*****CONFIRMED**** PIV slower in Spec tests with HT enabled. Apple not lying about that.

[yhelothar]

if you guys read anandtech's initial article on HyperThreading before it came out on Xeon and P4... it says why there is a performance decrease...

 

[drag]

I know that these technologies exist in PC's right now, but there is no place you can actaully get a computer like that, other then gathering the parts yourself. If you can find them.

Anyone interested in building such a system and using the above mentioned technologies for home use would not buy it prebuilt even if it was available. How many people on these boards own a Dell, Compaq, HP, etc..?

I think that you will find that it is quite a bit more expensive then you think!

Go to Newegg, it's not as much as you think.

And as far as the hobbyist we find here vs the average pc user not using new technologies, well I guess that Mac users are quite bit more savy technological then the average PC (conclusions I draw from your arguement, not my own viewpoint)...

And...
Well if you are to lazy to put proof behind your arguements on price difference, I'll do it for you. Just to prove a point.

Well since AMD doesn't provide support for SMP operation with XP line, and I don't know if it will even work we have to go onto the MP line of proccessorsm which of course is a big disadvantage for AMD in this comparision, in both the terms of price and performance.

SOO..
I got
ANTEC SOHO File ServerTower ATX Case,
Memorex DVD+RW 4X2.4X12X,
Seagate 160GB 7200rpm EIDE Hard Drive
ORtek MCK-7500 (BLACK) OfficeMedia Deluxe Keyboard
Crucial Micron 512MB 64x64 PC2100 DDR RAM (not 3200, cause that would be a waste with this setup)
MSI Motherbaord for Dual Socket A (462)
Microsoft Optical Wheel Mouse PS/2 & USB
AMD Athlon MP 2800 2.08GHz PROCESSOR
Microsoft Windows XP Pro Edition (OEM)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2
ATI RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB 8X AGP DVI/TV (this one I am not sure of. It's the one of the few that have agp 4x in it's specifications and thats the maximum that motherboard can support.)

So that total came out to $1686.

But lets see if we can create a BETTER computer, using the 64 bit Opteron and SCSI support.

And again!

I had some trouble with this one. The closest we get is 2 1.4ghz opterons with 1meg cache each. But the only motherboard at Newegg for that was a MSI model that only had PCI slots, however 2 of them were PCI-X. So the video card is the nicest for pci I could find, a 64Meg based on the Quadro4 Nvidia chipset, They had 2 models one 64meg sdr and ddr, the ddr model was $385 and the sdr was $184, I choose the sdr model. Plus the scsi harddrives were outragious compared to ide ones, although much faster. The closest I could get to capacity of the Apple 160GB sata drive was a Maxtor 146GB at $774, which is absurd for this comparision, so I choose 2 73gb hitachi models at 343 dollars apiece, not much of a difference, but 2 drives should be faster then one big one.
Plus I guess XP for itanium is the only one out, and you can only get that from HP. You can try getting windows 2003 server for opteron, but that costs $999 and only from certian people. If you know more about this I'd like to know. So right now the only choice is Linux for a desktop OS so.

For right now I added (and removed the corsponding features from the previous box):

SOHOUSB 2-Port USB 2.0 PCI Host Card
HEISEI 3+1 Port FireWire 1394 Low Profile PCI Host Card
TEKRAM SCSI ADAPTER CARD DC-395U RETAIL BOX
2xHITACHI SCSI 73GB 10,000RPM MODEL# , PART # - 08K0332 OEM
MSI Dual Opteron Processor Server Motherboard
2xAMD Opteron Model 240 1.4GHz 64-Bit PROCESSOR CPU - RETAIL
PNY Quadro4 NVS200 64MB SDR SDRAM, PCI, DUAL DVI - RETAIL

For a total of $2,416.97 without the OS and $3,415.97 with 2003 server.

It doesn't look like AMD is the right way to go for right now. The dual 1.4ghz Opteron may be better or not, but the motherboard is inferior to Apple's and the gaming potential is very limited, more so then the Apple. Althow the scsi drives are a wonderful thing, I'd rather be looking at the G5 then this computer.

If you'd want to know the truth though my AMD 1700+ is just fine and dandy for me right now anyways.

