The specs for the G5 machines that were accidentally posted at the Apple store a few days ago were correct. Steve Jobs just announced G5 Powermacs at the WWDC conference. He’s calling it the “world’s fastest personal computer.” They just finished doing a demo in which a Dual 2 GHz G5 vastly outperforms a High-end Dual Xeon. Read more for preliminary specs. Prices will be $2000-3000. Oh, and the Panther OSX update was announced, but we already knew about that.Update: Official specs are up at the Apple Store. Also see Apple’s G5 Benchmark Page.
Note: this is a fast and dirty transcription from the conference floor:
Single/Dual processors. Up to 8GB Memory. Can talk to memory @ 6.4GB/s. 4x Superdrive in each. Geforce fx5200 in lower, radeon 9600 pro in higher mode.
System – G5 System Controller – dedicated bandwidth to each subsystem. IBM is fabricating it. 6x faster than G4, 8GB bandwidth, 1processor doesn’t slow down the other one. 400mhz DDR memory, AGP 8x Pro, 133mhz PCI-X slots. Hypertransport. Serial ATA. 1.5GB/s bandwidth. independent interfaces to each drive. Rest of the i/o – high performance. optical digital i/o and analog i/o, fw800 ,usb 2.0
Massively parallel. Up to 250 inflight instructions. — can be processed at the same time. The G4 can do 16. Floating point “monster”. Two fully symetric integer units. massive branch prediction logic.
Fastest front sidebus – ever. designed for dual processor systems.
Blurry photo of case (digital pic taken of big screen at keynote speech)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1134827,00.asp
In the last paragraph of this page eWeek says that the SPEC tests were administered by Veritas. whatever.
very interesting critical standpoint:
http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1296
worth reading!
“”when you use these results to compare processors you take the best system.”
No, that’s what you do. I take the one which is for the system and compiler I would use. Which is why there is nothing deceptive about these benchmarks. All benchmarks require reading the fine print.”
Actually I hardly care about the Spec results at all, optimal or not. The point is that when I see them used to compare processors that’s the result I expect to see. I also know that reading the fine print is important because that’s what I did. I didn’t find the compiler flags there however, but I suppose they can be found somewhere.
The problem with the somewhat misleading Spec results is that it invalidates the more interesting application benchmarks in my eyes. I still think that the G5 is an interesting computer but I don’t think I will buy one myself.
LOL
In response to this
http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/
I have to say:
This guy must lead a miserable life if he thinks that pricing something at $2999 is lying and cheating. The country in which I live doesn’t price anything on even dollar amounts like $3000. I wonder where he lives?
😀
I prefer using macs, but somehow this model is ugly. Powerful…but ugly
I’ve read the amdzone article and a bunch of those kind of FUD article…
My reaction ?
… bff …
I am using a 800MHz Ti PowerBook it still seems as snappy (and even snappier on some applications) than most of the IBM-compatible (funny word !) PC laptop people are using around me…
Even for a 1 year old machine (almost 1,5 year old design) people are always impressed by how fast Quake 3, Safari, the GUI, DVD, iTunes and else are.
So I can estimate that if you compare the power of my laptop to the new G5 I think that this new machine should “feel” incredibly fast…
That’s all for the “incredibly fast” part…
Regarding look and feel, usability, easyness of administration and of general use, avaibility of applications (go to versiontracker) and specific functionalities (like services, drag and drop, file type/application dynamic association and else) I do prefer a Mac.
I’ve seen soooo many times people being forced to go back to their office, losing precious days just to have a guy re-formating their disk and them loosing all their data and apps (and spending days after trying to reinstall all of them, I used to be one of those person in that lucky mood).
So now for my company I buy only macs:
– 1 3-year old G3 powerbooks (400MHz) still up and running
– my Titanium
– 2 1GHz iMac
– and as the file, mail, web, print, backup server an old 400MHz iMax SE with MacOS X Server with a LaCIE AIT/2 Tape on firewire
All is tight with a 100BT switch + an airport extreme plugged on a 1024 DSL line.
The result : The only downtimes I had since all has been setup is the time I install all the reboot-wise upgrades and each time it lasted only 2 minutes each time (the reboot time).
