How fast is the G4 compared to the G5?
I am going to upgrade my G3 iMac sometime and I think I should wait till we start seeing hints of G5s in Powerbooks and iMacs. I was just wondering how much of a difference there is between G4s and G5s and if I should wait or not, even if it's probably going to be years.
Also, what's the difference between the G4 7450, 7455, 7447, and 7457? Is it just features, or is there also a speed difference? I know current iMacs use 7455s and current Powerbooks use 7447s and I'm assuming both will go to 7457s soon.
Finally, is Motorola planning on making something after the 7457, or is Apple going to drop them by then in favor of all IBM chips?
Also, what's the difference between the G4 7450, 7455, 7447, and 7457? Is it just features, or is there also a speed difference? I know current iMacs use 7455s and current Powerbooks use 7447s and I'm assuming both will go to 7457s soon.
Finally, is Motorola planning on making something after the 7457, or is Apple going to drop them by then in favor of all IBM chips?
Comments
G5 *************************************
There ya go. In the time it take for the G4 to display 20 asterisks, the G5 can display 37. It's blazingly fast!
Originally posted by dferigmu
I am going to upgrade my G3 iMac sometime and I think I should wait till we start seeing hints of G5s in Powerbooks and iMacs. I was just wondering how much of a difference there is between G4s and G5s and if I should wait or not, even if it's probably going to be years.
On integer applications, which is about the majority of apps a consumer would use, the G4 and G5 has about the same performance at the same clock rate.
On floating point applications, the G5 is about 1.5x faster than the G4 at the same clock rate.
On Velocity Engine applications, the G5 will be about the same performance at the same clock rate.
Whether you should buy or not is up to you, not us. Right now, sweet spot Power Macs are the dual 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4 for $1600 and the dual 2 GHz Power Mac G5 for $3000. However, those are base machines only and to outfit them with more memory and a monitor can increase the cost $1000+. If you have a nice monitor already, they are a good deals. If you don't you'll have to scrounge a little. If you don't have a big budget, going refurbished is an option for a Power Mac, otherwise, you will have settle on the eMac, iBook or iMac 15. Remember, memory is good.
Also, what's the difference between the G4 7450, 7455, 7447, and 7457? Is it just features, or is there also a speed difference? I know current iMacs use 7455s and current Powerbooks use 7447s and I'm assuming both will go to 7457s soon.
7450: built on 180 nm copper interconnect CMOS fab.
7455A: built on 180 nm Cu interconnect SOI CMOS fab.
7455B: built on 180 nm Cu interconnect SOI low-k CMOS fab.
7457: built on 130 nm Cu interconnect SOI CMOS fab.
The 7447 is exactly the same as the 7457 with the exception of the backside L3 cache controller tags missing on the 7447 and thusly cannot have L3 cache. In fact, Moto had 7440, 7445 chips to compliment the 7450 and 7455 as well.
The big difference between the 7447/7457 series and 7445/7455 series is that the 74x7 chips have 512 KB of on-chip L2 cache while the 74x5 chips have 256 KB of on-chip L2 cache. They come off the wafer that way and are not changeable. Performance wise, the 74x7 is about 5 to 10% faster than the 74x5 at the same clock rate. L3 cache of appropriate size will increase the performance of said chips another 5 to 10%.
Finally, is Motorola planning on making something after the 7457, or is Apple going to drop them by then in favor of all IBM chips?
There are some questions about Motorola Semiconductor actually surviving as a business entity let alone manufacturing higher clocked 7457 chips. So, who knows...
I use a dual G4 533 at work. I used to think it was ok. Now that I have a dual G5 2Ghz at home, I can tell you, it's bloody way faster. Here are somethings I've noticed:
1) Boot time is halved or more. It really just springs to life from startup.
2) Disk speeds is measureably 30% faster.
3) Applications zing to life.
4) I get absolutely no lag when selecting a menu - they appear instantly (sometimes on G4 and G5, menus take a split sec)
5) Absolutely no laggy user interface animations - dock genie is perfect. Scrolling is super fast. Opening new finder folders is ALMOST instant.
6) All programs feel more responsive.
7) Unreal Tournament 2003 is flawlessly fast. I'm getting a frame rate so high i can't notice any jumping no matter how fast i use the mouse - in fact, my optical mouse trips up before the screen gets laggy.
8) Photoshop is super zingy and apparently just soars with tonnes of RAM. I have 512 now and 1.5 gb on order from crucial. Expecting that today.
9) itunes visualizer gets over 56 frames per second. Looks sweet.
