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Desktops (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

Updated Power Macs at Apple.com 762

Gropo writes "Same old 'scary cyclops' quicksilver face. Up to 1.42 Ghz, FireWire 800, 802.11g and entry-level pricing has dropped. " With the SuperDrive and one of those massive LCD screens, you have a one highly desirable chunk of hardware.
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Updated Power Macs at Apple.com

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  • Oooh yummy! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ollie_ob ( 580756 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @09:59AM (#5174235) Journal
    1.42GHz!

    Still a long way to 3GHz but we're getting there, revision by revision.

    Still happier with my silent 600MHz iBook than a roaring G4 monster though...
    • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Secret Chimp ( 557933 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:09AM (#5174317)
      People keep on forgetting that Intel chips do a whole lot less with each clock cycle than PowerPC chips. The reason that PowerPC processors have remained at lower clock speeds than Intel chips is because they can get the same amount of work done, if not more, in less clock cycles than it takes for an Intel chip. If only we could get IBM PowerPC chips in G4s... they've been making ass-fast shizz lately, but we've had to stick with Motorola. Maybe Apple doesn't like the slight irony of using IBM stuff.
      • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by trash eighty ( 457611 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:46AM (#5174615) Homepage
        Naa Apple have been using IBM made PowerPC chips for ages, G3s used in iMacs and iBooks nowadays are IBM ones i believe
      • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Processor speed aside, RAM speed is still the main problem with G3/4s. It's just a matter of persuading Motorola to implement DDR properly onboard, then they might be able to completely beat x86 with no problems.
      • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Directrix1 ( 157787 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:59AM (#5174732)
        OK, I'm tired of all this stupidity about how nobody knows exactly what MHz means, and how its not really a measure of speed. Here let me simplify your life:

        Every processor has instructions that it understands. When executed, each instruction executes a sequence of microinstructions. Now these microinstructions execute at a rate directly proportional to the overall frequency of the machine (i.e. 133MHz ~ 133 million microinstuctions per second) with the following exceptions:
        1) memory accesses in general are the largest bottleneck for any processor so it can decrease the speed of a processor tremendously without a sufficiently large cache and without a caching algorithm sufficient for the task
        2) there can be, and usually are, parrallel microrocessing units inside of each processor, so this can increase the operational speed

        Myth: Intel chips do a whole lot less per clock cycle than PowerPC chips
        Fact: Intel chips have been extended to include all the same vector processing functionality included in most PowerPC chips. Furthermore, the CISC architecture is designed in a way where more work is theoretically done per instruction.

        Myth: RISC is better than CISC
        Fact: It all depends on the optimization and utilization of the available instruction set. CISC can theoretically do more per clock cycle than RISC.

        Now, I'm not really advocating CISC over RISC. I personally hate CISC instructions sets as they are very hard to optimize for. But just because apple says something is faster and you want to believe it, doesn't mean you have too believe it.
        • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by radish ( 98371 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:46AM (#5175116) Homepage
          Indeed, when I studied processor design, the mantra was that CISC did more per cycle than RISC (as the instructions are more complex), but due to increased simplicity in design RISC chips run at a higher clock rate. Having a slow RISC chip seems to be the worst of both worlds!

          Now, of course nothing is that simple, but the truth is that you need to devise a benchmark which represents your usage, and use that to decide - not some made up marketing numbers.
          • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by afantee ( 562443 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @12:39PM (#5175515)
            >> the mantra was that CISC did more per cycle than RISC.

            The opposite is true: most of the RISC instructions execute in a single cycle, while many CISC instructions take much more, which is why raw clock speed is only perhaps meaningful for RISC chips and means very little for CISC, but totally meaningless across platforms.

