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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #119 from previous page: March 22, 2006, 10:53:16 PM »
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Hyperspeed wrote:
What happened to the other 68k machines like the Ataris and Acorns? From what I remember the Acorns went PPC too and an old Amiga company was selling the boards...

Did the Hitachi SH.x range of CPUs ever get used in the computing market?


The Acorns have never used 68k or PPC.

Try 6502 and ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) CPU's.
 

Offline blakespot

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #120 on: March 23, 2006, 05:07:10 AM »
Quote

Hyperspeed wrote:
What happened to the other 68k machines like the Ataris and Acorns? From what I remember the Acorns went PPC too and an old Amiga company was selling the boards...

Did the Hitachi SH.x range of CPUs ever get used in the computing market?


Acorn went ARM.  StrongARM in the high end.  RISC.



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Offline Waccoon

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #121 on: March 23, 2006, 11:30:24 AM »
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That explains it!! Yeah if you run classic programs in MacOS X, you have to wait for OS9 to boot up and then run inside an OSX task... No wonder it worked better when you put more ram in it... you were running two OSes at the same time.

I should point out that with 1GB of memory, it starts in about 3 seconds.

Viola.

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At the same clock speed it will annhilate the intel chip.

So will other x86 chips.

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ppc 64 is better than intel.

So?  x86 is widely available and easily holds its own against the best PPC chips available at the same cost.  One thing Amigans still haven't learned yet is that the supiriority of an architecture is irrelevant if it isn't practical.  I don't care about the technical supiriority of a particular chip if I have to pay $800 for an obsolete motherboard, with the constant concern if a next-gen chip or motherboard is even going to be made.  Ah, the old Beta vs VHS arguement surfaces again.  We should all jump off cliffs, right?

There's a ton of reasons why Apple went to x86, and the future of desktop PPC processors is very questionable.  That's not supiriority.

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The athlon runs hot. The core duo is the only energy efficent chip they have. The freescale chip is very thermally sound.

x86 runs hot because that's what the market demands.  Performance vs power consumtion is logarithmic, so to get a small boost in performance, you need to pump in lots of power.  Macs had PowerPC chips for years that had heatsinks large enough to smother a forrest fire, and they still burned your fingers.  Ramp up the speed of a PPC chip, and it'll pump out lots of heat, too.

Funny how when people applaud PPC, they always compare something like a Prescott to an embedded Freescale chip.  Those processors are for different markets, people.  PowerPC chips run pretty damn hot, too, once you really push them.  XBox 360, anyone?

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OS4 and other Microkernal based preemptive multitasking cores like qnx are superior.

Microkernal design isn't really supirior.  There are lots of reasons why most OSes don't use them.  Low-level interface complexity comes to mind.

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See this article: "Why not the Cell?" Here's why....

Cell is a bunch of DSPs attached to a single core CPU.  It's good for programmable DSP stuff and not much else.  Scalar performace isn't very good at all.

Don't dare say that on a gaming forum, though.  ;-)

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Did the Hitachi SH.x range of CPUs ever get used in the computing market?

They were used in CGI renderfarms a lot, though these days x86 dominates that field.
 

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #122 on: March 25, 2006, 07:08:46 PM »
Ok, I accidentally bought 2.0Ghz MacBook Pro... It's pretty good. :-D

I haven't anything add to what I spoke about from the one I played with in the Apple Store.

But I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has!

Offline uncharted

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #123 on: March 25, 2006, 08:18:05 PM »
What's it like fan/noise wise?  Much different to the PPC PB?

What's the battery life like on it?
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #124 on: March 25, 2006, 09:12:40 PM »
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uncharted wrote:
What's it like fan/noise wise?  


No fan noise. The DC-DC board makes a highpitch noise when the machine is totally idle, this problem is well documented, and can be resolved by simply putting it under a larger load. For example: Turing the iSight on, plugging a USB device in or simply running a program.

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Much different to the PPC PB?


Feels exactly like my PowerBook... bit more solid feeling, like the 17inch... the old 15inch felt a bit more delicate, though it was actually built like a tank :-)

MUCH faster than any Powerbook... since I am also able to run MacOS X on my 2.0Ghz Athlon64, I have compared them. The Macbook is about 50% faster in most tasks and more responsive... some tasks (effects and synth plug in in Logic Pro) it is twice as fast!... but then it does have 2 cpu cores. :-D

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What's the battery life like on it?


I've not tried to run it on batteries yet... stay tuned! -Edit- After pulling the plug, The machine estimates 4 hours 38 min... that seems reasonable... I'll perform a more in depth test over the next few days. -Edit2- Watched a DVD and did some surfing, got just over 4hours... battry life is about the same as a PowerBook.

But the bottom get REALLY hot (measured with a thermometer, it's only 3 degrees hotter than my powerbook, feels hotter)... nice on cold winter days, less so during the summer.

I've not run any PPC apps yet either... -Edit- Ran a few PPC apps, run about the same speed as on my 1.5Ghz Powerbook.

It's also very light... as in, not heavy in any way!

Offline bloodline

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #125 on: March 26, 2006, 01:53:48 PM »
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bloodline wrote:
Quote

uncharted wrote:
What's it like fan/noise wise?  


No fan noise. The DC-DC board makes a highpitch noise when the machine is totally idle, this problem is well documented, and can be resolved by simply putting it under a larger load. For example: Turing the iSight on, plugging a USB device in or simply running a program.




