Why Apple needs to move to Intel Chips NOW!

[puffmarvin]

before everyone starts flaming me let me say i am 100% a mac fan and 100% against windows. but... after reading this article and checking out the benchmarks of the new Intel 3.06 GHz chip i realized apple is in some deep water...

http://digitalvideoediting.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm

[rundevilrun]

A couple thoughts (and trying to avoid the usual flame wars :) )...
1. It's only after effects. I have found that final cut pro is quite a bit faster than premiere on the same mac, I don't think adobe has os x optimizations figured out yet.

2. Is fact that the mac took 4.5 seconds on a photoshop test compared to 3.4 seconds for a pc meaningful?

3. 4 minutes to render something is still a long time, is the pc still responsive and usuable while rendering? I know my dual 1G mac is much more responsive compared to my 1800 Athlon when loading it down.

My take on the whole os x on x86 thing is Apple should consider it only if there is a clear and significant gain while not losing much in legacy binaries. Maybe if the G4 is still at 1.25G when P4 hits 4-5G.

Oh yeah one other thing, the reviewer forgot to subtract 50% off of the macs' to compensate for the immeasurable effects of not having to use windows! :D

[puffmarvin]

haha you make good points. even so, this HT technology looks pretty promising. i wonder if it would work as a dual processor system? two processors each with HT technology. that would be as if there were 4 processors, no? interesting. anyways, im not fooled easily by the numbers but this test alone is enough to make some people think twice about buying a mac. no skin of my back, i love my mac and im buying a new powerbook soon. im here to stay through the good times and bad! :cool:

[MacBandit]

The simple fact is is that something like 95% of all users simply use there computers for text, email, and web. They don't need machines even exceeding 1Ghz let alone 3Ghz. In my oppinion the fact that the vast majority of existing computer users have machines with speeds in excess of 800MHz is the reason that computer sales has dropped off. If even 50% off all the existing computer users had a machine that ran in excess of 1GHz 40% of them would not need to upgrade there machine until it either broke or was no longer able to run new programs due to an architecture change. That would be a lot of lossed computer sales. I believe I am correct in what I have said here. I agree that my numbers are hypothetical but the simple fact is that most people do not need insane speed.

[Choppaface]

just my experience, but

2. Is fact that the mac took 4.5 seconds on a photoshop test compared to 3.4 seconds for a pc meaningful?

yeah. when it takes ten seconds for indesign to refresh on my mac and two on my PC, it gets annoying

I know my dual 1G mac is much more responsive compared to my 1800 Athlon when loading it down.


I've had the opposite experience... my dual 1900xp is great under full load, while my dual 500 G4 gets pretty gimpy at times

[Nipsy]

The switch to Intel is not something easy.

It is a lot like the switch to PPC or OSX. Apple prolly has OS X and FCP ready, what about the rest of the software?

A switch to Intel means Quark users (a whiny bunch) won't see a new version for another 18 months.

Windows programs won't work without major tweaking. Apple programs won't work without major tweaking. Unix binaries would be easy.

So, Apple could undertake this move to an inherently flawed architecture (which is on the way out) to have more GHz....but users wold have few apps.

On the other hand, with Opteron, and Itanium, and the 970 all coming soon, we could see Apple WORKSTATIONS have processors with similar GHz, and some real advantages in about 10 months...

High end Wintel boxes will be coming with Opteron and Itanium soon, and will have very similar numbers to high end Apple boxes with 970s.

So, by this time next year, pro x86 boxes will have slower GHz speeds, and pro Macs will have higher GHz speeds, bringing some number parity to the WORKSTATION market.

[JupiterZen]

Originally posted by MacBandit
The simple fact is is that something like 95% of all users simply use there computers for text, email, and web. They don't need machines even exceeding 1Ghz let alone 3Ghz. In my oppinion the fact that the vast majority of existing computer users have machines with speeds in excess of 800MHz is the reason that computer sales has dropped off.

I think your absolutely right. I have a home music recording studio run by a Dual 800 G4 and have no problems there.

And from my work (network/system administration) I have a Compaq Armada P3 laptop at only a measy 600Mhz with 320MB of RAM and only 8MB of Video RAM. And it runs Windows XP Pro like a charm. I often have multiple applications open for the work I do and even watching musicvideos or listening to music in the meantime doesn't get my processor stressed out.

I know 2D/3D rendering depends on speed, but that is a small market compared to the whole computer market.

[cb911]

forget Intel... if Apple had to change chips manufacturers wouldn't they go to IBM?

[puffmarvin]

Originally posted by MacBandit
The simple fact is is that something like 95% of all users simply use there computers for text, email, and web. They don't need machines even exceeding 1Ghz let alone 3Ghz. In my oppinion the fact that the vast majority of existing computer users have machines with speeds in excess of 800MHz is the reason that computer sales has dropped off. If even 50% off all the existing computer users had a machine that ran in excess of 1GHz 40% of them would not need to upgrade there machine until it either broke or was no longer able to run new programs due to an architecture change. That would be a lot of lossed computer sales. I believe I am correct in what I have said here. I agree that my numbers are hypothetical but the simple fact is that most people do not need insane speed.

very true. but.. working in the computer retail biz, often i see people come in who want the biggest, fastest, and best machine available to do their email, some photos, some web surfing, etc. now when comparing numbers, dual 1.26 vs. intel p4 3.06, mac no longer has the lead.

does the new ibm chip, the power4(?), have anything comparable to HT technology? how would say the 1.4 ghz power4 compare to the 3.06 chip of intel? remember, intel is at this point right now and we have AT LEAST until the middle of next year before we get the new ibm chips. yes i think when they do come out they will be spectacular but are we happy just living in someones shadow, pulling up the rear to speak?

about converting the software... we dont want windows software. we still want our mac versions and i think we are all happy with them. i guess it would take a very long time to move the other apps across. i dont know anything about it because im not a developer but i would think it would be easy. obviously i have no idea.

im sorry for turning this into an argument thread on clock speeds!!

[Taft]

Originally posted by Choppaface
just my experience, but



yeah. when it takes ten seconds for indesign to refresh on my mac and two on my PC, it gets annoying



I've had the opposite experience... my dual 1900xp is great under full load, while my dual 500 G4 gets pretty gimpy at times

But the original poster had a 1GHz G4. The technology in those things is like 1??? 2??? 3??? years more advanced than your 500MHz? I know I got my 400MHz G4 about three years ago now, maybe a little less. Three years and 500 MHz can make a world of difference on Macs.

Taft

[lmalave]

Originally posted by MacBandit
The simple fact is is that something like 95% of all users simply use there computers for text, email, and web. They don't need machines even exceeding 1Ghz let alone 3Ghz. In my oppinion the fact that the vast majority of existing computer users have machines with speeds in excess of 800MHz is the reason that computer sales has dropped off. If even 50% off all the existing computer users had a machine that ran in excess of 1GHz 40% of them would not need to upgrade there machine until it either broke or was no longer able to run new programs due to an architecture change. That would be a lot of lossed computer sales. I believe I am correct in what I have said here. I agree that my numbers are hypothetical but the simple fact is that most people do not need insane speed.

