Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC

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adonay wrote:
check it out the mac minis can be found with dual core now way cool and even 2gig mem i think i want a new one

Be warned though, that the new mini's do use the integraded iNtel graphics rather than the old ATI gfx chip... I personally think the iMac is a better deal.

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Don't worry Donny, the facts are laid bare in this thread and it is clear that the Core Duo is vastly superior to the G4 and quite a bit better than the G5.

I rather like the "ironic" title to the thread, it appeals to my sense of humour :-D

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JLF65 wrote:

You'd have to compare the CoreDuo with a 970MP based system to do a fair comparison... not that Apple is likely to release anymore 970MP systems. Suffice it to say that the new CoreDuo systems are better, but you expect newer systems to be better. It's the way the computer industry works (unlike many other industries). Always giving you more for less money.

If you were to compare the Core Duo to the 970MP, then the Core Duo would be vastly superior... the reason being that the 970MP dumps out something like 70Watts of heat, the Duo is rated at 32Watts (under full load). I'm not just interested in performance, performance per watt is very important to me. :-)

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Waccoon wrote:

Beller:   I did an in-store comparison of the iMac G4 and the iMac intel. The iNtel (new official Apple spelling) Mac was much faster running the native iPhoto and had the same photo libraries. There really was no comparison...it smoked the PPC with similar specs.

People need to keep in mind that the CPU alone isn't the only issue.  Like them or not, Intel still makes the finest chipsets in the world, and that is often the bottleneck in a PC.  Even notice how slow a budget 3GHZ PC feels?  Yeah, the CPU is fine, but those VIA/Ali chipsets suck.  Intel chips don't siphon everything off the PCI bus.

I'd pesonally prefer an nForce4 chipset :-)

I'm glad Apple went to x86, but I'm really disappointed that they're still using native code when they could've done what Amiga Inc wanted to do:  VP code.  Not a lot of stuff really needs native code these days, especially when it comes to GUI code, which means almost everything on a Mac.  Then again, Mac Java is the biggest pile of filth I've ever been forced to use.  It is SOOOOOOOOO damn slow.  Maybe using VP code isn't what Apple should be doing, after all.

I really don't think VP code is a good idea... Also Java is MUCH faster on the Core Duo than on the PPC, there have been quite a few threads about it on the Mac forums.

I'm also glad Intel has put serious effort into making their CPUs cooler -- it's about damn time!  Of course, I still prefer AMD.  I'd love to see Athlon64/nForce4 in an Amiga.  I'd buy it instantly.

Uh, me too :-D

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Hyperspeed wrote:
Intel make the finest chipsets in the world?

A friend of mine has a Pentium 3 with onboard Intel graphics and it's a 600MHz machine with 2MB of ChipMem if you look at it in Amiga terms.

That machine is 7 years old... And what do you mean by 2MB of chip ram?

Yes, that's right - a 2MB Intel graphics chipset. It can barely do 800x600 without flickering.

Even 7 yars ago you would have used a nVidia TNT2 gfx card, not an integrated gfx chip :roll:

Personally I was delighted when Apple announced the Dual-G5 was the World's most powerful computer. It meant for a brief time that Intel's strangle-hold on the market was loosing grip and that diversity could spring forth.

Apple had no choice...IBM weren't serious about pushing the 970 against the Athlon and P4.

Innovative things like the Transmeta Crusoe couldn't compete, it was Intel this, AMD that.

The Crusoe wasn't that innovative, it basicly pushed the CPU's microcode into main ram, which would have been great if you could afford to use SRAM... at full CPU speed.

For God's sake people. Buy something interesting. It's like everyone in the world buying a Mercedes when we could be driving minis, Smart cars, scooters, Quads and stuff.

eh?

We have to double our CPU power every 18 months! So what if we wanted to triple it... would Intel break their own Daddy's "Law"?

It's not a law it was an observation of the semiconductor industry in the 70's which has held true as a general trend ever since (but it's basicly slowing).

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Waccoon wrote:

Bloodline:  I really don't think VP code is a good idea... Also Java is MUCH faster on the Core Duo than on the PPC, there have been quite a few threads about it on the Mac forums.

Why not VP?  It's stupid for time-critical code, but would be great for GUI stuff instead of using interpreted languages like Perl.  Also, Virtual Processing is a bit different than a Virtual Machine, like Java.  I do not see VP as a way of making things more portable.  Write-Once, Run-Everywhere is a pipe dream when everyone wants their hardware to stand out.  Coding for the lowest common denominator is dumb.

If there's one thing I've learned as a web programmer, is that things are portable because the developers are familiar with each platform they want to support, and WANT to support them all.  If a developer doesn't give a damn about a platform, their code not going to work on it.  Period.

