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Why don't Intel Laptops & Imacs seem fast?
- Thread starter GanleyBurger
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I have a MPB, and I find the system to be stable but on the other hand I would definitely agree that the system lags surprisingly. I am also hoping that leopard will have major improvements.
From what I understand the system is written specifically for intel on the intel machines but it would be the first production incarnation. We all know the second time you do something you can usually do a much better job, especially in the software biz.
From what I understand the system is written specifically for intel on the intel machines but it would be the first production incarnation. We all know the second time you do something you can usually do a much better job, especially in the software biz.
Hmm.. is that out of date or something? They dropped the 7200rpm drive last update.
Rather than jump in on the PPC OS X vs. Intel OS X debate, I'll just say this: Garageband can be a beast of an app to launch, especially if you've installed its extra add-ons and instrument packs. I don't think any single application takes longer to launch on my iBook (which is admittedly far from a MBP), but the real test of power is in how snappy Garageband actually runs rather than how long it takes to first load.
I agree with everyone saying that the Intel machines have some sort of lag. I have a lot more beachballing on my MBP than I did on a slower Powerbook. Whatever is causing this I sure hope it will be sorted out when Leopard arrives.
Truthfully, I've had more lag since I've had my Macbook Pro as opposed to my old Powerbook G4. I can't put my finger on it, there are just spots where it does truly seem slower. Also, I don't know whether it's related, but I've had probably 4-5x as many Safari crashes on my MBP than I have my Powerbook. Yes, I've fixed permissions and all the like (Onyx), but it crashes at least once every couple of days...frustrating to say the least. It's not the only program that crashes either...
I've always thought that the intel macs felt a lot more like peecees than the IBM/Motorolas. When I worked on an 867 quicksilver it wasn't 'snappy', but it was very very steady. Photoshop took a while to open, but it showed constant progress and didn't have little 'blips' when performing demanding tasks. Instead it just seemed to plow forward, just not very quickly. My intel iMac however has the usual 'stop&go' peecee feel, reminiscent of Pentium 4 machines. The intel iMac will definitely squash the powermac g4 in any benchmark, but in terms of smooth, fluid feel, the powermac has the edge. The intel is definitely 'snappy' with some tasks, while others will elicit a choking response (a delay of 1/2 second or something in which everything stops completely, then snaps back to normal). i always imagined that some actions were cached or already in the ram or something to make them so snappy, but in reality I have no clue why this is.
Intel chips feel like very spirited stop&go traffic, while the old G4 feels like a large overloaded truck at constant speed. In the end, I really do miss the feel of PPC chips, but the intel chips make it to the finish first (they're also cooler when they get there, support other mainstream OSs, and are developed more quickly (as long as intel doesn't pull another P4 "what do you mean a tiny team in israel makes a better chip, we have $85 billion in the P4, and clock speed sells chips!" debacle)).
Intel chips feel like very spirited stop&go traffic, while the old G4 feels like a large overloaded truck at constant speed. In the end, I really do miss the feel of PPC chips, but the intel chips make it to the finish first (they're also cooler when they get there, support other mainstream OSs, and are developed more quickly (as long as intel doesn't pull another P4 "what do you mean a tiny team in israel makes a better chip, we have $85 billion in the P4, and clock speed sells chips!" debacle)).
I'm not trying to attack anyone who is saying they're experiencing slow downs or beachballs on an Intel Mac, but I haven't came close to anything of the sort. I have a first gen 2 Ghz Intel iMac with 2 GB of RAM and I can't think of anytime I've experienced any slowdowns, and I throw a lot at it. When I used to play WoW, I would be playing music in the background, have quicktime files open, homework in Microsoft Word (which was running in Rosetta mind you), and have a 1 or 2 person video chat going. Now I wouldn't do this every single day but it wasn't uncommon at all. Not once did I ever experience any slowdowns at all. Before I had my Intel iMac I had a 2 Ghz G5 iMac and I could hardly play WoW with 1 or 2 extra Apps running without noticing some beachballs when switching between Apps. Are the Intel machines perfect? Probably not for everyone, but they're pretty damn close. As a previous poster said, Jobs mentioned OS X had been living a double life for 5 years before the initial Intel switch, so theres no way theres a problem in the coding unless someone wasn't doing their job correctly.
