Apple's deception

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Romendo

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So I have been reading about the new G5 1.6 that are showing up here and there. Some guys convinced himself and seven others to cancel their dual G5 orders because the posted scores in some benchmarks don't really justify investing in those computers. He blames Apple because they constantly deceive people with their advertisements.

Add to that that today I found out that the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro in the new PowerMacs don't run at AGP 8x. Go take a look at Apple's web site and you see the banner "AGP 8x" all over the place. Even in the specification section they mention AGP 8x. Sure, they never mention that the graphics cards are not using AGP 8x. However, it is very deceiving. You'd think that a top-of-the-line graphics card in the year 2003 would be able to run at 8x - especially when the computer and card are brand-new.

What do you think about this? I am wondering if this hurts Apple or if people are a) ignorant or b) just don't care or know.

*shrug*

Romendo
 
I agree that it can be deceiving, but I clearly knew that it wouldn't run at 8x. This exact same video card is also available for PC, and as PC's don't have 8x AGP yet, I put 1 and 1 together. Sure, it can be deceiving, but it doesn't say anywhere that it IS running at 8x. You just assumed it did.
 
That guy was not thinking clearly to make 8 people cancel their orders. Apple claims to have the most powerful PC in the world, and they do: the dual G5 running at a lightning 2 Ghz. Of course the 1.6 Ghz are not the most powerful computer in the world, but that shouldn't stop anybody from buying one unless they want the higher-end features of the 1.8 and 2 Ghz models. The 1.6 is the low-end professional model, not the screamin' red devil. It may not beat every PC in benchmarks, but it's not supposed to, and are you going to make a decision based only on benchmarks, but on real-world tests as well?
 
Some people will never learn... Even the "low" G5 1.6 GHz can beat the daylights of a Dual G4/1.42 in most computing scenarios and people still complaining? :confused: Most probably instead of doing REAL work or REAL play they are actually benchmarking computers :p

I have customers that produce DVD material, manage networks, doing DTP, DV, etc. with "crappy" machines such as PowerMacs G4/867MHz... But guess what? They don't care about benchmarks! They care if their Macs can work night and day with no problems at all, no matter how hard they push their Macs day after day... Damn, some of our customers they have their Macs running 24/7 with no probs :eek:

Most of those Pros when I discuss with them about the G5, ANY G5, they drool all over the place :D Nah! What do they know? :rolleyes:
 
Right-o!

I'd rather have a 1.8 Ghz G5 than a 1.6, but I'd gleefully jump at the chance to obtain any G5.
 
Where does it say that the Radeon 9800 PRO doesn't run at 8x in the G5?
Yes, PCs do have, and have had for a while, AGP 8x, although a lot of times there's not much noticable difference compared to 4x.

The 9800 is an 8x and the G5's AGP slot is 8x so the card should run at 8x. The only reason I can think of is that the drivers that ATI supplies for the card(or does Apple write them?) don't support the 8x mode.

Without any proof, this post does seem like trolling.

 
I guess "troll" should be a candidate for the "Word of the Millennium" award. It is easy to find "proof" of what I said. Just go to ATI's web site and check out the feature list. You'd think they know what they are talking about.

I got a Radeon 9800 for my wife. It supports 8x AGP. And so does the Dell system I bought for her.

Nowhere on Apple's site it does say that the Mac Edition of the Radeon 9800 Pro does not have 8x but they sure advertise for their super-fast 8x bus AND list the Radeon just one or two lines below. Just because you dump a card in an 8x slot does not mean it will run at that speed.

As I said, they did not lie - but I find it too deceiving. And that was the topic of my post. It has happened many times before. The worst, of course, is the "world's fastest computer" claim for a machine that didn't even exist and won't ship for quite a while over here.

So far I haven't seen a benchmark where the G5 1.6 could beat the dual G4 1.42. The only benchmark so far actually beats it. Take a look at SpyMac or Ars Technica.

Anyway, I have been waiting for those G5s for ages and now that they are here - well, not really - Apple is still doing the old decepion tricks, which really annoy me. I was just wondering what other people thought and certainly wasn't out for posting another troll post.
 
I didn't say your post was trolling, just that without proof, stating Apple is deceiving everyone doesn't seem very believable.

From ATI's site that you linked to
...and support for the AGP 4X standard...
Click to expand...

It's not Apple that's limiting the speed of the card, it's ATI.

I'd guess the reason for this is because when the Radeon 9800 Mac version came out, all Powermacs being sold had 4x AGP.

I don't think that Apple's site is deceiving at all.
Do they have an 8x AGP slot: Yes
Does the Radeon 9800 work in it: Yes
When you are buying the system, the specs of the card are easy to find by goint to the ATI website.
 
I fail to see why AGP 8x is even an issue. All it does is increase bandwidth, for what? Answer: Textures. That means gamers will appreciate 8x if it is in fact enabled.

If you're a professional and buying a G5 system, so what if it doesn't have AGP 8x. Even 3D modelers/animators work with textures off for the most part. So really it's only gamers that crave that bandwidth. I do realize that a lot of people have high hopes for the G5 system being a monster gaming machine, but lot at it this way: if you are serious about gaming then you'd get the 128MB video cards and that's plenty of texture memory that it won't bother the bandwidth as much.
 