            People keep forgetting that the G4 has a much higher raw clock speed than most of other very expensive high end RISC systems like Sun UltraSparc or SGI Mips or HP PA. How come other RISC vendors don't get blamed for their clock speed, while everyone screams at Apple everytime a faster system is introduced? Could this means that people just love to talk about Apple because it's cool and we all want a better Mac?
        • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:5, Informative)

          by overunderunderdone ( 521462 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @12:01PM (#5175230)
          ...Now these microinstructions execute at a rate directly proportional to the overall frequency of the machine

          This is *vastly* oversimplified - there are complexities to processor design & trade-offs to be made that make clock speed almost useless for the sake of comparisons between chips with different architectures - even if they DO perform the same number of instructions per cycle (which often isn't the case).

          there can be, and usually are, parrallel microrocessing units inside of each processor, so this can increase the operational speed

          And this is one of the differences between PowerPC and Intel architectures - in general PowerPC has chosen to sacrifice clock cycle speed to do more instructions per cycle while Intel has chosen to sacrifice the number of instructions to get more speed. In other words Intel usually chooses to do one thing at a time really fast while PowerPC chooses to do several things at once more slowly. Right there you have a *partial* explanation for the MHz (now GHz) gap.

          Fact: Intel chips have been extended to include all the same vector processing functionality included in most PowerPC chips.

          I'm no expert on this but most reviews & articles from fairly non-partisan sites have concluded that Altivec is superior to the Intel alternative and that this shows up in real world scenarios.

          The final upshot is that *in general* the PowerPC does more per cycle than an Intel chip. How much more (or even if it's more at all) depends on what exactly it's doing. But the fact remains: for most applications, especially multimedia applications that use Altivec, the PowerPC outperforms Intel chips of the same clock speed.

          BUT intel is so far ahead in speed that even taking the "MHz Myth" into account Intel is still far ahead of the PowerPC in overall performance. Apple has got to get it's old AIM partners to step up or it will have to abandon the PowerPC for Intel (or intel compatible)
          • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:4, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @12:56PM (#5175646)
            I'm no expert on this but most reviews & articles from fairly non-partisan sites have concluded that Altivec is superior to the Intel alternative and that this shows up in real world scenarios.

            I've actually programmed both SSE and Altivec, and you're right in one way: Altivec is far easier to program, provides a much cleaner vector instruction set, and does more per cycle.

            The only problem is that it doesn't do TWICE as much per cycle in practice (save a couple of photoshop filters carefully selected by Apple), so the raw clock of x86 still makes Intel the winner in most cases.

            Intel have also worked hard on getting their compilers to automatically generate SSE/SSE2 code, which really improves performance on _all_ programs. There is no such thing for the PowerPC - if you want altivec you will have to handcode it. (And no, all the new altivec support in gcc is limited to the compiler supporting the altivec C language wrapper instructions - it will not generate them automatically).

            Motorola probably did the right thing FOR THEIR PRIMARY MARKET. Most PPC chips are doing signal processing in built-in systems where it is perfectly OK to handcode a filter for better performance/lower power consumption. The problem is that most general PC programs benefit more from Intel's approach which is more automatic.

            Finally - Apple/Motorola has a bigger problem: it makes sense to invest time in handcoding SSE/SSE2 for a CPU with 95% of the market, but usually not for one with 5% of the market.

      • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @12:25PM (#5175413) Journal
        People keep on forgetting that Intel chips do a whole lot less with each clock cycle than PowerPC chips.

        Doesn't Linux run on both PowerPC and Intel hardware? Then why doesn't some enterprising individual go put together some various benchmarks comparing the two on this type of level playing field? I want to believe that the PowerPC is faster clock-for-clock, but I can't until I see some good benchmarks.

        I just google'ed for some and all that I could find were some ancient BYTEMARKS [cornell.edu].

        It sure looks like it would be faster...
        • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @03:06PM (#5176531)
          That's not really a very useful test.

          For one, PowerPC chips can outperform Intel chips at the same clock rate, but they only do so reliably (as far as I'm aware) if you start using stuff like AltiVec. Most stuff can't be optimized in this way, but a few things can. So, if the Intel chips did outperform the PowerPC chips in a particular benchmark, then some people would just jump up and down and claim it's not fair because AltiVec wasn't used, or something. I've seen this before.

          Secondly, testing clock-for-clock is interesting in an academic sense only. The subjective speed of a system can be affected by so many things, slight performance differences at the same clock rate make very little difference.

          Anyway, I'm sure you're aware of all of this, but there are so many confounding factors it'd be very hard to get undisputable results.

