Hands on with the Intel p4 & OS X (merged)
Okay the xbench tests going around are misleading. I played with the OS X Intel Dev kit here at WWDC and I have to say it feels FAST. It feels faster than the dual 2.7ghz g5.
Ignore the benchmarks posted so far, while there isn't lots to test, all Apple's apps are on it, and they are faster on the single 3.6 than the dual processor. You know sometimes how you see the rainbow beachball? I never saw it once on the Intel system. Windows snap, the finder is faster, and iphoto even is faster. Safari screams, it's snappy it feels like using IE on windows....
Window resizing is much faster on the 3.6ghz box. I think for day to day things, browsing, mail, internet a single 3.6 is faster than a dual machine (probably great for processing photoshop)....
Can't wait to see a 3.8 or a dual core intel chip.
So far this thing is very fast, and it feels fast. Feels like OS X got the speeds it's needed all this time. Fast OS but it feels underpowered on the g5.
Ignore the benchmarks posted so far, while there isn't lots to test, all Apple's apps are on it, and they are faster on the single 3.6 than the dual processor. You know sometimes how you see the rainbow beachball? I never saw it once on the Intel system. Windows snap, the finder is faster, and iphoto even is faster. Safari screams, it's snappy it feels like using IE on windows....
Window resizing is much faster on the 3.6ghz box. I think for day to day things, browsing, mail, internet a single 3.6 is faster than a dual machine (probably great for processing photoshop)....
Can't wait to see a 3.8 or a dual core intel chip.
So far this thing is very fast, and it feels fast. Feels like OS X got the speeds it's needed all this time. Fast OS but it feels underpowered on the g5.
Comments
But it's good to hear that things are fast on even this test machine.
Feel can be misleading. I have a Celereon 300 Laptop and it fells mush faster at browsing than my DP2.5 G5, but I wouldn't even attempt to edit video with it.
Originally posted by Addison
It is highly likely that all the apps on the Intel Macs with developers are made with FAT binaries. If a developer re-compiles his applications using the new xcode then the developer will have an idea of the true performance levels.
Feel can be misleading. I have a Celereon 300 Laptop and it fells mush faster at browsing than my DP2.5 G5, but I wouldn't even attempt to edit video with it.
Yep, until I see numbers I'll be skeptical of the speed claims. All the Xbench numbers show so far is that emulate performance isn't quite a rosy as some assumed. But anyone who's watched these kinds of demos before probably suspected that.
Even if we had numbers, I'm sure things have the potential to speed up and/or slow down as development is finished on these machines.
Under that scenario, "good enough" speeds are a lot more forgiving than what we would expect from native intel compiles.
I could imagine a scenario where users start to put the heat on laggard developers when they get a chance to experience nice speed enhancements in a lot of their day to day apps but have to put up with Rosetta speeds for those that haven't been ported yet. And remember, a functioning piece of software at any level makes it much easier to download an "update", as opposed to not being able to load something at all and having to start from scratch, finding and paying full price for a new version.
Again, not ideal, but a great deal better then "Hey, this stupid Apple/Intel thing just made half my software obsolete, I hate Jobs and I hate Apple!"
It's fast. I'd like one to replace my dual 2.5 ghz at home. For browsing and stuff it was much faster. "Snappier" is a bad word for it but it was noticably faster than the dual machine at the most common tasks...
Did you notice how fast it was on spotlight and the stuff steve did on stage?
Originally posted by webmail
Apple software is natively compiled. Every Apple application in the last 5 years has an Intel version. The intel board also has PCI express ;-)
Can you tell (or even show us) a little more about the innards of the developer kits?
Originally posted by RolandG
Can you tell (or even show us) a little more about the innards of the developer kits?
You can see the innards here:
PowerPage
Originally posted by xdaniel
I think that photo may show part of the reason behind the switch... That case looks empty! That should allow Apple to make some very cool new computers.
The 1.8SP has a lot of empty space too. It's more or less just a MicroATX board in that case. If a dual xeon machine had been used instead, all that space would have been used it. Apple gave the developers enough computer to get everything done.
Originally posted by DHagan4755
Holy shit! Look at all of that empty space!
That means two optical drives will fit in an even smaller case. At last!
Originally posted by FallenFromTheTree
I know this is only a base developer prototype, but the question in my mind persists on how or IF Apple will reconfigure the newest AI motherboards to handle the same 8 GB's of RAM available in the current Pro chassis?
The latest Intel 955x chipset will accept 8 GB of ram, although it only has 4 slots. I imagine that in another year 2Gb and 4Gb DDR2 dimms will be considerably cheaper, so 8 or 16Gb will be possible and affordable, and 32Gb possible (but expensive, 8Gb dimms already exist)
I just checked out the price of a single 2 GB registered PC3200 RAM stick at Crucial
ONLY $950.99