interesting read

[isus]

http://www.applelust.com/oped/amc/archives/amc030718.shtml

i'm not even gonna say what it's about.

if you take the time to read the whole thing, then i hope you have something intelligent to say.

note to mods: any flames, i would like to just be deleted, instead of having to close the thread.

[cheapprick]

Actually that was mostly interesting. I lost interest after awhile because it went on for so long it seemed to approach desperation.

[beardedwonder]

I have to admit to not reading it throroughly, i will when i have a lot of time! I can see that this guy is a Mac fanatic and seems to hark on about the same things throughout (64-bit, Unix based, better than wintel........)

I think it'll be interesting to see what happens when AMD and Intel release their new processors. I've heard that the new Intel will dissipate 100W of heat :fire

But anyway for me and what i need to do a PC is better, cheaper, easier to use and more customisable (that a word?).

[mojo-ris-in]

Well I read it all the way through and though I won't deny the specs on the new system look good, I find that this site is as biased as the windows site he accused of bias. Isus If you like Macs, nothing wrong with that. It's all apples(no pun intended) and oranges and subject to your opinion. However to say one is better than the other as a fact is opening a can of worms. You are always going to have people that like PCs and hate Macs and vice versa. To me both have their ups and downs and neither is perfect.

[PowerMan57two]

Well I read through the whole first part. And then read a lot of turths. Wow! I mean Apple faster than Dell, and then just because Apple might be faster because of the results people have to jump on them and accuse them of lies. Just think how much it might change the computer world. Intel/Windows desktops will have to get on top of getting the computers faster.

For the CPU speed decreesing is odd. I have hyperthreading on my computer with my 3.06Ghz chip. But my Asus motherboard has Hyper-Threading Technology. I'm just glad I built my own PCs and wont ever have to worry about buying a store bought one.

But I never will get an Apple. I will always stick with Windows/Microsoft.

[Theinfamousone]

Wow, that guy is pretty long winded. I've always hated Dell.

Well, after reading that, I have no doubt that the "new G5" is faster than a 3Ghz P4 for most things. Am I in the least surprised? No.

Let's think about this....a 32 bit chip who's architecture is over 3 years old against a brand new 64bit CPU hot off the brains of IBM developers, gee I wonder...

I especially love the dual Xeon tests agains the dual 2Ghz G5 tests. Xeon is a nice name for a Pentium 3....

I'd like to see them test an AMD Opteron system against a G5 and see what turns up, still Opterons probably wouldn't be able to keep up very easily....wait until September 22nd, when AMD releases their Athlon 64, with a Linux OS, absolutely huge cache sizes, running super fast and then we'll have a fair fight. Of course, in the near future, they're going to have XDRAM, which is like RDRAM but a lot better and multiple times faster than what we have now, and it's going to make DDR run back to it's momma.

Also, I heard that Texas Instruments is going to join the processor wars, it's very exciting. In a couple of years, computers are going to be amazing, apples and oranges alike.

In all fairness, Apple has made great efforts to make their computers the best, and that's something I admire, if I could build my own Apple, I'd probably do it. It'd be expensive, but so would any nice computer.

I just tested prices, Dell makes crappy computers, they limit RAM and HD size to a reasonable size (how dare they LOL). With 2 gigs of DDR 400 RAM in each, and a 250 gig HD in each, same 56k modem, 20 inch monitors for each, top of the line DVD burners, no extra software except for OSs, and ATI 9800 Pro in each. So all things equal, except with a 2Ghz G5 and a hypterthreading 3.2 Ghz P4 w/800Mhz FSB, the G5 was about $1000 more. That's what I'd expect. ($4800 for Dell and $5800 for Mac). Rest assured, you pay for the speed.

Beyond that, there aren't any games made for Mac anyway, so I don't know why they need that much power anyway. For workstations and servers, I can see the need, I might get a G5 (although I'd probably wait to see how the Athlon 64 performs first).

[Theinfamousone]

I might as well post this story here

The federal government's standards arm advanced two technologies for speeding the performance of computer chips.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a division of the U.S. Commerce Department's Technology Administration, detailed a technique for improving the resolution of chip optics and a standard for measuring the proportions of the silicon-germanium composite used in computer chips.



The optics technology involves the creation of a so-called "liquid lens" in the reading of a silicon wafer. The insertion of a liquid layer between the optical element and the silicon could improve resolution to 65 nanometers (billionths of a meter) from the 100 nanometers now possible.



The idea behind applying the liquid lens concept to computer optics is to make computer chips smaller and, therefore, faster.

NIST scientists showed in a paper that will appear in the publication, "Proceedings of SPIE Optical Microlithography XVI," that the use of high-purity water as an interface between the optical unit and the silicon could significantly reduce the degree to which light diffraction hindered resolution.

The authors of the paper, titled "Measurement of the refractive index and thermooptic coefficient of water near 193 nanometers," warned that the liquid lens is highly sensitive to changes in temperature, a factor that will significantly affect optics design using the technique.

NIST's other advance in chip speed is a proposed standard for helping calibrate instruments that measure the amount of germanium in silicon-germanium thin films.

Germanium, an element that is both a semiconductor and alloying agent, strains the silicon lattice in a way that speeds the flow of electrons through it. Its use can double the operating speed of a device, according to NIST.

But exact measurements of the amount of the alloy in a silicon film is hard to come by, so NIST produced a standard consisting of sets of the films with varying proportions of germanium and silicon.

NIST described the standard as an interim measure and a first in terms of the cooperation between the government agency and private industry.

"The new standard...is among the first to be developed through interactions between industrial participants, who supply and characterize the materials, and NIST staff who coordinate the process, conduct additional measurements and tests, and assign values," the agency said. "The process is less rigorous than the traditional Standard Reference Material (SRM) approach and may not result in certified values. But interactive materials can be made available relatively quickly--just one to two years after a need is identified, compared to about five years for a new SRM."

NIST said that its standard would reduce the degree of uncertainty of germanium composition to 1 percent from 5 percent using currently available techniques.