if dual core technology is availible, make new chips dual core and drop the single core product lines.
Common Imagine if Ford continued it's Model-T line along with it's new vehicles. Intel should drop it's Celeron line and Celeron D lines. Just sell the P4 HT as the low end cpu, and the P4 HT Extreme Edition and Pentium D's as the mid range desktop cpus. And Xeons and Itaniums for the high end.
And for mobile cpu's there's too many choices as well. They have a Celeron M and a Pentium M and a Pentium 4 M with more lines on the way.
I agree that Intel's FPU performance leaves something to be desired but 64-bit really means nothing in a laptop. The major benefit is it's able to access amounts of RAM that are greater than 4 GB, and unless you are putting 4 GB modules in your Powerbook there is no benefit (Now that I think of it I don't think the small modules exist at that size). On top of that the few instances the 64-bit address space could be needed, the task will probably be run on a desktop, workstation or cluster which has the rest of the system design to go along with it and not the relatively slow busses and hard drives of laptops. Unless you intend to run a 1+ GHz bus and a 7,200 RPM 3.5 inch drive off a battery.
I agree that Intel's FPU performance leaves something to be desired but 64-bit really means nothing in a laptop. The major benefit is it's able to access amounts of RAM that are greater than 4 GB, and unless you are putting 4 GB modules in your Powerbook there is no benefit (Now that I think of it I don't think the small modules exist at that size). On top of that the few instances the 64-bit address space could be needed, the task will probably be run on a desktop, workstation or cluster which has the rest of the system design to go along with it and not the relatively slow busses and hard drives of laptops. Unless you intend to run a 1+ GHz bus and a 7,200 RPM 3.5 inch drive off a battery.
I really couldn't agree more. People yelling for mobile athlon 64's are out of their bloddy minds. Sure, all that power would be great, but ikt would only be great for about ten minutes until the battery gave out.
The Pentium M's are great chips, at least as good as the G4's, probaby better. 64bit is only really useful inb a desktop at the moment, where you can have humungous amounts of RAM. Hell, I'm not even sure if Tiger is 64bit capable. Panther wasn't.
And while your at it, do you want all those 3rd party developers, already going to great expense to re-compile their apps to intel to have to make it 64bit as well?
I was under the impression that ASUS had been commisioned to build the first iBooks at least, I dont know why Sony would be brought into it - they are the equivelant of apple on the wintel side, providing laptops that actually look half decent and non-generic.
OS X running on Intel isn't the issue, that's pretty much a flip of the switch as OpenDarwin already runs on both. It's the 3rd party apps. that are taking the time in terms of software. The biggest problem developers are voicing in that their code just plain doesn't run as fast on Intel as it did on PPC at least with media intensive apps. SSE3 appears to be litterally 1/3rd as fast as Altivec. So switching to Intel ends up being a significant downgrade performance wise, even in the Desktop market. At least initially. It's two bad IBM didn't act quicker.
Dude your pulling this info out of your ass. A fully ported application to the Intel platform will be as fast or faster.
Please read facts before dreaming up fantasy literature.
The biggest problem is they have to re-write not because it's slower. Plus if VMX was so great why didn't IBM include it in there Power-5 CPU.
The benchmark test your probly basing your info on is RC5. Distributed.net FAQ warns that the RC5 benchmark is a poor thing to use to characterize the performance of a CPU. It relies heavily on rotate instructions, which not all processors implement equally well (they're not used that often). Altivec has a vector permute unit that has a 128-bit vector rotate instruction. SSE does not have such an instruction. That's why the G5 performs so much better in that benchmark. It's a nice thing if you're software is really dependent on bit manipulation (crypto, stuff like that), but what most apps use the vector unit for is FMACs (multiply-accumulate instructions), and AltiVec and SSE do those equally fast.
I agree that Intel's FPU performance leaves something to be desired but 64-bit really means nothing in a laptop. The major benefit is it's able to access amounts of RAM that are greater than 4 GB, and unless you are putting 4 GB modules in your Powerbook there is no benefit (Now that I think of it I don't think the small modules exist at that size). On top of that the few instances the 64-bit address space could be needed, the task will probably be run on a desktop, workstation or cluster which has the rest of the system design to go along with it and not the relatively slow busses and hard drives of laptops. Unless you intend to run a 1+ GHz bus and a 7,200 RPM 3.5 inch drive off a battery.
That's not entirely accurate. 64-bit can mean two things 64-bit REGISTERS and 64-bit ADDRESSING. The G5 has both (and I think this is the same case with the AMD 64 architecture). Your are partially right and partially incorrect. In terms of 64-bit ADDRESSING, the benifit only lies in the ability to address more RAM. However in terms of 64-bit ARITHMETIC REGISTERS, the numbers/variables or whatever to be crunched can be twice as long, in some cases doubling performance like a dual core configuration can.
