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g4 vs pentium m

H

hjhhjh

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 30, 2004
67
0
a powerbook g4 is equal to what pentium m?

just wondering, roughly
 
i thought it was 1.0 Ghz G4 is the same as 1.7 Ghz pentium m, but im probably wrong. off topic, your signature says that you have a macintosh 1. if im not mistaken those can go for a lot of money because there aren't many left (40,000-60,000 USD). you might want to look into that :eek: :)
--andrzej
 
On the subject of speed - I bought this PC laptop. It was advertised as a 3.4 Ghz P4. What do I know (or care) For what I wanted it was fine.

I'm mostly interested in catching viruses - or preventing them - and then getting rid of them for an experiment so any configuration that will run WinXP with some robustness is what I was after.

So I start to set up the machine and do a system profile and find that it is a 1.6 Ghz P4. Ok, maybe the results of that diagnostic were skewed, so I run it again after making sure nothing else was running, same result.

Then I poke around and find the equivalent of system profile - same thin 1600 Mhz P4.

So is this some *new math* way of representing the speed of P4s or did I get hosed?

Take care, Margaret
 
cluthz said:
Systemshootouts.org also claims that a single 2.5 GHz G5 is faster than a Dual 2.0 GHz G5.
Their Pentium M results are way to low, they claim that a 1.6 GHz Pentium M is about a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4...

This topic has been discussed before https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/85347/
Click to expand...
They seem to claim that there's a huge difference between the Pentium-M Banias and the Pentium-M Dothan. The 1.6 Banias is rated similar to a 1.8 P4, but the 1.7 Dothan is rated as a 2.7 P4. I don't know if the performance difference is that big or not.
 
AmigoMac said:
1 GHz G4 = almost 2 x 1 GHz Pentium 3 ...
Click to expand...

Doing what?

I use both every day and outside of perhaps a staged demo inside the Steve Jobs reality distortion field a G4 is nowhere near 2 x PIII at the same clock.

4 of the machines here at the shop are an ibook G4-800, a dell insp 8100 PIII-1ghz, a dual 800 G4, and a dual 800 PIII. Depending on the task the G4 or the PIII has advantages, but typically will be within 5-10% of each other once clock speed is factored out and only a single CPU is used.

This is just the kind of statement that makes us look like a bunch of mindless cult members.

I can answer the equivalency question for a very narrow field. For the stuff I do (Carrara, http://www.eovia.com), based on rendering speed a 1ghz G4 would be about equivalent to a 770mhz Pentium M Banias if such a beast existed. The Pentium Ms are that wicked fast.

Now if you think I'm exaggerating, here's a more trusted source, Barefeats. Check out the Cinebench render tests. Pure CPU vs. CPU. Also keep in mind that since this test the L2 cache on the Pentium Ms has doubled and clockspeed is up to 2.1ghz.

http://www.barefeats.com/al15b.html
 
winwintoo said:
So is this some *new math* way of representing the speed of P4s or did I get hosed?

Take care, Margaret
Click to expand...

Margaret,

When you get one of the P4 laptops that are based on the desktop chips as your 3.4 is, they do some games with the clock when the machine is unplugged to get reasonable battery life. There are probably settings in your bios that control when that kicks in.

If you did the same check while plugged into a wall and doing something that requires the CPU to work hard, you'd probably see the full 3.4 ghz.

Regards.
 
ewinemiller said:
Doing what?

I use both every day and outside of perhaps a staged demo inside the Steve Jobs reality distortion field a G4 is nowhere near 2 x PIII at the same clock.

4 of the machines here at the shop are an ibook G4-800, a dell insp 8100 PIII-1ghz, a dual 800 G4, and a dual 800 PIII. Depending on the task the G4 or the PIII has advantages, but typically will be within 5-10% of each other once clock speed is factored out and only a single CPU is used.

This is just the kind of statement that makes us look like a bunch of mindless cult members.

I can answer the equivalency question for a very narrow field. For the stuff I do (Carrara, http://www.eovia.com), based on rendering speed a 1ghz G4 would be about equivalent to a 770mhz Pentium M Banias if such a beast existed. The Pentium Ms are that wicked fast.

Now if you think I'm exaggerating, here's a more trusted source, Barefeats. Check out the Cinebench render tests. Pure CPU vs. CPU. Also keep in mind that since this test the L2 cache on the Pentium Ms has doubled and clockspeed is up to 2.1ghz.

http://www.barefeats.com/al15b.html
Click to expand...


and how a G5 compares to a P4? is it crappy as well?
 
