why apple laptops will stay behind PC's in pure speed...

[ddtlm]

On the subject of P-M's relation to P-3, I think its pretty clear that the P-M is more distinct from the P-3 than the P-3 was from the P-2, the P-2 was from the P-Pro, or Celerons and Xeons were from any of those. (Did you realize that Intel's first truely new x86 core since the P-Pro was the P-4?) Seems to me that people trying to call the P-M a P-3 just have an agenda to push against Intel. But somehow connecting the P-M to a processor core predating the G3 strikes me as highlighting just how good the core was. Seriously, some people here appear to want to believe that G3s, G4s and G5s are getting their butts kicked in the mobile space by a glorified Pentium Pro. Hey if thats what you want to believe...

wide:

While its true that Moto is large, most of that bulk is doing things other than designing processors suitable for Macs. Same goes for IBM. On the other hand, Intel is both large and primarily designing processors, hence the size comments people make all the time. Neither IBM nor Moto can afford to spend nearly as much on processors as Intel can.

 

[Jonathan Amend]

No offence guys, but this whole thread is pretty stupid. Its a bit harsh having a go at Apple when they don't have anything to do with CPU design and manufacturing. I am sure they would love to have something which is remotely competitive with Dothan, but at the end of the day, its what they can get from IBM and Motorola.

Nobody's stopping Apple from using Dothans either =)

Actually, I think it is plausible. Apple would just have to make a special BIOS that only comes with their computers (like all Macs already do) and they'd still have their OS+hardware lock (as long as the protection isn't crap like on the XBox).

 

[Jonathan Amend]

On the subject of P-M's relation to P-3, I think its pretty clear that the P-M is more distinct from the P-3 than the P-3 was from the P-2, the P-2 was from the P-Pro, or Celerons and Xeons were from any of those. (Did you realize that Intel's first truely new x86 core since the P-Pro was the P-4?) Seems to me that people trying to call the P-M a P-3 just have an agenda to push against Intel. But somehow connecting the P-M to a processor core predating the G3 strikes me as highlighting just how good the core was. Seriously, some people here appear to want to believe that G3s, G4s and G5s are getting their butts kicked in the mobile space by a glorified Pentium Pro. Hey if thats what you want to believe...

I don't have anything against Intel. I like Pentium 3s and Pentium Ms (although I think the P4 sucks). I only brought it up to counter the G4's being both a desktop and a laptop chip as an excuse for its low performance =)

 

[legion]

While on low battery, say 20%, or when doing really basic (or no) computing, my chip will reduce its speed from 1.7 GHZ to around 200 MHZ!

No it won't. Pentium M lowest step is 600MHz; for both Banias and Dothan. If your system is telling you it is going to 200MHz, then your system has problems from the BIOS or the ACPI drivers.

 

[Stojamow]

Agree...

On the whole it seems that Mac is behind the PC but as someone pointed out the performance of FCP HD (4.5) we can ask are the software supplied by third parties optimized for Mac as well as they are optimized for PC ?!?

We also have that old conversation started by me which was then closed as it started to show up in search engines ...

In the meantime I think you might find this interesting:


Check this out

....click the link for performance table.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I don't have anything against Intel. I like Pentium 3s and Pentium Ms (although I think the P4 sucks). I only brought it up to counter the G4's being both a desktop and a laptop chip as an excuse for its low performance =)

Regarding the G4, it is a strange chip in that respect - the fact that it's equally at home in a desktop or laptop (although that wasn't the case when it was first introduced); it looks like the PowerPC G5 will follow the lead the G4 set ass far as when it appears in laptops. As far as the Pentium 4 is concerned, its biggest problem is its high heat production. The second biggest problem it faces is the HUGE penalty for pipeline stalls because of its LONG pipeline. The rest of its features aren't that bad, but those two factors really kill its potential.

 

[wide]

No it won't. Pentium M lowest step is 600MHz; for both Banias and Dothan. If your system is telling you it is going to 200MHz, then your system has problems from the BIOS or the ACPI drivers.

