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Apple compared to pc
- Thread starter JzzTrump22
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That is hard to say. it depends on the application. In many way the 1GHz PB 12" I have runs circles around the the Pentium 2.2 that i have.
This answer cannot be answered meaningfully with a simple number.
As a recent Mac switcher, I find that as far as the "snapiness" of the system goes, a 1.5ghz would be along the lines of a 500MHz Pentium 2. The actual performance of applications is more up there with a 1.5-2GHz P4. Don't get me wrong, I'm VERY glad I switched to Mac, but WinXP system and application interfaces are F-A-S-T, and that's the one thing I miss most.
Lee Tom
As a recent Mac switcher, I find that as far as the "snapiness" of the system goes, a 1.5ghz would be along the lines of a 500MHz Pentium 2. The actual performance of applications is more up there with a 1.5-2GHz P4. Don't get me wrong, I'm VERY glad I switched to Mac, but WinXP system and application interfaces are F-A-S-T, and that's the one thing I miss most.
Lee Tom
LeeTom said:
I agree. many people think macs are slow only because of the day to day desktop environment speed (opening windows, application launch, etc). However, application performance is quite comparable, if not better in a few cases, than Windows.
LeeTom said:
Maybe it's a lack of RAM. I have 768 MB and mine is very "snappy"
. I also had a 500 Mhz P2 and let me tell you, it was not "snappy" .Tough to say. A 1.5 Ghz G4 would be equal to at least a 2.4Ghz P4. My 1 Ghz PB blows my 2.4Ghz P4 right out of the water. I wouldn't hesitate to say that it's twice as fast in some instances.
Check out the data sheets at apple.com, they usually have some good comparisons.
Best wishes,
JOD8FY
JOD8FY said:Maybe it's a lack of RAM. I have 768 MB and mine is very "snappy"
I have 1GB of RAM in a 1.25GHz G4, and my roommate's 1GHz Pentium III is noticeably "snappier". I stand by my statement, and firmly believe that OS X needs some interface speed improvement.
Lee Tom
ok, thanks for the help, i've wondering what the answer was to that for quite some time. I know it depends on what apps your using and all that all i knew was apple is clocked slower than pc and didn't know what the ratio was. Well anything is faster than this crappy 450 mghz p3 that i have right now. Thanks for the help fellas!
LeeTom said:
Could definitely run faster. What OS and vintage software is on the P3? A P3 running win 95 and office 97 will be a speed demon.
LeeTom said:
I would have to agree. Hell, my friends ancient Celeron 500MHz running WinXP feels "snappier" than my 1.4GHz Mac. When a 1.4GHz processor can't even scroll web pages smoothly, you know there is something wrong.
Scroll speed tells you nothing at all about the relative performance difference between Windows and the Mac. Windows users cream their pants over high scroll speed. Therefore, Windows is designed to maximize scroll speed. Apple made a different design decision to satisfy different goals. FWIW, the Mac IIfx with its neck-snapping 40 MHz MC68030 processor had a 6502 processor dedicated to windows management. One of the functions of the windows management system was to slow the scroll speed.Jigglelicious said:
LeeTom said:
Are you saying the 1.5GHz PB is 66.6% less snappy then a 500 MHz P2 b/c of the OS... I thought OSX made applications snappier???
Doesn't that make the Mac seem EXTREMELY SLOW!?!?
JOD8FY said:
I really don't agree. I work IT and I power through a system like a bat out of hell when dealing with a file structure, editing files, opening programs, making a change, rebooting or other various tasks. Playing around, at the Apple store, with any system other then a dual 2Ghz G5 the interface feels slow. Much slower then Windows. On the Windows side of things I go to a person's computer and I've had people ask me how I can move so fast. Someone at one point compared me to Data on ST. I just don't get that same feeling on a Mac. I open an app and instead of it opening in 2 seconds it takes 5. (Yes in the real world 3 extra seconds isn't THAT big of a deal but its the feel of the OS that is the problem.) I dink with the finder and instead of being able to power through a path with the command line bar on Windows explorer I have to wade through click, folder, click, folder, click. I suppose this could be tied to both OS X and the hardware but in the end it really doesn't matter since whatever the cause it still feels slow. Then again I'm hardly the OS X expert. I'm probably missing some shortcuts that would save me time in doing "things". In the end I think Apple still has a ways to go when it comes to GUI speed. Panther may be good enough for the average user but for some switchers who are compairing it to XP its still is a tad on the slow side.