I see using VP with native low-level code sort of like using a CISC front-end on a RISC core.  It has its uses, so long as it's not abused.

Yeah, I've always found the idea of VP a facinating one, but there isn't really any need for it any more, as it's only useful when trying to run code on different CPU's within a single area of the computing market (i.e. the same operating system, different CPU). If you want to go between the different areas, then you need a VM, like java...  all the major desktop systems use x86... Servers are drifting toward x86... supercomputing is dominated by IBM Power... and personal devices are all ARM.

Each area of computing is now basicly dominated by a single CPU architecture... and I expect to see some/most of them merge over time. Probably a subset of the x86-64 architecture :-)

I also find it funny that Java would run faster on an x86 given that it, technically, is big-endian native.

Endianess issues do not impact on the performance of a JIT compiler, byte swaps can be accounted for and hidden in the JIT output.

I think far more development has gone into Java->x86 translation, and the JIT is able to make better use of the pipelines and instruction scheduling... Also I believe the Java VM is stack based which means that the x86 is better designed to handle that type of code... where the PPC is optimised for register operations.

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tokyoracer wrote:
Im with pc all the way, macs are ugly slabs and why go for a pc that isnt as compatible and advanced as a proper PC? And yet often more expencive.

Well, if you want to run Logic Pro... then you have to have a mac... If you want a decent laptop then you have to buy a macbook... if you want a laptop that has a 6wire firewire plug, then you have to buy from Apple. If you like a decent supported OS, then Apple is your best option.

Bit like the late acorns verses Wind. 95. Much the same story aparently.

What? You do know that Acorn used the ARM CPU right?

Yeah, seriously why bother not running windows :roll:

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Hyperspeed wrote:
Intel's chip designers probably design the bodywork for the Porsche range of cars - i.e. nothing ever really changes but it's packaged as a revolutionary new thing.

I kinda like dat compoota known as teh OMEGA!

Neat chipset inside this machine no?

Err... quite...

EDIT:
Dammy: Appropriate company name there...  'ARS'

ArsTechnica is one of the greatest technical resources on the internet... I suggest you read the CPU articles.

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Hyperspeed wrote:
Joke:

What's the difference between an Apple laptop and a PC laptop...

I don't get it?

What's the difference between an iMac G3 and an AmigaOne?

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hppacito wrote:
On topic:

From the reviews, is clear that they are faster. 4 times... not in everything, but multithreaded applications get really bumped.

My tests have shown a massive speed increase over the G4... no surprise there, but the fact that the Core Duo is also able to edge out the single core 970, and use much less power is a really nice feature... :-)

Sadly they raised the price for the minis... 649 Euro is a bit too much, and 84 Euro for a keyboard and a mouse is just plain absurd (there is no insert key !, how I'm supposed to use mc ?!?.

The Price increase of the Mini is a bit hard to swallow... but it does have a better feature set than the G4 machine it replaces (more RAM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Digital Audio, more USB...). for it to be really attractive to me, It would have to be under the £300 mark... then I'd be a Mac Mini owner :-)

Off topic:

Someone mentioned the development of mmx from intel. I heard almost 10 years ago, that Intel came up with some software-multimedia package/routines and moco$oft told them, that with that software there was no need for win95 (there was no need, I used OS/2 at the time) and they will not sell it, so they would not allow that software to happen, so the Intel people came up with this "mm-software" inside the processor.

Anybody know how all that was ?

(I heard it one Intel conference for new resellers for their new Intel processors integrator programme).

I have no idea what you are talking about, but when MMX was introduced 3D games were becoming common, and GFX cards were little better than the Amiga Chipset. There was a need for vector processing, and most high end workstations were being given Vector units... I think it was logical for intel try and get in on the act... They didn't really implement it very well (they did a better job with SSE +), and GFX cards started to grow vector units, and have become the powerhouses we now take for granted.

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Ok, I've had a chance to play with a MacBook Pro!!!

It's really fast, really light, really hot, and the battery was happy to claim 4:02 hours with the bightness at minimum... 3:23 hours with the screen at full brightness. I didn't experience any problems with going to sleep and waking up... reboot took about 20 seconds (amazing!), I even did an "apple-v" boot and the console was just like the PPC version. The Screen did exhibit a strange pulse in brightness, which was noticeable, but not distracting... I have a feeling it was related to the ambient light sensor... But I would need to test it for longer to prove it. The audio seemed a little quiet on the side speakers...

The magsafe connector was brilliant, I wasn't expecting much, and it was really good, much better than I could ever have imagined.

The build quality was superior to my 12" PowerBook, but the keyboard felt less professional... though it has a better response... The shop floor was too noisy to hear how noisy the machine was :-( .