This is so true. That's the reason I had no reservations about getting iBook 800 MHz G3 to replace my Dell Inspiron 5000 600 MHz P III. The P III was already more than fast enough, but was heavy and overheated and its display was doing this weird flickering thing (to me indicating that it was on the verge of failure). And the Desktop machine I have is still a Compaq with a 466 MHz AMD K6-2 (equivalent of a P II), and even that is more than fast enough for web browsing and Office!! The fact is, the Wintel world has tried to push the average consumer up a senseless CPU/OS upgrade spiral, and I agree with the previous post that the PC sales slowdown is mostly due to the fact that consumers are starting to wise up and realize they have no compelling reason to upgrade to the latest and fastest CPU.

[lmalave]

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-965972.html?tag=lh

Given this market, who knows, maybe Apples "Digital Hub" strategy will work better than PC makers who are just trying to push more MHz. Keep in mind, adding even a couple points of market share is HUGE for Apple. I have a feeling there are a lot of PC owners like me that, given the need or the desire to upgrade, are opting to buy iBooks, TiBooks, eMacs, or iMacs (Power Macs and XServes don't capture the consumers' imagination as much).

I hope Apple lowers its price for the eMac as rumored in another thread. I think that between the iBook/TiBook price drops and the possible eMac price drop, Apple's holiday sales are going to be huge, not only in absolute numbers but also in terms of market share of new computers sold.

[jefhatfield]

say what you want about photoshop, but the lastest macworld has a good set of benchmarks for the profile 4 vs the imac

there is only so much apple can do with the mhz myth dogma

sure, mhz for mhz and ghz for ghz, macs are faster...but as we say this the pc world is moving further ahead with each passing day

i am that 95 percent that does not need computing horsepower, so i am happy with my mac and don't care if i wait another year for a 1 ghz ibook

by then, the pc world will most likely be past 4 ghz

but for marketing purposes, many nebie buyers or switchers will ignorantly look to speed too much as a factor when in reality, speed will become a lesser issue with day to day computing for that 95 percent of us who use email, internet, and word processing (and perhaps some light graphics and gaming stuff)

[vniow]

What I found interesting about the tests is how little a difference Hyperthreading made in almost all of the benchmarks.http://forums.tactical-ops.to/images/smilies/hm.gif

[agreenster]

Originally posted by MacBandit
The simple fact is is that something like 95% of all users simply use there computers for text, email, and web. They don't need machines even exceeding 1Ghz let alone 3Ghz.

MAJOR EXCUSE!

TOTAL BS!

Everyone I KNOW is using PC's for digital video and animation! Even my MOTHER! PLUS, did everyone forget that Gaming, DVD playback and simple digital photo manipulation takes up processor time?

I love Apple, but bring on the faster chips already! How long can we wait????

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by agreenster


MAJOR EXCUSE!

TOTAL BS!

Everyone I KNOW is using PC's for digital video and animation! Even my MOTHER! PLUS, did everyone forget that Gaming, DVD playback and simple digital photo manipulation takes up processor time?

I love Apple, but bring on the faster chips already! How long can we wait????

you must be that five percent:D

[Stelliform]

I have at home an Athlon 650Mhz with 256MB or RAM. I am Running XP pro and I play UT every night and Castle Wolfenstien Occasionally. I have an nVidia 2 64MB in the computer. I seldom notice lost frames, and generally I kick alot of butt on the servers I play. I have not seen a need to upgrade except to have bragging rights. (Which sometimes I like to do). Now I don't rip music or play DVD's, but for general gaming a gig processor would suffice. (UT2K3 plays pretty well also.)

I think that in the gaming world, the hardware is quickly outpacing the software's needs. I will upgrade my home PC sometime next year, but I have yet to see a compelling reason to go to the trouble yet.

I guess I am one of the 95ers.

Or mabey I am just old school... I did start gaming with wolf 3d. :)

[mcrain]

Originally posted by puffmarvin
very true. but.. working in the computer retail biz, often i see people come in who want the biggest, fastest, and best machine available to do their email, some photos, some web surfing, etc. now when comparing numbers, dual 1.26 vs. intel p4 3.06, mac no longer has the lead.

I'm an attorney. I do a lot of word processing. I store digital pictures on my computer, and occassionally try to get rid of some red eye. I do a small amount of gaming. I do some internet browsing.

What did I buy you ask? Just barely enough computer for my needs!

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[mcrain]

Originally posted by Stelliform
Or mabey I am just old school... I did start gaming with wolf 3d. :)

Old School!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

Anyone else remember the old fur hunting text games? (Oregon trail or something like that) How bout Zork and the original wolfenstein?

Old School?? You're a pup, you don't know what old school is.

[Taft]

Originally posted by mcrain


Old School!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

Anyone else remember the old fur hunting text games? (Oregon trail or something like that) How bout Zork and the original wolfenstein?

Old School?? You're a pup, you don't know what old school is.

That's the stuff I grew up on. Zork, Castle Wolfendstein (the SS was BRUTAL), Lode Runner, Cannonball Blitz.

Did anyone out there play a text based game called Crypt of Medina or something like that? That was the last text game I played and it always pissed me off that I never finished it.

Taft

[hesdeadjim]

i loved oregon trail. killing the squirrels were the best. i loved how my grade school tried to make it all educational after all we did in computer lab was play video games. we used to play the old sim city, too. it was great. i wouldn't consider myself old school, im just in college, but oregon trails brings up great memories.

Wow, i was totally off topic.

Originally posted by mcrain


Old School!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

Anyone else remember the old fur hunting text games? (Oregon trail or something like that) How bout Zork and the original wolfenstein?

Old School?? You're a pup, you don't know what old school is.

[wdlove]

Want to see Apple choose whatever is in its best interest, sounds like IBM! Go Apple! Intel is tied with Windows.

[rjrufo]

You guys talking about games are all pups. There weren't any computers when I went to high school. When did Apple intoduce the computer to the world, 1984? That's when I graduated.

I wish I had a computer back then, though.

[Choppaface]

Originally posted by Taft


But the original poster had a 1GHz G4. The technology in those things is like 1??? 2??? 3??? years more advanced than your 500MHz? I know I got my 400MHz G4 about three years ago now, maybe a little less. Three years and 500 MHz can make a world of difference on Macs.

Taft

it became two years old as of end of october, and considering it was four grand it should last.... looking over the numbers and the number I've gotten from my system, as well as testing the new ones myself, the newest machines are about twice as fast and that's it. not that I'm complaining about it being outdated or whatnot, but it's really sad to see it chug through jag and then reboot into 9 for printing (damn jag epson drivers offer NO color control) and watch it fly

[Cappy]

Originally posted by rundevilrun
A couple thoughts (and trying to avoid the usual flame wars :) )...
1. It's only after effects. I have found that final cut pro is quite a bit faster than premiere on the same mac, I don't think adobe has os x optimizations figured out yet.

