New iMacs Get Good Compliments and Superior Rating From PC Magazine

[Asher]

Pessimists? Because we're not impressed by the overpriced and underpowered Mac hardware?

I would call us realists.
I don't have unlimited money, so the money I do spend is going to something worth that money.

Buying a Mac these days is like spending the same amount of money it takes to buy a top end BMW, and getting a Hyundai...

[monolith94]

Cynics. Cynics cynics cynics…

I'm actually exactly what you say - an extreme optimist with a vivid imagination, keen wit, and ambitious spirit.

Some people say I got thee "fiah in the bellah"

[Mr. Nice Guy]

me too

[Asher]

Ohhhhhhhhh group hug

[Mr. Nice Guy]

I was speaking to monolith.

[monolith94]

No you smell like maple you damn canadian ham

[Asher]

Originally posted by Cloud9
I was speaking to monolith.

Always the cynic, aren't you?

[FlameFlash]

Guys... arguing to Asher about Apple is like arguing to Clinton that he should stay devoted to one woman... he won't listen.

There's some kind of magic to Apple and Macintosh... that much is certain. This from a guy who undoubtably will be signing up for the .Mac service when I see the Jaguar features...

Anyway, monolith, weren't you with me in the Mac thread a while back on this same topic? Can't remember... don't remember Cloud9 but glad to see that as I start to venture out of my Mac-forums cave (and CtP/SMAX forums) and onto OT that there are going to be others who are "enlightened."

We like Macs, Asher attempts to tell us that there's nothing special about them.

I can mention the fact that Apple computers were classified as weapons and supercomputers because of the gigaflops they were pulling and couldn't be exported to other countries...

Asher will point out, big deal, the Chinese aren't likly to really want to use Apple since it won't be able to run anything they steal from the American public.

I'll counter with Virtual PC.

Asher: poor excuse for an emulator, if you're wanting to run Windows in the first place, you should have bought a PC.

etc, etc, etc.

Each side has its failings, I won't deny that, each side had its pluses, I won't deny that. I mean, Windows XP is going to have that critical update pretty soon so you can remove IE and Media Player if you want to.

Apple, if it was as big as Microsoft, would start getting in trouble for not better supporting OS 9 and trying to force users to upgrade.

It goes on and on, in a never ending circle.

And the megahertz myth only goes so far... use that, and the fact that the G4 architecture can multithread... and you might have a chance, but not against Asher (hey look, I just complimented you man!)

You can also use the arguement that you can creat AppleSeeds (multi-processing G4 systems created by networking as many G4s and G3s as you can get your grubby hands on) much easier than any comparable Linux network... and do the exact same computations etc.

(Never heard Asher's point against that one for the plus sides of Apple, never brought it up before.)

Personally, I'm hoping that this secret G5 processor that seems to be on the back burner is 64-bit... otherwise, Apple is screwed.

Just think if Apple and AMD did some kind of joint project... I mean, AMD's 64-bit chips are going to be backward compatible... if they could somehow emulate the Apple architecture as well they'd have it made.

(But then, Apple would sue their butts off if AMD did that.)

I'm ranting now... so I'll shut up and await the flames from both sides.

[Asher]

I can mention the fact that Apple computers were classified as weapons and supercomputers because of the gigaflops they were pulling and couldn't be exported to other countries...

If I have one thing to say about Apple is that they've got unusual marketing.

While it's true that they were classified as weapons and supercomputers because of their gigaflops, PCs already had been as well at the time. It simply was a non-issue for PC users, it was an obscure obsolete law that nobody had paid attention to -- except for Apple's Marketing. They saw that any computer capable of more than 1 GFLOPS was classified as a supercomputer, and as were most PCs at the time, but they marketed their computer as the supercomputer as such. So many people bought it.

And the megahertz myth only goes so far... use that, and the fact that the G4 architecture can multithread... and you might have a chance, but not against Asher (hey look, I just complimented you man!)

G4s cannot multithread, unless you're referring to doing stuff in AltiVec while at the same time doing stuff with the rest of the chip. That's true, but it's no different than SSE2 on the Pentium 4. In fact, AltiVec can only handle 32-bit floats while SSE2 can handle 64-bit...

