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G5 Benchmark Roundup
An anonymous reader writes "In an ironic twist to the recent benchmark wars, Intel referred the Mac site MacFixIt to an analyst at Gartner Group who actually backed the PowerPC G5 platform with this assertion: 'These models certainly equal Intel's advanced 875 platform and should allow Apple to go until 2005 without a major platform refresh.'"
Another anonymous user writes, "While browsing the Xbench benchmark comparison site, I discovered some G5 benchmarks! The 'G5 Lab Machine at WWDC' got an overall score of 164.78, but much higher scores in certain areas. All of the tests are calibrated to give 100 on an 800MHz DP Quicksilver G4."
vitaboy writes "Sound Technology, one of the "leading UK distributors specialising in musical instruments, music software and pro-audio equipment," seems to have some data regarding the real-world performance of the G5 compared to the high-end PC. They state, 'The dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 with Logic Platinum 6.1 can play 115 tracks, compared with a maximum of 35 tracks on the Dell Dimension 8300 and 81 tracks on the Dell Precision 650 each with Cubase SX 1.051 ... More impressively, the 1.6GHz single-processor Power Mac G5 played 50 percent more tracks than the 3GHz Pentium 4-based system.'"
That Charlie White gets off on doing nothing more than trashing the Mac and he often makes tons of things up...
A real good point, and one to points to the fact that Charlie White stats are COMPLETELY cooked up and fake, is that apparently AMD benchmarked against a SINGLE G5 2Ghz Powermac...
Hmm... Where did the Single 2ghz G5 Powermac come from? We know Apple doesn't make them...
If you're gonna lie, at least do it right. Sigh.
(And another thing, AMD has more credibility than Apple regarding self-reported benchmark scores? There is no reason for that other than bias.)
Looking at everything I've seen so far, it looks like the G5 at 2.0 GHz is comparable to a current Xeon or P4 on raw speed. Maybe it lags a little bit in some areas, and in a few areas it can beat the Xeon or P4. But I think we've gotten a little too anal about the processor specs. If I'm not mistaken, Apple didn't claim "World's Fastest Processor." they claimed "World's Fastest Personal Computer."
At 2.0 GHz, the G5 is on par with the current top processors, but what I think people need to look at is that the 1GHz bus is a monster. It allows data transfer rates that smoke other desktop systems. This is where Apple picks up a lot of speed, especially with disk-hungry programs like Photoshop. So the total system is significantly faster than the PC in terms of that kind of real-world performance.
And there are two more things that give the G5 an advantage: price and GHz. If the claim of twelve months to 3.0GHz is true, then at 3.0GHz the G5 will be exponentially faster than a 3.5 or 3.6 GHz P4. I don't know precisely how fast the Intel chips will be in 12 months, but a whole GHz? Unlikely.
Lastly, price is a fantastic advantage for the G5 systems. At $3000 you can buy the fastest Mac and a machine that can run certain apps twice as fast as PC systems. And it's cheaper than these top-of-the-line PCs by more than $1000. The G5 is simply the fastest, cheapest system with the most potential in the future to get even faster. When looked at in total, there really isn't a lot of debate on those points.
They showed four top-shelf apps: Photoshop, Mathematica, Emagic, and one other I'm spacing on. In each case the apps were not demoed by mac but rather by someone from the app company. And the examples they gave were clearly practical ones not special cases noone would actually want to do. In the case of Photoshop it was actually a commerical product (movie poster) that was recreated by replaying the artists commands. In the case of the Emagic it was the compositing of the actual musical composition that the musician had done. In the case of mathematical it was the calcualtion of a fractal curve: theodore grey pointed out they had to dumb down the calculations so they xeon would not run out of memory.
in all cases the Apple ran more than 2X faster than the Xeon.
now you could try to say these were tweaked apps, but that wont wash. these are pro-sumer apps that these comanies sell for a living. you better believe that would optimize the heck out of both the wintel and Apple versions. Certianly, if there was any tewaking tobe done they had lots of time and no shortage of manpower and experts to do it on the intel instruction set. Another test they did not demo live was the 40% higher frame rate in Quake
If all they had shown was some single case like photshop or Quake I might have been less convinced. but here are five different genres of applications, in the most demanding fields of Imagery, music, (real world) numerical math, Gaming and others. Okay so your application--say MS word or web browsing--isn't so demanding. That's not the pointis it: you aren't doing things where the machine is the speed limit.
