[mduell]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

So you want to call into question the results I quoted above because they happen to favor IBM? Even when it's a known fact that the G5 has always done exceptionally well at floating point?

...But you're willing to chow down on the Intel scores even though there is more controversey surrounding the validity of Intel SPEC scores than there is any other architecture?

I call them into question because we have no details about them. Were they achieved using compilers available for OSX? If not, it hardly matters since I don't see anyone running AIX on their Macs.

If you have evidence to invalidate any of Intel's scores I'd suggest bringing it to the attention of SPEC.

[baw]

I think it is funny that no one believed Apple's performance benchmarks in the past, but now all of the sudden the benchmarks of Intel processors Apple puts out are legit.

[rhashem]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Oh, and for those of you eating up the '3x faster' BS up based on the SPEC scores Apple showed during the keynote, convinced that IBM couldn't have done better;

970MP @ 2.5GHz

SPECint - 32.3
SPECfp - 42.8

Those numbers are nothing more than a tease. They are taken using a compiler that's not even available on OS X (XLC 8.x). The most recent version of XLC available for OS X, 6.x, is a significantly slower, and the most commonly used compiler for the G5, GCC, is slower still. In contrast, the Intel Core numbers are taken using Intel C++, which will be available for OS X. Moreover, GCC, which will still be the most common compiler on OS X, is much closer to Intel C++ on x86 than to XLC on PowerPC. GCC's design just doesn't properly optimize for the G5's complex group dispatch scheme.

Apple's numbers appear to use the latest XLC available for OS X, and are actually a bit better than the official results for the 970 available at spec.org. They are a much more realistic comparison for OS X users (as opposed to AIX users, for whom IBM's posted SPEC results are quite reasonable).

[mduell]

Originally Posted by baw

I think it is funny that no one believed Apple's performance benchmarks in the past, but now all of the sudden the benchmarks of Intel processors Apple puts out are legit.

Apple's figures for Core Duo are consistent with the published figures for Dothan and Banias.

[rhashem]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

So you want to call into question the results I quoted above because they happen to favor IBM? Even when it's a known fact that the G5 has always done exceptionally well at floating point?

...But you're willing to chow down on the Intel scores even though there is more controversey surrounding the validity of Intel SPEC scores than there is any other architecture?

Not so much known fact as common belief. The G5's FPU performance is highly variable, especially when using a commodity compiler (GCC, MWCC). For artificial benchmarks like LINPACK, and some special algorithms (like FFTs) that can fit in cache, the G5 can indeed be very fast. However, if your code does a lot of mixed integer/floating-point, or hits memory a lot, the G5's FPU performance plummets. It is very much a streaming (dare I say Netburst) type chip, one that has been stymied, like the Netburst chips, by the frequency wall caused by power dissipation problems. Both the G5 and the Prescotts, had they run at their expected frequencies (3 GHz G5 or 5 GHz Pentium 4 by last year), would be impressive chips, but unfortunately that didn't pan out.

As for comparing the 2.5 GHz 970MP to a Yonah: what exactly is your point? Even your best-case benchmarks show the best 970MP only achieving parity in integer performance* with the second-from-best Yonah chip. The 970MP dissipates 100W, Yonah dissipates 30W. The 970MP has a die size of 154mm^2, Yonah has a die size of 90mm^2. There is no way the 2.3 GHz 970MP would fit in an iMac (my 2.3 GHz 970MP runs quite hot, even with the giant PowerMac heatsink and four relatively loud fans in a wind-tunnel configuration). The 2x and 3x faster statements are opimistic, but within the realm of believability. Given the thermal envelope of an iMac, and the component budget, you likely cannot do much better than a ~2 GHz G5. Yonah, because of its small die size and power efficient design, allows you to use a much faster processor within the same design constraints.

* Being an iMac, integer performance is more important here.

[rhashem]

Originally Posted by baw

I think it is funny that no one believed Apple's performance benchmarks in the past, but now all of the sudden the benchmarks of Intel processors Apple puts out are legit.

The original G5 benchmarks Apple put out were quite realistic, but drew a lot of unfair criticism for using GCC on both platforms. Of course, this criticism was idiotic, because commodity compilers like GCC, are *far* more common than super-compilers like Intel C++ and XLC. They also captured aspects of the G5's performance profile (eg: relatively poor nteger performance), that have been bourne out by experience.

