From what I read, the Intel iMac is both faster and slower. Some of the tasks for which it is faster, like booting or starting programs*, seem to me irrelevant, while the ones on which it's slower, like running Photoshop, seem more important. Clearly, the results reflect the underlying strengths of the two chips, and different people will find different costs and benefits.
I can't understand why you would include PS, which is not a native application, and therefore has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Jobs made it very clear, in his demo, that PS, and some other programs would be slow on an Intel machine, when compared to newer Macs, until they went Universal.
But, you are being deliberately obtuse. you are ignoring the program date that was presented?except for PS. Which, as I've said, doesn't count for this.
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*I was going to write "or typing in Word", but then I realized that a 3-fold improvement in the speed of Word?say up to the level of Word 4.0 on a Mac IIci?would be a real benefit.
That's very funny.
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I can't comment from personal experience. When the G5 (or G4) came out, people said "It's fast now, but wait until the OS is really optimized for it." Months went by, new versions of the OS were introduced, but the great increases in speed never seemed to materialize.
The OS did pick up speed during the time it's been out on new hardware. Perhaps you don't read anything about this. You should.
An infamous example is window resizing. On a G3 it is intolerable. On a G4 it is better. On a G5 it is much better. On the Intel machine, it is even better.
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My parenthetical comment about IBM and low power chips was sarcastic.
If you say so.
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The part of your comparison that I suggest is unfair is the comparison of existing chips to future chips. The iMac does have some limitations on the "desktop" chips that it can accept. Presumably a dual core G5, which would certainly be faster than a Core Duo, would overcook it. Whether a Conroe in its initial production runs will be suitable in cost or in heat for an iMac can't be known. Hence, the only real comparison is an existing Core Duo and a single G5.
No. Tou're wrong here as well. If you look at the scores you will see that single core performance is as fast, or even a bit faster than the single core G5. Go to the link I posted. Galbraith disables one core when performing some of his tests so as to make a direct comparison. You can check his times against the G5 times found in Macworld where the same tests were used.
The point being that one Yonah core is about as fast as a one core G5. Slower in some areas, but faster in others.
Again, quite an accomplishment for a laptop chip!
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My original point is that by promoting the Intels exclusively, Apple is persuading people to put off their computer purchases. Apple doesn't have to do this; the G5 is a good desktop chip, and Apple could be providing specific assurances that they will be providing high-quality support for it into the future. Instead, if I were in the market for a new computer, I'd be wondering and waiting.
The G5 IS a good desktop chip. I've said that.
But Apple is trying to push its developers to work at getting the
universal Binaries out the door more quickly.
It seems to be working, because a fair number of them have come out with Universal apps ahead of their earlier stated schedule. Others who haven't made a commitment before, have now done so.
Apple has to take some risks here, no matter what they do. They are deciding to make a faster break. That may not be as good for the immediate bottom line, but will be better for the medium term of the next twelve months.
I can't understand why you would include PS, which is not a native application, and therefore has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Jobs made it very clear, in his demo, that PS, and some other programs would be slow on an Intel machine, when compared to newer Macs, until they went Universal.
But, you are being deliberately obtuse. you are ignoring the program date that was presented?except for PS. Which, as I've said, doesn't count for this.
You're correct in the sense of comparing the chips. However, in terms of usability of the computer, which is my main point, it's important to ask about programs.
Quote:
Originally posted by melgross
The OS did pick up speed during the time it's been out on new hardware. Perhaps you don't read anything about this. You should.
An infamous example is window resizing. On a G3 it is intolerable. On a G4 it is better. On a G5 it is much better. On the Intel machine, it is even better.
I am confident that the OS did pick up speed over time, especially for things that were slow to begin with. However, I think that many of those gains were hard won over years, not the result of easy optimization. Apple seems to have done an excellent job of creating the Intel OS X; that is, I haven't seen (I haven't looked that much, either) people complaining about things that don't work, that crashed the system, that erased the hard drive and all the drives on their local network, and so forth. So, I'm guessing that the optimization gains will also be slow.
I'm not sure that I understand your example. Don't you want to say that window resizing on the same machine improved going from 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4?
Quote:
Originally posted by melgross
The G5 IS a good desktop chip. I've said that.
But Apple is trying to push its developers to work at getting the universal Binaries out the door more quickly.
It seems to be working, because a fair number of them have come out with Universal apps ahead of their earlier stated schedule. Others who haven't made a commitment before, have now done so.
Apple has to take some risks here, no matter what they do. They are deciding to make a faster break. That may not be as good for the immediate bottom line, but will be better for the medium term of the next twelve months.
Perhaps Apple could have pushed the developers just as hard by switching all the G4 computers to Intel first, since Apple sells more laptops than desktops. That would certainly limit the time that Apple needs to support 3 different chips. If I were guessing, I'd say that Apple is paying a lot less per Core Duo chip than they are per 970 chip.
