Benchmarks demolish Apple speed boasts
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
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
Comments
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
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
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.
<a href="http://www.macrumors.com/forums/showthread.php3?s=08e7555ede8acb063351dcacb0688ebd &threadid=2413" target="_blank">web page</a>
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.
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.
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.
<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.
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!
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>
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
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.
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.
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.