Prior to the Apple's publishing SPEC benchmarks, they published a lot of much less creditable ones (eg: BYTEMARK), and of course, their omnipresent application benchmarks which are completely randomly generated anyway. When industry-standard SPEC scores for the G3s and G4s came out, and contridicted Apple's own claims, there was quite a backlash against Apple's benchmarking methods (which is probably why they use SPEC these days anyway). I would argue their benchmarking practices have changed for the better over time. The use of SPEC, in particular, is an example. SPEC isn't perfect, but has the redeeming features of a) actually running real-world code, and b) actually running the same code on each platform. This makes it a much better measure than most synthetic benchmarks, or application benchmarks like Photoshop (the results of which depend more on how much effort went into the port than on CPU performance).

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Fdanna

Two things on the new iMac that I'm excited about: The graphics card has H.264 hardware decoding (this should make a huge difference in HD playback performance) and that there is now a gigabit ethernet port.

The current iMac G5 has Gigabit Ethernet too. The last revision as well. It's only the very first iMac G5 geenration that didn't come with Gigabit Ethernet.

http://www.apple.com/imacg5/specs.html

The new iMac is still very nice though.

[inkhead]

First of all, the specs aren't BS. Go play with one of the machines at the expo yourself. I had 3 1080p videos playing flawlessly at once. the finder is much faster. The powerbooks were faster than my QUAD g5 for general stuff like browsing, email, and stuff i do most of the day.

The best part about switching to intel will be the highly-optimized compilers Intel has. Apple will start using them more and more, and it will make OS X scream.

Trust me the new mac book pros are incredibly fast, so fast that it will make you blush and angry when you go home to your g5 tower.

[Pierre B.]

I am sorry to interrupt the benchmark contest, but... where are REAL application benchmarks? Thw whole iLife package runs natively on the new iMacs. Where are photo/video/audio transformations for example on PowerPC vs. Intel?

[pliny]

Originally Posted by rhashem

The 970MP dissipates 100W, Yonah dissipates 30W. The 970MP has a die size of 154mm^2, Yonah has a die size of 90mm^2. There is no way the 2.3 GHz 970MP would fit in an iMac (my 2.3 GHz 970MP runs quite hot, even with the giant PowerMac heatsink and four relatively loud fans in a wind-tunnel configuration). The 2x and 3x faster statements are opimistic, but within the realm of believability. Given the thermal envelope of an iMac, and the component budget, you likely cannot do much better than a ~2 GHz G5. Yonah, because of its small die size and power efficient design, allows you to use a much faster processor within the same design constraints.

Doesn't this comport with what Apple has been saying about its chip supply problems, the strongest proof of which is still no G5 chip suitable for a laptop?

Whatever the claims about the G5 performance versus other chips, it runs very hot and IBM have not produced enough of them or advanced the design sufficiently to make for timely and periodic computers.

Originally Posted by rhashem

The original G5 benchmarks Apple put out were quite realistic, but drew a lot of unfair criticism for using GCC on both platforms. Of course, this criticism was idiotic, because commodity compilers like GCC, are *far* more common than super-compilers like Intel C++ and XLC. They also captured aspects of the G5's performance profile (eg: relatively poor nteger performance), that have been bourne out by experience.

Heh heh, this is an understatement! Many people flat out refused to believe the benchmarks and accused Apple of rigging tests because GCC was not supercompiled like the others.

[Chimpmaster]

I purchased the last rev imac (17" widescreen, 1.9Ghz CPU, 1.5GB Ram, 128MB VRAM) and Im very happy I bought it.

The new one looks good but not significantly better for me to feel concerned.

[Naediel]

So I did this.

iMac 20" 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo.
1x1GB RAM
250GB
ATI Radeon X1600 128MB

And you know the rest of the specs.

[wowway1]

They are landing - my local Apple store reports they received them today, but they won't go on sale 'until tomorrow at the earliest' which is DUMB

[Anand]

Originally Posted by Chimpmaster

I purchased the last rev imac (17" widescreen, 1.9Ghz CPU, 1.5GB Ram, 128MB VRAM) and Im very happy I bought it.

The new one looks good but not significantly better for me to feel concerned.

