A megahertz question [Archive]

G5orbust

Oct 23, 2003, 06:09 PM

Well, it depends.

Id peg the 800MHz G4 ibook to compete with the low end Centrino laptops (1.3GHz and below), though the iBook costs a pretty penny less than a Centrino solution.

As a rule of thumb for me, I always jsut multiplied the Apple rated MHz speed by 2 or 2.25(sometimes even 2.75 to 3) to compare with x86 chips, especially Pentium chips with their unrefined clock speeds that do not accurately read performance. For AMD chips, I drop my multiplier to 1.5 to 1.75 (sometimes even 2) because of the efficient clock cycles AMD chips are known for.

Newer chips however, like the Athlon 64 series and the G5, are on a whole new level and are hard to gauge.

pyrotoaster

Oct 23, 2003, 06:55 PM

The simple answer is yes. But things are never that simple.

When just comparing raw clock speeds (which is at most half the power equation), the G4 is going to do quite well against a Pentium (particularly the poorly designed P4). A G4 will beat out any Pentium (or AMD for that matter) of the same clock speed, and will beat out Pentiums (particularly the P4) for up to another 1 GHz (the G4 doesn't compare quite as well with P3s or AMDs).

Of course, there are plenty of other things to consider, too. Most importantly there's RAM and cache. The new iBooks are intentionally lacking in both departments (the Powerbooks are far more powerful there).

A 1.4 GHz Pentium will probably give an 800 MHz G4 a good run for its money, but a 1 GHz G4 has got Intel beat.

My advice would be to avoid the new iBook, and opt for a Powerbook (12 or 15 inch) instead (unless you're really on a budget, in which case the iBook has a whole lot of bang for the buck). The boosted cache and higher max RAM really makes a difference in overall power.

Vlade

Oct 23, 2003, 08:13 PM

Originally posted by G5orbust
Well, it depends.
As a rule of thumb for me, I always jsut multiplied the Apple rated MHz speed by 2 or 2.25(sometimes even 2.75 to 3) to compare with x86 chips

I would say maybe 1.5 for most things, 3 is WAY to much, compare any photoshop test with a 3GHZ p4 vs a DUAL 1.25GHZ mac, the g4 gets STOMPED every time

alphaone

Oct 23, 2003, 08:28 PM

Hey Vlade, what's up with your 'tar? Are you saying that windows is good and macs are bad???:confused:

rice_web

Oct 23, 2003, 09:00 PM

First off, the Centrino is an enhanced Pentium III, a chip that pretty well matched the G4 back in the day. Therefore, do not expect an 800MHz G4 to come close to a 1300MHz Centrino (it fares well, but it's not really close).

Against the Pentium IV, the G4 kicks ass. However, the G4 has only recently taken on a smaller manufacturing process that Intel is already improving upon (130nm to 90nm). Quite simply, this means that the G4 will likely never be a competitor with the P4 (that's what the G5 is for).

The Athlon has been a solidly built chip over the years, and has performed very well clock for clock versus the G4. I might give the G4 a slight edge in clock for clock. However (and again), the G4 clocks not even remotely close to the Athlon's top clock speed at present. AMD will also be switching to a 90nm process, which will mean a significant speed boost across the line. Motorola has just begun 130nm.

jonapete2001

Oct 23, 2003, 09:07 PM

Intel chips are horible when it comes to power per clock cycle. the new amd chips compare a 2.2 athlon xp (non 64) to a 3.2 ghz p4. THis is just the desparity with in x86 chips. I would say when comparing g4 to p4 multiply the g4 by 2. when comparing a g4 to an amd chip multiply by 1.5. This is just my estimate. the whole thing is just an estimate because one has to acount for different cores. different cache sizes and amounts of memory.

when it comes to the g5 and the athlon 64 the specs are about the(the ghz are about the same. dual g5=2.2 athlon fx(roughly)

solvs

Oct 23, 2003, 09:41 PM

I deal with Multi-GHz PCs at work all day and let me tell you, they ain't fast. The P3 wasn't bad, and AMD makes some pretty good chips (got a Duron myself ;) on my cheapy PC). The Centrino is also surprisingly speedy, and not that bad on battery life. But after playing with my Step-Mom's Dell Laptop for awhile, you couldn't pay me to use one. Ugh. Hot, heavy, battery life was nowhere near my Mom's old PowerBook (or new iBook).