I think its pretty reasonable to assume that over time compilers for the new G5 will imporve more that those for the i86 instruction set since there's new things to exploit. Likewise relatively few compilers do a good job of taking fulladvantage of the Altivec extensions yet. And with the fat, independent pipes to disk, and memory apps will need to be re-written since many of the old bottlenecks they were designed to avoid aren't there anymore
So argue all you want about SPEC tests, but were taking shaving ten or 20 minutes per hour of real world usages. Its phenomenal. In my opinion the diveristy of tests clearly shows the mac is not only the fasest currently on-sale platform, but that there is not even any wiggle room to doubt that.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
now, how come everyone is just focusing on SPEC benchmarks?! which compiler, what options were set, etc.?!
i saw the keynote, they had photoshop/mathmatica/etc. going on there... photoshop has been out on PC for a while... REALLY enhanced with MMX/SSE/SSE2... and it probably was using the intel compiler... but the G5 version was only a few months old, barely optimized, and using whatever tools apple gave them (probably GCC 3.3)... and the G5s still kicked a lot of ass.
benchmarks are important but it's not my job. if i can get shit done faster in photoshop with BSD guts, i'm all for it.
fuck the benches. welcome to the REAL world...
I think its pretty reasonable to assume that over time compilers for the new G5 will imporve more that those for the i86 instruction set since there's new things to exploit.
Actually from an optomization standpoint x86 is pretty new too. What you need to do for Pentium IV (pre HyperThreading) is very different than what is needed for Pentium III and different from what is needed for PIV w/ HT. Further the complexity is so great that compiler science of today is really not up to the task.
Conversely the G5 is much simplir problem due to better design. OTOH it also much newer. It may be that in practice (especially when people are willing to lose 32 bit and/or G3 compatability) you might get some truly wonderful improvement.
So I'm really not sure where there is more room for improvement over time. I just don't think its nearly as easy to say as you had it in the above. In my opinion its going to come down to a political choice regarding the G3s vs. advances in compiler technology.
I agree. Wait for the REAL benchmarks.
One thing I have to say about Apple's spin on benchmarks... Has Apple Marketing finally figured out how the rest of the companies play the game??? If so, Apple might stand a chance afterall!!!
-Alex
But past a certain framerate I can compile in background and still run Quake at an acceptable speed. Sure, it makes the compile slow down some but if you're going to take a 10 minute break, isn't it nice to be able to get some work done in the background at the same time?
You'll notice, if you weren't a lemming yourself, that there are G5 benchmarks provided by IBM that do extremely well against the Opteron and P4. Oh, and by the way, these same results that are provided by IBM are significantly better than the results Apple is using. Just goes to show you how much SPEC relies on compiler. The important thing is the G5 is competitive and so close it probably doesn't matter too much. Doesn't every company claim to have the fastest CPU out? Come one now, repeat after me... MARKETING.
Apple states they are the first 64-bit desktop. Yeah it's marketing and it relies heavily on the definition of a desktop, but I tend to agree with Apple. Why do I agree that Apple has the first 64-bit desktop? Because any 64-bit machine that was released before the G5 had to be ordered from a manufacturer of workstations or built using parts intended and marketed for workstations. If I had billions of dollars and I buy a an ASCII White to use at home, does that mean ACSII white becomes the fastest desktop ever?
Yeah, a consumer could always buy a 64-bit machine, but it's not marketed toward them and is more difficult to obtain. There was no mass market/consumer availability. Can you go into your local CompUSA or Best Buy and get a 64-bit computer? No. Can you order a 64-bit computer from the Home & Home Office section of Dell? No. You will, however, be able to walk into an Apple Retail store or CompUSA and buy a 64-bit G5 once they start shipping in Aug/Sept. I do believe you will. In fact, you can buy one right now, except you won't get it for a month or two.
