Powermac G5

Hecate

http://www.apple.com/powermac/

Well it's out at last. Whatever anyone may say about the processor I'm certainly attracted to the serial ata hardware, usb 2.0, firewire 800 and agp 8x.

They also seem to be catching up with the PC again mhz-wise, which has in recent times been Apples biggest problem.

They're still pretty expensive though

Gordon

Due to the fact that they ar 64bit processors - surely they are rocking over the pc's now? As for price - they're cheaper than the best spec mac on the apple store on the last upgrade by 500$.

Problem is that they will be out in August.

flav0rflav

They're certainly all kicking-off over at that soapbox site!

Hecate

Well the only advantage at the moment of having a 64bit processor is that up to 8gb of memory can be addressed.

As for software, there doesnt seem to be any 64bit applications at the moment, the G5 runs any 32bit applications under some kind of emulation, will panther be 64bit? This means there isn't really anything to take advantage of this new processing power, mabye they announced a strategy at the WWDC.

Although this will force Intel and the like to push 64bit architecture into the consumer market. Previously it has been the preserve of commercial UNIX workstations and servers.

Capt'n Midnight

well that's what yer man on the radio said..
and even if Apple didn't have a 64 bit OS then there are others who could tweak Darwin up a bit

But it's all down to the availability of 64 bit APPs - Panther has lots of bits built in - and I can see lots of open source stuff being recompiled in the near future....

And there is a change BTW that AMD will lead the race on 64 bit i386 compatible chips...

RicardoSmith

Still can't play IL2 or a trillion other apps and games on it. Other than its a nice machine. Personally I don't think its as nice as the Transulcent G4's and the silver G4's. Will the keyboards, mice and screens change to match? If I had a ton of money I'd love one. Actually I'd prefer a powerbook really.

Hecate

But it's all down to the availability of 64 bit APPs - Panther has lots of bits built in - and I can see lots of open source stuff being recompiled in the near future....

Yeah...can't see that being too much of a difficulty if most of it is written in uber-portable languages like C and C++. Would just be matter of passing the right flags to gcc or the like.

I have seen this in the rake of OSS software that is available for 64bit platforms like IRIX/MIPS.

ecksor

Originally posted by Hecate
Yeah...can't see that being too much of a difficulty if most of it is written in uber-portable languages like C and C++. Would just be matter of passing the right flags to gcc or the like.

In theory yes, but lots of software has been written by programmers with bad habits who make the incorrect assumption that all the world is 32 bit, and does things like use integers and pointers interchangeably.

I.e., C is only portable if you write it portably.

Jim

despite the apparent low mhz of the g5, it would leave any intel processer in the dust. the basic g5 model is about twice as fast as the pentium 4. this was built for high performance for use with video and sound edting etc.....still at 2k its expensive.

Hecate

You see this has been apples biggest problem in regard to it's processors. They just don't *seem* fast compared to their Intel or AMD equivalents, when looked at by the average consumer who will think that a dual 1ghz G4 could not possibly be faster than a 2ghz P4. Apple can release all the benchmarks it likes, but what good are they if nobody but the technically inclined bothers to go and look them up.

Although in recent times Apples claims about the "megahertz myth" have been looking pretty shaky.

However with the G5 running at 2ghz (and it probably will go higher); Macs now compare a little more favourably with PCs.

Capt'n Midnight

eh? - have a look at how much extra DELL charge for Zeon's - last time I looked you could spend €22,000 extra over the base model to get 4 processors...

PS. AFAIK the dual G5 is only €3K

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
eh? - have a look at how much extra DELL charge for Zeon's - last time I looked you could spend €22,000 extra over the base model to get 4 processors...

PS. AFAIK the dual G5 is only €3K

You could easily configure a G5 to 22k and my mate just bought a dual Xeon for well under 3K. Whats your point?

These machines are only quick for workstation apps. For 90-99% of users a P4 would be quicker and cost a faction of the cost of either. Do a quick poll. How much of the software that you (anyone in this tread) uses would be quicker on either a Xeon/Zeon or a G4/G5?

For me its about 5% of the software I use. Everything else is faster on a P4. I include Photoshop in that, because when I do use it I rarely use the filters and functionality thats quicker on these machines.

Slutmonkey57b

Anybody know what the story is with the 800-1Ghz FSB? I assume this is quad-pumped like the p4 but have been unable to pick up any articles on the subject.

Jorinn

Th most interesting thing is the fact that a lot of the G5 seems to be based on the opteron from AMD, e.g. hypertransport. And since the Opteron was laucnhed before the G5 I think it's safe to assume that the G5 is not the first 64bit PC. Notice all the benchmarks are against Intel chipc, hmm, p[erhaps because the G5 is said to perform er, badly against the Opteron. Although it has some wonderfull architecture and techs in it I'm not going to be buying one.