To the OP, I just opened Garageband on my iMac and it took no longer then 5 seconds with 4 other Apps open. It also loaded my last saved song that I had in garageband, so I don't know where the slowdowns you were experiencing were at. To those that are having problems on the Intel machines I'm sorry to hear about them, but to say that they are no faster then G4 Powerbook or G5 iMac is a completely ignorant statement.
To the OP, I just opened Garageband on my iMac and it took no longer then 5 seconds with 4 other Apps open. It also loaded my last saved song that I had in garageband, so I don't know where the slowdowns you were experiencing were at. To those that are having problems on the Intel machines I'm sorry to hear about them, but to say that they are no faster then G4 Powerbook or G5 iMac is a completely ignorant statement.
And we should! I don't believe such a debate has ever taken place, certainly not on the Internet
There's a lot of overhead on those systems, and due to the net booting and generally overloaded store networks, you're unlikely to be seeing these machines running as fast as they would "in the wild". I've used systems that were the same as mine while at the Stores and noticed that they seemed much slower.
It's all about Altivec, or the lack of it.
What I think we all feel is missing is the effect of the Velocity Engine. OS X has been b uilt for x86 and PPC from the start but it has been as is very optimized for Altivec. x86 optimization will probably be much better in leopard.
I justed switched from an iMac G5 PPC to a MacBook. I feel the speed of the x86 but at the same time I notice the little lags here and there. I personaly believe the PPC single core was a better multi-tasker than the Core Duo. Because of Altivec.
Anyway. let's just wait and see where this new x86 venture takes us.
By the time we see 4-8 core CPU's, this will be a very moot point, I think.
Take care all.
What I think we all feel is missing is the effect of the Velocity Engine. OS X has been b uilt for x86 and PPC from the start but it has been as is very optimized for Altivec. x86 optimization will probably be much better in leopard.
I justed switched from an iMac G5 PPC to a MacBook. I feel the speed of the x86 but at the same time I notice the little lags here and there. I personaly believe the PPC single core was a better multi-tasker than the Core Duo. Because of Altivec.
Anyway. let's just wait and see where this new x86 venture takes us.
By the time we see 4-8 core CPU's, this will be a very moot point, I think.
Take care all.
I'm gonna have to go ahead and side with Josh due to the amount of "slow Intel" posts I've been seeing. I have an iBook G4, and my girlfriend has a Macbook. It's night and day, folks. Her Macbook is WAY WAY WAY snappier in everything outside of Rosetta apps. I go between the two computers daily and never fail to notice the difference. And my iBook is no slouch. I keep both computers in tip top shape, and hers is just plain smoother and snappier. For those experiencing sluggishness on Intel, you might have a problem. Those computers are insanely fast.
Edit: to further my point, I should mention that I work in IT and our department is about 95% Macs. We have Intel and PPC Macs that I troubleshoot daily, and the Intel Macs are snappier. One thing I do notice though is that Rosetta loves RAM, and when you've got a few PPC apps open on an Intel Mac, you get beachballs. If I were an owner of an Intel Mac I'd make sure any PPC app/process was not running unless I was directly using it.
I don't think anyone is saying the Intel Macs are slow. They aren't. They are very "snappy" in the same way that Windows has always been and the PPC could never quite achieve. But it was described best as "stop and go". Once you get it going it's very fast but there is a lot of lag in doing so--a lot more beachballs. The experience for me has been very "jerky" and while I can deal with it I do miss the days of the smooth ride with my iBook. Hopefully Leopard will make that possible on my MacBook Pro.
Note: maybe this "stop and go" laginess only occurs on laptops? I've never owned an Mac Intel desktop so I can't compare the experience.
Note: maybe this "stop and go" laginess only occurs on laptops? I've never owned an Mac Intel desktop so I can't compare the experience.
