Were PowerPC Macs really as slow as they are now? (No Flame!)

rabidz7 said:

Besides graphics my quad 2.5 power mac is MUCH faster than my 8 core 4.6 Ghz amd customac.

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This is total rubbish and you know it. From your previous threads, you have an FX 8350, as do I, and that runs circles around the G5. Also, I don't like to call that processor 8-core; it's really just 4 (or 6 depending on how you want to look at it).

rjcalifornia said:

Interesting. Apple is now making its own ARM chips. There was a thread a while ago about 'Macbook Air' with an ARM and some sort of Mac OS optimized for ARM. If ARM is getting so powerful with less power consumption, I could see Apple making the switch. The thing about mobile is that mobile devices are cheap and pretty fast, perfect for emerging economies where laptops are way too expensive just for you know, checking email and facebook. HP knew that, so they tried with their own tablet, which failed. However they had already switched to develop Software and Servers for big corporation, 'cause they knew laptops/desktops growth was slowing down.

I hope they make the switch to ARM... A 10 hours battery life on a laptop?

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Though Apple now designs their own ARM chips (they don't actually make them, as they do not have their own fabs), I'm actually in the camp that doesn't expect any ARM-based Macs any time soon. I'm sure they already have OS X compiled for ARM hidden somewhere in Cupertino, but making a switch to a new architecture is one of those "no going back" type deals. Once you do it, you can't go back, unless you want to maintain two builds, which Apple certainly does not. At this point, a future with ARM is a bit too uncertain and will be for the foreseeable future, plus Apple is still somewhat cozy with Intel and probably have favorable supply contracts.

This issue is complicated by the fact that Haswell and Broadwell are supposed to be tremendous improvements in the power consumption department. It's hard to say what's real and what's marketing smoke and mirrors, but next gen Macs are already supposed to bridge the 10-15 hour battery life range with some minor performance bumps. Intel doesn't really have much motivation to make things much faster, so they're putting a lot of effort these last few years into power efficiency. You have to imagine that Intel at this point is deliberately delaying technology improvements, as they have little competitive pressure to do so, so I wouldn't count them out from pushing out something killer if they actually need to. Consider what the difference between an i3 and an i5/i7 really is -- nothing, except deliberately removing or disabling features to artificially create tiers. It's not even like where AMD used to sell defective processors with cores disabled, Intel's tech is so unmatched by competitors that they intentionally gimp processors just to have a lower end to sell. It's kind of sad, really. So consider me a skeptic for now. I'm going to wait and see what the next year or two brings.

As for HP, they're just a disaster. I don't think they tried to be IBM (who successfully pulled off the transition) only because the PC market was slowing per se, but rather just because the margins are razor thin (part of which is because as you mention, the market has stagnated). In commoditized industries, where the sellers have no price setting power, the margins are not very appealing compared to enterprise, where you can further gain revenue from value-added services like support. It was just extra stupid on HP's part to try to spin off the hardware division when it was both profitable and the largest in the world, to announce it to everyone without first having any discussions with potential buyers, backtrack when they realized they had no exit strategy, and completely waste the investment in the brilliant webOS/Palm assets. And then buy Autonomy for 3x too much.

ybz90 said:

I'll say this one last time, it all depends on what kind of software you are running. Additionally, we likely have different P4s at different clock speeds and different feature sets like HT (as well as possibly different G4s), but at equivalent release dates, the G4 was a better processor for the most part. If you're sporting a 2.8 HT computer, well, yeah, obviously that's going to be faster than a 1.33 G4.

Like I said, I'd encourage you to reinstall OS X. It should not be taking 100% CPU to load websites. Also, I am skeptical on your P4 being able to boot in 20 seconds if it's a stock install, or if it really is, I want to know how to do this black magic for myself because that's just awesome.

