Meyvn said:
Developers will make their software compatible with whatever is available. If Apple's systems are all going 32-bit, then the apps will be 32-bit too.
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Intel iMacs really that much faster than PPC?
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Developers will make their software compatible with whatever is available. If Apple's systems are all going 32-bit, then the apps will be 32-bit too.
Considering a dual CPU system only has a 30% speed gain on a single CPU system (in general) and seeing Apple claims speed doubled, I'd say the intel's are about 30%-40% faster per core than the G5's. (or even faster considering the frontside bus has slowed down)
But then again, benchmarks have NEVER been reliable or representative of real-world performance. (e.g. you could design a machine that has 10x performance over a G5 on SPEC_INT, but is extremely slow in other areas, so it's real-world performance may be in fact slower than the G5). The same goes for the perfomance per watt Jobs showed in his keynote. How do they define this performance and how is it measured?
Though I am sure the Intel is indeed faster and uses less power it's very hard to say HOW MUCH faster it is.
But then again, benchmarks have NEVER been reliable or representative of real-world performance. (e.g. you could design a machine that has 10x performance over a G5 on SPEC_INT, but is extremely slow in other areas, so it's real-world performance may be in fact slower than the G5). The same goes for the perfomance per watt Jobs showed in his keynote. How do they define this performance and how is it measured?
Though I am sure the Intel is indeed faster and uses less power it's very hard to say HOW MUCH faster it is.
rot@ti.org said:
Comparing Dual Core to single core is bad enough but it is also interesting that Apple Chose to use the 1.83Ghz core Duo against the 1.67Ghz G4. I think it would have been a little more reasonable to compare a 1.67 Core Duo to the 1.67 G4 both entry level 15 inch PowerBook and MacBook Pro are clocked at 1.67. Comparing 1.83 Duo to the G4 gives a clock speed gain of almost 10% over the G4 besides the Duo having two cores, 4X the Level 2 Cache, faster memory, faster GPU, and faster Bus.
If you think about it the speed gain that the Duo has over the G4 while seemingly impressive should be expected given the improvements. I was thinking about it though and Intel Duo does not seem to perform as well as I had hoped even with Apple's best foot forward benches. Let me explain below.
3D rendering (Modo) 4.1X faster= 300% gain
Gaming (Doom 3) 2.2X faster= 120% faster:
Garage Band 2.1x faster= 110% same with Final Cut Pro.
Translating performance gains into percentages looks less impressive than saying 2x and 4x faster etc. but that's why apple uses those terms much better for marketing.
First off both 3D rendering and gaming gains could easily have 50-100% of the gains brought on by the Faster GPU especially depending on what Graphics setting were used for Doom III. Settings are very important on Doom III performance especially Resolution and FSAA performance which can vary wildly from GPU to GPU. It is also important to point out that while DOOM 3 is not SMP aware Modo is which could explain another 30-70% gain in performance for Modo. Modo also utilizes the GPU for rendering, I really don't know to what extent but the faster GPU in the MacBook Pro helps for sure.
Garage Band and Final Cut are also SMP aware which would explain at least half of the 110% performance gains they have over the G4. Take that all into account and Clock for Clock core for Core the Intel Duo only seems to be have perhaps a 20-50% performance gain which is nice but one would expect more with 10% faster Clock speed, faster memory, 4x FSB speed, and 4X more cache.
I wonder if the second core in the Intel Duo chip can be disabled with CHUD tools like the 970MP? If possible disable the second core in a 1.67Ghz Duo and compare to a 1.67Ghz Powerbook doing so would eliminate the gains from SMP and should prove quite interesting.
Even more interesting would have been comparing Intel Duo performance to the PowerPC (7448) G4 instead of a 7447A. Too bad Apple did not choose to use the 7448 in the last Power Book Update. The 7448 G4 could have given clock speeds as high as 2Ghz or so plus Double the L2 cache up from 512k to 1Megabyte, faster FSB up from 167Mhz to 200Mhz, better Altivec performance, and even lower power consumption than the current G4. I think Apple most likely chose not to use 7448 because it would have slimmed down the performance gains that Intel Duo could show. The 7448 despite what some people believe as being a white paper chip is actually in production.
http://www.powerlogix.com/press/releases/2006/060110.html
oh well enough with my rant it's all speculation anyhow we will see for sure once detailed benchmarks of real world performance can be done.
BlackDan said:
I disagree that Multiple CPU machines only have a 30% (in general) speed gain. 30% is about right given an app that is poorly optimized for Mult-threading. Heck Apps that are not even Multiprocessor aware can see gains as much as 10% just because OS background tasks are being run on the other processor or cores. Generally I would say Apps that are multi threaded can see gains of about 50% to even close to 100% in best case scenarios on a Multiple CPU or core system. In garageband on my Quad G5 I can utilize up to 250% of 4 cores same with idvd MPEG encoding. Quicktime Encoding Utilitzes as much as 350% of my available CPU power. I also had a Dual 2.5 and saw an average of 50% speed gain in real world performance with SMP apps.