Thank you. A post by someone who is happy with the machine that they have. I still use my original Imac 800 G4 and love it. Anybody on these boards complaining about a machine they bought is just plain stupid. I am no rocket scientist but I fully understand that Apple may update any machine at Macworld and at WWDC.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by rhashem

As for comparing the 2.5 GHz 970MP to a Yonah: what exactly is your point? Even your best-case benchmarks show the best 970MP only achieving parity in integer performance* with the second-from-best Yonah chip. The 970MP dissipates 100W, Yonah dissipates 30W. The 970MP has a die size of 154mm^2, Yonah has a die size of 90mm^2. There is no way the 2.3 GHz 970MP would fit in an iMac (my 2.3 GHz 970MP runs quite hot, even with the giant PowerMac heatsink and four relatively loud fans in a wind-tunnel configuration). The 2x and 3x faster statements are opimistic, but within the realm of believability. Given the thermal envelope of an iMac, and the component budget, you likely cannot do much better than a ~2 GHz G5. Yonah, because of its small die size and power efficient design, allows you to use a much faster processor within the same design constraints.

I think a 30W PPC970MP would be closer to 1.2 - 1.4Ghz (assuming "power-optimized parts"), based on the figures for PPC970FX (MP is more or less two FX cores).

Originally Posted by inkhead

First of all, the specs aren't BS. Go play with one of the machines at the expo yourself. I had 3 1080p videos playing flawlessly at once. the finder is much faster. The powerbooks were faster than my QUAD g5 for general stuff like browsing, email, and stuff i do most of the day.

The best part about switching to intel will be the highly-optimized compilers Intel has. Apple will start using them more and more, and it will make OS X scream.

It is incredible that you felt the Core Duo was faster than your quad.
If you believe the rumor that OS X is compiled for size, not performance, then the switch to using icc may not be as significant.

Originally Posted by pliny

Heh heh, this is an understatement! Many people flat out refused to believe the benchmarks and accused Apple of rigging tests because GCC was not supercompiled like the others.

Apple/Veritest also used relaxed math precision, a thread-unsafe malloc library, and a few other tricks for the G5 figures in those tests.

[mindwaves]

Originally Posted by Chimpmaster

I purchased the last rev imac (17" widescreen, 1.9Ghz CPU, 1.5GB Ram, 128MB VRAM) and Im very happy I bought it.

The new one looks good but not significantly better for me to feel concerned.

Same here. No regrets.

[ciparis]

Originally Posted by wowway1

They are landing - my local Apple store reports they received them today, but they won't go on sale 'until tomorrow at the earliest' which is DUMB

Woot! Thanks for the update! I might just have to be at my local store near closing time tonight or opening time tomorrow to take a 20" off their hands

[wowway1]

It was strange....I have no idea why the guy didn't know when they would be on sale. Most every product prior they have sold as soon as it hit the store, so I don't know if he was feeding me a line or what.

I called another apple store in my state and they said the 17th. They even had a recording stating that.

[ciparis]

Originally Posted by wowway1

It was strange....I have no idea why the guy didn't know when they would be on sale. Most every product prior they have sold as soon as it hit the store, so I don't know if he was feeding me a line or what.

I called another apple store in my state and they said the 17th. They even had a recording stating that.

I've had three stores with them in stock. 1 seemed to have them for sale (17" only), one said they were display-only so far, and the other would be selling them after they're in the system (I'm on hold waiting to find out sizes...).

I would completely ignore any recording (and anyone who said the same thing as any recording).

[baw]

Originally Posted by inkhead

First of all, the specs aren't BS. Go play with one of the machines at the expo yourself. I had 3 1080p videos playing flawlessly at once. the finder is much faster. The powerbooks were faster than my QUAD g5 for general stuff like browsing, email, and stuff i do most of the day.

The best part about switching to intel will be the highly-optimized compilers Intel has. Apple will start using them more and more, and it will make OS X scream.

Trust me the new mac book pros are incredibly fast, so fast that it will make you blush and angry when you go home to your g5 tower.

Wow, I need to get my boots. It is getting deep in here.

[toddtmw]

I got an e-mail last night (January 12th) at 5:45 stating that my mac had shipped on January 13th. It hit the FedEx system this morning and later in the day updated with an estimated delivery date of 1-18 at 10:30 am.

I'm taking Wednesday off!

I haven't bought a new Mac since I bought Power Mac 7300/180 in 1997. The iMac is cheaper than that one was, and it comes with a screen! (I've bought second-hand Macs, but not a new one...)