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My P4 is a 1.8 GHz 400 MHz FSB with DDR Ram. I am cheating a little with boot speed since I put in a newer laptop hard drive made in 2008. HD Tach says it's max speed is about 60 MBps. But my point still stands. My older hard drive wasn't much slower in booting. 40 seconds at most. 1-1.5 minute for Firefox to be ready.

I guess the problem with my G4 1.67 GHz ( 2 GB RAM) might be that it runs Leopard. I installed leopard ever since tiger stopped getting the latest features in Safari, but since I don't use it as much so maybe I will go back. I think there were a few features I missed from leopard last time I did a downgrade. I really don't want to downgrade since it's more out of date than leopard.

ar3ar2 said:

My P4 is a 1.8 GHz 400 MHz FSB with DDR Ram. I am cheating a little with boot speed since I put in a newer laptop hard drive made in 2008. HD Tach says it's max speed is about 60 MBps. But my point still stands. My older hard drive wasn't much slower in booting. 40 seconds at most. 1-1.5 minute for Firefox to be ready.

I guess the problem with my G4 1.67 GHz ( 2 GB RAM) might be that it runs Leopard. I installed leopard ever since tiger stopped getting the latest features in Safari, but since I don't use it as much so maybe I will go back. I think there were a few features I missed from leopard last time I did a downgrade. I really don't want to downgrade since it's more out of date than leopard.

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Haha, well maybe I'm cheating a bit too since I have a (admittedly, it's only PATA) SSD in my PowerBook. I think our performance experiences can most readily be attributed to our respective drives, since my P4's drive is pretty ancient and probably suspect.

ybz90 said:

Bing bing, we have a winner.

All I can say is my PowerBook G4 is totally usable and enjoyable for the most part. I mainly use it to run older games and surf the web now and then. Every PC in my household older than a Core 2 Duo (including some P4s and Core Duos) are unusably slow, even with just Windows XP. As in two-three minute boots and forever just to launch Firefox. Part of it may be expectations though, I'm not sure what you would consider "slow" or "unusable", and I am used to a 48-core Opteron at work, but I don't think this is that much of a factor considering I find the G4 perfectly satisfactory.

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Bing bing! Bing bing!

If you want fast, you need to buy the current computer that will run the oldest software you need...don't buy the latest bloatware.

Unfortunately, people seem to get hooked on upgrading to the latest (and ?greatest?), which is usually more bloated than the previous generation.

I am always surprised to find out that, the new function I just discovered in Office 2008 was there in Office 2001 all the time...I just didn't need it back then.

Before the days of SSD's, some jokers used to publish videos of them racing a Mac Plus running System 6 (or earlier?) starting up vs. the most recent PowerBook or MacBook Pro. The Mac Plus *always* would complete the boot process before the latest 'book.

ybz90 said:

Haha, well maybe I'm cheating a bit too since I have a (admittedly, it's only PATA) SSD in my PowerBook. I think our performance experiences can most readily be attributed to our respective drives, since my P4's drive is pretty ancient and probably suspect.

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Possible though the 3.5 hard drive 60 GB is reaching 11 years. It still runs amazingly enough. HD Tach says its peak speed is 40 MBps.

I don't see how an SSD would help with the 100% CPU load. I do have 4 or so extensions loaded and Safari feels faster, almost comparable to the P4.

I plan on putting an SATA SSD, but I don't think I'll be happy with web browsing performance.

ar3ar2 said:

I plan on putting an SATA SSD, but I don't think I'll be happy with web browsing performance.

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The G4 uses PATA, so if you were to use a SATA SSD, there would be a bottleneck in the PATA controller. You would also have to get an adapter, and I'm told it's a tight fit.

LOLZpersonok said:

My PowerPC Mac's don't seem as fast as they should. It's my understanding that now that Macs are made with Intel processors they're much faster now, but were they actually as slow back then as they are now? I don't have a G5 Mac so I can't say for that, but it seems that my 500MHz Compaq Deskpro performs the same on Gmail as my Dual Processor 1.25GHz PowerMac G4...Idk, it could be just me.