As far as having a computer with the spec's that were stated the dual MP's don't have much of a chance vs dual g5s, anyways, which is why I chose the Opterons as a comparision.

If you look at the single proccessor comparision in the Spec tests which many people use as proof that G5 is realy slower then it's competetors. The Specint_base2000.

G5=800
2600+=751

how about fp_base; another single cpu comparision?

g5=840
2600+=602

Both of those benchmarks were used to show the G5 in the WORST light possible. Plus those results for the 2600+ MP were using the faster compiler.

So unless the 2800+ is magicly superior by a large amount over the 2600+ and that having a bus that is as 26% as fast as the G5 a "Bad Thing" the comparision between a dual 2800+ MP vs Dual G5 is not a valid one.

A slower computer is always going to cost much less then one that has been out less then a week and a homebuilt is going to cost less on top of that, but if something is wrong with it or you screw up while building it, you eat the cost.

 

[Leon]

Cinebench2003 results, according to this user

On dual G5 2.0Ghz

Rendering (Single CPU): 219 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 373 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.70


On single P4 3.0Ghz

Rendering (Single CPU): 315-325 (according to official results)
Rendering (Multiple CPU (HT)): 380-390

 

[Insane3D]

128bit memory bus

Have you seen those Nforce 2 boards?

next generation firewire/USB

I understand it has the newer Firewire, since that is Apple's baby, but what is this "next generation" USB? If you a referring to USB 2.0, both AMD and Intel boards have had this for awhile.

SATA drive and controller.

Once again, you can get SATA controllers on pretty much any newer board...Intel or AMD. The newest SB from Intel has native SATA support, while the Athlon boards have either Promise or Silicon Image controllers integrated.

Optical audio (still haven't figured that one out completely)

Optical audio has been on AMD and Intel motherboards for quite some time. The NF2 MCP-T southbridges integrated APU can even encode DD 5.1 in real time.

fast DVD burner.

Ohhh...those are only on Apple's? Have you looked at any recent Dell's or Gateway's? DVD burners are becoming standard in most of the mid to high end systems.

1ghz bus, 800mhz ddr memory.

The 1Ghz bus is very nice, but can be achieved on a i875 based P4 system IIRC. The second I am curious about...800mhz DDR memory? Just where is Apple getting this when the current fastest DDR for PC's is 400mhz? There aren't even video cards with 800mhz DDR...

dual proccessors

WOW! Like two CPU'S??? That can be done? Apple is sure ahead of the game there!

 

[drag]

I'm still having tons of issues with getting CineBench running. Keep in mind these machines are prototypes, and cinebench (like other simpler apps I've found) may just not like the machines.

I wouldn't put too much weight in these benchmarks. The machines aren't "clean", meaning they've been out all day for everyone to muck about with. Who knows what changes have been made to them. On top of that, the benchmark apps probably need to be recompiled for the 970 to get more real scores, after all any app used for DV is going to be recompiled for the G5.

These comps are VERY dirty...tons of apps, drivers, kexts, etc. installed on all of them. Furthermore, several of them even in a clean state took forever to start apps. Basically, they're still quite beta. I agree with everything you said in your post...people should read it if they didn't already...

also from that cinebench link

 

[drag]

The 1Ghz bus is very nice, but can be achieved on a i875 based P4 system IIRC. The second I am curious about...800mhz DDR memory? Just where is Apple getting this when the current fastest DDR for PC's is 400mhz? There aren't even video cards with 800mhz DDR...

dual proccessors

WOW! Like two CPU'S??? That can be done? Apple is sure ahead of the game there!

I am not saying that G5 is some gift from god to computer users. I just want you to understand that it's state of the art. The dual proccessors aren't wonderfull just because they exist, but because how well they are implimented. The dual G5 is a monster of a machine that is able to go head to head with it's competition and even at 3000 it's not a wonderful deal or something special, but it isn't that bad either. You have to admit that. Some people are just having trouble accepting this for some reason.

 

[Insane3D]

I understand your point, I have nothing against apple. If I could afford it, I would get one to play around with.

The wuestion remains unanswered though...where is this 800mhz DDR coming from?