You're correct in the sense of comparing the chips. However, in terms of usability of the computer, which is my main point, it's important to ask about programs.
I am comparing programs. Just not those running under Rosetta, because programs running under emulation have little to do with a direct speed comparison between the two architectures. What you should be doing, instead, is to compare similar functions from different programs that don't run under emulation to get some idea as to how programs such as PS will run when converted.
Quote:
I'm not sure that I understand your example. Don't you want to say that window resizing on the same machine improved going from 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4?
No, the example was specific to our discussion. We are talking about how chip families and architecture affect the speed of the OS and programs running under it.
A secondary issue is the one of optimization for those machines.
But better hardware, itself, makes the most important contribution, because without new hardware, your oprimizations can only take you so far. Once a program is completely optimized, what then? There is nowhere to go.
Every chip family has a performance limit. When that limit is reached, a newer design comes out, which gives another lift. You then oprimize for it as well. The chip speeds go up for a while, then reach a peak.
We've had those peaks with PPC now. Rumors about fasted, newer G4's have been circulation for close to two years, but haven't come out. How long have we been hearing about the 7448? How long about the dual core 600?
How long about the low power G5? Well, we finally did see one of those. But it's not very good.
Quote:
Perhaps Apple could have pushed the developers just as hard by switching all the G4 computers to Intel first, since Apple sells more laptops than desktops. That would certainly limit the time that Apple needs to support 3 different chips. If I were guessing, I'd say that Apple is paying a lot less per Core Duo chip than they are per 970 chip.
The Yonah is a brand new chip series. Like all new chips, supplies come on line over a period of months. Apple was the first maker to get substantial enough supplies to have a machine on the market. Even the MacBook Pro will be in consumers hands before any quantity of machines from a PC maker is out.
We don't know which chips Apple will use in its Mini or iBooks, though the single core models are suspected. They aren't out yet. If they were, we might have seen these machines at MacWorld. We might see them April 1st.
I'm sure that if Conroe or Woodcrest were out, we would have seen a new PM as well.
They did move the official schedule up a year. It's as fast as they can go.
Comments
Originally posted by dh87
From what I read, the Intel iMac is both faster and slower. Some of the tasks for which it is faster, like booting or starting programs*, seem to me irrelevant, while the ones on which it's slower, like running Photoshop, seem more important. Clearly, the results reflect the underlying strengths of the two chips, and different people will find different costs and benefits.
I can't understand why you would include PS, which is not a native application, and therefore has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Jobs made it very clear, in his demo, that PS, and some other programs would be slow on an Intel machine, when compared to newer Macs, until they went Universal.
But, you are being deliberately obtuse. you are ignoring the program date that was presented?except for PS. Which, as I've said, doesn't count for this.
*I was going to write "or typing in Word", but then I realized that a 3-fold improvement in the speed of Word?say up to the level of Word 4.0 on a Mac IIci?would be a real benefit.
That's very funny.
I can't comment from personal experience. When the G5 (or G4) came out, people said "It's fast now, but wait until the OS is really optimized for it." Months went by, new versions of the OS were introduced, but the great increases in speed never seemed to materialize.
The OS did pick up speed during the time it's been out on new hardware. Perhaps you don't read anything about this. You should.
An infamous example is window resizing. On a G3 it is intolerable. On a G4 it is better. On a G5 it is much better. On the Intel machine, it is even better.
My parenthetical comment about IBM and low power chips was sarcastic.
If you say so.
The part of your comparison that I suggest is unfair is the comparison of existing chips to future chips. The iMac does have some limitations on the "desktop" chips that it can accept. Presumably a dual core G5, which would certainly be faster than a Core Duo, would overcook it. Whether a Conroe in its initial production runs will be suitable in cost or in heat for an iMac can't be known. Hence, the only real comparison is an existing Core Duo and a single G5.
No. Tou're wrong here as well. If you look at the scores you will see that single core performance is as fast, or even a bit faster than the single core G5. Go to the link I posted. Galbraith disables one core when performing some of his tests so as to make a direct comparison. You can check his times against the G5 times found in Macworld where the same tests were used.
The point being that one Yonah core is about as fast as a one core G5. Slower in some areas, but faster in others.
Again, quite an accomplishment for a laptop chip!
My original point is that by promoting the Intels exclusively, Apple is persuading people to put off their computer purchases. Apple doesn't have to do this; the G5 is a good desktop chip, and Apple could be providing specific assurances that they will be providing high-quality support for it into the future. Instead, if I were in the market for a new computer, I'd be wondering and waiting.
The G5 IS a good desktop chip. I've said that.
But Apple is trying to push its developers to work at getting the
universal Binaries out the door more quickly.
