Official Apple Keynote Thread - webcast online at about 3 pm est.

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XBoxLPU

Diamond Member
Aug 21, 2001
4,249
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Originally posted by: Leon
More misleading results:



Apple Q3

P4 w/Radeon 9800 = 275

Toms results (comparable to other websites)

P4 w/Radeon 9700 = 432


Umm Apple test shows 1024X768, tom's is 640X480
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addragyn

Golden Member
Sep 21, 2000
1,198
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Whaddya know?
?World?s fastest? based on SPEC® CPU 2000 benchmark results and leading professional application performance tests against 3 GHz Pentium 4-based Dell Dimension 8300 and 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon-based Dell Precision 650. SPEC® CPU 2000 benchmarks run with GCC 3.3 and independently tested, full report available from Veritest; professional applications tested by Apple, June 2003.
Veritest Report
 

GL

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,547
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Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
Originally posted by: addragyn
Originally posted by: Leon
Apple once again posts misleading benchmarks:

"Apple" P4 3.06 Ghz Xeon Int / FP

880/693

Spec.org published

Dell Precision WorkStation 650 (3.06 GHz Xeon) 1 1053 1063

GCC v. ICC perhaps

Hmm, is icc really *that* much better?

If the benchmark utilized vectorized code then yes it's highly possible, icc is that much better. GCC doesn't really optimize for SSE2 as well as ICC.
 

Leon

Platinum Member
Nov 14, 1999
2,215
4
81
Umm Apple test shows 1024X768, tom's is 640X480

Well, check the link again and open your eyes. P4 3.0 scores 402 @ 1024 768 32bit. Apple machine does 275fps.



 

Leon

Platinum Member
Nov 14, 1999
2,215
4
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Yes. I meant 402. And that's with a slower VPU.

It changes nothing - Apple results are very misleading, showing 40% delta between their P4 results, and independent benchmarks. Given Apple sleazy marketing in the past, I am not surprised.

p.s. According to the wp, they used GCC, as I expected. Ah, good old Apple :)

Leon
 

XBoxLPU

Diamond Member
Aug 21, 2001
4,249
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Numbers are just numbers IMO and people get wrapped up in benchmarks way too much.

I still would love to own a G5
 

xype

Member
Apr 20, 2002
60
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Well, I'd say wait and see how 10.3 turns out and in the meantime wait for some non-Apple benchmarks. IIRC Carmack pointed out AltiVec does not help that much with Q3A and I doubt people who'd get a G5 (or a dual Xeon, for that matter) would play Q3A on it. Where I think the G5 will kick a$$ is in application that need, say, 8GB or RAM and a 6.4 GB/sec bandwidth. Q3A does not fall under that category.

On another note, are the Power4 SPEC numbers single or dual core? If they are single one can make a pretty nice conclusion on how IBM's compiler (XFsomething?) would do with a 970 (non-AltiVec-optimised).
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
24,167
1,812
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If the benchmark utilized vectorized code then yes it's highly possible, icc is that much better. GCC doesn't really optimize for SSE2 as well as ICC.
It doesn't optimize well for Altivec either does it? (Asking.)
Why can't the 1.6GHz G5 address 8GB of memory? And why is it using dual-channel DDR333?
Cheaper, and Apple has this habit of under-spec-ing the low end model presumably to make people spend more money to get the mid-end. On the downside, it means inferior specs, but on the upside it's makes it reachable for those with a very limited budget.

Generally, if you get a Mac, get the mid-end or up. With current prices, the mid-end is more affordable now fortunately.

I still have the picture in my mind of the woman buying the G4 Power Mac on Saturday. I soooooooooooooooooooooo wanted to tell her to wait until today if she could but I kept my mouth shut. I was at the Apple Store in Atlanta, picking up a new iPod. It ROCKS by the way. :)
 

GL

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,547
0
0
Originally posted by: Leon
Yes. I meant 402. And that's with a slower VPU.

It changes nothing - Apple results are very misleading, showing 40% delta between their P4 results, and independent benchmarks. Given Apple sleazy marketing in the past, I am not surprised.

p.s. According to the wp, they used GCC, as I expected. Ah, good old Apple :)

Leon

The thing about gcc is that it's really not optimized that well for PowerPC. I really don't think it was a marketing decision to use gcc to make the P4 look bad. The new Apple has been advocating standards for a while, and part of that is using standardized tools like GCC. The "official" compiler of OS X is GCC, so for us OS X developers, it makes a lot of sense to use GCC benchmarks.