That's not entirely accurate. 64-bit can mean two things 64-bit REGISTERS and 64-bit ADDRESSING. The G5 has both (and I think this is the same case with the AMD 64 architecture). Your are partially right and partially incorrect. In terms of 64-bit ADDRESSING, the benifit only lies in the ability to address more RAM. However in terms of 64-bit ARITHMETIC REGISTERS, the numbers/variables or whatever to be crunched can be twice as long, in some cases doubling performance like a dual core configuration can.
I wont argue with you becuase you sound like you know what your talking about (doesn't everyone these days?) BUT-
Dual core, 64bit dont double anything. They improve the performance, but if you were expecting your Halo framrates to double, you would be sorely disappointed.
Dual core, 64bit dont double anything. They improve the performance, but if you were expecting your Halo framrates to double, you would be sorely disappointed.
That's because frame rate is a much bigger function of GPU power than of CPU power these days and there is really nothing in Halo that needs 64 bits.
If you take something like Gaussian (quantium chemistry computational system), using dual core 64 bit processor more than double the speed of calculations in a lot of cases compared to their 32 bit simgle core counterparts.
Video encoding such as DIVX or XVID or H.264 speed effectively doubles by using dualcore.
Comments
Originally posted by Blackcat
I'm always amazed how some people seem to think Apple waits for a box of CPUs then starts to design the machine around it.
It would certainly be the smart thing to do.
Originally posted by pyriX
Widescreen on the low end. intergrated sub on the 17" powerbook. I saw somwhere that Asus was making the new notebooks, and they already have a notebook like this.
Intergrated card readers, and colours OTHER than white. No Intel inside sticker.
...why do you assume they'll have intel-stickers? They're not yet made - and if they have: PEEL IT OFF!
There is no current white PowerBooks made by Apple on the market - if you really want other colors, you'll get it at http://www.colorwarepc.com/products/select_apple.aspx
Panasonic UJ-846-B
5X Speed DVD-RAM Writing
8X Speed DVD-R Writing
2X Speed DVD-R(DL) Writing
4X Speed DVD-RW Writing
8X Speed DVD+R 4.7GB Writing
2.4X Speed DVD+R (DL) Writing
4X Speed DVD+RW 4.7GB Writing
24X Speed CD-R Writing
16X Speed CD-RW Writing
24X Speed CD-ROM Reading
8X Speed DVD-ROM Reading
This would be nice to have in the next batch of PowerBooks!
If the plan is to move the PowerBook to a 64-bit processor, then whatever processor Apple plans to use is something we haven't heard of yet, considering it's pretty much official that the newly announced IBM processors will not be going into a PowerBook.
Add that to the fact the intel is (unlike apple) very open about what they are developing (how boring), we would of heard rumors at least of a 64bit Pentium M. unless I'm mistaken, which happens often enough.
eweek's "We have the right watts" article
which quotes an IBM VP as saying
They had Freescale primarily for the low-end and mobile solutions, and they really had IBM focus more on PowerBook, xServe and iMac. That's where we collaborated deeply with Apple.
So now we can say with some certainty that either Thinksecret is right in speculating that the G5 powerbook project was abandoned, or we can look forward to a portable companion to the G5 iMac.
If there's any truth in the latter, let's hope it's packing something a little more impressive than the the 970FX!
Will the first Intel PowerBooks be designed by a team of ex-Sony engineers? Could be. A reliable source tells us that Apple has been ?having trouble playing catch up with the learning curve for designing using the Intel platform? and that in order to have an Intel-based PowerBook out by next year they?ve been scrambling to recruit an engineering team with some experience building light and thin Intel-based laptops. And how are they going to do that? By poaching from Sony apparently, apparently they?ve hired a headhunting firm in Japan which has been trying to recruit as many current Sony VAIO and ex-Sony VAIO engineers as they can in order to have a team in place as soon as possible. Sounds a little crazy, but it wouldn?t be the first time that Apple?s turned to Sony for assistance ? you might recall that they had Sony help them design the very first PowerBook way back in 1991.
I have an x86_64-bit laptop already (AMD based), why would Apple put a low-end 32-bit cpu in a POWERBOOK in Q2 '06 when 32-bit cpu's will be even more old news???
Apple's gotta have something better than Yonah up it's sleaves for the next powerbook. My first choice would be the new 970FX, or at least a mobile Althon 64 like my PC notebook. Intel's mobile chips have been getting slower and slower in performance if you check the benchmarks (although power consumption has improved). If we're waiting until Q2 '06 for an Intel PB, Intel should be supplying it with a DUAL CORE 64 BIT mobile cpu. It doesn't make sense to put a chip thats slow by today's standards in tommorow's machine.
