Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo A musical revelation

Once again a connection of math to music.

See the link here. Realplayer audio link at the bottom.

I will not taint my computer with Real.

What?! No pictures?

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I will not taint my computer with Real.

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Indeed - same here.

I don't trust pre made computers either (with the exception of pda's and laptops, as I cannot assemble either of those - heh). I cannot stand how those big companies such as Dell and Compaq (err Compaq's dead now, aren't they? Bought out by HP?) put so much crap on the install and also stock it up with the crappiest motherboards and such. Apple.... I'm not even gonna start...


Yea; build your own PC; it's the only way!!

Try the Real Alternative at http://www.freecodecs.com/

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Apple.... I'm not even gonna start...

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Damn straight, you're not!

Haha - [pmbuko] please don't tell me you're one of THEM...

I am a PC advocate but do you happen to know what hardware is inside a G5 or G4 has? If you do you would not come off with such a brash comment. Do you know what a RISC based 64 bit Power4 power PC chip? The PowerPC G5 can pump through more than 200 in-flight instructions at a time, a whopping 71% more than the 32-bit Pentium 4. We use the slower 4 x Power PC604 chip CPUs on our Aix RS6000 Unix servers that run Oracle with over 60,000 a day transactions. The G5 chip runs circles around that one.

Indeed the G5 is a nice chip, but look at the Athlon 64 FX-51 aka the Sledgehammer - PC World and Macworld combined to do some benchmarks on 64 bit processing applications, and let's just say that the Sledgehammer just put the 'whoopin' on pretty hard. Even the 'old' 32 bit Athlon XP 3200+ Barton beat out the Mac in most cases, losing I believe in only Photoshop... So if you knew the true real-world performance you would make a comment like that...

Just Kidding of course... My comment was only about the software and not being able to customize it to your exact specifications, like you can when you build your own PC. But still the speed numbers speak for themselves.

Here's the 'linky'.

I understand that the G5 architecture is nice, but the Sledgehammer with its integrated front side bus keeping it in the GHz instead of the MHz is just incredible.

[EDIT]The link seems to be down right now, but it should be up in a bit [/EDIT]
[EDIT #2]It is up now - and look on Page 8 and see the title Athlon 64 vs. Apple G5 Systems: Not Even Close (chart)
Apple Power Macs did well on Photoshop, but the 64-bit AMD-based systems won handily on most tests.[/EDIT]

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The PowerPC G5 can pump through more than 200 in-flight instructions at a time, a whopping 71% more than the 32-bit Pentium 4

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To my knowledge that is only because that is 32 bit, and because the P4 only does 6 IPC (instructions per clock) compared to a 32 bit aXP's 9; compare it to a 'real' chip - ie the AMD Opteron (sledgehammer same as fx-51).

And I'm pretty sure you are going to say that Mac's already have their 64 bit jaguar os x out, and the version of WinXP for the Sledge/Clawhammer is still in late beta stage. Well, even in 32 bit mode the Sledge/Clawhammer is faster than the G5. And when the 64 Bit winXP comes out, it will be fully 64 Bit, unlike the "64 bit" os x which is not fully 64 Bit.

Just noticed that I forgot to point out that the better of the two Mac setups included has two 2.0 GHz G5 chips, not one; whereas the 2.0 GHz single Opteron processor (Sledgehammer core based) obliterates it on all counts.

The AMD is not king of the PC. Intel is. If basing on 1 or 2 apps fine. When based on overall power the Intel P4-3.2 Extreme Edition does a better job.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030923/index.html

Here are some benches on PHotoshop stuff.
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

Apple marketing may have something to do with this so I take these results with a grain of salt.
http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/
http://www.apple.com/powermac/

Yes you are right about the OS issues. A CPU can only be as fast as the OS and its components. One thing to note I do not think or running the G5 as a Apple machine but use it as a Unix server.

And yes I an wrong about the G5. The fastest chip in a multi CPU configuaration to serve the most processes at any one time and the quickest is the Itanium 2

I did find the add the the AMD kicked the G5
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112749,pg,8,00.asp

But I personally would still use a IBM multiprocessor RISC box (Power PC chips) running Unix to handle 40,000-100,000 credit card transactions per day which is stored in oracle database than have a multiprocessor AMD running Win2003 server with Oracle handling those same transaction information.

