According to Apple, “…unmodified applications that use the system math functions will get an automatic performance boost on the G5…” when switching from Panther to Tiger. BearFeats decided to run some tests to see if they got a speed gain right out of the box with applications that we suspect use system math functions.
Benchmark: Panther versus Tiger
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I have an iMac G3 500 (slot-loading). Panther runs ok, but it can get a bit sluggish. Will Tiger run faster for me?
If they’re hoping to verify that the math speedups help an application, they need to KNOW that the application is using the updated math routines, not merely GUESS that they’re using them. How can they be sure otherwise that the speed improvements they’re seeing aren’t due to some other improvement or set of improvements not related to the math functions?
but still a statement of clear performance gains… the doom 3 numbers are pretty impresive…
I’d like to see the same/similar tests on lower hardware.
…looks like a few engineers were given the task “Make Doom3 faster, or your fired!”
“I have an iMac G3 500 (slot-loading). Panther runs ok, but it can get a bit sluggish. Will Tiger run faster for me?”
Tiger will speed up all Apple computers. Some more than others… but all of them.
This has been the case with each sucessive update of the Mac OS throughout Apple history (asside from the OS 9 to OS X transition)
I would guess that none of those apps use the system math libraries actually. All of the listed apps are cross platform and probably not tailored to Mac specific libraries.
I think people you are a bit not normal. Personally I’m not interested how well the OS runs on dual G5 2.5 with 8G of memory. I would be much more interested to know how well it performs on 1,5 or 1,67 G4 Powerbook with 512Mb or 1G of RAM… Everything else makes no sense to me… if it comes to spending 10 000 bucks – it will be defintely not an apple, no one buys such a computer just for fun or just because one can play Doom 3 a way better… wake up!
“Everything else makes no sense to me… if it comes to spending 10 000 bucks – it will be defintely not an apple, no one buys such a computer just for fun or just because one can play Doom 3 a way better… wake up!”
$10,000?!
While I suppose its possible that a Mac could be loaded up with enough extras to total that amount its not like the same could not be said for Windows PCs or even Linux PCs.
Why are you spreading FUD? You make it sound like Apple computers are more expensive than comperably equipped PCs.
and it boots in about 10 seconds!!!!
Oh.. and smart folders can be made to search on servers.. JSYK.. talk about network transparency.. and that is on an NFS share that is sitting on an ext3 partition.
He’s not really spreading FUD, the RAM costs a fortune in those boxes, just check yourself. Last, I checked it’s all due to the fact that you need very expensive memory (high density). Not to mention, a super high-end video card runs into 500ish alone, possibly more for a Mac version? The list goes on, so 10k isn’t out of line, even if it’s USD.
He’s not really spreading FUD, the RAM costs a fortune in those boxes, just check yourself. Last, I checked it’s all due to the fact that you need very expensive memory (high density). Not to mention, a super high-end video card runs into 500ish alone, possibly more for a Mac version? The list goes on, so 10k isn’t out of line, even if it’s USD.
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10k isn’t the price, its the speed of the drive RPM’s.
Give me a break, Saem. The -most- expensive 1GB stick I can find for these computers (at crucial, use their configurator) is $279. That only comes out to like $1432 for 8GB of RAM. The vid card isn’t that much more than the same model on the PC end, either.
Aviva, he is talking when you order from apple. The upgrade to 8GB at the apple store is 2250, to throw in the highest video card, and other stuff I think a pc would come with (without upgrading the hard drives) it comes to about $6600 at the apple store. A similarly configured system at Alienware using a dual core processor (to compare with the dual boards of the G5s) ran up to $4200, and that was using the same size 20″ moniters in both cases and 250 SATA hard disks. The only difference is that the RAM in the PC only went up to 2 gigs. So an extra 6 gigs in my imagination would not make the Mac too much more expensive in my opinion. But there a little difference, Alienware machines tend to be more expensive. Perhaps someone knows another place that makes desktop PCs with dual motherboards that are cheaper?
I just went to apple.com and I loaded up a powermac with all hardware options and it was $13,199.00, that is with two displays and everything, with one it came down to $10,200.00
errr…I meant dual procs
Don’t be stupid. 1GB is right before you hit the price jump, because that’s where you start needing to use memory modules which cost a hell of a lot more, because they’re super high density and yield low.