It seems to be working, because a fair number of them have come out with Universal apps ahead of their earlier stated schedule. Others who haven't made a commitment before, have now done so.
Apple has to take some risks here, no matter what they do. They are deciding to make a faster break. That may not be as good for the immediate bottom line, but will be better for the medium term of the next twelve months.
Originally posted by melgross
I can't understand why you would include PS, which is not a native application, and therefore has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Jobs made it very clear, in his demo, that PS, and some other programs would be slow on an Intel machine, when compared to newer Macs, until they went Universal.
But, you are being deliberately obtuse. you are ignoring the program date that was presented?except for PS. Which, as I've said, doesn't count for this.
You're correct in the sense of comparing the chips. However, in terms of usability of the computer, which is my main point, it's important to ask about programs.
Originally posted by melgross
The OS did pick up speed during the time it's been out on new hardware. Perhaps you don't read anything about this. You should.
An infamous example is window resizing. On a G3 it is intolerable. On a G4 it is better. On a G5 it is much better. On the Intel machine, it is even better.
I am confident that the OS did pick up speed over time, especially for things that were slow to begin with. However, I think that many of those gains were hard won over years, not the result of easy optimization. Apple seems to have done an excellent job of creating the Intel OS X; that is, I haven't seen (I haven't looked that much, either) people complaining about things that don't work, that crashed the system, that erased the hard drive and all the drives on their local network, and so forth. So, I'm guessing that the optimization gains will also be slow.
I'm not sure that I understand your example. Don't you want to say that window resizing on the same machine improved going from 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4?
Originally posted by melgross
The G5 IS a good desktop chip. I've said that.
But Apple is trying to push its developers to work at getting the universal Binaries out the door more quickly.
It seems to be working, because a fair number of them have come out with Universal apps ahead of their earlier stated schedule. Others who haven't made a commitment before, have now done so.
Apple has to take some risks here, no matter what they do. They are deciding to make a faster break. That may not be as good for the immediate bottom line, but will be better for the medium term of the next twelve months.
Perhaps Apple could have pushed the developers just as hard by switching all the G4 computers to Intel first, since Apple sells more laptops than desktops. That would certainly limit the time that Apple needs to support 3 different chips. If I were guessing, I'd say that Apple is paying a lot less per Core Duo chip than they are per 970 chip.
Originally posted by dh87
You're correct in the sense of comparing the chips. However, in terms of usability of the computer, which is my main point, it's important to ask about programs.
I am comparing programs. Just not those running under Rosetta, because programs running under emulation have little to do with a direct speed comparison between the two architectures. What you should be doing, instead, is to compare similar functions from different programs that don't run under emulation to get some idea as to how programs such as PS will run when converted.
Quote:
I'm not sure that I understand your example. Don't you want to say that window resizing on the same machine improved going from 10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4?
No, the example was specific to our discussion. We are talking about how chip families and architecture affect the speed of the OS and programs running under it.
A secondary issue is the one of optimization for those machines.
But better hardware, itself, makes the most important contribution, because without new hardware, your oprimizations can only take you so far. Once a program is completely optimized, what then? There is nowhere to go.
Every chip family has a performance limit. When that limit is reached, a newer design comes out, which gives another lift. You then oprimize for it as well. The chip speeds go up for a while, then reach a peak.
We've had those peaks with PPC now. Rumors about fasted, newer G4's have been circulation for close to two years, but haven't come out. How long have we been hearing about the 7448? How long about the dual core 600?
How long about the low power G5? Well, we finally did see one of those. But it's not very good.
Quote:
Perhaps Apple could have pushed the developers just as hard by switching all the G4 computers to Intel first, since Apple sells more laptops than desktops. That would certainly limit the time that Apple needs to support 3 different chips. If I were guessing, I'd say that Apple is paying a lot less per Core Duo chip than they are per 970 chip.
The Yonah is a brand new chip series. Like all new chips, supplies come on line over a period of months. Apple was the first maker to get substantial enough supplies to have a machine on the market. Even the MacBook Pro will be in consumers hands before any quantity of machines from a PC maker is out.
We don't know which chips Apple will use in its Mini or iBooks, though the single core models are suspected. They aren't out yet. If they were, we might have seen these machines at MacWorld. We might see them April 1st.
I'm sure that if Conroe or Woodcrest were out, we would have seen a new PM as well.
They did move the official schedule up a year. It's as fast as they can go.
Originally posted by lundy
Personally, I contend that Word 5.1a was the pinnacle of MS's Mac achievement.
I fully concur with both of the comments above. Of course, we had that wonderful MS Word 6.0 ....
Originally posted by Cubit
I fully contend with both of the comments above. Of course, we had that wonderful MS Word 6.0 ....
Heh - what a POS that was. I remember trying to help a guy write a manuscript with that on a IIcx...