Wow - I never would have thought the P4 EE was better - but i guess that huge 'L3' cache has to be good for something. (Hasn't become an ATI vs nVidia where an underdog becomes the faster one)

Itanium 2 - Heh I also forgot about this - How many MHz are they up to now? Last I remember was seeing an 800 MHz Itanium that just beat almost everything else.

Yes, I am one of them. I loves me my Mac.

I also use and appreciate PCs. I like them a bunch, but I can't say I love them.

Let me rephrase that. I prefer the Mac "user experience" to the PC (Windows).

Indeed, but I was only joking . A few of my friends are MAC users, and it's almost like an inside joke with us that we each point out and laugh when the other one crashes or doesn't do something it's supposed to.

I definately agree that the Mac experience is potentially better to many people because there's just less potential problem areas to mess around with. I personally like to tweak my system (and overclock it) to oblivion, so I just need direct access to everything heh.

[/me checks my temps and rejoices that they are still under 45 C, while my poor aXP 2000+ Palomino core is at 1.95 vCore instead of 1.75 stock running at an estimated 2300+]

Hope your running a Thermaltake or a Zalman. If your using stock your chip will start flaking out around 6 months or so. Used to overclock everything but with todays technology its really all in the videocard...not so much in the CPU. Yes a faster CPU does help but I found over the years that if you overclock the CPU vs videocard. The CPU get flaky first. I find that with todays chip they did not increase dramatically in speed in comparison to older chips. ie when I o'clock a P700 to 1066 or something like that with a GForce2 GTX and I would get 7000+ on 3dmark. The newer chips only go up to 8,000 and 9,000 and those are chips in the 1.6 and 1.8 with Gforce4 cards. Youd think it would jump exponentially but it doesnt. It do not know with the 2.2 or higher if the score are much higher...ops looked it up and they were in the 17,000-20,000...wow the Athlon 64 3200+(2572) was in the 30k..phenominal.

Swiftech MCX-462 with a Delta 80 MM, but it is controlled by a rheostat, so it's not too loud, unless I want to benchmark and overclock to its fullest.

Vid Card: 9800 Pro (but I leave at stock, as this is my second 9800 Pro because my last one's RAM went bad after about 2 months of OCing - and it had ramsinks on it )

My 3Dmark score isn't too high right now for 2k1 (only about 14k - but that's severely CPU limitedby my 'old' 2000+). In 2k3, I get 5600 (because I refuse to OC my 9800 Pro now), and with my 9700 Pro (RIP from volt modding), I would get 5000. I wish I could get that 30k in 2001, but my CPU now is low end, and as most games and apps are CPU limited like that (once you have a 9800/9700/NV30/NV35), it would be practical speed. But I guess I make up for it by running with all the eye candy enabled (4x Anti Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering). Makes my video card the bottleneck in the end, instead of the CPU.

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when I o'clock a P700 to 1066 or something like that with a GForce2 GTX and I would get 7000+ on 3dmark.

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That is incredible! Especially for a card that cannot do the Nature test (Game Test 4). That would be another few thousand right there. From direct-x 7 compliant GPU's such as that GF2 to a DX8 Compliant one, there is such a gain in 3DMark score (for 2k1), but after that it's kind of not important, as there are no tests in 3DM2k1 that it cant do (3DM 03 is another story ).

That is why I mentioned that the CPU in between 1gz-2gz did not step up the speed for 3d games (3d mark test) I was totaly floored when the good ole o'clocked 700 was doing so well. They were built like tanks. They can take the abuse. the new CPUs, RAM and bus are a whole new ballpark. Now they are where they are supposed to be.

As with your Radeon. It is the few cards that can run that fast by having 8x anti-aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering as of 4 months ago where I was looking into vid card...hence my Radeon 9700Pro purchase. 4 months is long time and Nvidia might or might not have a Radeon killer by now. But since my main purpose of using my HTPC is for video processing...hands down the Radeon series are steps ahead of Nvidea. I just wish my 9700Pro didnt have that extra piggy back power drain. It doesn't work too well if your building a HTPC for low noise and low power.

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I just wish my 9700Pro didnt have that extra piggy back power drain. It doesn't work too well if your building a HTPC for low noise and low power.

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At least your card uses the 5v rail, which is generally less stressed than the 12v rail, which my card (and the nV30 and nV35 use, the 58 and 5900's).

OO - I just went to the link in your profile - you shuttle user . How are those cases? I'm thinking of buying either one of those or a full on home theater component case for my HTPC (which I will build sometime soon).

