In a special report on IBM’s Power5 Processor family, the bigger, badder cousin of the G5 PowerPC processor Apple uses in Power Mac and iMac models, InfoWorld predicts that some form of the Power5 will make its way to a Mac soon.
“PowerPC and Power form a continuum of compatible, and now open, processor designs,” writes reported Tom Yaeger, “and our guess is that the Power5 design will arrive in some form in an Apple machine in 2005.
What makes Windows any more legitimate than other platforms? Popularity doesn’t mean a damn thing. Gray Davis won the popular election as CA gov but was later removed because he didn’t perform properly. People are starting to see that Windows isn’t everything the MS marketing/propaganda team makes it out to be. In the meantime, Unix(like) OSes are gaining ground at a steady pace.
Ironically you call Macs toys. Most people I’ve spoken to who own Windows machines say they’d love to have a Mac but the game support is greater on Windows. It looks to me that Windows is the “toy” platform.
Expensive?
A comperably equipped PC typically costs slightly more when you pare it up with the same (or as close as possible) specs in both hardware and software. At best it costs the same.
Most people throw out the Apple expensive term too loosely. What they mean is “less configureable”. With a PC, you can buy less and get less… or buy different and get different (buy more in some areas and buy less in other areas.
I know what will happen as a result of this comment… someone will price compare a PC to a Mac, not match all the specs as closely as possible (buy less and get less or buy different and get different) to “prove” PC price superiority. EVERY one of these comparisons I’ve seen don’t compare the specs equally.
Apple is less configurable at the initial buying stage (than the wide assortment of PCs available from other resellers). They require you to buy more and therefore pay more. That does not mean more expensive… though it does mean less configurable.
Why would Apple need or use the POWER5 in the Mac? It would be just as much overkill as uing POWER4 in lieu of the PPC970. It seems reasonable that the successor of PPC970 will be BASED on POWER5, but I seriously doubt Apple will be using POWER5 proper.
They could start running the “fastest personal computer” ads once again without fear of the whiners feeling threatened…
Duh……
They could start running the “fastest personal computer” ads once again without fear of the whiners feeling threatened…
I hope there is a desktop model… whether it be regrded as a work station or not i don’t care as long as its not a server.
Apple so far has had the fastest desktop/workstation thus far, but there are still the insecure PC fanbois who said that it is tied with their AMD chips. This will finally put the issue to rest. Without question, Apple will have the fastest personal computer.
Now if they can do it for under $5,000…. that’d be sweet.
What’s that company with the stupid alien cases?? Alienware? They have some new model that’s supposed to be the G5 killer… All very nice, except it’s ~$5000 USD.. $2000 more than the G5 it “kills”.
A cobbled together from scraps PC is cheaper yes but this is apples and oranges. Look at similarly-equipped brand name Wintel machines. There is no real cost savings.
I’m only answering this because it seems that you guys are asking. The Wintel platform is popular because it’s an easy system to develop for. There’s a lot of support on so many levels – application, driver, etc. There’s a great base of code-base to draw from, and a great number of peripherals that is compatible.
Apple most likely won’t use the Power5 in desktops; it’s overkill for most people. Most likely they will incorporate features of the Power5 into the G6 chip.
For people who talk about the price of Macs, consider what you actually get. The hardware and software are designed to work together (better than Windows at least). Running on a FreeBSD core, OS X will run Mac software, Unix software, (and with the right patch) Linux software. No emulation required. That immediately opens up thousands of software apps. Plus, I personally feel you get more apps built in than you do w/ Windows.
I do wonder how Power5 chips compare w/ Opterons. Assuming a Unix-based OS, which one gives more bang for the buck?
Apple so far has had the fastest desktop/workstation thus far, but there are still the insecure PC fanbois who said that it is tied with their AMD chips. This will finally put the issue to rest. Without question, Apple will have the fastest personal computer.
There are inevitable some things the PowerPC is good at (a server processsor being one of them), but the AMD Opteron chips absolutely turned Apple’s Power set up inside out. A lot of that may have been due to Apple’s inefficient set up for their own processors, but the AMD crapped all over it.
I don’t know where you get the idea that people are saying that they were tied.