Mine are generally slow now, but were they fast back in their time???

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well it really depends on the apps in terms of Old apps+old system= fast mac

A 1.42 GHz mdd will edit 480p video in imove HD running Jaguar just as fast as a mac pro 12 core will edit 1080p footage today. my point is that its not the machines that have gotten slow its the bloating of the apps that have slowed them down

Lil Chillbil said:

well it really depends on the apps in terms of Old apps+old system= fast mac

A 1.42 GHz mdd will edit 480p video in imove HD running Jaguar just as fast as a mac pro 12 core will edit 1080p footage today. my point is that its not the machines that have gotten slow its the bloating of the apps that have slowed them down

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I need to compare with some Wintel or Mac Intel, I've done some heavy 1080p video editing. I cannot play it on my ibook G4, but I can make them, edit them and add cool stuffs... oh the irony...

Jessica Lares said:

Well, you don't buy a Mac for Microsoft Office now do you?

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Actually I did buy my first modern Powerbook G4 in August of 2001, a base model Titanium, so I could run Office better than on my 145b Powerbook circa 1994 that's ram died on it. (The computer itself was fine, Apple could not find me more ram for it!)

I was shocked to see that Office ran exactly the same speed as it did on the older PB.

Shocked that my seven year old PB was in most cases, just as fast as the Titanium. Granted I was still running OS9 at that moment (the Tibook shipped with OSX 10.1 I believe as well as 9.) When OS9 kept crashing every other week, I finally jumped to OSX. But still missed my 145b for basic word processing.

Gmail is a really unfair comparison by the way. JavaScript compilation has increased the speed of "the web" by orders of magnitude and nobody bothered to port it back to PowerPC. So you're kind of comparing a space shuttle to a stage coach.

Try downloading Mozilla Thunderbird and using it as a mail client and compare it to Mail.app. I think you'll find those results much more pleasing.

wjlafrance said:

Gmail is a really unfair comparison by the way. JavaScript compilation has increased the speed of "the web" by orders of magnitude and nobody bothered to port it back to PowerPC. So you're kind of comparing a space shuttle to a stage coach.

Try downloading Mozilla Thunderbird and using it as a mail client and compare it to Mail.app. I think you'll find those results much more pleasing.

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I happen to love Mail Clients now. I can have access to my work mail on the go if there are no wireless spots available and easy to share emails, attach documents, etc. I use PostBox Express, the last few companies that still give us support

i don't find them that slow...heck even my 867 Ti can handle daily work...maybe it's what your used to? having used computers since 1979 (when they really were slow) using a ppc in today world doesn't seem all that bad.

Not having read any replies...

***

Of course not. These days, they deal with codecs and stuff that never existed 8, yet alone even 4-6 years ago. God forbid you own a G4 and use it regularly. The PPC CPUs just aren't *developed* for any more. Yes, they are *slower* than a current Intel i3. But the benchmark margin doesn't tell the whole story.

PowerPC on mainstream computers are just virtually obsolete. Nobody optimizes for them, save a few devs like Cameron Kaiser who does TenFourFox.

If you've ever used a G5 and CorePlayer to run a 1080p H264 film, you'd be impressed what it can do. A 2008 Macbook with SSD, etc, maxed RAM, it struggles with a simple "Mission Control" animation.

Optimization, folks.

ybz90 said:

This is total rubbish and you know it. From your previous threads, you have an FX 8350, as do I, and that runs circles around the G5. Also, I don't like to call that processor 8-core; it's really just 4 (or 6 depending on how you want to look at it).

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In a benchmark the G5 gets 4800, the 8350 gets 11000. So in a benchmark the 8350 sure is much faster. But I can see no difference between either. Does speed really matter if no one can notice it?

rabidz7 said:

In a benchmark the G5 gets 4800, the 8350 gets 11000. So in a benchmark the 8350 sure is much faster. But I can see no difference between either. Does speed really matter if no one can notice it?

