Macbidouille.com offers some benchmarks of the PPC 970 platform running MacOSX in 32bit mode, against a P4 at 3 GHz and a dual G4 1.42 GHz. Keep in mind that OSNews can’t confirm the validity of the benchmarks as there is no official word from Apple or IBM (the article also doesn’t give information about the exact hardware configuration used for both platforms).
Mac OS X and PowerPC 970 Benchmarks
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OS X is worth whatever money you’re saving by buying a PC at 1/3 the price.
No it’s not, it’s just an operating system (and a pretty slow one last time I tried).
OS’s are there to get work done.
He said: “Apple has not announced 970 (or AMD) based systems. AMD64 (Opteron) is out there now. Via and nVidia already have Opteron chipsets ready. Suse, Redhat and Mandrake have Opteron optimised distros available now. Win XP Pro and Server have been announced for Opteron.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but Opteron is a server product, no? With the powermacs we are talking about desktops, right? When is Athlon 64 coming out for the desktop, with an OS and apps that take advantage of it?
dohnert:
>I dont care if a Mac is 10 ghz and the PC is 3.0 ghz, Im buying the PC. . >. .Why? because I hate companies that control the hardware and the >software, you think integration is nice? I think integration is crap, all it >does is lock you into a proprietary platform
Huh?
But you don’t mind getting locked in by Microsoft?
I find your argument against Apple hilarious. Since when is Microsoft not proprietary? Everything MS has ever done is anti-standard and proprietary. OS X, on the other hand, employs lots of open standards.
Your view of what constitute “getting locked in” is very narrow and superficial.
gfx, an operating system gets your work done. If it works for you better than any other OS than it is worth any amount of money. When was the last time you tried it and on what hardware? Gotta love the posts where people say “When I tried 10.0.1 on an old iMac it was slow as hell…” That must mean it’s slow on every computer huh?
Keep in mind that the powermacs versus athlon homebuilts in the THE most unfavorable comparison you can make, and it implies a difference that simply does not extend to consumer desktops and laptops..
Also, when you priced out that system from Apple, were you using their memory and hard drives? Because I think they charge more and there is no reason to go this route. The same memory and hard drives are used in both machines and you can buy these from cheaper sources, so it’s best to keep those items out of any comparison.
Still, there’s a big differential between say a dual 1.42 and an athlon and it makes more sense to go the althon route for some compute-intensive 3d work, at least this month. Next month things could change. As Dohnert said, things are always changing so you shouldn’t be so sure that what has been in the past (poor price/perf on the mac towers) will always be so to the same degree.
The problem with your pricing is that you added RAM from the Apple site which is plain crazy. No one but someone with very little common sense would max out on RAM purchased from Apple. You go to Mac Warehouse and buy your RAM. The cost is then under $3,000 from Mac Warehouse. So not really that much difference except that the PC will be faster.
I think these benches are a hoax.
I do believe Apple will introduce 970 systems at wwdc end of june.
I would not be surprised if the 970 systems will perform very, very well.
Despite outraged cries from the brainwashed victims of the Mhz war, think of how well the g4 does in real life applications, despite low memory bandwith and lower MHz. (barefeat benches, Bryce render, a single proc 1.4 ghz g4 is only 30 percent slower than a P4 3ghz). I know the macs do not currently have the speed crown but the comments about how horriblly slow they are are ridiculous.
The 970 should do extremely well with the widest memory bus around and shorter clock cycles. Will it be the fastest thing around, maybe, maybe not. Will it make great boxes for heavy 3d and media works? you betcha. OSX is still IMHO the best content creation OS around.
{ But you don’t mind getting locked in by Microsoft?
I find your argument against Apple hilarious. Since when is Microsoft not proprietary? Everything MS has ever done is anti-standard and proprietary. OS X, on the other hand, employs lots of open standards.
