G5 Processor Page Gone...

alep85 · Dec 28, 2005

Anyone notice the G5 processor specs page once at http://www.apple.com/g5 is now gone? It starts to redirect to the G5 Processor page (look in your browser title at the top) then goes to PowerMac. Almost like someone doesn't want to let people know how much more powerful the G5 STILL is compared to the Intels....
I am still excited for the Intel switch because the roadmap looks promising, but for the early future, it seems as if the G5 is still going to overpower a comparable Intel processor.

EDIT: Apparently I'm a moron and can't simply look around Apple's website. Although that link used to point to the G5 processor! Oh well, my argument was pointless.

carlos700 · Dec 28, 2005

http://www.apple.com/g5processor/

It's still there

eXan · Dec 29, 2005

I voted yes, because it IS so.

If the software is properly optimized for G5, it blows anything else away!

Dont Hurt Me · Dec 29, 2005

Thats so funny, I guess G5 is faster if you compare 2 or 4 G5s to 1 Intel and you arent gaming. The sad reality is 95% of the worlds software doesnt run on Mac. There lies the problem. Remember Europe had to force Apple to stop spinning the Powermac because it wasnt the most powerful personal computer. G5/G4 are heading for the door

liquidh2o · Dec 29, 2005

hard to say because they're different architechtures (I know I just butchered that word) and it'd be hard to isolate and compare the performance of the two because of that.

alep85 · Dec 29, 2005

That is one of the exciting facets of the Intel Switch, FINALLY a direct Windows to Mac speed comparison can be done. I still, however, think that the single G5 in a new iMac can still edge out a comparable Pentium 4 desktop (or whatever the hell Intel calls their best Pentium these days), even when Mac OS X is on both of the machines. I suppose we'll see when the real Intel Macs come out!

Dont Hurt Me · Dec 29, 2005

alep85 said:
That is one of the exciting facets of the Intel Switch, FINALLY a direct Windows to Mac speed comparison can be done. I still, however, think that the single G5 in a new iMac can still edge out a comparable Pentium 4 desktop (or whatever the hell Intel calls their best Pentium these days), even when Mac OS X is on both of the machines. I suppose we'll see when the real Intel Macs come out!

Any game can prove that statement wrong, In fact in gaming the iMac gets hammered, now if you want to talk work it could be a lot closer but a G5 doesnt match up well to one Intel or Athlon. 2 G5s do better but are still Hammered in gaming and lets be real here, i dont need safari to open faster or itunes to play 10 tracks at once but i do need frames in Doom3 or any modern game.

alep85 · Dec 29, 2005

Dont Hurt Me said:
Any game can prove that statement wrong, In fact in gaming the iMac gets hammered, now if you want to talk work it could be a lot closer but a G5 doesnt match up well to one Intel or Athlon. 2 G5s do better but are still Hammered in gaming and lets be real here, i dont need safari to open faster or itunes to play 10 tracks at once but i do need frames in Doom3 or any modern game.

Good point, but you are forgetting that many games are optimized for XP and on OS X are simply ports. Throw in the DirectX vs. OpenGL problems, the fact they aren't running on the same OS, and it's not really a fair game. Sorry, but its hard to compare games when there are so many other factors other than the processor to consider.

maya · Dec 29, 2005

Depends on what you mean by, "powerful." In raw speed, in energy consumption, etc...

I say its more along 50% depending on the application its used in and for.

Mobility is not one of the G5's strengths.

alep85 · Dec 29, 2005

maya said:
Depends on what you mean by, "powerful." In raw speed, in energy consumption, etc...

I say its more along 50% depending on the application its used in and for.

Mobility is not one of the G5's strengths.

Probably puts it best. Thus why we have no G5 Powerbook, of course, unless we wanted a brick of a laptop like a cheap model Dell.

Morn · Dec 31, 2005

Err, well I suppose so, it's well known that pentium 4 sucks for dual core. But the Athlon X2 4800+ is faster than them both, so I voted a yes, considering that that is still a x86 chip.
A dual dual core opteron 2.4ghz workstation is really fast btw.

bousozoku · Dec 31, 2005

Dont Hurt Me said:
Thats so funny, I guess G5 is faster if you compare 2 or 4 G5s to 1 Intel and you arent gaming. The sad reality is 95% of the worlds software doesnt run on Mac. There lies the problem. Remember Europe had to force Apple to stop spinning the Powermac because it wasnt the most powerful personal computer. G5/G4 are heading for the door

Careful to be precise with your numbers because 95 % of the world's software doesn't run on anything with an Intel or AMD processor either.

Big business worldwide doesn't use Intel or AMD processors to run their business more than likely--only their desktop, designer, and small servers use those or Macs.

Is the G5 more powerful than equivalent Intel processors? No, but considering overall throughput in a variety of work, it's equally strong. The fact that clock speeds haven't come close and it still excels at some work proves that. You simply have to have the variety of work it does well to be happy with it and most Mac users can be.

Besides, there must be something to the processor or game console manufacturers wouldn't be all using a modification of the design for their new machines.

FocusAndEarnIt · Dec 31, 2005

I put you can't compare the two. In reality, you just can't. They are different in every way.

