Processor Speed Please Explain like a 4yr old

[flopticalcube]

THANKS SO MUCH! That chart was invaluable to me. I have a second question.
All my PC's One a P-4 3.2, and the other an Athlon 3700, both use 10,000 RPM H.D.D.'s Even though Apples processor's are faster, what hit is there for use with an Apple 5400 RPM H.D.D. What's up with 5400 speed anyway?

New iMacs use 7200 RPM drives. If your old drives were PATA, I doubt you will notice a difference. If they were SATA, you may see a small drop in disk intensive tasks but that would depend on disk size and how full it is.

 

[MK2007]

What?!



Absolute hogwash. Unless you have proof, don't bother spreading nonsense.

If history is anything to go by, Leopard should see more improvements in performance than otherwise. Also consider the possibilities in various software areas with the introduction of CoreAnimation, multicore support and 64-bit.

What is technically possible for developers with Leopard on current hardware is pretty darn impressive if you look back at the "issues" Microsoft had with Vista (Aeroglass?, etc.) When Leopard arrives, if you were to look at it from a developers perspective, you might wonder how it is able to do some of the clever stuff.

Take it from me, if areas of Leopard are slower, you won't notice it, nor care.

Don't bother spreading BS -- as you are doing right now.

The fact is that some of us have been running Mac OS X since the early days. If you want to see just how big and slow the latest version would be on an old machine, then throw away your Mac and downgrade to nice G4 or earlier.

In no time at all you'll be sick of the slowdown and crying about it.

 

[flopticalcube]

Don't bother spreading BS -- as you are doing right now.

The fact is that some of us have been running Mac OS X since the early days. If you want to see just how big and slow the latest version would be on an old machine, then throw away your Mac and downgrade to nice G4 or earlier.

In no time at all you'll be sick of the slowdown and crying about it.

Reports from beta testers seem to refute this. G4 owners have reported that some tasks are faster or at least appear to be faster under Leopard while overall its not significantly slower, if at all.

 

[MK2007]

Reports from beta testers seem to refute this. G4 owners have reported that some tasks are faster or at least appear to be faster under Leopard while overall its not significantly slower, if at all.

It never ceases to amaze me when I find people who think that software increases speed instead of hardware.

If hardware did not increase the speed of a machine, we would still be running a 68000 processor and looking forward to OS XI in 2010.

 

[flopticalcube]

It never ceases to amaze me when I find people who think that software increases speed instead of hardware.

If hardware did not increase the speed of a machine, we would still be running a 68000 processor and looking forward to OS XI in 2010.

Leopard makes greater use of multi-threading thus the effect of it appearing to run faster. Like hardware, software can be improved upon as bottlenecks are found and removed.

Your second statement is just specious.

 

[suneohair]

It never ceases to amaze me when I find people who think that software increases speed instead of hardware.

If hardware did not increase the speed of a machine, we would still be running a 68000 processor and looking forward to OS XI in 2010.

That is common sense man. Really.

Your argument is terribly weak. If software did not increase the speed of a machine, we would still be running DOS and looking forward to DOS 7.1 in 1996. Therefore, software increases the speed of a machine. See what I mean?

A great argument for software is 64-bit. 64-bit makes huge improvements, right? If we had 64-bit CPUs but 32-bit code are we benefitting from that hardware? Not really. Throw some 64-bit software in there and you got yourself a nice speed boost. I think SJ showed this off when they talked about Leopard this year right? The whole Library of Congress image?

Software has to follow the hardware. If we were running an OS that was not multi-cpu aware. Our hardware is meaningless. Or software than not did process data coming over gigabit ethernet quickly. Or, an OS that didn't utilize shaders and the likes with new GPUs. It is clear that software and hardware progress together. Hardware simply leads the way most of the time.

 

[dan7592]

So what's better? 2.16 ghz or 2.4?

 

[StealthRider]

So what's better? 2.16 ghz or 2.4?

A 2.16GHz/2.4GHz what? Details are important. If you're talking about Core 2 Duos, then obviously the 2.4GHz.

 

[DMHB]

It never ceases to amaze me when I find people who think that software increases speed instead of hardware.

If hardware did not increase the speed of a machine, we would still be running a 68000 processor and looking forward to OS XI in 2010.

Here's a small example what you try yourself if you have elder OS X discs. First, install Mac OS X 10.0 to your machine, open safari to apple website and press print. Take time with your clock to see how long it takes time. Then install Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and do the same trick. Now compare how much time did the printing procedure take in 10.0 and 10.4. It's something like 10 seconds versus 3 seconds. See what I mean?

Of course both, hardware and software, affect to OS development. If some code is crap in older OS, it will be usually coded better in next so it'll be faster.

 

[MK2007]

That is common sense man. Really.

Your argument is terribly weak. If software did not increase the speed of a machine, we would still be running DOS and looking forward to DOS 7.1 in 1996. Therefore, software increases the speed of a machine. See what I mean?

A great argument for software is 64-bit. 64-bit makes huge improvements, right? If we had 64-bit CPUs but 32-bit code are we benefitting from that hardware? Not really. Throw some 64-bit software in there and you got yourself a nice speed boost. I think SJ showed this off when they talked about Leopard this year right? The whole Library of Congress image?

Software has to follow the hardware. If we were running an OS that was not multi-cpu aware. Our hardware is meaningless. Or software than not did process data coming over gigabit ethernet quickly. Or, an OS that didn't utilize shaders and the likes with new GPUs. It is clear that software and hardware progress together. Hardware simply leads the way most of the time.

Your argument is completely weak.

If you want to discuss Windows and see the difference that hardware makes, then install Windows 3.1. Its speed is so fast on a modern processor, or even one a few years old, that every operation is performed instantly. Compare that with Vista, a much bigger and slower OS. The bigger the OS, the slower it runs. Hardware improves the speed.

Then run OS X on a nice old G3. Why is it so slow? Because the hardware is slow!!!

As for 64-bit computing, it won't help the average desktop user at all. Those who will benefit from it are scientific and engineering users running big apps on PowerMacs. Servers also benefit from 64-bit computing because they can address more memory directly. However, the average Mac user running iWork, iLife, Adobe CS, Safari, and other apps won't see any difference.

 

[MagicWok]

Just to complicate things further for the OP.

A 3Ghz dual-core CPU could, ironically to this thread, out-perform a 2.66Ghz Quad-Core CPU in some situations.

So like we've said before, getting caught up in the number of GHz to determine how faster a computer will be, doesn't make sense. And so you/we shouldn't get caught up with the fact that an extra core or more, will guarantee to make your system faster - because it won't on its own.

To explain to the OP in an easy to understand way - this is because the software has to be written to take advantage of advantages hardware will bring. This won't make much difference to the big ones like OSX as it is written to take advantage all the way up to 8-cores at the moment.

In relation to my post, and the above poster, with 3rd-party software, such as games for example, ironically a faster (in Ghz terms) dual-core CPU could out perform a slower (in Ghz terms) quad-core CPU unless the software is written to use all 4 fours if they are there, or else 2 out of the 4 cores will be sitting unused by the game. So you have an example where 'better' software can speed up your PC.

Now it doesn't matter as much in Macs due the GPU limitations in the first place, but it is well documented an Intel E6750 (Dual-3Ghz) will out-perform an Intel Q6600 (Quad-2.66Ghz) in the majority of past games up to this point in time. Alot of the big exciting titles are written specifically to use 4-core CPU's, e.g. Crysis.

Hope that complicates things for you