WWDC 2003 - Mac Heaven - Page 2

bobcat · 06-23-2003, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by One Winged Angel

I was thinking about buying a mac... I might consider this.

8 GB SDRAM?!?

*orgasms

Same

Bond · 06-23-2003, 10:48 PM

If you start off with the top of the line G5 and you would like to upgrade to 8MB of RAM it's only....

$3,750.

gekko · 06-23-2003, 11:14 PM

That's because of the RAM they use: 400MHz, 128-bit DDR SDRAM. Most places sell RAM much cheaper than Apple, but I don't know about this stuff.

Either way, HDs are incredibly slow (150 MB/s I believe), the G5s can transfer to the RAM at 6.4 GB/s. Translation, you can copy an entire DVD to your memory in less than a second. Having more RAM allows programs to store more in the memory, making things go much faster, where usually it would have to start writing to the HD. Imagine editing 5 GB of raw DV, keeping it all in the RAM would be a dream come true. But the average consumer doesn't need nearly that much.

The Power Mac line is the best computers Apple offers. Where most PC companies have different models for consumer and businesses, Apple has their consumer and power user lines, and the Power Mac G5 is supposed to suit everyone from your consumers looking for top-of-the-line, to your businesses editing 200 GB of video and photoshop documents ranging in the hundreds of MBs. Most people never need everything maxed out, but if you have the cash, go for it

One Winged Angel · 06-24-2003, 06:28 PM

God I want this computer... the price is leanign towards a no though =(

gekko · 06-24-2003, 06:39 PM

Then wait until you have money for a new computer. Computer's aren't cheap.

One Winged Angel · 06-24-2003, 09:02 PM

I know that but $4,000? Jesus...

Shadow Fox · 06-25-2003, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by One Winged Angel

I know that but $4,000? Jesus...

Keep in mind though, that you are spending that much for PC to compete with the $2000 model G5, so it's definately more bang for the buck.

Imagine for a second (if a consumer PC actually could handle more than 4GB DDR), that you put these same specs into a dual Xeon/P4 (though P4's cannot be in dual setups)- you're spending well over $6,000 for the same 8GB RAM, and 120GB HD (no serial ATA), with at maximum 800mhz FSB.

Even if you could match up a system to compare to the new, off-the-damn-chain 64-bit technology, it would cost you nearly 50% more to do so.

And 6GB/sec bandwidth? No bottlenecks? 8X AGP? HyperTransport?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do believe we have a new contender to run high-end games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2.

-Official Ninja of [coming soon]...

Jonbo298 · 06-25-2003, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Fox

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do believe we have a new contender to run high-end games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2.

-Official Ninja of [coming soon]...

Now we need the companies to bring them out either at launch of the games or shortly after for the MAC and then we can see what the PC can't do that the MAC can just say, oh yeah, I can do that......

Mechadragon · 07-01-2003, 03:08 AM

I'm a bit of a newbie at computers and I was wondering: would a dual 2gig processor be equal to a single 4 gig processor?

Stonecutter · 07-01-2003, 03:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mechadragon

I'm a bit of a newbie at computers and I was wondering: would a dual 2gig processor be equal to a single 4 gig processor?

In a word.

No.

If you need more, ask.

Mechadragon · 07-01-2003, 05:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonecutter

In a word.

No.

If you need more, ask.

Well, what exactly would it be equal too?

gekko · 07-01-2003, 11:40 AM

I don't think you can accurately say what it's equal to.

Xantar · 07-01-2003, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mechadragon

Well, what exactly would it be equal too?

As I understand it (and I don't understand it very well), it depends what you're doing. The way I learned it was to think of it kind of like this:

If the program is just a linear set of instructions such as first do A, then do B, then do C and you have to complete A in order to do B (perhaps if the result of calculation A was used for calculation B), then having multiple processors doesn't help all that much. If we assume each step takes one cycle, then the entire thing will still take three cycles (keep in mind that I am simplifying grossly here).

However, if the program is multi-threaded and requires the computer to do A and B in no particular order before doing C, having multiple processors helps. One processor would do A. Another would do B at the same time. Then one of them would do C. This program would take three cycles with a single processor but only two cycles with a dual processor.

Now if the program had four steps that all could be completed in any order, a single processor would take four cycles while a dual processor would take two.

Therefore, you can't say that a dual processor is twice as fast as a single processor or is 1.8 times as fast or anything like that. You can give an average, I suppose, but that's not very predictive.

I hope I didn't mangle all that too much.

Mechadragon · 07-02-2003, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xantar

As I understand it (and I don't understand it very well), it depends what you're doing. The way I learned it was to think of it kind of like this:

If the program is just a linear set of instructions such as first do A, then do B, then do C and you have to complete A in order to do B (perhaps if the result of calculation A was used for calculation B), then having multiple processors doesn't help all that much. If we assume each step takes one cycle, then the entire thing will still take three cycles (keep in mind that I am simplifying grossly here).

However, if the program is multi-threaded and requires the computer to do A and B in no particular order before doing C, having multiple processors helps. One processor would do A. Another would do B at the same time. Then one of them would do C. This program would take three cycles with a single processor but only two cycles with a dual processor.

Now if the program had four steps that all could be completed in any order, a single processor would take four cycles while a dual processor would take two.

Therefore, you can't say that a dual processor is twice as fast as a single processor or is 1.8 times as fast or anything like that. You can give an average, I suppose, but that's not very predictive.

I hope I didn't mangle all that too much.

Nah you didn't. You explained it very well.