Apple to drop sub-$500 Mac bomb at Expo - Page 2

agreed, so it would be fair to say that it is somehwat unique to G4/5 chips and P4 chips then? don't u hate that when someone AIMs u in a game especially if you are carrying in CTF?! were u playing online or single player? everything on the network gets the axe aside from 2k4 when i'm in multiplayer. BT can take a hike while i'm fragging.

anyhow, i guess my point was that a 1.25Ghz G4 with a desktop HD and even 256MB of RAM is a surprisingly solid system to start from w/ Mac/OSX. as i've noted my initial reaction to the iBook was, "wow, a 1.2Ghz machine w/ 256MB RAM shouldn't be able to do this." yes they should make 512MB standard, but as noted I was surpised as hell that i could be doing video conversion and using other apps on the stock 256MB and still have the OS be fluid in other apps. if this new machine is to have dedicated video that'll be unique as well. the aforementioned emachines have the nvidia geforce 4, but uses system memory. if apple decides on discrete video like in the ibook, powerbook, imac, it'll be a standout amongst the market it's targeted at. if anyone knows of any budget systems with discrete video & RAM on the motherboard send the info my way! it'd be great to have as a reference, but most motherboards on the market i know of have the pseudo-discrete graphics which use up system memory for VRAM. the biggest likely pitfall w/ regard to these rumored machines is the fact that apple is likely to have no upgrade path for the video due to the form factor. =( maybe they'll get in the game w/ PCI-X graphics though.

have at your P4 my friend, but let's see if you can cut the CPU speed in more than 1/2, drop your RAM down to 768, and swap out your video card for a radeon 9200 32MB and see how we do eh? and u'd have to stick it in a 12" laptop to boot, not cook your legs as a laptop, cost under $1200, and multi-task as i've described. if you can do that, then put it in a sub $500 system. (no flames here) hmm, that reminds me, i need to go play on the PM Dell upstairs and see how it handles multi-tasking compared to the AMD desktop and the iBook.

you are right, if AMD gets their act together w/ multi-threading, Intel is likely to be hurting bad. but then if Intel puts out a dual core PM w/ SSE3 AND multi-threading, yikes! in any case it'll be fun to watch it all unfold. =)

i'm out, after all this talk one thing is certain, i'm hungry and i love chipotle's burritos.

take care

you're so full of it.

mac cpus are better at multitasking under X than P4 is under XP. The $600 mac in question will be a good email + aim + camino runner but that is about as far as it will go. Considering for $600 you can built a lower-end AMD64 system. My laptop (specs in sig) can do all tha you said rather smoothly. Just today i had NFSU2 and CS Source running at the same time as well as Gaim, Firefox and Thunderbird (firewall, and the usual too). There was a bit of a pause when Alt-TABing betwen apps, but once in an app it went rather smoothly. FPS in both games was more than reasonable in somewhat high settings

For now, yes, to the best of my knowledge it is unique to G4/G5/P4 systems. And yes, it does work slightly better on Macintoshes, because the OS is better designed to support it and Hyperthreading is actually a ripoff of the multi-threading the G4s had, from what I've heard.

I was playing single player, usually Onslaught, and it was actually the demo. I was just playing with it for a while before I decided to get the full game, which I've also played a bit like that. I'm not good enough for online play on FPS.

Actually, what you're doing is saying "Well, if I take your computer and completely change the situation..." That doesn't make sense. For one thing, it's not my computer, it's a loaner from a friend. Mine is a $499 cheapie from Dell purchased simply because I wanted a computer of my own and I didn't feel like waiting long enough. For another thing, that's not what it's designed for. It's a completely different situation. I may as well say "Have that computer compare FPS with the one I was on in UT2004!" It's not reasonable. Yours wasn't designed to get high frame rates. It was designed to be extremely portable and reasonably fast, which is pulls off well. And the CPU clock speed comment is simply ludicrous. Yes, it's lovely that it runs faster at a lower frequency. However, it doesn't run at all at higher frequencies, just like Pentium 4s aren't offered at lower frequencies. I wasn't trying to say that Windows machines blow away Mac machines for multi-tasking. I was merely pointing out that your point wasn't really true (Macs can multi-task, PCs can't) by pointing out an example of even more strenuous activity being done without a hitch.

