Not So Slow

[billiam0878]

According to USA Today, Macs aren't as slow as some of us would argue. In a showdown between a 2.4GHz Sony and the twin GHz PowerMac, the Mac proved 40% faster in Photoshop tests and kept pace with the Sony in web browsing and high-res Quake gaming. I imagine that with Jaguar, DDR RAM, and 1.2GHz+ G4's, the PowerMacs will continue to match and perhaps exceed the competition. Just a little bit of optimism in Apple's battle in the megahertz wars

Check out the full article.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/ccarch/2002/07/12/steinberg.htm

Bill

 

[iGav]

Heh heh... kewl.....

Can't wait to see what comes out on Wednesday though.......

 

[Ensign Paris]

I knew I always knew it (Not very good english there )

My Powerbook always seems to be at a similar pace to my mates 1600+ XP AMD.

Ensign

 

[alex_ant]

What the article doesn't tell you

The Vaio costs $800 less.

And if you don't care about that "touch of class" (reviewer's words) in your computer, you could easily go with a dual Athlon from a lesser-known PC maker that knocks the socks off the Power Mac for an even greater cost savings.

Why can't the Mac zealots just admit that their machines are slower?

 

[Hemingray]

Re: What the article doesn't tell you

Originally posted by alex_ant
Why can't the Mac zealots just admit that their machines are slower?

THIS Mac zealot resigned himself to that fate years ago.

 

[sparkleytone]

the only reason its slower is RAM. thats really it. why can't AMD zealots just admit that p4s are faster?? they are.

 

[tjwett]

Apple makes the claim of "Pentium Crushing Power" but the tests are always conducted running tasks specially designed for the Mac OS, the G4 and AltiVec. Macs are only fast in Appleland running Apple software, at the Apple headquarters, by Christina Applegate while she's eating a shiny macintosh apple. Out in the real world, where most apps are just ported across platforms, the Mac continues to get spanked on a daily basis and that's what counts.

 

[oldMac]

Speed of the new PowerMacs

Don't expect DDR to give the new PowerMac's that much of a performance boost.

The most recent PowerMacs have a huge 2MB L3 caches (per processor). That much L3 cache will keep the processor full of instructions for most any application. (Though not necessarily for things like encoding video, audio, etc. - the things that Altivec likes to do.)

In fact, if Apple goes cheap and dumps the big L3 cache on the DDR models, they could even be slower!

As for the speed of PCs vs. Macs, Microsoft has done a heck of a job making their apps run fast on their platform. Switch to a non-Microsoft application, and your mileage may vary.