Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

zerostar · Jun 8, 2005, 01:35 PM

This was posted by - - e r i k - - in another thread and originally posted on http://xlr8yourmac.com/ I think it deserves its own thread...

" I'm going to keep this brief, so please write me with the questions you have and any tests you want run on one of the dev kits. I will have one of my own next week as well.
First, the thing is fast. Native apps readily beat a single 2.7 G5, and sometimes beat duals. Really.
(I asked about real-world apps - if any were already available in native code-Mike)
All the iLife apps other than iTunes, plus all the other apps that come with the OS are already universal binaries....

They are using a Pentium 4 660. This is a 3.6 GHz chip. It supports 64 bit extensions, but Apple does not support that *yet*. The 660 is a single core processor. However, the engineers said that this chip would not be used in a shipping product and that we need to look at Intel's roadmap for that time to see what Apple will ship.

It uses DDR-2 RAM at 533 MHz. SATA-2. It is using Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics and it supports Quartz Extreme. The Intel 900 doesn't compare favorably to any shipping card from ATi or nVidia. The Apple engineers says they dev kit will work with regular PC graphics cards, but that you need a driver. Apple does not write ANY graphics drivers. They just submit bug reports to ATi/nVidia. So, when we asked where to get drivers for better cards the engineers said "The ATI guys are here." He's right, they've been in the compatibility lab several times.

It has FireWire 400, but not 800. USB 2 as well. USB 2 booting is supported, FireWire booting is not. NetBoot works.

The machines do not have Open Firmware. They use a Phoenix BIOS. That;s right, a Mac with a BIOS.
(I asked if the Bios had any tweaks like Memory Timing which is common for many PC motherboards, although Intel OEM motherboards don't usually have any end user tweaks like that.-Mike)
They won't tell us how to get in the BIOS. I'm sure we can figure it out when out dev kits arrive.

They run Windows fine. All the chipset is standard Intel stuff, so you can download drivers and run XP on the box.

Rosetta is amazing. (see earlier post on limitations of the Rosetta emulator - it's a G3 emulator basically - will not run Altivec code, etc. and performance isn't going to be as good as native code, but most Mac apps will run on a G3.-Mike) The tests I've run, both app tests and benchmarks, peg it at between a dual 800 MHz G4 and and a dual 2 G5 depending on what you are doing.
(I mentioned to him the limitations of Rosetta (posted below)-Mike)
It's true Rosetta does not support Altivec, but most apps run on a G3, right? Rosetta tells PPC apps that it is a G3. Apps should fall back to their G3 code tree. Everyone I tested did.

The UI tests in Xbench exceed a dual 2.7 by a large margin. (other specific tests are much lower than a G5 per Xbench site results.-Mike)

I've been talking to and watching a lot of devs. There are a lot of apps from big names running in the Compatibility lab already. Some people face more pain, sure, but Jobs wasn't kidding when he said that this transition would be less painful than OS 9 to OS X or 68K to PPC.

Game devs seem optimistic. They see porting Windows/x86 to Mac/x86 as much easier. They look forward to the day they don't have to support PPC.
I was talking to a (game Developer) that said about 1/3 of the process is handling endian issues, the rest is Win32/DirectX. For the next 3-5 years, their job will be harder since they have to port to two processor architectures and most bugs *are* endian related and that they will have a hard time making the PPC versions run as well as the x86 versions.

This transition is not about current P4 vs G5. It is about the future directions of the processor families. Intel is committed to desktop/notebook and server in a big way. Freescale/IBM are chasing the embedded market and console market. Apple would have been in a lurch in 2 years.

Also, all the cell people and the AMD people need to be quiet. Apple evaluated both. AMD has the same, if not worse, supply problems as IBM. Their roadmap is fine, but the production capacity is not.

The tested Cell as well. That processor is NOT intended for PC applications. (it was designed for game systems, not as a general use CPU) The lack of out of order execution and ILP control logic creates very poor performance with existing software. Having developers rewrite for cell would have been MUCH more work than reworking for Intel. And that's what this is, you rework your codebase in ALL cases, not rewrite it. "

Wonder how much of this is true? Seems like all this should be under NDA?

zerostar · Jun 8, 2005, 01:44 PM

And Another:

Posted at:http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...threadid=54929

Okay the xbench tests going around are misleading. I played with the OS X Intel Dev kit here at WWDC and I have to say it feels FAST. It feels faster than the dual 2.7ghz g5.

Ignore the benchmarks posted so far, while there isn't lots to test, all Apple's apps are on it, and they are faster on the single 3.6 than the dual processor. You know sometimes how you see the rainbow beachball? I never saw it once on the Intel system. Windows snap, the finder is faster, and iphoto even is faster. Safari screams, it's snappy it feels like using IE on windows....

Window resizing is much faster on the 3.6ghz box. I think for day to day things, browsing, mail, internet a single 3.6 is faster than a dual machine (probably great for processing photoshop)....

Can't wait to see a 3.8 or a dual core intel chip.

So far this thing is very fast, and it feels fast. Feels like OS X got the speeds it's needed all this time. Fast OS but it feels underpowered on the g5.

ManOfSteal · Jun 8, 2005, 01:44 PM

New Hotness!

osxisfun · Jun 8, 2005, 01:53 PM

NICCCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEE!

take that and put in your non-3gig-g5 producing -no laptop g5 making pipe and smoke it IBM...

ambush · Jun 8, 2005, 02:06 PM

Overclock Time

Goldfinger · Jun 8, 2005, 02:07 PM

This does indeed sound very good. Give me that dual Xeon PowerMac in January Apple !