2. Is fact that the mac took 4.5 seconds on a photoshop test compared to 3.4 seconds for a pc meaningful?

3. 4 minutes to render something is still a long time, is the pc still responsive and usuable while rendering? I know my dual 1G mac is much more responsive compared to my 1800 Athlon when loading it down.

My take on the whole os x on x86 thing is Apple should consider it only if there is a clear and significant gain while not losing much in legacy binaries. Maybe if the G4 is still at 1.25G when P4 hits 4-5G.

Amazingly enough you manage to slant your points. :)

1. You're talking strictly Mac here. What's the point? OSX on x86 is the discussion.

2. Yes, while not huge those can be meaningful for someone in the business doing tedious, repetitive tasks.

3. This is really more of a software and OS issue than a hardware issue which is where OSX on x86 would likely prove to be just as responsive. BTW, Photoshop on a WinNT 4 or greater OS was always considered more responsive than a Classic Mac OS based system.

On your last point I actually believe Apple knows what they're doing. Now that can mean something different than what you think I'm implying. My point is that Apple knows what they're doing to be successful which could mean a number of things in the end.

Frankly you sound like you're in denial. I am exposed to both hardware platforms and can safely say that Apple and PPC has alot of catching up to do if they do not switch in the next year. IBM or Moto might be able to do it but should Apple wait and will their customers?

[Cappy]

Originally posted by MacBandit
The simple fact is is that something like 95% of all users simply use there computers for text, email, and web.

No offense but anyone who believes this in the big picture is very gullible to what the media publishes.

Yes, there are alot of folks who *mostly* use computers for the areas that you mention. Lets not forget though that in the consumer market games are a big part of what pushes hardware development thus accounting for more than the potential 5% you and others would have people believe.

Also in the business market sure many times the user only needs those functions but for the support crew to prep, maintain, and fix systems; faster systems cut down on labor costs. They also help maintain a more pleasant, snappy experience to the enduser if there is any sort of management or inventory software in place that runs in the background.

It's true that systems are being used for a longer period of time these days. Where I work we have P5-133's with Win2k running. To the user they run fine for what they're intended to do but for us, we had to bend over backward to make some of it work which took alot of time which translates to money. Boot times and process speed all factor in to this.

[xelterran]

I think apple needs to release a really fast computer for people who work in film/audio - even if it costs $10,000+ quad 2ghz power4 anyone..?

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Taft
I don't think that Apple NEEDS to move to x86 (or get faster processors) NOW. That implies that if they don't, there will be dire and irreversible consequences. As members of the Mac community, I'd be surprised if anyone here were willing to make that kind of bet. We've been here the "Apple is going out of business!" mantra for years and we're still going strong.



apple is going, and at times with a profit

going strong though?

stock below 20, no machine at 1.5 ghz, prices higher than competitors, slow os x development (what happened to that "clock")

the products apple makes are strong, as always, and even when apple was at its lowpoint in quality, they still ruled over the pc world

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by xelterran
I think apple needs to release a really fast computer for people who work in film/audio - even if it costs $10,000+ quad 2ghz power4 anyone..?

on a bto basis, that may work

many movie houses have their machines custom built and used only for that one movie...apple could have a hollywood division and i know sun and sgi do this, so why can't apple?

blair witch project was made on off the shelf macs, but one software editing title they used cost 20 grand!!!

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by xelterran
I think apple needs to release a really fast computer for people who work in film/audio - even if it costs $10,000+ quad 2ghz power4 anyone..?

Why? What purpose would that serve? Are you aware that $120,000 Avid Media/Film Composers are being replaced by $15,000-$20,000 G4 towers running FCP?


Originally posted by jefhatfield


on a bto basis, that may work

many movie houses have their machines custom built and used only for that one movie...apple could have a hollywood division and i know sun and sgi do this, so why can't apple?

blair witch project was made on off the shelf macs, but one software editing title they used cost 20 grand!!!

There might be custom setups for the CG, 3D animation, or FX rigs, but the vast majority of machines in LaLa Land's (Hollywood) post houses are "run of the mill" Avid systems and a quickly growing number of "off the shelf" G4 towers.

Something I think people don't realize (and I didn't realize this until I got into the industry) is that these products aren't all made start-to-finish on a single computer. To keep things simple I'll use a TV commercial as an example.

After the commercial is shot the footage is transfered from film to DigiBeta (a digital videotape format) and is sent to a post house to be be edited. This post house has 6 off-line edit suites and 1 on-line suite. The off-line suite is where 99% of the editing is done. It is usually at a lower-res (to save HDD space) and rough graffics and effects are also done during the off-line edit. After the commercial is done being edited it is sent to the on-line suite. The on-line suite imports the commercial at full res, applies the final graffics and effects, and does any sort of touching up and tweaking of the music video that might be needed (color correction, etc.,). The final product is then put back on DigiBeta ready for duplication and distrobution.

The off-line suites are the Avid machines that are being replaced by FCP.

The on-line suite is usually an SGI box running Smoke, Flame etc., although some places do run Avid's Symphony on an x86 box.


Lethal

[rundevilrun]

Originally posted by Cappy


Amazingly enough you manage to slant your points. :)

1. You're talking strictly Mac here. What's the point? OSX on x86 is the discussion.


My point is that until Adobe gets premiere optimized for os x a 3GHz P4 running an os x version of premiere will probably still be slower than the windows version.


2. Yes, while not huge those can be meaningful for someone in the business doing tedious, repetitive tasks.


That was more of a poke at the tester himself. He could have used photoshops' actions to create a tedious, repetitive benchmark test.


Frankly you sound like you're in denial. I am exposed to both hardware platforms and can safely say that Apple and PPC has alot of catching up to do if they do not switch in the next year. IBM or Moto might be able to do it but should Apple wait and will their customers?

I'm not in denial, I acknowledge that the P4 has a performance lead. I just don't think it's big enough to switch to x86. I'm all in favor of faster & better computers but after years of screwing around with windows and crappy x86 hardware have really made me appreciate the better part of that. :)

[Kid Red]

Originally posted by puffmarvin
before everyone starts flaming me let me say i am 100% a mac fan and 100% against windows. but... after reading this article and checking out the benchmarks of the new Intel 3.06 GHz chip i realized apple is in some deep water...

http://digitalvideoediting.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm

If you were 100% mac fan you wouln't have started this thread. They are comparing a 3.0ghz to a 1.25 and you don't think the article is a little biased?

The article is flame bait, I already flamed the author in an email.

[vniow]

Originally posted by Kid Red

They are comparing a 3.0ghz to a 1.25 and you don't think the article is a little biased?