———–
They have some new model that’s supposed to be the G5 killer… All very nice, except it’s ~$5000 USD.. $2000 more than the G5 it “kills”.
You may just want to take a look at what’s in it.
i posted links to these last week when this was brought up (as it is every time Macs are mentioned), but HR is right, similarly equipped Macs are cheaper then PCs (i did my comparison against Dells):
for the low spec desktop:
http://hohle.net/scrap_post.php?post=50
for the laptop:
http://hohle.net/scrap_post.php?post=51
They have some new model that’s supposed to be the G5 killer… All very nice, except it’s ~$5000 USD.. $2000 more than the G5 it “kills”.
You may just want to take a look at what’s in it.
I did. Cannot justify the marginal performance gains.
I recently wanted an iBook 14″ but it couldn’t do half the things I needed to… so I got a Toshiba laptop instead. Was it more expensive? Yeah, a bit. But it’s FAR more useful for my needs.
Price doesn’t always matter… but I think most Apple offerings are fairly priced, at least when you don’t add options like extra memory (where you get financially raped).
Wrawrat: while I’ll agree that Aple itself overcharges for RAM, the RAM used in their machines is pretty standard stuff that can be purchased from a third party for the same amount as RAM on the Wintel side of things, and generally more easily installed.
So yes, Apple itself overcharges on RAM, but then, so do most major OEMs. This isn’t a disadvantage for Apple, so it’s best to qualify such statements lest others get the wrong idea. 🙂
No apple RAM prices are ridiculous when compared to other OEM’s.
I think they figure that they will price gouge those ignorant fools who purchase RAM from them or those people with too much money to care they are being ripped off. Typically graphic designers and other media creation people are used to ripping people off so I guess they think its okay.
apple cant afford to ship power5. it wont happen.
While I was shopping for an iBook 14″, I wanted an extra 256MB of RAM. About two months ago, the Apple Store was charging me 145$ for a 256MB DDR266 stick, including the student discount. A local store was charging me 75$ for the same amount.
Most major OEMs I have seen are charging a premium but not 100% over the retail store price. Dell could but they are just a bunch of crooks, anyway. Even the carcasses of cheap tin they dare to call computers are overpriced.
As for the ease of installation, I don’t know. Even my grandma could have installed the RAM in my laptop. You remove the plastic shield, you insert the RAM in the SO-DIMM slot, you put the plastic shield back. Could it be more simple?
By the way, prices are in canadian dollars before taxes.
does pc ram work in an apple?? because i dont think we have a store that sells apple equitment within like 3 hours
I did. Cannot justify the marginal performance gains.
Get a cheaper one then, because you’re not forced to pay that price – and for much less you can still have something that kills a Mac. Unfortunately, you can’t do that with a Mac because you just don’t have the choice of suppliers.
I’m sorry but this plain won’t happen because the POWER4 & POWER5 chips do not have a 32bit compatibility mode like the PPC970 does.
The G5 lacks features that the G4 had such as both big and small endian support, one reason that a new version of VirtualPC needed to be written for the G5.
But dropping 32 bit support entirely would mean that a POWER based Mac would not run any legacy software – unless it was emulated which would make it slow.
At the moment Mac OS X does not support 64 bit GUI applications. If you want to write a 64 bit appplication you write it as a command line, or faceless application and interface to it with a 32 bit GUI. I know this for certain as I attended an Apple Tiger Developer day at Apple the other week and got it from the horses mouth, so to speak.
One of the reasons that the PPC970 (G5) is so special is that it mixes 32 bit and 64 bit instructions so well. A drastic redesign would be needed for the current POWER line of chips to do this.
I personally envisage a new line of PowerPC chips that are compatible with 32 and 64 bit code, such as the much touted PPC980 which includes rumours of bigger cache, SMT and better SMP support.
I forgot to mention in my previous post disagreeing with the POWER suggestion and mentioning a successor to the G5/PPC970. I think that it is likely that Apple will move up to a multi-core chip. The PPC980 is rumoured to have both multi-cores and Multi-threading capability. This would mean that a dual CPU machine would appear to have 8 CPUs. 2 physical packages containing 2 cores per chip with 2 virtual cores per core as a result of hyper threading. At least that’s what I’ve discovered from various sources. I could be completely wrong, although I hope not 🙂
You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about! 32-bit runs JUST fine on a POWER4 and POWER5 cpus. No emulation whatsoever. No redesign needed.
