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Powerbook Question
- Thread starter utdbear
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This question is Common, however there really isn't a comparison.
The Mac is more geared to processing the complex floating point numbers, where as PCs are geared toward simple Intergers.
However long story short... an 867 Powebook is slower than a PowerMac 867. A Powermac 867 with 512MB RAM and OSX is about equal to a 2.0-2.2 Ghz Pentium 4 running Windows XP or an 1800 Athlon XP/MP running Windows XP (Same RAM) (+/- 100Mhz)
Therefore an 867 Powerbook would be about equal to the same as above, however with the Pentium 4m or the Athlon4 processor.
The one great advantage a PB has over a PC is battery life, and ... IT WON'T BE OBSOLETE AFTER 2 YEARS.
TEG
The Mac is more geared to processing the complex floating point numbers, where as PCs are geared toward simple Intergers.
However long story short... an 867 Powebook is slower than a PowerMac 867. A Powermac 867 with 512MB RAM and OSX is about equal to a 2.0-2.2 Ghz Pentium 4 running Windows XP or an 1800 Athlon XP/MP running Windows XP (Same RAM) (+/- 100Mhz)
Therefore an 867 Powerbook would be about equal to the same as above, however with the Pentium 4m or the Athlon4 processor.
The one great advantage a PB has over a PC is battery life, and ... IT WON'T BE OBSOLETE AFTER 2 YEARS.
TEG
That was an extremely biased answer to utdbear's question (which I guess is to be expected on a Mac website though I'd hope for more objectivity)
The Athlon to Pentium comparison is correct. The 867Mhz to the Pentium 4 is not. Side-by-side, the Pentium 4 2.0-2.2Ghz will be faster than a PPC 867Mhz without question.
Utdbear, the best thing to do is experiment with a program you like to run alot on both machines and see which is acceptable. The advantage on the Mac is the OS.
As for floating-point (fp) verses integer, the explaination was laughably slanted. Fp is used (if writing efficient code) where accuracy is not needed or impossible/improbable (graphics, audio,etc.) Integer calc is used anytime exactness (which is true by virtue of addressing bits) is needed. If possible, good coders should use integers (and cast back and forth to fp when necessary) unless the end result would not be impacted by using fp calcs (ie, the ear can only discern so much in the way of audible frequencies and their shifts and eyes and monitors (CRTs and LCDs) can only project so much exactness where processing more detail becomes irrelavent and just hogs processing clock cycles and memory)
In terms of instructions, fp tends to be more simplistic than integer calcs, so setting an impression that the PPC is better simply based on fp vs integer is silly.
Intel processors have excelled in integer calculations whereas PPC and the old Moto chips are more fp driven.
Intel's extra-clocking on their chips helps diminish some of the fp difference between PPC and x86, whereas the PPC evolution to even out the integer difference has included adding more integer units. (What it'll come down to is programs that are graphic intensive will usually be faster on Macs whereas integer intensive apps will be much faster on Intel. This shifts when Intel attempts to move into the lead on fp by "brute force" (excessive clocking) or pushing fp calcs to specialized on-chip parts that are added on (MMX tech and SMID instruction sets))
(this is a gross simplification of the process but more accurate than the previous response)
My desktop is a 1600+ Athlon XP, and it doesn't seem noticeably slower or faster than my 867 12" PB when using Office, Photoshop, etc. Both suit my needs well, but I'm not much of a "power user." OS X beats the hell out of XP though... I hardly ever use my desktop anymore!
Speed is not the issue
The processor speed may be one of the multiple factors.
A Powerbook is more flexible than a PC laptop and it will save you a lot of time in other issues.
For example, this was my day today.
I have a Powerbook G3 500 (3 years old computer), this is the serie before the 15" came along.
I work with video, Final Cut Pro and After Effects. When rendering my computer is very slow, I'm behind Macs and PCs. So, lets not talk about that kind of speed.
But... I went to a friedn of mine, he has a 12" Powerbook and I need to transfer some files to him very quickly and he had to do the same, from one computer to the other.
In a PC world I would have to do it via network, that mean configuring each system, that can take easy 30 minutes, may be less if booth are expert and run the same version of the OS.
Well he has OSX and I have OS9, what we did? I conected my computer via firewire with a function that only Macitosh computers with firewire ports have and in less than 1 minute we transfer 2 GB of information between booth computers.
So, I can have 4 4Ghz Pentium processor but I would never are gonna have that flexibility in the PC world, that speed counts even more than the processor speed.
In the working environment you can not waist an entire morning instaling, transfering or configuring stuff. In the Mac environment you will do what you want to do, the processor speed will help 10% of your time at the end.
That is why Macs last longer and the value is always high. Talking about processor speed only it is very good for PC users but at the time of having a reliable system you will ahve to pay the same ammount, just compare Sony VAIO with Apple Powerbooks, and still you will not get the same advantages un less you are a very experience person using M$ OS. With Mac you will only will have to remember some tips, with Windows you will need THE experience to troubleshot your computer.
The processor speed may be one of the multiple factors.
A Powerbook is more flexible than a PC laptop and it will save you a lot of time in other issues.