They're being compared cuz they're both the top of the line.

A couple of dual 1.25 Ghz G4s is the very best and fastest Apple can deliver for the consumer line while one Intel PIV @ 3.06 Ghz is the best and fastest the Wintel world can deliver for the consumer line.

Apple's biggest fans are the ones that critizise them while supporting them at the same time.

[scem0]

Originally posted by Kid Red


If you were 100% mac fan you wouln't have started this thread. They are comparing a 3.0ghz to a 1.25 and you don't think the article is a little biased?

The article is flame bait, I already flamed the author in an email.

Edvniow is completely correct. And I don't think the article is very
biased. All the points he makes are correct, and everything he
says is true. He makes the mac seem worse then it actually is,
but he still has his facts straight. When it comes to speed, macs
shouldn't even try to compete. Hopefully this won't be the case
a year from now.

[sharvari]

The guy is an antimac bigot, look around, this FUD is being shredded everywhere, he's picked the program that was worse and structured the tests to make the mac look worse as well as irregularities in the testing proceedure. its a joke.

[markiv810]

The pc users always brag about the pentiums being faster. If anyone in the pc world had/has heard about the 128 bit altivec?? I have a link http://www.absoft.com/hunter.html check out the perfromance of an Altivec optimized application called Pro Fortran v8.0. Most of the softwares on the mac are ported and not re-written (optimized for the altivec) why blame Apple or Motorola for the screw up of developers. How many gigaflops does the new pentium 4 3.06 deliver? Intel sucks and everyone knows that. I read and article on Cnet stating that, 4 Itanium 2 (the second revision of Itanium) could deliver 13 Gigaflops. Now Itanium is a 64- bit processor, which I guess is known to everyone. Before complaining about how the mac sucks delivering fps on a ceratin game and how slow it is using graphics apps , or how slow Microsoft Word is on the mac, one should know the difference between a ported application and a native application.

[rEd Eye]

Originally posted by Stelliform
I think that in the gaming world, the hardware is quickly outpacing the software's needs

But all the same,the faster the hardware gets,the better the games can be made.It's fairly likely that some games of the future will look and and play as realistic as if you were watching a DVD at undiscernable FPS.
Anyone played Morrowind on the worlds fastest computer and GPU?It's still as slow as ****!But it looks great:D
And as far as the general need for speed is concerned,you can never have enough for multimedia activities.The better the hardware,the better the software!!!
I now own a dual gig quicksilver G4 which can run almost four Altiverb VST instances set to 0 latency at once!WOW!When I had my G4 400,I was lucky to run one and several audio tracks.Pre G4 400,the Altiverb is impossible.
I'm ALWAYS bumping my head on my dual gig!How many instances of a soft synth I can run at once means a lot to me.
Even for the email and such user,speed is nice.It's just less time waiting for things to happen,the ability to use your machine while tasks are being done and less chance your machine is going to choke to a grinding halt(Which I manage to make my G4 do all the time,BTW)
I use a 56k internet connection.Gawd its slow!I could spend half as much time on the web if pages would just load 10 times faster!It seems like all those seconds waiting for things on a computer just add up.BRING ON THE SPEED!I'm tired of "surfing" mediocre Apple hardware.I'll use every last % increase you can give me!
I'm buying my first laptop this year,and Apple did not win the bid!I'm buying one of these puppies FULLY loaded for much less than a fully loaded Powerbook would cost me.
http://pctorque.com/5620.php
(yes I like large heavy,2 hour battery life FULL featured notebooks)
This should tide me over untill Apple finaly figures out that speed IS an issue!

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by markiv810
The pc users always brag about the pentiums being faster. If anyone in the pc world had/has heard about the 128 bit altivec?? I have a link http://www.absoft.com/hunter.html check out the perfromance of an Altivec optimized application called Pro Fortran v8.0. Most of the softwares on the mac are ported and not re-written (optimized for the altivec) why blame Apple or Motorola for the screw up of developers. How many gigaflops does the new pentium 4 3.06 deliver? Intel sucks and everyone knows that. I read and article on Cnet stating that, 4 Itanium 2 (the second revision of Itanium) could deliver 13 Gigaflops. Now Itanium is a 64- bit processor, which I guess is known to everyone. Before complaining about how the mac sucks delivering fps on a ceratin game and how slow it is using graphics apps , or how slow Microsoft Word is on the mac, one should know the difference between a ported application and a native application.


Yay!, more excuses for the Mac... No one cares why Macs are slower, they just care that they are slower. But I'm glad you found an obscure, hand-optimized piece of software that runs faster on a Mac than on a PC (much more convincing than all the real-world apps I see in other tests). Of course, the link didn't say that the software was optimized for Pentium machine, so aren't you being hypacritical? You complain that tested software isn't altivec optimized, and then you show a comparison where the Mac wins on software not optimized for Intel? Of course when both machines run the same software version the 2ghz P4 thumps the dual gig Mac.

Just because Macs aren't the fastest rigs doesn't mean they aren't the best rigs for the job. So why don't we focus on what Macs can do better than PCs, concede that the x86 world is faster(because it is) and stop the whinning and excuses that makes Mac users look like they are in denial.


Lethal

EDIT: fixed some spelling

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe



Just because Macs are the fastest rigs doesn't mean they aren't the best rigs for the job. So why don't we focus on what Macs can do better than PCs, concede that the x86 world is faster(because it is) and stop the whinning and excuses that makes Mac users look like they are in denial.


Lethal

denial is the mac zealot's staple

that and fuzzy math

[markiv810]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe



Yay!, more excuses for the Mac... No one cares why Macs are slower, they just care that they are slower. But I'm glad you found an obscure, hand-optimized piece of software that runs faster on a Mac than on a PC (much more convincing than all the real-world apps I see in other tests). Of course, the link didn't say that the software was optimized for Pentium machine, so aren't you being hypacritical? You complain that tested software isn't altivec optimized, and then you show a comparison where the Mac wins on software not optimized for Intel? Of course when both machines run the same software version the 2ghz P4 thumps the dual gig Mac.

Just because Macs aren't the fastest rigs doesn't mean they aren't the best rigs for the job. So why don't we focus on what Macs can do better than PCs, concede that the x86 world is faster(because it is) and stop the whinning and excuses that makes Mac users look like they are in denial.


