[DrBoar]

The argument that the 970 wull be single beacuse a single 2GHz 970 is faster than a G4 dual 1.42 neglect the fact that a single 2 GHz 970 is "only" on par or allmost on with a Pentium 4 at 3.06 GHz.

The G4 in the towers were 4 years of via dolorosa for Apple. Shortly after its introduction at 450/500 MHz G4 the 1 GHZ AMD came out stomping all over the G4 and it just went on and on. OS X and its support for dual CPUs have lessened the stomping but not stopped it.

With dual 970 Apple can actually take the lead over the winXP home/Intel crowd. Should they pass the oportunity to lead after lagging behind for 4 years beacuse the dual 970 are to fast?

I am sure that some will complain that dual 970 are to fast for their tetris game or that they got screwed by buying a 1.42 G4 but Apple will then smile at them while walking to the bank!

Regarding price of CPUs there is nothing intrinsic to a fast CPU that it should cost more than a slow CPU. For the production cost is inversly proportionl to yield and proportional to die size.
The die size of the 970 is 118 mm2 while the Pentium 4 is about 150 mm2. And it IBM is talking about 2.5 GHz CPUs one could assume that they yields of say 2GHz CPUs should be really good. So the fact that a 970 is much much faster than a G4 does not mean that it has to be more expensive to manufacture

[RealMadrid]

Personally I think Duals should be kept but there also should be a single model for the low end.

If there really will be duals will also depend on the availability of the chips. If supply is not good they probably will go for single CPU models.

[Mac Zealot]

I think they should definately keep the duals, JUST IMAGINE the power of a dual 970!

A dual 2.5ghz 970 g4 would EAT ANY x86 PC on the market

[spiznet]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DrBoar:
[B]The argument that the 970 wull be single beacuse a single 2GHz 970 is faster than a G4 dual 1.42 neglect the fact that a single 2 GHz 970 is "only" on par or allmost on with a Pentium 4 at 3.06 GHz.
<snip>

Is this really true? 2GHz 970 = 3GHz P4?

I thought 1GHz G4= 2GHz P4, so this would equate to the 970 not being much faster, actually slower, than the G4.

(If there could be such a thing as a 2 GHz G4 it should be the equivalent of a 4GHz P4, no?)

What is the speed differential between the 970 & G4 at equal GHz?

Obviously other factors beyond processor speed are important, but it helps to have a ballpark idea of potentials....

[CatOne]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by spiznet:
[B]

Originally posted by DrBoar:
The argument that the 970 wull be single beacuse a single 2GHz 970 is faster than a G4 dual 1.42 neglect the fact that a single 2 GHz 970 is "only" on par or allmost on with a Pentium 4 at 3.06 GHz.
<snip>

Is this really true? 2GHz 970 = 3GHz P4?

I thought 1GHz G4= 2GHz P4, so this would equate to the 970 not being much faster, actually slower, than the G4.

(If there could be such a thing as a 2 GHz G4 it should be the equivalent of a 4GHz P4, no?)

What is the speed differential between the 970 & G4 at equal GHz?

Obviously other factors beyond processor speed are important, but it helps to have a ballpark idea of potentials....

Well who really knows... these numbers are somewhat pulled from random orifices anyway.

But the problem is that the G4 isn't running at high clock speeds... the highest available right now in a Mac is 1.42 (and that's not even shipping yet). If the 970 starts at 2.0 and goes up to 4.0 GHz eventually it'll be faster than a G4, even if a G4 at 1 GHz was the same speed as a 970 at 1 GHz.

I mean the Pentiums have shown some pretty good legs... a 3.06 GHz P4 is very close to 30 times faster than a 100 MHz Pentium... I have an Athlon 2800+ machine and I must say it blows doors on the speed of a dual 1.25 G4 right now.

[Mac Zealot]

It's actually funny, because things as small as the system controller make the LARGEST difference in computer's speed.

You can have the best specs in the planet but if you have a crap chipset (intel or SIS for example), your machine is crap.

My sis/celery 900 feels as fast as my p166 vaio in everyday use.