Speaking of which...Dell Dimension 3000 (with a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor w/HT) comes out to $557 with only the CPU upgrade. Keep in mind that you're also getting the monitor for that, and that Apple is considering raising the price on their other system more, and, last but not least, that you can (no doubt) assemble a system for less than that with equivalent or greater specifications. If you insist on discrete video, then I see nothing on the Dell site and I would have to look elsewhere. No problem, though, since I'm sure that pricing something out over Newegg would get you something still in the price range capable of that.

[quote=triadone]you are right, if AMD gets their act together w/ multi-threading, Intel is likely to be hurting bad. but then if Intel puts out a dual core PM w/ SSE3 AND multi-threading, yikes! in any case it'll be fun to watch it all unfold. =)[quote]

The Athlon 64s, by the looks of things, would still be winning in that scenario, because they're planning for SSE3 support with the dual core processors, if memory serves. That means dual core SSE3 processors running against each other...and one is 64-bit with an integrated memory controller, while the other has a 2MB L2 cache. And dual core processors aren't quite multi-threading. They're literally more than one processor in a processor, from what I understand. Multi-threading is "virtual processors," where it can handle multiple program threads simultaneously. Dual core processors are a pair of processors on one die. It's literally a dual processor computer.

Oh, and by the way, that's $499 Canadian and just about a year old.

who r u talking to? are you making a statement about the mac cpus or is that some sort of dry disgust you're trying to convey? not sure if you're tweaked at yuriseal or me.

Wal-Mart already has a sub-$500 laptop.

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=55580

good point wooster, go buy one and let us know how it pans out.

reasonably said yuriseal. i would digress on a few issues tho. to some degree i do think the clockspeed argument is valid and not to be written off. the P4 very well could have started production at low frequencies but intel chose not to because they needed to release it at 1.4Ghz in order to have it run faster than their 1Ghz P3 (the 1ghz P3 and Athlon were still faster than the 1.4 P4 in a number of areas). a wise decision, one that AMD had to counter with their Athlon performance rating while consumers kept on in the "more Mhz is better" mantra. Interestingly enough Intel is finally agreeing, w/ their own performance ratings and the revelation that the P3 architectural ancestry of the PM seems a better bet (at least for now) than the oven-like P4s. dual core PMs anyone? If we can’t have the clockspeed argument then we’d have to say that a 2Ghz AMD64 can’t be compared to a 3Ghz P4, or a 1.4Ghz PM to a 2.0Ghz P4, but they can be.

This sort of comparison can’t be done easily between architectures RISC vs CISC. Perhaps user experience of the OS is one of the ways this can be done. Even within an architecture, some make user experience part of their evaluation. I’ve seen more than a few reviewers note that an AMD system, which loses out to a similarly rated P4 on some desktop app benchmarks, “just feels” more crisp in the OS.

just a note about performance and such. i'd argue about the comment of a more strenuous environment on the P4 you had mentioned. i'm not claiming that my iBook can do the same game-wise, by no means, only that i don't think the stuff you had running was necessarily as resource intensive as it had been made out to be. or perhaps it was intensive but not in a similar fsahion to what i've been describing.

UT2k4 @ 1600 is a beast to run, no doubt, but the issue i'm getting at is resource conflict. the stuff u described running doesn't necessarily conflict with the rest of the system, the only overlap you mentioned was that of having external music playing w/ in UT. CD? MP3? a buddy i game with online regularly cues up his tunes in 2k4 on an athlon 2100+ system w/ no hitches. i'm thinking that has more to do w/ the audio card. anything hardware based should be able to handle 1 or 2 audio streams added to the listening environment w/o it significantly degrading the system experience. playing single player allows your network connection to be used for seeding, chatware, etc to run w/o issue. i game regularly w/ AIM and MSN logged on and haven't found it to impact my gameplay whatsoever on a 3200+ system. BT is another story, it'll give you massive packetloss and a crazy high ping. in single player however it's a non-issue bc the game isn't competing w/ the other apps for bandwidth. And no, I wouldn’t game online w/ a PC or Mac running network intensive apps, that’ll just plain get u fragged.

