Depressing Reading

[Dunepilot]

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm

wakey wakey apple!

This is disturbing in that it's such a balanced account. Really worrying.

 

[alex_ant]

That can't be! The Power Mac is capable of 18 gigaflops! Apple says so themselves. Obviously this article is nothing but PC-biased dreck. Don't trust the megahertz myth - the dual 1.25 is the fastest desktop computer on earth. Show me any PC that can do 18 gigaflops.

Sorry, I just wanted to get a glimpse of what it's like to be a raving Mac lunatic.

 

[Flickta]

So what?

Everything will change. I hope. Soon...

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I've seen some of their other tests, and as far as I can tell they are being as unbiased as possible. Macs are just not as fast as the top end PCs. And they need 2 processors to even stay in the game. We need a new Processor, we know one is on the way, I just hope it is enough.

D

 

[lmalave]

Ouch! Looks like the Dell 3MHz is almost twice as fast in a lot of those Photoshop and After Effects benchmarks. On the other hand, that implies that if Apple can bump up the G4 speed to about 1.8 MHz, and maybe even introduce a faster bus, that gap will narrow significantly (maybe the Dual-G4 being only 25% slower than the fastest single Intel CPU at the time). Still, 2003 looks grim for the Apple pro line, at least until they can put IBM 970s in those PowerMacs. Then we'll see about those Photoshop and After Effects benchmarks! I hope IBM and Apple surprise us and come out with 970 PowerMacs earlier than currently projected. Maybe they'll even be announced at MWNY this summer?

 

[LethalWolfe]

OMG...

Not yelling, but this is the 4rth time this has been posted in the last 8 wks.


Lethal

 

[Wano]

The thing is that apple makes quality computers that don't crash. With my Dell I had to restart it about twice a day, or if I wanted to work with photoshop or premiere I would have to completely restart and refresh it. Macs have a more attractive interface, it's easier to use, and it's smooth. Sure, those Dell's might have a faster CPU, but at least macs are reliable and wont crash on you when you hit the save button to save a big project.

 

[Dunepilot]

Repetition

Sorry,

didn't realise the link had been posted already.

It really does just seem like a fair review by someone who just wants to get the job done. As he says, for a lot of pros, the OS is something that starts to fade into the background after several hours on the job.

I'm too blindly loyal to Apple to ever buy anything else, but it does show real-world performance is lagging. In a way the current performance gap has meant that it's been a fortuitous time for barefeats.com to have a break (though I sympathise with their reasons, obviously).

I ended up in an argument with this really opinionated girl last night who mocked my BTO purchase of the dual-867 I have ordered.

"Megahertz!!" she scoffed.

(my thought train has wandered a bit on this post!)

 

[Megaquad]

This is so sad..
Mac is so much more expensive and PC is so much faster
All we can do is hope for better days.
IMHO if Apple could introduce better macs at lower price they'd do it, right?

 

[Dunepilot]

Originally posted by Megaquad
This is so sad..
Mac is so much more expensive and PC is so much faster
All we can do is hope for better days.
IMHO if Apple could introduce better macs at lower price they'd do it, right?

Tell me about it.

Having said that, I have my dual-867 on order now, and I'm looking forward to playing with a machine that blows my current one out of the water.

As long as it feels snappier under OS X than this machine does under OS 9 (old 333MHz powerbook) then I'm going to be happy.

 

[TyleRomeo]

guys so what if they stats depict the mac as being slower. We all use macs becuase of its amazing OS and not its aging G4. That why i switched. All my friends have PCs over 2GHz and they constanly complain about drivers not working, or constant freezing. I just smirk at them and at this point would rather keep macs as my little secret from them, they can even fathom how easy and elegant things are on a mac.

Tyler

 

[daniel77]

Originally posted by lmalave
Ouch! Looks like the Dell 3MHz is almost twice as fast in a lot of those Photoshop and After Effects benchmarks. On the other hand, that implies that if Apple can bump up the G4 speed to about 1.8 MHz, and maybe even introduce a faster bus, that gap will narrow significantly (maybe the Dual-G4 being only 25% slower than the fastest single Intel CPU at the time). Still, 2003 looks grim for the Apple pro line, at least until they can put IBM 970s in those PowerMacs. Then we'll see about those Photoshop and After Effects benchmarks! I hope IBM and Apple surprise us and come out with 970 PowerMacs earlier than currently projected. Maybe they'll even be announced at MWNY this summer?

that is 3ghz btw, in case you made a "Typo" it is pretty sad that you have to spend 5000 for a top of the line mac and still have it be considerably slower then one that is 1/2 its price.

 

[macktheknife]

Originally posted by daniel77


that is 3ghz btw, in case you made a "Typo" it is pretty sad that you have to spend 5000 for a top of the line mac and still have it be considerably slower then one that is 1/2 its price.

Agreed. I work with PCs and Macs all the time, and the former more often than not outperforms the latter in sheer processing speed. Yes, there is indeed a megahertz myth, but the performance gap between PCs and Macs are too wide to ignore. Yes, Macs are generally more stable than PCs, but Windows is not the crash-happy OS Macusers generally deride as. I have no problems with paying for better performance, but Macs are falling way behind the processor race. If Apple expects us to pay a premium for an advanced OS, shouldn't we as consumers expect to pay less for hardware that is generally slower than the competition? This is a fair question.

The G4 and G3 are currently transitional technologies acting as a "bridge" between OS 9 and OS X. The next generation of processors (the Power 4 by IBM) will hopefully be able to take full advantage of OS X, but will it bring performance on par with Intel's P4 or even P3? This is another fair question worth asking.

I am a recent switcher who is very happy he dumped his Dell laptop for a TiBook. I do plan on getting a new PowerBook in a year or so, but I simply cannot justify purchasing another Mac if the Mac-PC performance chasm widens further.

 

[Megaquad]

Originally posted by Dunepilot


Tell me about it.

Having said that, I have my dual-867 on order now, and I'm looking forward to playing with a machine that blows my current one out of the water.

As long as it feels snappier under OS X than this machine does under OS 9 (old 333MHz powerbook) then I'm going to be happy.

You can't really compare OSX and OS9 in speed because OSX has preemptive multitasking etc.
I am beginning to think all this OSX slowness is because of PDF-based interface and everything on screen. Could there be a better solution then PDF? Something faster?
OS X just seems too slow, actually, it is insane how slow it is!

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Megaquad

You can't really compare OSX and OS9 in speed because OSX has preemptive multitasking etc.
I am beginning to think all this OSX slowness is because of PDF-based interface and everything on screen. Could there be a better solution then PDF? Something faster?
OS X just seems too slow, actually, it is insane how slow it is!

It doesn't seem slow at all when you have a Dual/GHz/DDR Mac. It's extremely snappy faster at OSX then any machine I ever ran using OS9. That being my last machine a B/WG3 400. Also I could care less about the interface as long as it is reasonably fast. What's impressive is how well OSX uses both processors in this machine. I rarely see one processor having more load then the other. Also when I'm running multiple programs at once there is no slow down.