The only true multithreaded computer chip is Intel's Pentium 4 Xeons, and you can enable/disable Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) in the BIOS.

The next consumer version of the Pentium 4, called Prescott, will feature SMT as well as 1MB of full-speed L2 cache, and an 800MHz system bus, as well as x86-64 support (which may or may not be enabled, depending on Intel's politics). It's more likely this core will be called Pentium 5.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
I'm ranting now... so I'll shut up and await the flames from both sides.

No flames here.

[FlameFlash]

Well, Asher, I think we've hit on this one before... I'm referencing Apple's marketing department when I was mentioning multithreading.

Can't an Intel chip process 2-4 threads at the same time? I'd call that multithreading.

A G4, comparativly, can do 4-8 which is where they get their faster Adobe Photoshop times even when it's a 2GHz single-chip Intel and a dual 1GHZ G4.

Wasn't aware of the Prescott though (P5, so thanks on that one.) I take it that will be 64-bit? AND an Intel-only man?

Thanks Cloud9.

[Asher]

I think you're confusing some of the terminology. All CPUs attainable by consumers today are single threaded, with the exception of the new Pentium 4 Xeons, which can handle up to two threads (effectively acting as two CPUs on one chip).

AltiVec does something else, as does SSE/SSE2 and 3DNow. They can perform the same operation on a vector of numbers in the same time it takes a regular CPU to perform the operation on one set.

SSE and AltiVec can both operate on 4 32-bit numbers at once (4 x 32 = 128, where the "128-bits" comes from in their marketing).
SSE2 can do 4 32-bit numbers OR 2 64-bit numbers (64-bit numbers are considered double precision, and this is pretty vital in stuff like professional 3D rendering where AltiVec can't be used due to only being 32-bit/single precision).

I'm not sure where "4-8" would come into play anywhere.

About Prescott... Prescott is being designed to be 64-bit (using x86-64), but Intel doesn't want everyone knowing about it. Intel doesn't want the market to adopt x86-64, and instead wants them to wait a couple years and ditch x86 completely and use Intel's new IA-64 (which the Intel Itanium and Itanium 2 chips use). So depending how "vital" they see 64-bit consumer chips at the time it comes out, they may or may not enable it.

The main problem is AMD's upcoming Hammer series of chips run x86-64, which would mean Intel would have a 32-bit consumer chip for 1-2 years while AMD had a 64-bit on the market. (Note that 64-bit isn't inherently faster than 32-bit, it just supports larger system RAM and integer precision, which Intel argues isn't needed for the desktop yet)

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
Thanks Cloud9.

No problemo, dude!

[FlameFlash]

I take it Intel just isn't taking in the average computer geek that will see 64-bit and go, "I want that! Just THINK of how much RAM I can drop in now!"

AMD is at least letting the public decide (though dangerously) it's probably my favorite chip company. If they made Apple clones I'd go with them in a heartbeat (or if I ever actually bought anything Windows.)

Blame the "4-8" on Apple's marketing department... I'm not too sure where it came from either.

It's not surprising AMD wouldn't want to get out their 64-bit chip out soon, it certainly will cause a rift when Prescott does come out. With as much problem as Apple is having with their 5% market share to get people to throw out their OS 9 computers and go up to X it'll be interesting to see how easily x86 machine users jump at a chip set that isn't compatible with some of their old, favorite hardware.

I know I haven't gone X yet because CtP doesn't work well on X's Classic. It's a lousy reason, but hey, I'm a Mac user for crying out loud! My reason for even using the systems is because "I like them."

(That, and Windows just doesn't work with my logic circuits... if Jaguar and Darwin were ever ported to be able to be run seemlessly on AMD I'd build my own computer in a heart-beat and kiss Apple hardware good-bye.)

But then I've always wanted to be able to say, "Yep! I built that!"

[Giancarlo]

I am starting to like Asher.... his argument is a take no prisoners approach, AMD the second fastest for now, yes I predict second faster for a very short while before claiming victory once again, (beating G4 now) would probably be the best value for somebody looking the most bang for the buck. Whereas apple is not. Apple is for more of those people who want something simple, slow, and expensive.

Flameflash, Apple has approximately 3.5% of the market share now and it is dropping and dropping and dropping.