[Cube_Guy]

Geez! what a contrast to the euphoria most Mac users were feeling last Monday. Instead of a positive outlook of things to come, the G5 specs backlash has cast a giant cloud over a machine that won't even been shipping for another month and a half. Just cruising around the net, It's unbelievable at the amount of harsh criticism being heaped @ Apple for their alledged "tweaking" of specs so that the G5 would come out looking better than it's PC counterparts. Yeah! I know all companies routinely overhype their products with questionable claims but I must admit I cringed when Jobs labeled it "The World's Fastest Desktop Computer" during his keynote at the WWDC last week. I knew all the Wintel heads would come out of the woodwork trying to dispel this but I didn't think too many Mac people would start doubting what a "kick-ass" system the G5 is going to be. It makes me wonder if Steve Jobs hasn't regretted that "Fastest Desktop" moniker he put on the G5. To me, it doesn't matter that the G5 might not be faster or as fast as a PC. The bottom line is that Apple with IBM's help put out a kick ass computer that will allow me, speedwise, remain competitive with PC's for some time to come. I might be wrong, but I think its' the marriage of Apple hardware with the friendly GUI, ease of use that keeps Mac user coming back. Unless Macs come to a crawl, performance-wise I don't see myself buying ever buying a PC. I just don't like 'em compared to Macs. In the meantime, I anxiously await the time when the G5 ships, so we can see for ourselves just how good it will be for the continued survival of the Mac platform.

[Dave_K]

In reply to:

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"The World's Fastest Desktop Computer"

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Apple's marketed the PowerMac this way and done their bakeoffs for a fairly long time now.
One has to wonder why everyone's got their knickers in a knot this time, and I really suspect It's because there isn't a G5 handy for anyone to prove it wrong...

[VeggieBeefcake]

In reply to:

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I might be wrong, but I think its' the marriage of Apple hardware with the friendly GUI, ease of use that keeps Mac user coming back.

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Precisely. What matters to a mac user is that the g5 is faster than any mac previously offered by what should be quite a significant margin. I can't wait to run seti@home on my 1.8ghz g5...

[Ronaldinho]

I find it funny how quickly everyone is to assume the Apple is lying.
I agree, there have been some fishy bake-offs in the past. In particular, Apple has picked tests that would tend to showcase the G4 in the most positive light. (This isn't quite the same as rigging the tests, mind you.)
But this time it doens't look like Apple did this. They ran practical tests both on Photoshop and on Mathematica--programs which use very different parts of the chip, as well as other prorgams. The SPEC scores aren't half as meaningful as the practicals tests--which Apple seemed to be running fairly this time.

[mark_G4]

I think people are going to be really surprised at the speed of the G5. I read shortly after that IBM had announce the chip, in their own test it was twice as fast as the same Ghz G4. The G4 is not twice as slow as a P4. With that in mind if IBM was correct the 1.8 Ghz 5 would be as fast as a 3.6 Ghz G4. Plus Apple has improved the bus and the way Dual chips work. All this tells me the G5 is going prove itself once out on the market.

[Cube_Guy]

The good news with the G5 is that it's at the beginning of it's life cycle. It's not as though it can hardly keep up with PCs and it's at the end of it's life. This can only mean great things for Mac users over the next few years. I just can't wait til they ship so we can put all this negative talk to rest.

[blackwind]

Hello.
While the best G5 SPEC score (1.8-GHz IBM PowerPC 970 scores 937 in SPECintbase2000 and 1051 in SPECfpbase2000, estimated) is still lower than that of fairly new Pentium 4 scores, it is not as bad as most people would believe.
Here are scores from a 1.13-GHz Pentium III (Dell PowerEdge 2550) and a 1.2-GHz Athlon (using Gigabyte GA-7DX motherboard), both from SPEC.org:
1.13-GHz Pentium III:
SPECintbase2000: 561
SPECfpbase2000: 377
1.2-GHz Athlon:
SPECintbase2000: 443
SPECfpbase2000: 387
The lower-clocked PIII is about even with the Athlon in floating-point performance, and the lower-clocked PIII wipes the floor with the Athlon in integer performance. Since SPEC CPU2000 says that the 1.13-GHz PIII can defeat the 1.2-GHz Athlon, this must be true in the real world... (note sarcasm).
Obviously, real-world tests would show a 1-GHz Athlon at least matching a 1.13-GHz Pentium III (very old news), let alone a 1.2-GHz Athlon versus a 1.13-GHz Pentium III.
Right now, SPEC shows the Pentium 4 beating the G5 in SPEC CPU2000.
We will know whether the G5 is really the "world's fastest personal computer" in only a bit more than a month or so from now from third-party real-world tests. There is no need to panic ahead of time...

[doubleyouel]

i think the bottom line is stand-alone speed and efficiency. without comparing your Power Mac to the best PC, is your Mac fast enough for you and, most importantly, is it efficient?
My 466 G4 is very, very efficient, but it runs internet explorer slow at times. i would love to get a dual 2GHz G5 with Safari, i tried Safari on a dual-1.25 G4 and it was super-fast, i loved it!

[AppleLaw]

Exactly.
I consider my DP G4 1 GHz a speed demon, especially when I try to do the same things on a PC. Microsoft Word, Safari, IE, iTunes, etc. are all MUCH better for me on a Mac than similar or the same programs on a fast PC.
So, for me, I could care less what a PC does, because this G5 is going to be a real boost for me.

[Yossi]

In fact in daily Photoshop use it's much faster, OK not 2.1 times maybe 1.8 or even 1.2 it's still faster, Steve said next year they will ship DP 3GHz, intel will then be up to maybe 3.5Ghz so If IBM goes up with that speed we might even have a 4GHz before Intel, IF that's make you happy...

[1k]

Hi,
I am probably ignorant. I've been too busy at work to check what's happening in the net talk, but can anyone point to any 'heated bashing' on g5 announcement???
thanks
1k

[Dave_K]

Try the "battlefield" on Ars...
http://arstechnica.i...9562&f=48409524
They've been running circles around variations of the SPEC arguments since the machines were announced. It's now gotten to the point where the people who actually know what they're talking about have, for the most part, stepped out of the equation altogether to watch the PC and Mac trolls recycle the same arguments...

[1k]

Thanks Dave K
I was stunned to see few threads with more than 1000 replies, and were circling around G5.
My reaction to it, was actually positive. Can you remember the last time when Apple made this much stir in the industry for the computers they make??? To me it was G4 inception, so, that was about four years ago. Recently, it has been more of an embarrasment. I myself ignored the dual G4 1.44 debut, it was not anything worth talking about, and to be honest, Apple themselves treated it the same way. No fanfare, no big announcement, they just put the product out.
It seems to me that G5 announcement has a lot of news value, and brought back some excitment to the field again, and that is why people get so hyperventilated defending their 'platform'. I am just happy that we are finally seeing the real 'leap' in performance, or at least the beginning of if. That is very very exciting, indeed.
1k