On a sidenote, I presume Jonathan Ive's did the case design, in which case he should be shot for the front of it.

Scottish

More G5 related stuff - new iMacs in a year has also been reported:

from Macworld ( UK )

Product managers: G5 '4.3 billion times better than G4'

By Simon Jary

A group of Apple product managers met in London yesterday to discuss Apple's WWDC announcements: the Power Mac G5, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, and iChat AV. These included: Tom Boger, Director of Power Mac Worldwide Product Marketing; Chris Bourdon, Senior Product Line Manager, Worldwide Product Marketing; Souad Laoussadi, Desktop Marketing Manager, EMEA; and Stephen Kelly, Pro Software Marketing Manager, EMEA.
Product managers on OS X 10.3.

A billion billion big numbers

Boger started his look at the new Power Mac G5 by running through the "giant leap" in processor technology made by IBM and Apple.

The PowerPC G5 is the PowerPC 970 chip, which is based on IBM's Power4 processor – which Boger called "the world's most sophisticated processor". The G5 is the size of an adult's fingernail and yet includes 300 metres of wiring; the circuitry is 800 times thinner than a human hair.

Boger was keen to point out that the G5's 64-bit architecture is not merely double that of the previous 32-bit chip builds. As 32-bit means 2 to the power of 32, and 64-bit means 2 to the power of 64, the new architecture is actually 4.3 billion times as expandable.

For example, although Apple states the maximum memory of the top-end Power Mac G5 as 8GB, it could - if the DIMMs existed - stretch to an almost unthinkable 18 exabytes (a billion billion bytes). 1 exabyte equals 1,024 petabytes. 1 petabyte is a quadrillion bytes. 18 exabytes is a hell of a lot of RAM!

Boger claimed that if memory requirements doubled every year, the G5's 64-bit architecture would still support our needs in 32 years.

In a similar fashion 32-bit computers can express numbers up to 4 billion. 64-bit can reach up to 18 billion billion. In the short term this power will be restricted to such fields as scientific research and cryptology, but will eventually filter down to more desktop-orientated operations. Yet the G5 can still happily run today's 32-bit applications, even those running in OS X's Classic environment. This is because when Apple, IBM and Motorola designed the original PowerPC back in the early 1990s, it was always planned to be a 64-bit chip - unlike Intel's Pentium. The Pentium's 64-bit successor, the Itanium, is "years away from reaching the desktop" claimed Boger.

Panther will remain 32-bit, however, as nearly all that power is still only needed at the very highest levels of computation. Developers can still write calls that take advantage of the 64-bit architecture. And Apple has rewritten the way that 10.2 Jaguar addresses memory. Mac OS X 10.2.7 - which ships in the G5 - has no memory limit, allowing up to 4GB of RAM per processor using the DIMMs that are available today.

Cool case
Boger praised the Power Mac's efficiently engineered aluminium enclosure – the number-one goal of which was acoustics. It has a fine-tuned thermal management, including an Apple-invented fan-control system that means a 5,000rpm fan can spin down to a much quieter 500rpm depending on the operation being carried out by the user. The Power Mac director admitted that the cooling system is designed for each model, and therefore Apple does not recommend later processor upgrades in the new systems.

The transparent air deflector has scoops for channeling air through the enclosure. If it is removed, the Power Mac automatically sends itself to sleep because the air-cooling system will be compromised. As soon as it is replaced, it wakes itself up again.

No tools are required to swap out either optical or hard drives, and Apple even includes spare "buttons" for users to add to third-party external hard drives so that they fit like that already installed in the top drive bay.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Scottish
...Cool case
Boger praised the Power Mac's efficiently engineered aluminium enclosure – the number-one goal of which was acoustics. It has a fine-tuned thermal management, including an Apple-invented fan-control system that means a 5,000rpm fan can spin down to a much quieter 500rpm depending on the operation being carried out by the user. The Power Mac director admitted that the cooling system is designed for each model, and therefore Apple does not recommend later processor upgrades in the new systems.

The transparent air deflector has scoops for channeling air through the enclosure. If it is removed, the Power Mac automatically sends itself to sleep because the air-cooling system will be compromised. As soon as it is replaced, it wakes itself up again.

No tools are required to swap out either optical or hard drives, and Apple even includes spare "buttons" for users to add to third-party external hard drives so that they fit like that already installed in the top drive bay.

