MorphOS on Power Mac G5

[takemehomegrandma]

http://bigfoot.morphos-team.net/test/powermacg5_showconfig.jpeg - only a day late, but oh well

And as always, questions about availability and offers for beta testing will likely be quite pointless at this time.

My guess is that it's still very far away, if it will ever be released. And the same goes for this I guess:

[takemehomegrandma]

What does G5s go for these days anyways ?

Depends. If you want a low end G5, I've seen $100-$200. The top end is about $600 - $700 or so.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Power-Mac-G5-Early-2005-2-7GHz-Dual-8Gb-Ram-Raid0-1Ter-/190418045421?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item2c55ccc9ed

Ranging in between 1/25 to 1/4 of "Definitely North of UKP £1500" then...

[takemehomegrandma]

And MorphOS takes the lead. Leaving the AOS4.x bite the dust...

The picture says: 2700 MHz CPU, 1350 MHz FSB.

The Powermac G5 is the fastest PPC desktop ever, isn't it? Definitely the fastest platform any PPC based *miga OS will ever see!

And you won't have to sell your first born (*and* your car) to get it!

The MorphOS team's strategy to support every kind of suitable Mac model worth supporting has really been the way to go, it's clearly the winning strategy! Making the most out of the PPC platform makes sense, since this is where MorphOS is ATM. What happens "post PPC" remains to be seen, but it's a good thing to make use of all cheap Mac HW that people more or less throw at you!

I couldn't be more happy with my 1.5GHz Mac Mini though. Silent, very small and neat, and does pretty much everything (except 1080p x264) I want of it!

The G5 isn't for me...

[takemehomegrandma]

Wow I have a 1.8 ghtz G5 that is showing it's age but will make the perfect Moprhos box. Folks can't give away the G5's becuase they just can't run the new MacOS intel only stuff. ***JOYGASM!***

Yeah, and companies are beginning to offload vast quantities of G5 Macs as support for PPC SW on Mac is diminishing!



The MorphOS Team are finalizing the picture! The palette is getting complete! After the...

Mac Mini (Small)
eMac (Cheap)
PowerBook (Laptop)
PowerMac G4 (Cheap, expandable, "real" case)
PowerMac G5 (Powerful (the very top of the line of what PPC had to offer when it comes to performance))

...they will fully have covered all reasonable PPC options there is!

[takemehomegrandma]

Nobody is coming in to all the Morph OS threads and crapping over it

:lol: :lol: :lol:

No, that's something OS4 users simply don't do, right?

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=32121&forum=28

:lol:

[takemehomegrandma]

The advantages of the G5 mac are cost and maximum clock rate. Both of which still equate to a better price/performance ratio than the PA6T, of course.

Yes indeed this Mac will be faster. From the picture from the G5 Mac from the show:
Processor: 2700 MHz, FSB: 1350 MHz

AFAIK the PA6T processor in the "X1000": 1800 MHz, FSB: 1067 MHz.

So yes, performance wise it will kick "X1000" butt, at a quarter of the cost (in the worst case, probably much less). Even more so if the difference in OS/SW performance between MorphOS and OS4 remains, and I have seen no signs suggesting otherwise.

We will know for sure *how much* behind OS4 on the X1000 will be compared to MorphOS on a fast Powermac G5 when we see a complete comparison benchmark of the two, like the obligement test some time ago. But it will be behind.

[takemehomegrandma]

However, it's not all doom and gloom for the PA6T.

No I'm sure the PA6T and the "X1000" will have a long, bright and glorious future. People are probably already lining up to pay premium money for yesteryear technology...

The mac G5 machines are complete pigs when it comes to power consumption, the very issue PASemi sought to address when they designed the PWRFicient system in the first place.

Yes. Well, the point with the PA6T was to be in Apple laptops AFAIK, so the goal was probably to not consume much more than a G4, while still offering performance above the G4's they were using at the time. It would never compete on Apples power desktop market though; it wouldn't replace the G5.

But obviously Steve Jobs thought it was no point with PPC anyway, since Apple left the platform half a decade ago. Since then, what once was "PA Semi" as well as its IP was assimilated into Apple along with its developers. Apple obviously "scrapped" the technology, used the engineering competence and patents to create their own ARM "A4" processor or whatever, and AFAIK, most of those old PA Semi developers even left Apple since then...

[takemehomegrandma]

Looks like I'd better start paying attention to MorphOS!

Bob

You do that!

[takemehomegrandma]

The worst performance per watt of any CPU they'd ever used at that point.

...Performance per Watt?! Well, indeed, but also the best performance per se that the PPC could ever offer...