Therefore I'm hesitant to believe we will see an Intel based PowerBook soon. Apple will likely transition iBooks and/or Mac Minis first, iron out the remaining bugs and only then upgrade the pro lines, PowerBooks first and PowerMacs last.
In that respect 32-bit Yonah's will do fine for those iBooks and Mac Minis.
On top of that Apple will likely keep one PPC PowerBook model in their product range for a little while parallel to Intel based PowerBooks. Much like they did with OS 9 booting PowerMacs. Just to give pro customers a choice, so they can make a purchasing decision on whether the software they use has been updated to universal binaries or not.
If Apple were to wait for dual core Pentium M's for the PowerBooks this would likely mean another 12-15 months wait. Can Apple wait that long? And if not, will they bother bringing out a stop-gap G5 PowerBook? Does that make sense?
But in all that we don't even know how far long OS X on Intel really is. It could very well be that OS X is still a few months off to be solid on Intel. And even if OS X is almost finished perhaps the iApps have just barely been tested on Intel and still need a lot of work.
And once the hardware chipset has been finalized (probably not done yet) everything has to be tested again.
All this takes more time than we would like it to take, so I think we're kidding ourselves if we expect Intel based PowerBooks in 6-9 months.
I strongly believe Apple should unleash a PowerBook G5 in the meantime while Intel improves it's cpu performance. I don't even think "Yonah" is a worthy project for Intel, they already have a ton of low end mobile 32-bit cpu's. Intel should consolidate it's product line into 64-bit cpus for mobile apps and 64-bit cpus for desktops. And if dual core technology is availible, make new chips dual core and drop the single core product lines.
Common Imagine if Ford continued it's Model-T line along with it's new vehicles. Intel should drop it's Celeron line and Celeron D lines. Just sell the P4 HT as the low end cpu, and the P4 HT Extreme Edition and Pentium D's as the mid range desktop cpus. And Xeons and Itaniums for the high end.
And for mobile cpu's there's too many choices as well. They have a Celeron M and a Pentium M and a Pentium 4 M with more lines on the way.
Originally posted by ngmapple
The biggest problem developers are voicing in that their code just plain doesn't run as fast on Intel as it did on PPC at least with media intensive apps. SSE3 appears to be litterally 1/3rd as fast as Altivec. So switching to Intel ends up being a significant downgrade performance wise, even in the Desktop market.
Where did you read that?
Originally posted by ngmapple
OS X running on Intel isn't the issue, that's pretty much a flip of the switch as OpenDarwin already runs on both. It's the 3rd party apps. that are taking the time in terms of software. The biggest problem developers are voicing in that their code just plain doesn't run as fast on Intel as it did on PPC at least with media intensive apps. SSE3 appears to be litterally 1/3rd as fast as Altivec. So switching to Intel ends up being a significant downgrade performance wise, even in the Desktop market. At least initially. It's two bad IBM didn't act quicker.
I strongly believe Apple should unleash a PowerBook G5 in the meantime while Intel improves it's cpu performance. I don't even think "Yonah" is a worthy project for Intel, they already have a ton of low end mobile 32-bit cpu's. Intel should consolidate it's product line into 64-bit cpus for mobile apps and 64-bit cpus for desktops. And if dual core technology is availible, make new chips dual core and drop the single core product lines.
Common Imagine if Ford continued it's Model-T line along with it's new vehicles. Intel should drop it's Celeron line and Celeron D lines. Just sell the P4 HT as the low end cpu, and the P4 HT Extreme Edition and Pentium D's as the mid range desktop cpus. And Xeons and Itaniums for the high end.
And for mobile cpu's there's too many choices as well. They have a Celeron M and a Pentium M and a Pentium 4 M with more lines on the way.
I agree that Intel's FPU performance leaves something to be desired but 64-bit really means nothing in a laptop. The major benefit is it's able to access amounts of RAM that are greater than 4 GB, and unless you are putting 4 GB modules in your Powerbook there is no benefit (Now that I think of it I don't think the small modules exist at that size). On top of that the few instances the 64-bit address space could be needed, the task will probably be run on a desktop, workstation or cluster which has the rest of the system design to go along with it and not the relatively slow busses and hard drives of laptops. Unless you intend to run a 1+ GHz bus and a 7,200 RPM 3.5 inch drive off a battery.
Originally posted by jherrling
I agree that Intel's FPU performance leaves something to be desired but 64-bit really means nothing in a laptop. The major benefit is it's able to access amounts of RAM that are greater than 4 GB, and unless you are putting 4 GB modules in your Powerbook there is no benefit (Now that I think of it I don't think the small modules exist at that size). On top of that the few instances the 64-bit address space could be needed, the task will probably be run on a desktop, workstation or cluster which has the rest of the system design to go along with it and not the relatively slow busses and hard drives of laptops. Unless you intend to run a 1+ GHz bus and a 7,200 RPM 3.5 inch drive off a battery.