Just my 0.02..

My Dell Pentium M 1.6 with 512mb feels zippier than my G4 1.0 with 1gb. I don't use them for the same tasks but... the M feels faster.
 
OK, Ok, before the third one comes and slaps me :eek: , I know, personally that it's not easy to compare two systems at all, before I got my 1st mac, I had a PIII laptop, I had it at the same time with the PB 12" 867 MHz, the first with 256 MB RAM and the second 384 MB, for home video rendering, the mac was really incredible, I know that RAM has a lot of work there as well and other parameters but I could feel the huge difference and decided to get some bucks for the PIII laptop. </ready>

now, a P-M, I know it's a hell of a CPU, I tested one by myself and it did a good work rendering with adobe premier, I was amazed by the time it was doing, just before the end, came a message, saying that there was a problem in "no idea" where in the system and the PC had to be restarted... :D , that day I knew I have a nice iBook G4 and my next step will be a G5 desktop. worms?, no thanks! I have a mac.
 
AmigoMac said:
and how a G5 compares to a P4? is it crappy as well?
Click to expand...

That I can't speak so well too, don't have access to a G5 to test, but from what I've seen it's nearly the same story as the last generation battle (G4 vs. PIII). They both do some things particularly well, but all in all performance is fairly similar.

Results from a benchmark posted on the Carrara list showed the G5 is about the same as a G4 as the same clock. Likewise my P4 2.26 is almost exactly 3x the speed of single PIII-800.

Of course this is a single application, but it's what I do most of the day so is the most important thing for me. Your mileage may vary. Figure out what you want to do, benchmark that, and then you'll know what what the right answer is for your world.

Regards
 
ewinemiller said:
Margaret,

When you get one of the P4 laptops that are based on the desktop chips as your 3.4 is, they do some games with the clock when the machine is unplugged to get reasonable battery life. There are probably settings in your bios that control when that kicks in.

If you did the same check while plugged into a wall and doing something that requires the CPU to work hard, you'd probably see the full 3.4 ghz.

Regards.
Click to expand...

Yes, actually when plugged in the processor will run at full speed, but when unplugged it clocks down to half speed. No matter what you do, when you're running on battery it runs at half speed. That is why i try to stay away from laptops with desktop chips.
 
The Pentium M and G4 are actually quite similar performance-wise. Both have rather weak floating point, fairly strong integer. The P-M clocks higher, and the G4 has Altivec, but other than that I'd guess it's about 1:1. The Pentium-M really is a very nice chip. I'm looking forward to seeing what Intel does with it on the desktop; a desktop level 800MHz bus and tweaking it for speed over power (say, hitting 2.5GHz instead of 2.1) should allow it to easily pass up the Pentium 4 in performance. Currently I don't know of any PowerPC chips that can compete with the Pentium-M, at least not without running at significantly higher power levels (i.e. a G5 will win, but you can't put it in a laptop). At the other end of the spectrum, a G3 will run at lower wattage, but you can't get it anywhere near 2GHz. It'll be interesting to see if IBM can solve their yield and power issues. A 1.8-2GHz G5 with an on chip memory controller and more cache would crush a Pentium M, but until IBM fixes their manufacturing process, I don't think we're gonna see it.
 
AdamR01 said:
Yes, actually when plugged in the processor will run at full speed, but when unplugged it clocks down to half speed. No matter what you do, when you're running on battery it runs at half speed. That is why i try to stay away from laptops with desktop chips.
Click to expand...

I was running it plugged in.

Margaret
 
altivec with its 128 bit vectoring technology helps the g4 alot, when it comes to altivec leaning programs, it would crush a pentium m of the same clock speed, but in other it will lose, it all depends i think

my 1.33 ghz g4 with 768 mb ram 12" would be equal to what in terms of a pentium m in general, like a laptop
 
aplasticspork said:
i thought it was 1.0 Ghz G4 is the same as 1.7 Ghz pentium m, but im probably wrong. off topic, your signature says that you have a macintosh 1. if im not mistaken those can go for a lot of money because there aren't many left (40,000-60,000 USD). you might want to look into that :eek: :)
--andrzej
Click to expand...

nah its not a mac 1, its actually a macintosh plus, the first mac plus, i just checked, those worth nethign yet?
 
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