Also another "trick" I've noticed that Apple stores use, at least the one in the MoA, to make people playing around with their Mac think its faster is open up just about every app on the computer. I know they do this because I wanted to check and see what the boot time was compaired to WinXP. (Don't ask. Its not even funny.) I came back to the system about 10 minutes after booting and found a rep opening the most common apps on the system. (e.g. Word, Excel, iTunes, iCal, etc.)
Maybe its just me but you shouldn't need to do such a thing if you are confidant in the speed of your product. *shrugs* In that case I couldn't blame her since it was a 17" G4 PowerBook which really DOES feel slow.
But still.
Hmmm... You could've used the Terminal. It's all Unix command line just like command prompt in Windows.
Anyway, I find my AMD Barton 3200+, nForce2 mobo, 512MB PC3200 RAM, running WinXP Pro system a bit faster when doing everyday task than the Dual G4 1.25G, 1GB PC2700, Panther. No big deal, both does its job.
Anyway, I find my AMD Barton 3200+, nForce2 mobo, 512MB PC3200 RAM, running WinXP Pro system a bit faster when doing everyday task than the Dual G4 1.25G, 1GB PC2700, Panther. No big deal, both does its job.
here
from the macs and pcs i have used... i would say a 1.5 ghz G4 is equal to about a 2 ghz P4... BUT the problem is that windows machines are slo-mwed down by virus's and adware... a NEW 2ghz P4 is faster than a 1.5 ghz G4, but as the windows pc grows older, it will run the SAME apps slower as it ages where as the mac keeps the same speed (reason for resale value difference)... but a pc user who KNOWS (very few do) how to keep up XP and reduce the running process and reduce startup items and keep stuff running efficiently can keep their computer snappier than a mac... the problem is who wants to spend their time doing this... and not many know how... but if you do you can keep your wintel running faster than a comperable mac... if not, you will wish you had a mac within 6 months of use...
from the macs and pcs i have used... i would say a 1.5 ghz G4 is equal to about a 2 ghz P4... BUT the problem is that windows machines are slo-mwed down by virus's and adware... a NEW 2ghz P4 is faster than a 1.5 ghz G4, but as the windows pc grows older, it will run the SAME apps slower as it ages where as the mac keeps the same speed (reason for resale value difference)... but a pc user who KNOWS (very few do) how to keep up XP and reduce the running process and reduce startup items and keep stuff running efficiently can keep their computer snappier than a mac... the problem is who wants to spend their time doing this... and not many know how... but if you do you can keep your wintel running faster than a comperable mac... if not, you will wish you had a mac within 6 months of use...
talking about speeddevils and snappy
I used to have a B&W G3 300 768mb ram running OS9.2.2 an OSX 10.2
together with a Ti-Book G4 400 256mb ram (later upgraded to 1GB) allso with 9&X & a P2 450 384 mb ram running WinY2K
on OS9 they were flying and on OSX they were slow...
photoshop was faster on both macs under OS9 & X but still faster under 9 and it was crap on WinY2K (the 'slower' G4 with less ram outspeeded the P2)
now I have a G5 wich runs Photoshop as fast as I need it (maybe extra ram ugrade later) and since that is the major thing I need it for I don't even look at the fact that menu's are 'slow' or scrolling is slow
and WinY2K allso only ran 'faster' when I did shut down all the extra graphic gizmo's... it all depends on what you do and how you configure it
each 6months I did a full reinstall of Windows because after a while it got slow, never happened on macos ;-) allways the same speed...
a friend is programmer for MS here in Belgium and he told me: when getting a Windows PC add at least 1GB ram to make it run normal... but people don't want to spend that money so they complain about speed & instability on Windows, and I have to agree, his PC runs like a dream, but when we compare Photoshopspeeds he's outrun by the G5...
