So, Macintel. Better performance for a dollar is good for most all of
us. So Macintel Minis, 'Books and maybe even iMacs doesn't bother me.
However, two things do. The Yonah chip is 32-bit. Not critical until
you get to heavy video processing. This is needed when creating movies
but also with while viewing highly compressed movies and/or games.
Compression will become even more important with time. Here is what
Apple says about 64-bit processing.
"Shatters the 4GB Ceiling
32-bit PCs can only use 4GB of memory. Any more than that requires the
use of virtual memory on the hard drive, which is 40 times slower than
using RAM. The Power Mac G5 can offer up to 8GB of RAM thanks to Mac OS
X Tiger and the 64-bit G5. In fact, 64-bit memory support allows each
individual application on your system to access all installable memory,
shattering the 4GB barrier. So you can store entire 3D worlds, huge
scientific data sets and oversized 2D images all in main memory, which
lets you manipulate them faster. Theoretically, the PowerPC G5 can
access up to 4 terabytes of physical memory. Impractical now, maybe,
but the PowerPC G5 architecture allows for plenty of growth well into
the future."
There might be a solution on the horizon. Intel may solve this problem
if the following is true. "64-bit will have to wait until the second
half of 2006 with the arrival of the second-generation dual core
Pentium M CPUs, codenamed Merom. Merom also doubles the L2 cache to
4MB. If you aren't aware, Merom is really just the mobile version of
the new Conroe architecture that Intel recently announced, so it will
have all of the other architectural changes planned for Conroe, and
likely some low power performance tweaks as well."
Also, the bus speed is about half of the latest G5s 125GHz. That has
got to be a problem.
Lastly, Dan mentions something I would like to know a lot more about;
the Pentium math bug. Being new to this, upon first scan of the 'net I
found this.
"Subject: IE4/Pentium security - testing for both bugs
You can now test if you're vulnerable to the more recently discovered
Microsoft and Intel problems.
<URL:http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/IE4res/>
If you're running Internet Explorer 4 on a Pentium, you can easily
verify for yourself that these problems exist by attempting to load
this page - but do save your work first. (Internet Explorer 3 is
immune.)
This page automatically exploits both the recently-discovered Pentium
bug, and the recently discovered Explorer 4 res:// buffer overflow bug,
via a trivial piece of autoexecuting HTML - which could easily be
emailed.
Two orthogonal separate bugs combine to more than the sum of their
parts; emergent behaviour due to complexity in computer systems."
This does not sound good but I do not pretend to know exactly what it
means. Would someone please give an explanation of, or an address for
what this bug does and what it means in the real world?
Thanks to all,
Anand
--
G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and...
Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives |
-- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! |
Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html>
G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml>
--> AOL users, remove "mailto:";
Send list messages to: <mailto:g-list@mail.maclaunch.com>
To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/>
iPod Accessories for Less
at 1-800-iPOD.COM
Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal
www.1800ipod.com