Hope I don't regret jumping on the bandwagon early, but I really needed something to replace (suplement, acutally) my G4/400 tower.

-Todd

PS. I also think it's lame to close all the other iNtel iMac threads. I'd rather have targetted threads with topics that make sense, rather than troll through three-pages of posts looking for something that applies to me.

[FONT="Impact"]Moderation in all things, including moderation![/FONT]

[Anand]

Does anybody know if you can play old OS X games on the new iMacs? The Apple site keeps showing Dooms comparisons, is that with a universal app or an old app running under rosetta?

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by Anand

Does anybody know if you can play old OS X games on the new iMacs? The Apple site keeps showing Dooms comparisons, is that with a universal app or an old app running under rosetta?

You can run any app that is compatible with OS X on the new iMacs, they will just run slower.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by ::maroma::

You can run any app that is compatible with OS X on the new iMacs, they will just run slower.

Not any, but most. There are some things Rosetta does not emulate.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by mduell

Not any, but most. There are some things Rosetta does not emulate.

Oops, sorry I didn't know about that.

[MORT A POTTY]

Originally Posted by Anand

Does anybody know if you can play old OS X games on the new iMacs? The Apple site keeps showing Dooms comparisons, is that with a universal app or an old app running under rosetta?

Apple states that they used a "beta universal version" of DOOM 3 and they ran the timedemo1 to get that 2.3x faster result. note: this is also probably due at least somewhat to the X1600.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by MORT A POTTY

Apple states that they used a "beta universal version" of DOOM 3 and they ran the timedemo1 to get that 2.3x faster result. note: this is also probably due at least somewhat to the X1600.

While the new GPU certainly contributes to it (I wonder how it compares to the same CPU/GPU running Windows), I think the processor may also contribute.
The performance for Doom 3 on OSX on PPC is abysmal; even with the same video card as a PC its much slower.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by inkhead

I had 3 1080p videos playing flawlessly at once.

Please tell me you're not exaggerating!

If what you say is true, the X1600 must really be decoding the H.264. This is excellent news.

[toddtmw]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

Please tell me you're not exaggerating!

If what you say is true, the X1600 must really be decoding the H.264. This is excellent news.

It definitely does have hardware decoding. From ATI's web site:

Free your CPU to devote more processing power to other applications with Avivo’s hardware accelerated processing of new HD video formats, including H.264.

-Todd

PS, My iNtel iMac is in Anchorage Alaska!!!!

[mduell]

Core Duo could play one 1080p H.264 movie, maaaaaybe two on a good day, but for three they must be using the X1600 for acceleration. I'm happy to hear that Apple added support for that to the driver.

[MORT A POTTY]

Originally Posted by mduell

Core Duo could play one 1080p H.264 movie, maaaaaybe two on a good day, but for three they must be using the X1600 for acceleration. I'm happy to hear that Apple added support for that to the driver.

thank ATI, not Apple. although they did work closely together.

[MORT A POTTY]

speaking of iMacs... I just ordered mine

iMac 20-inch 2GHz Intel Core Duo
Part Number: Z0CY
SuperDrive 8x (DVD+R DL/DVD+RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon X1600/256MB VRAM
512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 1x512
Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
Accessory kit
250GB Serial ATA drive

also ordered a pair of 1GB sticks of Corsair RAM for 173 bucks shipped

[SEkker]

The last iMac purchase was a used G3 400 MHz DV model -- which is still in use running Tiger perfectly. I've added RAM and a new HD, otherwise it's been a 'model' citizen in our household.

I think these new iMacs will run loop-de-loops over my older machine. But I doubt it will have the lasting power of that 400 MHz model...

Tues will be an order for a maxed out 20 inch for family photos and movies. Sure looks like a terrific machine!

[Naediel]

Wow, my BTO iMac 20" was already shipped. I ordered it yesterday. The only thing I changed was making it 1x1GB of RAM. I left the video card at 128mb and the hard drive at 250gb.

It is pretty funny that the computer got sent out before the Applecare package too.

[thedude]

Originally Posted by hldan

I just came back from Macworld SF today. they had the new Core Duo iMacs and MacBook Pro's all there for display and for everyone to play with. Since this is the iMac forum I will just mention about the iMac. Rosetta is a great piece of software that does not require launching like VPC. It just knows if the app you are using is PPC based or not. I did try launching MS Office 2004 and Photoshop CS2 and the launch times were about 20% slower. I relaunched many times and both were noticably slower launching. Rosetta does what it needs to do but it's better to have the Universal Binary apps for the Intel Machines.
With that said it's still exciting to see cache sizes of 2MB instead of 512k and very high tech graphics cards for gaming.