Mord · Dec 31, 2005

Dont Hurt Me said:
Any game can prove that statement wrong, In fact in gaming the iMac gets hammered, now if you want to talk work it could be a lot closer but a G5 doesnt match up well to one Intel or Athlon. 2 G5s do better but are still Hammered in gaming and lets be real here, i dont need safari to open faster or itunes to play 10 tracks at once but i do need frames in Doom3 or any modern game.

dont hurt me, seriously try rubbing two brain cells together ffs GET A ****ING PC PUT IT ON A KVM AND BE DONE WITH IT.

if it were not for forum rules this post would be a heck of allot ruder all your posts are near identical it just gets to me.

macs are not gameing computers you are a minority, heck a minority that i am in but stop whineing your ass off it has nothing to do with the powerpc games are extremely complex things to port and when i game is properly ported aka quake 3 (and i'm not talking dual mac versus single pc) then the performance gap disappears, i will infact be laughing my ass off when you get an intel mac and find that intel mac games are no faster than they were on ppc. i have heard it from the mouths of games developers the directx->open gl transition is what takes up 70-80% of the work.

kingcrowing · Dec 31, 2005

yeah, games arent how you compare systems, thats how you compare graphics cards. I'd say that photoshop and video editing is the way to do it, but as people have said, its comparing apples and oranges, and really though, the differences is peanuts, if you get a high end dual G5 and a high ends P4/AMD, its all gonna do what you need it to. However, OS X is going to let you get more done because of how easy and nice to use it is, so weather one is faster or not, who cares, your going to get more done with OS X simply because its a pleasure to use, at least for me.

Morn · Jan 2, 2006

lilstewart92 said:
I put you can't compare the two. In reality, you just can't. They are different in every way.

The main problem is simply that the only OS that both run is linux, so that complicates benchmarking it. They aren't that dissimilar, both CPU's do the same job, both are what's known as post-RISC cores (really, internally they are both quite similar, they just have different instruction set, with is more like just a different haircut rather than something that sigificant)
I put that comparing the G5 to Intel is no more impossible than comparing Athlon to Pentium. Except that..... they both run windows which gives you access to a lot more software to compare.
I think we'll have to wait for universal binaries of pro apps on x86 tiger to do a proper comparison of the chips.

840quadra · Jan 2, 2006

bousozoku said:
Besides, there must be something to the processor or game console manufacturers wouldn't be all using a modification of the design for their new machines.

That is the exact argument I throw back to people when they start to make disrespectful comments in regards to me liking Macs, and saying they can't game well..

Well I don't game, and when I do i use consoles as opposed to spending $500 - $1000 a year on parts to keep my system up to date and supportable for games i want to pay.

The other issue is, exactly how many games are designed 100% for PPC from the ground up, as opposed to modified to work on it? I can't imagine many actually are.

The other question I have, If Apple were to stay PPC, how much better do you think games would be for the Macintosh platform in the future? I don't know much about programming, but wouldn't it be relatively easy for a programmer to port a game for Xbox to work on a PPC Powermac ?

Just something I have been thinking about, but then again, I still wouldn't game on my G5 (or whatever) in the future, as I am happy with buying a console to game on.

JFreak · Jan 2, 2006

alep85 said:
That is one of the exciting facets of the Intel Switch, FINALLY a direct Windows to Mac speed comparison can be done.

Where's the logic here? Apple switching to Intel-cpu's means that soon there will be:

1) Macs that have PPC processor
2) Macs that have x86 processor

...and you can therefore make a speed comparison between an Apple-branded PPC computer and an Apple-branded x86 computer. There's no Windows in this equation.

Even if you thought that Apple will not make it impossible for people to install Windows into Apple hardware, it's not granted that it will initially be possible. Apple might very well not use standard BIOS; therefore, I guess you will not be able to install pre-Vista Windows system to Apple-branded PC -- and Vista isn't out yet.

840quadra said:
wouldn't it be relatively easy for a programmer to port a game for Xbox to work on a PPC Powermac ?

no.

840quadra · Jan 2, 2006

JFreak said:
no.

Thanks for the enlightening reply, but can you offer up some more information on that thought? I am not looking to debate, just for more information.

Morn · Jan 2, 2006

The other question I have, If Apple were to stay PPC, how much better do you think games would be for the Macintosh platform in the future? I don't know much about programming, but wouldn't it be relatively easy for a programmer to port a game for Xbox to work on a PPC Powermac ?

The programmer often doesn't even have to care what CPU is being used, it's handled by the compiler.... What the programmer has to worry about is the API and I think xbox uses directx or something similar ... osx uses opengl.
Of course, a Intel mac will be great for people who want to game, being able to run windows on it for games.

840quadra · Jan 2, 2006

Morn said:
The programmer often doesn't even have to care what CPU is being used, it's handled by the compiler.... What the programmer has to worry about is the API and I think xbox uses directx or something similar ... osx uses opengl.
Of course, a Intel mac will be great for people who want to game, being able to run windows on it for games.

Thanks for going deeper into that topic. Like I said I am no programmer, so my understanding is limited. I need to widen my experiences from just Servers, Networking, and applications

.

G5 Processor Page Gone...

Do you think the G5 is still more powerful than a comparable Intel?

Yes

No

Not sure

It's too hard to compare the two.

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