As much as I like PPC, and I do like it

Personally, I have no "feelings" for PPC whatsoever. Why would I? Did you really believe so?

It's dead Jim, DEAD...!

it just cannot compete with current x86/AMD64 based architectures.

Are you kicking in open doors here?

The PA6T may be newer, perform better per watt and depending on which source you believe, better per MHz than the G5. The G5 may clock higher and ultimately perform faster, but whichever way you look at it, they are both obsolete. Thoroughly and utterly.

*Definitely* kicking in open doors then! (And the PA6T is everything but new...)

But it's better to pay 1/4 of the price for one kind of "obsolete" hardware, than paying £1500-£2000 for another "obsolete" hardware that performs **worse** than the cheaper one...

Finally, what will you do on your obsolete PPC platform of choice that requires either a G5 or PA6T that you can't already do more than comfortably on a G4?

Well, as I've said plenty of times before, I'm certainly not in the market for *neither* of these two.

But to answer your question, for one thing, I would hope they could play 1080p x264 streams. The Mac Mini does 720p (on MorphOS)

Last time I looked, there wasn't really any Amiga specific software in existence that really needs the horsepower that even these old processors can deliver.

Depends on your user pattern I guess.

Personally, I'm quite media centric. HD movies of today requires power!

[takemehomegrandma]

Which means you have even less reason to use MorphOS or AmigaOS. You can get a totally silent, low power usage PC for less than the price of a second hand G5 mac (let alone a new X1000!) that will play 1080p media, record TV etc. using completely free OS and software.

I completely fail to see your point. I have several x86 systems myself, laptops and desktops, including a core i7 running Windows 7. But that's not why we are here, right? Linux or other systems? It's rather the Amiga hobby, right? The only x86 capable *miga OS there is, is AROS. Maybe AROS will reach MorphOS's level at some point far in the future, but it's certainly not a worthy alternative *miga system for "Morphers" today. And chances are MorphOS has gone x86 itself before that happens. But for now it's tied to PPC, and the MorphOS team are making the most out of it by supporting all the Apple PPC hardware worth supporting. This G5 is the crown in this effort, it's as far as the PPC ever went. And MorphOS will support it! It's a great thing!

I mean no disrespect to MorphOS, but if you are trying to sell the concept of a buying a second-hand, power hungry G5 box

I'm not selling anything. As I said before, I won't be buying a G5 myself, I'm perfectly happy with my Mac Mini 1.5GHz G4, and I'll happily sell you the idea of buying one of *those*! But nevertheless, this Powermac G5 will be the fastest solution ever for people in need (or want) of power, it's as far as the PPC went, and it will be a so much better option than a "X1000". Better performance at a fraction of the cost. Nobody can argue about that.

[takemehomegrandma]

But to answer your question, for one thing, I would hope they could play 1080p x264 streams. The Mac Mini does 720p (on MorphOS)

I think it can. Some quick test bigfoot was kind enough to perform indicated it was fast enough for the provided x264 clip, at least.

That's great!

So, a G5 machine should a nice combo for viewing HD content during the cold winter nights, given its heating potential.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[takemehomegrandma]

I know I'm OT here so please forgive me but, I have several G4 Macs, all running Mac OS X Snow leopard and not one of them can play 720p - not even close, it's like watching a slideshow.

On the Mac forums I frequent I was told that the G4, even at 1.5Ghz or 1.67Ghz just isn't fast enough to decode a 720p x264 stream in real-time.  If that is the case, how can MorphOS play back the same stream on the same hardware?

Well it can! Under MorphOS!

I guess it's the power of a low overhead OS and smart use of available resources...

[takemehomegrandma]

My point is very simple. I asked "what amiga stuff does anybody do that requires G5 levels of performance that they can't already do perfectly well on a G4?"

You answered "play back HD content"...

It was just the first thing I could think of. Having power is *not* a bad thing. An Efika can be used for lots of things, but a 1.42GHz Mac is a lot more fun. BTW, ask Fab what computer he compiles OWB on, and why...

[takemehomegrandma]

Its really time for every amigoid os to make smp a reality. Its the future

By design, no *miga OS can have true SMP, at least not what people outside this community would recognize and acknowledge as being true SMP.

[takemehomegrandma]

True, that has been stated several times by many of the MorphOS Team members.  But........... if (big IF) the AmigaOS4.x developers can figure out a way to utilize multiple core usage in ANY way, I am confident that the MorphOS Team members can find a way to do it even better!

I don't think it will that difficult to "utilize" extra cores, but that still won't make it SMP...