That's what I would have thought, too. But my System information in the Control Panel seems to think differently. It didn't go down to 200 MHz this time, but it went well below 600 MHz:

 

[Macdantheman07]

To get back to the point of this topic. yes the Pentium -M is a better chip than the G4. Everyone knows that the G4 is lacking in many things. The G4 was designed for embedded products, which is why its bus speed is so slow. The great things about the G4 are that it has a very small power consumption and it can offer OK performance for its low clock speed. IBM has ignited the fighting spirit within Motorola to come out with the FreeScale chips or the e600 e700 chips. The e700 chips will be 32/64 bit!!! competition is good for IBM and Moto. It gives them both incentives to geth their chips in production faster. I think the Mac community is about to see a big jump in performance by both motorola and IBM. If IBM and Motorolla can be assured by apple that they would be able to sell at least 250,000 G5s and e700s per quarter, i think they would try harder for us.

Steve Jobs is not stupid, he knows that most of the Mac line is lacking in performance. I'm sure his people in california are working on something that will blow people away for January. I'm assuming either an e700 2ghz powerbook or a G5 single 2ghz powerbook.

 

[ifjake]

yeah i think apple should try to get Motorola or IBM to produce a mobile chip. 64 bits in a notebook isn't going to work unless they specifically design a chip to do that. unfortunately that's beyond apple's control. i personally like my notebook computers mobile. none of that desktop replacement stuff.

 

[gundamguy]

Yeah I love my work laptop

Yeah I love my 12 pound Toshiba work makes me lug around, 3 ghz, nearly 2 inches thick, almost burns my hands and is loud as hell with the giant fan and exhaust at the rear, oh and my 90 minutes of battery life are great too. All this for just under 3 grand. Ill take my 12" ibook with over 5 hours of battery life and 4.9 pounds of joy.

 

[Nik_Doof]

You're probably thinking of the Pentium 3-m and Pentium 4-m chips that were P3s and P4s designed for mobility. The Pentium-M is entirely different, it's an entirely new architecture.

True, the Pentium-M (for what i've read about it) is a whole system arch, not just a processor. Mainly its a P3 derretive processor with extended instructions for processing speedups. Also most of the new Centrino "system" is built for speed with wifi applications etc..

 

[Vlade]

You are aware that clock cycles have nothing to do with the speed of the computer right?

Actually clock cycles have ALOT to do with a CPU speed, because Clocks * Operations Per Clock = overall speed of CPU, and then you have to add into effect things like RAM and the system bus, where G4s are WAY WAY WAY behind PCs.

 

[Mord]

I think Hector's comments were geared towards the limited scope of Motorola in the world of computer CPU's.


Lethal

aye yes

I dont care that moto' in the $$$$$ all i care about is there current best chip's proformence which amazingly both sucks and blows at the same time

(btw i am not dissing anyones powerbooks they are great but just not that fast)

 

[Steven1621]

to further echo the others: you don't buy an apple notebook for speed

 

[JFreak]

to further echo the others: you don't buy an apple notebook for speed

yes, but that doesn't mean that i wouldn't want to

i use protools and absolutely have to have a laptop (because i do live sound with it and will not keep dragging a desktop on the road), and in protools you simply cannot have too much power. i would like that apple laptops would be true desktop killers, meaning as fast as the single-cpu powermac. ("as fast" being at most 10% slower).

oh well, maybe some day.

 

[legion]

That's what I would have thought, too. But my System information in the Control Panel seems to think differently. It didn't go down to 200 MHz this time, but it went well below 600 MHz:

It's wrong. Look to see if Dell had any BIOS updates. It's just a matter of the system not recognizing how to handle the chip family, it doesn't affect performance other than it's displaying incorrect information.