Conclusion : Don’t compare any computer architecture to Apple’s one, with Apple computers the raw power is not the goal it is simply a mean to achive a nearly-perfect bottom to top user experience and thus better productivity…
keep trying to bash apple. Use SPEC tests and anything else you can but apple just took a big step forward. They are offering a compelling solution and they continue to execute.
The writing is on the wall. Apple’s share of the PC market will grow. Though the chorus of PC-boy whines is loud, it won’t stop what has been put in motion. Not even the grandest of all PC-zealot, FUD-boys Dave coursey will save you now. Deal.
“If you want speed, let’s talk stuff that people actually use for, like, you know…real work. The fact is, the new G5s are bandwidth monsters and that fact alone will make 10 times the difference in the real world with real apps with real users than some artificial benchmarks. That’s what we saw in all the different application bake-off and when the G5s get into the hands of the general public, we’ll see even more confirmation of that.
All this heavy breathing about SPECs is rather silly, imo.”
Finally someone with sense!!!
All this silly discussion about SPEC is ridiculous. The truth of the matter is that no benchmark is accurate between two very different platforms. The only way to have a pseudo fair comparison was to use GCC which is open source by the way and available on both platforms. GCC was not optimised for PPC nor Intel (read the report). But who cares?
What we should all care about is how well the G5 runs the application we use. What struck me watching the keynote (available on Apple site) are the comments made by software companies. Adobe: we have never seen anything as fast as this machine. Wolfram Research: this box is faster than high end UNIX workstation. Emagic: the G5 can handle 1000 Stereo 24 bit voices simultaneously with 25% proc usage!!!
Why would all these people lie? Have a look at the keynote and judge for yourself.
Spec figures are irrelevant, and I am surprise that we had already so many comments about them.
Would I buy one of those? Most probably. And the price is good.
Disclaimer: My main rig is Windows XP, I also have a Linux PC and an iBook (X11 is great).
Some people do have serious issues. Reading those comments on that guy’s article I wonder if people have anything else to do besides defending their choice of computer.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knew if the new Macs use dual channel double-data rate RAM or single channel. If they use the latter, can they even take advantage of the 1 GHz front-side bus?
Despite having nice machines now, Apple is still stuck with the same problems – that is, *I* am. Resellers here (in Austria) suck big time. Every day on the way to work I pass that retailer who does not have a single machine in his store. It makes it hard to decide on buying a Mac. The other two are too far away for me. Prices are way too high compared to American prices. And software seems to come from one company only: Apple. They release more and more software products instead of working together with other companies.
I can’t believe that any of you take seriously what Steve Jobs says at these keynotes. It’s classic Job’s schtick. Of course he’s going to say the G5 is the fastest, etc. The only thing that matters is that Apple is back in the same ballpark as Intel and AMD again. This makes things interesting and is not only good for Apple but for computing in general.
I failed Science 101 but from what I recall you need to level the playing field. If Jobs was talking box scores, not OS scores Yellow Dog/Red Hat would have been a more objective measurement but I don’t see Apple promoting Linux (and this opens a huge can of variables). Using GCC and Linux vs. GCC and OS X isn’t a bad measurement if you are comparing the BOXES. Cries that OS X on a Mac is bias and should be compared with XP on a PC miss OS X’s overhead. This is not an advantage. GCC is close to objective and un-processor-biased. Using another compiler would be more suspect in the reverse so of course Job wouldn’t go there. I will deeply suspect 3rd party box benchmarks if they compare XP to OS X using a compiler that is optimized for x86 (duh).
The most telling thing for me is the sum of the parts. Apple seems to have a balanced system. The current cpu isn’t really faster than Xeon, at least not greatly so, but the result of all the parts is a BOX that is faster than a comparable box. The processor bus, memory bandwidth, cpu, I/O are very well balanced for September ’03.
MacOS X uses BSD code. Instead of using applications installed on different operating systems (Windows versus MacOS X), wouldn’t it be simpler to compare a G5 running some version of NetBSD to a Pentium IV running that same OS ? The benchmark could be anything ranging from kernel compilation time to compressing big audio or video files. Then people can tell what difference the hardware really makes.