Your view of what constitute “getting locked in” is very narrow and superficial. }
I do not use Microsoft Windows, my girlfriend does, I use SuSE Linux 8.2 Professional http://www.suse.com The only Windows program I use is Quicktime and I run that with CrossOver Office and it runs great
{ The advantages are more practical than technical. Take consumer video editing. It was just a whole lot easier for apple to put in firewire hardware, put in the OS hooks for this and create iMovie than for a group of wintel companies to do this. Anytime multiple companies are involved, there’s negotiations over who pays for what, who gets the revenues from this, etc, etc. The result is that it took three more years at least (1999 for apple versus say 2002) for consumer video editing to be tolerable on the PC platform. Still, it’s inferior to iMovie. And would consumer video editing on the PC even existed without firewire? Probably, but it would have taken longer. }
See that is your perception on things. Until SuSE 8.2 I was using MovieMaker and I thought it was a much better product than iMovie and I still think it is. This was MovieMaker with Windows ME. I tried iMovie I found it awkward I didnt use it. All you are saying is regular Mac zealot propaganda, many people enjoy MovieMaker and do not find it inferior in any way. One of the many problems with hardware and software integration is pricing. With Apple producing both hardware and software Apple has a certain amount they must charge for each machine in order to make any money off of it, so in return Apple customers get higher prices and Apples support is not all that great. Most PC companies have great support and they have great support because they want your business and they keep quality up because they know customers will go elsewhere.
{ Lots of signs point to release very soon – the one-month WWDC delay, reports of motherboards coming out of Taiwan, IBM production on track. This is speculation, but it’s not unsupported. Untested? We all know apple could have samples of the 970 and you only need some of those to work up a motherboard and prototype and do the testing. This is no big deal. Plus, testing on the mac platform is quicker because of the standardized hardware. }
Signs point to Apple producing a new box. It does not point to Apple using a new chip, Taiwan makes 98% of all computer motherboards. Sorry your argument does very little to persuade me to think Apple will be using the 970. Oh, IBM only shares with Red Hat Software and SuSE. Their partners get first dibs on any new technology, and IBM and Apple are hardly partners, in fact the rumor around the campfire is that IBM is still very pissed at Apple for pulling out of the Tallijent project a few years back. Their is more at play here than most people know. I am at liberty to know some not all of it, because I used to be a marketing rep for IBM and I still know many people that work there. Like I said do not get your hopes too high, they just might get crushed. As I have stated to others, Apple can Adopt the x86 processor and still make computers and still maintain control over the hardware if they so wish. Do not rule out iTanium or Opteron based Apple systems yet.
{ The main problem is microsoft. When you will get the business no matter how good or bad your product is, when there is no effective competitor, why should you make a better product. They have no incentive to do so. Innovation and monopolies just tend not to go together. }
Microsoft is not a problem. You may not want to admit it, most mac users dont, but Microsoft makes a very good product. Windows XP is a very good solid Operating System as is Windows Server 2003 [When you will get the business no matter how good or bad your product is, when there is no effective competitor, why should you make a better product.]
Somebody should tell Apple that as well
” Correct me if I am wrong, but Opteron is a server product, no? With the powermacs we are talking about desktops, right? When is Athlon 64 coming out for the desktop, with an OS and apps that take advantage of it? ”
Opteron can be used in either the Desktop or as a server. It also maintains 32 bit instruction sets similar to the 970.
All I know is that I don’t see or hear people talking about dual P4 systems. Some dual Athlons are out there. But overall, dual processors just don’t seem to be a viable thing right now on the desktop x86 systems and desktop wintel apps.
OK, so we have admitted that for whatever reasons, the P4 is for all practical purposes a single processor system. That means it’s going to have to go up against dual 970 systems. That’s the reality pal.
No, we have “admitted” that dual P4 systems are not common because they aren’t necessary. Right now, PowerMacs need two CPUs just to keep up with single CPU P4s. There are no shortage of dual processor P4 Xeon systems (the Xeon variant is required for SMP, so strictly speaking you can’t get a “dual P4 system” – but most people will know what you mean if you say that), but if you want to see them you’ll have to look somewhere where the extra cost can be justified by requiring the extra performance. (Even then, a dual 3Ghz Xeon is only a bit more expensive than a dual 1.4Ghz G4 – despite being more than twice as fast in most all circumstances.)
Dual Xeon systems are _already_ freely and easily available now, if the customer requires it – the simple fact is that few do. So, shoould dual 970s appear then what will be “going up against them” will be the dual Xeon systems already widely available that most Mac/PC comparisons ignore because they are so much faster it’s not even worth it. A dual 3Ghz Xeon (available today from Dell, for only about 10% – 20% more than a dual 1.4Ghz G4), on those highly suspicious looking graphs, would probably have a bar between a half and two-thirds as long as the 970’s.