10) ripping a CD can get as fast as 20X per song. It's about 15X when doing stuff in the background, like listening to the same CD! I can rip a whole CD in about 3 minutes. Sometimes less.
I've yet to really push it, but as I have twenty-two 2 minute videos and one 10 minute video to work on over the next 2 weeks, all of which will have lots of effects and compositing, I'll have a much better sense of what the performance is like.
I'll run some renders in After Effects both on my work (Dual G4) and home (Dual G5) and post the results.
Macbench gives my machine a 180 score (100 is dual g4 800).
That will likely change when i get my new RAM.
Hope that helped.
tM
Originally posted by podmate
buy me a dual 2Ghz and I'll do some speed tests for you against my dual 1Ghz Quicksilver
Sure...
How 'bout you buy me one?
Originally posted by The Mactivist
10) ripping a CD can get as fast as 20X per song. It's about 15X when doing stuff in the background, like listening to the same CD! I can rip a whole CD in about 3 minutes. Sometimes less.
Even on my old dual 1.25 GHz G4, I could get up to 20x when ripping CDs. 20x was about as fast as the G4 would go -- even when converting AIFF files to AAC, when reading data at hard drive speeds rather than CD speeds.
With your new G5, you're probably being held back by the speed of the stock SuperDrive. I plugged in an external 52x32x52x USB 2.0 CD-RW drive, and I was able to average 25x on ripping a 46.3 minute CD -- ripped the whole CD in 1:52.
I didn't time it, but I tried converting AIFF files to AAC -- again, no optical drive speed questions, getting data as fast as my hard drive can deliver it -- and did a whole album in less than a minute, so it was converting at something like 50x-60x.
As G - G = 0 and 5 - 4 = 1
So it's 1 faster.
under classic Quake 3 is a nightmare with my G4 533 (even in the lowest resolution).
you can play it (800 * 600) with defaults setting with my G5 1,6 ghz. Not everything is smooth, but it's ten time faster than the G4.
I know this test sucks, Quake under os X is avalaible (but i have to reload it, since my old version of quake 3 is corrupted), but the fact that you can use the classic version with a G5 and it's impossible with a G4 533 show the big improvements.
Originally posted by rageous
G5 - G4 = 1
As G - G = 0 and 5 - 4 = 1
Or to put it in relative terms:
(G5 - G4) / G4 = 1/4 = .25 = 25%
So, the G5 is 25% faster than the G4.
Oh, btw, this will be replacing an old PowerCenter Pro 180 (G3 450) at home.
Originally posted by THT
On integer applications, which is about the majority of apps a consumer would use, the G4 and G5 has about the same performance at the same clock rate.
On floating point applications, the G5 is about 1.5x faster than the G4 at the same clock rate.
On Velocity Engine applications, the G5 will be about the same performance at the same clock rate.
Whether you should buy or not is up to you, not us. Right now, sweet spot Power Macs are the dual 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4 for $1600 and the dual 2 GHz Power Mac G5 for $3000. However, those are base machines only and to outfit them with more memory and a monitor can increase the cost $1000+. If you have a nice monitor already, they are a good deals. If you don't you'll have to scrounge a little. If you don't have a big budget, going refurbished is an option for a Power Mac, otherwise, you will have settle on the eMac, iBook or iMac 15. Remember, memory is good.
7450: built on 180 nm copper interconnect CMOS fab.
7455A: built on 180 nm Cu interconnect SOI CMOS fab.
7455B: built on 180 nm Cu interconnect SOI low-k CMOS fab.
7457: built on 130 nm Cu interconnect SOI CMOS fab.
The 7447 is exactly the same as the 7457 with the exception of the backside L3 cache controller tags missing on the 7447 and thusly cannot have L3 cache. In fact, Moto had 7440, 7445 chips to compliment the 7450 and 7455 as well.
The big difference between the 7447/7457 series and 7445/7455 series is that the 74x7 chips have 512 KB of on-chip L2 cache while the 74x5 chips have 256 KB of on-chip L2 cache. They come off the wafer that way and are not changeable. Performance wise, the 74x7 is about 5 to 10% faster than the 74x5 at the same clock rate. L3 cache of appropriate size will increase the performance of said chips another 5 to 10%.
There are some questions about Motorola Semiconductor actually surviving as a business entity let alone manufacturing higher clocked 7457 chips. So, who knows...
