Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Varthall on November 26, 2003, 06:30:01 PM
-
Hi,
next sunday me and a friend of mine will attend a Linux fair in my city. We're going to show an AmigaOne running Debian, it will be an opportunity to show off the motherboard as an alternative to x86 ones for Linuxes. I'm in search for any type of documentation about advantages of ppc type cpus over x86, as many people will certainly ask us why, for a Linux user, a PPC would be a "better" choice.
So far I've only found the recent article on OsNews, which is far from being objective IMHO. There is the heating advantage, but for others? What about the following:
- the evolution path, how does it compare against the newer 64 bit cpus from Intel and AMD? Is IBM commited in continuing the research and development?
- has ppc any advantage when used in multiprocessor machines? Some native support for this?
- how do the A1's ram and cpu buses compare against modern PCs?
- I've read that most of the next generation consoles will have a PPC, is this true? If so, will this help reducing the prices of ppc machines?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Varthall
-
- I've read that most of the next generation consoles will have a PPC, is this true? If so, will this help reducing the prices of ppc machines?
Yes and yes :-)
-
PowerPC have both drawbacks and and advantages compared to x86s, the main drawback being the price. Power consumption is usually a higher performance/power ratio, they are more suited for multi-tasking apps (in fact it's the x86 that have some flaws which come from backward compatibility) and much more powerful vector processing capabilities. AltiVec is still unmatched by other ISAs. Anyhow you could check www.arstechnica.com, they had some nice article on PowerPC vs x86.
-
Uses SDRAM. I'm sure Apple will make IBM get G5 atleast somewhat faster, however A1 does not yet support them at all.
-
crystall wrote:
PowerPC have both drawbacks and and advantages compared to x86s, the main drawback being the price. Power consumption is usually a higher performance/power ratio, they are more suited for multi-tasking apps (in fact it's the x86 that have some flaws which come from backward compatibility) and much more powerful vector processing capabilities. AltiVec is still unmatched by other ISAs. Anyhow you could check www.arstechnica.com, they had some nice article on PowerPC vs x86.
Careful with theoretical performance claims when practical performance** indicates otherwise.
Refer to latest MacWorld’s PowerPC 970(Apple) vs Athon FX-51 (AlienWare)…
References
1. http://www.alienware.com/review_pages/review_template.aspx?FileName=review_macworld_1203.asp
2.
http://www.theandyzone.com/computer/shootout/shootout.html
(Just with the older Athlon 2000+ VS PowerPC 970
3.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112749,pg,7,00.asp
-
Careful with theoretical performance claims when practical performance indicates otherwise.
It's a matter of opinion... practical and/or theoretical.
-
AmigaMac wrote:
Careful with theoretical performance claims when practical performance indicates otherwise.
It's a matter of opinion... practical and/or theoretical.
Opinions has limits in regards to practical results.
Refer to the removal of Apple’s “world’s fastest PC” marketing campaign in certain European countries.
-
Opinions has limits in regards to practical results.
That's right, and that's why the whole dream world of x86 being somewhat an unchallenged speed-demon quickly hits the wall or reality.
Refer to the removal of Apple’s “world’s fastest PC” marketing campaign in certain European countries.
The mistake of the plural word "countries" stretches the truth just a bit since this only affected the UK region. Of course with anything advertising, pretty much everyone is full of cow dunk. Take Microsoft's "Do more with less" TV ad campaign, we all know that's misleading. But you don't see me calling up my local TV station requesting to take it off the air, because I (and many other common sense folk) take anything shown on television with a grain of salt (even the G5 commercial, though it was cute).
-
Refer to latest MacWorld’s PowerPC 970(Apple) vs Athon FX-51 (AlienWare)…
I had already saw those tests and sincerely:
- Première is a discontinued app under MacOS X so why bother benchmarking it?
- Who the heck plays Quake III today? Why not trying UT2003 or something more recent?
- Word benchmarks? They must be kidding...
- Photoshop shows the Dual G5 and the Dual Opteron with roughly the same performance (they are probably both bandwidth bottlenecked)
-
how do the A1's ram and cpu buses compare against modern PCs?