Lethal

EDIT: fixed some spelling

Now that we know that you don't know ***** about computers, there is no use explaining what a RISC or CISC stands for. As far as performance is concerenced. Do you know what Altivec is? The power PC has a velocity Engine (128 bit) which allows many operations to be executed in one cycle. Up to 16 differents operations. While f<cking pentiums have a 32 bit engine. This technology was previously used in supercomputer chips. When the G4 came out, The US government put a restriction on exports to terrorist countries.
What about sun chips running at 500 Mhz (not even 1GHz), are you going to tell me that they are slowers than P4. Study and read, do not make stupid assumptions bases on MHz/Ghz figures. The computer is not slow the applications suck. I have 2 laptops PB G4 550mhz and HP 1Ghz both having the same amount of ram and same kinda hard disk. The HP sucks with respect to the PB G4 550 in terms of speed. There is no cure for Pseudo-Geeks. Know before you talk. Is it apples fault if the developers are porting the apps in a ******* way?? By the way you guys suck. This is my last message to this forum. If you don't like the mac go buy yourself a f<cking pc use windows.

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by markiv810
Now that we know that you don't know ***** about computers, there is no use explaining what a RISC or CISC stands for. As far as performance is concerenced. Do you know what Altivec is? The power PC has a velocity Engine (128 bit) which allows many operations to be executed in one cycle. Up to 16 differents operations. While f<cking pentiums have a 32 bit engine. This technology was previously used in supercomputer chips. When the G4 came out, The US government put a restriction on exports to terrorist countries.
RISC, CISC are meaningless these days.

Really? The technology had previously been in supercomputers? That must mean that the Pentium-MMX powered supercomputers. Intel and AMD had SIMD before Motorola, that's exactly what Altivec is. Actually, SSE/SSE2/3DNow! are 64bit and runs at much faster rate than Altivec that doing this amount of operations doesn't matter anymore. 128bit is nice. Altivec is a nice SIMD, but it's lacking in features. Take, for example, double precision floating point. Here, even a Celeron 333 MHz running at 375 MHz beats a 933 MHz PowerPC G4. [link: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12506&perpage=25&highlight=FPMathTest&pagenumber=5] And the Pentium 4 2.8 GHz? Blows the Dualies way out. Now they have 3.06 GHz with HyperThreading. Watch out!
What about sun chips running at 500 Mhz (not even 1GHz), are you going to tell me that they are slowers than P4. Study and read, do not make stupid assumptions bases on MHz/Ghz figures. The computer is not slow the applications suck. I have 2 laptops PB G4 550mhz and HP 1Ghz both having the same amount of ram and same kinda hard disk. The HP sucks with respect to the PB G4 550 in terms of speed. There is no cure for Pseudo-Geeks. Know before you talk. Is it apples fault if the developers are porting the apps in a ******* way?? By the way you guys suck. This is my last message to this forum. If you don't like the mac go buy yourself a f<cking pc use windows.
Those Sun chips are different than the PowerPC and x86. Look at the prices for them. Way higher than Macs and x86. UltraSPARCs rock, but they're not in the same league as PowerPC and x86.

Let me guess, the 1GHz HP is a Pentium III. The G4 was designed to compete with the Pentium III. Now that they've had P4 since 2000 and just released the 3.06 GHz with HyperThreading technology. PowerPC G4 cannot compete. Period.

Yes, it is Apple's fault. They're not pushing enough. Plus, their compilers suck. Auto-optimization is good to have in compilers. Good thing Apple has been working on that, but it isn't making much difference. I'm as happy as ever with my Athlon machine that I chose to buy over a DP800. I run various OSes on my PC, even the Mac OS. In fact, I'm in the process of upgrading my processor from Athlon 1.4 GHz Thunderbird to 1.733 GHz Athlon XP, upgrading to 1 GB Corsair DDR RAM, all for less than the price of a G4 upgrade card.

I'm still waiting for the Mac that is worth buying. The OS is wonderful and all that, give me awesome hardware with it! The PowerPC 970 might as well be that Mac. We'll see.

Reality check:
Fact: PCs are way faster, like it or not. PowerPC G4 from Motorola is :o :o :o. They've had their time back in 1999/2000.

Fact: Ignorance is bliss for many.

[orangedv]

Oh really, HE doesn't know ***** about computers eh? Well, Mr smartypants, I have a word for you, (I am a pro mac user) BOTTLENECK. Know what that means? Let me explain; It doesn't matter dick if you have the world's best CPU if you stick it on a motherboard that is a slug, attach it to memory that belongs in a frigging museum, and feed it data off a hard drive that was cool when disco inferno was in the charts. I am sick to death of seeing zealots publish obscure test results involving programs that have no real world commercial use, that play around with idioticly small amounts of data to 'prove' how fast a CPU can run. Real world; I use files in Illustrator running to 80 megs (National newspaper ads) and photoshop files running to 600 megs and the powermac is a SLUG. Why? because the afformentioned crappy motherboard, hard disk and memory RUN the show, NOT the all singing dancing altiwhatever CPU. The Mac has a dangerously small market share, and if you keep this denial up, and Apple buys this nonsense rather than getting off their asses it will go out of business. The rest of the world is NOT impressed.

[rjrufo]

Just an idea, since this thread seems to be getting people a little bit POed. I was just on http://www.macosrumors.com, and they said what I was thinking, only better: "So, if this is important to you, it is in your interests to bend Apple's ear -- visit your local Apple Store, send an e-mail, make a phone call. As with most advancements to the platform, user demand is what drives it all."
Stop complaining to a forum that Apple may or may not read, and voice your concern to Apple directly.

I read this forum because I like the rumors of what may come in the future, not to read about everyones complaints about the company/hardware/software/whatever. Sure, everyone has their opinion, and everyone is intitled to express it. But don't think that your's is right and someone else's is wrong, it's just different.

[MacBandit]

Just to bring this to everyones attention.

Intel will be eating there own marketing tripe in a year or so. I know that a few of you know this but they will be replacing the Pentium 4s with the iTanium or another 64bit chip in a year and at that time they will be running at a max of 1.6GHz.

Where does this leave them. When all along they have been selling and marketing each new processor as the fastest things there is because it has a faster clock rate. Now they're going to have to eat there own marketing and spin a new one about how clock rate isn't the end all measurement of speed.

I know this was mentioned as a side note in a previous post but it was completely ignored so I decided repost it as the key topic.

[markiv810]

Originally posted by MacCoaster

RISC, CISC are meaningless these days.


Reality check:
Fact: PCs are way faster, like it or not. PowerPC G4 from Motorola is :o :o :o. They've had their time back in 1999/2000.

Fact: Ignorance is bliss for many.


Please sir check the facts. If macs were slow when in comes to calculations and floating point operations, why they are used badly in genetics labs or physics. Talking about double floating point operations that is *********.

You don't think that the kind of technology were used in supercomputing, check it out

http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/ALTIVECFACT.pdf

Also what about the pipe lines stages ??? How many 20 versus 7 ???? How about using the same old architecture for so many year, a well job done by intel.
If they are so slow, why the scientific department at NASA had embraced OS X and Macs, why the Biology department at Stanford have welcomed Macs in their labs, why the CIA
has adopted macs. These are people doing real work with computers where performance matters a lot. Also Why the game called Giants iis 300 MB on PC while being 900 MB on the Mac. Wasn't it ported ?? Your P4 consumes 68 W while the G4 consumes 30 W, and this is simply Intel did not do a good job by trying to maintain the same basically architecture and adding elements so much just to have the speed increase.
I have not being ignorant here, but I have talked to professors and developpers, it's simply true that apps are written for the PC market and then ported on the macs, and macs are faster than pc when it comes to calculations, you can really check it out for yourself, from real people doing real work, not from some geeks who do not know **** and thinking that they know better

[xelterran]

Just to bring this to everyones attention.