There was a news item in the last few days (which, unfortunately, I do not recall the source of) which indicated that a Canadian outfit was in the later stages of acquiring at least some portion of MOTO's chip business. How much was unclear from the article. With all the changes going on at MOTO just staying in business doing something profitably, let alone chip design and manufacture, may be all that MOTO can do. MOTO might actually be better off selling the chip division and freeing the company to purchase chips from whatever source they may for products. Who knows, they might even buy chips from IBM!
Originally posted by Powerdoc
The G5 is way faster.
under classic Quake 3 is a nightmare with my G4 533 (even in the lowest resolution).
you can play it (800 * 600) with defaults setting with my G5 1,6 ghz. Not everything is smooth, but it's ten time faster than the G4.
I know this test sucks, Quake under os X is avalaible (but i have to reload it, since my old version of quake 3 is corrupted), but the fact that you can use the classic version with a G5 and it's impossible with a G4 533 show the big improvements.
Please tell me how to get my copy of Q3 to work in OS X...
Originally posted by Placebo
Please tell me how to get my copy of Q3 to work in OS X...
You have to download the os X version of quake in the quake website. Then you have to add some old files of the classic folder to the new files of the OS X folder. And then it work perfectly.
For more precision ( i did this more than one year ago, so i forgot the details) go to the quake 3 forum : all the answers and more will be here
Originally posted by Placebo
Please tell me how to get my copy of Q3 to work in OS X...
From the Quake3World.com Mac Disc. FAQ:
How do I install the latest Quake3 update for my mac?
First of all it is recommended that you upgrade your OS to the latest version (OS X 10.2.6 right now). The latest Quake3 update (version 1.32) is only available for OS X and can be obtained from here:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/qua...3-132.pkg.sit.
There is also G4 optimized version available here:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/qua...Test2.pkg.sit.
Download the appropriate installer and install quake. A resulting Quake3 directory should be in your Applications folder. In this folder there should be a "baseq3" directory and a Quake3 application file (either "Quake3.app" or "Quake3 G4.app"). From here insert your Quake3 CD (windows or macintosh--it doesnt matter) into your CD-ROM drive and copy the file "pak0.pk3" from the "baseq3" directory on the CD to the "baseq3" directory that is in the Quake3 folder on your hard drive.
In the baseq3 folder you should have at least "pak0.pk3" through "pak8.pk3."
Now go to the Quake3 folder that is on your hard drive, double-click the Quake3 application to start Quake, and go frag some folk!
Originally posted by rageous
G5 - G4 = 1
As G - G = 0 and 5 - 4 = 1
So it's 1 faster.
Well then, if the G4 is a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, then the G5 must be an 11 (its 1 faster). There you have it: G5 goes to 11!
It ships on or before 10.14.03
I can't wait until I get it
Originally posted by The Mactivist
Well, I can't give you a scientific explanation about g4 vs g5, but I can give you a totally subjective one.
I use a dual G4 533 at work. I used to think it was ok. Now that I have a dual G5 2Ghz at home, I can tell you, it's bloody way faster. Here are somethings I've noticed:
1) Boot time is halved or more. It really just springs to life from startup.
2) Disk speeds is measureably 30% faster.
3) Applications zing to life.
4) I get absolutely no lag when selecting a menu - they appear instantly (sometimes on G4 and G5, menus take a split sec)
5) Absolutely no laggy user interface animations - dock genie is perfect. Scrolling is super fast. Opening new finder folders is ALMOST instant.
6) All programs feel more responsive.
7) Unreal Tournament 2003 is flawlessly fast. I'm getting a frame rate so high i can't notice any jumping no matter how fast i use the mouse - in fact, my optical mouse trips up before the screen gets laggy.
8) Photoshop is super zingy and apparently just soars with tonnes of RAM. I have 512 now and 1.5 gb on order from crucial. Expecting that today.
9) itunes visualizer gets over 56 frames per second. Looks sweet.
10) ripping a CD can get as fast as 20X per song. It's about 15X when doing stuff in the background, like listening to the same CD! I can rip a whole CD in about 3 minutes. Sometimes less.
I've yet to really push it, but as I have twenty-two 2 minute videos and one 10 minute video to work on over the next 2 weeks, all of which will have lots of effects and compositing, I'll have a much better sense of what the performance is like.
I'll run some renders in After Effects both on my work (Dual G4) and home (Dual G5) and post the results.
Macbench gives my machine a 180 score (100 is dual g4 800).
That will likely change when i get my new RAM.
Hope that helped.
tM
Hey Thank! That was the most thoughtful, informative post on G5 performance I've read in a while. I'm so used to those "I was at the Apple Store, and Photoshop took 3 bounces! That suck! I'm buying a Dell!" posts.