I fail to see the deception in Apple's advertising. They have the worlds fastest personal computer on the market, the 2 Ghz dual G4. No, the 1.6 is not the fastest computer in the world and no, it may not beat the dual 1.42 in benchmark tests... but benchmarks aren't what count! It's real-world tests! If I compared a dual 1.42 Ghz G4 to a 1.6 Ghz G5 with benchmarks and real-world tests, and the G4 won for benchmarks but the G5 won for the real-world tests, which would you rather have?
 
Originally posted by Romendo
So I have been reading about the new G5 1.6 that are showing up here and there. Some guys convinced himself and seven others to cancel their dual G5 orders because the posted scores in some benchmarks don't really justify investing in those computers. He blames Apple because they constantly deceive people with their advertisements.

Add to that that today I found out that the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro in the new PowerMacs don't run at AGP 8x. Go take a look at Apple's web site and you see the banner "AGP 8x" all over the place. Even in the specification section they mention AGP 8x. Sure, they never mention that the graphics cards are not using AGP 8x. However, it is very deceiving. You'd think that a top-of-the-line graphics card in the year 2003 would be able to run at 8x - especially when the computer and card are brand-new.

What do you think about this? I am wondering if this hurts Apple or if people are a) ignorant or b) just don't care or know.

*shrug*

Romendo
Click to expand...

I don't know if your english are THAT bad (mine clearly are) but clearly Apple says here:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html
at the bottom that Radeon 9800 Pro IS AGP 8x...

Quote from there:
"The ATI Radeon 9800 Pro’s SMARTSHADER 2.1 rewrites the rules for realism with its 128-bit floating-point color precision, enabling hyper-realistic imagery to be displayed with billions of color variations. And with its eight parallel rendering pipelines, a 256-bit wide memory interface and support for the AGP 8X standard, this card delivers tremendous performance at the highest resolutions and detail settings."

To me you seem to confuse the Apple (or if you prefer the OEM) version of 9800 with the one ATI provides for the retail... Answer this to yourself: If ATI had to make ONLY one version of 9800 for the Mac platform would they like it to be an AGP 8x only version OR an AGP 2x/4x where they can sell loads more (for use with "older" Macs)? :rolleyes:

You may want to read here for more on the subject:
http://www.barefeats.com/rad9800.html

Quote from there:
"Apple is offering the highly regarded Radeon 9800 as a BTO option for the G5 Power Mac. However, it's designed for the G5's 8X Pro AGP slot. What about the rest of us poor devils with 2X or 4X AGP slots? Never fear. The retail version of the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition (4X/2X AGP) is now shipping."

If you read slow and carefuly you will actually see that the one who is deceiving you is YOU and YOU alone ::ha::

Give Apple a break and let other buy their G5s... :p
 
Maybe deception is not the right word, confusion and stupidity might be it, then. Anyway, having to buy a whole new G5 in order to get a Radeon 9800 Pro at 8x is a little bit too much.
 
Originally posted by Romendo
Maybe deception is not the right word, confusion and stupidity might be it, then. Anyway, having to buy a whole new G5 in order to get a Radeon 9800 Pro at 8x is a little bit too much.
Click to expand...

But in which other Mac CAN you use the power of AGP 8x if it isn't a G5? I don't know if you can understand it but in order to use an AGP 8x card (even if it was/is/will be possible) in current G4 PowerMacs you will earn nothing in doing so because the 8x card will default in 4x or 2x (depending on the PowerMac model) :confused:

If you mean for future G5 customers I think that by the time they will need to install 9800 8x, newer, better AGP 8x cards will be around... ;)

As for confusion and stupidity maybe if people would read first THEN complain, things would be much more different :D

In any case I hope that you will get a G5 and wish you the Dual G5 model with 9800 in ;)
 
Originally posted by Romendo
Maybe deception is not the right word, confusion and stupidity might be it, then. Anyway, having to buy a whole new G5 in order to get a Radeon 9800 Pro at 8x is a little bit too much.
Click to expand...

Huh?! Now either you're really not getting it, or you ARE trolling. Of COURSE you can get this card some way or other. And put it WHERE? The only Mac supporting 8x AGP _IS_ the PowerMac G5. It makes no sense to make the card available to other buyers (Mac users), as long as there is no other Mac supporting the thing. You can get the 2x/4x version which makes sense, because that's what it's going to run at in an older (and newer) G4, anyway.

So... This whole thread seems quite useless for me, unless you count the proof that the G5 indeed runs the 8x AGP card at 8x as useful. But then again, why would we doubt that? Ah, yes, because of threads like this... FUD...

Apple sells a G5 with 8x AGP slot.
Apple offers a Radeon 9800 Pro 8x for it.
It runs at 8x.
Where's the problem?
 
Well, if you tried to open your mind a little bit instead of accusing me of trolling and FUDding then you might be able to understand where I wanted to go with this discussion.

I was at a local Apple dealer today since he got his first - and so far only - G5 1.6. It will take quite some time until I could get the computer I wanted. His most optimistic guess was "end of September" similar to what we see now with "end of August" meaning that it won't be here until mid-October. As a poster called it on another board: Apple is deceiving people.
 
Romendo, please remember that Apple may still have kinks to work out of the Powermac before they can ship it. Any number of issues may lead to delays in shipping, whether to resellers or to straight to you. Apple is not trying to deceive you by saying, "They'll be there in September, 100% guaranteed" and then ship them in December just to spite you. Their planned shipping dates are usually their best guess, unless they've been holding off shipping for a specific reason.
 
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