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1. Your G5 Geekbench benchmark is rubbish too, as I have the same computer and only get ~3500, as do all submitted scores. If you can really get 4800, submit it to the Geekbench browser database.
2. My point is that you can absolutely tell a difference. I understand that people's thresholds for what they consider to be noticeable vary, but I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks they are the same (or actually, in another thread, you actually claim that the G5 is significantly faster than the FX-8350, which is an even bigger load of codswallop). Even my computer illiterate parents, who up to this point had been using a Pentium 4 can tell the difference. Again, that's not to say the G5 is unusable, I likened the Quad before to a C2D, but the difference is obvious. Bulldozer was a disaster, and while single threaded performance is still relatively poor, Piledriver is actually a very good CPU; it's just AMD's reputation right now is in the dumps (and few people need so many threads) so no one wants one. The only reason I got one is out of stubborn desire to continue having an AMD system and to support the little guy. Also, it came with a shiny box, but it's really a decent CPU.
3. Also, if you're comparing Mac Geekbench scores to Windows/Linux, that's not an good comparison (or even 32-bit to 64-bit will give you different scores). Given your lack of computer knowledge, I have my doubts you managed to actually Hackintosh your FX using the AMD patched ML kernel floating out there unless you can show me otherwise.

I wouldn't say G4/G5 are obsolete. I mean I got a G4 because I didn't have the budget for a brand new wintel laptop or mac intel. I really needed a laptop for checking email and making web apps, and that's what I do on my iBook G4. I develop themes, full web apps, check my email and tweet sometimes

It depends of the use. I know I can't watch 720p or 1080p on them, but I have my Xbox 360, so even if I had a more powerful laptop, I wouldn't watch HD content there.

Overall, it depends of your needs. If you are willing to adapt and embrace the limitations of powerpc being left out in the cold, you can get a wonderful experience, like me.

Yes, G4/G5 are slow now. Well, technically even the current Mac Intel is slow right now, because that's how technology works nowadays. At the end of the day it is all about optimization, and that's why some things 'look' like they are faster than another. For example, gaming. Playing games in your Xbox seems to be faster than PC, but it is all due to optimization. There are PCs three times more powerful than an xbox but they struggle with some games, because for PC, there's no optimization since they have to write code compatible with different video card makers/processors/etc unlike Xbox, where they don't have to worry about compatibility, they just optimize games for the platform...

rjcalifornia said:

There are PCs three times more powerful than an xbox but they struggle with some games, because for PC, there's no optimization since they have to write code compatible with different video card makers/processors/etc unlike Xbox, where they don't have to worry about compatibility, they just optimize games for the platform...

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This is true, but I want to throw in that it's not just because of video card compatibility, as they often use existing engines or frameworks, but also just laziness and sloppy coding. There's a finite amount of power in a console, so those developers have squeezed every last ounce out of it through superb engines. With PC games, there's an oversupply of power, so developers are less keen to program well. This is especially true for console to PC ports and cross platform games, where you see a PC version that really looks just as bad as a console one and often has lag and bugs that really shouldn't be there, as the dev cut corners to make versions for multiple platforms.

blesscheese said:

Bing bing! Bing bing!

If you want fast, you need to buy the current computer that will run the oldest software you need...don't buy the latest bloatware.

Unfortunately, people seem to get hooked on upgrading to the latest (and ?greatest?), which is usually more bloated than the previous generation.

I am always surprised to find out that, the new function I just discovered in Office 2008 was there in Office 2001 all the time...I just didn't need it back then.

Before the days of SSD's, some jokers used to publish videos of them racing a Mac Plus running System 6 (or earlier?) starting up vs. the most recent PowerBook or MacBook Pro. The Mac Plus *always* would complete the boot process before the latest 'book.

