New G5

What is this all about?

G5...it's cwazy!

It made me have to change my pants.

I do like those 3D profiles that roll in...

But I must stay strongheld to the linux...

It's all in the linux...

The linux...

I will never never never write a song about the linux. I will never never never write.. wait! wha? who?

It reminds me of a magazine holder.

What aw you guys talking about, computews aw cwazy...

This is gweat, a weal live tuwtle...Mawzipan, why do you type evewything I...

That is some sexy hardware baby. Look at the insides! Grrr. stupid apple... trying to take my car mod money.

That's it. I'm selling a kidney, half my liver and a lung to get one. any takers? Option of throwing in a brain hemisphere (little use, perfect condition) if required.

Buy a wind tunnel, get a free macintosh? (Not that Xeon kit is any different.)

Peter

Its very pretty and all that, I am sure it is very quick and has an easy to use interface.

But who the heck wants to spend $2400 on a PC?

> But who the heck wants to spend $2400 on a PC?

*raises hand*

You should have seen how many fans the protos had... I have yet to see one in final enclosure in person, but the samples were not quiet.

Anyone interested in these machines: just make sure you spend at least the $50 upgrade to the RADEON 9600 gfx. The NV 5200 is really, umm, "bad and cheap" to be polite.

Now I should probably shut up before violating NDA. The only thing that surprised me with this system was the price. I was hoping for "different" but should have known what to expect. Also thought the systems would be available sooner. I haven't yet seen a new mouse or keyboard, so those are the only two smal details left still unknown. I don't expect them to be revolutionary (perhaps not changed at all from current models).

Only the RADEON 9800 is a an AGP "Pro" solution by the way. The NV5200 and RADEON 9600 are AGP (2.0) 8x. They're not compatible with G4 systems in case anyone is wondering (will cause machine to hang, plus ADC tab does not fall in-line with older variety).

Take the marketing hype in good measure. The machines are "nice" but they're not the end-all and be-all of computing. I'm sure they'll do well, but I also don't think everyone is going to rush out and replace their G4 machines. More aggressive pricing would definitely move a lot more consumers their way. They could start by pricing RAM a little closer to Earth retail prices.

Bruno

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't the OS have to be 64-bit too? OSX isn't, is it?

That's what's confusing me about these things. I heard that Longhorn is still 32bit, and that supposedly isn't coming out till 2005. Aren't the PC 64bit processors supposedly coming out sooner than that? I guess there's always time to change...

doesn't the OS have to be 64-bit too? OSX isn't, is it?

Quote from the site...

Native compatibility with 32-bit application code
For PC users, going from 32-bit to 64-bit computing requires migrating to a 64-bit operating system (and purchasing the 64-bit applications that will work on it) or running a 32-bit operating system in slow-as-molasses emulation mode. The PowerPC G5, however, offers a seamless transition to 64-bit performance: Current 32-bit code — such as Mac OS X, the Mac OS 9 Classic environment and existing applications — runs natively at processor speed. With no interruptions to your workflow. And no additional investment in software required, period.

That’s because, unlike competing instruction sets, the PowerPC architecture was designed from the beginning to run both 32-bit and 64-bit application code. This enables the PowerPC G5 processor to run Mac OS X natively for an immediate performance boost. In addition, as applications are optimized and as Mac OS X is further enhanced for the PowerPC G5 processor, performance gains will be even more dramatic.

That's good. As they say, though, you'll need the software to run in 64bit mode as well, won't you?

You can already get the 64-bit Intel processors. Here's one source. There are others. In fact, the CPUs in those machines are Intel's second iteration of Itanium processors; there apparently was quite a problem with the first generation, but I don't remember now what it was. (I never used them.)

I don't know much about 64-bit Windows, but other OSes have been 64-bit for years. The only one I have any knowledge about in regards to how it deals with 64-bit and 32-bit code is Solaris. It certainly allows you to run 32-bit code and 64-bit code simultaneously without any sort of slowdown or emulation. In fact, the 64-bit code runs just a littel slower, as it takes more effort to deal with that big of an address space. As such, most applications are still 32-bit applications unless it really needs some feature provided by 64-bit-ness. Of course, the kernel and drivers are all 64-bit, so that you still get all the advantages of moving that much data around at the CPU level. Some of these statements are likely to be a little wrong, as I'm not a kernel guru. Mark might be able to correct me on some of this, since he knows more about kernels, if less about Solaris.

Who wants to spend $1500 on a car stereo ?

Who wants to spend $1500 on a car stereo ?


$1500? I wish that was all my car stereo cost...

tanstaafl.