    • My 800 MHz iMac seems much faster than my P4 2GHz. Maybe it's just me, but MHz isn't everything.

      • Re:Oooh yummy! (Score:3, Informative)

        by rot26 ( 240034 )
        My 800 MHz iMac seems much faster than my P4 2GHz. Maybe it's just me, but MHz isn't everything.

        My 500mHz iBook seems about the same speed as my old PII-166. I'm not talking about number crunching or actual app speed, I just mean the SUBJECTIVE experience... screen redraws, windows opens, etc.

        I really love it, but fast IT'S NOT.
      • RISC vs CISC (Score:4, Insightful)

        by digitalscoots ( 530763 ) <jamie@digitalscoots.cELIOTom minus poet> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:34AM (#5174515) Homepage
        You can't compare clock speeds for a RISC processor to an Intel CISC processor. The clock speed only tells you how fast each instruction is executed, not how fast the CPU runs an application compared to a different architecture. A 1.42 GHz RISC processor may well be faster than a 3 GHz CISC processor in actual performance.
        • Re:RISC vs CISC (Score:3, Interesting)

          by fobbman ( 131816 )
          Okay, now explain that to Joe Home computer user. Yeah, that's the same problem that Apple is having.

          Apple may be better, but the race is in the numbers, no matter how invalid they are.

          • Invalid (Score:5, Insightful)

            by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:12AM (#5174826) Homepage
            It wouldn't be hard to explain at all if the numbers were genuinely invalid. Apple could pull out the specmark, the MFLPs, topmark, or any of fifty other benchmarks (or all of them) and show people the numbers were invalid. For the Pentium I and the pre 3ghz Pentium IV apple had the advantage that the chips had problems with non optomized code, so you could use some alternate benchmarks. But even using non optomized code you get the following:

            The G4 was equal to a Pentium 3 that is 20% faster so
            800mhz g4 ~ 1ghz PIII

            The first edition of the Penium IVs were very fast but terrible chips so
            1.4 ghz G4 ~ 1.75 ghz PIII (if it existed) ~ 2.6 ghz PIV.

            The problem was really that the 1.4 ghz G4 wasn't out to this year while the 2.6 was out last year and at a lower price. Now however at the 3+ghz range the PIV have instruction reordering of the PIII + hyperthreadng. That means it is at least as fast as the PIII and probably faster. That is a 3.0 ghz PIV would test somewhere between 2.4 ghz G4 and a 3.0 ghz G4.

            So you really can compare ghz with a high degree of accuracy relative to Intel's consummer x86 line. Now if you want to play the cache game Intel can play that too since the Xeons are available for a few hundred dollars more.

            Apple has a serious CPU problem. Motorolla has done horrible damage to Apple, lets stop trying to deny the problem exists. It is by far the single biggest flaw in the line.

        • Re:RISC vs CISC (Score:3, Informative)

          by hcdejong ( 561314 )

          Except that according to various recent tests, it isn't. At least not in the Apple vs Wintel case.

    • by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @02:25PM (#5176263)
      The difference between Mac and PC users is not measured in GHz, or even MHz, but rather in the former group's propensity for using phrases like "Oooh yummy!" in a public forum.
  • Displays (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lebannen ( 626462 ) <<slash> <at> <irowan.com>> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:00AM (#5174240) Homepage
    It's not just the towers that have dropped in price... the 23-inch 1920x1200 widescreen Apple Sinema Display has dropped from $3500 to $2000!

    Anyone want a kidney?
  • by rollthelosindice ( 635783 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:01AM (#5174249) Homepage
    Uunforetunately, My budget likes the $400 EMachine 1.5 ghz (of sometihnkg like that) a lot more than even the entry level powermac at $1499
    • Well, how about me then?
      I'm an indian student and it's been three years since I even saw an Apple anything. (and that was through a shop window.) Guess we third world geeks will just have to make do with assembled stuff.
      *Sighs, and rides his elephant off into the sunset *
      • Well, how about me then?
        I'm an indian student and it's been three years since I even saw an Apple anything. (and that was through a shop window.) Guess we third world geeks will just have to make do with assembled stuff.
        *Sighs, and rides his elephant off into the sunset *


        Just keep at it, man. You'll be buying us in 35 years.


