Op-Ed: Would 4, 8-way PMs get us there faster?


OS News, one of the more thoughtful and believable spin makers on the web, has posted a column about the possibility of four and eight-way processor PowerMacs -- in terms of performance (333MHz FSB anyone), developers and price.

"I have heard that the G4 CPUs are already close to their limit regarding the speeds they can deliver," OS News' Eugenia Loli-Queru says tellingly. "[T]he idea would be to create machines that would hold 4 and 8 CPUs as an addition to the existing 2-way PowerMacs, however for prices between $3000 and $6,000 USD.

"Such machines would enable Macs to 'virtually' have a sum of 5,33 up to 12.6 GHz and, for prices up to $6,000, could beat easily Sun and SGI workstations [and even some Dell ones] - at least in price/performance ratio..." she states tellingly.

Of course, there's the question of whether or not X has the threads to effectively handle such power, as well as questions about Moto CPU's lack of a sufficient front-side bus (FSB), and how this would affect developers and their costs.

An interesting read...