Benchmarks mean nothing, specs mean nothing. Go to a CompUSA or Best Buy, play with some Laptops. Buy whatever works best for what you do.

I like the new G4 iBook. :D

Lanbrown

Oct 23, 2003, 10:19 PM

It is very difficult to say how much faster one chip is then another. Some processors are great at integer but mediocre at floating point, while some are great at floating point and fail on the integer side. Some tasks need strong integer; some need strong floating point. In the real world, you could use both very heavily. Then you have some processors can handle some tasks really well but are just adequate in others. No one makes a processor that can do it all better then anyone else all of the time. So if you want to know how much faster one chip is compared to another, you need to define faster in what sense, in this case, doing what.

Catfish_Man

Oct 23, 2003, 10:59 PM

Originally posted by Lanbrown
It is very difficult to say how much faster one chip is then another. Some processors are great at integer but mediocre at floating point, while some are great at floating point and fail on the integer side. Some tasks need strong integer; some need strong floating point. In the real world, you could use both very heavily. Then you have some processors can handle some tasks really well but are just adequate in others. No one makes a processor that can do it all better then anyone else all of the time. So if you want to know how much faster one chip is compared to another, you need to define faster in what sense, in this case, doing what.

Very true (just look at the recent Itanium 2 benchmarks. Damn does that thing kick ass at floating point). I'd also like to second what Rice_Web said. The Pentium-M (Centrino) is a very nice little chip, and I think the G4 would really need to be on a smaller manufacturing process to compete well with it (Moto's .13 micron process is being pretty damn funky from all indications). A .09 micron G5 with better power management (the hypothetical 980) would probably do the trick quite nicely.

G5orbust

Oct 23, 2003, 11:24 PM

Originally posted by Vlade
I would say maybe 1.5 for most things, 3 is WAY to much, compare any photoshop test with a 3GHZ p4 vs a DUAL 1.25GHZ mac, the g4 gets STOMPED every time

well, for lack of clarity on my part, for which I aplogize, I meant tht 3x multiplier to apply to things like the budget Celerons, that at 2.4GHz probably couldnt beat an 800MHz G4.

kuyu

Oct 24, 2003, 12:59 AM

The multiplier isn't really important, and unless you'll be doing a lot of video work, neither is the Megehertz. I'm running a 700 Mhz eMac, and it does almost everything I need. The truth is, a new computer made by anyone is fast enough for daily computing tasks. Dualie towers and powerbooks are for pro users, not regular Joe's. Besides, we all use mac's because of the OS, not because they are super fast. On-paper-speed isn't everything. I wouldn't sweat the processor, and focus more on system stats like RAM, cache, and videocard. That's where a computer really gets its power anyhow.

FYI: My 700 Mhz eMac compiles SETI data 6 times faster than my AMD 533 Mhz.

Stojamow

Oct 24, 2003, 03:20 AM

This is something we have discussed in threat "THANKS APPLE..." somewhere in pages 4-6 I think....

This is what I wrote there:

******************************************

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1274138,00.asp again.

I just actually realized that Dual G4 1.42 won DUAL XEON 3.06Ghz in three tests out of six. This should have something to tell when it comes to the question of performance.

According to that test which I trust very much the performance of the new Apple laptops cannot really stay far away from the PC laptops. The real question is rather that are the programs optimized for the processor. In this case it seems to me that Sorenson & Avid have done a good job because as you can see even G4 leaves XEON far behind !!!

(if you scroll down on the PC Magazine's page there is a link at the end of the 2nd chapter called: "see performance table")

******************************************

What is interesting is that with the video editing tasks Windows machines were left far behind even by G4 while even G5 had difficulties to beat Windows machines when it came something like working with stills...

Interesting - isn't it ?!?

Jonathan Amend

Oct 24, 2003, 11:37 AM

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
The simple answer is yes. But things are never that simple.

