Apple's new iMac

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
*yawn*

Intel measures clockspeed in a slightly more "interesting" way than Apple currently does (see video, http://www.apple.com/g4/myth/). This paragraph especially caught my attention:

Oh, thanks Wiglaf. Being in computer science and a hardware enthusiast, I didn't know about the concept of instructions per clock.

But it's time to face the facts, Wiggy. The G4 is old, obsolete. Motorolla knows this, as does Apple. The G5 may be kickass (if the rumors are true), but the G4 is way past its prime.

PC processors have more than eclipsed it for quite a while now.

Don't wanna take my word for it? Fine. How about John Carmack's word? Do you know who John Carmack is, Wiggy?

I wind up doing my own internal PPC vs X86 benchmarks almost every year.

I'll set up whatever current game I am working on to run with the graphics stubbed out so it is strictly a CPU load. We just did this recently while putting the DOOM demo together for MacWorld Tokyo.

I'll port long-run time off line utilities.

I'll sometimes write some synthetic benchmarks.

Now understand that I LIKE Apple hardware from a systems standpoint (every time I have to open up a stupid PC case, I think about the Apple G3/G4 cases) , and I generally support Apple, but every test I have ever done has had x86 hardware outperforming PPC hardware.

Not necessarily by huge margins, but pretty conclusively.

Yes, I have used the Mr. C compiler and tried all the optimization options.

Altivec is nice and easy to program for, but in most cases it is going to be held up because the memory subsystems on PPC systems aren't as good as on the PC.

Some operations in Premier or Photoshop are definitely a lot faster on macs, and I would be very curious to see the respective implementations on PPC and X86. They damn sure won't just be the same C code compiled on both platforms, and it may just be a case of lots of hand optimized code competing against poorer implementations. I would like to see a Michael Abrash or Terje Mathison take the x86 SSE implementation head to head with the AltiVec implementation. That would make a great magazine article.

I'll be right there trumpeting it when I get a Mac that runs my tests faster than any x86 hardware, but it hasn't happened yet. This is about measurements, not tribal identity, but some people always wind up being deeply offended by it...

John Carmack

G4 does more per MHz than the PC processors, but overall it still can't do as much. It's obsolete, Wiggy.

(BTW, the Apple site is such bill****, they use SELECTIVE tests where the top of the line G4 can beat a middle-of-the-road P4. Yawn)

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Also, RAM esp for Macs is extremely cheap (easily take it up to 512 from 256).

You're right, the RAM for Macs is extremely cheap. Why? It's the same memory PCs used 3-4 years ago. It's old, obsolete. Like the G4. And Apple still charges you a fortune for it.

Add in the DVD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM/CD-ROM capabilities, along with the Airport setup and flat panel monitor, and there's one hell of a deal on the table here. All with Apple's recognized performance and support - and OSX (+9.1, no real emulation but then again no compatability issues like the ones with XP). This puppy doesn't take up much space either.

Well, apparently quite a few people can't stand Aqua. And it is true, Wiggy, it's MUCH slower UI-wise than OS 9 was.

[Wiglaf]

Oh, thanks Wiglaf. Being in computer science and a hardware enthusiast, I didn't know about the concept of instructions per clock.

I never said you didn't know you were bull****ting me, I just said you were.

(BTW, the Apple site is such bill****, they use SELECTIVE tests where the top of the line G4 can beat a middle-of-the-road P4. Yawn)

A 1.7 GHz P4 is very much comparable with a 733 MHz G4, I'd imagine (given that even this new budget line iMac comes with an 800 MHz G4 w/ Velocity Engine...).

G4 does more per MHz than the PC processors, but overall it still can't do as much. It's obsolete, Wiggy.

Link?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
I never said you didn't know you were bull****ting me, I just said you were.

How was I bull****ting you? I said the price was the same as a 1.6GHz P4 system offered by IBM.

A 1.7 GHz P4 is very much comparable with a 733 MHz G4, I'd imagine (given that even this new budget line iMac comes with an 800 MHz G4 w/ Velocity Engine...).

"Velocity engine" is another word for SIMD, something that's been on the Pentium IIIs and Athlons for quite a while now also. It's nothing special to the G4.

Link?