I used to have a B&W G3 300 768mb ram running OS9.2.2 an OSX 10.2
together with a Ti-Book G4 400 256mb ram (later upgraded to 1GB) allso with 9&X & a P2 450 384 mb ram running WinY2K
on OS9 they were flying and on OSX they were slow...
photoshop was faster on both macs under OS9 & X but still faster under 9 and it was crap on WinY2K (the 'slower' G4 with less ram outspeeded the P2)
now I have a G5 wich runs Photoshop as fast as I need it (maybe extra ram ugrade later) and since that is the major thing I need it for I don't even look at the fact that menu's are 'slow' or scrolling is slow
and WinY2K allso only ran 'faster' when I did shut down all the extra graphic gizmo's... it all depends on what you do and how you configure it
each 6months I did a full reinstall of Windows because after a while it got slow, never happened on macos ;-) allways the same speed...
a friend is programmer for MS here in Belgium and he told me: when getting a Windows PC add at least 1GB ram to make it run normal... but people don't want to spend that money so they complain about speed & instability on Windows, and I have to agree, his PC runs like a dream, but when we compare Photoshopspeeds he's outrun by the G5...
MisterMe said:
You are absolutely right - scroll speeds mean nothing in terms of performance. But my point is, why can't OSX do something as simple as scrolling a webpage in a "snappy" fashion? It shouldn't take a Dual G5 to accomplish this. And this is with no apps running. If i suddenly start burning/ripping a CD, window scrolling becomes so choppy its disorienting. No PC that i've ever worked on had problems like this - be it in Windows, BeOS, Linux, or even AmigaOS.
Jigglelicious said:
Are you using Safari? Are you on Panther?
Honestly, I find that my iMac 700MHz is faster in most web surfing than any of the windows based browsers I use on my 2.5GHz Bell. And I tend to use Firebird/Firefox mostly.
Another factor for me is that I have apps open for weeks on end, and windows which I just hide. I come back to projects after a couple of weeks and dive straight back in, because it's all just waiting there, all windows open where I left them. On my PC, I often have to wait 20 seconds while it swaps memory for old application windows. Both machines have 1GB ram, but switching between applications on the PC is slow. Same with navigating the file system. Having to hold [alt]-F-W-F to make a new folder is silly. I often reorganise my PC files from the Finder on my iMac.
It sounds like something ain't right on your eMac. While I wouldn't call Panther snappy, it doesn't hinder my work.
MisterMe said:
That's pretty irrelevent. All that was said is that Windows feels snappier. Unless Apple purposely makes window resizing slow and choppy, which doesn't happen, I don't think its true.
My old AMD Duron 650MHz PC running WinXP with 256 MB RAM using a 64MB video GeForce 2 (or maybe it was a GeForce 4) is snappier than my Powerbook at 1GHz. However, when doing actual work.....loading large files, editing something, my PC isn't as fast, but its not too slow in comparison. I'd say that a Mac at 1GHz is as fast as a PC using a 1.3GHz Intel chip of some sort (but NOT a Celeron), since my brother has that and it runs quite fast (although he modified it a lot).
You all got smooth scrolling enabled?
Still, scrolling and window resizing does seem lackluster. Dunno if that's because OSX is based on PDF whereas XP is based on bitmaps. Probably is.
Still, scrolling and window resizing does seem lackluster. Dunno if that's because OSX is based on PDF whereas XP is based on bitmaps. Probably is.
7on said:
Smooth scrolling is high on my lists of waste of processor power.
Right up there with updating a window's contents while moving it. Not that the latter is so bad, just that MS introduced it in Win (esp. NT) long before the HW was really ready. And so you had all those PCs being defaulted to smooth scrolling and live window updates when they couldn't do it.Now that the computers can handle it, I don't mind live window updates anymore, but I still really don't care for smooth scrolling.