When just comparing raw clock speeds (which is at most half the power equation), the G4 is going to do quite well against a Pentium (particularly the poorly designed P4). A G4 will beat out any Pentium (or AMD for that matter) of the same clock speed, and will beat out Pentiums (particularly the P4) for up to another 1 GHz (the G4 doesn't compare quite as well with P3s or AMDs).

Of course, there are plenty of other things to consider, too. Most importantly there's RAM and cache. The new iBooks are intentionally lacking in both departments (the Powerbooks are far more powerful there).

A 1.4 GHz Pentium will probably give an 800 MHz G4 a good run for its money, but a 1 GHz G4 has got Intel beat.

My advice would be to avoid the new iBook, and opt for a Powerbook (12 or 15 inch) instead (unless you're really on a budget, in which case the iBook has a whole lot of bang for the buck). The boosted cache and higher max RAM really makes a difference in overall power.

I don't understand why the Mac community keeps ragging on the Pentium 4's performace. I myself am an AMD fan but I must admit that the P4 was well designed. Did it ever occur to anyone that Intel purposefully made the P4 weak per clock cycle so that it could clock much higher overall? It's actually a lot like the RISC philosophy, where chips are supposed to be kept simple. Apple added the SPEC rate results on the G5 performace page as a marketing gimmick. The results in no way mean that a chip is slower or faster than another. The P4 did, after all, beat any Mac and AMD offerings until the G5 and Athlon 64 came out (although its being slower than the G5 is still under dispute).

And I don't understand where you all got your blind opinions of the G4 and the "multiply it by this to see how fast it is" crap. Motorola's chip division was bought out for a reason. Apple did the smart thing by going back to IBM for the G5. The only problem is, you'll probably never see a G5 in a laptop considering the Power Mac needs 9 fans (granted, they're low speed fans). You can't compare how fast two different chips are by comparing how fast they are at the same clock speed, but instead by comparing the fastest chips currently available from each line. The G4, per clock, is around as fast as a P3 (Centrino) or an Athlon/XP, except that the Centrino is available at 1.7 GHz and the latest Athlon XP runs at 2.2 GHz while the G4 is stuck at 1.25 GHz in laptops and 1.4 GHz in the last generation of Power Macs (although there's usually two of them to compensate for their slowness).

Lanbrown

Oct 24, 2003, 01:18 PM

Jonathan,

What makes the P4 so well designed? Intel lost the MHz battle with the PIII and they used the P4 to reclaim it. They are using MHz to get work done, AMD follows suit to a lesser degree though. The higher the MHz the more power is required and more heat is generated. While you can have a chip running at less than half the MHz, consumer half the power and get the same amount of work done. Intel could have easily taken the existing Pentium line, improve it and had processors that accomplished more work for every tick. The P4 is better at FP at the same clock rating, but much worse at integer, by about 20%. The sole purpose of the P4 was to win the MHz battle. Most consumers are sheep and think that MHz is the end all. That is true of processors from the same manufacturer and family and that is it.

You could even say that Intel has their own marketing gimmick, it's called MHz.

First, who says the G5 needs nine fans? Are all nine fans for the processor(s)? No they are not, it has different cooling zones.

Schiffi

Oct 24, 2003, 01:20 PM

Originally posted by Jonathan Amend
The only problem is, you'll probably never see a G5 in a laptop considering the Power Mac needs 9 fans (granted, they're low speed fans).

That's what was said about the G4 when it was introduced as well. Technology has to progress. Apple is not going to think "Geez, it has nine fans, we better give up." If there's a will there's a way

Mord

Oct 25, 2003, 10:34 AM

may i remind you of a real test between a g4 cube 450 mhz with a 1ghz p3

the g4 kicked ass
1.23 times faster

so much for the superior p3vs g4

"centrino is an enhanced Pentium III, a chip that pretty well matched the G4 back in the day" rice_web.