We've went over this, Wiggy.
I'm not going to link for you, the overwhelming evidence is that the G4 is obsolete. If it could scale (turn up in MHz) worth a damn it'd be an ice processor. Motorolla f*cked it up nicely, they should have let IBM make the Apple PPC processors.

If the G4 isn't obsolete, why are they releasing the G5 shortly, Wiglaf? Hrm?

You heard Carmack: The reason the Adobe products sometimes score higher on the PPC ports is probably because of extensive optimizations and assembly-level tweaking which aren't done on the x86 side (it is a port, after all).

There's a reason Quake III scores are much lower on the PPC than x86. The memory subsystem is WAY old (PC133 RAM max? Comon...), the FSB is way old (133MHz? P4s are at 400MHz, 533MHz in April. Athlons are at 266MHz).

If anyone's going to be linking here, Wiglaf, it's you. No apple.com ****.

[Wiglaf]

Well, apparently quite a few people can't stand Aqua. And it is true, Wiggy, it's MUCH slower UI-wise than OS 9 was.

"But even throwing a 733Mhz G4, with half a GB of memory, at Aqua has worrying side effects. The sheer horsepower of producing some of the Aqua Eye Candy has caused me skips when replaying MP3 files. And I've experienced peculiar, unwanted cut-up effects in the Carbon Sound Studio which may be bugs, but I half suspect are serious timing issues introduced by the CPU cycle-sapping UI. "

No skips for me, no ill effects running IE, Photoshop, etc. Don't know what this guy's talking about. And do I really have to provide some QuakeIII benchmarks for XP compared with 98? Check out gamespot's review...

You're right, the RAM for Macs is extremely cheap. Why? It's the same memory PCs used 3-4 years ago. It's old, obsolete. Like the G4. And Apple still charges you a fortune for it.

And the P4's expensive, slow RDRAM isn't the least bit outdated?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
And the P4's expensive, slow RDRAM isn't the least bit outdated?

The P4's not more expensive than the G4.

And RDRAM is "slow"? WTF? Read this.
PC1066 RDRAM has 1.741GB/s of memory bandwidth.
PC133 (Mac) has 0.657GB/s of memory bandwidth.

PC1066 RDRAM's latency is 207 cycles for 128 bytes.
PC133 (Mac)'s is 229 cycles.

Even the slower PC800 RDRAM totally wastes PC133. Slow my ass.

I'll give you that it's more expensive, though. Such is the price of extreme performance. 256MB of PC133 is $33, RDRAM is $62. That's not bad for the performance, actually.

[Asher]

Okay, so here's some benchmarks

Let's see if you can figure them out.

• http://www.burgernet.de/setistat/avg.htm : SETI@Home benchmarks.
  G4 400MHz: 14h 59m 39s to do one packet.
  Pentium III 800MHz: 9h 30m 12s to do one packet.
  AMD Athlon 1.4GHz: 4h 54m 3s to do one packet.
  'Nuff said?
  
  
• http://homepage.mac.com/nopea1/benchmark/ : Performance results are relative to a P3 733:
  Athlon 1.2GHz: 1.50
  G3 450MHz: 0.59
  G4 533MHz: 0.80
  

Your turn.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I like that Wiggy is totally ignoring Carmarck's words . Can't counter it. Face it, Macs are ****.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
And do I really have to provide some QuakeIII benchmarks for XP compared with 98? Check out gamespot's review...

I welcome it. Quake III actually scores better on Windows 2000 and XP than it does on Win95/98/Me.

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2808643,00.html

[Wiglaf]

I like that Wiggy is totally ignoring Carmarck's words . Can't counter it. Face it, Macs are ****.

I want it linked. He crapped around with that.

I welcome it. Quake III actually scores better on Windows 2000 and XP than it does on Win95/98/Me.

I only see ME listed, not 98.

G4 400MHz: 14h 59m 39s to do one packet.
Pentium III 800MHz: 9h 30m 12s to do one packet.
AMD Athlon 1.4GHz: 4h 54m 3s to do one packet.
'Nuff said?