  • Wait for the IBM 970 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:01AM (#5174251) Homepage Journal
    I would wait on the IBM 970 (G5 whatever) that is coming out this next fall/winter. 64bit, 900MHz Bus, Altivec(or whatever it'll be called), approx 2ghz...

    Unless you want a laptop then a Powerbook is a good buy (except 15", there are new bodies for 15.4" powerbook and iBooks on the way).

    Just my 2cents being an Apple/Linux/Windows/Solaris user.
  • by korea ( 615587 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:01AM (#5174252)
    Think Differe-- BIGGER FASTER BETTER, Must...Catch...Up...
  • by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:03AM (#5174270) Homepage
    Maccentral has an excellent summary [yahoo.com] of the new Macs. To me, the most interesting part of the story isn't the incrementel improvements in the desktops, but the extremely steep price cuts surrounding Apple's flat panel displays. You can now get a 20" widescreen flat panel from Apple for $1299. That's just $300 more than Apple was charging yesterday for a 17" standard aspect model.
  • by dgrgich ( 179442 ) <drew@g[ ]ch.org ['rgi' in gap]> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:04AM (#5174274)
    . . . the fact that it immediately makes "last years" models much more affordable. Resellers like MacMall, Smalldog.com, & the others have great prices on these older models.

    Of course, Apple may still have a problem selling these newer faster machines because they've managed to produce an OS that works fantastic on even older models like the dual 533 I'm writing this on!
    • by jo_ham ( 604554 ) <joham999@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @01:47PM (#5176012)
      Indeed, we have a Meida 100 system as our primary edit suite and aside from the very expensive (approx £10,000) specialist editing card it's a stnadard single processor 867 G4.

      We just bought a an old Mystic (Dual G4 450) and a copy of Final Cut Pro 3. We were dubious about it being able to work with full frame DVCAM but it's a little gem of a machine - so far we've had it playing back timelines with 4 video streams on along with 3 audio tracks.

      It renders transitions in seconds.

      I don't know how Apple expects to sell these new machines when we can produce broadcast quality edits using a three year old Dual G4.

      Final Cut Pro 3 is too good on those old systems!
  • by pnot ( 96038 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:04AM (#5174275)
    Faster, more expandible, and more affordable than ever... The Power Mac G4 also comes with a library of creative, productivity and communications-specific third-party applications that leverage the strengths of Mac OS X.

    But evidently not a spell-checker...
  • excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Boromir son of Faram ( 645464 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:09AM (#5174318) Homepage
    It's great to see Apple leading the pack in new hardware. They are bringing 802.11g and FireWire 800 to the people just as they did with SMP (that "1.4GHz" sounds a lot more impressive next to a 3GHz P4 when you realize there are two of the suckers in there) and 1Kbase-T.

    Funny, Macs used to be faster than Pentii, but crippled by their other hardware (SCSI, memory, ADB) and OS. Now they have the advantage everywhere except CPU speed, and I think they're a whole lot better off.

    I see the new PowerMacs as a gift. With their power, used wisely, we might be able to save my people from the growing Shadow in the East.
  • by vilms ( 106676 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:12AM (#5174347)
    Don't think anyone said it... it needs to be said.
    OS9 is supported in the Classic enviro.
    • Yeah, if you click on the button 'Mac OS 9 systems' it takes you to two that are 'Custom Built' and only go up to dual 1.25GHz.

      The watershed has started.
    • Don't think anyone said it... it needs to be said.
      OS9 is supported in the Classic enviro.

      Fortunately, this just isn't an issue for most people. The only software-only package I know that needs to boot in OS 9 is Adobe FrameMaker, and that's because their installer won't work in Classic Mode. And that's because they apparently don't know how to write an installer.

      As for software-tied-to-hardware, such as some high-end music apps, many of those companies have recently (finally) announced OS X-friendly releases, so that problem is diminishing quickly.

      The real problem is when people hear" won't boot into OS 9" and think "won't run Classic apps," which is of course not the case.