:)

Vlade

Oct 25, 2003, 12:47 PM

Originally posted by alphaone
Hey Vlade, what's up with your 'tar? Are you saying that windows is good and macs are bad???:confused:

I'm laughing right now, and every time someone makes a comment about it. Take a guess what Operating system I really use if I have 500 posts on a mac forum :p

Vlade

Oct 25, 2003, 12:50 PM

pyrotoaster

Oct 25, 2003, 02:35 PM

Originally posted by Jonathan Amend
I don't understand why the Mac community keeps ragging on the Pentium 4's performace. I myself am an AMD fan but I must admit that the P4 was well designed. Did it ever occur to anyone that Intel purposefully made the P4 weak per clock cycle so that it could clock much higher overall? It's actually a lot like the RISC philosophy, where chips are supposed to be kept simple. Apple added the SPEC rate results on the G5 performace page as a marketing gimmick. The results in no way mean that a chip is slower or faster than another. The P4 did, after all, beat any Mac and AMD offerings until the G5 and Athlon 64 came out (although its being slower than the G5 is still under dispute).
The Pentium 4 is poorly designed compared to the P3, as well as Apple and AMD's chip offerings. I'm not saying Intel didn't realize this, though. Although it definitely has nothing to do with being "simple". They intentionally threw together a processor that's poorly designed, but capable of higher clock speeds. They did it so they could hammer this whole "clock speeds are everything" concept into PC users' minds.

Of course, clock speed isn't everything. A Pentium 3 could easily beat out a P4 of the same, or even moderately faster, clock speed. Things like cache, RAM, and overall design are actually more important than clock speed. The P4 simply isn't a well designed processor. It's inefficeint, it gets very hot, they can't even put two of them into one tower without going to a whole lot of work.

Intel took a calculated risk in pushing the P4 over the P3, and it worked at smashing AMD and Apple at first. Now, the P4 is reaching its limit and AMD and Apple are catching up (mostly thanks to IBM on the Apple side). Intel is going to have a hard time moving its desktop systems ahead without doubling back on their "clock speed is everything" message.
Also posted by Jonathan Amend
And I don't understand where you all got your blind opinions of the G4 and the "multiply it by this to see how fast it is" crap. Motorola's chip division was bought out for a reason. Apple did the smart thing by going back to IBM for the G5. The only problem is, you'll probably never see a G5 in a laptop considering the Power Mac needs 9 fans (granted, they're low speed fans).
Okay. Then I guess the Pentium 4 will never be in a laptop. It's too hot.
What?!
It already is in a laptop?!
Why, that would make your point silly and wrong! :D

Also, I in no way like the idiots at Moto's microprocessor division. I don't have aa "blind opinion" of the G4, and most people in these forums also don't. We realize the G4 is old, and getting slow. The G5 is better, and we're just at the beginning of a transition over to 64-bit computing, and more importantly, over to IBM processors.

Of course, the G4 is still better designed than the P4. ;)

Jonathan Amend

Oct 25, 2003, 04:49 PM

Originally posted by Lanbrown
Jonathan,

What makes the P4 so well designed? Intel lost the MHz battle with the PIII and they used the P4 to reclaim it. They are using MHz to get work done, AMD follows suit to a lesser degree though. The higher the MHz the more power is required and more heat is generated. While you can have a chip running at less than half the MHz, consumer half the power and get the same amount of work done. Intel could have easily taken the existing Pentium line, improve it and had processors that accomplished more work for every tick. The P4 is better at FP at the same clock rating, but much worse at integer, by about 20%. The sole purpose of the P4 was to win the MHz battle. Most consumers are sheep and think that MHz is the end all. That is true of processors from the same manufacturer and family and that is it.

You could even say that Intel has their own marketing gimmick, it's called MHz.

First, who says the G5 needs nine fans? Are all nine fans for the processor(s)? No they are not, it has different cooling zones.

No, they're not all for the processor, nevertheless the G5 doesn't exacltly run cool. And more MHz doesn't mean the processor will be hotter or that it will require more power (the G5 comes with a 700 Watt power supply, and it only has one optical drive and usually only one hard-drive). The P4 is also viable in laptops, whereas the G5 won't be for a very long time. Back in the days of P3/P4 vs the original Athlon, Intel used to even critisize AMD because the chip ran hot and required a lot of power (even though it was faster and was clocked a lot lower than the P4). I don't agree with Intel's use of MHz for marketing but their combination of low performance per trick combined with a whole lot of ticks makes (made) it better than the competition. Intel also couldn't have just continued with the P3 as it doesn't scale very well at higher frequencies. A P3-M Centrino at 1.7 GHz is only as fast as a 2.4 GHz P4, and that's the fastest Intel can make the Centrinos go right now.