Millennium · Jun 8, 2005, 02:11 PM

This should, at least in theory, all be under NDA. I wouldn't trust it.

Randman · Jun 8, 2005, 02:11 PM

Interesting.

zerostar · Jun 8, 2005, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by osxisfun

NICCCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEE!
take that and put in your non-3gig-g5 producing -no laptop g5 making pipe and smoke it IBM...

hahaha. I am still a bit skeptical of these reports, My Dual Xeon doesn't perform that well or even as good as my Dual 2.5 G5, I don't know if it is the M$ OS that is bogging things down or what?

IF (and thats a big IF to me) these reports are true, perhaps here is your reason Apple is making the switch???????

Imagine with me for a second.... *harp music and a white haze fills the air* Apple puts years and years and years of $$ and talent into a truly advanced OS, and perhaps they saw 3 years ago that the performance on the Intel chips was so awesome, they compile and build and tweak for the Intel alongside the G5's. One day (perhaps back as far as 10.3) you realize the switch NEEDS to be made, you start priming OS X for Intel, perhaps leave out some optimizations for the G5 as that would take away from your Intel progress (hence the 10.4's little bit of gain?)
Pure fantasy of course...

Goldfinger · Jun 8, 2005, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

This should, at least in theory, all be under NDA. I wouldn't trust it.

Since when did that stop people from leaking stuff ?

osxisfun · Jun 8, 2005, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by zerostar

hahaha. I am still a bit skeptical of these reports, My Dual Xeon doesn't perform that well or even as good as my Dual 2.5 G5, I don't know if it is the M$ OS that is bogging things down or what?

IF (and thats a big IF to me) these reports are true, perhaps here is your reason Apple is making the switch???????

Imagine with me for a second.... *harp music and a white haze fills the air* Apple puts years and years and years of $$ and talent into a truly advanced OS, and perhaps they saw 3 years ago that the performance on the Intel chips was so awesome, they compile and build and tweak for the Intel alongside the G5's. One day (perhaps back as far as 10.3) you realize the switch NEEDS to be made, you start priming OS X for Intel, perhaps leave out some optimizations for the G5 as that would take away from your Intel progress (hence the 10.4's little bit of gain?)
Pure fantasy of course...

I am betting its the result of apple people optmizing code when they tired of nerf ball

Gotta do something in between intel-izing 10.0 .. 10.1 .... 10.2....

Millennium · Jun 8, 2005, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

Since when did that stop people from leaking stuff ?

This close to the announcement? One would think Apple would be keeping this under wraps at least until it can ship the units.

A further note: Firewire800 being abandoned for USB2: another case of ditching superior technology. This makes three (PPC, OpenFirmware, and now FW800). Do you still think that Apple isn't cutting corners?

zerostar · Jun 8, 2005, 02:30 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

Firewire800 being abandoned for USB2

No one said that, this is an off the shelf-type board, let Apple finish something before jumping to a conclusion.

Goldfinger · Jun 8, 2005, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

This close to the announcement? One would think Apple would be keeping this under wraps at least until it can ship the units.

A further note: Firewire800 being abandoned for USB2: another case of ditching superior technology. This makes three (PPC, OpenFirmware, and now FW800). Do you still think that Apple isn't cutting corners?

Wow, wow, nobody said that they will be ditching FW800. This dev box isn't, in any form, a representation of their future shipping projects. I'm fairly confident that they will stick with FW800.

mdc · Jun 8, 2005, 02:36 PM

if that is all true, the times ahead look very good.

mitchell_pgh · Jun 8, 2005, 02:36 PM

Interesting information.

Even if a single P4 is on par with ANY G5... I'm happy.

Goldfinger · Jun 8, 2005, 02:37 PM

And the best part: "Intel Integrated Graphics" !

mitchell_pgh · Jun 8, 2005, 02:39 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

A further note: Firewire800 being abandoned for USB2: another case of ditching superior technology. This makes three (PPC, OpenFirmware, and now FW800). Do you still think that Apple isn't cutting corners?

I want the old Millennium back. The one that didn't jump to extreme conclusions...

mitchell_pgh · Jun 8, 2005, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

And the best part: "Intel Integrated Graphics" !

No kidding... ha ha... I'm sure ATI will be all over drivers before long.

zerostar · Jun 8, 2005, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

And the best part: "Intel Integrated Graphics" !

Yeah thats good stuff.

osxisfun · Jun 8, 2005, 02:42 PM

Originally Posted by zerostar

Yeah thats good stuff.

Apple Pro Underwear · Jun 8, 2005, 02:46 PM

BEST CASE scenario.

WORST CASE scenario: 2005 and still without a 3Ghz Powermac and a G5 Powerbook.

mitchell_pgh · Jun 8, 2005, 03:03 PM

I'll admit that at first I was VERY shoked by the Intel decision. The first thing I thought was "NOT AGAIN!!!" I've endured both of the other switches (OS 9 to OS X being the most difficult... even to this day [WHY WON'T PEOPLE MOVE AWAY FROM QUARK 4.1!!! [I know, I know... "because it works") but I took a few deep breaths and really thought about it and came to the following conclusion. The reason I keep coming purchasing Macs is because I love the OS and trust their hardware.

Until Apple proves me wrong with the x86 archatecture shift, I'm going to stick with them. I'm still planning on buying an iBook (when the new ones come out) which should last me through the appoaching storm. My 733 G4 isn't going anywhere either.

As long as I'm not plaigued by the standard PC stuff, I'm not going anywhere.