MAI’s Northbridge is actually pretty good as a Northbridge for SDRAM class solution… IF they release that product in the Pentium II era they may have been the “NVIDIA” in core logics.
IF the claims are true, MAI’s Northbridge has ability give the concurrent AGP<>Memory access and CPU<> Memory access.
Such features has been done in NVIDIA’s nForce series core logics (with DDR and dual memory controllers).
With nForce’s Northbridge (IGP, SPP), it has the ability to use spare/excess bandwidth for filling it’s Northbridge’s cache via speculative pre-predication processor i.e. fetching common used data and store it on the Northbridge’s cache, thus bring the relevant data closer to CPU. Between K7 Athlon <> Northbridge chip, it uses EV6 bus architecture as found in DEC’s Alpha EV6 (e.g. scales up to DDR400). K7’s EV6 bus architectures has been eclipsed by K8's Hyper-transport bus architectures.
MAI Northbridge's circular buffer is interesting i.e. I don’t know IF it has speculative prediction feature as in NVIDIA's nForce.
the evolution path, how does it compare against the newer 64 bit cpus from Intel and AMD? Is
Refer to earlier links.
IBM commited in continuing the research and development?
They have Power5….
I've read that most of the next generation consoles will have a PPC, is this true? If so, will this help reducing the prices of ppc machines?
Embedded PowerPC 4xx processor is cheap enough (e.g. Nintendo Game Cube**).
**Subsidise to certain level by Nintendo’s games sales.
-
Première is a discontinued app under MacOS X so why bother benchmarking it?
It’s a similar app vs similar app.
Who the heck plays Quake III today?
Many games uses Quake III engine.
Why not trying UT2003 or something more recent?
Note that Quake III is more dependant on the processor.
Anyway, refer to Barefeets.com's benchmarks in that regard.
Refer to
http://www.barefeats.com/p4game.html
Game bias Athlon 64 3200+(2.0Ghz)/Athlon FX-51(2.2Ghz)/Opteron 248(2.2Ghz) based system pretty much slaughters Pentium IV @3.0GHz (and 3.2Ghz in lesser extent; needs EE) in playing high performance games.
The K7 Athlon in that barefeet’s benchmarks is an Athlon MP 2600+ class not the Athlon MP 2800+ nor it's the Athlon XP 3200+/nForce 2 400 Ultra.
[/quote]
Word benchmarks? They must be kidding...
[/quote]
It’s similar app vs similar app.
-
The mistake of the plural word "countries" stretches the truth just a bit since this only affected the UK region.
Refer to Scotland and England in the Rugby world cup....
Take Microsoft's "Do more with less" TV ad campaign, we all know that's misleading.
Why is it misleading?
Why not see your Trade Practise commission and complain?
That's right, and that's why the whole dream world of x86 being somewhat an unchallenged speed-demon quickly hits the wall or reality.
The X86 world doesn’t have to compete with Apple’s "reality distortion field" (TM).
But you don't see me calling up my local TV station requesting to take it off the air, because I (and many other common sense folk) take anything shown on television with a grain of salt (even the G5 commercial, though it was cute).
“G5 commercial (i.e. "the World fastest PC” claim) went over the top due to existence of AMD's K8 systems (illustrated as an example).
Apple has knack of avoiding AMD’s K8 in their benchmark comparisons for certain reasons.
-
It’s a similar app vs similar app.
If they're going to do such, they might as well have run Adobe Premiere -vs- Apple's Final Cut Pro. Premiere is a dead product as far as the Mac is concerned.
-
Refer to Scotland and England in the Rugby world cup....
Still the UK at the end of the day!
Windows 2003 Server is a lot easier to use compared to Linux (e.g. Red Hat 9, Mandrake 9). The overkill of MS Windows 2003 Server is a lot easier to use compared to Linux (e.g. Red Hat 9, Mandrake 9). The overkill of MS Wizards in Win2K3 made it dead easy to maintain a server (in my POV).
I'm talking about the cost aspect they're claiming, not the Wizard hell that is Windows!