Oh, and if you're saying that the P4 is 20% faster at floating point than at integer calculations, then why did the G5 win (according to Apple anyways) against the P4 in FP tests but not integer tests?

johnnowak

Oct 25, 2003, 05:30 PM

A new P4 box will kill a G4 at almost anything. Photoshop included. Just look up some tests.

The G5 on the otherhand is pretty close for most stuff... sometimes ahead, sometimes behind... and really shines on altivec tasks.

Vlade

Oct 25, 2003, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
The Pentium 4 is poorly designed compared to the P3, as well as Apple and AMD's chip offerings. I'm not saying Intel didn't realize this, though. Although it definitely has nothing to do with being "simple". They intentionally threw together a processor that's poorly designed, but capable of higher clock speeds. They did it so they could hammer this whole "clock speeds are everything" concept into PC users' minds.

Of course, clock speed isn't everything. A Pentium 3 could easily beat out a P4 of the same, or even moderately faster, clock speed. Things like cache, RAM, and overall design are actually more important than clock speed. The P4 simply isn't a well designed processor. It's inefficeint, it gets very hot, they can't even put two of them into one tower without going to a whole lot of work.

Intel took a calculated risk in pushing the P4 over the P3, and it worked at smashing AMD and Apple at first. Now, the P4 is reaching its limit and AMD and Apple are catching up (mostly thanks to IBM on the Apple side). Intel is going to have a hard time moving its desktop systems ahead without doubling back on their "clock speed is everything" message.

Of course, the G4 is still better designed than the P4. ;)

Have you considered that they made the chip what you call "poorly designed" for a reason? There are 2 main factors for a CPUs speed, MHZ and work per cycle. When multiplied, they give you an approximate speed. Intel PURPOSELY designed the P4 to have high clock speeds and a lower work per cycle, BUT when you multiply its 3.2GHZ it makes it a VERY VERY fast chip, way better than any G4, Athlon XP (the athlon 64 and G5 are challenging it now, its unclear what chip is the fastest, they all lead certain tests).

Tell me how a poorly designed chip is 2-4 times faster than a "better" G4 chip. Its ok to like the mac, but don't be a mac zealot

pyrotoaster

Oct 25, 2003, 08:30 PM

Originally posted by Vlade
Have you considered that they made the chip what you call "poorly designed" for a reason? There are 2 main factors for a CPUs speed, MHZ and work per cycle. When multiplied, they give you an approximate speed. Intel PURPOSELY designed the P4 to have high clock speeds and a lower work per cycle, BUT when you multiply its 3.2GHZ it makes it a VERY VERY fast chip, way better than any G4, Athlon XP (the athlon 64 and G5 are challenging it now, its unclear what chip is the fastest, they all lead certain tests).

Tell me how a poorly designed chip is 2-4 times faster than a "better" G4 chip. Its ok to like the mac, but don't be a mac zealot
The Pentium 4 is a poorly designed chip. It's just intentionally so.

Intel opted for a compromised design because it allowed for very fast clock speeds. In turn, this gave Intel the ability to make faster processors (yes, I admit that openly). It doesn't change the fact that the P4 is poorly designed.

It was simply a short-sighted (although they might have very well realized that) way to quickly increase clock speeds and overall power. The catch is that the poor chip design would eventually make the P4 run far too hot, and become very difficult to make faster (although that eventually happens to most chip designs).

Just think about it. A few years back the P4 was jumping a GHz a year. Now it only gains a couple hundred MHz, and consumer machines almost never see the speed increase because the fastest P4s run too hot for a cheapo Dell or Gateway.

The G4 is a better designed chip than the P4. Of course, that doesn't mean its going to be faster (though within 500 MHz, the G4 will be faster).