IIRC, you start running into this issue with 2GB and higher sticks.
This isn’t a Mac thing, this also effects PCs and anyone else.
Performance increase of 37-42% with doom3 is quite astonishing.Somebody has listened to earlier remarks about the dissapointing performance during some tests of Doom3,good work.
From: Anonymous [raynersoftware.com]
This has been the case with each successive update of the Mac OS throughout Apple history (aside from the OS 9 to OS X transition)
Actually, progressive updates to Mac OS caused measurable drops in performance on the same hardware. The most egregious example of this was going from Mac OS 7.5.x or 7.6.x to Mac OS 8.
Its’ only been in the Mac OS X “era” that there have been performance gains, rather than drops, between updates.
Mike [serial.cavtel.net], as the owner of a iBook G3 500, I can safely say that Tiger will perform better on your iMac than Panther.
Incorrect; the move from MacOS 8.6 to 9.x series yielded a pretty decent speed increase – admitingly there was some backwards compatibility that was lost, in reference to the way MacOS handled addons at the start up (to improve stability), but overall, there was a speed increase.
As for MacOS X, I’m not surprised there are speed increases – new ways of approaching problems, removing efficient CISC code, cleaning up parts, re-writing others etc. Its the gradual evolution of software; hopefully soon in 10.4.1, Apple will enable Quartz Extreme 2D
that is not enabled yet?
wow.. the GUI feels so responsive with out it.. I wonder what it will be like when it is active.
will QE2D be supported on all QE supported systems?
If you get the top of the range PowerMac (with 2 1GHz front-side buses), bump the memory to 8GB, install a Geforce 6800, get a 30″ cinema display, and all the addons (blue-tooth, Airtunes, wireless keyboards), the cost is a little over €11000
However that’s hardly a typical system (8GB of memory!). The 30″ screen does inflate the cost significantly, and all the wireless paraphenalia adds a couple of hundred.
Skipping the monitor and the wireless stuff, the box costs around €8000. And while that may seem more expensive than x86, getting a system with dual Xeons, two 1Ghz FSBs and 8GB of memory would actually set you back by a comparable amount. The buses and memory in particular. The price/performance gap between upper-medium (i.e. gaming) machines and top of the line boxes has always been huge.
However the Mac range is pretty decent. The mini starts at €500, the eMac starts at €850, the iMac starts at €1400 (€200 more than a comparable Dell for the luxury factor), and decent dual-processor PowerMacs start at €1600, which is all pretty reasonable. The same goes for the iBook and Powerbook.
The only weak link is the uniprocessor PowerMac which, with it’s €50 graphics card and 256MB of RAM, is shockingly overpriced at €1500.
[Note that while Euro’s are worth more than dollars, Euro prices also include sales tax, so the dollar figures may actually be less]
With regard to one posters incredulity at a “system match library” that no application uses, this probably refers in part to the C maths library that almost EVERY app uses. If there’s an additional library, I wouldn’t be surprised if Aspeyr and other companies used it too, it would only make sense. People forget the amount of work compilers do to speed things up.
The whole systems performance has been sped up. The Ars Technica review showed that even when running in software mode, Quartz 2D had been significantly improved. In Panther it could draw 150,000 lines a second, in Tiger it can draw 1,500,000 lines a second. That’s ten times more, or more impressively, 1,350,000 more lines a second.
In fact, since the initial relase of Mac OS X, reviews have consistently stated that each release has improved performance. Now the initial performance of Mac OS X was so poor it really had nowhere to go but up, but since Jaguar the perforamance has been due to aggressive optimisation by Apple which should not be overlooked.
I . . . W A N T . . . I T !
Luposian
I just installed Tiger on my iBook G3 600 and iMac G5 and I can tell you the performance boost is obvious!
I’ve heard so many times the Mac OS X graphic interface is sluggish… WRONG ! It was before Tiger !
Why do all these apple benchmarks seem to use the MAC version of the X800XT, and not the MAC version of the 6800u, when ATi isn’t that good in terms of performance in *NIX family systems?