Did you or anyone else run X11 apps? I was just wondering if things that have been compiled to run under the PPC x11 will run under the new Intel systems. If I understand how they work I would guess that they will either need Rosette or will just not run at all. Can anyone verify?

Thanks.

[thiagofll]

I just purchased the iMac 20 inch 2.0 Intel Duo Core and I have upgraded it to 256 Video RAM, will that make a much bigger difference from the 128MB VRAM? I understand that they are the same Brand (ATI) and same model but different RAM, that's what kind of threw me off....Will that make the picture quality (wallpapers, icons etc) better or just advanced 3D Gaming?

Thanks in advance...

[SEkker]

I, too, will get extra VRAM -- but to help with monitor spanning needs. I will be adding my older 17" LCD to this machine as a dual monitor setup. Would be nice to have someone runs the real-time tests to see whether the extra VRAM is really helpful or just a luxury.

[P]

Originally Posted by thiagofll

I just purchased the iMac 20 inch 2.0 Intel Duo Core and I have upgraded it to 256 Video RAM, will that make a much bigger difference from the 128MB VRAM? I understand that they are the same Brand (ATI) and same model but different RAM, that's what kind of threw me off....Will that make the picture quality (wallpapers, icons etc) better or just advanced 3D Gaming?

Thanks in advance...

Just the advanced 3D gaming. Could improve general performance with enormous numbers of windows open, but not picture quality.

[MORT A POTTY]

and it's really cheap to upgrade the VRAM so I see absolutely no reason to NOT do it.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by thiagofll

I just purchased the iMac 20 inch 2.0 Intel Duo Core and I have upgraded it to 256 Video RAM, will that make a much bigger difference from the 128MB VRAM? I understand that they are the same Brand (ATI) and same model but different RAM, that's what kind of threw me off....Will that make the picture quality (wallpapers, icons etc) better or just advanced 3D Gaming?

Didn't you start another thread with this exact same comment? I ave a strong feeling of deja vu.
The additonal VRAM will have no effect on picture quality. For some games (the more demanding ones) it may help; sometimes to get higher memory density you have to use lower speed parts, and it ends up hurting performance. It may also help in apps like Motion.

[ciparis]

Got mine (20"), just unpacked it and am typing this on it now. There was one left at the store in California where I picked it up (they just got them today). Most stores seem to be sitting on their first few units, putting them out for display at their leisure and not selling them. Luckily some stores were doing things a little differently, or got a couple more units to work with. There was more than one store with new iMacs in stock today and available for sale, but only one had 20" that I could find.

This thing (so far) is practically silent -- just the lowest low-frequency hum from the internal blowers.

Only 512MB, so I'm a bit limited in what I'll be trying to do before my RAM arrives (I doubt I'll be installing WoW just yet for example, but we'll see ).

[LagunaSol]

Originally Posted by ciparis

Got mine (20"), just unpacked it and am typing this on it now. There was one left at the store in California where I picked it up (they just got them today). Most stores seem to be sitting on their first few units, putting them out for display at their leisure and not selling them. Luckily some stores were doing things a little differently, or got a couple more units to work with. There was more than one store with new iMacs in stock today and available for sale, but only one had 20" that I could find.

This thing (so far) is practically silent -- just the lowest low-frequency hum from the internal blowers.

Only 512MB, so I'm a bit limited in what I'll be trying to do before my RAM arrives (I doubt I'll be installing WoW just yet for example, but we'll see ).

You're the first I've read who actually has one in hand. I'm itching to pull the trigger so badly and order mine, but I really need to find out if Windows is bootable on the Intel iMac. I currently have a dual G4 tower and a PC, sharing a 19" CRT and a KVM switch. I only use the PC for a couple of apps, but I do need it. And since the iMac doesn't have video in, I can't scrap my CRT. I want to dump the whole mess and go with a 20" iMac, but Windows capability is really a must-have for me right now.

