Are two brains really better than one, as Apple proclaims in ads for its line of multiprocessor (MP) Power Mac G4s? The answer is: right now, sorta; by mid-2001, definitely.
The MP Macs are the first mainstream personal computers to come standard with more than one processor. The 450MHz and 500MHz Power Mac G4s each contain dual PowerPC G4 processors with Velocity Engine, delivering up to 7 billion calculations per second. What's more, the new Power Mac line comes standard with Gigabit Ethernet, an industry first, which make them great networked clients for transferring large files--such as images and digital-video files--around a network.
The new Power Mac G4s come standard with the optical Apple Pro Mouse and the Apple Pro Keyboard. The Power Mac G4s also come pre-installed with iMovie 2, Apple's consumer video-editing software.
The dual processors come in two flavors:
The dual PowerPC G4 450MHz processor model, with 1MB level-2 backside cache per PowerPC G4 processor, 128MB of PC100 SDRAM memory, ATI RAGE 128 Pro AGP 2X with 16MB video SDRAM, a 30GB Ultra ATA/66 disk drive, DVD-ROM drive with DVD Video playback, FireWire and USB ports, three full-length 64-bit, 33MHz PCI slots, 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet, and a built-in 56K V.90 modem. Price: $2,499.
The dual PowerPC G4 500MHz processor model with 1MB level-2 backside cache per PowerPC G4 processor, 256MB of PC100 SDRAM memory, ATI RAGE 128 Pro AGP 2X with 16MB video SDRAM, a 40GB Ultra ATA/66 disk drive, DVD-RAM drive with DVD Video playback, three full-length 64-bit, 33MHz PCI slots, 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet and a built-in 56K V.90 modem. Price $3,499.
Both models are configurable, and have room for up to 200GB of hard-disk storage and up to 1.5GB of SDRAM.
Impressive specs. But in the real world, are they really twice as fast as their single processor predecessors? In a few cases, almost. But for most applications, not yet.
Who, where, when, why?
In the near term, dual-processor systems are not for every Mac-head. Most Mac programs don't currently get much turbocharging on the MP systems.
Operating systems have a little item called a scheduler, a piece of software that determines how much processor power and time is needed for prioritized tasks. If you've got a multiprocessor machine, the scheduler decides which processor tackles specific tasks. Mac OS 9's scheduler is simply too limited to take advantage of MP functionality because it only has cooperative multitasking, which means that your software programs have to surrender CPU times for other applications to use.
Unlike the multitasking in the current Macintosh operating system, Darwin-OS X's NeXt-like kernel-OS X's pre-emptive multitasking provides a much more efficient use of CPU capabilities. The OS will logically divide the duties of a MP system among the available processors.
Then there's the matter of asymmetrical versus symmetrical multiprocessing. Mac OS 9 allows only asymmetrical multiprocessing, in which the operating-system tasks must always be performed on one processor, while other tasks can be allocated partly to this main processor and partly to extra processors. This isn't a very effective system, since most processors are left lounging around doing nothing.
Mac OS X boasts symmetrical multiprocessing, which lets multiple CPUs run concurrently and automatically spreads computation work among all available CPUs.
If you run OS X on a dual processor Mac equipped with 500MHz processors, system operations will really fly. So buying an MP Mac now means you'll be ready when X is finalized sometime in the first half of 2001. And as other applications are optimized for the next generation operating system, they will begin to take full advantage of the pre-emptive multitasking power and speed that an OS X/MP Mac combo can provide.
OS 9-compatible dual-processor apps
Even though most of us will wait for the full release of OS X before we consider a dual-processor machine, some Mac-heads can make use of the functionality now. There is some multiprocessing capability in today's Mac OS, but it's limited to applications that have multiprocessor functions built in (or plugged in, as the case may be). See the list below to determine if you can take advantage of dual processors before upgrading to OS X.
Photoshop users are ideal customers for MP Macs. Version 6 of Adobe's industry-standard image-editing application is packed with new features. But it's also resource-intensive and needs lots of hard-disk space and speed. That's where the dual processor Macs shine. They come with a Photoshop plug-in that lets the application use more than one processor. This means, according to Apple, that the dual-processor, 500MHz Power Mac G4 will run Photoshop as fast as a 2GHz Pentium x, when those systems are released.
Other software programs that can use the dual G4 processors include the following:
AfterEffects-Adobe's tool for motion graphics and visual effects
Premiere-Adobe's videography application
Final Cut Pro-Apple's high-end video editor
LightWave 6-NewTek's 3D modeler
Cinema 4D XL 6.1-Maxon's 3D modeling, animation and rendering package;
Media Cleaner Pro and Cleaner 5-Terran Interactive's products for optimization and compression of streaming media
SoundJam MP-Casady & Greene's MP3/audio manager/player
MPEG Power Professional-Heuris's MPEG encoder
Maya-Alias/Wavefront's 3D animation and visual-effects software for film, broadcast, video, and game development
Media 100-Media 100's suite of streaming production tools
Sorenson Video-Sorenson's QuickTime-compatible video codec designed for developers of applications or Web sites that require compressed video segments.
So should you fork out the dough for an MP Mac? If you spend more than 50 percent of your time using any of the above multiprocessor-aware programs, definitely. Even if you don't but are looking for a desktop that's more powerful and extensible than the iMac or Cube, it might make sense. After all, the dual-processor systems sell for the same prices as their single-processor predecessors, are incredibly expandable, and sport Gigabit Ethernet.
Networking on steroids
Yes, I said Gigabit Ethernet, and I don't have to tell you that it is a big deal. The Ethernet port on the new G4s supports 10BaseT, 100BaseT, and 1000BaseT over copper cable. Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbps-capable) lets you move big, high-resolution files over your local area network (LAN) very quickly.
With single-processor G4s, you need to put a $700 1000BaseT switch on your Mac to get this speed. With the dual-processor G4s, you get the Gigabit Ethernet capability right out of the box.
Gigabit Ethernet has been around for almost three years, but has been used only in servers until now. The main people who will benefit from this new feature are digital-video users, who regularly work with humongous files. But it will also be a connectivity boon for schools and offices that need high-speed connectivity and file transfer capability.
Bottom line: If you often make use of one of the above applications, an upgrade seems to be in order. If you are already shopping for a new Mac and hope to make use of OS X's multitasking and multithreading capabilities, two processors for the price of one seems to make sense. And you can't argue with Gigabit Ethernet in production environments.
Contributing Editor Dennis Sellers is a freelance Mac-head out of Nashville, Tenn.
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striped disk array storage (RAID 0) for HD; SCSI disk subsystem preferred Microsoft DirectX compatible sound card (multichannel ASIO-compatible sound card recommended),1,280x1,024 monitor resolution with 32-bit color adapter Blu-ray burner required for Blu-ray Disc creation OHCI compatible IEEE 1394 port for DV and HDV capture, export to tape, and transmit to DV device QuickTime 7.1.2 software required to use QuickTime features Broadband Internet connection required for Adobe Stock Photos* and other services
