[trv]

When did these get announced? I got one of the first g4 powerbooks I had to wait a month. This waiting game is VERY STUPID I think if you announce something you should be able to deliver it NO LATER than the next day. I called to get a BTO dual 2.5 and they said 3-5 weeks. Plus apple store should be able to do BTOs

[discotronic]

Originally posted by trv:
When did these get announced? I got one of the first g4 powerbooks I had to wait a month. This waiting game is VERY STUPID I think if you announce something you should be able to deliver it NO LATER than the next day. I called to get a BTO dual 2.5 and they said 3-5 weeks. Plus apple store should be able to do BTOs

IBM

[Mafia]

Originally posted by discotronic:
IBM

[UnixMac]

And there are people out there who are dreaming of a "speed bump" in January...

Fact is, 90nm is has hit a brick wall... It's all about yield and production on IBM's end. AMD and Intel are faring no better.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by trv:
When did these get announced? I got one of the first g4 powerbooks I had to wait a month. This waiting game is VERY STUPID I think if you announce something you should be able to deliver it NO LATER than the next day. I called to get a BTO dual 2.5 and they said 3-5 weeks. Plus apple store should be able to do BTOs

Waaaaaah.

[robo74]

so far from what I am reading on the 2.5's, they are not instock because Apple is fixing all the machines they have sold. I wish they would have tested it a bit more before rushing these orders out.


Thats my .02

Rob

[Mafia]

Originally posted by UnixMac:
And there are people out there who are dreaming of a "speed bump" in January...

Fact is, 90nm is has hit a brick wall... It's all about yield and production on IBM's end. AMD and Intel are faring no better.

ya dreaming really is the keyword there. i believe they are nothing but dreams.

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by robo74:
so far from what I am reading on the 2.5's, they are not instock because Apple is fixing all the machines they have sold. I wish they would have tested it a bit more before rushing these orders out.


Thats my .02

Rob

where are you reading this?? I've hard that the failure rate on the 2.5's is not better or no worse than any other G5.. No.. it's the production of 2.5GHz PPC 970's... The reject rate for those at IBM is thru the roof..

[robo74]

Originally posted by UnixMac:
where are you reading this?? I've hard that the failure rate on the 2.5's is not better or no worse than any other G5.. No.. it's the production of 2.5GHz PPC 970's... The reject rate for those at IBM is thru the roof..

I am just getting that OPINION (hence me putting my .02) from what I read. I visit different forums and see more posts about troubles with the 2.5's then I do any other G5 machine.
Plus, for such a newer machine on such a back order for consumers, there sure is alot of refurbs being sold every week.

Once again, this is just all my opinion ;-)

Rob

[CatOne]

Originally posted by robo74:
I am just getting that OPINION (hence me putting my .02) from what I read. I visit different forums and see more posts about troubles with the 2.5's then I do any other G5 machine.
Plus, for such a newer machine on such a back order for consumers, there sure is alot of refurbs being sold every week.

Once again, this is just all my opinion ;-)

Rob

Sure, so if 5 out of 10,000 dual 2.5's are bad, all 5 will post on the forums about them, and maybe 5 people will say "my machine is fine." Making you think half are bad, when really .05% are bad.

Forums are an awful way to judge a failure rate.

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by robo74:
I am just getting that OPINION (hence me putting my .02) from what I read. I visit different forums and see more posts about troubles with the 2.5's then I do any other G5 machine.
Plus, for such a newer machine on such a back order for consumers, there sure is alot of refurbs being sold every week.

Once again, this is just all my opinion ;-)

Rob

didn't mean to come off so defensive... I guess I was curious if you had hard data on it is all, cause I'd like to know since I have one.

However it is true that message boards are going to be filled with problems at a artificial rate to the real world. I frequent watch boards and the same is true there. People draw conclusions about a bad design because the 10 guys with the lemons flood the message boards with their problem. When it turned out to be a single production run that wound up in the hands of a few guys around the world.

Apple's only problem with my Mac has been sending me the wrong CD's for my NV40 CTO's mac. The CD's I have will not allow me to boot into the CD ROM Install Disk 1 since it's 10.3.4 and the NV40 needs 10.3.5.