    • by NoData ( 9132 ) <_NoData_NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @03:10PM (#5176556)
      Hey all... OK, so I purchased a G4 today, lots of headache because of this info Apple does NOT make clear:

      The "New" Dual 1.25 GHz systems now only have 1MB L3 cache per processor, whereas yesterday, when they were much pricier, they had 2MB L3 cache per processor. 2MB is now only available on the 1.42 GHz duals, which don't ship for 4-6 wks.

      HOWEVER, if you follow Apple's "OS 9 Systems" link, for OS 9 Boot Capable systems, *there* the dual 1.25 GHz systems *still* have 2MB L3 cache. The price of these machines have ALSO drastically dropped (by about $650) compared to the exact same configuration yesterday.

      The part # of 1.25 duals WITH 2MB L3 cache is Z05N, while the 1MB L3 cache systems are Z078. And, you get OS 9 bootability. I don't know exactly what makes the new systems "OS 9 non-bootable" (I posted earlier in this thread about that)...if someone does, please enlighten.

      • by NoData ( 9132 ) <_NoData_NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @03:59PM (#5176855)
        Excuse the conversation with myself, but just learned:

        There are some drawbacks to the OS-9 capable machines.

        New (1MB L3 1.25GHz dual and the 2MB L3 dual 1.42GHz) systems come with Firewire 800, in addition to 2 Firewire 400 ports, and IMPROVED superdrives: 4x DVD-R capable, and 16x CD-R capable.

        The OS9 Boot-capbable machines continue to have the 2x DVD-R / 8x CD-R superdrives and just the two regular 400 Mbps FireWire ports.

  • by rworne ( 538610 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:18AM (#5174403) Homepage
    I am suprised no one noticed that the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro is now a BTO option.

    Still listed as "coming soon" though.
  • by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <vasqzr@nOSpam.netscape.net> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:21AM (#5174423)

    $1,499.00
    Image
    1GHz PowerPC G4
    1MB L3 cache
    256MB DDR266 SDRAM
    60GB Ultra ATA/100
    Combo drive
    NVIDIA GeForce4 MX
    64MB DDR video memory
    FireWire 800
    56K internal modem
    Bluetooth Ready


    Sell this to me for $899. Please.

    For $500 more you get 1.25GHz, dual processors, and a 80GB HD.

    They just cost too much to justify buying, since I wouldn't be using it for DTP/other Mac stuff.
    • There is no $899 machine from any other manufacturer that has the specs this does. Apple DOES have a $899 G4 with monitor called the eMac.

      If I go to Dell, I can configure a system shipped (no 800 firewire) for $1640 that is comparable to the base model.

      • by cenonce ( 597067 ) <anthony_t@nOSPam.mac.com> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:43AM (#5174583)

        The $499.00 Dell (Gateway, HP, whatever) is a farce and borders on, IMHO, consumer fraud. Everytime, I go to Dell and try to configure a $499.00 Dell with the standard bells & whistles (that comes with a PowerMac, BTW), the price always jumps from 499 to 1100 or 1200 bucks (minimum).

        Yeah, you can get a 499 dollar Dell, but it has the standard equipment of a four year old model.

        What a joke!

        I like building my own machines, especially for running Linux (webservers, file sharing and such), but when I want to get anything done (i.e., to make a living), I get it done on a Mac. I don't spend time configuring (as in Linux) and I don't spend time recovering from crashes or things just not working not matter what I do (as I do in Windows).

    • by zaren ( 204877 ) <fishrocket@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:41AM (#5174570) Journal
      What do you mean, lower your prices? This is already (I believe) $100 cheaper than the low end machine they were selling YESTERDAY, and it's faster!

      To compare: as of yesterday, in the .edu channel, this was what I had priced out on their low end model:

      $1643.00
      867Mhz PowerPC G4
      256MG SDRAM
      40GB Ultra ATA drive
      Combo drive
      ATI Radeon 9000 Pro
      64 MB DDR video memory

      (+ 17" Mitsubishi monitor and Apple Pro speakers, and - internal modem)

      On that model there was no FireWire 800, no Bluetooth, no Airport 800...