Intel will be eating there own marketing tripe in a year or so. I know that a few of you know this but they will be replacing the Pentium 4s with the iTanium or another 64bit chip in a year and at that time they will be running at a max of 1.6GHz.

Where does this leave them. When all along they have been selling and marketing each new processor as the fastest things there is because it has a faster clock rate. Now they're going to have to eat there own marketing and spin a new one about how clock rate isn't the end all measurement of speed.

Is the iTanium the Pentium5?? I thought the iTanium was only to be used in servers - high end workstations etc...

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by markiv810



Please sir check the facts. If macs were slow when in comes to calculations and floating point operations, why they are used badly in genetics labs or physics. Talking about double floating point operations that is *********.

You don't think that the kind of technology were used in supercomputing, check it out

http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/ALTIVECFACT.pdf

Also what about the pipe lines stages ??? How many 20 versus 7 ???? How about using the same old architecture for so many year, a well job done by intel.
If they are so slow, why the scientific department at NASA had embraced OS X and Macs, why the Biology department at Stanford have welcomed Macs in their labs, why the CIA
has adopted macs. These are people doing real work with computers where performance matters a lot. Also Why the game called Giants iis 300 MB on PC while being 900 MB on the Mac. Wasn't it ported ?? Your P4 consumes 68 W while the G4 consumes 30 W, and this is simply Intel did not do a good job by trying to maintain the same basically architecture and adding elements so much just to have the speed increase.
I have not being ignorant here, but I have talked to professors and developpers, it's simply true that apps are written for the PC market and then ported on the macs, and macs are faster than pc when it comes to calculations, you can really check it out for yourself, from real people doing real work, not from some geeks who do not know **** and thinking that they know better

macs are good enough for most things, but intel based computers are simply faster but not always in a way where it makes everyone take notice

[vniow]

Originally posted by xelterran


Is the iTanium the Pentium5?? I thought the iTanium was only to be used in servers - high end workstations etc...


Then again, IBM's Power4 was origionally only supposed to be a server ship, them they developed a derivative of it that which is to be destined for desktops.

Like the Itanium, the Power4 is too expensive, among other things, to be used in a desktop but an Itanium-lite could be adapted for the task.

[markiv810]

Originally posted by jefhatfield


macs are good enough for most things, but intel based computers are simply faster but not always in a way where it makes everyone take notice

They are faster because they have more MHZ ????? IS that the reason ????

[mrpepsi]

If Apple switched to Intel or AMD chips it would change the way they designed thier cases. My near silent iMac's that I use in the labs at the school that I work would change to the low drone of our PC labs.

One of the main reasons I love my Mac is because it is effecient. It doesn't make a lot of heat and thus it is silent.

Plus, if they switched to Intel CPU's Apple laptops would nolonger have the advantage of having longer battery time than any pc laptop.

There are tons of reasons why they should stay powerpc. The 970 promises a leap ahead. With IBM there should be many years of new cpu's to look foreward to.

I don't mind that my Mac is a little slower than my PC. I have my PC mainly to play games on. I use my Mac to work. I wish I could do both on my Mac but...maybe one day.

I'd rather use a computer that doesn't have to be restarted, and have it go a wee bit slower.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by markiv810


They are faster because they have more MHZ ????? IS that the reason ????

benchmarks

but mhz for mhz and ghz for ghz, apple computers are faster than the pc computers

but we have regrettably fallen behind

but for me, i am quite happy with what i use and see G3s and G4s

[demonx]

Being a long time PC user(still am) and just recenlty coming into the Mac world just got my new iBook on Friday.

I don't see what all the big fuss about super fast processors is anymore, it seems people just get fast, to say

"Wow I have the fastest processor there is, you only get 260fps per second, while I get 280 fps, nah nah!"
Considering the human eye does not perceive anything above 27fps or so, well:rolleyes:

I use to overclock my processor, tweak to no end on my PC, and upgrade every week almost, then I thought what am I really doing, am I noticing ANY of these new fangled changes, without the use of benhmarks to tell me I'm getting 20 more jigo gigaZ^67 flops per second, and the answer was usually no.

My iBook is only 800mhz but handles anything I have thrown at it on a daily basis thus far with no problems. Now it may not handle the top of the line game with all setting maxed out, but then again i have a full fledged desktop for those instances. I don't know maybe im just rambling but im tired of seeing higher clock speed just for the heck of it:rolleyes:

[vniow]

Originally posted by demonx
I don't see what all the big fuss about super fast processors is anymore, it seems people just get fast, to say

"Wow I have the fastest processor there is, you only get 260fps per second, while I get 280 fps, nah nah!"
Considering the human eye does not perceive anything above 27fps or so, well:rolleyes:




It's not all about gaming, sure a fast CPU can help in fps but personally I couldn't care about how many fps I get since I'm not a gamer, I want a fast CPU cuz I want to get into multimedia stuff. The only reason I'm not doing that right now is cuz I'm cursed with a 667Mhz PIII and can't afford an upgrade.
3.06 Ghz may be overkill for the majority of computer users but since digital cameras and camcorders are flying off the shelves, it's really not if you deal with this kind of stuff on a regular basis and can get the fastest render and conversion times possible at a good price.

For people like me, it helps to have the quickest performing hardware and software I can afford.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by markiv810
This is my last message to this forum. If you don't like the mac go buy yourself a f<cking pc use windows.


Didn't you say you were leaving?


Lethal

[lmalave]

Originally posted by demonx
Being a long time PC user(still am) and just recenlty coming into the Mac world just got my new iBook on Friday.

I don't see what all the big fuss about super fast processors is anymore, it seems people just get fast, to say

"Wow I have the fastest processor there is, you only get 260fps per second, while I get 280 fps, nah nah!"
Considering the human eye does not perceive anything above 27fps or so, well:rolleyes:

I use to overclock my processor, tweak to no end on my PC, and upgrade every week almost, then I thought what am I really doing, am I noticing ANY of these new fangled changes, without the use of benhmarks to tell me I'm getting 20 more jigo gigaZ^67 flops per second, and the answer was usually no.