The reason Apple won’t use it is cost. Including the stock POWER5 MCM would undoubtedly add $1000 or more to the cost of the machine. Further, the POWER5 does not have VMX – and Apple may wish to have a VMX core added to the POWER5.
Some brands do not work with Macs but most quality DIMM sticks should work. At worst, go to your favourite local store and ask the staff to test a RAM stick or two before buying one.
Apart from the processor, the Macs are PCs. That’s why it’s so funny to see people blasting each other on which one is better…
“The Wintel platform is popular because it’s an easy system to develop for. ”
USED to be, you mean. Both the Mac and Linux development tools and open libraries beat M$ hands down for convenience and value.
but if they used that exact same chips this would help with economies of scale non? Most software used on Macs are made by apple so after they fully convert their OS to 64-bit they could provide and emulator for a few of the other programs. I bet it wouldn’t take long –it Adobe doesn’t already– for a fully 64-bit version of Photoshop to arrive. I see less development costs and less fab costs as a major reason to go through with this.
> I do wonder how Power5 chips compare w/ Opterons. Assuming a > Unix-based OS, which one gives more bang for the buck?
POWER5 quite simply blows away the Opterons, few people would argue that no other single microprocessor can compete with POWER5 right now. Plus there’s scalability, and Opterons aren’t even NUMA aware and are thus restricted by the limitations of SMP. Of course, you pay a good sum of money for a POWER5; check out IBM’s price tags on even the low-end POWER5 AS/400s and RS/6000s.
Opterons are indeed NUMA aware, given the correct motherboard.
I agree that the Power5 would indeed blow the current-get Opteron out of the water, but not at the same price.
As for the Power4, it is pretty even in performance with the Opteron, with some wins on both sides…
Why dosn’t someone make a non Mac Power 5 pc maybe with linux on it
Even IBM doesn’t sell Power5 workstations yet. If you got about 6k to plunk down, you can get a rather nice Power4 running AIX, though.
Yes, and both times you posted it, I shot it down. You don’t seem to have responded to that yet.
Don’t compare Alienware, they are overpriced crap. The best comparison would be to use Falcon Northwest. http://www.falcon-nw.com/config/build.asp Using this page I speced out a system that cost around $2899 using comparable specs to a G5 (http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/722…) which cost $3349.
Since the PC wasn’t available with the 9600xt as an option I bumped them both up to a 6800GT, otherwise the G5 is bone stock. On the PC side it comes with the cheapest case because I prefer black, but if you want for a whopping $15 it can match the G5 in color by selecting the next up case. I upgraded the Power Supply just in case and added XP Pro because I can’t stand Home edition (though I prefer Linux and Mac OS X to either).
I left it with the default of 2x256MB of dual channel ram and put in the 120GB hard drive. Added the Lite-On dual layer 16x DVD+-RW and the Firewire 800 card just in case the onboard was only 400. So it has everything the G5 has, plus S/PDIF out and 2x as fast DVD burner. Plus I could have put in a decent sound card, speakers, doubled the ram, and over doubled the HD and still be less than the G5. Now the only thing missing from the PC was Mac OS X and PCI-X.
HR, I think you can agree that these are comparable specs and the PC winds hands down (well except no OS X… well except slowly under PearPC). When the G5’s came out there wasn’t really anything in the same price/performance ratio but that has vanished now (unless you are dumb and buy Alienware or Dell).
Personally I build my own systems so I could increase the price/performance ratio even more (especially since I don’t need firewire, PCI-X, that fast of a Graphics card, or that fast of a processor).
Actually the PC was $2946 since I forgot some things in that configuration (keyboard and mouse got unselected) and forgot to go back and change my post.
“does pc ram work in an apple?? because i dont think we have a store that sells apple equitment within like 3 hours”
Yes, PC RAM works just fine in Macs. If you ever need to check which type of RAM is required for a particular Mac, check out http://www.everymac.com/ or http://lowendmac.com for the RAM requirements.