For example, this was my day today.
I have a Powerbook G3 500 (3 years old computer), this is the serie before the 15" came along.
I work with video, Final Cut Pro and After Effects. When rendering my computer is very slow, I'm behind Macs and PCs. So, lets not talk about that kind of speed.
But... I went to a friedn of mine, he has a 12" Powerbook and I need to transfer some files to him very quickly and he had to do the same, from one computer to the other.
In a PC world I would have to do it via network, that mean configuring each system, that can take easy 30 minutes, may be less if booth are expert and run the same version of the OS.
Well he has OSX and I have OS9, what we did? I conected my computer via firewire with a function that only Macitosh computers with firewire ports have and in less than 1 minute we transfer 2 GB of information between booth computers.
So, I can have 4 4Ghz Pentium processor but I would never are gonna have that flexibility in the PC world, that speed counts even more than the processor speed.
In the working environment you can not waist an entire morning instaling, transfering or configuring stuff. In the Mac environment you will do what you want to do, the processor speed will help 10% of your time at the end.
That is why Macs last longer and the value is always high. Talking about processor speed only it is very good for PC users but at the time of having a reliable system you will ahve to pay the same ammount, just compare Sony VAIO with Apple Powerbooks, and still you will not get the same advantages un less you are a very experience person using M$ OS. With Mac you will only will have to remember some tips, with Windows you will need THE experience to troubleshot your computer.
Re: Speed is not the issue
(If it works properly on a PC is another ting! Mac's usually is a better plug and play machine)
If you know something about the machine and software you are running, this will take you about 2 minutes to fix.
This is possible in the PC-world too! You can also use firewire as TCP/IP. This was possible on Windows long before Mac's. Seems like your arguments blew away . .
(If it works properly on a PC is another ting! Mac's usually is a better plug and play machine)
A P4 2GHz is way faster than a G4 867! A Dual 867 would be a better machine to compare with when it comes to Photoshop etc, but a singel cpu doesn't stand a chance!
Have you ever heard of Centrino machines using Pentium -M ? Many of these machines have more batterylife than all Apple portables!
I do agree, Macs surly keeps their value longer! Simply because their adorable and like IBM, Apple don't gamle with new hardware-technology!
Re: Re: Speed is not the issue
well no, your arguments blew away. Mac users have firewire target disk mode. While you can right click network places, and give each of your firewire ports an IP number and matching subnet, all us mac users have to do is hold down the T key. kind of like booting off a cd, us mac users hold down c key while windows users have to look at the ugly bios. sure our macs can do what your pcs can do, apple just thinks about it a little more and makes it much more easy and less time consuming.
iJon
well no, your arguments blew away. Mac users have firewire target disk mode. While you can right click network places, and give each of your firewire ports an IP number and matching subnet, all us mac users have to do is hold down the T key. kind of like booting off a cd, us mac users hold down c key while windows users have to look at the ugly bios. sure our macs can do what your pcs can do, apple just thinks about it a little more and makes it much more easy and less time consuming.
iJon
Re: Re: Re: Speed is not the issue
Perhaps a crossed USB2 cable would be smarter or a crossed firewire if that excist.
Most bios have the CD-bot as primary, so all you have to do is press enter when the screen says "Boot from CD".
I know how target mode works. To bad only one computer can be used at a time. There you lost 50% of your worktime! What would be great was if you just plugged in the firewire cable and each other HD came up in Finder. All you have to do is type in the password for shared folder or user.
Perhaps a crossed USB2 cable would be smarter or a crossed firewire if that excist.
Most bios have the CD-bot as primary, so all you have to do is press enter when the screen says "Boot from CD".
Re: Re: Speed is not the issue
This is not using Firewire as TCP/IP it is mounting one machine as a hard drive on the other. A much faster interface
UMMM 1000Mhz bus, AGP 8, PCI extreme, Built in bluetooth,
While it is true that apple can be slow on hardware ventures they tend to catch up with a bang
mattmack:
correction, not "PCI extreme" but PCI-X (totally different technology) is what Apple is using
However, everything but the 1Ghz bus has been well tested (AGP 8 and bluetooth built-in are over a year old and PCI-X has existed in workstations for almost 2 yrs; I have seven PCI-X slots in a box right next to me from 2 yrs ago) Too bad Apple didn't go with PCI Extreme seeing as all the benefits of PCI-X have been nullified by the voltage requirements (making PCI-X not truly backwards compatible to PCI) and the Intel side will have PCI Extreme on the market during the 4thQ in consumer machines (and PCI Extreme is poised to replace all card interfaces including AGP because of its bandwidth-- I know there are already chipsets being developed to move PCI Extreme to laptops which means laptops will finaly matchup to desktops in bus performance)
correction, not "PCI extreme" but PCI-X (totally different technology) is what Apple is using
However, everything but the 1Ghz bus has been well tested (AGP 8 and bluetooth built-in are over a year old and PCI-X has existed in workstations for almost 2 yrs; I have seven PCI-X slots in a box right next to me from 2 yrs ago) Too bad Apple didn't go with PCI Extreme seeing as all the benefits of PCI-X have been nullified by the voltage requirements (making PCI-X not truly backwards compatible to PCI) and the Intel side will have PCI Extreme on the market during the 4thQ in consumer machines (and PCI Extreme is poised to replace all card interfaces including AGP because of its bandwidth-- I know there are already chipsets being developed to move PCI Extreme to laptops which means laptops will finaly matchup to desktops in bus performance)
Re: Re: Speed is not the issue
you just said it yourself... "if you know something"
with macs, you don't really have to know much of anything to make things work, in general. (not always, but generally... which i think is the point mymemory was impling. i don't think he was saying these are things macs can do but pcs can't.)