The amount of time SETI takes on a packet depends on a little more than processor speed, just so you know. Do they all have the same amount of RAM/HD space? You can't just plop down a clock and expect it to be all black and white. (those are early G4s compared to midrange PIIIs as well) It could be a software issue btw, the mac version isn't the best or most efficient I'd imagine. In any event, we're talking about G4800s and P41.6GHz's here. Whether or not Intel inflates clock cycles with their new processor to make it appeal to the mass market.

Performance results are relative to a P3 733:
Athlon 1.2GHz: 1.50
G3 450MHz: 0.59
G4 533MHz: 0.80

"I don't do supercomputing.Ê I don't do Photoshop.Ê My media processing is limited to MP3 playback, and one MP3 encoding tool (with very particular parameters).Ê My two time sink games are Diablo 2 and Counter-Strike, which aren't 3D floating point monsters.
I care a lot more about integer code.Ê Stuff like web browsers, mail readers, editors---heck, anything with a lot of cycles going into the interface.Ê And I'm a hacker too, so I care about shells, compilers, interpreters, emulators,Ê network servers, and so on."

Your homepage, glonky?

Not credible.

If the G4 isn't obsolete, why are they releasing the G5 shortly, Wiglaf? Hrm?

Same reason Northwoods are coming later this year, I guess...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
I want it linked. He crapped around with that.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12564&cid=179978

I only see ME listed, not 98.

Gosh, I'm sorry. Go get me the Win98 specific ones. Link them, now.

The amount of time SETI takes on a packet depends on a little more than processor speed, just so you know. Do they all have the same amount of RAM/HD space? You can't just plop down a clock and expect it to be all black and white. (those are early G4s compared to midrange PIIIs as well) It could be a software issue btw, the mac version isn't the best or most efficient I'd imagine. In any event, we're talking about G4800s and P41.6GHz's here. Whether or not Intel inflates clock cycles with their new processor to make it appeal to the mass market.

Wiggy, you're trying to justify HORRIBLE performance. I've given links to benchmarks, YOU have to PROVE them false. Your rhetoric is useless. Find me benchmarks of a non-Adobe product, comparing to PC and Mac.
And what're you talking about the Early G4 midranged PIII thing? The PIII is early also! Duh...800MHz is not exactly a rip-roaring P3.

Your homepage, glonky?

Not credible.

Yeah, Wiggy, I host my website on Mac.com. Don't all PC users?
You say THAT is not credible, when YOU linked to www.apple.com? Hahaha...
I see why you use Macs now.

Show me some credible benchmarks then, Wiggy. Because literally every non-Adobe benchmark I've seen puts the G3 and G4 at serious disadvantages.

Same reason Northwoods are coming later this year, I guess...

The Northwoods just came out today, actually. And you're right, they are coming out now because the old P4s were obsolete. Not only are Northwoods 10% faster per clock, but overclockers are hitting 3GHz with them air-cooled. And Intel also can make twice as many of them at half the cost! That's why they're out now.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I want it linked. He crapped around with that.

Now, you gotta link. Can't avoid it anymore .

[Asher]

How about these benchmarks? Are they not credible too?

http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/yellowdog20/6.shtml

Now you're going to ***** about how it's "only a G4 500", but the fastest G4 out now is a G4+ 866. The fastest Athlon out right now is a 1.67GHz Athlon, too, and the fastest Intel is a 2.2GHz P4 (Which is now usually beating the Athlon). The PC processors have gotten faster than the G4s since then.

Edit: Also note that the PC processors are using regular SDRAM, 256MB, same as the Mac. Modern PC processors can use DDR SDRAM, with double the bandwidth.

[Wiglaf]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12564&cid=179978

I could just as easily bull**** around for five paragraphs about how terrible apple processors are (hey, you do it). Useless in this sort of market. John Carmack can kiss my ass.

Gosh, I'm sorry. Go get me the Win98 specific ones. Link them, now.

http://www.ocaddiction.com/articles/os/98vsXP/

"Conclusion: It looks as if we'll have to give the SPeeD crown to Windows 98SE. While XP is Microsoft's greatest effort in the OS arena to date, 98 comes out on top for raw performance.Ê XP will give you bells and whistles, a smooth interface, and stability, but if your looking for every bit of performance you can squeeze out of your system, chances are good you'll want to keep a separate partition on your hard drive with 98SE installed."

