Super PI benchmark for powerbooks, G4 beats Centrino!?

[gekko513]

It's just a silly benchmark anyway that shouldn't be taken seriously (unless you're creating a machine just for PI calculations..)

To this and other comments that downplay the significance of the benchmark. I agree that it doesn't test how good or fast the processor is in general, but no benchmark does, even the ones who are made to test several aspects does not give the full answer to the performance.

This benchmark is just as significant as the other Photoshop benchmark that is going on in another thread. Both test only one particular problem.

What both benchmarks tell is how the processor performs for that problem and for similar problems. More benchmarks helps in drawing a fuller picture of the potential of the different processors. No single benchmark is sufficient just by itself.

Edit: And for some reason, overclockers are fond of using this superPi benchmark when they measure the length.... uh test the speed of their computers.

 

[gekko513]

2m 7s (127s) on Athlon 2700+ (2M digits)

 

[Mikael]

I think the actually test is in question. The software itself wouldn't use all the power of thea archtecture anyways. it sort of pointless.

Excuse me? Would you care to elaborate? Why couldn't it make full use of the architecture?

Basically, a RISC arch will be faster in calculating Pi anyways. it isn't a surprise.

You're making the classic mac enthusiast mistake, thinking that RISC CPUs are faster than x86 just because they're RISC. What you forget is that x86 CPUs haven't used CISC cores for a very long time. Every AMD and Intel CPU sold in the past ten years has utilised a RISC-like core with a CISC frontend and decoding stage. Basically, x86 CPUs provide the compact code of CISC with the fast, pipelined execution of modern RISC CPUs.

 

[revisionA]

Remember the OS!

The true PC problem is windows... so much so that Vista is based on a linux core and designed off the same principles then ... of OSX. (After wasting years on Longhorn... or Longsnout!!!)

Biters!!

$

 

[csubear]

The true PC problem is windows... so much so that Vista is based on a linux core and designed off the same principles then ... of OSX. (After wasting years on Longhorn... or Longsnout!!!)

Biters!!

$

While that nots to ture.... there is a famous quote that applies (imo) very well to vista.


Those who do not understand UNIX are doomed to poorly re-implement it.

 

[link92]

80.476 Sec. Dual 2.5GHz G5 (I can't help but wonder what if it was SMP aware).

Am I right in thinking it's partly to do with PPC's advantage on floating point calculations?

 

[Melkor]

That review made me feel a whole lot better about the powerbook i ordered

However, i didnt realise the battery life is so short. 2.5-3 hours seems very little to me. Thats the only bad thing though so i cant complain really.

 

[contoursvt]

On my dual CPU Xeon 3Ghz (which I assume SuperPi only uses one cpu) I got a score of 1:40 seconds

On my Asus Centrino 1.6Ghz laptop, I got a score of 2:12 seconds

 

[mwpeters8182]

I ran this on my Desktop (Sempron 3100+), and I got 2m18s, while keeping pretty much everything else running.

Not that I find pi all day with my computer, but I throw a lot of information around on a regular basis, so pure number crunching speed is important.

MP

 

[PCMacUser]

Here's some others to add to the compilation:

Dell D400 (old 1.7Ghz Pentium M, 256mb RAM) - 2m 20s
Dell D410 (new 1.86Ghz Pentium M, 256mb RAM) - 1m 41s
Dell SX280 (old 3.00Ghz Pentium 4, 1Gb RAM) - 1m 41s

And my new 12" iBook (using 21 as the parameter)...

3m 17s

Okay not the fastest machine this century, but hey, it's cheap!

 

[oingoboingo]

Barefeats.com benchmarks

Barefeats.com ran a Cinebench2003 test a while ago comparing the 1.33GHz 17" PowerBook and the 1.25GHz 15" PowerBook to 1.3GHz and 1.6GHz Centrino notebooks. The Centrinos thoroughly thrashed the PowerBooks, with the 1.6GHz Centrino completing the test in 124 seconds, the 1.3GHz Centrino in 150 seconds, the 1.33GHz 17" PowerBook in 214 seconds, and the 1.25GHz 15" PowerBook in 227 seconds.

I think we should all be looking forward to new Pentium M based iBooks and PowerBooks.

http://barefeats.com/al15b.html

 

[Sromur Cam]

For those of us that like specs in the RAW.

ABOUT THIS MAC:
Hardware Overview:

Machine Name: PowerBook G4 17"
Machine Model: PowerBook5,1
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.6.2f1

SUPERPI TEST RUN:
Last login: Mon Nov 14 08:54:38 on ttyp2
/Applications/super_pi/pi; exit
Welcome to Darwin!
[G4PB:~] sc% /Applications/super_pi/pi; exit
Version 2.0 of the super_pi for Mac OS/X
Fortran source program was translated into C program with version 19981204 of
f2c, then generated C source program was optimized manually.
gcc-3.2.2 with compile option of "-O3 -ffast-math -finline-limit=1000" was used
for the compilation.
------ Started super_pi run : Mon Nov 14 08:59:13 PST 2005
Parameter(%i) to super_pi is missing. Parameter value ? 21
Start of PI calculation up to 2097152 decimal digits
End of initialization. Time= 2.902 Sec.
I= 1 L= 0 Time= 8.822 Sec.
I= 2 L= 0 Time= 10.109 Sec.
I= 3 L= 1 Time= 10.103 Sec.
I= 4 L= 2 Time= 10.105 Sec.
I= 5 L= 5 Time= 10.111 Sec.
I= 6 L= 10 Time= 10.096 Sec.
I= 7 L= 21 Time= 10.105 Sec.
I= 8 L= 43 Time= 10.087 Sec.
I= 9 L= 87 Time= 10.124 Sec.
I=10 L= 174 Time= 10.097 Sec.
I=11 L= 349 Time= 10.091 Sec.
I=12 L= 698 Time= 10.094 Sec.
I=13 L= 1396 Time= 10.096 Sec.
I=14 L= 2794 Time= 10.064 Sec.
I=15 L= 5588 Time= 10.055 Sec.
I=16 L= 11176 Time= 10.038 Sec.
I=17 L= 22353 Time= 10.004 Sec.
I=18 L= 44707 Time= 9.912 Sec.
I=19 L= 89415 Time= 9.663 Sec.
I=20 L= 178831 Time= 9.045 Sec.
End of main loop
End of calculation. Time= 209.377 Sec.
End of data output. Time= 0.839 Sec.
Total calculation(I/O) time= 210.216( 24.587) Sec.
------ Ended super_pi run : Mon Nov 14 09:03:07 PST 2005
logout
[Process completed]