My iBook is only 800mhz but handles anything I have thrown at it on a daily basis thus far with no problems. Now it may not handle the top of the line game with all setting maxed out, but then again i have a full fledged desktop for those instances. I don't know maybe im just rambling but im tired of seeing higher clock speed just for the heck of it:rolleyes:


I'm totally with you there. I have also come from the PC world where my last computer was an 8+ lb. desktop replacement monster that only got 2 hrs. battery life. And for what? I'm not even a gamer, and if I was why would I use a laptop? The only thing I thought I would use CPU for is to run servers (database, web) locally on my machine, so I could take my development environment home with me. Now I just connect securely via VPN to servers at work and use my laptop the way it was meant to be used - as a lightweight client machine.

I'm totally satisfied with my new 800MHz G3 iBook. Browsing is fast (IE is pretty darn fast and Chimera is even faster). It's got all the apps I need (Office, iTunes, DVD Player, Cisco VPN Client, etc), and it's built to last unlike my hunk-of-cheap-plastic Dell that it's replacing. I looked at all the laptop PC's out there and Apple seemed to have the best offering at the $1300 price level for a super lightweight, durable laptop with built-in DVD/CD-RW and long battery life. And notice that CPU speed wasn't a factor in my decision at all. The average consumer (not to mention the environment) would actually benefit more overall from having a slower but cooler running CPU and therefore a longer running yet lighter battery.

BTW, this is exactly why Apple is opening up all its retail stores. PC users like me need to be able to walk up to a Mac, actually use it, and see for themselves that Macs are more than fast enough to do anything they're going to actually use the computer for on a daily basis. Not to mention the fact that the Macs were built inside and out to be both aesthetically pleasing and a joy to use.

[benixau]

imalave. HOW DARE YOU!!!!! A JOY TO USE!!!!

A pc is a joy to use. under XP pro. You dont use a mac, you dont need a mac, you enjoy a mac. end of story.

a pc is great to use. But the day i do that with my mac well ... i sit down and enjoy sitting at my mac.

HOW DARE YOU .....


PS. i know how your feel demonx. All that cash for what??? zippo in real terms. unless you play doom 26 at 4096x2560 with all high details.

[sharvari]

For some applications that mac are traditionally used for, video and audio editing in particular, power matters. Bigtime. Most power users have at least one task in which these things matter, for me its compile time on code. I'm buying a new 1Ghz TiBook in a few weeks, why? Becase it whips the crud out of any other laptop on the market, hands down, and i love MacOS. It will be my first mac since an LC2. What got me though is the RAM, PC133-SDRAM? Are you kidding me? The guy above me is correct, the REALLY need to get better ram, and better HDs in systems and fast for better peformance.

[JupiterZen]

Originally posted by edvniow
For people like me, it helps to have the quickest performing hardware and software I can afford.

I was doing full screen PAL video editing on 100Mhz Powermac 7500 computers some 7 years back and it was no problem with additional SCSI disks and some AVID hardware. And Full DV video editting and 3D animation on only a 400Mhz G3.

So no-one NEEDS a 3Ghz computer to do video. But I must admit that faster always works nicer, but you can do DV video editting with just about any mac running 300Mhz or more.

And when you start with a slower machine you learn to get the most out of it. You learn to tweak to get performance and in the process you develop a better understanding of the system.

Just my 2 cents.

:rolleyes:

[benixau]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH


Oh, wait your being nice to macs, sorry. But you shall not have more porcessing power until we have sold enough of these chips -- moto

[lmalave]

Originally posted by benixau
imalave. HOW DARE YOU!!!!! A JOY TO USE!!!!

A pc is a joy to use. under XP pro. You dont use a mac, you dont need a mac, you enjoy a mac. end of story.

a pc is great to use. But the day i do that with my mac well ... i sit down and enjoy sitting at my mac.

HOW DARE YOU .....


PS. i know how your feel demonx. All that cash for what??? zippo in real terms. unless you play doom 26 at 4096x2560 with all high details.

Sheesh! To quote Dr. Evil: "Take it dowwwwwn a notch." If you want Apple to grow above 5% market share, then you will have to accept the fact that Apple will get a lot of new buyers like me that buy Macs because they have a superior interface that actually helps them *use* software (and hardware e.g. iPod or Palm) to be more *productive* and, yes, have fun doing it. For most people computers are a tool, not an end unto themselves. Fortunately, Apple gets this and, despite a reputation to the contrary, doesn't put form over function. Apple has designers that actully put some thought into user interface design (both software and hardware), unlike PC imitators that copy the most superficial aspects of Apple's designs to make them "look" like a Mac, but fail to grasp that almost every little detail of a Mac actually has a purpose that contributes to usability.

[vniow]

Originally posted by JupiterZen

And when you start with a slower machine you learn to get the most out of it. You learn to tweak to get performance and in the process you develop a better understanding of the system.

Just my 2 cents.

:rolleyes:


Hell, that's what I'm doing now but it sure as hell would be nice to have a 3ghz computer right now.
I never said that you can't do editing with a slower computer, you just get more out of it if you can do it quicker.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by JupiterZen


I was doing full screen PAL video editing on 100Mhz Powermac 7500 computers some 7 years back and it was no problem with additional SCSI disks and some AVID hardware. And Full DV video editting and 3D animation on only a 400Mhz G3.

So no-one NEEDS a 3Ghz computer to do video. But I must admit that faster always works nicer, but you can do DV video editting with just about any mac running 300Mhz or more.

And when you start with a slower machine you learn to get the most out of it. You learn to tweak to get performance and in the process you develop a better understanding of the system.

Just my 2 cents.

:rolleyes:

I agree that you can pretty much edit video on any Mac made in the past 7 years or so...

...but rendering times are a b**ch. :D

Lethal

[Cappy]

Originally posted by JupiterZen


I was doing full screen PAL video editing on 100Mhz Powermac 7500 computers some 7 years back and it was no problem with additional SCSI disks and some AVID hardware. And Full DV video editting and 3D animation on only a 400Mhz G3.

So no-one NEEDS a 3Ghz computer to do video. But I must admit that faster always works nicer, but you can do DV video editting with just about any mac running 300Mhz or more.

And when you start with a slower machine you learn to get the most out of it. You learn to tweak to get performance and in the process you develop a better understanding of the system.

Just my 2 cents.

:rolleyes:

There's a point to add here you fail to mention. Faster systems can allow for cheaper overall solutions. That AVID hardware isn't cheap and lots of folks would love to cut that cost out of their budget.

[JupiterZen]

Originally posted by edvniow



Hell, that's what I'm doing now but it sure as hell would be nice to have a 3ghz computer right now.
I never said that you can't do editing with a slower computer, you just get more out of it if you can do it quicker.

No personal offence meant in my last post. But everybody here seemed to be whining about the new 3Ghz P4 all the time, as they would die without it. Just wanted to give a little compensation ;)

If you're serious about doing video and 3D then I'd recommend the Dual 1.25Ghz Powermac. Just because they may be not as fast as the 3Ghz P4. That doesn't mean that they are useless crap. I have a Dual 800 (first dual quicksilver installment) and doing video on it is like a charm.

