Benchmarks demolish Apple speed boasts

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I was just reading some of the news on "The Register" and have become depressed! I am pasting part of the article here for discussion:

Posted: 11/03/2002 at 10:44 GMT



As of this morning, thirty one entries have been submitted to the SPEC performance list for the year so far. But if you're wondering why Apple hasn't yet dispatched its latest "workstation class" G4 hardware for examination by the council, in what is the industry's most respected set of benchmark tests, C't has the answer.



The German tech bible has put the latest dual G4s through the SPEC CPU2000 processor benchmark, and the results make dismal reading for hardcore Apple loyalists. C't found that the RISC-based machines running OS X fall severely short of expectations, being bested in the floating point tests by an eighteen month old Pentium III-based machine
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 30
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    not knocking the test... its very good but it

    1.) has no altivec usage which is really where the G4s main advantage is

    2.) from what I hear the X86 code is a bit more refined than the ppc
  • Reply 2 of 30
    taqtaq Posts: 76member
    I agree there with applenut. As The Apple Turns (appleturns.com) has a great and witty explanation at why the benchmark is biased against ppc platform. As I understand it, it's altivec that gives G4's their supercomputer fame. Without them enabled your crippling what makes the chip special.
  • Reply 3 of 30
    Now hear this from a certified Wintroll:



    Under comparable code quality, a GIGHZ G4e should be around 15%-25% or so faster than an GIGHZ P3 Tuluatin.



    In my humble opinion.



    so there
  • Reply 4 of 30
    fotnsfotns Posts: 301member
    Here comes the rationalizing, excuses, and denials.

    Just face it, the G4 is old and uncompetitive compared to its x86 rivals. Processing units like Altivec only are useful in specific, repetitive tasks. For most tasks it is of little value.
  • Reply 5 of 30
    Also, these tests are not threaded properly for dual G4s, IIRC.
  • Reply 6 of 30
    barvowbarvow Posts: 64member
    This is not "new" news. For a lengthy discussion on another forum, look at



    <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/forums/showthread.php3?s=08e7555ede8acb063351dcacb0688ebd &threadid=2413" target="_blank">web page</a>
  • Reply 7 of 30
    I noticed the same article on MacNN. I have been a very loyal Apple customer over the past 15 years and usually buy a new (replacement) Apple every year. I sell my old one and use that money with some extra to upgrade to the latest technologies. I currently have a Dual 533, but have not upgraded because I have not seen enough improvement in the entire system offered by Apple computers. I am in the market for a laptop, but again, I feel Apple just isn?t staying ahead of the game. I have set aside the money to purchase a new desktop and laptop and upgrade my software to OS X (I have upgraded the Microsoft office application but will stop upgrades until I decide which product to buy?pc or apple). However, at this point I am considering the purchase of the new Toshiba Laptop. If that experience goes well, I would consider switching to the PC for all my work. I hate to think about it, but I am tired of waiting for Apple. To be honest, I expect much more from Apple then they have been able to deliver lately. That is just my opinion! I hope they come out with something very soon or I am switching. I have had many people ask if they should switch to the apple because of the new iMac. I just tell them I would wait and see. If they do not need a computer, then don?t buy it now.
  • Reply 8 of 30
    francisg3francisg3 Posts: 168member
    Hey gwhylow - What are you doing on your G4 - CAD/CAM design? Rendering? Navigating the space shuttle? Calculating Pi to the trillionth digit?



    If you need speed, heck, stick with OS 9, or get a Silicon Graphics Workstation. Apples were never known for their speed.



    I mean, a Camaro will out-accelerate most Mercedes Benzes, but if you ask me, I'd take the Mercedes.



    But you sound like you're craving a Camaro. Hate to see you go.
  • Reply 9 of 30
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    This happens every 6 months and we get the same whining about speeds.



    1. Intel has optimized their compilers to produce max spec scores



    2. As Applenut says..SPEC has never been taken into consideration on the Mac side nor is it a "refined"



    3. If you make purchase decisions based on SPEC you are doomed to fail. I've built two PC's and neither impressed me enough to forgo on the Mac advantages...I don't need SPEC to tell me what's the obvious...as a sum...the Mac is STILL the superior platform.



