Originally posted by Fender2112
Another interesting thing I noticed here and others have mention about other tests is this: When the G5 loses, it's by a small margin. When it wins, it's by a much larger margin. Anyone care to enlighten as why this is?
I'm not a processor architecture expert, but I'd guess in very general terms it's something like this.
Keep in mind that every processor has strengths and weaknesses, and certain tasks are just going to run faster on some processors (hence the wide distribution of individual times in Photoshop benchmarks). So:
The G5 is a very, very good processor. In tasks that do not take advantage of its strengths (either due to their nature, or unoptimized code), but do take advantage of the strengths of competing processors, it looses by a relatively small margin because it's still very fast. In tasks that take advantage of both architectures' strengths, the G5 wins by a decent margin, because it's so fast. In tasks that competing processors are not well suited for but it does well on, it kicks serious butt.
This is obviously overgeneralizing, and even if it's correct there's still more of a spectrum, but I think it's probably something along those lines. It's the same general effect with G4 vs G3 vs x86 comparisons: In tasks that make no use whatsoever of AltiVec, the G3 and G4 look similar, while higher-clocked x86s do much better. In tasks that take lots of advantage of AltiVec, the G3 looks pathetic, the x86 looks ok, and the G4 looks spectacular (at least for its clock).
If I'm right, then we're all in for a real treat, because that would mean that even when poorly optimized for the G5 is a highly competitive processor. Once things get more optimized, it'll look way, way better.
I hope I'm right.