The X86 world doesn’t have to compete with Apple’s "reality distortion field" (TM).
Obviously they must, or they wouldn't raise such a stink about it, now would they?!
-
Still the UK at the end of the day!
It’s not much different to Euro Zone i.e. one common currency, one central bank, multiple parliaments** and a unified European parliament.
**National parliaments reduced as state parliaments(in effect).
I'm talking about the cost aspect they're claiming, not the Wizard hell that is Windows!
You have not offer debunking papers in that regard.
Obviously they must, or they wouldn't raise such a stink about it, now would they?!
There’s a level “marketing” before it comes to “misleading conduct”. Apple’s advertisement is too exposed in their claims of “Worlds Fastest PC” since it loses in some of the benchmarks in the older systems.
-
Hi,
next sunday me and a friend of mine will attend a Linux fair in my city. We're going to show an AmigaOne running Debian, it will be an opportunity to show off the motherboard as an alternative to x86 ones for Linuxes. I'm in search for any type of documentation about advantages of ppc type cpus over x86, as many people will certainly ask us why, for a Linux user, a PPC would be a "better" choice.
So far I've only found the recent article on OsNews, which is far from being objective IMHO. There is the heating advantage, but for others? What about the following:
- the evolution path, how does it compare against the newer 64 bit cpus from Intel and AMD? Is IBM commited in continuing the research and development?
- has ppc any advantage when used in multiprocessor machines? Some native support for this?
- how do the A1's ram and cpu buses compare against modern PCs?
- I've read that most of the next generation consoles will have a PPC, is this true? If so, will this help reducing the prices of ppc machines?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Varthall
That's a actually a really good question.
My next computer purchace will either be an Athlon64 or a PPC970+ CPU...
Frankly in terms of performance/architecture/etc... I don't think there's much in them, but at the moment I'm very much leaning towards the Athlon64... For one simple reason "Bang Per Buck".
I think the PPC biggest advantage is maybe heat output... that said the Athlon64 only has around 60Watts output, even though AMD say designers should allows for 80Watts... I expect this will allow for significant ramping in terms of clock speed of the A64.
But maybe the biggest advantage the PPC has is die size, which I believe is smaller than the A64.
If IBM can get the price of the G5 down (it's possible/likely use in future games consoles should help that) then it wil be a serious contender in the desktop market.
Though, who knows what AMD have in store with their K9 architecture... which threatens to be rather quick...
-
AmigaMac wrote:
It’s a similar app vs similar app.
If they're going to do such, they might as well have run Adobe Premiere -vs- Apple's Final Cut Pro. Premiere is a dead product as far as the Mac is concerned.
Note that Adobe Premiere is not optimised on AMD64 i.e. needs Windows XP AMD64 Edition(currently in beta stage).
Both systems are running on legacy modes.
-
Note that Adobe Premiere is not optimised on AMD64 i.e. needs Windows XP AMD64 Edition(currently in beta stage).
Both systems are running on legacy modes.
Actually the Mac has another problem, Première is running under Classic mode so they are basically benchmarking a discontinued app on a discontinued OS hosted on another OS. This said nobody will ever try a Première vs Final Cut Pro comparison simply because from a performance and feature set point of view FCP slaughters Première. That's why Adobe killed it, nobody would buy it anymore on the Mac platform. Unfortunately the page with the tests on Jet3D from Craig Hunter is down, it was a nice show off both for AltiVec and PowerPC in general in FP intensive apps.
-
Note that Adobe Premiere is not optimised on AMD64 i.e. needs Windows XP AMD64 Edition(currently in beta stage).
Both systems are running on legacy modes.
Yeah but they both can run 32-bit mode, so just run a benchmark with FCP -vs- Premiere -vs- Avid Express (on both systems) to make it more fun :-D
-
AmigaMac wrote:
Note that Adobe Premiere is not optimised on AMD64 i.e. needs Windows XP AMD64 Edition(currently in beta stage).
Both systems are running on legacy modes.