I know rendering times are high if you are working on a large animation, but the 3Ghz is only gonna take some minutes from that time (maybe a couple of hours if you're lucky) compared to a 2Ghz computer.

So until you can afford yourself a real render farm, you must plan the rendering at night or on other times you don't need to be at your computer.

[JupiterZen]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe


I agree that you can pretty much edit video on any Mac made in the past 7 years or so...

...but rendering times are a b**ch. :D

Lethal

I know. But what is the difference in rendering times gonna be on a large animation between a dual 1.25Ghz G4 and a 3Ghz P4? The difference is only gonna be a couple of hours max. In this stage you were rendering while you slept anyway, so that really doesn't make a very large difference.

Serious companies buy a renderfarm. Doing pro stuff on only one computer and you will have to find workarounds for the rendering problem by planning it while you are away or asleep.

[JupiterZen]

Originally posted by Cappy


There's a point to add here you fail to mention. Faster systems can allow for cheaper overall solutions. That AVID hardware isn't cheap and lots of folks would love to cut that cost out of their budget.

I hear what you say, but AVID hardware was only really nessesary in the times of 100Mhz computers. We are way past that station already. So it 's not so hard anymore to cut that cost. Just buy a reasonably new computer and it will do DV video without much problems.

If you're budget allows for buying the latest Powermacs, go for it. They will do the job. And I wouldn't want to have to try it on a 3Ghz P4 because Windows just doesn't cut it for me as a workable OS.

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by markiv810
Please sir check the facts. If macs were slow when in comes to calculations and floating point operations, why they are used badly in genetics labs or physics. Talking about double floating point operations that is *********.
Why isn't double precision valid? Oh, because Athlons and Pentiums outperforms the G4s in double precision 10 to 20 times, maybe even better with HT.

You know that the G4's FPU core blows. It's based on the 60x series of the PowerPC line.
You don't think that the kind of technology were used in supercomputing, check it out

http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/ALTIVECFACT.pdf
I was sarcastic saying that because if you didn't notice, Intel had the MMX in the Pentium-MMX and AMD had the 3DNow! in the K6 long before Motorola with the AltiVec. Fact is, POWER4, which is supposedly a very powerful chip used in supercomputers, doesn't even have a SIMD, until the PowerPC 970 implementation of the POWER4 architecture. There are also many supercomputers with thousands of 604e processors and guess what, 604e doesn't even have a SIMD.
Also what about the pipe lines stages ??? How many 20 versus 7 ???? How about using the same old architecture for so many year, a well job done by intel.
Pipeline sizes are design decisions. Intel had to make a decision and they made a pretty damn good one. Have many pipelines, scale it way further with MHz, and HT; mix in years of experience, mistakes, and modification: you've got the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz that blows out the G4. Problem with having such a low pipeline count is that it might not be able to scale much further in a single processor configuration.

Looking at the G4, its been left behind and Motorola isn't doing much to it.

Using an old architecture is sometimes a VERY good thing. UNIX is well over 30 years old and still going strong. PowerPC has proven a disaster in the past year or two in Macs. Kinda funny that the x86 architecture was so-so until 486 where it hit the wall. But Intel remained committed, and look where it got them at. They've got the world's fastest desktop processor with awesome innovations like HyperThreading. G4 has basically been static, just clock scaling [when the hell are we ever getting the .15m, much less the .13m G4?].
If they are so slow, why the scientific department at NASA had embraced OS X and Macs, why the Biology department at Stanford have welcomed Macs in their labs, why the CIA
has adopted macs. These are people doing real work with computers where performance matters a lot.
When the hell did software come in? I thought we were talking about raw hardware.

The real question is when did they adopt the Macs? After Mac OS X? That explains why. It's Mac OS X combined with a couple of nice software.
Also Why the game called Giants iis 300 MB on PC while being 900 MB on the Mac. Wasn't it ported ??
Again, when the hell were we talking about software?
Your P4 consumes 68 W while the G4 consumes 30 W, and this is simply Intel did not do a good job by trying to maintain the same basically architecture and adding elements so much just to have the speed increase.
I don't have a Pentium 4 but an AMD Athlon XP rather. But it doesn't matter. For laptops, sure it matters. But for desktops, it doesn't really matter. It stays plugged in all the time and I have done the proper cooling measures. The Athlon is happy as ever.

I disagree that Intel didn't do a good job. If they didn't do a good job, then why the hell is the 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 the world's fastest desktop processor? We've seen one version of Altivec with Motorola. We've seen a couple versions of 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, and soon to come SSE3. Who's innovating? Intel and AMD, not Motorola. Granted it's not Apple's fault, but it's what Apple choice.
I have not being ignorant here, but I have talked to professors and developpers, it's simply true that apps are written for the PC market and then ported on the macs, and macs are faster than pc when it comes to calculations, you can really check it out for yourself, from real people doing real work, not from some geeks who do not know **** and thinking that they know better
AGAIN, when did SOFTWARE come in the equation? This thread is a hardware thread.

PowerPCs are faster than PC processors when it comes to calculations per MHz for MHz, but since Intel and AMD are so way ahead of PowerPC G4. And yes, I've checked it out myself. Have you even bothered to check out that double precision thing I mentioned earlier? Run it and check out other peep's statistics. You'll see the PowerPC G4 blows there.

And why, thank you, for that personal attack! I'm truly enlighted by that. I'm a developer doing web stuff using a various of technologies--PHP, ASP, .NET, etc. That isn't work, eh?

[markiv810]

Originally posted by MacCoaster



And why, thank you, for that personal attack! I'm truly enlighted by that. I'm a developer doing web stuff using a various of technologies--PHP, ASP, .NET, etc. That isn't work, eh?

Just a personal Question dude, what is your favorite platform ? I guess you must be a pretty good developer then, so have you ever look on any development on the OS X Platform, and tell me what u think.

Cheers

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by markiv810
Just a personal Question dude, what is your favorite platform ? I guess you must be a pretty good developer then, so have you ever look on any development on the OS X Platform, and tell me what u think.

Cheers
Since you asked, I'll answer. This is a really hard question. Different platforms are used for different purposes.

If I need a quick database job, I'd do PHP + MySQL. They're great for that. I'd defintely use a UNIX host, but no way in hell a Mac server based Host farm. Macs need to stay away from internet serving.

If I need a full scale database job, definitely Microsoft .NET. It's a fantastic platform in my professional opinion. Microsoft's 10 years worth of work on .NET has definitely paid off since I was about to give up on Windows development because of the Visual C++ hell, the DLL hell, MFC ****, etc. But now, Microsoft has fixed those problems, introduced a beautiful new language (C#) that embrace and further Java-type technology combined with a solid Windows NT spine. Microsoft finally has a winner combo.

Yes, I've looked at development on the OS X platform. My opinion: it's awesome. Problem: cost, market, etc. Besides, I can have Cocoa/objective-C with GNUstep on Linux.