 

[drag]

the memory bus runs from the "computer controller" on a 128 bus at 400mhz. That's were the 800mhz ddr because they always double the real speed because of the 2 signals per clock. (personally I think rating a 400mhz bus 800mhz just because it's runs ddr is BS, because it is not equivelent to a actuall 800mhz bus.) It can access 2 banks at once much like the nvidia nforce dual memory bus thing. So if you think about it each processor gets it's own bus and it's own bank of memory so that it's more like having to computers in one then the smp version that is used in x86. Apple likes to use bandwidth numbers both cpus combined have a 16GB pathway to the controller and 6.4GB bandwith from the controller to the memory. They say that the Intel 800mhz quad pumped provides a maximum of 6.4GB for the proccessor. Or at least thats my take on it, I am sure there is a whole set of details I am missing.

I think I will have to start saving up my money to buy this one, and hopefully by the time I can afford it the 3 ghz would be out, it'll be cheaper model and the AMD64 will be out, so maybe I can stick with AMD for a while longer.

I think that Intel is making a mistake sticking with the pentium5 32 bit, you can just plain get more work done with a slower 64bit model without having to deal with all the heat and fans and crap. So far the Intanium has been a big disapointment, the first back was plagued by a nasty bug were OEMs had to underclock it at 800mhz to compinsate and make them stable, maybe the new Intanium 2 will be better. It's kind of a hard time to introduce a new architecture. All this new stuff happening has renewed my intrest in PC hardware.

 

[Eug]

The wuestion remains unanswered though...where is this 800mhz DDR coming from?

It's just dual channel DDR400.

drag, to be honest, I think you're making too many assumptions and leaps in logic about the various architectures.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: Eug

The wuestion remains unanswered though...where is this 800mhz DDR coming from?

It's just dual channel DDR400.

drag, to be honest, I think you're making too many assumptions and leaps in logic about the various architectures.

Gotcha. Still nice to see Apple using the latest stuff in the form of dual channel DDR400. Like I said before, I would love to be able to afford a G5 to play around with...sounds like a nice machine.

 

[sharkeeper]

The warnings continue, so whether or not you are actually getting anything out of it is questionable:

"The use of the /3GB switch from the Boot.ini file on Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition, can give the appearance of a 3 GB range of user-mode memory, but the memory from 0x80000000 through 0xBFFFFFFF is not usable. Because kernel-mode components are now limited to using from 0xC0000000 through 0xFFFFFFF memory range, the opportunity to test kernel-mode components is available without the need of either Windows 2000 Advanced Server or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server."

I said nothing about the /3GB switch which does NOTHING in XP. As a matter of fact, I recommend that nobody even try it as the machine will never start again without booting into the recovery console and removing the switch! Physical Address Extensions, /PAE is the switch to use and it does indeed work!

Example 1


Example 2

Example3

2GB DDR modules are expensive! I did extensive research on this before requesting a purchase order for approximately $90,000 for additional ram that was desperately needed.

-DAK-

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Eug

The wuestion remains unanswered though...where is this 800mhz DDR coming from?

It's just dual channel DDR400.

drag, to be honest, I think you're making too many assumptions and leaps in logic about the various architectures.

Probably, but I like to get corrected. I think its pretty obvious what my level of expertiese is here. Anyway this is something that's new, so all anybody has is assumptions.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Insane3D

Originally posted by: Eug

The wuestion remains unanswered though...where is this 800mhz DDR coming from?

It's just dual channel DDR400.

Gotcha. Still nice to see Apple using the latest stuff in the form of dual channel DDR400. Like I said before, I would love to be able to afford a G5 to play around with...sounds like a nice machine.

The dual channel DDR400 is great, but what really impresses me is the rest of the bus design. See article here and Apple's G5 PR page here.

The system controller attaches to the memory bus using dual-channel DDR400 as we mentioned, for a so-called effective bus-speed of 800 MHz.

However, the front side bus is independent of memory bus, and actually runs faster, at 1/4 of the CPU core speed, but double pumped:

CPU core speed: 2 GHz
FSB clock speed: 500 MHz
Effective bandwidth: 1 GHz

The design is different though. Intel designs use a 64-bit bidirectional bus at 800 MHz (total bandwidth 6.4 GB/s), whereas the PPC 970 uses two unidirectional 32-bit buses (one for reads and one for writes) at 1000 MHz each (total bandwidth 2 x 4 GB/s = 8 GB/s). Moreover, the front side bus speed scales with CPU core speed. So say in 6 months the CPU were running at 2.5 GHz, the FSB would be 1.25 GHz, for an effective FSB bandwidth of 10 GB/s. :Q And of course, there is an independent bus for each CPU in a dual config.