Yeah but they both can run 32-bit mode, so just run a benchmark with FCP -vs- Premiere -vs- Avid Express (on both systems) to make it more fun :-D
Which one is “more” similar?
1. Adobe Premiere VS Adobe Premiere
VS
2. Final Cut Pro VS Adobe Premiere
IF you can offer free licenses for these programs why not mail them to MacWorld/PCWorld? Make sure it’s available for both Win32 and MacOS…
-
All these "very high end vs very high end" comparisons are pretty academic IMHO. What's the good of knowing which of a PPC970 or Opteron is better if I (or over 80% of computer buyers) can't afford either? it makes for good cafeteria discussion, but I think people would be more intestested in something like 7447 (G4+) vs Athlon XP or Pentium 4. That's the stuff most people can afford, so that's what they will care about. Otherwise you might as well discuss the merits of BMW vs Lexus when someone asks you if they should buy an European or American car.
-
F you can offer free licenses for these programs why not mail them to MacWorld/PCWorld? Make sure it’s available for both Win32 and MacOS…
If they can't afford licenses for those titles, then they might as well shut down the presses. Furthermore, these people get those licenses for free just to do reviews on them! They have a problem with this thing called tunnel vision. Instead of being creative on the benchmarks, they just follow suit with the other one nighters!
-
All these "very high end vs very high end" comparisons are pretty academic IMHO. What's the good of knowing which of a PPC970 or Opteron is better if I (or over 80% of computer buyers) can't afford either? it makes for good cafeteria discussion, but I think people would be more intestested in something like 7447 (G4+) vs Athlon XP or Pentium 4.
One could focus on the second tier solutions e.g. Athlon 64 3200+, Athlon XP 3200+/nForce2, Pentium VI– C @2.8Ghz, PowerPC 970 1.6Ghz based solutions.
IF we look* at Cinebench 2003's CPU render benchmarks from
http://aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000272
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html
http://www.theandyzone.com/computer/shootout/shootout.html
IBM
G5 @1.6 GHz delivers 222 points (1Ghz FSB).
G5 @1.8 GHz delivers 251 points (1Ghz FSB).
AMD
K7-XP @1.6 Ghz delivers 207 points (266Mhz FSB).
K7-XP @2.2 GHz delivers 265 points (400Mhz FSB).
K8-FX @2.2 GHz delivers 305 points (@ Core speed).
Intel**
P4-C @3.2 GHz delivers 380 points (800Mhz FSB).
*Focus on just 1-way processor setups.
**With actually working HyperThreading i.e. it's broken in some other apps.
***This FSB refers to CPU core<>Northbridge speeds links. FSB's values are "effective" Mhz.
-
At least give the PS benches:
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html (http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html)
-
AmigaMac wrote:
F you can offer free licenses for these programs why not mail them to MacWorld/PCWorld? Make sure it’s available for both Win32 and MacOS…
If they can't afford licenses for those titles, then they might as well shut down the presses. Furthermore, these people get those licenses for free just to do reviews on them! They have a problem with this thing called tunnel vision. Instead of being creative on the benchmarks, they just follow suit with the other one nighters!
Note that these presses include MacWorld i.e. MacOS orientated press. The overriding factors for PCWorld is the availability the similar applications for Win32 and MacOS.
-
AmigaMac wrote:
At least give the PS benches:
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html (http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html)
I already know that page (I bookmark it some time ago).
Secondly, it doesn’t cover dual Opteron 246 @2.0 on VIA K8T800..
-
Note that these presses include MacWorld i.e. MacOS orientated press. The overriding factors for PCWorld is the availability the similar applications for Win32 and MacOS.
The MacWorld and PC World come from the same publisher. Excuse NOT valid!
-
Secondly, it doesn’t cover dual Opteron 246 @2.0 on VIA K8T800..
We live not in a perfect world. How often do they update the G4/G5 benches... see my point?
Opteron is targeted mostly at the server market anyways.
-
The MacWorld and PC World come from the same publisher. Excuse NOT valid!
Post the said benchmark IF it proves your case.
-
Post the said benchmark IF it proves your case.