The man obviously doesn't get out to see many cases! Its first time I've heard someone adding MORE fans to a system to make it quieter. When physics dictates the opposite. Kinda the opposite of the iMac and Cube eh? I know an all in one is a different product but even so...

Hecate

Well it seems panther won't be 64 bit...

Scottish

Ricardo, it is not multiple fans - its one fan, capable of running at different speeds depending on the task the power mac is carrying out. Apparently, its an incredibly quiet machine.

pa

Originally posted by Scottish
Ricardo, it is not multiple fans - its one fan, capable of running at different speeds depending on the task the power mac is carrying out. Apparently, its an incredibly quiet machine.

This is not correct, the new Powermac has 9 fans inside for cooling. It may seem counter-intuitive, but this is what makes the machine quiet. The OS monitors the 4 different thermal zones, and turns on only the fans that are necessary to cool a certain zone.

http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

Scottish

Stand corrected! Was basing it on the tone of the earlier article I posted.

RicardoSmith

The only way the machine will be quieter than a machine with less fans (but equally quiet fans) is if the fans are turned off. If the fans are off then you don't need them in the first place. But of course if they are in there then you must need them. If you need them then they will be on. If they are on then it will be noiser than a machine with less fans. Assuming the machine doesn't have one incredibly noisy fan. Then theres the fact that fans get noiser over time. I mean nine fans....NINE!

PhilipMarlowe

Not knowing what I am talking about, but I would assume that if you had 9 cars in a carpark, all ticking over at 1000rpm, they would be quieter than 1 car at 9000rpm?

Presumably, the ability to have the multiple fans running at low speeds still gives the required efficiency...

RicardoSmith

Find me a PC fan thats 9x louder or faster than another one...


http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/decibels.html?id=x3384MzS

pa

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
The only way the machine will be quieter than a machine with less fans (but equally quiet fans) is if the fans are turned off. If the fans are off then you don't need them in the first place. But of course if they are in there then you must need them. If you need them then they will be on. If they are on then it will be noiser than a machine with less fans. Assuming the machine doesn't have one incredibly noisy fan. Then theres the fact that fans get noiser over time. I mean nine fans....NINE!

You're mistaken. The machine will be quieter, because only the fans that are required at any one time will be on, and then only at the speed that they are required to run at.

For example, If the optical drive is not currently in use, it needs no cooling and the fans in its thermal zone will be off. This is better than having it cooled by a couple of large main system fans at all times, regardless of whether or not it needs it.

RicardoSmith

Why do you even need to cool an optical drive?

The PSU/CPU ok. The GFX/MEM/HD's all only need cooling if they are especially hot. I'm running a GF4ti (overclocked) with passive HS, I have one quiet fan on the CPU and one on the PSU. That on a P4 1.8@2.6ghz. Temps are in late 30 early 40's. You'll find most computers have a similar arangment. Look at the 3ghz P4 is the SFPC's like the Shuttle. Most PC's have thermal management on their fans. The days when fans were on 24/7 is loonnnng gone. Unless you have some cheapo non name PC. Even Dells are designed these days to have a minium number of fans and to reduce noise and maximize airflow. They have what 2 fans in them? 3 if you have top end gfx card?

You reckon a PC with NINE fans is going to be quieter. What happens when they are all on? Does it hover?

pa

Originally posted by RicardoSmith

You reckon a PC with NINE fans is going to be quieter. What happens when they are all on? Does it hover?

I reckon a PC with nine low-speed fans, any one of which is only on when it is necessary, will be pretty quiet. The new Power Mac bears this out, as it has a noise output of 35 dB in typical conditions. That's very, very quiet.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by pa
I reckon a PC with nine low-speed fans, any one of which is only on when it is necessary, will be pretty quiet. The new Power Mac bears this out, as it has a noise output of 35 dB in typical conditions. That's very, very quiet.

35dB!!!! you are kidding? Quiet!!!! SOORY WHAT I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE OF THE G5.....:D

Where do you get your figures from. Under 15db is pretty much silent, 20db is quiet to very quiet. 25db I can hear from another room. 30db is noisy. 35db well, thats that very noisy. None of the fans in my PC are more than 20db and I can still hear them. I used to have some 12db fans and you couldn't hear them for sure.

You boys need to get over to http://www.silentpcreview.com/

35db WHAT?...:D

pa

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
35dB!!!! you are kidding? Quiet!!!! SOORY WHAT I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE OF THE G5.....:D

Where do you get your figures from. Under 15db is pretty much silent, 20db is quiet to very quiet. 25db I can hear from another room. 30db is noisy. 35db well, thats that very noisy.

No, it isn't. It's quiet for a standard PC.