Basically a G5 is a high end PC box that has substituted an PPC970 for an Opteron. All the technology except Firewire 800 is completely standard Opteron/x86 technology including the AMD built Hypertransport technology. Except a lot slower and a lot more expensive than AMD64.
Nothing bleeding edge in the G5 like DDR-II RAM or 10,000 RPM SATA RAID.
The G5 will be outclassed within a couple of months of launch.
Post 212 sounds reasoned: I agree; a 3rd party test using an X varient not specifically for either would make me happier but I doubt Doctor Jobs, RDF would (or even should) do that. He did all right but he just details the used cars. I hope some 3rd party picks up on your concept of benchmarking but I doubt it will be a Mac or PC tech site.
Post 213 is an example of fan-fluff (AMD in this case): Apple’s package is pretty tight and well balanced, regardless of who makes the parts. AMD/consortium (Hypertransport), USB and PCIX (Intel/et al), Firewire (Apple/IEEE), engineered together isn’t “standard Opteron/x86 technology.” Additionally, all systems will be outclassed shortly after release and should only be looked at on the day of purchase. Basically.
While it is true that AMD uses a lot of AMD technology, it isn’t quite so simple.
From what I can tell, the chipset layout is very similar to the current Athlon. The processor have dedicated connections to the northbridge and the northbridge has a connection to the memory. The main difference is that the connections to the northbridge are MUCH faster on the 970 (500DDR vs. 200DDR).
The Opteron has a completely different “node” oriented layout. Each processor has a direct connection to memory. Processors are connected to other processors and to IO chips (AGP/southbridge stuff) via HyperTransport links. There is no “northbridge” (or you could say the northbridge is integrated into the processor).
The Pentium 4 has a more traditional processor bus approach where the processors share a single bus to the northbridge (note: some server MBs from ServerWorks have multiple buses).
Each of these designs has its plusses and minuses. The Athlon/970 approach’s main disadvantage is that it makes the northbridge VERY complex for multiprocessor configurations, making scaling (especially beyond 2 processors) more difficult. The Pentium 4 has MP scaling issues because of congestion on the shared bus to the northbridge. The Opteron is more workload specific. The Opteron scales well when processes can be easily split to operate only on their local memory (with the help of NUMA optimizations). However, when processes need to access non-local memory, expect performance to quickly drop off. Cache coherency in 4+ configurations will also create congestion on the HT links between the processors.
Apple claims the following :
“The Power Mac G5 is the world’s fastest personal computer and the first with a 64-bit processor — which means it breaks the 4 gigabyte barrier and can use up to 8 gigabytes of main memory.”
Maybe if they had stuck to the truth, they would have remembered that one year ago Sun released a 64-bit workstation (the Sun Blade 2000) which, according to its specifications, ” supports up to 8 GB of main memory and up to 146 GB of 10,000-rpm FC-AL disk storage.”
Not to mention the 64-bit Silicon Graphics Octane 2 (introduced on June 26, 2000) which also supports up to 8 GB of memory and is sold as a workstation by SGI.
The thousands of Sun or SGI customers certainly use their Blade or Octane as personal computers.
So, Apple, could you show a little respect for history, please …
You’re right, what he should have said was ‘the world’s first affordable 64-bit personal computer’……
Sun and SGI make work stations, not personal computers. They are 64-bit workstations, the G5 is a 64-bit personal computer (it’s even sub-$20,000… to the tune of $1999, $2399, and $2999). Although, even though it’s a personal computer, many people are considering it more than capable of workstation use, and are looking to replace those $20,000 and $30,000 SGI and Sun workstations with a $3000 Apple. Impressive.
Xeons are crap, show me some benchmarks against a Dual Opteron. Apples new line is impressive, I was there saw it first hand, but the price and I hate the new design. Looks too BLAAAAH for me.
“Basically a G5 is a high end PC box that has substituted an PPC970 for an Opteron. All the technology except Firewire 800 is completely standard Opteron/x86 technology including the AMD built Hypertransport technology. Except a lot slower and a lot more expensive than AMD64.”
