| Thursday, August 15, 2002 |
13:48 - Well, that's an onion in the ointment.
http://www.barefeats.com/pmddr.html
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According to Bare Feats, the new dual 1GHz Mac and the previous-generation dual 1GHz Mac are neck-and-neck in performance. As in, almost indistinguishable. Same goes for the dual 1GHz Xserve.
The site concludes, very sensibly (if disappointingly), that while the DDR machines with the faster front-side bus should show at least some marked improvement over the earlier machines, the fact is that the G4 7450 (the "Apollo" chip used in both the old machines and the new) has a very well-documented internal bus-interface limit of 1GBps. Much less than the 2.7Gps of full DDR access speed, which Apple claims the architecture can support.
On the other hand, the PPC 7470 chip-- which in February was being talked about as being slated for release this summer-- does support the full DDR access speed. So does this amount to a last-minute hardware change, a deliberate attempt by Apple to palm off some dead-weight top-end 7450s, a piece of deliberately timed pre-marketing in anticipation of a "silent rev" that puts the 7470 into the new machines, or an outright baldfaced lie?
I don't like any of those options. Unless that silent rev is forthcoming very very soon, like within two or three weeks.
Grumble.
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