For the record I wouldn’t consider chatware, in re: to bandwidth as being an indicator of system multitasking in a linear fashion, it's more of a round about logic, i'll explain. Regardless of platform they are pretty unobtrusive. The reason I mentioned them is bc of actual use. When they are not just sitting there monitoring your buddies how do they do? i.e.- typing in word while the system is under load can be a task and a half, as u wait for the cursor to catch up w/ your typing, I’ve also found chatware susceptible to the same thing. My point w/ mentioning the chatware wasn’t whether it would diminish other apps by virtue of being open, but rather how the system will handle them with the other resource intensive apps open and running. In essence, can u use them fluidly with the big dogs hogging resources on the system?

so in sum if you want to give your P4 a similar desktop environment stress test try what i had mentioned. rip a DVD or get some dense DV content, convert it to divx/mpeg-4 or the like as a starting point, author a dvd from some other media files, leave your email client open to see whether it or the program you are in staggers when it checks for new email, open up some dense images in photoshop and run some filters, play some tunes and then copy some new MP3s into your music directory w/ out audio skipping a beat, etc etc etc. video encoding will soak up everything your system has to throw at it, multithreaded or otherwise, which is why i referred to it in my experience of the G4/OS X. if you can run that and get get the aforementioned usability in all the other apps you have open, kudos, well done, your system rocks and can play games. =) as noted b4, and i appreciate your recognition of it, this 'lil G4 and OS X does a bang up job of handling resource intensive desktop apps and processes. games? that's what the AMD system is for. =D

just curious, what were the specs on your system when u got it?

thanks =)

I'm not going near one of those.

Actually, what I said means that it is is valid to compare a 2.0 GHz Athlon 64 processor to a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4. What I said was simply that the clock speed efficiency was irrelevant in this case, because the processors were not running at the same clock speed and they were not designed to be run at the same clock speed. I realize that the clock for clock efficiency of Pentium 4 systems is extremely low compared to ANY other lineup of CPUs (to my knowledge.) That's still irrelevant when discussing the relative speed of these systems, though, as you don't use a Pentium 4 at the clock speeds of its competitors.

The point was that I was running a number of applications at the same time that constituted much more potential to slow down the system itself, which is what you were complaining about, including an audio program powered by an integrated 5.1 surround sound audio system (providing speaker output at the time, so I don't know whether it was wasting extra cycles trying to figure out the surround sound nature.) You talked about throwing a file onto the network while encoding a file and using a few basic office applications without visible slowdowns or the music skipping in the background. The file encoding is the only seriously CPU-intensive you were performing. You were discussing how your mouse didn't skip and the applications ran without slowdown. I was discussing how I didn't have a problem running all of those in the background as I played the game on ridiculously high settings. No visible slowdown in the game itself, or in any of the other actions going on. Unfortunately, as my friend somehow (completely beyond my comprehension) completely ruined his computer's video encoding, I wasn't able to exactly reproduce your test. I think it had something to do with a faulty ATi uninstaller, but I have no real idea.

Yes, I can use the chatware completely fluidly with the "big dog" UT2004 hogging the resources of the system. Of course, since I was playing in single player, the game automatically paused when minimized, which no doubt had at least some effect on that. However, since I could seamlessly switch back and forth between the apps, I'm fairly certain that it wasn't a major problem. I've never encountered (even while encoding rather hefty .wmvs) problems with internet browsers and such running slowly with something running in the background.

This god-awful pile, purchased before the days where I actually truly cared about looking into new technology or searching for actually good deals, runs a 2.4 GHz Celeron with a Northwood core and a FSB at 400 MHz (in other words, no hyperthreading whatsoever) In addition, it has met the lofty standards of 256 MB of RAM, Intel Extreme Integrated Graphics, whatever the hell my integrated sound happens to be called, an integrated network card, and a 40 GB 7200 RPM drive. For knowledge of the sheer waste of time it would be to actually test this, let's just say that the 3dmark scores would be accompanied by the program saying "If you're going to try to play a new game on this, we recommend a pistol, as they're easier to point at your own head." Experimenting with multi-tasking on this is a waste of time, as it can scarcely handle single-tasking. It is, in short, the kind of pile of crap you'll see in offices all over the place. I'm not particularly proud of the purchase, particularly since it was a waste of a perfectly good $500 (Canadian), but I don't mind it too terribly. To be specific, it's a base configuration of the now-discontinued Dell Dimension 2400.

Before you start to consider pointing out the ways that the Apple Apple is providing would benefit people, though, consider the following:

1)$499 Canadian is about $400 USD, so it's already a hundred dollars cheaper.
2)It came with a monitor and speakers, and it sounds as though this Apple will not.
3)A Dell system using a Celeron D at the same clock frequency (and, considering the higher speed FSB and such, it's a higher performance processor) is currently available from the Canadian site for $359 (Canadian), or less than $300 USD, although that model happens to lack a monitor and Dell would charge, amusingly and interestingly enough, $140 (Canadian) for providing one. Of course, since 17" CRTs with a maximum resolution (probably) of 1280x1024@60 Hz aren't exactly the rarest commodity in the world, I'm fairly certain that a better deal would be possible.