So....do you have the means to attempt to boot Windows from an external drive?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by LagunaSol

You're the first I've read who actually has one in hand. I'm itching to pull the trigger so badly and order mine, but I really need to find out if Windows is bootable on the Intel iMac. I currently have a dual G4 tower and a PC, sharing a 19" CRT and a KVM switch. I only use the PC for a couple of apps, but I do need it. And since the iMac doesn't have video in, I can't scrap my CRT. I want to dump the whole mess and go with a 20" iMac, but Windows capability is really a must-have for me right now.

So....do you have the means to attempt to boot Windows from an external drive?

Does RDC or VNC meet your Windows needs?

Given the statements from Intel and Apple, I think Windows XP will be booting on Intel Macs within a month.

[thedude]

Originally Posted by ciparis

Got mine (20"), just unpacked it and am typing this on it now. There was one left at the store in California where I picked it up (they just got them today). Most stores seem to be sitting on their first few units, putting them out for display at their leisure and not selling them. Luckily some stores were doing things a little differently, or got a couple more units to work with. There was more than one store with new iMacs in stock today and available for sale, but only one had 20" that I could find.

This thing (so far) is practically silent -- just the lowest low-frequency hum from the internal blowers.

Only 512MB, so I'm a bit limited in what I'll be trying to do before my RAM arrives (I doubt I'll be installing WoW just yet for example, but we'll see ).

That is awesome that you got it. Can you tell me if you can run any X11 apps. like the Gimp? I have photoshop and use it most of the time but have been slowly switching to theGimp for most of my editing needs. Plus I would like to know if it runs faster than photoshop under Rosetta. I am guesing PPC X11 will still need to be emulated. But I would just like a comformation on this as I am about to buy the 20in anyway.

Thanks.

[ciparis]

I think I have XP Home and XP/X64 CDs. I'll pop them in for a grin, but I don't expect either to work (EFI in the first case, 64-bit in the second) until someone produces a bootloader hack for EFI to load XP -- which I expect to happen fairly rapidly.

[LagunaSol]

Originally Posted by mduell

Does RDC or VNC meet your Windows needs?

Given the statements from Intel and Apple, I think Windows XP will be booting on Intel Macs within a month.

My experience with RDC wasn't phenomenal. I don't know what VNC is....is it better than RDC?

I'm just aching to rid my house of this PC period. Hope someone figures out the Windows-on-Intel-Mac thing quickly. You'd think someone would have had it figured out already.

[thiagofll]

Originally Posted by mduell

Didn't you start another thread with this exact same comment? I ave a strong feeling of deja vu.
The additonal VRAM will have no effect on picture quality. For some games (the more demanding ones) it may help; sometimes to get higher memory density you have to use lower speed parts, and it ends up hurting performance. It may also help in apps like Motion.

I did, but for some reason they locked it. I don't know what's going on with this forum. I mean I posted the thread on the iMac Forum talking about the iMac VRam and my post was locked...So I gave it a shot and posted it here...

[mduell]

Originally Posted by LagunaSol

My experience with RDC wasn't phenomenal. I don't know what VNC is....is it better than RDC?

VNC is effectively the same thing, only more suited to connecting any computer to any computer instead of connecting to a Windows computer (RDC is usually faster since it's Windows specific).

Originally Posted by thiagofll

I did, but for some reason they locked it. I don't know what's going on with this forum. I mean I posted the thread on the iMac Forum talking about the iMac VRam and my post was locked...So I gave it a shot and posted it here...

See the forum announcement.

[thiagofll]

CHECK THIS OUT!!!!

DISASSEMBLED iMAC CORE DUO.

http://mactree.sannet.ne.jp/%7ekodaw...c_intel01.html

http://mactree.sannet.ne.jp/%7ekodaw...c_intel02.html

[leery]

Hi everyone. I'm a long time Win/DOS user seriously considering an iMac (either G5 or Intel) for my next PC. I'm very confused about the color depth of the iMac displays. According to kodawarisan's disassmbly

http://mactree.sannet.ne.jp/%7ekodaw...c_intel01.html

the lcd panel is a LG PHLIPS LM171W02, which, according to this google-cached LG page

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...LM171W02&hl=en

has a 6-bit (16.2 million dithered) color. The Apple site merely says "millions of colors" in the specs, but any online store that bothers to say anything indicates 8-bit (16.7 million) color. What's the deal?

And what about the 20" model? If that's the same panel used in the Apple and Dell monitors, it should be 8-bit color, right?

Thanks for the help.