None of the fans in my PC are more than 20db and I can still hear them.

What's the noise output for the system overall? Remember, the G5 is 35dB for the entire system, not one of the fans.

You boys need to get over to http://www.silentpcreview.com/

From a page on that site:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=16&page=1

dBA Levels for some Common Sounds:

* Threshold of hearing 0 dBA
* Normal breathing 10 dBA
* Whispering at 5 feet 20 dBA
* Standard PC 35-50 dBA
* Normal speak 60 dBA

They give the range of normal PC nosie as being 35-50dBA. That means that the G5's 35dBA is at the lowest edge of the range for standard PCs. It's about as loud as your bedroom at night. In other words, it's quiet.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by pa
No, it isn't. It's quiet for a standard PC. What's the noise output for the system overall? Remember, the G5 is 35dB for the entire system, not one of the fans.
[/B]

Thats a fair point...

Originally posted by pa
From a page on that site:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=16&page=1`



dBA Levels for some Common Sounds:

* Threshold of hearing 0 dBA
* Normal breathing 10 dBA
* Whispering at 5 feet 20 dBA
* Standard PC 35-50 dBA
* Normal speak 60 dBA

They give the range of normal PC nosie as being 35-50dBA. That means that the G5's 35dBA is at the lowest edge of the range for standard PCs. It's about as loud as your bedroom at night. In other words, it's quiet. [/B]

Personally my bedroom at night is quieter than someone whispering. 20dba, so I'd hear that. A standard PC isn't quiet. So therefore the G5 isn't quiet even if it falls in the lower part of that threshold. Cetainly its no quieter than a standard PC and if so what the heck is the point of all the fans?

http://tranquilpc.co.uk/sound.htm

Threshold of human hearing 5-10 dB(A)
Quiet whisper, leaves rustling 20 dB(A)
Library 30 dB(A)
Suburban street noise 30 dB(A)

Personally I don't see how a library and Suburban street noise could possibly be the same. All I know is that I have had fans that are rated at 25-30 dba and I found them very noisy. The issue of what is noisy is highly subjective, especially the colour of it. High/low pitched etc. I would find 35dba at home noisy. In a Office enviroment you'd know it was on but it probably wouldn't be intrusive but at home it would.

pa

Originally posted by RicardoSmith


Personally my bedroom at night is quieter than someone whispering. 20dba, so I'd hear that. A standard PC isn't quiet. So therefore the G5 isn't quiet even if it falls in the lower part of that threshold.

I didn't mean it was silent or quiet as a fieldmouse, I meant that compared to most PCs, it's quiet.

Cetainly its no quieter than a standard PC and if so what the heck is the point of all the fans?

Those fans are not cooling a standard PC, they are cooling a system containing two processors, both of which dissipate around 50W. That's a fair chunk of heat, a good bit more than a typical P4 system.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by pa
I didn't mean it was silent or quiet as a fieldmouse, I meant that compared to most PCs, it's quiet.

Compared to a Dublin bus anything is quiet. Thats useless.

Most PC's are from box shifters like compaq/HP or Dell. Have you heard any of these recently? Very quiet. Most of the time you can only tell if they are on by looking at the power light. They don't need NINE fans to do it either. I doubt that if I got a mainstream Dell and put it against the G5 that the G5 would be quieter.

Originally posted by pa
Those fans are not cooling a standard PC, they are cooling a system containing two processors, both of which dissipate around 50W. That's a fair chunk of heat, a good bit more than a typical P4 system.

Most people won't get the dual. In any case I'd say theres more dual athlon and xeon systems out there than G4's and many of these Athlon and Xeons put out 60-70w per cpu. Again they don't need NINE fans to cool them either.

My point is, sure its a nice computer yeah but it nothing that hasn't been seen in the PC world before. That its so unradical is what so surprising and relatively disappointing about it. Doesn't have the wow factor that the G4's had for me anyway.

pa

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Compared to a Dublin bus anything is quiet. Thats useless.

I'd didn't compare the G5 to a Dublin bus, I compared it to the vast majority of other computers for sale. I presented figures which claimed it not only dissipated much more heat than those computers, but that it did so while generating less noise than them too.

Most PC's are from box shifters like compaq/HP or Dell. Have you heard any of these recently? Very quiet. Most of the time you can only tell if they are on by looking at the power light. They don't need NINE fans to do it either. I doubt that if I got a mainstream Dell and put it against the G5 that the G5 would be quieter.

I also doubt it would be louder. I am quite certain, however, that it will dissipate a lot more heat.

Most people won't get the dual. In any case I'd say theres more dual athlon and xeon systems out there than G4's and many of these Athlon and Xeons put out 60-70w per cpu. Again they don't need NINE fans to cool them either.