[chris v]

Originally posted by discotronic:
IBM

In Before Motorola??

[Luca Rescigno]

The highest clock speed for a 64 bit x86 chip is 2.4 GHz, for certain models of the AMD Athlon 64. Meanwhile, Intel is not gaining ANY ground with the P4 - it's staying put where it is.

At this point, Apple could afford to stay at 2.5 GHz for a long time and it would be fine. As long as they keep the rest of their stuff up to date I don't see any problem with having a dual processor 2.5 GHz computer as their high end. That's pretty damn good, easily on par with the highest end AMD-based workstations. Their main disadvantage is probably the 512 kb of L2 cache vs. 1 MB on the high-end AMDs.

I said a little while ago that I think it would be nice if Apple could do a little "feature bump" for the PowerMacs, giving them PCI Express, 16x DVD burners, higher speeds on the low end models (like a 2.0/2.2/2.5 lineup), better stock graphics cards (PCI Express models like the Radeon X600 and X700 and the GeForce 6600GT), hopefully a little more internal expansion, 8 RAM slots on all dual processor models, and maybe even extra L2 cache. I don't think it'll actually happen, but it would be pretty nice. Of course we'd have people here complaining that they're not any faster, but of course they'd be wrong.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
The highest clock speed for a 64 bit x86 chip is 2.4 GHz, for certain models of the AMD Athlon 64. Meanwhile, Intel is not gaining ANY ground with the P4 - it's staying put where it is.

At this point, Apple could afford to stay at 2.5 GHz for a long time and it would be fine. As long as they keep the rest of their stuff up to date I don't see any problem with having a dual processor 2.5 GHz computer as their high end. That's pretty damn good, easily on par with the highest end AMD-based workstations. Their main disadvantage is probably the 512 kb of L2 cache vs. 1 MB on the high-end AMDs.

I said a little while ago that I think it would be nice if Apple could do a little "feature bump" for the PowerMacs, giving them PCI Express, 16x DVD burners, higher speeds on the low end models (like a 2.0/2.2/2.5 lineup), better stock graphics cards (PCI Express models like the Radeon X600 and X700 and the GeForce 6600GT), hopefully a little more internal expansion, 8 RAM slots on all dual processor models, and maybe even extra L2 cache. I don't think it'll actually happen, but it would be pretty nice. Of course we'd have people here complaining that they're not any faster, but of course they'd be wrong.

The main problem is not the lack of cache, it's the lack of on chip memory controller. Put a G5 variant with one of those in, bump the graphics card up to something reasonable, and you'd have a very competitive machine, instead of a mostly competitive machine.

[Al G]

Originally posted by UnixMac:
And there are people out there who are dreaming of a "speed bump" in January...

That's nothing, I was dreaming of a speed bump now!

Not that I really thought it would happen, but I had just ordered a DP2.0 the day before the new version of the single 1.8 was announced (and rumors of it appeared the night before). In my own personal flight of fancy I thought it would be great to get a DP2.2 for the same price.

Sigh. I can dream, can't I? (But I didn't even dream about the top end getting faster than 2.5.)

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by Al G:
That's nothing, I was dreaming of a speed bump now!

Not that I really thought it would happen, but I had just ordered a DP2.0 the day before the new version of the single 1.8 was announced (and rumors of it appeared the night before). In my own personal flight of fancy I thought it would be great to get a DP2.2 for the same price.

Sigh. I can dream, can't I? (But I didn't even dream about the top end getting faster than 2.5.)

a dual 2.0 stocked up with plenty of RAM and a good graphics card is going to be plenty fast for a while... and wait till 10.4 comes out with all of the improvements for G5, 64bit, 2D and 3D, it's gonna get a second wind.

[reader50]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
The highest clock speed for a 64 bit x86 chip is 2.4 GHz, for certain models of the AMD Athlon 64. Meanwhile, Intel is not gaining ANY ground with the P4 - it's staying put where it is.
...

Newegg - Athlon 64 FX 55 in stock at 2.6 GHz

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by reader50:
Newegg - Athlon 64 FX 55 in stock at 2.6 GHz

wow! almost $900 ea just for the chip!

Crazy, man... all just to run winblows faster!