I really couldn't agree more. People yelling for mobile athlon 64's are out of their bloddy minds. Sure, all that power would be great, but ikt would only be great for about ten minutes until the battery gave out.
The Pentium M's are great chips, at least as good as the G4's, probaby better. 64bit is only really useful inb a desktop at the moment, where you can have humungous amounts of RAM. Hell, I'm not even sure if Tiger is 64bit capable. Panther wasn't.
And while your at it, do you want all those 3rd party developers, already going to great expense to re-compile their apps to intel to have to make it 64bit as well?
I was under the impression that ASUS had been commisioned to build the first iBooks at least, I dont know why Sony would be brought into it - they are the equivelant of apple on the wintel side, providing laptops that actually look half decent and non-generic.
Originally posted by ngmapple
OS X running on Intel isn't the issue, that's pretty much a flip of the switch as OpenDarwin already runs on both. It's the 3rd party apps. that are taking the time in terms of software. The biggest problem developers are voicing in that their code just plain doesn't run as fast on Intel as it did on PPC at least with media intensive apps. SSE3 appears to be litterally 1/3rd as fast as Altivec. So switching to Intel ends up being a significant downgrade performance wise, even in the Desktop market. At least initially. It's two bad IBM didn't act quicker.
Dude your pulling this info out of your ass. A fully ported application to the Intel platform will be as fast or faster.
Please read facts before dreaming up fantasy literature.
http://developer.apple.com/documenta...versal_binary/
The biggest problem is they have to re-write not because it's slower. Plus if VMX was so great why didn't IBM include it in there Power-5 CPU.
The benchmark test your probly basing your info on is RC5. Distributed.net FAQ warns that the RC5 benchmark is a poor thing to use to characterize the performance of a CPU. It relies heavily on rotate instructions, which not all processors implement equally well (they're not used that often). Altivec has a vector permute unit that has a 128-bit vector rotate instruction. SSE does not have such an instruction. That's why the G5 performs so much better in that benchmark. It's a nice thing if you're software is really dependent on bit manipulation (crypto, stuff like that), but what most apps use the vector unit for is FMACs (multiply-accumulate instructions), and AltiVec and SSE do those equally fast.
Originally posted by jherrling
I agree that Intel's FPU performance leaves something to be desired but 64-bit really means nothing in a laptop. The major benefit is it's able to access amounts of RAM that are greater than 4 GB, and unless you are putting 4 GB modules in your Powerbook there is no benefit (Now that I think of it I don't think the small modules exist at that size). On top of that the few instances the 64-bit address space could be needed, the task will probably be run on a desktop, workstation or cluster which has the rest of the system design to go along with it and not the relatively slow busses and hard drives of laptops. Unless you intend to run a 1+ GHz bus and a 7,200 RPM 3.5 inch drive off a battery.
That's not entirely accurate. 64-bit can mean two things 64-bit REGISTERS and 64-bit ADDRESSING. The G5 has both (and I think this is the same case with the AMD 64 architecture). Your are partially right and partially incorrect. In terms of 64-bit ADDRESSING, the benifit only lies in the ability to address more RAM. However in terms of 64-bit ARITHMETIC REGISTERS, the numbers/variables or whatever to be crunched can be twice as long, in some cases doubling performance like a dual core configuration can.
Originally posted by ngmapple
That's not entirely accurate. 64-bit can mean two things 64-bit REGISTERS and 64-bit ADDRESSING. The G5 has both (and I think this is the same case with the AMD 64 architecture). Your are partially right and partially incorrect. In terms of 64-bit ADDRESSING, the benifit only lies in the ability to address more RAM. However in terms of 64-bit ARITHMETIC REGISTERS, the numbers/variables or whatever to be crunched can be twice as long, in some cases doubling performance like a dual core configuration can.
I wont argue with you becuase you sound like you know what your talking about (doesn't everyone these days?) BUT-
Dual core, 64bit dont double anything. They improve the performance, but if you were expecting your Halo framrates to double, you would be sorely disappointed.
Just my $0.02AUD
Dual core, 64bit dont double anything. They improve the performance, but if you were expecting your Halo framrates to double, you would be sorely disappointed.
That's because frame rate is a much bigger function of GPU power than of CPU power these days and there is really nothing in Halo that needs 64 bits.
If you take something like Gaussian (quantium chemistry computational system), using dual core 64 bit processor more than double the speed of calculations in a lot of cases compared to their 32 bit simgle core counterparts.
Video encoding such as DIVX or XVID or H.264 speed effectively doubles by using dualcore.
Originally posted by pyriX
Hell, I'm not even sure if Tiger is 64bit capable. Panther wasn't.
Tiger is completely 64-bit capable at its UNIX level but not at the GUI level. Read here.