Proof? Yeah the case, layout, computer controlled fans, custom Apple motherboard, MacOSX, FW400, FW800, Bluetooth, Airport are standard OpteronX86 technology. In case you forget Hypertransport is a consortium of companies working on this bus technology not just AMD.
http://www.hypertransport.org/
“Nothing bleeding edge in the G5 like DDR-II RAM or 10,000 RPM SATA RAID.”
Yeah you can find this at Walmart…actually you just said the G5 is a high end box…which is it? I didn’t see those at WalMart buut I will check again.
“The G5 will be outclassed within a couple of months of launch.”
Yeah, Apple will stop making G5 systems and IBM will halt development too…another PC genius thats predicting Apples death. Do us a favor and hold your breath until Apple dies since its any minute now.
Read:
http://www.haxial.com/spls-soapbox/apple-powermac-G5/
Sorry message 214 is correct. Thr G5 box appears to use the same chipsets as the opteron. Hypertansport soutbridge. As soon as the first one ships and the heat sink gets pulled we will know the truth.
Also the first with seperate busses for each cpu is crap. Athlon MP boxes do this. (Intel uses a shared bus). I think it’s funny that Apple is scared to death of AMD.
Donaldson
Who gives a shit. I’ve been reading both sides of the ‘Apple lied to us’ argument all day. When all’s said and done I don’t think they did anything different than AMD, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel etc. do when trying to promote their products.
“Oh but they didn’t have Hyperthreading enabled for the Spec tests” – Apple actually did Intel a favour there, because any benchmarks I’ve run on Xeon based servers show BETTER results when Hyperthreading is disabled.
The best indicator of performance is real application tests. And as the demo showed, the G5 kicked the crap out of the Xeon.
You can bitch about the Spec scores all you want but the following cannot be disputed:
– First 64-bit box for the mass market (how many Alpha boxes have been sold? Think it’s in the millions?)
– Fastest FSB of any personal computer (a 2 to 1 CPU to FSB ratio is amazing)
– No one can create such excitement over a product announcement as Steve Jobs can (ever seen Balmer speak?)
“Yeah you can find this at Walmart…actually you just said the G5 is a high end box…which is it? I didn’t see those at WalMart buut I will check again.’
The G5 is both expensive and fast. It is not the best available technology available. 10,000 RPM SATA RAID, PC1066 RDRAM or DDR433 are readily available.
The whole Walmart comment is idiotic.
The single CPU models are no better than an 2.6 GHz P4 and far more expensive.
Firewire 400, GB ethernet and Bluetooth are available integrated on a number of x86 boards.
Consider some of the G5’s “cutting-edge” features:
DDR400: An incremental step from the G4’s DDR333 (though the system can now make full use of its DDR) but absolutely nothing new. PCs have been supporting DDR400 since the nForce2 chipset arrived late last year, and third-party manufacturers for Intel added it not long after. Even Intel has now officially adopted the standard.
1 GHz HyperTransport Bus: The speed of the bus is impressive, but its only moderately faster than busses currently available on Opteron and the Pentium 4. Apple’s G5 systems offer an independent bus for each CPU (just like Opteron). Again, there’s nothing revolutionary here.
Support for Serial ATA: Again, a nice feature to see the Mac adopting, but scarcely anything new. SATA has been shipping on PC motherboards (even though it was fairly useless given that no machines support it) since the launch of the KT400 early last fall.
AGP 8X: The one thing AGP 8X has in common on both the PC and the Mac is that it’s practically useless at the moment. That aside, it showed up on the PC side of things about the same time SATA support did, i.e., about 10 months ago.
USB 2.0 / FireWire / FireWire 800: The Mac debuted FireWire years before it began appearing widely on PCs and FireWire 800 is still Mac-only at the moment, but USB 2.0 has been present for PCs for almost 18 months, since at least the launch of the VIA KT333 chipset.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10158
Almost every one of the Mac’s “new” features has been present in the PC world for months, and there’s at least one major feature – namely the Opteron’s integrated memory controller – that the Mac doesn’t have at all.