Athlon64??

JK wrote:



Stacey wrote:

JK wrote:

You seem to be obsessed with those early test results for a 1.6 ghz
Athlon 64, for which it appears that SSE2 was probably not properly
enabled. They were very preliminary results for an early prototype,
that are not indicative of how the final production line chips will
perform. Very soon we should have benchmarks for the one way Opterons.


So now you're going to compare server chips to desktops ones?

If they are within the same price range as a higher end P4 solution for
the platform(CPU, motherboard, and ram) then it is a fair comparion.


Unless they are missing desktops "normal" things like AGP ports etc..

--

Stacey

I'd like to see the performance difference between the computers jocking for
64bit position & once again there's more computer than the average person
really needs except if you are becoming a scientist.

BBoppie


"John Johnson" wrote in message
...

Power challenge of new Macs
By Ian Hardy
BBC ClickOnline
Apple released its latest desktop machine with all the usual pizzazz,
with Chief Executive Steve Jobs claiming the Power Mac G5 to be "the
world's fastest personal computer". But can we take his word for it?

Nick Stam, Director of PC Magazine's testing laboratory in New York is
not convinced quite yet.

In 1998 he successfully challenged Apple's claims that the original
iMac was faster than a Windows machine under certain conditions.

So is the new G5 truly the world's faster personal computer?

"You take that with a grain of salt because you don't know what
they're presenting in the benchmark up there," said Mr Stam.

"We don't have a system to test ourselves and we know there is all
kind of tweaking that can be done and that's the big issue right now."

Steve Jobs also made a big announcement about the G5 processor, ahead
of competitors such as chip maker AMD.

"The 64-bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never
be the same again," said Mr Jobs in his address last week to Apple
devotees in San Francisco.

"The new Power Mac G5 combines the world's first 64-bit desktop
processor, the industry's first 1GHz front-side bus and up to 8GB of
memory to beat the fastest Pentium 4 and dual Xeon-based systems in
industry-standard benchmarks and real-world professional
applications."

But his statement about being the first 64-bit machine has to be taken
in context.

"Of course it isn't shipping yet. It's not shipping for a couple of
months. So they're not first-to-market today as Steve said," said Mr
Stam.

"AMD may likely decide to come out in August instead of September with
their new desktop Athlon 64. It's bragging rights is what it is, and
that's what Steve is great at."

Hardcore fans

True Macintosh believers see things a different way.

POWER MAC G5 SPECS
1.6 GHz 64-bit PowerPC G5
800 MHz front-side bus
256MB 333 MHz Dual Channel (128-bit) DDR
4 DIMMs, 4GB maximum memory
80GB Serial ATA hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra-64MB DDR
US retail price - $1,999
For people like Matt Cohen, co-owner of Tekserve, an Apple reseller in
Manhattan, comparing Macs and PCs is a long-established yet
meaningless tradition, especially to his customers.

"I don't think that the PC market is their competition, in that
sense," said Mr Cohen. "The performance and the ease-of-use of a Mac
operating system is at the forefront of his argument."

Apple is currently on a roll after recovering from such problematic
products as the Cube computer.

They now have a growing list of recent achievements which customers
crave. It goes on with Apple's online music store iTunes and its chain
of US stores have also been doing very well.

"When Apple agree that a standard makes sense, they embrace it," said
Mr Cohen.

"I'm actually quite impressed that Apple is able to innovate new
standards that they then make accessible to the rest of the computing
community as well."

Challenges ahead

Just days before the official launch of the G5, details of the new
machine were posted on the Apple website for a few seconds.

But Mr Jobs even turned that major blunder into a promotional slogan
calling it a premature specification.

Apple's CEO delivered his presentation as if no-one in the audience
had heard the rumours.

Yet the biggest question still remains - can Apple generate enough
excitement in the coming months from developments such as its new
Panther operating system and its iSight video web camera to increase
market share from a miniscule 3.5%?