You said it yourself, Intel PURPOSELY made the Pentium 4 poorly designed. ;)

Vlade

Oct 25, 2003, 08:51 PM

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
You said it yourself, Intel PURPOSELY made the Pentium 4 poorly designed. ;)

I said it with quotes around it, I was just referring to when you said it, I didn't mean it. I meant to say that the P4 is a "inefficient per clock cycle chip", but its MHZ make up for it, therefor it is a good chip. An example is having a cluster of processors at lower clock speeds, such as a big computer cluster and a REALLY fast single chip. Your logic would suggest that the cluster is inefficient because has LOTS of computers at slow speed, and therefore the single fast efficient CPU would be better because it is designed better (despite the fact that it is 2-4 times as slow).

Sometimes it doesn't matter how the CPU maker does it, as long as the end result is good (and I don't care if my CPU runs hot, as long as it doesn't melt its OK with me, its in a box that I don't even touch)

pyrotoaster

Oct 25, 2003, 09:29 PM

Originally posted by Vlade
An example is having a cluster of processors at lower clock speeds, such as a big computer cluster and a REALLY fast single chip. Your logic would suggest that the cluster is inefficient because has LOTS of computers at slow speed, and therefore the single fast efficient CPU would be better because it is designed better (despite the fact that it is 2-4 times as slow).
No, my logic says Speed isn't everything. That's the whole point I'm trying to make here.

The Pentium 4 is poorly designed. Intel just did it intentionally to make the chip faster. The result is that a 2 GHz P4 will be beaten out by a 1.5 GHz G4 or G5 (and probably a good AMD, too), but Intel will be able to make a 3 GHz P4 in order to compensate for that.

The P4 is poorly designed because it would be blown away by processors at the same speed. Intel knew this when they designed the chip. They also knew that they'd be able to increase the chip's speed quite a bit in a relatively short period of time, thus compensating for the poor design.

Of course, if the G5 does reach 3 GHz next year, Apple will really be giving Intel a run for its money (just imagine, a dual-3 GHz Powermac... :D ).

Vlade

Oct 26, 2003, 07:10 AM

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
Of course, if the G5 does reach 3 GHz next year, Apple will really be giving Intel a run for its money (just imagine, a dual-3 GHz Powermac... :D ).

Your forgetting that intel will be using 4GHZ or 5GHZ CPUs by then, so it won't be as big as we think, BUT it will still be 50% faster than the current powermacs, and it will tempt me to get that instead of a new powerbook G5 when it comes out.

My main point is you need to redefine your word poorly, if intel had a 10GHZ chip that was only a little faster than its 3GHZ chip right now, it WOULD NOT mean its poorly designed, it means intel is doing a better job than IBM and AMD, so their chip is superior, and better designed (they designed it to scale up so high in clock speeds).

My last post, I don't think you see my point

pyrotoaster

Oct 26, 2003, 09:07 AM

Originally posted by Vlade
Your forgetting that intel will be using 4GHZ or 5GHZ CPUs by then, so it won't be as big as we think, BUT it will still be 50% faster than the current powermacs, and it will tempt me to get that instead of a new powerbook G5 when it comes out.
4 GHz, maybe. But even then, not in consumer machines. The Pentium 4 is reaching its limit. Unless Intel finds some new breakthrough in their design, a 5 GHz processor would probably burst into flames.
My main point is you need to redefine your word poorly, if intel had a 10GHZ chip that was only a little faster than its 3GHZ chip right now, it WOULD NOT mean its poorly designed, it means intel is doing a better job than IBM and AMD, so their chip is superior, and better designed (they designed it to scale up so high in clock speeds).
You still don't get my point. If they had a 10 GHz chip that was only slightly faster than a 3 GHz chip, it would be very poorly designed. It might still be fast, but that in no way means that it's well designed.

You're confusing design and speed. Just because something's fast doesn't mean it's well designed. Similarly, something slow could be well designed. For instance, the Pentium 3 (or the G4, for that matter) is a well designed processor. It's not as fast as a Pentium 4, but that doesn't change the fact that it's well designed.

Intel made the P4 poorly designed so they could make it faster. It wouldn't be able to hold a candle to an IBM or AMD at the same speed, but Intel can make its clock speed high enough that this isn't a problem for Intel (yet). By next year, IBM and AMD will both be giving Intel tough competition.
My last post, I don't think you see my point
I see your point, but you obviously don't see mine. It seems like you're selectively reading my posts and only responding to comments taken out of context. In your last post all you quote is the last sentence of my post. And you did the exact same thing in the post before that.