I have discovered a more elegant solution to this problem! Since the noise is only present when using the laptop in low power situations, it's simple enough to switch off one of the CPU cores and the noise is gone (uses less power too, so a bonus all round... Hopefull Apple will release an OS update to do this automagically).

-Edit- It should be noted that the noise isn't present when running WinXP on the machine... so it looks like an OS update should fix the problem :-)

Offline Tripitaka

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #126 on: March 26, 2006, 02:37:11 PM »
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mdma wrote:
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Tripitaka wrote:
I don't take a great deal of interest in the Mac most of the time and avoid Intel for AMD if at all pos. However, I would be interested to know if the MacOS ever makes it on an AMD, I might....only maybe ...give it a go. I hated any MacOS prior to OSX but as I have not given the Tiger a walk yet I'd give
it a look. On Intel, not a hope! I'm just not going to buy an Intel box for that.


I've only bought AMD CPU's for years, but would never not buy a product just because it has an Intel CPU inside it.

That's the same mentality that the BAF's have. :-/



HOLD UP RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Damn I'm  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed: ,Talk about assumption, all I said in my post is that I would not go and buy an Intel box just to run a Mac OS when I own an AMD, I did not say I was "ANTI-INTEL". I have owned several Intel machines and still do, I just don't have anything Intel based available for playing with Mac-OS with enough power. I buy AMD now as they give me the most cost effective solutions to my needs. So let me put this simple like:
I will not go out and buy an Intel based Mac because it's Intel based, I would try the OS out of interest BUT AS IT IS NOT ON AN AMD I CANNOT.    ...f.c.o.l. :madashell:
Falling into a dark and red rage.
 

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #127 on: March 26, 2006, 02:41:24 PM »
Quote

Tripitaka wrote:

Damn I'm  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed: ,Talk about assumption, all I said in my post is that I would not go and buy an Intel box just to run a Mac OS when I own an AMD, I did not say I was "ANTI-INTEL". I have owned several Intel machines and still do, I just don't have anything Intel based available for playing with Mac-OS with enough power. I buy AMD now as they give me the most cost effective solutions to my needs. So let me put this simple like:
I will not go out and buy an Intel based Mac because it's Intel based, I would try the OS out of interest BUT AS IT IS NOT ON AN AMD I CANNOT.    ...f.c.o.l. :madashell:


MacOS X runs fine on Athlon CPU's (as long as they have at least SSE2)... It's great :-)

Apple will never make the mistake of locking themselves into one CPU vendor again... both Motorola and IBM nearly killed them twice!

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #128 on: March 26, 2006, 03:09:46 PM »
Thanx bloodline, I might just try it out then.  :-D
Falling into a dark and red rage.
 

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #129 on: March 26, 2006, 03:10:33 PM »
The battery on the MacBook charges much faster than on the Powerbook... interesting... maybe something to do with the larger PSU and the new Li-Poly battery technology :-?

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #130 on: March 26, 2006, 09:05:38 PM »
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I will not go out and buy an Intel based Mac because it's Intel based, I would try the OS out of interest BUT AS IT IS NOT ON AN AMD I CANNOT. ...f.c.o.l.


So if Apple released a Dual Core Athlon64 based iMac tommorow you would buy one?
 

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #131 on: March 27, 2006, 08:28:31 AM »
I think Apple need to sort out their batty life calculator... It's much too sensitive,  although I managed to get about 4hours on the MacBook's battery, the indicator would wildly swing from 2:14 to 3:38... depending upon what I was doing... it would then proceed to stay at one of the above values for a considerable period.

A new noise has emerged, a strange, distant and very haunting sound... it's clearly a fan starting up and then powering down. This sound is very subtle and oddly reassuring. Some describe it as a quiet "moo", quite a nice description :-)

Offline uncharted

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #132 on: March 27, 2006, 09:06:27 AM »
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mdma wrote:
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I will not go out and buy an Intel based Mac because it's Intel based, I would try the OS out of interest BUT AS IT IS NOT ON AN AMD I CANNOT. ...f.c.o.l.


So if Apple released a Dual Core Athlon64 based iMac tommorow you would buy one?


Sure he didn't say it as clearly as he could, but if you read the whole thing and put that last bit into context, you 'll see that:-

Macs going Intel (x86) are not enough justification to buy one.

He's only got an AMD box and he (mistakenly) thought that MacOS X will only run on Intel CPUs.  He wasn't going to go out and buy an Intel box just to run OS X.

No Zealotry going on.
 

Offline uncharted

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #133 on: March 27, 2006, 09:10:47 AM »
Quote

bloodline wrote:
I think Apple need to sort out their batty life calculator... It's much too sensitive,  although I managed to get about 4hours on the MacBook's battery, the indicator would wildly swing from 2:14 to 3:38... depending upon what I was doing... it would then proceed to stay at one of the above values for a considerable period.


I've noticed that with my iBook, I now don't get it to display the time remaining on the Menubar (this is also partly because I'm only running 1024x768, so space is tight).

I've always wondered how much battery power is used up calculating the batterypoer remaining :-)
 

Offline Agafaster

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Re: Intel Mac comes very poor second to PPC
« Reply #134 on: March 27, 2006, 10:26:18 AM »
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I've always wondered how much battery power is used up calculating the batterypoer remaining


well, I know you only asked this in jest, but I'm gonna answer anyway:

fsck all: its just a quick lookup on a power curve based on the potential difference measured across the battery indicating the estimated Amp-hours left in the battery: big loads on the battery cause a voltage drop, partially discharged batteries also exhibit this. hurrah for voltage regulators, eh !
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