That is where big announcements and banner headlines really play their
part.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...gy/3044824.stm

Published: 2003/07/05 07:32:57 GMT

© BBC MMIII

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 12:44:52 GMT, "Boppie" wrote:

I'd like to see the performance difference between the computers jocking for
64bit position

There are some more important things to reflect on, than some 5-15%
difference in performance.

The G5 will have 3-4% of the market. If it gets 4%, it's a hell of an
achievement and Jobs and Apple is going to be over the roof.

I'm sure the G5 is brilliant in relation to its transistor count and
clockspeed. Motorolas cpus have been the best designs there are, for
more than 20 years now. But I can't see it taking over the PC market.

The PC market will go either of two ways. AMD's way, in which case the
Athlon64/WindowsXP64 succeeds in making a relevant market penetration.
This will force Intel to release their own secret 86-64 compatible
cpu, and invest massive work in it, in order to make it competitive.
After that things will basicly progress as today. AMD should be
somewhat stronger though.

The other way is the one Intel prefers. AMD dies and goes away. Intel
can then control and completely restructure the cpu market.

What they will do then is to spread out the performance spectrum and
make price/performance more linear. While we today have more than 50%
performance increase per year, you can expect that to slow to 10-20%
for desktop machines, anyway, not more than Intel needs in order to
sell new cpus and keep Motorola/Apple out.
Progress might pick up again once the desktop is moved down the
ladder, since the highend still competes with the likes of Sun. But I
expect Intels main motivator to force people to "upgrade" will be new
features like copyright locked software & media that requires new
hardware features inside the cpu to unlock and run new apps and
content.

Finally this will also allow them to delay 64-bit technology until
they can move their Itanium down market. Having succeeded in migrating
the PC desktop to the Itanium:::
- They will have the entire world by the balls!


ancra

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 12:44:52 GMT, "Boppie" wrote:

& once again there's more computer than the average person
really needs except if you are becoming a scientist.

This would be a good idea for a triva competition:
- How many citations, that paraphrases this, can we find in the
history of computing. ;-)


ancra

"Ancra" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 12:44:52 GMT, "Boppie" wrote:

I'd like to see the performance difference between the computers jocking
for
64bit position

There are some more important things to reflect on, than some 5-15%
difference in performance.

The G5 will have 3-4% of the market. If it gets 4%, it's a hell of an
achievement and Jobs and Apple is going to be over the roof.

I'm sure the G5 is brilliant in relation to its transistor count and
clockspeed. Motorolas cpus have been the best designs there are, for
more than 20 years now. But I can't see it taking over the PC market.

The PC market will go either of two ways. AMD's way, in which case the
Athlon64/WindowsXP64 succeeds in making a relevant market penetration.
This will force Intel to release their own secret 86-64 compatible
cpu, and invest massive work in it, in order to make it competitive.
After that things will basicly progress as today. AMD should be
somewhat stronger though.

The other way is the one Intel prefers. AMD dies and goes away. Intel
can then control and completely restructure the cpu market.

What they will do then is to spread out the performance spectrum and
make price/performance more linear. While we today have more than 50%
performance increase per year, you can expect that to slow to 10-20%
for desktop machines, anyway, not more than Intel needs in order to
sell new cpus and keep Motorola/Apple out.
Progress might pick up again once the desktop is moved down the
ladder, since the highend still competes with the likes of Sun. But I
expect Intels main motivator to force people to "upgrade" will be new
features like copyright locked software & media that requires new
hardware features inside the cpu to unlock and run new apps and
content.

Finally this will also allow them to delay 64-bit technology until
they can move their Itanium down market. Having succeeded in migrating
the PC desktop to the Itanium:::
- They will have the entire world by the balls!


ancra

I agree with most of what you say. Although I have only built Intel
machines, I appreciate AMD for having forced Intel to continually upgrade
their cpu. I believe, as you apparently do, that were it not for AMD we
would still be running 600 MHz Pentiums. There is a physics law that
describes this best, " A body at rest tends to remain at rest until acted
upon by an outside force."

--
PWY