      Right now, I'm looking at a low end machine with a faster CPU (1 Ghz), 20 gig more drive space, GeForce4 MX (better?) video, and faster ram, plus all the bells, whistles, and ports listed above, for $8 more than yesterday. If they want to give me all of that for an extra eight bucks, I'm not going to complain :)
  • by jamie ( 78724 ) <jamie@slashdot.org> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:25AM (#5174457) Journal
    What I'd like to know is how noisy the new mirror-face Power Macs are.

    I have an older PowerMac by my left knee and at ear level it generates 44 dB of soft white noise. The new-style mirror-face PowerMacs also generate about 44 dB of noise. But it's whining, tonal noise. It's a note you can hum. It's a hum that cannot be ignored.

    Also, apparently, when the mirror-face PowerMacs' auxiliary fan kicks on, it's described as a "leaf blower." It's a lot louder. (I haven't heard that -- the main fans are bad enough -- and it's possible that the recent firmware upgrade helped keep the leaf-blower fan mostly off.)

    The hum is so annoying that there's a website devoted to complaining about it and trying to get rid of it: g4noise.com [g4noise.com].

    A friend of mine has a music lab with 20 old-style PowerMacs that he'd like to upgrade to newer models. He got one mirror-face PowerMac just to see what it was like. The noise is totally unacceptable for a music lab station -- there's not even any question -- I sat down in front of the keyboard and it took me three seconds to realize there's no way I would use this computer for music.

    The best solutions seem to be building a plywood case, lining it with foam, and putting the whole PowerMac inside!

    So I hope the new models have quieter fans...

    • Here is a website having to do with the madness caused [snq.com] by the noise of these new G4s. Here is a wav [autospeak.com] of the actual sound made by these monsters.

      We can only hope that Apple changes the fans in the next rev... :(

    • by tbmaddux ( 145207 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @01:24PM (#5175857) Homepage Journal
      What I'd like to know is how noisy the new mirror-face Power Macs are.
      The really bad noise in the (old) mirrored-drive-door PowerMac G4s is the same source as in the Quicksilver 2002s. It's the dual 60mm power supply fans manufactured by Delta. You can get good results by modding the case [mac.com] to get rid of them or replace them. Then you can get more aggressive [mac.com] with the rest of your setup.

      Unfortunately those fans spin at constant RPM and don't respond to firmware fixes that others have remarked on -- the firmware fix is just for the mid-case variable-speed CPU fan.

  • In Summary (Score:3, Funny)

    by forged ( 206127 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:26AM (#5174461) Homepage Journal
    You get more for more !

    I've heard that one before :)

  • by Twister002 ( 537605 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:43AM (#5174578) Homepage
    How often do you upgrade your computers? One of the big selling points of a Mac is it's stability. Yet, they release new products all the time.

    I come from a PC world where the next gen of OS and Games usually means I have to upgrade my PC or I can't run these applications. I'd like to switch(tm), but I don't want to spend $3500 for a Powerbook just to find out that it breaks down in a year and parts cost a bundle. I'd rather spend $1200 on an iBook. See if the wife and I like it.

    Do these new machines mean that much to Apple users, or can they happily chug away on their old iBook or Powerbook?

    • by Doctor Beavis ( 571080 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:02AM (#5174752)
      It kind of depends on what you mean by 'upgrade.' If you mean get a whole new computer, I probably do so about every 3 years or so. But even that is more because of the lust factor than that my older computer is no longer able to run contemporary applications.

      In terms of upgrading an existing machine, I still have my first generation G3 desktop machine that I bought in 1997. I have upgraded this machine several times over the years to keep it semi-up to date. I put in a 400 MHz G3 for about $200 (probably 4 years ago now), tons of extra RAM, a bigger HD, and added a FireWire/USB card. This machine runs OS X (although the GUI is much slower than on my 500 MHz G4 Titanium PB) and is still perfectly functional. I have friends who own PC's from that same era and they have long since had to abandon them (or change them to linux boxes, e.g.). Games are another matter - I was a bigger gamer in the past, but now play games like Civilization 3 and Sims that run fine on my PB. Twitchy first-person shooters (Unreal, etc.) really do need the power and graphics cards that you can't get in a laptop. If you are big into those types of games, laptops are NOT the way to go. On the other hand, the desktops are very upgradeable, especially now that Apple has AGP, uses IDE drives, etc.