It's a Mac... it's fast, it's expensive. I have an odd ambivalence towards it... I want one :-)

-Edit- I don't know why, but the power button on the MacBook seems very slightly oversized... I guess I'm used to the 12" Powerbook :-?

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Hyperspeed wrote:
There's been a lot of questions lately such as "What makes an Amiga what it is?" and the answers have ranged from Workbench to the custom chips.

Since Apple Macintosh has been supported by Microsoft with Word etc. and Microsoft/Gates has shares in Apple... and Intel now make the CPUs...

Could someone tell me what the hell makes a Mac?

Inventive enclosure designs (I've not used a more robust laptop) and the best consumer grade Unix operating system available.

I've tried MacOS 7.5.5 on Shapeshifter and it seemed like AtariTOS. I imagine it being used with a 1-button mouse by an affected hairdresser.

I totally agree... MacOS pre OSX was worse than AtariTOS. I had to use MacOS9 on a ProTools system and from that moment I declared that I would never be a Mac owner. Then I got to try MacOS X (on PearPC) and started to fall in love with it!

Someone enlighten me what makes OSX special and why everyone is ecstatic about iBooks...

The one advantage that Windows has is the vast amount of comercial software support it has... It is that one thing that actually makes Windows "better" than all other OSes... As the second best comercially supported operating System, MacOS X takes second place... but MacOSX has things that Windows doesn't... like:

1) Total Hardware/Software integration, the OS designers know exactly what Hardware the OS is going to run on, and you can feel it... very similar to AmigaOS in that respect.
2) Proper user accounts, I can have separate accounts optimised and set up for different uses... these are totally secure and are essentially separate machines!
3) Not running the machine in Administrator mode, and requiring a password to access the system files keeps nasties out of the system.
4) The Audio subsystem has been logically thought out, to allow application independant effects and transparent distributed network audio, with very low latency... Windows audio sybsystem is a mess... Steinberg had to save the day with ASIO.
5) It has a title bar, with the menus at the top of the screen which I enjoy as I grew up with AmigaOS.
6) The File system is much better than FAT32... and bit better than NTFS, with a cool resource fork feature, based around special directories called bundles. This feature allows drag and drop installation, as we are used to with AmigaOS.

The list goes on...

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Waccoon wrote:

Bloodline:  The File system is much better than FAT32... and bit better than NTFS, with a cool resource fork feature, based and around special directories called bundles. This feature allows drag and drop installation, as we are used to with AmigaOS.

Bundles rock.  I've been wanting that for Windows for years, although integrated ZIP files are about the only thing Microsoft seems interested in offering, and not very well, either.  I still prefer WinZIP.

Still, I do miss having the quickstart links like on my Windows machine.  On the dock, everything is the same size, and it's hard to tell applications from folders.  I tend to move files around a lot and the new Finder has its issues if you want lots of folders open at once.  Though different from Windows, OSX is still very much an application-centric system, rather than document-centric.  Apple's obsession with brand-awareness ensures that, unfortunately.

That's a good point! One thing I couldn't get to grips with when I first used  Windows98 (The first version of Windows I owned) was the document centric approach... I've since become very accustomed to it, by using Windows for the last 5 years.

Using MacOSX felt more comfortable to me (as a user who grew up with the Amiga) because of its application centric system... I hadn't realised that until you mentioned it!

As to which approach is better, I have no opinion (I'm used to both now)... But I think most people find document based to be more comfortable...

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blakespot wrote:

bloodline wrote:

The Price increase of the Mini is a bit hard to swallow... but it does have a better feature set than the G4 machine it replaces (more RAM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Digital Audio, more USB...). for it to be really attractive to me, It would have to be under the £300 mark... then I'd be a Mac Mini owner :-)

The graphics are better too.  OpenGL is over twice as fast with the new (yes, integrated) Intel GMA950 vs. the previous G4 mini, running Xbench - a Universal (PPC / Intel native) application.  It supports Core Image, too, unlike the Radeon 9200-based mini chipset of yore.

blakespot

But the GMA950 doesn't have T&L, the ATI9200 does. So the GMA950 is more powerful (higher bandwidth, Shader Model 2.0, etc), and will handle eye candy better, but it won't perform so well in 3D games.

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uncharted wrote:

Tomas wrote:
OSX dosent even run smoothly on systems with 512meg ram...

Complete and utter unadulterated bollocks.

Typing this on an old eMac 700MHz G4 with only 256MB, and it's running absolutely fine with 6 apps open.  I'm not having any performance issues.

Good point, my PowerBook G4 ran fine on 512Mb, I certainly didn't notice any performacny difference when I upgraded to 1.2Gig (which was to allow me to do more in Logic 7).

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mdma wrote:

but it won't perform so well in 3D games.

Of which the Mac market is saturated with eh Matt? ;-)

:-P