Apple comeback? How does a G4 @733MHz (or dual 533) compare to Tbird?

[velvetfreak]

How do you compare apples to oranges?

<chuckle> You ask...

Long-winded article by ArsTechnica

&quot;...Finally, and most importantly, the G4 and the K7 both share a number of architectural similarities. Each incorporates such post-RISC elements as out-of-order (OOO) execution and vector processing capabilities, and each has a superscalar design with functional units that perform comparable functions.&quot;

A good read, if you're into that sort of thing.

 

[cmaMath13]

I went a head and tweak one of the new Macs! Here what I came up with:

High End Mac
The price $15,000.

 

[Pyro]

if Jobs didnt lie so much and if Macs were 1/2 the price, a lot more pople would take them more seriously

 

[Modus]

Leo V,

<< The G4 is known for far superior clock-for-clock performance, at least compared with a Pentium3 >>

That's a myth.

The ONLY real world benchmark where the G4 is &quot;far superior&quot; than an Athlon/P3 on a clock for clock basis is Adobe Photoshop. And guess what? Nobody cares how fast Photoshop is unless they do high quality print graphics. Web graphics are never larger than 1024x768 making even the most complicated filters virutally instantaneous.

Are there any other useful, recognized, cross platform, real world benchmarks that show a G4 as being significantly faster than an Athlon? Nope. Why? Because Mac advocates are the only ones crazy enough to waste their time on such a project, and they realize that it would only destroy Apple's marketing myth of the G4's inherent superiority.

Now, all of this doesn't even begin to mention price. If we did, there'd be no discussion in the first place. Apple computers will always, always be more expensive than equivalent PC's, which makes them rubbish deserving of landfill status next to other overpriced filth such as Pentium 3 chips and Rambus RIMMS.

Modus

 

[nortexoid]

modus, u forgot P4 chips and mobos...

 

[Pyro]

And Itanic chips too.

Macs will always be behind PCs in technology because thier small market is incapable of handling all the R&amp;D. Has anyone else notice how slowly, but surely the mac is becomeing more PC like? IDE, USB (and soon USB2), AGP, PCI. werent all these originally for the PC? yes they were. If apple stuck to their hardware, they'd be bankrupt now.

 

[smp]

And if Gates didn't give them money.. Our sys admin here at school (who's a mac man) told me about that.. Gates saved Apple's ass so that there would still be competition, otherwise the antitrust/monopoly thing would have been over and done with.. I don't like macs much myself, but we do need some market.. Mac's are there to make us feel real smart when we buy AMD..

 

[Soccerman]

first of all, Apples don't reach very high double precision FPU speeds.

that is it's major downfall, now that most of everything else has been solved. they need to get their FPU unit running at better speeds (us gamers DO have an influence on the industry, albeit a somewhat small one).

they also need to up their FSB to much higher speeds (again, they just went from 100 to 133. DDR would help them even more!).

the new G4+ appears to be pretty good. not quite all there, but definetly better!

GOOOO MACs!

as for the RISC vs CISC idea, as far as I know, x86 CPUs ARE RISC. they decode the x86 instructions, and process them with a RISC architecture. the decoding of the archaic x86 instructions is what makes everything so complex.

Macs AFAIK, are also RISC, though I don't know about the instruction set (their equivelent to x86 instructions).

 

[Modus]

Pyro,

<< Macs will always be behind PCs in technology because thier small market is incapable of handling all the R&amp;D. Has anyone else notice how slowly, but surely the mac is becomeing more PC like? IDE, USB (and soon USB2), AGP, PCI. werent all these originally for the PC? yes they were. >>

Very true.

Modus