    4. PC's just flat out suck...they're like dragsters....great in a straight line sprint..but ask them to navigate a course like a Indy cart race and they fail. WinXP is just like most Microsloth OS's modal switching of tasks is almost unbearable. The only time you notice speed is when you minimize the OS's responsibilities. Sure I'm biased but I've got two PC's at home along with my Macs and it's easier to tell the differences when you have this setup.
  • Reply 10 of 30
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    here we go again.



    the sad fact is that apple's hardware sucks compared to the wintel competition. The very fact that people are having to drag out technical arguments for and excuses for the G4 outlines the fact. If apple's hardware really was THAT good then we wouldn't need to keep quoting Altivec like a bad mantra - the Mac would win all benchmarks.



    It keeps getting toasted in benchmark after benchmark - face it, the mac will be dead in the high end within 3 years. the latest crop of apple adverts also point to apple positioning its hardware as toys - fun, easy but not mean and fast. Even the Imovie ad featured a Quicksilver.



    If apple is to break new ground and win new market share it has to produce something worthy of the apple logo and certainly worthy of the tag "Power" Macintosh.
  • Reply 11 of 30
    fotnsfotns Posts: 301member
    [quote]Originally posted by hmurchison:

    <strong>This happens every 6 months and we get the same whining about speeds.



    1. Intel has optimized their compilers to produce max spec scores



    2. As Applenut says..SPEC has never been taken into consideration on the Mac side nor is it a "refined"



    3. If you make purchase decisions based on SPEC you are doomed to fail. I've built two PC's and neither impressed me enough to forgo on the Mac advantages...I don't need SPEC to tell me what's the obvious...as a sum...the Mac is STILL the superior platform.



    4. PC's just flat out suck...they're like dragsters....great in a straight line sprint..but ask them to navigate a course like a Indy cart race and they fail. WinXP is just like most Microsloth OS's modal switching of tasks is almost unbearable. The only time you notice speed is when you minimize the OS's responsibilities. Sure I'm biased but I've got two PC's at home along with my Macs and it's easier to tell the differences when you have this setup.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    1. The Spec Benchmark has not been compiled with the newest Intel compiler. From the article, C't states they compiled it using the "old 1999 version of the GCC under Linux (2.95.3)...in the case of Mac OS X we used the version 2.95.2 of GNU C and the C++ compiler (GCC), supplied by Apple in January 2002.?

    2. You may not take it into consideration, but scientists and researchers do when making decisions on computing platforms. SPEC is the respected benchmark for them.

    3. Fail how? These SPEC scores are only one piece of the evidence against the G4 myth. Others are poorer multi-tasking, lower game benchmarks, lower Cinebench scores, slower video conversion times, etc..

    4. Totally subjective. My top pc rig is a 1533Mhz Athlon with Win XP Pro, and it never locks up, is the most responsive OS I have ever used. It does everything from video editing to blistering gaming.



    Don't get me wrong, I love Macintosh, but I don't believe their hardware is on the same level as today?s top PCs. Identifying and admitting the faults should not be a sin, rather it should be used as a gauge to identify what needs to be accomplished.
  • Reply 12 of 30
    gwhylowgwhylow Posts: 22member
    Well, I haven?t left Apple yet. I really hate the Windows/Intel PC, but I have become increasingly dissatisfied with Apple products lately. After Apple?s last announcement that they would go beyond the rumor sites, way beyond, I became rather disappointed. Then recently I bought one of those flat panel 24-inch cinema displays to find it had a dead spot in the right center. I went back to the Apple Store later and they just told me they couldn?t guarantee a perfect screen and that all of them would have a dead spot because of the size of the screen. Of course I didn?t believe that line of crap, but I just didn?t want to fight with them on the issue.

    Now, I am in the process of opening a business in China and have a need to buy between 30 and 40 computers. My partner and I had discussed the G4 and some Apple laptops, but at this point we are leaning towards the PC. The cost for the PC systems are less and I don?t see any advantage the Apple provides at this point. Also, the people I work with in China currently all use the PC and I doubt that any of them has used the Apple. Anyway, I just wish Apple/Motorola would leap way ahead of the PC and give me good reason to remain. I love the Apple computer but I wouldn?t recommend to any of my friends to pick the Apple over the PC at this point. I already have two PCs (Sony and Dell) and one Apple G4. I almost never use the PC, but it is easy for me to switch from one to the other. I can?t complain about the PCs because they work fine and I never really have any problems with them. However, Apple OS X just isn?t performing as I expect and the software just isn?t there for OS X. Maybe I am just too confused now and need to take a break and rethink it all later!?take care all!
  • Reply 13 of 30
    [quote] C't found that the RISC-based machines running OS X fall severely short of expectations, being bested in the floating point tests by an eighteen month old Pentium III-based machine <hr></blockquote>



    the keyword is floating point. I've read the article and it is just a floating point benchmark. Don't know what this means for the daily work.