[Mafia]

Originally posted by UnixMac:
wow! winblows faster!

heh. ya the "fast" athlon chips and pentium are at ridiculous prices right now. but they lose their value fast.

[P]

A speed bump could very well mean 1.8-2*2-2*2.2-2*2.5, or something like that. I sort of think that PCIe is going to take a while though - more a of a big chipset redesign. Faster burners: sure. More HD bays: Oh yes. On-board bluetooth and Airport and whatever: No problem. Big new chipset version: Not yet.

BTW: X600 is just a 9600 ported to PCIe. You'd get better performance with a 9800. An X700 or 6600, now... Plus, that'd boost the stock card to a 6200 - I guess that's something.

[P]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
The main problem is not the lack of cache, it's the lack of on chip memory controller. Put a G5 variant with one of those in, bump the graphics card up to something reasonable, and you'd have a very competitive machine, instead of a mostly competitive machine.

That's coming (it's already on the Power5), but it's mainly important for the portables. The upside for a desktop is lower memory latency, which of course is nice but not quite so important on a chip with a 625 MHz DDR FSB. A P4 with a 200 MHz QDR FSB needs it more - the latency depends on the actual clockspeed without DDR or QDR. The downside is more heat and more transistors in a smaller area.

Other things that are coming is SMT (what Intel calls Hyperthreading) and dualcores. A new stepping to reduce the problems at 2.5 GHz could also come all on its own. No idea on when, though.

[Al G]

Originally posted by UnixMac:
a dual 2.0 stocked up with plenty of RAM and a good graphics card is going to be plenty fast for a while...

True, but not as fast as my imaginary Dual 2.2GHz.

I would rather have that instead of a 2.5 because of both the price point, and I expect a 2.2 would not need to be liquid cooled (based on the DP 2.3GHz Xserves at VTech). It was all just my little fantasy and since my 2.0 has already shipped, it will remain just a fantasy.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by P:
That's coming (it's already on the Power5), but it's mainly important for the portables. The upside for a desktop is lower memory latency, which of course is nice but not quite so important on a chip with a 625 MHz DDR FSB. A P4 with a 200 MHz QDR FSB needs it more - the latency depends on the actual clockspeed without DDR or QDR. The downside is more heat and more transistors in a smaller area.

Other things that are coming is SMT (what Intel calls Hyperthreading) and dualcores. A new stepping to reduce the problems at 2.5 GHz could also come all on its own. No idea on when, though.

The G5 has quite high memory latency. Sure it's got tons of bandwidth, which helps (mostly for FP tasks), but I think the Opteron has shown quite nicely that OMC == good. Also, big cache == low latency, omc == low latency. Why would one help, but not the other (I realize this makes my point a bit odd as well, but I think that at this point the omc will get more bang for the buck)?

[VukOnCrack]

Sun has sold sparc processors with 16MB of on chip cache for years and years. Right now Apple doesn't distinguish between a robust "desktop" machine and a true workstation. Perhaps they should (ECC memory and a laundry list of other wants).

[UnixMac]

Originally posted by VukOnCrack:
Sun has sold sparc processors with 16MB of on chip cache for years and years. Right now Apple doesn't distinguish between a robust "desktop" machine and a true workstation. Perhaps they should (ECC memory and a laundry list of other wants).

I would venture to say that some of these high end UltraSparc III Sun's are in a whole different class than a G5 or any PC for that matter. Although I always thought it would have been nice if Apple went with Sun for CPU's and worked on an UltraSparc IV at 2.0+ Ghz... hmm..

[P]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
The G5 has quite high memory latency. Sure it's got tons of bandwidth, which helps (mostly for FP tasks), but I think the Opteron has shown quite nicely that OMC == good. Also, big cache == low latency, omc == low latency. Why would one help, but not the other (I realize this makes my point a bit odd as well, but I think that at this point the omc will get more bang for the buck)?

Sure it helps, but with a tradeoff: More heat in smaller area - the worse the higher the clockspeed. Still, it's coming allright, but don't expect it to help bring up the clockspeed. Also, the G5 has dual unidirectional memory buses, which leads to a lower memory latency than the standard single multidirectional bus (for collision negotiation reasons), so the memory latency is not that high compared to say the P4.