But how loud are these dual-systems? The G5 doesn't need 9 fans to cool it either, but it does need them if it wants to do so quietly.

Find me a mass-produced system that dissipates as much power as the G5 and does so while having a noise level of 35dBA, and does so with less fans. Until then, you've not proven a thing about the cooling system of the G5.

RicardoSmith

You made vague reference to "vast majority" and "quiet" hence my vague reference to Dublin Bus. Be specific or theres no point.

I'm simply saying that OEMs like Dell/HP/Compaq produce the "vast majority" of PC's and they ARE extremely quite. Most P4's produce 40-60w and need only 2 quiet system fans. For petes sake every large company/organisation in Ireland is stuffed with them. By quiet I mean in the 30-20dba range.

Thats what the "vast majority" of PC's are. And they are quiet because they are specifically designed to be quite because the majority of them are in offices and homes where health and safety issues like noise are very important. OEM manufactures like Dell and Compaq have been designing it cases with this in mind for years, using shrouds and oversixed heatsinks to reduce the number of fans in the "vast majority" of PC's.

Most Mac's are not in homes but in Design Offices. Dual G4's/G5's are an even smaller segment of that again so comparing it the "vast majority" of PC is like comparing apples and oranges. You should be comparing the G5 against dual cpu PC workstations which are likely to have a similar market size since dual PC systems are also primarily used in Design, engineering, and other creative enviroments.

These are systems with dual P2's P3's, Xeons and AMD MP cpus. The latter output as much and more heat even then the G5's. Most would have 3-5 fans in them. Normally they are a little louder generally than P4 machines. PC workstations are generally pushed to their limit and beyond for very extended periods of time and generally they over engineer them and go a bit overboard with the cooling. That said my friend has a Dell Dual Xeon workstation, and its only slightly noiser than a P4. I'd put it at 30-35dba (yeah I'm only guessing it). It has 4 fans BTW. Generally in Dells systems the CPU fans double as exhaust fans too. So that reduces the number of fans they need.

You said "Find me a mass-produced system that dissipates as much power as the G5 and does so while having a noise level of 35dBA, and does so with less fans. Until then, you've not proven a thing about the cooling system of the G5."

Well pretty much all of the Dual CPU OEM systems I've seen qualify for that. I think you have seen too many homebrew systems. To be honest most homebuilt PC seem to be stuffed with fans in the quest to overclock them to the hilt. But thats not the norm. Especially not in professional dual or quad workstations made by people like Dell or HP. Sure you get the odd one with a dodgy bearing in a fan that makes it noisey, but overall they are designed and built to be quiet.

Theres lots of things to like about the G5. But the cooling system is a big marketing red herring. But maybe we should agree to disagree eh?

po0k

Ricardo, shutup. You are clearly talking out of your arse as you clutch the "quietPC" links to your chest.
These "Thermal Zones" are nothin new, just a nice stylised implementation of them. Fair play to apple. If you wanted to you could easily rig your own case up in such a fast with a few PWMs, thermistors and passive electronic components.
Even if they did remove all the fans and replace them with heatpipes/watercolling (with a sufficiently large heatsink/radiator respectively) the machine itself still wouldn't be silent.
The hard drives will still make noise.
Have they mounted the drives on vibration-absorbing/cancelling mounts? Even rubber grommets would go some ways to reducitng vibration noise.

A lovely looking machine. Will make a fine wokstation. Still costs too much.

RicardoSmith

Feel free to disprove anything. Harddrives can be made as good as silent any idiot knows that. You can make a computer that has no moving parts. What part of the "Machine" (yah what? - machine??) will make noise? Whats your point? Indeed was there any? Get your head out of your own arse. The G5 isn't ground breaking in any area. Its not even the first 64bit workstation despite Apples "spin". Your idea to reduce noise is to remove stuff. Apples is to add more mechanical bits.

Someones telling porkies.

Dustaz

Lads, discuss this all you want but leave off the personal stuff ok?

deecom

Might seem like a daft question any ideas when the G5 will become a laptop, what i'm really asking how long do Mac usualy take at these sort of things?

RicardoSmith

Normally a few months after the desktop version. I heard IBM has early examples of the mobile version already. But it takes a few versions to get all the erata (bugs) out of them and the temps down to resonable levels for a laptop. I'd say give it 3 months and you'll see them.

flywheel

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
I'd say give it 3 months and you'll see them.

i wonder how many fans they will have in 'em

sci0x

Originally posted by DubWireless
i wonder how many fans they will have in 'em

Theres gonna be four fans.