PS. That is a very beautiful setup you have there- but, if I may ask, what is that stuffed animal in here???

A picture appears on this site:

http://www.nb.cbc.ca/moncton/

Yeah, um, what a beauty, um, yeah right - lol.

The fuzzy warm lizard loves Axioms.

Most of the shuttles still are too loud. You would need a silint power supply but they are standard size and do not fit shuttles.

If you want a silent but expensive case this is da bomb.

D.VINE
http://www.ahanix.com/dvine5.html

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If you want a silent but expensive case this is da bomb.

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Hahaha - I havn't heard that in a while.

And Oh My God!!! That is so freaking beautiful. That will be my next purchase. Forget that Adire Tumult that I was going to buy to replace my Eminence 15 LF Magnum. I'm getting that baby.

[EDIT]BAH!! They are like $350, and probably more for the one with the remote control. I will just get one of those for my next computer then (when I eventually do HTPC; its so hard to wait though...), and I'll resist the urge at the moment.[/EDIT]

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Do you know what a RISC based 64 bit Power4 power PC chip?

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The PowerPC 970 and the Power 4 are two different chips. Comparing the Power 4 to the Pentium 4 is pointless.

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The PowerPC G5 can pump through more than 200 in-flight instructions at a time, a whopping 71% more than the 32-bit Pentium 4.

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Which is irrelevent if each of those instructions takes less time in a Pentium 4.

To be more precise, Athlon 64 doesn't have a front side bus at all. Onboard memory controller really isn't the same thing.

Yes I was kinda interchanging RISC based AIX systems which runs PowerPC chip to Mac G5 PowerPC chips. That was my intention because both does run unix to a certain degree.
But what I was refering to as a 64bit Power4 or Power4+ are these.
http://www-132.ibm.com/content/home/store_IBMPublicUSA/en_US/eServer/pSeries/mid_range/pSeries_midrange.html
And yes the PowerPC970 is 64bit but that is not what I am talking about.
Both the IBM Pseries 6xx server and the G4 or G5 do run Unix ..yes of different flavors one AIX..the other I think BSD.

http://www.apple.com/g5processor/
Scroll down to the area that talks about the the G5 and IBM 64bit Power4 processor. Apple worked with IBM to leverage the Power4 technlogy to create the G5.

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Comparing the Power 4 to the Pentium 4 is pointless.

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I was comparing this...

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The PowerPC G5 can pump through more than 200 in-flight instructions at a time, a whopping 71% more than the 32-bit Pentium 4

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... I was comparing G5 to P4

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Which is irrelevent if each of those instructions takes less time in a Pentium 4.

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Wheres proof? How many instructions per cycle can the P4 do? How fast is a P4 cycle in comparison to the G5.

My exact blurb was taken out of the Mac site.
http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

I have gotten information from a Mac user from my company that he has rendered a 300meg+ 3D object in realtime on Photoshop with a G5 vs and a fast CPU P4 with somewhat the same GPU and found that the MAC did create it much faster almost realtime.

Iam a PC guy. And I had bias views on the Mac. But there are a lot of Unix gurus out there creating stuff for the G5 because the OS is opensource. They are trying out their scripts and thinking this can be used for fileservers which may cost under $15,000 in comparison to some of the $50,000+ IBM Pseries servers. It may not do all the functions they need but for something 1/3 the price its one hell of a machine.

Oh, there's a bunch of US around here...

Actually, I've got a Radeon 9500 (should be pretty fast...) and an Athlon 1400 (yes, one of the burning hot ones) and Planetside is majorly chunky unless I turn a lot of stuff down. I know the video card can handle it, and I've got plenty of RAM (896 MB). Therefore, processor still matters.

Actually that would probably depend if it's a pro or a non pro 9500. The 9500 pro is pretty nice, whereas the 9500 non-pro at defaults isn't that great, but I'd chose the 9500np. The reason being is that about 85-90% of 9500 np's can be 'softmodded' to a 9700 pro by drivers which enable the other 4 pipelines and the 256 bit memory architecture (only if the memory is in an L shape ).

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Yes I was kinda interchanging RISC based AIX systems which runs PowerPC chip to Mac G5 PowerPC chips.

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Which you shouldn't do.

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That was my intention because both does run unix to a certain degree.