Driver Optimizations
Keep in mind that windows drivers are optimized for windows. I remember when the first 'Windows Accelerated' graphics cards came out - they were fast compared to non-accelerated versions.
I don't know that much about the Macs' render, but yes, opengl/pdf, etc are indeed going to be more time consuming than a 2d bitblt, especially if it's hardware accelerated.
I remember having to optimize my code for scrolling on the pc, bitblt to save previous window area, move, bitblt to restore, then draw new area. If I didn't do this optimization, then my code was super slow to draw.
Maybe Apple needs to do some more optimizations or include gfx cards in their systems that are optimized for their needs?
The CPU isn't all that involved in the rendering these days - it's mostly hardware, software just sets up the scene.
Keep in mind that windows drivers are optimized for windows. I remember when the first 'Windows Accelerated' graphics cards came out - they were fast compared to non-accelerated versions.
I don't know that much about the Macs' render, but yes, opengl/pdf, etc are indeed going to be more time consuming than a 2d bitblt, especially if it's hardware accelerated.
I remember having to optimize my code for scrolling on the pc, bitblt to save previous window area, move, bitblt to restore, then draw new area. If I didn't do this optimization, then my code was super slow to draw.
Maybe Apple needs to do some more optimizations or include gfx cards in their systems that are optimized for their needs?
The CPU isn't all that involved in the rendering these days - it's mostly hardware, software just sets up the scene.
LeeTom said:
One thing that you have to remember is that the inteface speed is always faster if you leave your Mac on. Just test it yourself open your HD and then go to your utilities menu in list mode and see how long it takes to open. Now close that window and do it again. The window will open and load faster because it has bee cached.
I have a dual tower at home that has been running for months and that is super quick. Application launches are achieved with a single bounce of the dock icon. You can log out and log in again and it makes no difference. As long as you have the mac turned on, it will remember what you have openend and will cache it for you for a speedy re-open...
aussie_geek
aussie_geek said:One thing that you have to remember is that the inteface speed is always faster if you leave your Mac on. Just test it yourself open your HD and then go to your utilities menu in list mode and see how long it takes to open. Now close that window and do it again. The window will open and load faster because it has bee cached.
I have a dual tower at home that has been running for months and that is super quick. Application launches are achieved with a single bounce of the dock icon. You can log out and log in again and it makes no difference. As long as you have the mac turned on, it will remember what you have openend and will cache it for you for a speedy re-open...
aussie_geek
Do you ever turn it off or do you just leave it sleep when you're not using it?
PowerMacMan said:
I defiantly put my iBook to sleep at the end of the day
Speed is a funny thing to measure when it comes to the Mac and the PC
As for the interfaces I find that both (OS X and XP) start off with fast interfaces, but after awhile XP may start to slow down if you start installing new things and don't keep the system clean, same could be said for OS X but there you go
As you know OS X uses RAM to cache certain things to keep things running nicely, however the PC I have has more RAM (see sig) yet Windows doesn't seem to make use of it for speeding up the interface
And btw that scrolling problem will be Software Related, obviously Apple hasn't optimized the code for that feature yet
Back to this Processor Speed thing I find that both are fast to do their jobs, for example the PC of course runs games faster yet the iBook can web browse and do day to day activites better then the PC can
Well thats how it works in my house, two different worlds here but I think Apple has done well to keep their OS snappy even for slower machines as Windows certainly hasn't
This of course was all down to them making faster chips, but now for example with the problems at Intel whats going to happen there?
Chip NoVaMac said:
I truely find this hard to believe. I also have a 12'' PB @ 1ghz, and my P4 blows it away. Heck, my SFF PC with an Athlon XP running at 1833mhz blows it away. The G4 is old and crusty and doesn't match up against anything modern from Intel or AMD. Sorry to say, it was barely faster when it debuted, and it is certainly not faster now.