Also note the QuakeIII gaming benchmark. That's what we're talking about, after all.

How about these benchmarks? Are they not credible too?

"As far as the conclusions, I can say, without a doubt, that the G4 500 is just about the speed of a P3 800. If you're using one of the latest G4s with 133 MHz FSB, I'm sure you'll see both processors very close to each other."

As the G4 800 is now midstream on the new iMac, and Intel has begun to inflate its system of measuring clock speeds with the P4, I'd say that this article needs an update. Macs are every bit as powerful, especially in artsy areas.

And what're you talking about the Early G4 midranged PIII thing? The PIII is early also! Duh...800MHz is not exactly a rip-roaring P3

Didn't they start off 400MHz slower? G4s sure as hell didn't. The one you picked was one of the first.

The Northwoods just came out today, actually. And you're right, they are coming out now because the old P4s were obsolete.

God knows we all need 3GHz of processing power right now. Separate arguement: Intel's kidding themselves if they think they can sell that crap to any reasonable person - those clocks are so inflated now it's ridiculous. Ugh. Talk about bull****.

Show me some credible benchmarks then, Wiggy. Because literally every non-Adobe benchmark I've seen puts the G3 and G4 at serious disadvantages.

http://www.zdnet.com/products/storie...32618,00.html, also see above.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
I could just as easily bull**** around for five paragraphs about how terrible apple processors are (hey, you do it). Useless in this sort of market. John Carmack can kiss my ass.

Yeah, that's right.
Listen, buddy, if anybody knows anything about how fast the two platforms are, it's Carmack. He makes games for both that are highly optimized for each platform.

http://www.ocaddiction.com/articles/os/98vsXP/
Also note the QuakeIII gaming benchmark. That's what we're talking about, after all.

Yeah, you're right. In this one benchmark, Win98 is so very much faster than Windows XP. Hell, in Quake III 1600x1200, both are 102fps. Totally unacceptable performance. XP should be burned.

As the G4 800 is now midstream on the new iMac, and Intel has begun to inflate its system of measuring clock speeds with the P4, I'd say that this article needs an update. Macs are every bit as powerful, especially in artsy areas.

I agree it could use an update, but the people who actually care about power already know which is faster (by a large margin). That's why modern benchmarks aren't out. Once the G5 is out, you'll see LOTs of comparisons between that and the P4/Athlon XP.
Sidenote: You keep acting like the only reason Intel chose to use a longer pipeline (more MHz, less per MHz) is marketing. That's actually a handy little side-effect. The main reason is because SMT (essentially dual CPU-on-a-chip) requires a long pipeline (more MHz, less per MHz) to work properly. Pentium 4s have that, but due to licensing conflicts with Microsoft and due to the first P4s having buggy versions, it's disabled. It's being enabled in the server version of the Pentium 4 in a couple months, and provides a ~30% performance boost per clock. Then it'll trickle down to the consumer Pentium 4s.

Didn't they start off 400MHz slower? G4s sure as hell didn't. The one you picked was one of the first.

You come here saying you shouldn't use MHz as a rating for anything, only to use MHz as an excuse?
Pentium IIIs debuted at 450MHz. They top out at 1.2GHz. I don't see how this is in any way unfair to the G4.

God knows we all need 3GHz of processing power right now. Separate arguement: Intel's kidding themselves if they think they can sell that crap to any reasonable person - those clocks are so inflated now it's ridiculous. Ugh. Talk about bull****.

See my above comments.
You're an uninformed troll, you don't have a clue how modern processors work or the design tradeoffs made.

http://www.zdnet.com/products/storie...32618,00.html, also see above.

Oh, that's just BRILLIANT.
G3 vs. Pentium III 500? WTF does that prove about the G4?

Wiglaf, you can concede defeat at any time.
The G4 is obsolete, especially when compared with the new Northwood Pentium 4 2.2GHz and Athlon XP 2000+. Seriously, a 500MHz is equal to a P3 800. And the max for a G4 is 866MHz. Max for the P3 is a 1.2GHz (still painfully slow compaired to the new P4s, also). Yes, I realize the clockspeed doesn't mean much, but performance associated should be considered.

What it comes down to is: You have no proof, you have no argument, and you have no logic. Let you try to debate the topic?