Developer Transition Kit Benchmarks

[aussie_geek]

Meh...

This result does not surprise me. It has been only 36 hours since they have been out!! Give them a chance.

BTW - I am assuming that the G5 tests didn't include the disk results. Just did an xBench on my 2.5GHz -- there was no difference.


aussie_geek

 

[efoto]

can anyone post a screenshot of the "About This Mac" dialog so that we can get a peek at what type of processor these intel boxes are running with.

i know that these are just developer test-beds, and that the processor is going to change between now and when these boxes hit the market, but it'd be interesting none the less.

could we get a comparison of a mini or imac? i hope these developers are going to get a pay raise.

As if (theoretically) violating their NDA wasn't enough, now you want even more system specs?

As stated these are for development purposes and they will most likely change by the time any of us see them (save for the developers among us). Also, I believe it was stated these are running 3.6Ghz P4s wbiggart

Edit: From OP in first post:

Here is one XBench screenshot showing the developer 3.6GHz Pentium 4 PowerMac running Xbench under the Rosetta emulation

 

[abrooks]

can anyone post a screenshot of the "About This Mac" dialog so that we can get a peek at what type of processor these intel boxes are running with.

i know that these are just developer test-beds, and that the processor is going to change between now and when these boxes hit the market, but it'd be interesting none the less.

 

[SiliconAddict]

NDA's are for losers anyway.

No NDA's are to keep Mac users from freaking out....I'm scared to read this thread.

EVERYONE KEEP IN MIND THAT THE POWERMAC WILL NOT SHIP WITH A P4 AND IS TWO YEARS AWAY FROM SHIPPING!

And is benchmarking the emulator. Nobody panic.

 

[efoto]

abrooks, that is a screencap from the keynote right?

Any chance anyone else is hosting that keynote movie? I cannot play it off Apple's site from work (but other sites hosted movies play fine, imagine that )

Aside: do you always keep your Adium chat-box centered over your dock like that abrooks, or is that simply a coincidence?

 

[robbieduncan]

These benchmarks show 1 thing only (and we knew it already). Running existing PPC compiled code on x86 under Rosetta will not be as fast as it was on a PPC chip. This does not tell us anything about the raw speed of native x86 code. This is like running benchmarks under VPC and comparing the speed to Windows on x86!

I expect that a native version of xBench would be a minumum of twice as fast (as figures I've seen elsewhere indicate that Rosetta is, at it's very best, capable of giving 40-50% native speed). Some sections of xBench will be much more thatn twice as fast when an x86 version is used.

In short: Don't Panic. These results are actually really good!

 

[y0zza]

A supposed pic of the Pentium 4 3.6GHz devel box (ArsTechnica):

 

[bloodfist]

I could host the keynote

I could host the keynote. I have a decent chunk of bandwidth available on my web hosting account. If anyone has the file that is in the screenshot above and is willing to FTP to my webserver, let me know.

BF

 

[SPUY767]

2 G5s = 1 Intel or AMD. Nothing new here.

Hardly. The benchmarks always show the Dual 3.06 Xeons and dual opterons keeping pace with the G5s. The single P4s are always getting their ass whipped.

 

[aussie_geek]

Wow..that was quick..now we need some pictures of the machines!

 

[mgargan1]

No NDA's are to keep Mac users from freaking out....I'm scared to read this thread.

EVERYONE KEEP IN MIND THAT THE POWERMAC WILL NOT SHIP WITH A P4 AND IS TWO YEARS AWAY FROM SHIPPING!

And is benchmarking the emulator. Nobody panic.

ahhh, finally! I was hoping someone would bring this up. Listen, the Prescott P4 sucks compared to the G5. This is GREAT news, this is the kinda news that keeps Apple in business for the next transition year. If the P4 was faster, who in their right mind would buy a G5?

The processor that Apple will use will probably be the next generation pentium which will not use the netburst architecture, but the supped up pentium-m technology.

 

[hadlock]

So how long before MacBench gets recompiled for x86? As a consumer, I could care less about how fast the x86 runs legacy code.

Photoshop, Office, and others will be avalible (both in stores and bit torrent) in native x86 binaries soon enough. Adium, Firefox, et al are already ready to be compiled as an x86 binary right now. I'm very curious to see how the recompiled x86 macbench on the DevKit box compares to the the PPC compiled version on a (single processor) G5.

If the 3.6 Ghz single processor can emulate PPC at 25% the speed of a dual 2.7 Ghz G5, then I'll be plenty happy. That developer kit can emulate a PPC better than my 550mhz powerbook can do without emulation! Now I just have to convince myself to hold off until June 2006 to get my x86 Powerbook (although probably a 2.0 Ghz Pentium M, rather than 3.6 Ghz P4).

 

[Davito]

I am not familiar with the x86-archidectures, but does anybody have a clue what will hapen with the 64-bit parts of OS-X that Apple started to introduce? Are Intel's processores 32 or 64 bit-based?