I don't have to prove any case. You're the one whining about software app availability/access for these mags, not me!
-
AmigaMac wrote:
Secondly, it doesn’t cover dual Opteron 246 @2.0 on VIA K8T800..
We live not in a perfect world. How often do they update the G4/G5 benches... see my point?
Opteron is targeted mostly at the server market anyways.
Note that, NVIDIA's nForce3 Pro**(1-way) and nForce3 250*(2-way, 4+4) targets workstations/high performance gaming machines. Also holds true for VIA's Socket 940 motherboards for 2-way 4+1 and 1-way motherboards.
*soon to be released.
Athlon FX 51 is identical to Opteron 148 in very respects, except in name. Such regime is similar to Athlon XP and Athlon MP renaming schemes.
One should take note of Opteron’s suffix, its companion Socket 940 motherboard and targeted price in relation to market targeting.
-
AmigaMac wrote:
Post the said benchmark IF it proves your case.
I don't have to prove any case. You're the one whining about software app availability/access for these mags, not me!
That’s what they said in their limitations page.
The availability and “sameness” of the applications for both platforms takes precedence.
-
AmigaMac wrote:
At least give the PS benches:
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html (http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html)
I would like to add that the Barefeet.com's link has PS7 benchmarks (IF one follows the embedded links).
-
That’s what they said in their limitations page.
How could there be limitations running benchmarks between a Mac running Final Cut Pro versus a PC running Premiere? The only limitation here is poor execution from journalism itself by either magazine.
I would like to add that the Barefeet.com's link has PS7 benchmarks (IF one follows the embedded links).
I followed the links as well as that I keep up with Barefeats other benchmarks as well.
-
I followed the links as well as that I keep up with Barefeats other benchmarks as well.
Why did you state "At least give the PS benches:"?
How could there be limitations running benchmarks between a Mac running Final Cut Pro versus a PC running Premiere?
IF one should apply the same logic i.e. why not run UT2003 on Mac and QuakeIII on the PC since they are both FPS?
The issue is about running the same/similar code base in both of the platforms. Both are running similar code on legacy mode.
The limitation here is poor execution from journalism itself by either magazine.
Should one bring in Newtek’s Video Toaster for Windows?
What about the following video editing suites;
1. Matrox Rt2500 Video Editing Suite.
2. Sonic Foundry Vega 4.0.
3. Pinnacle Studio (what ever version or edition)
4. Ulead's Media Studio 7 and Video Studio 7
5. Cyberlink PowerDirector
6. 'etc'.
Why not have an all-out expensive Video editing shootout?
IF Apple ever ports their MacOS X iTune software to Win32 (i.e. not using Music Match) then the issue is completely different.
-
Why did you state "At least give the PS benches:"?
Because CineBench was your focus.
IF one should apply the same logic i.e. why not run UT2003 on Mac and QuakeIII on the PC since they are both FPS?
The issue is about running the same/similar code base in both of the platforms. Both are running similar code on legacy mode.
Not always... I personally like seeing competing applications benchmark as well (games excluded). Like fxPaint versus Photoshop versus Gimp, etc...
Should one bring in Newtek’s Video Toaster for Windows?
What about the following video editing suites;
1. Matrox Rt2500 Video Editing Suite.
2. Sonic Foundry Vega 4.0.
3. Pinnacle Studio (what ever version or edition)
4. Ulead's Media Studio 7 and Video Studio 7
5. Cyberlink PowerDirector
6. 'etc'.
Why not have an all-out expensive Video editing shootout?
Now that's what I'm talkin' about :-P
IF Apple ever ports their MacOS X iTune software to Win32 (i.e. not using Music Match) then the issue is completely different.
Where have you been, Apple already ported iTunes to Windows 2k/XP...
http://www.apple.com/itunes/ (http://www.apple.com/itunes/)
-
AmigaMac wrote:
Careful with theoretical performance claims when practical performance indicates otherwise.
It's a matter of opinion... practical and/or theoretical.