I'm trying to look past Steve's RDF as I am a fairly recent Apple newbie having purchased an iBook. But I think it's entirely reasonable to say that these benchmarks released by Apple are more true-to-life than any others of recent memory. There was no need for releasing on Photoshop benchmarks using highly concocted and biased routines to make the Mac look better. I'm sure an indepedent review will show that Apple is being a little imprecise trying to gain a few percentage points in a benchmark here and there. But overeall, I think the outcomes are pretty accurate.
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
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On the downside, it means inferior specs, but on the upside it's makes it reachable for those with a very limited budget.

$2000 with no monitor is for those with a very limited budget? Where do you live? For $2000 I can get a Dell with 800MHz P4 2.8 w/ 1GB RAM and a 9800Pro and Audigy 2 and 120GB drive.

If you are on a very limited budget Apple, is no the way to go.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
24,167
1,812
126
Originally posted by: Pariah
On the downside, it means inferior specs, but on the upside it's makes it reachable for those with a very limited budget.

$2000 with no monitor is for those with a very limited budget? Where do you live? For $2000 I can get a Dell with 800MHz P4 2.8 w/ 1GB RAM and a 9800Pro and Audigy 2 and 120GB drive.

If you are on a very limited budget Apple, is no the way to go.
OK then: Limited budget and wants to run OS X is what I mean.

Win XP is a different story, and let's not get into a p!ssing match over OSes.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
24,167
1,812
126

Errr.... Of course it's gonna be that much, considering how you spec'd it:

8 GB RAM
DUAL 23" Cinema Displays (at $2000 each)
500 GB of hard drive space (two drives)
Wireless 802.11g
Wireless base station
Fibre channel PCI card (which is $500 alone)
30 GB iPod
BlueTooth module
.Mac internet acct.
High-end 5.1 speakers.
Extra 3 year warranty
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
24,167
1,812
126
Originally posted by: Eug
Originally posted by: Eug
The dual G5 smoked the P4 and dual Xeon. It is 41% faster on FPU than the dual-Xeon and 3% faster on integer (via SPEC tests).

Can we confirm these are dual Xeons???
Hmmm... I'm seeing dual Xeon in more than one place, but it's 533 MHz Xeons.

So not a direct comparison with 800 MHz and HT, but still, it's DAAAAMMMMNNN fast. :)

And IBM has announced a 3 GHz G5 within 12 months!
Oops. It seems I'm way off base on this one. There is no such thing as an 800 MHz FSB Xeon. Unlike the P4, all are 533 or slower. 800 MHz Xeons won't be out until 2004, and that's only with the 90 nm process.

http://intel.com/products/server/processors/server/xeon/index.htm?iid=ipp_srvr_proc+high1_xeon&

 

MournSanity

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2002
3,126
0
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Originally posted by: Eug

Errr.... Of course it's gonna be that much, considering how you spec'd it:

8 GB RAM
DUAL 23" Cinema Displays (at $2000 each)
500 GB of hard drive space (two drives)
Wireless 802.11g
Wireless base station
Fibre channel PCI card (which is $500 alone)
30 GB iPod
BlueTooth module
.Mac internet acct.
High-end 5.1 speakers.
Extra 3 year warranty



It's still freaking awesome though :p
 

filmmaker

Golden Member
Oct 20, 2002
1,919
2
0
From CNN.com: ""Apple could have a winner on its hands, especially when it introduces a Windows version later this year," Wolf wrote."
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,007
126
Yikes, we won't see them until September 1st and by that time Intel will probably have 3.5 GHz P5s out. Also Apple's PC SPEC and Quake 3 benchmarks are far lower than real scores, plus HT was disabled in the tests.

Also using benchmarks from the likes of Tom a 2.4 GHz P4 beats Apple's own Quake 3 benchmarks from their dual-2 GHz systems. And I can tell you now that a 2.4 GHz P4 system is not even close to costing $3000 like Apple's machines do. So much for Apple's Quake 3 "graphs".
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