On the flip side, one should also consider the fact that this Apple will probably have discrete graphics. Of course, one should also consider the fact that those probably won't be anything spectacular. One should also consider the fact that it's still a good machin, particularly for the price.

My main purpose was to point out the misconception that you seemed to have (Windows machines cannot multitask well.) If you'd like, however...I'll tell you what. Just for the hell of it, I will test this. I have no e-mail program, but I'll leave Firefox open onto a running game of Xgenstudio's Defend Your Castle (with a few other open tabs) and begin to re-encode a .wmv file using Windows Media Encoder while speaking over AIM with a person or two, throwing my Diablo II folder at the other computer on my network (which is a concept that amuses me quite a bit) and listening to music in the background. I'll tell you how this lusciously low-budget horror ends up. Keep in mind that this will be a cheap, overpriced pile of garbage from a while back (amusingly enough, I realized to an extent that it was garbage when I ordered. I was just too lazy to assemble it myself) with absolutely no upgrades.

Throwing the file on the network seems to cause few or no delays. The only delays, in fact, have come from Windows Media Encoder, and are caused regardless of the additional applications running. They occur in particular when something changes, so I'm guessing that they're partially due to the system re-allocating resources for top-level apps. There is no sound stutter, apart from when something fairly major changes, and the applications run smoothly. Even using gibberish, I managed to hit my keyboard's speed limit before I managed to hit the computer's limit. That includes both in making this post and on the chat application. The only glitch that occurs is a visual glitch that seems more likely to be related to the integrated graphics being incapable of demanding the resources it wants, as the glitch is Windows Media Encoder not refreshing visually. Since it's using generally 88% of the system's processor speed and 80+ MB of RAM, I'm fairly certain that the program itself is running fine. Unfortunately, the network connection itself is too weak to create a huge problem, as I'm getting less than a meg per second, even with all of these programs combined. This is likely a combination of the extremely old computer downstairs and the slow (ADSL from Telus) internet connection. There is, in addition, no mouse stutter. This post is being typed, in fact, as all of the mentioned applications and processes are running, and the forum itself is running as it always does. After a few moments in the task manager and once it was used to bring Windows Media Encoder to the front, I managed to even resolve the visual issue. It is properly displaying the footage being re-encoded. It occasionally is displayed as Not Responding for a bit of time on the Task Manager screen, then it resumes its normal Running status. I can't actually find a direct link between any actions and this cycle, so I'm guessing that it's just the program being designed for use in a less strenuous environment, where it would be completing operations more quickly. Oh, and the icons on the side (the smileys) are displaying a little slowly. That's not a big deal, of course, as problems with animated pictures moving a little more slowly than one would expect are fairly common with this computer. They smooth out more when I stop typing, naturally. Also naturally, none of the programs are running at their peak performance. There are more delays than I am generally accustomed to. However, the system is COMPLETELY usable under this load, and even under the greater loads I temporarily threw on with the usage of Paint.

In short, I don't see how you could possibly be seeing the issues that you mentioned with the machine you described. For those who would like to see just what's going on, I'm including a shot each of the processes and performance tabs of Windows Task Manager. In case anyone's wondering, yes the CPU usage is locked at 100% and never varies.




And there you have it. Even this piece of crap can run a number of desktop applications simultaneously and usably, even with several high overhead programs running in the background. With the multi-threading and additional RAM of a more reasonable system (for a $500 USD+ system), I'm sure that the meagre results of mine would be blown away.

I seriously think that the biggest problems with this are caused by the integrated video failing to render quickly enough under load.

Ah, I almost forgot. As should be obvious from the screenshot of the maximized Task Manager, the computer is running at 1280x1024. If you're canny enough to have noticed the similarities to something mentioned above, you'll soon realize the full similarity, as I mention that the refresh rate is 60 Hz.

Summary: Even lousy computers can multi-task usably, provided that you're willing to wait about four seconds as you start the session up.

EDIT:Oh. A correction: Judging by my just-made measurements, it's actually a 16" CRT. God, I took it in the pants.

[/long-winded post that's fairly useless, truth be told]

Wow, you have alot of time on your hands !
No offense meant.

yeah....somebody let the rotten apples go to his head

Hey, it was my 250th post (I think.) I had to do SOMETHING special.