The reality, “pal”, is that if a dual 970 machine was released _tomorrow_ it would still only be marginally faster than the comparable top end dual Xeon PC workstation – and probably a hell of a lot more expensive. And to combat that Intel will probably do nothing more than bring their CPU release schedules forward 6 months. The P4/Xeon has *heaps* of headroom left.
dohnert: “Until SuSE 8.2 I was using MovieMaker and I thought it was a much better product than iMovie and I still think it is. This was MovieMaker with Windows ME. I tried iMovie I found it awkward I didnt use it. All you are saying is regular Mac zealot propaganda, many people enjoy MovieMaker and do not find it inferior in any way.”
me: Moviemaker 1 could not export an edited movie back to DV tape (on the camera). That’s a dealbreaker, it makes it worthless because does everyone really want to gather round your PC to watch the movie? I don’t think so. Also if Moviemaker was so useable and adequate, why did all these consumer 3d party alternatives pop up, from Pinnacle and others? Moviemaker 2 can do export to tape, it made other improvements and has been recognized as a credible offering (unlike moviemaker 1). MM2 came out late last year, 2002.
That’s what I said, it took 3 years after iMovie in ’99.
Dohnert: “Most PC companies have great support and they have great support because they want your business and they keep quality up because they know customers will go elsewhere.”
Me: You ought to go look at the reviews of some of these Wintel consumer video editing apps on Cnet. They call Pinnacle Systems Studio DV the best of the low-cost PC options and give it an 8 out of 10. But 51 percent of users don’t recommend it. Many of them reported intractable glitches and problems and poor tech support.
Dohnert: “When you will get the business no matter how good or bad your product is, when there is no effective competitor, why should you make a better product.] Somebody should tell Apple that as well.”
Apple’s “effective competitor” is the whole freakin massive x86 platform, ie. intel + amd + microsoft + dell + white box builders and on and on. This competition almost killed apple and it still might. If that’s not “effective competition,” I don’t know what is.
Aren’t these dual Xeons sold almost exclusively for server applications? I thought for this reason, there is little to no desktop software that takes advantage of dual processors on the PC platform. AMD or Xeon. Sure, this could change but it will take a while. 6 months would be fast. A year or two is more like it.
By contrast, lots of Mac apps use the dual G4s – third party and apple apps. Apple can optimize their OS and apps for dual and they have been doing so. There is no comparable movement on the PC side. As you said, it hasn’t been necessary.
But the point is, it look very much like it’s GOING TO BE NECESSARY now to keep up with dual 970 systems. But the software can’t be written and debugged overnight, (especially on the PC platform).
I just did a quick Dell workup on a dual Xeon and it was 4100 without a monitor, but with a DVD burner. The dual G4 is 2700. I didn’t try to get everything equal (the dell had more memory, but the mac had a bigger drive). So I am not sure that the dual xeon is “just a little bit more” than the dual g4. Course the dual 970s could get more expensive. Not saying you’re wrong, just looking things over.
that was a dual 3.0 ghz. But it looks like it’s going to take that to take down a dual 970 since one 1.4 970 beat a single 3.0 P4 in the macbidulle info.
Re: Appleforever By RJDohnert said ” Who cares about benchmarks. I dont care if a Mac is 10 ghz and the PC is 3.0 ghz, Im buying the PC. First off, I dont have a need for a 64 bit Processor and if I ever do I will go with the AMD Opteron, it is fast enough. Why? because I hate companies that control the hardware and the software, you think integration is nice? I think integration is crap, all it does is lock you into a proprietary platform. If I was a diehard PPC Apple user, then if I got pissed off at Apple, I have nowhere to go. If HP pisses me off I go to Dell, if Dell pisses me off I can go to Gateway. I dont have to put up with crappy service and support and I dont have to worry about waiting for my company to put its foot in its mouth and not be able to sell me the system I want, I dont have to wait for backorders or put up with excuses ”
So what do you do when Microsoft pisses you off (being a pc user myself they do it on a daily basis).
If the 970 is as good as they say (and not too expensive) I’d bet one in a hurry.
Y’see, I’m not soldered to one OS as you seem to be.
THIS IS A SPECIAL ALERT….
From now on quit talking to me about Windows. I DO NOT USE THE WINDOWS OS. I USE SUSE LINUX 8.2 PROFESSIONAL. I WAS A RED HAT USER, RED HAT PISSED ME OFF AND I WENT WITH SUSE. And I havent looked back since. See how simple that is, I posted that like 2 times before. I am happy with what I use. I only have need for one Windows App thats Quicktime, I use CrossOver Office to run Quicktime and everything works great. I enjoy my OS, I enjoy my hardware. I have no problems with Either