Also, let's not forget the rest of it:

AGP 8X Pro - for high end video cards, up to 70 Watts.

100 and 133 MHz PCI-X.

800 MHz HyperTransport I/O bus. (16-bit bidirectional, for 3.2 GB/s bandwidth)

Serial ATA, USB 1.1, USB 2, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, Gigabit Ethernet.

 

[Eug]

Could this be why the dual G5 spanks the dual Xeon in the bakeoffs? We already know that the G5 has a 1 GHz FSB, and the Xeon has a 533 MHz bus, but one thing I just noticed is that the Xeon seems to share the bandwidth between both processors. The dual G5 has an independent bus for each of the CPUs. For memory bandwidth intensive programs, the dual G5 would have a huge advantage over the dual 533 MHz Xeon, and indeed, even if the Xeon went 800 MHz, the dual G5 would still have a large advantage theoretically. However, a single G5 would not have much of an advantage over a single 800 MHz FSB P4.

Intel dual Xeon bus picture
Apple dual G5 bus picture

Or am I out to lunch?

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Yeah, looks like seperate busses from each G5 to the Northbridge(?), but shared memory bus.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: GonzoDaGr8
Yeah, looks like seperate busses from each G5 to the Northbridge(?), but shared memory bus.

Yep, just came across this Ars thread. According to BadAndy (in the first link in that thread) it could be considered effectively a 2 GHz bus, at 16 GB/s, at least if you play the spec game.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

it could be considered effectively a 2 GHz bus, at 16 GB/s

Dayum..:Q

 

[drag]

That's one of the neat things, it's designed for multiproccessor use. Not like the x86 were you have to modify a existing architecture to make it work.

IBM's and other high-end cpu manufacturers would rather have multiple cpus to do the same work as one screaming cpu. If you think about it when you have a big unix server that needs to pump out a great deal of information for 24/7 for years or a mainframe that has to control the disk controlers and do sort jobs for possibly the next 5 or 6 years, which would you rather have? 8-10 cpus that run at a continous 65C at extremely high speeds or relatively cool low-voltage designs and just have 12-32 of them?

Of course nothing about the power4 is cool running or low voltage, but with a transister count of 174million and a heat dissipation of 117watts at 1.1ghz, and a current packaging system were effectively you have 4 power4 proccessors operating on a single chip or package or whatever you can see that they've kinda gotton close to what is praticle in terms of today's technology. Now they are moving onto concitrating in keeping things cool. Take for instance the power5's, they can go up to 1.8ghz, but are designed to be used in blade servers that are designed to handle up to about 40 or 60 watts heat dissapation. If you have like 15 of them in a rack then that's like 900 watts of heat you got to get rid of somehow, with about a quarter inch space between them. Could you imaging trying to keep a room of these cool? or a room of Intels? or AMDs? And that includes the heat of the drives and networking equipment, and what about the power consumption or the equipment plus the massive airconditioner needed? that alone is enough to put most people in the poor house...

And you know about the via c3 cpu, right? You get them with a itx motherboard for about 150 dollars. Well even the (almost)ghz are pretty puny compared to a single 500mhz intel. But they are selling these hot-swappable rackmounted servers that have almost an entire computer on a single removable card. They state that in a single 42u rack they can fit up to a 280 cpu-cards servers for a total of 325Ghz of proccessing power.... with only 40 watts dissapated per server. that's 11200watts of cpu heat for a full rack. I personally wouldn't mind a 20-40 c3 cluster running in my basement for that extra little boost.

You put that into a linux cluster you'd be right up their with the big boys in terms of performance, not to mention pretty much failure proof. If a server goes out you just plug in a new one, and the rest of the rack isn't even going to notice...

I am guessing that the trend is going to be high transister count, moderately clocked cpus working in multiple formation will become more and more popular, and combined with that your going to need faster and faster networking technology to connect these things together...