centrino part, i agree. it's a great hardware. however, you are bordering on trolling when you say apple doesn't "gamble." ditching floppy, widely adopting usb and completely re-making the OS based on UNIX/BSD are pretty significant gambles.
you just said it yourself... "if you know something"
with macs, you don't really have to know much of anything to make things work, in general. (not always, but generally... which i think is the point mymemory was impling. i don't think he was saying these are things macs can do but pcs can't.)
centrino part, i agree. it's a great hardware. however, you are bordering on trolling when you say apple doesn't "gamble." ditching floppy, widely adopting usb and completely re-making the OS based on UNIX/BSD are pretty significant gambles.
Re: Powerbook Question
Megahertz myth and fp/integer processing questions aside, there's also the question of perception. On the same hardware, some will say OS X is snappy and responsive, while others will say it's unforgivably, unusably slow. All the numbers and rationalizations in the world won't tell you which will be true for you. Legion has the best advice...find yourself a retail Mac display where you can try out the software you'll be using, and see what you think.
And of course, user experience can trump any considerations of specifications. I'd rate Windows 2000 on this Compaq 1.8 GHz P4 as being every bit as stable, more or less as usable, a definite shade faster, and a larger shade less pleasant than OS X on the 667 MHz G4 TiBook. Now, that's just my own perception, but it might be worth noting that I see so little difference in performance on a Mac less than half the MHz speed of my work system that my preference for the Mac OS more than makes up the difference.
If I was actually responsible for maintaining my work PC, instead of leaving it to the company's IT department, I'd feel less charitable towards the PC (given my experience supporting my parents' Windows installations). That's a consideration that would tip the scales further in the Mac's favor.
Megahertz myth and fp/integer processing questions aside, there's also the question of perception. On the same hardware, some will say OS X is snappy and responsive, while others will say it's unforgivably, unusably slow. All the numbers and rationalizations in the world won't tell you which will be true for you. Legion has the best advice...find yourself a retail Mac display where you can try out the software you'll be using, and see what you think.
And of course, user experience can trump any considerations of specifications. I'd rate Windows 2000 on this Compaq 1.8 GHz P4 as being every bit as stable, more or less as usable, a definite shade faster, and a larger shade less pleasant than OS X on the 667 MHz G4 TiBook. Now, that's just my own perception, but it might be worth noting that I see so little difference in performance on a Mac less than half the MHz speed of my work system that my preference for the Mac OS more than makes up the difference.
If I was actually responsible for maintaining my work PC, instead of leaving it to the company's IT department, I'd feel less charitable towards the PC (given my experience supporting my parents' Windows installations). That's a consideration that would tip the scales further in the Mac's favor.
Re: Re: Re: Speed is not the issue
Apple ditched floppy for 2 reasons; lower costs (1 less drive in each machine is good for the bottom line), and free press ("1st major computer manufacturer" blah blah blah).
OS 9 is junk. Bad memory management, stability issues etc etc. OS X was a huge leap into the 21st Century. It was a classic case of Apple falling far behind, and then catching and surpassing the competition in one fell swoop. The problem is, Apple usually sits on their hands in times like this. Maybe this time they won't, but I wouldn't put my money on it...
I have to disagree with you here.
Apple ditched floppy for 2 reasons; lower costs (1 less drive in each machine is good for the bottom line), and free press ("1st major computer manufacturer" blah blah blah).
OS 9 is junk. Bad memory management, stability issues etc etc. OS X was a huge leap into the 21st Century. It was a classic case of Apple falling far behind, and then catching and surpassing the competition in one fell swoop. The problem is, Apple usually sits on their hands in times like this. Maybe this time they won't, but I wouldn't put my money on it...
Sorry My bad about PCI extreme.
But you really can't get a viao or a compaq with a 1Ghz bus and so on and so on I know they are out there as workstations and custom built units but if you compare apple to other major computer manufacturers then the new hardware stacks up nicely. Apple has been slow in the past to adopt new technology but hopefully that is changing
Sorry it took me so long to respond, I have been without computer for the weekend so I didn't have time to come to the computer labs. I produce a show at my church, so I will have the essential software for that(Final Cut, Photoshop), but I will be running off of house power when I am running those applications, but I am a student in school too, and I'll be running office apps to take notes, type papers, etc which I will need the battery. I am thinking about a 867 TiBook 15" or a 1GHz, but I am kind of nervous about waiting because I am without a machine right now and really need one to do my work in school/church but at the same time want to wait for a new one to come out. Thanks for the help