Are you saying performance is a matter of opinion? In that case, everything is. Its more of a matter of what applications you use. The PPC is different to x86 and is faster or seems to do things faster in some cases but in others the x86 blows it away. Such as, compiling was said to work faster on pentiums than PPCs in a test once. I think PPCs may be better at floating point? or is the other way around, not sure... anyway the point is, their both good and bad at different things.
-
Because CineBench was your focus.
The rest of the information is included in the link.
"http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html" benchmarks can not be use to compare with other sites i.e. they have their own point scoring regime (reference to an 1000 MHz TBird Athlon running Photoshop 6.01 and PS5Bench) i.e. Cinebench 2003’s CPU Rendering values are usually compatible with other site’s Cinebench 2003’s CPU Rendering values.
Secondly, there's minor issue with the non-discloser of the type of chipset/motherboards in K7 Athlon and Pentium 4s based solution.
For encoding benchmarks, one could go for open source encoding tools.
Not always... I personally like seeing competing applications benchmark as well (games excluded). Like fxPaint versus Photoshop versus Gimp, etc...
That would be very hard thing to do since it involves some subjective comparisons (e.g. How hard to do certain things) and the resulting image quality issues.
Such reviews are more about the applications than the processors. Care to start up a DV magazine?
Where have you been, Apple already ported iTunes to Windows 2k/XP...
Not at the time of MacWorld’s review…
-
I find it hard to believe anyone would want an ad campaign entitled, "World's Fastest Personal Computer". Nobody can hold that title for more than a few minutes, so it's an awful lot of trouble to try it. :-)
It bugs me that people are squabbling over a few minor marks. Who cares if the performance is off by a few percent? People were slamming AMD a few years ago because the P4 was beating the Athlons. "Ooh, in this benchmark, the P4 is a whopping 10% faster! What an embarrasment! AMD has completely lost it!" Yeah, never mind the price spread. I didn't want to spend twice as much money for a sliver of performance, which is why I got a 2.4Ghz P4 instead of a 3Ghz. (If I had known my stability issues were because of bad memory, I would never have replaced my 2600+, even though it was very noisy).
Just because something is faster, doesn't mean it's better. Besides, how expandable is the G5 tower? To me, a tower is NOT a tower if it only offers one drive bay and three PCI-X slots. This isn't so much an x86 vs PPC issue as it is a PC vs Mac issue.
As for why I slam the AmigaOne if performance isn't important, well, the price/performance margin of the AmigaOne is just *TOO* different from a typical PC. There are limits.
-
I have two books about programming for the PowerPC CPU's.
I found both of them new for $2, and there was a huge pile of the books for that price!
I bought 2, but I should have bought more to sell on ebay :D
-
@Hammer
IBM
G5 @1.6 GHz delivers 222 points (1Ghz FSB).
G5 @1.8 GHz delivers 251 points (1Ghz FSB).
AMD
K7-XP @1.6 Ghz delivers 207 points (266Mhz FSB).
K7-XP @2.2 GHz delivers 265 points (400Mhz FSB).
K8-FX @2.2 GHz delivers 305 points (@ Core speed).
Intel**
P4-C @3.2 GHz delivers 380 points (800Mhz FSB).
That's closer to my what my wallet can take :-) Looking at the 1.6GHz mark (most affordable and simplest to compare, 3.2GHz = 2x 1.6GHz), it looks like the differences are actually pretty minimal:
G5: 222 points
K7-XP: 207 points
P4-C: 190 points
Intel actually looks a bit sucky, saved as usual by sheer clock rate (I don't think you can actually buy P4Cs at 1.6), but other than that they're all within less than 10% of each other (except G5 vs P4C, that's closer to 15%). Maybe a few FPS more or less in Quake 3 (or a couple more minutes in a 3D render), but for all intents and purposes fluff. That's actually kindof good, it means that though the G5 is not the CPU for "the fastest desktop computer" (that was not going to last long anyway), PPC is at least a credible contender. If you care about just benchmarks, the PPC does have a (slim) lead over the Intel system. You didn't quote prices, but based on what I normally see, the AMD is probably your best bang for buck. But we all already knew that :-)
-
Thanks for all your infos and links, especially the arstechnica articles were highly informative. Reading the G4 vs K7 comparison I had the impression that G4s are more attractive to coders for its design elegance...