 

[mmmdreg]

You are aware that clock cycles have nothing to do with the speed of the computer right?

actually they do.. a 3GHz P4 is faster than a 2GHz P4

 

[JFreak]

actually they do.. a 3GHz P4 is faster than a 2GHz P4

not much, actually. a 3GHz pentium only generates a great deal more heat than 2GHz pentium.

 

[blue&whiteman]

hey guys! just to remind you all. this is a mac forum. there are thousands of pc forums to go do all this in.

 

[Vlade]

not much, actually. a 3GHz pentium only generates a great deal more heat than 2GHz pentium.

Do you have any idea what the hell your talking about? I just opened SiSandra2004 on my PC 1 foot to the left of my mac, and the Pentium 4 3.0 GHZ is scoring 7377/4054/2217, while the 2.0GHZ is scoring 4918/2703/1478. Do the math before you talk.

 

[Soc7777777]

Yeah I love my 12 pound Toshiba work makes me lug around, 3 ghz, nearly 2 inches thick, almost burns my hands and is loud as hell with the giant fan and exhaust at the rear, oh and my 90 minutes of battery life are great too. All this for just under 3 grand. Ill take my 12" ibook with over 5 hours of battery life and 4.9 pounds of joy.

either you bought that years ago or you are a complete sucker and they sold you a piece of crap for lots more than its worth.... i havnt seen a 12lb computer in a while... and for just under 3 grand???? that should have gotten you a P4 EE w/ 1GB ram and 256 mb video....... you got ripped off

 

[Soc7777777]

but ...

somone said you buy an apple laptop not for the speed.... well its pretty hard to convince someone to switch based on the 'experience' of the computer... its hard to trust a company so much that you will buy a slower product for the same price for the 'experience' (haha i def. would... but that a tuff sell to the avg pc user)... ALSO... while i think the G4 is an inferior chip to the pentium m... i think the G5 is on par with pc cpu speeds... i'd take a G5 over a P4 at teh same speed.... the only pc processor i would take over the 2.0 ghz DP G5 is the P4 EE..... besides that... (and maybe the AMD 64 FX-51 and FX-53) i would take the G5... but the G5 wont be in laptops anytime soon... and by then intel will either have the second version of the pentium m (pentium 2m?? haha .. or pentium m 2, or whatever they do to name chips)... or they will have the current pentium M at like 3ghz and still consuming less power then they do now...

BTW the person who said clock cycles have nothing to do with cpu speed is a moron.... overall cpu speed is a combination of RAM (video included).. bus speed... cache memory... frequency (ghz)... pipline length... number of pipline stages... type of memory... ondie mem. ... and some other things im prob. forgetting... but some have a greater effect then others.

 

[wide]

Soc777...w/e:

For 3 thousand dollars, even today you cannot get an extreme edition CPU in a laptop, let alone the 1 gb ram and 256 mb video card. the EE costs 600-1000 dollars more than the 3.4 GHz P4 chip, depending on whether you buy the 3.2 ghz EE or the 3.4 ghz EE. I do not think any laptop manufacturers put the EE in their laptops anyway, because it overheats a ****load.

 

[JFreak]

Do you have any idea what the hell your talking about? I just opened SiSandra2004 on my PC 1 foot to the left of my mac, and the Pentium 4 3.0 GHZ is scoring 7377/4054/2217, while the 2.0GHZ is scoring 4918/2703/1478. Do the math before you talk.

i was comparing pentiums to pentiums. read and think before you talk

 

[MorganX]

Soc777...w/e:

For 3 thousand dollars, even today you cannot get an extreme edition CPU in a laptop, let alone the 1 gb ram and 256 mb video card. the EE costs 600-1000 dollars more than the 3.4 GHz P4 chip, depending on whether you buy the 3.2 ghz EE or the 3.4 ghz EE. I do not think any laptop manufacturers put the EE in their laptops anyway, because it overheats a ****load.

Actually, the 2Ghz Dothan performs on par with the 3.2Ghz EE and is shipping in laptops now. As a matter of fact, there are many of us geeks salivating for dekstop Dothan motherboards.