I'm a developer from the UK who's currently in the US. Right now, the only machine I have is my 2001 PowerBook. That's fine for building Java (even if the resulting applications start a little too slowly), but no good for C++.
I was going to get a G5 iMac, but was put off by the seeming fact that the PSU is US-only. I guess I could take it for "repair" when I go back to Europe, but that's annoying. I'm quite keen to get an amd64 Shuttle running Linux and Sun's Java 1.5 VM (because it's going to be a while before Apple catches up), so an alternative would be to just get a 17" PowerBook as head for that machine. The third alternative would be a G5 PowerMac.
Anyway, what I'd really like are benchmark results for my own favorite benchmark (the one that's most meaningful for me). How long do the various machines take to build Jikes?
You can download the Jikes 1.21 source here:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/index.php?group_id=10
Building it is the usual "configure; time make", but don't forget "-j2" if you have a dual-processor machine.
My work Linux/Pentium 4 3.2GHz HT box takes two minutes, as did my old PowerMac G4 1.42GHz DP. My PowerBook G4 666MHz takes ten minutes.
I guess from the other benchmark threads that a G5 iMac with enough memory (512MiB/1GiB recommended, depending on how many processors you have) should be about the same as the dual G4, but I'd like to know. And I'd like to know what a dual 2.5GHz G5 would offer. It's significantly more expensive, so I'd want to see significantly better performance. (By comparison, I've seen little improvement with recent Pentium clock-speed bumps. A few seconds aren't much of a dent in two minutes.)
Thanks in advance to anyone who can be bothered to try this and post their numbers!
--elliott
I was going to get a G5 iMac, but was put off by the seeming fact that the PSU is US-only. I guess I could take it for "repair" when I go back to Europe, but that's annoying. I'm quite keen to get an amd64 Shuttle running Linux and Sun's Java 1.5 VM (because it's going to be a while before Apple catches up), so an alternative would be to just get a 17" PowerBook as head for that machine. The third alternative would be a G5 PowerMac.
Anyway, what I'd really like are benchmark results for my own favorite benchmark (the one that's most meaningful for me). How long do the various machines take to build Jikes?
You can download the Jikes 1.21 source here:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/index.php?group_id=10
Building it is the usual "configure; time make", but don't forget "-j2" if you have a dual-processor machine.
My work Linux/Pentium 4 3.2GHz HT box takes two minutes, as did my old PowerMac G4 1.42GHz DP. My PowerBook G4 666MHz takes ten minutes.
I guess from the other benchmark threads that a G5 iMac with enough memory (512MiB/1GiB recommended, depending on how many processors you have) should be about the same as the dual G4, but I'd like to know. And I'd like to know what a dual 2.5GHz G5 would offer. It's significantly more expensive, so I'd want to see significantly better performance. (By comparison, I've seen little improvement with recent Pentium clock-speed bumps. A few seconds aren't much of a dent in two minutes.)
Thanks in advance to anyone who can be bothered to try this and post their numbers!
--elliott