G5 info online !

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 2:34 pm

@ http://www.apple.com

Kim.

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 3:54 pm

Holy shit that looks beaut. But will it take two SCOPE cards with STDM cable?

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:39 pm

I can't but think that PC's will soon be at the same specs but for half the price, as usual

_________________

[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2003-06-23 17:39 ]

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:59 pm

But they won't look as good!

TRMP8R · Post by **TRMP8R** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 7:37 pm

Does anybody know what the 133MHz PCI bus speed will do to a Creamware DSP card?

Either PCI Bus Overflows will be a thing of the past, or we'll be able to cook pancakes on the now brown SHARC chips.

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:48 pm

that looks pretty worthy.......

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 11:43 pm

I think PCI-X only works with PCI-X cards, i.e. CreamWare would have to update their cards to PCI-X, which are currently designed for 32-bit 33mhz speed. But I could be wrong...

Of course you can run "conventional" PCI cards in a PCI-X slot, but I don't think they'll be any faster.

Shayne

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 2:09 am

On 2003-06-23 17:59, Mr Arkadin wrote:
But they won't look as good!

My computer is hidden away behind a door in my desk anyway

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:24 am

On 2003-06-23 17:39, King of Snake wrote:
I can't but think that PC's will soon be at the same specs but for half the price, as usual

definetely not. The differences in system architecture and CPU code are too large.
There's a point where a simple increase of the clockrate doesn't work anymore.
But why the hell is it only Apple bringing up those cute boxes ??
Btw: THEY have an emulator for Intel code and it's running standard business apps pretty well, in some aspects even better than a regular PeCee does

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2003-06-24 05:27 ]

valis · Post by **valis** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 6:24 am

I'm happy to see that Apple finally is catching up with the present (and even leaving headroom for the future in their designs again). Since I'm (still) a Logic PC user, I've been waiting for the official announcement of IBM's PowerPC970 being the 'new' G5 chip. Its essentially a Power4 chip scaled down (to remove features that are only essential in the server market) so that the chip clocks up in speed. This suggests that apple users might even benefit from the upcoming IBM Power5 which looks VERY tasty, at least on paper.

There's a few small points when it comes to benchmarks--they use an 'apple' optimized gcc compilar for the mac specs but a 'generic' one right off http://gcc.gnu.org for the intel specs--not that many mainstream pc progs are even compiled using gcc. But this has always been the main problem in comparing different cpu's, especially across different architectures.

Also the jump to pci-x completely is great, but only 3 slots? While macs do typically come with a lot more onboard than all but the most luxury pc motherboards, I think i'll wait a product cycle or 2 and see if the number of available slots increases by at least 1 and if the bus speed jumps.

Kudos to apple regardless

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 9:45 am

definetely not. The differences in system architecture and CPU code are too large.
There's a point where a simple increase of the clockrate doesn't work anymore.

Well don't you think Intel and AMD are working on new technology as well?
They'll be delivering their own 64 bit processors soon enough. Apple are simply the first.

_________________

[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2003-06-24 10:48 ]

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 10:09 am

Well, I was quite pleased to see the specs.. I guess that being a Logic user it's in my interests... and also intel/AMD need a kick up the ass to get things moving.

However, I was rather depressed to see this page (written by a mac user btw) :

http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/

peace

Post by **garyb** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 11:23 am

that page is kinda funny......

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 11:42 am

I don't find the fact that Apple "cheats" with the benchmarks/tests remotely funny ???
Just the fact that they quote a 3.06GHz P4 as being able to run only 31 tracks in SX tells me a lot about their lack of credibility !
They did the exact same thing when they launched the G4 b.t.w.
But the G5 looks really good, despite false marketing, and I can't wait till august to get my hands on one

Kim.

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 11:48 am

I think he probably found the 'hate mail' from mac enthusiasts funny...

But anyway yeah despite the lies it does look like a great piece of engineering and design. It is potentially a great machine for realtime uses, but I personally will wait and see how it performs.

Also, despite such fine design, I have a sneaky feeling it will inevitably have some terrible design flaws.. but hopefully those will disappear by the time the Powerbooks come out.

peace

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 12:44 pm

From the pictures it looks like you can only get 2 harddisks and 3 pci cards in that huge box which is giong to make it rather limiting for many.
I can get more in my rackmount carillon which looks just as good and is a more useful shape.
As for the performance, you will have to pay for it! You could probably buy 2 pcs with dual 3ghz intel chips for the same price.

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 2:31 pm

the bus rate for the PCI is astonishing tho.. and it figures they could only fit 3 in there.

What surprised me was that they worked to get the machine as silent as possible. Something you'd have to spend extra cash on with PCs.

Clearly tho, 64 bit architecture has its ups.. and plus the fact that the OS is actually customized for the CPU should allow users to really drive their systems to it's max potential. Silicon Grahpics' IRIX system had 64bit architecture, and their own variation of Unix worked very well with it. Of course, IRIX is quite old stuff.. But I still remember they were quite capable considering the clockrates of the time. Who knows how long it'll take for Win to enter 64 bit dimension... and get it working RIGHT. (and the massive amount of hardware companies)

I'm not sure of the marketing lies or whatever.. From my experience with OS X and my powerbook, I don't think I've found any flaws yet. A couple of months into use, and still content. Which is quite rare these days. OS X really is quite nice. Slow, but stable. Stability is worth KILLING for.

Anyhow, I think the new G5 will still shine as a product. Only obvious flaw is Apple's diliberate attempt to make OS X compeletely incompatible with OS9. (it's killing me this very instant)

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-06-24 15:43 ]

Grok · Post by **Grok** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 3:52 pm

On 2003-06-24 15:31, kensuguro wrote:
(...)
Anyhow, I think the new G5 will still shine as a product. Only obvious flaw is Apple's diliberate attempt to make OS X compeletely incompatible with OS9. (it's killing me this very instant)

Apple has always done that.

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:44 pm

PCs are NOT half the price of Macs. If you take a Dell PC and outfit it with exactly the same equivalent components as a PowerMac, it's only about $200 cheaper. Oh, and Dell's stuff is garbage, by the way....

Shayne

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:54 pm

On 2003-06-24 10:45, King of Snake wrote:
Well don't you think Intel and AMD are working on new technology as well?
They'll be delivering their own 64 bit processors soon enough. Apple are simply the first.

King, just have a look over the fence at IBM - what they are actually doing with PowerPC CPUs, let's say the AS400.
The architecture is scalable as hell, from a 2k € desktop workstation to a 200k € server - all based on the same technology.
You can emulate a Pentium on a PPC, but not vice versa. At least I know of no usable piece of software doing that trick.
Some experts of a Swiss university once explicetely excluded the Pentium from a discussion about 'modern CPU design' as totally outdated.
The chip has grown (incredibly) more powerful since then, but afaik it's basic operations are still the same.
Anyway, who cares about theory and experts if it's a least the most successful design economically

And I still believe that better programming superceeds any clockrate available. This applies to Apple as well, imho they've been far better on this subject (several) years ago.

Grok, it's actually the first time in Apple's history that they cease support of an (older) OS on a machine via 'Bios'.
I guess that even CW's developer staff was surprised by the radical way this was handled. Such non-support announcements in the past could always be circumvented by a simple software patch, so obviously noone took it too serious.

cheers, Tom