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Subject: Re: Apple G5 Comments

Author: Tom Kerrigan

Date: 10:53:06 07/09/03

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On July 08, 2003 at 23:58:58, Michael Neish wrote:

>
>Hello,
>
>With the release of Apple's G5 series last week, I came here -- after some time
>-- hoping to read people's comments and opinions about it.  To my surprise, the
>topic doesn't seem to have been discussed.  I thought that Apple's claims to
>have released the first 64-bit personal computer would have at least caused some
>minor ripples.
>
>I'm not at all knowledgeable on computer hardware and architecture.  I would
>have thought that the G5 would be a very good processor for bitboard-based
>programs.  Is this really so, or is it -- like Apple's speed benchmark results
>posted on their Web site -- illusory?  Also, regarding Chess programming, does
>the G5 have any advantages over the G4, apart from raw speed?

Actually, there was a fair bit of discussion on here about the G5, IIRC. It was
a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, the G5 seems like a nice enough processor (ignoring Apple's claims about
it being the first 64-bit PC and their flawed benchmarking methodology) but it's
a little slower than current top-of-the-line processors and Apple's charging
much more for it.

AMD and Intel will be ramping up performance very quickly during the 2nd half of
this year so the G5 will become less significant, but what's most interesting is
the follow-on to the G5, the PPC980. It's based on the POWER5, which should
clock much higher and also seems to have very good SMT. If the PPC980 is
released within a year it might have a legitimate claim to the fastest PC
ever...

-Tom



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