Dual-core PowerPC processors

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

I has having a debate about Dual-core PowerPC processors verse Intel Pentium 4.

How does a 2.0 GHz Dual-core PowerPC processor compare to the P4 speed wise?
To the best of my knowlege, it should blow away anythign the P4 can do.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Impossible to answer -- it depends on how well the OS and the application can deal with dividing tasks between processors. Then, it depends on the specific application's use of the processor. Then, all the rest of the system comes into play; caches, memory, Frontside Buss, hard drives.
And it matters whether you are comparing to a dual-core Pentium or a single Pentium.

Best bet is to sit tight and wait for application benchmarks to start being published. The theoretical advantages aren't worth a hill of beans unless there is a performance imp-rovement in the actual applications.

 

[superbovine]

to add to Ram's post, the question should be which processor is better for me. After any bit of reading about the advantage of both process you see that each shines in certain areas. For example, ppc usually processes video faster than an x86. On the other had x86 usually handles audio faster. So, different should pick different things. so, it about picking the best computer for you, not picking the "best" which is a loaded question in the computer world.

 

[RatVega]

I saw some data that actually compared a 3.6Ghz Pentium 4 and a dual 2.5GHz G5 both running OS X. If you took the G5 numbers and cut them in half, then compared them to the P4, you saw some interesting things: The P4 was faster in simple, "closed loop" instruction streams because of its high clock speed. The G5 absolutely slaughtered the P4 in floating point math (over 10x difference).

The point is the processors are very different in design and when comparing them it truly depends on what you're doing. Scrolling in Word or other generally simple tasks favor the P4. "Heavy lifting" like video transcoding will definitely favor the G5s.

As someone else said here, it's about getting the job done the way you need it done. Better is a very subjective thing, but then so is the average user's opinion of how fast his system is.

 

[osprey76]

The point is the processors are very different in design and when comparing them it truly depends on what you're doing. Scrolling in Word or other generally simple tasks favor the P4. "Heavy lifting" like video transcoding will definitely favor the G5s.

This will be interesting to watch in the future. The G4 and G5 chips with vector units do very well with video as long as the code is optimized for Altivec.

From what I've read, the SSE3 (vector unit) on the upcoming Intel chips will be competitive with Altivec and are easier to implement into code. So, maybe the gap will close to 20% on speed but run the vector unit gets used 300% more often (my completely made up numbers). I'm sure there will loads of comparisons for the next couple of years.