      As far as PB's breaking down, that would cost a bundle (as would any laptop), but you can get a 3-year extended warranty (covers EVERYTHING) for about $300. I thought it was worth it but will also be happy if I never need it (haven't had to invoke it yet).

      Hope this helps.

    • How often do you upgrade your computers? One of the big selling points of a Mac is it's stability.

      You betcha. My upgrade cycle is 3 years. That's a long time in computer-land, but to be perfectly honest, I don't even need to upgrade every 3 years. Whatever Mac I have at the time is always working. I've never had one break down on me, ever. 3 years is my limit, my spendorphin count gets too high and I have to buy something new. It's never a case of 'my machine doesn't do X anymore', unless you're talking about whole features (CD-R, Airport, etc.)

      Another way to look at it - I've noticed that every machine I've bought is 3x faster than the last in Mhz. So I figure my 466 G4 will be about ripe in the Fall when we see (approx.) 1.5-1.8Ghz 970-based G5s.

  • Have one at work (Score:5, Informative)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @10:59AM (#5174728) Journal
    We have a dual 867mhz model running Jaguar. Before recieving this gift from our corporate masters, I had had little experience with Mac OS X (or Macs in general, other then loading Netware clients on them and running off before graphics design people could start asking for pretty flower things and such). This hardware is for real. The performace of one of these units as a small business file sharing server (for both other Macs, Windows clients, and Linux clients) and firewall while still being able to manipulate 400mb Photoshop files quickly is amazing.

    Still, a bit expensive for the casual user. For a small business, this baby rules.

  • by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:00AM (#5174736)
    Could somebody please add a posting FAQ to slashdot including (at least - additions anyone?) the following points:

    1)"Apple Macs are more expensive than a decent x86 box. "
    We know that, you're paying for the engineering that goes into their design and their quality.
    2)"Kde3? I use blackbox/ratpoison etc. Kde is slow! "
    No, KDE3 runs very fast on a reasonable machine. If you don't want to use it, that's ok.
    3)"In every discussion about either MySQL or Postgres, I must mention how much better Postgres/MySQL is at $FEATURE."
    No, you don't. Anyone who needs to know the differences can go to the relevant websites and look them up.
    4)"A new graphics card is out. When will it end!/I only just upgraded/they're too expensive"
    This has been said many times, and is generally said about 100 times in every relevant story. I'm guilty of this one too. Please stop.

    My only worry is that nothing at all would be posted to slashdot, and I'd have to start doing some work occasionally.
  • Absolute lies! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <RealityMaster101&gmail,com> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @11:43AM (#5175100) Homepage Journal

    This turbocharged Power Mac rips through digital video and 3D projects faster than Pentiums can say "uncle."

    I'm not a big fan of Apple in many ways, but this is what just burns me. I will never, ever deal with a company that is this dishonest. Benchmark after benchmark shows that a top of the line Intel KILLS the Macintosh, and is half the price to boot. How can Apple get away with bald-faced lying to the public like this?

    Can't they just sell on the merits of their hardware and software, and just stick to the truth?

    • Re:Absolute lies! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bnenning ( 58349 )
      How can Apple get away with bald-faced lying to the public like this?


      Because it's not a complete lie. There are a number of real-world tasks where G4s beat Pentiums due to Altivec (e.g. distributed.net's RC5 cracker). It is weasel-like, but no more so than Intel's assertion that a P4 makes the Internet faster.


      Can't they just sell on the merits of their hardware and software, and just stick to the truth?


      Marketroids...truth...that just doesn't work.

      • but no more so than Intel's assertion that a P4 makes the Internet faster.

        I have to admit, you've hit on another of my pet peeves. :)

        This is the problem with literalist geeks who focus on a tree while ignoring the forest. Intel never claimed that a P4 makes your bandwidth higher. They claimed the Internet was faster -- which it was. The "Internet" is a set of services, not just a stream of bits. Particularly that this claim came in the era of Netscape, which was a horribly slow renderer. A faster CPU made page rendering much, much faster. You can also make the same argument about video over the Internet. More speed == smoother video.

        So cut Intel some slack. To the average end user, a faster CPU means a faster Internet. It's completely unlike Apple's baldfaced lying.