As far as real world performance goes.
http://barefeats.com/quad02.html
http://barefeats.com/imacg52.html
probably not accurate
I think this is actually, probably not accurate. It is most likely even with Rosetta going to be faster using office and as well, faster on page display and processing while browsing.
But, I do get your point.
BlackDan said:Well, it's 0x faster for word processing, 0x faster for filling in numbers in Excel, 0x faster for surfing the web, etc. etc.
Satisfied?
I think this is actually, probably not accurate. It is most likely even with Rosetta going to be faster using office and as well, faster on page display and processing while browsing.
But, I do get your point.
Originally Posted by neocell
Completely agree. Who the hell cares about hypothetical situations/configurations. Open the box, boot it up and which one is faster. Don't care what's inside, just how well does it work and how fast does it go. It's perfectly fair to compare the PowerBook to the MacBook and the intel iMac to the old one. What are they replacing? The old ones. What are you doing? Buying a new one and using it? Crap, how could anyone bitch about this. Is it faster, yes or no, if so how much. Period.
Who Cares? People who are more technically inclined perhaps (Hardware Junkies) You are posting in the Hardware section of MacRumors you know. People who care about where there money goes? People who care if it makes sense to spend $1500 or $2500 on a new Computer that Apple Claims to be 2-5 times faster? when it may be much less than that depending on your software and needs.
I understand that most of the things in this thread are speculation and hypothetical situations and configurations however if you don't like it don't read it. This site is called Macrumors and most of the content is just that "speculation".
Perhaps you should go to the ipod forums and go ranting about how why should anyone care how a case looks like. Hell if the case fits and looks like it will protect who cares right?
Completely agree. Who the hell cares about hypothetical situations/configurations. Open the box, boot it up and which one is faster. Don't care what's inside, just how well does it work and how fast does it go. It's perfectly fair to compare the PowerBook to the MacBook and the intel iMac to the old one. What are they replacing? The old ones. What are you doing? Buying a new one and using it? Crap, how could anyone bitch about this. Is it faster, yes or no, if so how much. Period.
punkmac said:
Who Cares? People who are more technically inclined perhaps (Hardware Junkies) You are posting in the Hardware section of MacRumors you know. People who care about where there money goes? People who care if it makes sense to spend $1500 or $2500 on a new Computer that Apple Claims to be 2-5 times faster? when it may be much less than that depending on your software and needs.
I understand that most of the things in this thread are speculation and hypothetical situations and configurations however if you don't like it don't read it. This site is called Macrumors and most of the content is just that "speculation".
Perhaps you should go to the ipod forums and go ranting about how why should anyone care how a case looks like. Hell if the case fits and looks like it will protect who cares right?
Little Endian said:
Why compare it with only one core running when you are buying a machine to have both cores. That's like me comparing myself to an olympic sprinter and then saying he has to hop to make it fair. Sometimes one thing has an advantage over an other, why cripple it to make the comparison. Similarly why compare it to a moto chip we never got. You heard the rumours, they couldn't get the 7448 into the powerbook - something that probably helped bring forward thne switch to january. No sense comparing a horse to a unicorn, one doesn't exist.
Infoworld have pretty much dismissed Apple's SPEC results - on the basis that the specs chosen are primarily to benchmark multi-processor systems, and thus generate a good many threads. This immediately skews the tests in favour of a multi-processor (or multi-core) machine.
I.e. the benchmarks accurately rate the Intel Macs, but make the PPC Macs worse to make the comparison more favourable.
I.e. the benchmarks accurately rate the Intel Macs, but make the PPC Macs worse to make the comparison more favourable.
maya said:Well he is comparing a dual core to a single core processor. Plus the Core Duo has 2M L2 cache, while the G5 only has 512k cache. Any processor with a 1M or larger cache will see better performance gains.
If Jobs was going to compare he should have done it with a Core Solo or something. This was just sneaky, as usual.
Not sneaky at all IMO. He was comparing the old model to the new and improved model. Both at the same price points. More bang for the buck. Go Apple.
jimN said:
True true, both Machines are what they are and the MacBook Pro is overall superior but disabling one core would give a better picture of how Applications that are not SMP aware would perform. More importantly it would give a clearer picture of clock for clock core for core performance which would give a better picture of how well the Universal Binary Apps run on X86 vs. the PowerPC machine it is replacing. As far as comparing "MacBook Pro to a non-existant product" that is out of curiosity I would rather had Apple give us one more PPC update if it meant real world better performance for some Applications and possibly better battery life. I say possibly better battery life because Apple still has not Published that info yet.
Performance is important to me since I own a Quad Core G5 and I really want to know if spending the $2500+ for a MacBook pro would give me a viable alternative to purchase as a second Machine to use as sort of a Desktop replacement as well as travel notebook. If performance is not nearly as good as Apple states then I'm better of getting the imac Intel Duo and purchasing a Powerbook G4 refurb or on closeout.