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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doren who wrote (25240)	6/24/1999 2:55:00 PM
From: Matt Peterson	Respond to of 213173

According to MacSpeedZone a BW 450 is slightly quicker in integer performance than a 550 PIII, however when it comes to floating point processing the 550 PIII is now decidedly faster. macspeedzone.com In the past Wintel machines have been quicker with integer, which fits because integer means counting and that is good for spread sheets and other boring business type software. ---- I dunno about you, but my spreadsheets use floating point (even old Excel 2 or 3 could take advantage of third-party fpu's on my old LC). Now word processing and database sorting: that's another matter. ========= Apple had the edge for years in FPU which is used to render Photoshop, Video and 3D. This switch does not bode well for the core of professional Mac users. --- Apple lost the fpu race once it started converting to G3's almost two years ago. The cancelled PowerPC 760 would have brought the 604e's fpu to the G3 line. Now we have to wait for the G4. On the other hand, how many of you have to wait for calculations to complete? For the vast majority of people, fpu doesn't matter (it does to gamers, people who do heavy number crunching, and some graphics & music people).

To: Doren who wrote (25240)	6/24/1999 6:46:00 PM
From: Robert Mayo	Respond to of 213173

"This switch does not bode well for the core of professional Mac users." Only if you assume Apple isn't going to do anything about it. Bob

To: Doren who wrote (25240)	6/24/1999 6:56:00 PM
From: FruJu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213173

According to MacSpeedZone a BW 450 is slightly quicker in integer performance than a 550 PIII, however when it comes to floating point processing the 550 PIII is now decidedly faster. This is because fundamentally the G3 chip was never designed to be used in high-end workstations. It has two cycle throughput for double precision floating point (versus 1 for the 604 which shipped 2 years before it), and doesn't support plug'n'play multiprocessing. The G3 was supposed to be the low cost follow on to the 603, and that's all. Then we got all the distractions with Motorola and IBM not agreeing on where to go with PowerPC, splitting up, IBM losing interest, and Motorola having all sorts of problems with getting the G4/Altivec out the door. Originally, the G4 was supposed to have shipped IN SYSTEMS at the end of last year. It's now over half a year late, and looks like it will be at least another half a year. This is why Apple is losing the race at the high end.