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More Intel iMac Benchmarks (Native and Rosetta)
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AidenShaw said:
Yes I know all of that... I was clarifying to others that you can use the 64b integer aspects of G5 and the way you worded things could easily be misunderstood... It also isn't minor for several types of integer based processing (yes SSE has it but I was confining discussion to G5).
macosxuser01 said:
Is this why our Mac calendars go only through December 2037?
I am glad I purchased my G5 Quad. I hope to keep it until rev.b for the Powermac with Intel. Hopefully then All pro apps will be Intel native.
shompa said:
What are you talking about? There are systems out there today that kick the crap out of the dual-dual G5 (call the Quad btw). Also, where are you getting this "30% more than the G5 system" figure from? Also, we already have other tests out there (do a search) and you'll see that the new core-duo keeps up with a dual-core G5 PowerMac. Go ahead, do a search.
The G5 is going buh bye. IBM isn't interested in making better and better chips to actually compete or else they would have brought something good out by now. Dual-core G4s? zzzzzz. Give me a break. Apple was a slave to IBM and they waited....and waited....and waited....(still no 3Ghz G5) and waited for them. Now Apple has some choice. They went x86 now so that means that if Intel starts dragging their feet or if they're relationship goes sour, AMD is there to help out.
Also, the reason the PowerMacs haven't switch to Intel yet is because they just haven't switched. Remember, we weren't even suppose to SEE the first Intel Macs until this June or July of this year. There are rumors out there of a 4 dual-core PowerMac in the works (8 processor). Rumor yes, but it can be done. Could you imagine the cooling or even what the frickin case would look like if they tried 4 G5's in the PowerMac?
These numbers look great in this test. Macworld put a negative spin on them for some reason. I'm sitting there looking at the numbers and saying to myself "wow, nice speed up". Yet Macworld spun it as "not very impressive". Guess they were looking at different numbers than I was. Not to mention that OSX is probably still not 100% optimized for Intel...yet.
Meh...if it got me, a dyed in the wool PC user that builds his own systems to order a new iMac, it can't be all that bad.
RichCoder said:
Agreed, but even then they wouldn't really have a story. Apple said "up to two times faster". To prove their assumption all Apple would need to do is find some process in which the CPU performance would temporarily be twice the speed of the G5. Q.E.D.
There are systems out there that kick the **** out of Intel computers also. (I think one of them is called "Blue Gene"). Fact is, not very many Personal Computers are as good as the Quad G5, and very few of them allow up to 16 GB of RAM.ksgant said:
EricNau said:
The Quad G5 isn't really a Personal Computer. I mean, if you want to call it that, then an 8 processor Opteron system is a good Personal Computer also!
Boxx Technologies makes one that has up to 64GB of RAM. Yes, you pay quite a price for all that RAM as you do if you had 16GB, but you can still get it! With all that RAM about 3/4's of the entire computer's price is taken up.
To be fair though, the high end systems from companies like Boxx are more for 3D workstations...something that Apple just wasn't cut out for a while ago. I mean, it was only just last year that Apple made availible high end OpenGL cards for their systems. It's good that they did that and all, but they kinda came to the show a little late. Also, the future of Maya on the Mac is in question now that Mac-unfriendly Autodesk bought them up. Autodesk "says" they will keep going, but who the hell knows. My gut feeling is that Maya will keep chugging along just fine, but again, who knows.
I just purchased a 20 inch intel imac, and let me tell you, it is a "steamer." I actually had a G5 purchased from Apple, but cancelled the order after reading that article on Apple Insider back in October. I have yet to thank them...
However, I was wondering about this 32-bit/64-bit debacle. I'm not really worried about speed so much, but I'm worried about the next OS, 10.5. Should I expect any problems with the new OS with a 32-bit processor? I want to take full advantage of all of Leapord's new goodies...
With this in mind, do I have any need to worry? Any info would help me sleep better!
However, I was wondering about this 32-bit/64-bit debacle. I'm not really worried about speed so much, but I'm worried about the next OS, 10.5. Should I expect any problems with the new OS with a 32-bit processor? I want to take full advantage of all of Leapord's new goodies...