  • SCSI is gone (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @12:00PM (#5175223) Homepage
    You could configure the old Power Macs with SCSI disks instead of IDE; it's too bad they got rid of that option.
  • by TwitchCHNO ( 469542 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @01:11PM (#5175759) Homepage

    "My 4 THz Intel Pentium IIIVIXXX is father then your 16 KHz G101"

    For those of you who have not read ALL of the CPU articles at ArsTechnica [arstechnica.com]. Go there now and do so. Before posting any of your inane babble about clock speed and processor power.

    It IS true that Motorola has fallen behind Intel - sort of.

    There are other advantages to hardware other then Intel based systems.

    Since this is an Apple thread I'll focus there - One of the most note worthy (My opinion) Is apple's System controller.

    Go READ the articles at ArsTechnica [arstechnica.com]!

    Rather than re-writing I'll simply cut & paste.

    Fast system controller: The system controller, first introduced in Apple?s highly-regarded Xserve line, coordinates and transfers data and instructions among the processor(s), PCI bus, memory, graphics and I/O buses of the Power Mac G4. Controller speeds in the new Power Mac G4 configurations run as high as 167MHz.

    The PCI bus is what really impressed me.

    Direct PCI bus: In another example of superior architecture, the Power Mac G4 optimizes PCI performance by connecting the PCI bus directly to the system controller. In a typical PC architecture, PCI devices connect to the I/O controller through a bridge, a bottleneck in the data path where all connected PCI devices are slowed down to avoid overloading the system controller. Going through this bridge constrains PCI throughput to 133Mbps (the bus speed on Pentium 4 systems), even with otherwise fast PCI devices. This slowdown of data to and from PCI devices results in greater overall system latency. The Power Mac G4, on the other hand, features a direct 266-MBps bus to the PCI slots to guarantee high throughput and low congestion ? in effect, lowering latency. The Power Mac G4 also supports write combining, which allows write instructions to be grouped into one large instruction, further increasing data throughput.

    Then Apple oficially slams PC architecture.

    On the Power Mac G4, FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet and even the ATA/100 bus are built into the system and integrated directly into the system controller. (The ATA/66 bus has its own controller.) This dedicated connection reduces PCI congestion and guarantees low latency, resulting in optimal FireWire, Ethernet and hard drive performance. And as a side benefit, it also keeps the computer?s PCI slots free for your specialized audio and video cards instead of using them to provide basic technologies.

    I got this info here [apple.com].

    Go READ the articles at ArsTechnica [arstechnica.com]!

    Apple is not the end all - be all of systems. Two of the greated systems are made by DEC & H/P. The UltraSparc kicks the crap out of anything Motorola & Intel have to offer.

    And let's not forget the Alpha. The Pentium - Pentium III architectures were based on technology stolen from DEC. Technology that Intel is still paying for today. [intel.com]

    It basically falls down to system preference. Mac users DO NOT CARE if you can build a PC for $400. Mac users DO NOT CARE if only a few of the best selling game titles are ported to the system.

    Having more game titles available is a Good Thing - naturally -but I find myself being... PRODUCTIVE instead of having my time eaten away by games - Linux users also what I'm talking about - unless they've downloaded BZFlag [bzflag.org] or Crack Attack [aluminumangel.org].

    Go READ the articles at ArsTechnica [arstechnica.com]!

  • No USB2? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2003 @01:18PM (#5175804) Homepage
    No USB2?


    Yeah, I know Firewire 800 is way faster than USB2, and Firewire 400 (which is what most people will be using for quite a while, since there aren't many Firewire 800 peripherals) is slightly faster in real life (USB2 is theoretically faster than Firewire 400, but the benchmarks I've seen have Firewire actually getting a little more out of things like disks), and that Firewire's isosychronous ability and latency guarentees is essential for some applications.


    However, when I go down to stores like Best Buy or Circuit City I see a busload (pun intended!) of USB2 hard drives and CD and DVD readers and writers, and just the occasional Firewire drive.


    For those of us who like to buy the small things locally instead of mail order, and don't live in one of the areas where there is a nearby Apple dealer...we need USB2.

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli

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