1) when comparing processor speed you CANNOT compare an Intel chip @Mhz or AMD chip @PRrating directly to a G4 or G5. That may be common knowledge to those reading this but at no point does a G4 1.3 Ghz beat a 2Ghz or 2000+ x86 chip period, even doing things that a G4 is good at. YES a G4 is faster per clock that the Inter BUT comparable @ clock speed to an AthlonXP, so a 2000+ Athlon XP is a 1.67Ghz part and a G4 must be 1.67 or so Ghz to beat it on average, YES a 1.67Ghz G4 will be faster in some things and slower in others to the AMD. Now a G5 has an additional 20% on the AMD, so a G5 would need to be 1.33Ghz to beat the AMD 2000+ or P4 2Ghz. also, a G5 has very little on an a64 or opteron, maybee 5% based on CLOCK SPEED and not PR rating. these numbers are backed up by every mac/pc benchmark comparison online and arguement to these FACTS would demostrate some serious ignorance or at the very least your zealot(ness?) about Macs and that your opinions are scewed.
2)PCs DO COST LESS THAN MACS when similarly equiped. comparing a DELL with higher bus speeds and one step higher parts proves nothing. MACS come out ahead in TCO!. pay 20% more for your mac and then never pay to take your Mac to the shop cause it wont just sh*t on you like the PC with winblows will. i will agree that laptops are very comparable between macs and pcs, and the mac typically wins on style and usability.
3)for what i have read, the power5 is an architecture not a chip. so apple could have a power5 with less execution units and less cache, and maybe less multi-chip scalability(2 or 4 instead of dozens or more) and it would still be a power5. just like an A64 and an opteron are both hammers. IMHO the G5 and the P5(power5) are like the A64 and the Opteron. an performance wise will probably be similar in gap.
4)reguardless of my thinking that Mac zealots are ignorate pukes that do nothing to promote macs and in fact hurt the Mac image, i PREFER a mac to a PC. more elegant, less crap, better interfact, more stable, more secure, ‘sexier’, and comparable in performance for the purpose they are bought for. I have a Dual G5 2Gb Ram and also a Dual Opteron 246 with 2Gb ram, and i like both equally. the Opterons run gentoo linux and the G5s are now running 10.3.7(updated today!!whee) if i were forced to run windows on the opterons, i would dump them and go with the G5 but opterons are comparable to G5s and the machines are in every way equals.
> these numbers are backed up by every mac/pc benchmark comparison online and arguement to these FACTS would demostrate some serious ignorance or at the very least your zealot(ness?) about Macs and that your opinions are scewed.
If you take those awful little one-dimensional benchmarks as Gospel, then perhaps your own opinion is a bit skewed.
> for what i have read, the power5 is an architecture not a chip.
POWER5 is a chip, POWER is an architecture.
> IMHO the G5 and the P5(power5) are like the A64 and the Opteron. an performance wise will probably be similar in gap.
Maybe… It’s a somewhat decent analogy.
Fundamentally I agree with you; I’d rather have a nice PPC970 workstation, but I just don’t have the money and will stick with my Dual Coppermine system…
-uberpenguin
“IMHO the G5 and the P5(power5) are like the A64 and the Opteron.”
Oh thats just plain silly.
The G5 is equivilent to AMD’s fastest. A power 5 is in a total class by itself. It is leaps and bounds ahead of anything Intel or AMD is utilizing now.
Zeke,
since you didn’t provide all the specs to your alienware PC, we can only conclude that you didn’t match the PC spec to spec with an equivilent Mac.
You either bought less and paid less or bought more in some areas and less in other areas. All that means is that your alienware PC is more expandible.
I’ve compared Mac systems to just about every manufacturer out there and I haven’t seen one of them yet cost less than a Mac when you match the specs exactly 9or as close as possible) in both hardware and software.
I never said I bought Alienware. I specifically said *NOT* to buy Alienware and said that I build my own computers. If you had actually read my post I listed off all the specs and minute differences between a G5 and a similarly equipped Falcon Northwest PC. I even gave the links to see for yourself, though Falcon Northwest uses ASP with POST updates for its form so I can’t give you a link to the direct configuration, but I told you everything you need to configure it yourself.