So yes, Apple may very well have the first 64-bit desktop... as long as Dell Home doesn't begin selling a 64-bit machine before September.
Anandtech? Seriously, there are very few relatively unbiased sites out there and Anandtech ain't one of them. Ars Technica is probably the most unbiased there is, and that's where I'll be looking. As for Anandtech, if they post a review of the G5, I'll read it, but I've seen too many Apple-bashing comments in previous stories and reviews to consider them an unbiased source.
It's not always the cycles, it's how they're spread around and how you use them.
I still have an original 25MHz NextStation. CPU is a Moto 68040, plus (Intel?) Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chip that does (most of?) the rendering for both the display and the laser printer.
Back in 1999 I compared this box in actual usability with a Mac Powerbook 5300, admittedly the slowest and lamest PPC Mac ever built.
I found that in general usage, opening windows, updating display, doing word processing, etc., the NeXT outran the PB 5300.
Compiling speed sucked big time. Stuff that took a few minutes on the PB5300 ran overnight on the NeXTstation. This demonstrated to me the advantage of having a display coprocessor.
The user interface was also better by far than the Mac that stage. I used several 3rd party enhancements, such as one that provided an infinite-size virtual window, so it's not a completely fair comparison. The NeXT also scame with a bunch of cool apps, like Mathematica, Webster's, Lotus Improv (completely unique approach to spreadsheets, so far unduplicated.)
Most impressive thing about the NextStation was the industrial design. It is still the most elegant design I have ever seen in a desktop computer. For example, the ribbon cables from the mainboard to the floppy and the disk are about 1.5 inches each - just a 90 degree curve, essentially. Those are the only wires inside the box!
I've still got the NeXT, though it's back in the original boxes. I'll probably sell it eventually. I've also got three Perq workstations from 1982-3, but I haven't benchmarked them.
It's worth noting that NextStep's complete object integration across all apps was cited as a major inspiration for Tim Berners-Lee's original proposal for the World Wide Web. In fact, I even have a running copy of that first version of TBL's code, called (surprisingly) "WWW".
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Even with all the disputes for and against the new G5s, it is good to see Apple providing a worthwhile high-end machine.
:-)
The fact that these benchmark arguments are even occuring is 'a good thing' for the Apple community.
For the last few years Apple owners have always had to begrudingly admit that they had no hope of beating Intel/AMD on nearly any performance metric. Thanks to the G5 they now have a glimmer of hope (and pride)!
It is also good to see Apple announcing a 3Ghz edition of the G5 in the near future.
Regardless of the benchmarks, it should really show off Panther (Mac OS X 10.3)
"The PC enthusiast's resourse"
Personally, when dealing with a site so proudly dripping with bias, I assume that Macintosh performance is understated by at least 50%.
Or, even if you overlook THAT (How CAN you? It's at the top of their site!), did you forget their "RISC suxors, CISC r00l3z j00... GO INTEL!!! woot woot!" ranting against Macs a while back? Sorry, but ars technica has NO claim on any "unbiased site" title.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
Here's my idea of a real world benchmark. Take 75 people with varying levels of technical no-how. Divide them into three groups of 25, and assign various real world tasks.
Obviously one group of 25 is using only the latest and greatest that the wintel people has to offer, while another group is using only the latest and greatest that Apple has to offer.
What is the third group doing? Each person in the third group gets to choose which platform they can use.
All three groups would be given real world objectives. Some would be as simple as writing a report. Some would be as technical as application development. Others would be as pointless as a Quake III tournament. All would be measured for how much time it took to complete, and/or other pertinent measurements to see which platform stood out. This is less of a performance test and more of a productivity test.
What is the third group for? It's the preference control group. Do people really prefer one platform over the other AND are they more productive when they can choose? That's what I'd really like to know. Most companies are dead set on one side or the other (usually wintel). If anyone goes off the beaten path, they are the black sheep.