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I'm talking about the processors. The Power4 and the PPC 970 aren't the same chip. You're drawing a connection between them that others who aren't familiar with these processors may perceive as greater than it should be.

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But what I was refering to as a 64bit Power4 or Power4+ are these.
http://www-132.ibm.com/content/home/store_IBMPublicUSA/en_US/eServer/pSeries/mid_range/pSeries_midrange.html

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I'm aware. Notice those prices? A large part of that cost is the Power4 which costs upwards of $4000 per processor. The 970 is a consumer grade processor and the Power4 is distinctly not.

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And yes the PowerPC970 is 64bit but that is not what I am talking about.

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I never brought up anything about that.

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Both the IBM Pseries 6xx server and the G4 or G5 do run Unix ..yes of different flavors one AIX..the other I think BSD.

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OSX isn't BSD, but it borrows VERY heavily from it. It borrows from quite a few different open source OS's. The correct name for the unix variant Apple has pulled together is Darwin.

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http://www.apple.com/g5processor/
Scroll down to the area that talks about the the G5 and IBM 64bit Power4 processor. Apple worked with IBM to leverage the Power4 technlogy to create the G5.

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I'm intimitely aware. IBM's RISC server group is one of my biggest customers.

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I was comparing this...

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The PowerPC G5 can pump through more than 200 in-flight instructions at a time, a whopping 71% more than the 32-bit Pentium 4



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... I was comparing G5 to P4

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But in the sentance prior, you mention the Power4 which isn't the G5 and then transition to a statement about the G5. Someone unfamiliar with the relationship between the two would likely be confused. That's what I was commenting on.

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Wheres proof? How many instructions per cycle can the P4 do? How fast is a P4 cycle in comparison to the G5.

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As in all things computer related, the details are in the applications. There are countless benchmarks out at this point. In some things, the G5 is exceptional. In others, the Opteron is king. In yet more the Pentium is the best choice. It's all about what you want to do with it.

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I have gotten information from a Mac user from my company that he has rendered a 300meg+ 3D object in realtime on Photoshop with a G5 vs and a fast CPU P4 with somewhat the same GPU and found that the MAC did create it much faster almost realtime.

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I have no doubt.

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But there are a lot of Unix gurus out there creating stuff for the G5 because the OS is opensource.

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Darwin, the Unix core, is open source. This is not the same thing as OSX itself being open source. The majority of that OS is indeed closed.

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They are trying out their scripts and thinking this can be used for fileservers which may cost under $15,000 in comparison to some of the $50,000+ IBM Pseries servers. It may not do all the functions they need but for something 1/3 the price its one hell of a machine.

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They'd probably be better off running Linux or some other BSD on a 970 based computer not sold at the margins Apple enjoys. Remember, this chip isn't sold just to Apple and IBM has intentions of taking it a lot further into exactly that space.

Regards,
Semi

Reading for those interested in this stuff:
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/x86-64/x86-64-1.html
http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1062961031.html
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.html
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/ppc970/ppc970-0.html
http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/03q2/ppc970-interview/ppc970-interview-1.html

Thanks for the links.

Yeah, I've got the Pro. I thought that could be upclocked to 9700 Pro, not the 9500 regular. Whatever; I'm not likely to do it. It's the ATi boxed card, not another brand.

Those latest IBM, Intel, HP and AMD CPUs are all nice powerful chips. But when it comes to the CAPABILITY computing (as opposed to capacity computing), we the Americans have gotten a little too proud of our off-the-shelf, general-purpose CPU chips -- falsely believing for too long that massively paralleling them would result in the world's most powerful supercomputers. That was a big mistake...

According to the prestigeous TOP500 listings, the 40-TFLOPS Earth Simulator, based on the vector-processor chips custom-made by NEC (sort of like the Cray chips), will remain unchallenged for the next 2 years or so. Moreover, the real surprise is that this machine can actually maintain ~70% of its peak FLOPS when running the real-world weather simulation applications -- a far cry from 10-20% figures often seen in American massively parallel systems based on the off-the-shelf CPU chips.

In case you are wondering, the NEC chips run at a whopping 500MHz clock. As for the operating system, the Earth Simulator runs a version of NEC's Unix, with some custom extensions.

So, back to the tritare, what makes those haunted, spacey sound? I suppose that it is an unusual series of harmonic (perhaps non-harmonic) frequencies. But where can I find the technical principles behind the instrument?