    For those of you, who are able to read german, the link to

    <a href="http://www.heise.de/ct/02/05/182/default.shtml"; target="_blank">the full article</a>



    and here is the link to the

    <a href="http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/05/182/"; target="_blank">english version</a>



    [edit: typo]



    [ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: SemiConductor ]</p>
  • Reply 14 of 30
    detnapdetnap Posts: 14member
    guys, i think that it's important to point out that apple was the speed king about 5 years ago. when the 604e came out at 225 mhz vs the pentium pro at 200 mhz (and i think the 604e was faster ipc to boot)..



    unless you guys are too young to remember those days...



    not sure what happened, but i gues intel just took the pentium pro and ran with it



    Ted
  • Reply 15 of 30
    iks_iviks_iv Posts: 11member
    If the G4 is crap, then why is our dual 500 MHz only 21% slower than our dual 1.7 GHz P4 for our RIP based applications?



  • Reply 16 of 30
    marcukmarcuk Posts: 4,442member
    The G4 isn't crap, As for the FPU, Its about on par per MHZ with the P3/Athlon/P4, as the tests have shown, the problem is that the afforementioned chips have 50-100% more MHZ than we do. Ive no doubt a 2GHZ G4 would cream all over a 2GHZ Athlon/P3/P4 if any one of them existed.



    Intel had the right idea with the P4, Its integer performance suffered a bit, but the point was extra integer performance didn't really gain alot in the real world. They decided that FPU was more important, so they concentrated on that, by adding double-speed FPU (it runs at 4.2GHZ! in the 2.2GHZ), unfortunately this is Intel, so they cocked that up too.



    Id like to see g4+/G5 follow the same ideas. I'd trust Moto to design the chip properly, Id just keep adding FPU's rather than extra other units, as this is where todays apps seem to be taking us. Oh and a 256bit Altivec with 64bit double precision.
  • Reply 17 of 30
    xmogerxmoger Posts: 242member
    [quote]Intel had the right idea with the P4, Its integer performance suffered a bit, but the point was extra integer performance didn't really gain alot in the real world. They decided that FPU was more important, so they concentrated on that, by adding double-speed FPU (it runs at 4.2GHZ! in the 2.2GHZ), unfortunately this is Intel, so they cocked that up too.<hr></blockquote>

    The ALU is the double pumped unit on the P4 because integer instructions have a higher number of branches. The P4 needs the doubled freq. to get decent performance.
  • Reply 18 of 30
    craiger77craiger77 Posts: 133member
    It just seems to me that when you run a test that is so out of line with expectations, like the FPU scores those German dudes found, you ought to start questioning the tests ability to accurately measure what is being tested instead of assuming that what you found reflects reality.
  • Reply 19 of 30
    supersuper Posts: 82member
    One of our design machines went down recently and the local Apple store only had a new 800mhz imac available for rent. Well we decided to put it through it's paces. We were working on a big poster - 1.5m x 2.5m @ 175dpi giving us a file size of about 500mb. When we then had 12 100 mb files that were to be montaged on the poster. Extensive erasing, colour blending and blurring. The iMac handled it. It wasn't mind bendingly (that's a funny word) fast, but fast enough that we didn't lose patience. It had 512mb ram.



    Now we're about to upgrade to dual ghz machines for our workstations and apart from our video/motion graphics guys, most of our other designers will not even need that kind of speed. I mean who pushes around 500mb - 1gig files in photoshop on a regular basis.



    So while i agree that macs maybe slower than the latest Athlons and Pentiums, they aren't hindering our ability to get work done and in most cases make the entire workflow experience much more enjoyable, and most importantly, trouble free.
  • Reply 20 of 30
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,561member
    In the real world examples it seems that the Macs with G4s do just fine. Genetech's bio related program is reputed to be running some five times faster than the pc version. Movie rendering and, of course, photoshop filters are often faster on the Mac. Certainly you could find examples where either platform outperforms the other. Either one is fast enough for most applications, if you are only considering raw speed. If you next consider learning curves, hardware compatibility problems and such then the Macs pull way ahead.
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