:winks:

I've been wanting to try out the Mac OS (and I'm not an iPod owner) so depending on the final specs and such I might buy one when the time comes.

What would really push me into this is if its about as light as an iBook and you can run this machine on a lithium ion battery Not likely, but I thought it would be nice if they did so.

Kind of useless to speculate and get all crazy about how it performs, since real specs aren't out yet (if it even exists). Same with dimensioning.

We all know it will cost more and be a lower-clocked processor than any PC equivalent. The question is how it will perform. I'd prob drop 500 on this apple than on any walmart laptop (chances of buying either: Zero)

With a base SLI system (mobo/cpu/mem/video) well under $1000, why would you buy anything less Answer: you wouldn't. Unless you were uninformed. or Applewashed.

wow yuriseal, nice post! thanks for taking the time to run all that stuff. one thing i've noticed on the iBook is that the OS does a sweet job at allocating system resources. i've said this before but am referring now to actually watching the processes change in the activity monitor (task manager). when i have multiple apps open the video encoding gets about 60%+ of the CPU cycles which goes up as you shut down other apps. granted the encoding slows down accordingly, but i'll take it gladly to use the OS as i've mentioned. plus as noted, the OS is swift at re-utilizing the resources that have just been shut down, this may be diff on a P4 system, or it could just be a divx software issue, but as noted in previous post, i can encode divx (w/ process priority turned down) fragging online in 2k4 w/ my athlon system, the encoding takes a hit accordingly, but the fps never seem to recover to where it was before gaming. i don't run into this on the book when shutting down extraneous apps. =)

coffeshark,
don't u mean mobo/cpu/mem/videoS ?

agreed on building a PC gaming system. but as noted ppl can be happy puttering along on a P2 400mhz dinosaur to check their email, surf the web, look at some photos, and manage their music. sad but true. heck it may just be those ppl w/ the dinosaurs and an ipod, who see the $500 sticker and think "hey, i've already got a monitor from the old system, let's give this a whirl" (tangent, does anyone not have extra monitors around? geez, they seem to multiply like rabbits). or it may even be an issue where ppl look at it, having an extra monitor on tap (or not) and think, "wow, i can get an ipod and a new computer from the people who make it, for <$1000? i don't have to go somewhere else?"

ppl will buy it, uninformed, applewashed, or what have u, and continue to putter along on a system that can be used for much more than they are ever likely to attempt, much less compared to the SLI systems u mentioned. as a system builder i make it a point not to try and sell my customers anything beyond what they need. putterers will get discrete sound and video, but nothing to write home about. i.e. they get better than the usual integrated stuff but not something beyond their needs or pricepoint (putterers rarely go above $700, and are near gleeful at spending $400-600). the vast majority of ppl i have built systems for are putterers, sadly enough (gamers, power users, and ppl who generally know how to truly get the most out of their systems tend to be in the minority). this sort of population is exactly who will buy the rumored machine if it comes out, and they will putter to their heart's content on machines that will never allow them to truly enjoy a killing spree @ 1600x1200. oh sweet sorrow.

Its out and up on the Apple store.

Damn that's a tiny machine...

if I was apple lover I would definetely get that... it's awesome! About the size of the external hard drive

Article from Tom's...

Linkage:
http://www20.tomshardware.com/howto/20050216/index.html

Wow, that was written by a Mac fanboy. It sounded like he was so in love with the Mac Mini that he wanted to have sex with it...

I'm sorry, but its not the answer to the world's prayers like the author claims. Its simply a very small computer with low-end components. Sure, its great for someone who only has basic computer needs, but its not going to revolutionize the computer industry.

Its obvious that if this was an article about a shuttle system then you'd ignore it as something you dont need because "me big power user. me need high end system for everything". but since its a mac then it makes you scramble for ways to criticize it?

Just ignore youre unfounded hatred for macs and think of the direction the mac mini will take the industry. Im sure you'll find this thing (and its clones) in more places than just your den. Cars, entertainment centers, kitchens or whatever would benefit from a nice tiny and well equipped system.

I havent had a mac in years but this thing sparked my interest enough that i ordered one even though i have zero use for it...yet.

Who said I don't like shuttle systems? I've actually been thinking hard about getting one.

Please explain how "I don't see how this is a revolutionary product" translates into "I hate Apple and everything they make"...


You right. There certainly weren't small computers for those uses before...

Well that's the differene between you and me; I don't don't buy things I have no use for.