What are the Intel Macs still slow at?

[dingdongbubble]

The PowerMacs used to be high end computers and Pros used to use them. But there are things nowadays which Intel Macs take a few mins or an hour or less to complete compared to HOURS from the G4s (for example). Those tasks which used to take ages to complete are considered low end tasks today and are completed in very little time.

My question here is that what are the tasks that we carry out today, which Intel Macs still take say hours to complete? If we fast forward into the future, the latest Macs of those times would be able to finish todays tasks in very little time.

 

[Makosuke]

Pretty much the same answer as always--high-end photo manipulation, video work, 3D rendering.

Sure, an Intel-based Mac of today might be 20 times faster than the first iMacs to run iMovie, but the effects are more polished, and now you can be working with full HD-resolution video even from a consumer video camera.

And a computer of today might be able to render real-time what constituted movie-quality 3D a few years ago, but it still takes a building full of computers to produce a Shrek or Pixar movie.

Of course, whatever necessity or "gotta have the latest" doesn't cover, sloppy coding will make up for. Never underestimate the ability of a lazy programmer to make a simple task take massive amounts of CPU horsepower when there's plenty to go around.

Nobody even bothers to slim down app packages in these days of pennies-a-gigabyte storage.

[Edit: Oh, and don't forget the ever-increasing complexity of video compression to squeeze more quality into fewer bytes. The h264 codec of today is vastly superior to the comparatively crude codecs of yesteryear, but in tradeoff just for playback requires processing power that wasn't available to any consumer until recently.]

 

[dingdongbubble]

Can todays Macs play AVCHD without skipping? My dads Core Duo PC cant.

 

[neonblue2]

Can todays Macs play AVCHD without skipping? My dads Core Duo PC cant.

They should be able to, my Core Duo MacBook Pro can play 1080p QuickTime videos without stuttering.

 

[dingdongbubble]

So does the MBP have some kind of decoding chip or something?

My dads PC has a Core Duo 2.0 Ghz, 7400Go GPU and 1 GB DDR2 RAM. You have any idea why I cant play AVCHD?

I am going to test some AVCHD again from the Apple HD Gallery.

 

[JD92]

So does the MBP have some kind of decoding chip or something?

My dads PC has a Core Duo 2.0 Ghz, 7400Go GPU and 1 GB DDR2 RAM. You have any idea why I cant play AVCHD?

I am going to test some AVCHD again from the Apple HD Gallery.

I *might* put it down to the graphics cards in the Macs begin good with video, but I'm not sure how much the video card is utilized by OS X in video playback and I would imagine the 7400Go would be more than capable. You sure there's maybe not a few processes running in the background slowing things down?

 

[dingdongbubble]

Hey its working. I mean even 1080p is working properly. Maybe the other AVCHD I got was defected or something. But the clips from Apple HD Gallery are working absolutely well. I do have a little problem. When I watch some HD clip on an HDTV, the quality looks way better, the picture looks sharp ans saturated but that is not the case with my dads HP Pavilion. You have any idea how I could fiz this?