The point is, just because the Pentium 4 is fast it isn't necessarily "well designed". It's just fast. In fact, the P4 is poorly designed, because processors even 500 MHz slower than it would actually be faster than it.

Vlade

Oct 26, 2003, 11:09 AM

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
The point is, just because the Pentium 4 is fast it isn't necessarily "well designed". It's just fast. In fact, the P4 is poorly designed, because processors even 500 MHz slower than it would actually be faster than it.

I see your point, I just don't agree with it. I think the end result is what defines how poorly or good a product is. I don't give a damn if it is 1MHZ or 100GHZ, or anywhere in between, as long as its end result is lots of operations per second, and for the last year or 2 the Pentium 4 has lead in performance.

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
Intel made the P4 poorly designed so they could make it faster. It wouldn't be able to hold a candle to an IBM or AMD at the same speed, but Intel can make its clock speed high enough that this isn't a problem for Intel (yet). By next year, IBM and AMD will both be giving Intel tough competition.

I think that it was well designed, because the designed it in a way that could make it scale up to such high clock speeds. It DOESN'T matter if a AMD or IBM beets intel at the same clock speed because THEY ARE NOT AT THE SAME CLOCK SPEED, intel designed the chip so good so this wouldn't matter.

Lanbrown

Oct 26, 2003, 11:34 AM

To reinforce Pyrotoaters point, how about this. Here are some fp2000 scores.

Pentium 4 3.2Ghz 1285
XEON 3.2GHZ 1213
Opteron 2GHz 1339
SPARC III 1.2GHz 1344
Power4+ 1.7GHz 1699
Itanic 2 1.5GHz 2119
SPARC 1.35GHz 1340

So their rankings are as follows, Itanic 2, Power4+, SPARC III, SPARC (Fujitsu), Opteron, Pentium 4 and finally the XEON. So the two Pentium chips are at the bottom of the field.

Per GHz.
Pentium 4 3.2Ghz 401
XEON 3.2GHZ 379
Opteron 2GHz 669
SPARC III 1.2GHz 1120
Power4+ 1.7GHz 999
Itanic 2 1.5GHz 1412
SPARC 1.35GHz 992

So the efficiency per GHz is as follows: Itanic 2, SPARC III, Power4+, SPARC (Fujitsu), Opteron, Pentium 4 and then the XEON.

pyrotoaster

Oct 26, 2003, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by Lanbrown
So their rankings are as follows, Itanic 2, Power4+, SPARC III, SPARC (Fujitsu), Opteron, Pentium 4 and finally the XEON. So the two Pentium chips are at the bottom of the field.

and

So the efficiency per GHz is as follows: Itanic 2, SPARC III, Power4+, SPARC (Fujitsu), Opteron, Pentium 4 and then the XEON.
Interesting. Thanks for posting those. :)

Vlade: This is just my point. I can understand if you don't agree with it. But you have to admit, the P4 (along with its cousin, the XEON) definitely isn't efficient. Speed is only one factor in a processor's real power.

yamabushi

Oct 26, 2003, 12:03 PM

Although I know it worked as a marketing gimmick, I wish AMD had not used artificial numbers for the Athlon. Their labeling scheme helped people to compare Athlons to Pentiums but it also caused people to forget about the real clock speed of the AMD chips. This only helped to reinforce the MHz myth.

Vlade

Oct 26, 2003, 01:58 PM

Originally posted by pyrotoaster
Vlade: This is just my point. I can understand if you don't agree with it. But you have to admit, the P4 (along with its cousin, the XEON) definitely isn't efficient. Speed is only one factor in a processor's real power.

Speed to me is defined as work per clock times MHZ, so the pentium 4 is a fast chip. Those other CPUs are VERY fast, I wish we could get them in desktops for under 10000 bucks :p

Jonathan Amend

Oct 26, 2003, 07:02 PM

Originally posted by Lanbrown
To reinforce Pyrotoaters point, how about this. Here are some fp2000 scores.