With this in mind, do I have any need to worry? Any info would help me sleep better!
sith33 said:
Has anyone else made reference to this comment, because it is a good one? Generally, where HD or RAM would not be a limiting factor the Duo destroyed the G5 or at least I am assuming that it did. Look at the iMovie effects, am I the only one that thinks that 2GB in both machines would have made a huge difference. I know that they are comparing like-for-like, but we want to know about the processor speed increase, not the basic configuration speed increase. Or at least that's what I want to know.
Do we know if Rosetta uses much RAM? If it takes 256MB of RAM to do its job in a 512MB RAM machine with the OS taking another 256MB then the apps themselves are going to run like pigs. Has anyone else thought of this and if so do we have any info?
I really do wish that people would gear these tests towards the chip and not the basic config.
Edit: I have just made the same rant to a colleague at work and he quite rightly points out that many potential switchers will want this info, i.e. they want to know what they get when they pop into a local store and buy an iMac Duo. I accept his point, but it leads me to thinking that most magazines tell us RAM will make a difference but in their tests they fail to give us benchmarks to indicate by how much performance will be increased. MacWorld is a great magazine (Mac Format is better), but it is time that they gave us a suite of benchmarks with clear explanations as to how things would be different.
I want to see these kind of benchmarks(see attached thumbnail)(these are fabrications):
Not much to ask is it?
Attachments
MrCrowbar said:But Steve promised us to fulfil the prophecy... errr the switch until the end of this year. So I wonder what the PowerMac (or MacPro) will have. A 64 bit version (yet to come) of the core duo chip would be right. But honestly when using a PowerMac I wouldn't care for "performance per Watt". I mean, it's not a PowerSavingMac, it's a PowerMac. It is meant to be hot, loud and fast. So I guess (hope) they will put some cranked up Intel chip in there and keep the water cooling that surpass the G5 in every discipline. And why not put 8 Cores in that baby? Dual G4, Quad G5, Octa intel... it doubles at every new chip, right?
Hell yes. I dont care how quiet my PM is (my PM G5 that is what, 2 years old? its the 1.6 is so much quiter then my brand new build PC and that bastard almost cost me $2200 so its quality built). I just want my next PM (I wish I had money to get the dual core g5's right now..*drools*) but I want my next PowerMac to bust balls. Hell, I wanna get home and it has my project edited and rendered for me. Thats the kind of power I want from it
Good news:inkswamp said:
Some PowerPC games--even 3D games that require a G4--do run in Rosetta and run well. (Note that the new iMac has a better 3D board than the G5 models too.) It will vary a lot from game to game of course.
The recent Wall Street Journal review of the Core Duo iMac says that Doom 3 runs well despite Rosetta. This is clearly only a casual quick impression--I simple CANNOT believe a recent game as demanding as Doom 3 truly performs similarly to a G4 Mac. Nonetheless, if it even made a CASUAL impression of good performance, then it wasn't a "slideshow" and that's enough to impress me.
More realistically, older games that run well on a G4 (which Doom does not) are likely to run well on Core Duo even with Rosetta. (Plus not all games are in detailed 3D, and not all demand much speed from a computer anyway. Some games run fine on a G3! Depends on the genre.)
The programmer behind the Mac version of Alice (great game!) posted at InsideMacGames that they were not going to patch it to a Universal Binary: it's not worth it because Alice runs really well with Rosetta anyway. And that was on the 2005 devkit Macs, which didn't have the nice 3D board these iMacs have.
Alice is a Quake 3 engine game (and a pretty high-end/detailed one). There are many other such games (Start Trek games come to mind). If Alice runs well in Rosetta, they should too.
Meanwhile, over at IMG, various companies have committed to Universal Binary patches, even for some popular older games. So games that do NOT run well in Rosetta may well be updated soon anyway.
Several more recent games, like UT 2004, which have enough detail to take advantage of today's hardware, have been announced as Universals--expected very soon.
And upcoming games will certainly be Universal; Quake 4 will be, and it's officially due soon as well. (And a Doom 3 Universal patch is likely: Quake 4 uses the Doom 3 engine.)
UT 2007 on Intel Macs is a near certainty too: the UT 2007 editing tools have been announced for Mac, and so has the physics engine for the game. It would be weird to not see the game make it to Mac given all that--and when it does, Intel Macs will be the norm.
Core Duo is looking like a Mac gamer's best friend already, even if you don't want to install Windows--and things will only get better