+1. My iMac is FAST, and powerful where I need it to be. It runs Logic and Ableton Live 6 like a dream. I just wish I could stick more than 2GB of RAM in there!
Yeah I cant say I get people who say the intel chips are unstable or 'laggy'. I've got a standard issue 2.0 C2D w/1GB RAM and comparing this to my old G4 eMac is a joke! Working on arrangements in Logic Pro on my G4 was a nightmare! Anymore than say five Native Instruments plugs and some audio tracks was a no go- Constantly having to bounce down tracks or Core Audio overload and all the rest. Absolute Nightmare. I find pretty much everything a shiteload faster on this MB and I havent even upgraded to 7200RPM drive or upgraded RAM.
The only thing I'd say is probably loading programs isnt the 10-15x faster quoted by apple compared to a G4. But then even Apple say that you'll actually notice the speed when doing processor intensive things like encoding, processing audio/images and you without a doubt do. I think theres only so much a processor speed can do when opening and loading programs or loading websites..
As someone mentioned before Velocity engine has been around for much much longer than macs been running on intel chips. They've learned how to optimise/efficiently code for it and all the rest. Yes OSX was made with x86 in mind but these dual core intel chips are relatively new, at least to Apple. It will take time for developers and especially third party programmers to efficiently code for the new chips on osx. I mean, you can expect even existing 'universal' apps to run more efficiently with time. I dont think half of universal apps right now properly make use of the dual cores yet, not even Logic. I also think that being 'universal' is bound to slow apps/osx down compared to a simply intel optimised version of osx/osx apps. Even if just in the time wasted spent trying to make the apps run well on PPC as Intel.
So no its not a load of crap to expect Leopard to run more efficiently than Tiger on intel, it makes a whole lot of sense.
The only thing I'd say is probably loading programs isnt the 10-15x faster quoted by apple compared to a G4. But then even Apple say that you'll actually notice the speed when doing processor intensive things like encoding, processing audio/images and you without a doubt do. I think theres only so much a processor speed can do when opening and loading programs or loading websites..
As someone mentioned before Velocity engine has been around for much much longer than macs been running on intel chips. They've learned how to optimise/efficiently code for it and all the rest. Yes OSX was made with x86 in mind but these dual core intel chips are relatively new, at least to Apple. It will take time for developers and especially third party programmers to efficiently code for the new chips on osx. I mean, you can expect even existing 'universal' apps to run more efficiently with time. I dont think half of universal apps right now properly make use of the dual cores yet, not even Logic. I also think that being 'universal' is bound to slow apps/osx down compared to a simply intel optimised version of osx/osx apps. Even if just in the time wasted spent trying to make the apps run well on PPC as Intel.
So no its not a load of crap to expect Leopard to run more efficiently than Tiger on intel, it makes a whole lot of sense.
1GB is a good amount for most day-in, day-out tasks. For audio production (my field), 1GB is not enough, and 2GB is just scraping by; big sample sets can fill up 2GB very quickly.
I had occasion to use 4 top-o'-the-line iMacs for a while last year, and they were somewhat flaky compared to my G5 Power Mac. At first I thought it was just Rosetta, but it was everything, native or otherwise. They were all new, had fresh installs of the OS with nothing else added, and had a decent amount of RAM (2GB). If it was just one, I would have said there was something wrong with it, but they all did the same thing. Rather disappointing. I had no intention of getting another Mac any time soon anyway, but that confirmed it. On the other hand, I used a Mac Pro briefly last week, and it was noticeably faster than my G5. I didn't have enough time to see if the flakiness was still there though.
--Eric
--Eric
To me, this Intel VS PPC is useless and senseless. I have one laptop of each architecture and I love them both very much.
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I do day to day task and i'm constantly pushing the 2GB limit i have thanks to Safari and kernel_task. In fact to use word easily i tend to quit safari all together instead of minimizing it.
Safari, Finder and Kernel all need overhauling IMHO. I hope they get it right in Leopard.
Is intel snappier than PPC?...for the G4s yes, i can't say about the G5s especially the Quad.