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I used to always root for the powerpc team

maxosx said:

Benchmarks aside, speed is all based on user perception compared to past experience & their usage model.

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Word!
I remember my first G3 - It was soo fast, I was amazed. Today It feels like such a lag. Maybe our old PPC hardware felt quick back then, because then we had experience only with even slower gear, whereas when we return to it today, we have another perspective.

I guess it's pretty much the same as when you revisit your childhood playground when you're grown up: The slide which you remember as soooo huge is so mundane, the sandbox, which you thought you could never fill, looks normal etc.

On a sidenote, last summer I went to guide a summer camp for teenagers, and I did not want to take my No. 1 computer with me (in fear of damage), so I took along my 600 Mhz G3 iBook (which I have in the bottom drawer ready for back-up use at all times). The first two days it felt like the absolute pain, then I got used to it and stopped fretting...

RGDS,

Another perspective... A decked out g4 running os9 feels amazingly fast.

ybz90 said:

1. Your G5 Geekbench benchmark is rubbish too, as I have the same computer and only get ~3500, as do all submitted scores. If you can really get 4800, submit it to the Geekbench browser database.
2. My point is that you can absolutely tell a difference. I understand that people's thresholds for what they consider to be noticeable vary, but I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks they are the same (or actually, in another thread, you actually claim that the G5 is significantly faster than the FX-8350, which is an even bigger load of codswallop). Even my computer illiterate parents, who up to this point had been using a Pentium 4 can tell the difference. Again, that's not to say the G5 is unusable, I likened the Quad before to a C2D, but the difference is obvious. Bulldozer was a disaster, and while single threaded performance is still relatively poor, Piledriver is actually a very good CPU; it's just AMD's reputation right now is in the dumps (and few people need so many threads) so no one wants one. The only reason I got one is out of stubborn desire to continue having an AMD system and to support the little guy. Also, it came with a shiny box, but it's really a decent CPU.
3. Also, if you're comparing Mac Geekbench scores to Windows/Linux, that's not an good comparison (or even 32-bit to 64-bit will give you different scores). Given your lack of computer knowledge, I have my doubts you managed to actually Hackintosh your FX using the AMD patched ML kernel floating out there unless you can show me otherwise.

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Let me just say +1, and I like your attitude!

I have a 5355 converted 1,1, until really recently had 17,000 scoring i7 Hackintosh, and and still have G5 quad.

Quad 3700
MP 10,470
Hack 17,160 OSX 19,086 Windows

In real day to day usage I can't tell the difference, DVD transcode G5 80-100 FPS, MP 180-300FPS Blu Ray 80-120, Hack DVD 800-1000FPS Blu Ray 300ish..

There are just things that are better on a modern system, there are also things that make you smile. I liked my hack it was fun to build, but my MP and G5 make me smile and that is in many ways more important.

rabidz7 said:

Besides graphics my quad 2.5 power mac is MUCH faster than my 8 core 4.6 Ghz amd customac.

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rabidz7 said:

...But I can see no difference between either. Does speed really matter if no one can notice it?

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There's no way I can make sense of this.

G3 fared pretty well against Intel offerings, but with G4 things started to change and because of Motorola's inability to deliver G4 started to trail. Apple was kinda forced to introduce dual CPU models to keep up, or perhaps be bit faster in couple applications, which is to be expected if consider how much you paid for PM G4. However there are couple articles where they compare Dual G4 against Dual AthlonXP and run some image editing stuff, Dual G4 loses in every test. Quad G5 was very powerful machine, but draw sick amounts of power and needed water cooling, at stock settings... And G5 never made it to a laptop conputer.... It was something different when Apple used PowerPC, but not necessarily good in every way. Machine design was cool as it is today and the OS looked nice.

AMD's FX 8350 is most certainly an 8 core processor, I can't see any way you could interpret it as anything else. 8 physical processing cores.