Even IBM doesn’t sell Power5 workstations yet. If you got about 6k to plunk down, you can get a rather nice Power4 running AIX, though.
not so true…
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/entry/
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/openpower/
Zeke,
The Mac in your configuration comes with a 160GB Serial ATA; 7200 rpm. You equipped the Flacon machine with a 120 GB hard drive. (A difference of $10)
The G5 you spec’d is a Dual 2.5GHz PowerPC G5. Your web site doesn’t even offer dual processor configurations. The single processor equivilent to this G5 processor is the AMD Athlon64 FX-55 Socket 939 for $1037. You didn’t mention which processor you got. If you didn’t choose this processor, you’d need to tack on the additional price to make it the AMD Athlon64 FX-55 Socket 939 plus the cost of an additional one for $1037. And then of course you’ll need to double that price to match the equivilent of the dual processor configuration.
Your configuration doesn’t have an equivilent to the G5’s Optical digital audio input, optical digital audio output, analog audio input, analog audio output combo.
You might want to include the “Silencer fans” because the G5 has computer-controlled cooling. This will add an additional $69.
You made no mention of the mouse and keyboard. An additional $20 and $18
You mentioned that you “could have put in a decent sound card” but you didn’t. The G5 has a spectacular sound card. It’s not listed in its default specs. I don’t know exactly which one its most comparitive too. Let’s make it one step down from the top model. The equivilent on your site would be the Creative Labs Audigy II ZS Platinum which would require that you add an additional $257
Without even adding a price for the digital audio config.. these needed addons (assuming you priced your single processor as being the AMD Athlon64 FX-55 Socket 939 for $1037) makes your $2946 PC $4357.
Again, this is a conservative estimate because I left some things out like OS X’s bundled software software (roughly $250 conservative) and the digital audio etc…. and yet the price difference is ALREADY $1000+ over.
I stand by my origional statement… Apple systems are less expensive when matched equally spec for spec in both hardware and software.
>The G5 is equivilent to AMD’s fastest. A power 5 is in a >total class by itself. It is leaps and bounds ahead of >anything Intel or AMD is utilizing now.
Well, Power5 is a 276 Million transistor solution. Opteron wouldn’t reach ~205 Million transistor mark until sometime in 2005.
Read your own links. Server != Workstation.
The one-way p5 520 with begins at 5000$ US. That’s not very affordable, you know…
A comperably equipped PC typically costs slightly more when you pare it up with the same (or as close as possible) specs in both hardware and software.
Only when you try to match up the (mostly useless) software bundled included with Macs using PC software at _retail prices_.
From my recollection I thought that the 4000+ (which I used to spec the system out) was faster than the FX-55, which I was wrong. Besides it is only $40 more than the 4000, thus still under the price range of the G5. Besides in all but optimized applications (mainly Photoshop) a 4000+ Athlon will smoke the G5. Dual 2.5GHz != 5GHz. Most applications on windows aren’t even written to take advantage of the second processor anyways so it is totally unnecessary. You will NEVER find a PC that is exactly like a G5, but I found one that was close enough for an accurate comparison. As far as cooling goes, well I can’t really comment on that, yeah the G5 is gonna be quieter than any PC you will find without a lot of custom stuff. Oh, and those comments about the hard drive — I must have missed that option in there, but I did mention that you could put a 250GB in for less than the G5. The keyboard and mice were the cheapest since they are comparable to the default keyboard and mouse on the G5. The Motherboard had onboard 8 channel sound with Optical/Coaxial Digital out but yeah no digital in, I wasn’t aware of these features on the G5. So I re-specced the PC with all the changes you made – still came out over $100 less than the G5.
Although you may stand by your argument, it still makes little difference to most people. A deal is only a deal if you get your money’s worth. For the select few that fall within the bounds of the few configurations of the G5, well that is all peachy and hey they got a great deal. But I don’t need SATA, Firewire, a DVD burner, Digital out/in, etc.. it’s not a good deal for me when I could buy something far cheaper and be satisfied. People always say that the higher up you go in the line, you pay less as compared to a comparable PC. Isn’t that kinda like a 50% off sale? The more you buy the more you save is the slogan. Sure you may save a bucketload on all that extra stuff, but why pay for it at all if you will never use it?