The performance depends on many factors, and it's difficult to really say which is faster and how much it is, althought it seems that G4s are more and more lagging behind P4s and Athlons, but this depends on what applications are used. So, I'll say to linux users that PPCs are roughly equivalent to x86, more expensive but with less heating being the most evident differences. I don't know if the MacOs emulation possibility will be seen as a attractive bonus for them, thought.
An important issue is that with the A1 and the Pegasos, now its finally possible to build ppc computers without having to buy complete Macs. Also, it's nice that there's a cpu in the desktop market without the x86 isa legacy.
Varthall
-
CodeSmith wrote:
@Hammer
IBM
G5 @1.6 GHz delivers 222 points (1Ghz FSB).
G5 @1.8 GHz delivers 251 points (1Ghz FSB).
AMD
K7-XP @1.6 Ghz delivers 207 points (266Mhz FSB).
K7-XP @2.2 GHz delivers 265 points (400Mhz FSB).
K8-FX @2.2 GHz delivers 305 points (@ Core speed).
Intel**
P4-C @3.2 GHz delivers 380 points (800Mhz FSB).
That's closer to my what my wallet can take :-) Looking at the 1.6GHz mark (most affordable and simplest to compare, 3.2GHz = 2x 1.6GHz), it looks like the differences are actually pretty minimal:
G5: 222 points
K7-XP: 207 points
P4-C: 190 points
Intel actually looks a bit sucky, saved as usual by sheer clock rate (I don't think you can actually buy P4Cs at 1.6), but other than that they're all within less than 10% of each other (except G5 vs P4C, that's closer to 15%).
For X86 @ 1.3GHz comparisons refer to
http://www.cpuid.com/PentiumM/index.php
It’s a review on Pentium M(400FSB, Banias) vs Athlon XP (266FSB, Palomino**) vs Pentium IV (Northwood) vs Duron (Morgan) vs VIA C3 (Nehemiah) vs Celeron(Tualatin) in regards to their efficiencies. All X86 cores has been set to 1.3Ghz clock speed.
**Limitation of the review i.e. Athlon's other cores was not reviewed e.g. Barton (with 400FSB + L2 512KB), T-Bred-B/Thoron (with 333FSB/400FSB), Athlon 64(Claw-Hammer) and Athlon FX (Sledge Hammer).
As for the prices, refer www.pricewatch.com (one of many) for pricing indications…
@Varthall
From the date Arstechnica's G4 vs K7 comparison was written, the X86 world has moved on to newer X86 cores. The cpuid.com link also includes Pentium M's thermal(watts) information.
For PowerPC G4's thermal(watts), refer to
http://www.geek.com/procspec/apple/g4.htm
-
K7-XP @2.2 GHz delivers 265 points (400Mhz FSB).
Addendum;
One of my test Athlon XP box @2.08Ghz/nForce2 400 Ultra(GA-7N400Pro2) with DDR400 FSB scored 263 points in Cinebench 2003.
-
For X86 @ 1.3GHz comparisons refer to
http://www.cpuid.com/PentiumM/index.php
Interesting, The Pentium-M turns out well as expected but I know the C3 sucked but it sucks really badly in some of those tests.
--
The modern G4s (7447, 7457) should come in similar to the 1.3GHz Pentium-M but with 1/3 the power consumption. The top x86s will be around 2X faster but up to 10X the power consumption.
Don't go by power consumption figures for Mac G4s because they are not the same CPUs. They only used the top binned chips which can clock faster and use considerbly more power.
Now find someone who in general usage (i.e. not Photoshop) who actually notices the difference between 1GHz and 2GHz.
--
As for benchmarks, look at what they are comparing, many CPU benchmarks which are comparing using different programs are not just comparing CPUs.
If you want to measure the CPU performance only you have to use the same OS, same application and same compiler. Very few if any CPU comparisions do this.
--
Note: I don't generally give advice to people selling competitors products but this is about CPUs...