Leopard performance reports?

[wesleyh]

Hey,

Just wondering if there have been any performance reports from users that are using the leopard beta on a G5 system? (Imac)

Also, does leopard support 64 bit G5 processors, or only the 64 bit intel processors?

If it does support 64 bit G5, wouldn't this mean that it will automatically be faster as well?

 

[Nugget]

If it does support 64 bit G5, wouldn't this mean that it will automatically be faster as well?

No, there's nothing inherently "faster" about 64bit code. In fact, the transition from 32bit to 64bit halves the effectiveness of caching, so in the real world it can result in the exact same software performing worse if it's compiled for 64 bit.

What 64 bitness buys is the ability to use more than 4GB of RAM without having to play all sorts of performance-robbing tricks, and hardware gains (like double the bus width) which yield benefits even if the software is 32 bit.

As to performance reports, I've been using a Dual 2.7 PowerMac as my text box for Leopard (via ADC) and "the snappy" doesn't feel much different than Tiger did on the same hardware. My focus hasn't been on performance, though, so I don't have anything more than a very coarse seat-of-the-pants feel for it.

 

[Multimedia]

Leopard Will Definitely Run Faster On All G5 PowerMacs

Hey,

Just wondering if there have been any performance reports from users that are using the leopard beta on a G5 system? (Imac)

Also, does leopard support 64 bit G5 processors, or only the 64 bit intel processors?

If it does support 64 bit G5, wouldn't this mean that it will automatically be faster as well?

They are all under NDA so no. Yes it fully supports G5 64-bitness and yes it will run faster on all G5 PMs and especially fast on the Quad G5 because it is also fully multithreaded.

No, there's nothing inherently "faster" about 64bit code. In fact, the transition from 32bit to 64bit halves the effectiveness of caching, so in the real world it can result in the exact same software performing worse if it's compiled for 64 bit.

Wow! I did not know that. I guess we'll have to wait for Barefeats to tell us in a week.

 

[Cromulent]

Wow! I did not know that. I guess we'll have to wait for Barefeats to tell us in a week.

This is why I am always a bit perplexed by people demanding everything should be 64bit nowadays. The vast majority of people will see absolutely no benefit to it at all. Especially if all they are doing is web / e-mail / IM / music playing.

A reasonable analogy would be adding extra lanes to an empty road. It won't make the traffic go any faster because it is not at maximum capacity anyway. Just wasted space.

Obviously there are people who will see a large advantage to 64bit computing but they are in the (significant) minority.

 

[projectle]

Yep, because all of those multimedia processes like converting CDs to digital formats, encoding video and the like is such a minority now of days.

Greater register width adds quite a bit for any high-level number crunching processes.

 

[Cromulent]

Yep, because all of those multimedia processes like converting CDs to digital formats, encoding video and the like is such a minority now of days.

Actually the majority of computer users do no such thing. Remember that you are used to reading forums where there are people who are really interested in computers, it is not a general cross section of computer users.

As for converting CDs, the major bottleneck there is the speed of the CD / DVD drive not the CPU.

The vast majority use computers for web / e-mail and word pretty much. That is why PCs have such a dominant position.

Greater register width adds quite a bit for any high-level number crunching processes.

Of course, but as I said the majority will not make much (if any) use of this.

 

[Sun Baked]

Easier to take advantage multi-core CPUs in Leopard, so Apple will likely have updated quite a few MORE key routines to take advantage of this -- along with their apps they've mentioned on the Leopard Page.

So that alone will speed things up.

The extra registers in the 64-bit CPUs might help, but likely not as much as splitting an app/routine onto two cores.