Pentium 4 3.2Ghz 1285
XEON 3.2GHZ 1213
Opteron 2GHz 1339
SPARC III 1.2GHz 1344
Power4+ 1.7GHz 1699
Itanic 2 1.5GHz 2119
SPARC 1.35GHz 1340

So their rankings are as follows, Itanic 2, Power4+, SPARC III, SPARC (Fujitsu), Opteron, Pentium 4 and finally the XEON. So the two Pentium chips are at the bottom of the field.

Per GHz.
Pentium 4 3.2Ghz 401
XEON 3.2GHZ 379
Opteron 2GHz 669
SPARC III 1.2GHz 1120
Power4+ 1.7GHz 999
Itanic 2 1.5GHz 1412
SPARC 1.35GHz 992

So the efficiency per GHz is as follows: Itanic 2, SPARC III, Power4+, SPARC (Fujitsu), Opteron, Pentium 4 and then the XEON.

Just in case you don't know, the Power 4+ isn't a G5. The G5 is a PowerPC 970 which is a stripped Power 4+. A G5 is a lot less efficient than an Athlon 64/Opteron, as one Athlon 64 2.2 GHz beats a dual G5 2.0 GHz system. I don't know where you found bechmarks for a 3.2 GHz Xeon as they don't exist yet (unless it was a Pentium 4 EE which is in every way faster than the Pentium 4 because it manages to use the same 800 MHz FSB, so it should have a higher score).

yamabushi

Oct 26, 2003, 07:26 PM

Do I sense a pattern with Jonathan Amend's posts? They all seem to be saying how great Intel, AMD and Microsoft are and how all of Apple's products suck. :rolleyes: Doesn't he have anything* good to say about Apple?

Jonathan Amend

Oct 26, 2003, 07:47 PM

Originally posted by yamabushi
Do I sense a pattern with Jonathan Amend's posts? They all seem to be saying how great Intel, AMD and Microsoft are and how all of Apple's products suck. :rolleyes: Doesn't he have anything* good to say about Apple?

Wow, are you and iJon evil clones or something? I just answered the same question 5 minutes ago:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=551177#post551177

yamabushi

Oct 26, 2003, 07:58 PM

I noticed your orginal disclamer when you first posted it. I still haven't seen a single post with a specific positive thing to say about Apple or Macs.

btw- iJon and I seldom agree so that is strange indeed.

Jonathan Amend

Oct 26, 2003, 08:08 PM

Originally posted by yamabushi
I noticed your orginal disclamer when you first posted it. I still haven't seen a single post with a specific positive thing to say about Apple or Macs.

Nobody ever said I have to. I don't remember there being a giant warning during the registration process telling me that I have to post about how great Macs are all day. I never said anything against Macs, other than mentioning that they have both strengths and weaknesses, as do PCs.

yamabushi

Oct 26, 2003, 08:30 PM

So do you mean that you don't really care for Macs and are just here for the purpose of starting arguments?

Catfish_Man

Oct 26, 2003, 08:35 PM

Originally posted by yamabushi
So do you mean that you don't really care for Macs and are just here for the purpose of starting arguments?

That's certainly not what he said. I can't speak for what he meant.

Lanbrown

Oct 26, 2003, 08:35 PM

Originally posted by Jonathan Amend
Just in case you don't know, the Power 4+ isn't a G5. The G5 is a PowerPC 970 which is a stripped Power 4+. A G5 is a lot less efficient than an Athlon 64/Opteron, as one Athlon 64 2.2 GHz beats a dual G5 2.0 GHz system. I don't know where you found bechmarks for a 3.2 GHz Xeon as they don't exist yet (unless it was a Pentium 4 EE which is in every way faster than the Pentium 4 because it manages to use the same 800 MHz FSB, so it should have a higher score).

I am full aware the Power4+ is not a G5, I never said it was.

The 3.2GHz XEON is available. Maybe you need to do your homework before you speak. Go look at dell and their Precision Workstation 650. Here’s an excerpt:
"TECH SPECS
Processor
Intel® XeonTM processors up to 3.20GHz with 1MB L3 cache (Dual Capable) 533MHz front side bus"

So, Dell provided those figures and the 3.2GHz XEON does exist.

The XEON posted a lower score then the Pentium 4.