Personally, I like to work on multiple platforms - some at the same exact time. If the current BitTorrent implementation is better on OS X, I'm using it. If the best IRC implementation is in the X Window system, I'm there. If it's quicker for me to pull up the Windows calculator when I'm trying to convert a decimal value to hex, that's what I'll do. But am I really being more productive (and why am I using BitTorrent and IRC to measure this)?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
This might shed some light on the innards and appearance of the new G5, for comparison purposes.
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
The one true reason why I still buy Macs: none of the other machines can run OS X.
Don't get me wrong: I use Wintel and Linux in my studio as well, but nothing comes close to Mac OS X. To me it's the only system that offer something close to luxury on the desktop.
"It usualy starts with some screaming. Afterwards there is much running around."
Check out these articles from macobserver and the website of luxology on their view of G5 performance. The whole spec-crap is totally irrelevant. Only applications matter:
Luxology's response
The mac observer on GP performance
I can certianly build it cheaper.
Well, good for you. You, however, are in a very small minority of PC users. The majority either don't want to be bothered building their own machine, or do not have the expertise to do so.
I hate the standard Dell vs. Apple price comparisons.
The only fair comparison is "purchased, manufacturer-supported, finished product" vs. "purchased, manufacturer-supported, finished product," not "purchased, manufacturer-supported, finished product" vs. "commodity components cobbled together by end user probably using a pirated copy of Windows."
Additionally, my reply was addressing the original poster's claim that a certain Dell box was faster and cheaper.
~Philly
I'm waiting for a 4-WAY XServe. Check out the section of Apple's site for Panther Server. They seem to be going after (caution - over-used bad business jargon coming) enterprise-wide applications and enterprise users (end jargon) pretty seriously. All I have to say is that if so, it is about time.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Oh, and right on BOXX's homepage, it says Workstation. And speed? In fact, the fastest Opteron you can get is 1.8GHz. So, again, this guy is an idiot. And if he wants to spend about $1000 more (yes, that's right, check the dual 2GHz G5 against the dual 1.8GHz BOXX with similar specs) on his system, then he's fallen into the same trap that all us deluded Mac users have evidently fallen prey to: quality costs money. Perhaps it's the fact that a G5 costs $1000 less that makes it "not a workstation"? Hmmm? 'Praps? And anyway, it's an Opteron. If that's what the G5 is competing agains, why is AMD bothering to make the Athlon64, which they freely admit is their desktop 64-bit processor? Let's see what these Opteron systems do against, say, a Power4.
It's also so very nice of him to blindly trust AMD. Surely, they have nothing to gain by claiming that they have the fastest processor, oh no. And AMD naming their chips with blatantly misleading numbers, well, that's not marketing at all, is it? How can this Wintel court jester say that AMD has more or less credibility than Apple?
And here it is, the crowning turd on the dung heap: "But then, there's credibility, which some people believe is everything." Though, evidently, not this delusional puppet, because he has none.
Do not touch -Willie
Anyone doubting the speed of G5 should take a look at this
http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_ results.asp?resulttype=noncluster&version=5
In short, the IBM pSeries 690 with 32-way 1.7 GHz IBM Power 4 is 10% faster than the newly released HP 64-way 1.5 GHz Itanium 2 6M Madison, which means the Power 4 is 220% as fast as Madison and much more than the 3 GHz Xeon.
According to IBM, the Power 5 will be 400% faster than Power 4 and is coming next year. It looks that Apple is in good company.
According to this article:
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaret opics/hardware/server/story/0,10801,82642,00.html
A Dell 1.3 GHz Itanium 2 (Madison) server costs 200% as much as a dual 2 GHz G5 Power Mac.
There were 1900 Itanium 2 servers sold in the last 3 months - an embarrassing figure shared between so many OEMs. According to Intel, there are only 400 native programs for Itanium.
In contrast, there are over 6000 native OS X programs that will run the G5 with no modification, and there should be many 64-bit apps in the next few months. So why should anyone want to pay twice the money for a hot and noisy Dell with less performance, less feature, less style, and much less software than the dual G5 Power Mac?