Qaud G4 Towers on the way?

[pezagent]

Originally posted by uoba


As for pezagent, do we have another PC protaganist in our mists?

No, actually you have a Mac (L)User who's used Apple products for over two decades. I cut my teeth on an Apple IIe and was, until about a few years ago, a Mac Evangelist and part owner of Apple, Inc. My friends and family still use Macintosh computers. As a desiger, I've used Macs for most of my career.
My brother-in-law is an Authorized Apple repair technician. He loves tellling me I need an ESP everytime I open up a navi.

My father is a computer programmer. He's an MIT graduate. I've been around these stupid little boxes that go "ping" my whole life. I was going to be a programmer like my old man, but I decided there were enough geeks in the world. Thanks to software like Flash MX and Javascript, I can now combine my design with my appreciation for programming.

I'm not part of the holy war anymore. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of Mac (L)Users with closed minds, the MacZombie army of drones that feels that Apple can do no wrong, just because they're part of the "minority". That goes for the PC (L)Users that bitch about Macintosh. Grow up, get a clue, and stop thinking your computer is an extension of your personality. It's not.

If more people would do their homework about operating systems, one would find that right now, not yesterday or last year, but right now, systems are really on a neutral territory. The only comparison one can truly make that falls outside personal opinion is price. On Apple's side, it still makes over-priced boxes. It's taken me a long time to get my head out of Steve Jobs' ass but I'm glad I did it. Now I have a choice. My biggest dissapointment after using computers for too long is that there aren't more choices for operating systems on the market.

So, in order of preference, I'll use the system that:
1. Works better (and since I've tested XP and OSX side by side, I actually like XP better right now)
2. Costs less (sorry peeps, but I can get a dual AMD 2100, with 2 monitors, that costs less than the dual G4 box, which runs slower)

 

[pezagent]

Originally posted by vitaboy
{...} The fact is, there really isn't much positive stuff to talk about with regards to Mac hardware (with the exception of iPod and maybe XServe)....but that's what happens when you go 2 years at a time to update your hardware platform.

Let me just remind everyone, the $2,999 Fastest config for the G4 tower one can get today still has only 1 GHz G4s 7 FREAKIN' MONTHS after it was introduced, still running on ancient PC133 memory! This is Apple's top-of-the-line PRO system??!! Hermit crabs update their hardware faster than Apple does at this point.

No wonder desktop sales are imploding like there's no tomorrow. Apple can't do anything about Motorola, but it can sure as heck at least keep up with the PC guys in subsystems and such. But sadly, not only are they behind, but they are VERY far behind. It will be a truly sad and pathetic situation is all we can cheer about is the desktops finally using DDR memory.

I totally agree with this. Motorola has become a thorn in Apple's side. x86 technology is making leaps and bounds, but Apple (L)Users are still stuck with crappy memory and a Level 3 cache.

LOL--hermit crabs... totally (zzzzzz).... <!>

 

[vitaboy]

Theed, no offense taken, but I wanted to be clear that I was just expressing my frustration with Apple sometimes and that I wasn't just trolling for attention.

Pezagent, I wouldn't go as far as calling Mac users losers, but the slowness with which Apple is responding to advances on the PC side is distressing.

To Apple's credit, there are a few things that are ahead of the curve on the hardware front, like Gigabit Ethernet. But advances like integrated wireless is now pretty common on the PC side and FireWire is now being challenged by USB 2.0.

At the very least, if Apple can't give us faster processors, they can still give us things like faster memory, USB 2.0, 800 Mbits/sec FireWire, integrated Bluetooth, wireless keyboards/mice, and more responsive pricing.

Even in the early days of the iMac when Apple pushed the technology envelope more by doing daring (but sensible) things like making USB and integrated wireless standard. Now it seems like the PC makers jump on new technologies much faster than Apple.

Maybe it's too early to be so down on Apple, but here's crossing fingers on both hands Apple responds aggressively to the weak hardware position it's in. If the new stuff won't impress, at least make the prices shout wonders.

 

[theed]

but if, hypothetically, personal attacks were my style, then I'd probably say something like this:

Pez, really, damn! I appreciate your agreement on the point that motorola hasn't been keeping pace recently in terms of speed, but could you be any more inflammatory or off-topic?

This is MacOSX.com, and the thread is about Quad G4 towers. Do you think that Quad G4's would bring adequate speed? If so, at what price point would it be worthwhile?

... that's what I would say. And I'd probably throw in a "Your mama-" just for grins. :-/

 

[theed]

vitaboy, if you recall the days of the iMac, PC's had USB on them for quite some time. It was the iMac that actually forced people to use them by not having any of the old ports.

PC's have been adopting everything new as fast as they can for many years now, it's Apple that actually chooses a direction and goes with it. I think Apple's focus has not been processor power recently, and this has shown. I think integrated wireless is in part due to Apple's push of the technology.

So if you're looking for Apple to put out more desktop horsepower for less cash, you have a lot of looking to do. But I think they are making good on putting a solid OS and good free development environment out there. Decent security, and some sales buzzword compliant packages that are turning heads. Though .mac may be turning more heads in a vomiting motion than a doubletake motion.

As I said before, is the IO bottleneck due to the processor itself? If not, yeah, it'd be nice for Apple to fix that and then some.

 

[vitaboy]

Theed,

You make several good points once again. Although I can't say with 100% certainty about the bottleneck in current Mac systems, many benchmarks indicate that the processor is being choked by the slow subsystems. For example, MacSpeedZone did a test between the PowerBook G4/800 (which has a 1 MB L3 cache) and the iMac G4 800 (which doesn't).

http://macspeedzone.com/html/reviews/machines/portable/6_02/800_vs_imac_800.shtml

Although the motherboards may not be the same, the tests do seem to indicate that the cache provided a significant boost to overall performance, i.e. the G4 is waiting around a lot more in the L3 cache-less iMac.

So there is probably more Apple can do to enhance the overall performance of the system even if they can't push up the power of the chips all that much.

I agree that OS X has been a long time in coming and is crammed chock full of much need buzzwords - probably more so than WinXP, in fact. But the buzzwords are just door openers because they satisfy a minimum requirement - they simply allow the Mac and OS X to be considered.

Once groups look into the nitty gritty, Apple is currently faced with trying to sell $3000+ machines that still don't have DDR memory with processors stuck at 1 GHz. Even if a purchasing manager is informed enough to realize that processor speeds aren't comparable across different chips, you still have to wonder why the processors have been stuck at the same speed for 7 months.

It almost seems as if the inclusion of the L3 cache was a stop-gap measure put out precisely because Apple couldn't put out a DDR-based motherboard in time. I'm curious to know WHY it's so much trouble/so expensive/so impractical to put out a DDR motherboard for Apple.

The reason why the XServe looks so good on paper is that not only does it perform better than comparable PIII-based 1U servers in its price range, but it's also priced BETTER than the PC counterparts. All I'm saying is that Apple needs to take the same aggressive approach to its desktops instead of trying to get people to climb the mountain first to see the "finer" points of owning a Mac. In other words, Apple needs to make it a no brainer to go with the Mac. A quad-G4 in light of stagnant chip development from Motorola might be that no-brainer.

All I'm saying is instead of rigidly following a predetermined marketing plan on hardware upgrades ("we will release a new desktop in January and update it 9 months later - no sooner!"), Apple needs to be able to respond more quickly to changing market conditions - like it did with the 17" iMac.