 

[X-Baz]

Looks to me that the 2.7 pretty much wiped its ass with the intel machine. Graphics didn't suffer since they are mainly system level GPU calls. But everything else seemed to get hammered by the G5. This benchmark means bugger all however, because it's being emulated. Suffice to say, that the benchmarks fared better than they would if it was being run on PearPC.

Yes, but XBench was running under Rosetta (ie emulated) - it's not a real test until XBench has been recompiled for x86 and is running native. However, it is a useful benchmark for seeing how fast PPC binaries will run on an Intel Mac - about five times slower than a fat binary it would appear.

 

[Platform]

I could host the keynote. I have a decent chunk of bandwidth available on my web hosting account. If anyone has the file that is in the screenshot above and is willing to FTP to my webserver, let me know.

BF

YES....finaly please do so...I want to see

 

[Platform]

Nice.....more please

 

[robbieduncan]

I am not familiar with the x86-archidectures, but does anybody have a clue what will hapen with the 64-bit parts of OS-X that Apple started to introduce? Are Intel's processores 32 or 64 bit-based?

Yes
Similar to the PowerPC there are both 32 and 64bit Intel x86 chips. I expect Apple will be using the 64bit ones where appropriate.

 

[Stella]

I can see it now - the Doom and Gloomers see these benchmarks and think Intel on a Mac will suck, losing perspective that today's Intel processors will - that is, the Intel Processors that are going into PCs Today - will not be the ones that will be used by Apple. ( Deep breath after looong sentence!)

In 12 months Intel processors have better performance. Thus, the benchmarks you see today, will get better.. especially as people have pointed out - XBench is under emulation and so is constrained itself.

These XBench results whilst interesting, should be taken as a pitch of salt as they will not reflect the end result of production Intel on a Mac. This is partly why Apple did not want benchmarks to be released - they are somewhat misleading in the large picture.

 

[bentley]

I am not familiar with the x86-archidectures, but does anybody have a clue what will hapen with the 64-bit parts of OS-X that Apple started to introduce? Are Intel's processores 32 or 64 bit-based?

Bog standard P4s are 32 bit, but they do have 64bit chips and almost everything will be 64bit in 2 years time.

 

[bloodfist]

YES....finaly please do so...I want ot see

I have the FTP account waiting.....

 

[Abstract]

These are pretty invalid benchmarks because surely Xbench is being emulated. So if your benchmarking software is running under emulation, things aren't going to go well.

Yes, but XBench was written to be used on a PPC, and its being emulated, so these benchmarks do have a purpose. They show us how well software will be emulated. With identical software running on an Intel Mac, it operates much much slower (pretty much at iBook G3 700MHz speeds) than on a current PPC Mac. Its just to show the speed hit you should expect to take by using PPC software on an Intel Mac.

These should be improved by the fact that there are faster Intel processors in the works, coming at a quicker rate than faster PPC processors.

That hasn't been true over the past 2 years.

 

[elmimmo]

Hey, you already have plenty of official benchmarks, courtesy of Apple at http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

Oh, wait, no that was when intel sucked…

 

[Platform]

Hey, you already have plenty of official benchmarks, courtesy of Apple at http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

Oh, wait, no that was when intel sucked…

Well that is the 3.6 same as the develpoers are getting or are they a different version

 

[efoto]

I have the FTP account waiting.....

Can't anybody with QTP save and upload the keynote to bloodfist? please?

(not even sure you need Pro, are they letting you save the Keynote native off of apple.com?)

 

[mrgreen4242]

I was just reading on Slasdit that Intel is going to release a dual core Pentium-M based chip very shortly. With the P-M running up ro 2ghz RIGHT NOW, I would expect to see each core in at least the 1.6ghz range. By the time anything faster than an iBook gets an Intel CPU it'll be up in the 2ghz+ range for each core. I wouldn't be suprised if they put two dual core CPUs in a PowerMac. The P4 pretty much sucks, we all knew that. I think this is promising, personally.

Plus, we have to remember that while OS X has been built for x86 since inception, I would venture to guess that the Rosetta technology still has some tweaks it could benifit from. Probably not a lot, but as time goes I am sure there will be improvements in the software.

By the time we actually see an Intel based PowerMac the emulation isn't going to be used nearly as much, as the mini, iBook, iMac, Powerbook, etc are all going to come first, paving the way for developers to get those universal binaries out.

If the first Intel machine (probably a P-M or Celeron-M based mini) can run PPC code through Rosetta at about the speed of even a G3 800mhz we'll be fine. The OS will still respond like a new system, MOST common apps will be available right away in universal binaries, and a G3/800 isn't all that bad for the occational legacy app.

By the time we se dual core iMacs, dual core dual cpu PMs, etc, I would bet that legacy apps will perform like you were using a loaded iBook from today or better, which is perfectly usable for almost anything. (Remember, CPU intensive apps for things like photo, video and sound editing are going to be among the first we see recompiled).