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Apple Issues New G5 Benchmarks
rocketjam writes "According to an article in The Register, Apple has issued SPEC benchmarks for the new dual G5 2GHz machines, comparing it to a two-way Dell Xeon and a 3Ghz Pentium 4 machine. The article says the G5 lagged behind the Dells in integer performance, however in 'the parallel "rate" benchmarks, which tax both of the CPUs in the test machines, the G5 edged out the Xeon 17.2 to 16.7 in the integer score and 15.7 to 11.1 in the floating point tests, suggesting Apple makes far better use of its two CPUs than the Xeon machine....the results augur well for Apple G5 performance in technical and scientific computing environments and for playing games.'"
"I really dont want to be locked into a whole platform.
You ARE locked into a platform: x86 based computers.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Well, a fast CPU certainly doesn't do any harm, but a lot of games these days are bound by either processing geometry on the GPU or by memory bandwidth for texture lookups.
Few games are multithreaded, so having two processors isn't such an advantage.
Still, I wouldn't turn one down.
I certainly don't propose to tell you what to be excited about -- but the point of the Apple G5's isn't that they're the unbelievablest computers ever (high-performance 64-bit workstations have been around for ages) but that it's a major step forward in the world of retail consumer computers. When Opterons start showing up in that context, running Windows, then they'll be comparable stories.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
They are irrelevant.
.mp3's really doesn't matter. Photoshop benchmarks? People who are going to be using photoshop professionally have most likely already decided whether or not they're going to buy an Apple. Even if the G5 was undeniably faster by a great margain, I doubt that fact would sell more than a few hundred units. However Apple, look at your site. You're still selling Powermac G4's for considerably less than the G5's. So I want to know how it compares to the G4. Because most of your sales aren't going to be from people who want to buy the fastest desktop computer. It's going to be from people who want to buy the fastest Apple.
DISCLAIMER: I am a fan of apple. I'm typing this on an iBook.
Apple's been pissing me off with the advertising of the G5. All these benchmarks are just plain stupid. They compare it to Pentium 4, Xeon, whatever. Guess what Apple, you forgot a processor. The G4. Really, tell me, inform me as to who is currently torn between a 3GHz Dell and a Dual 2GHz Apple, and needs to know which one is faster. To 99.99% of the market, a few seconds difference encoding
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Well, when you have Photoshop, GoLive, Illustrator, BBEdit, iTunes, Mail, iChat, Safari, Mozilla, RBrowser, MacCVS, etc all open the same time... second processor becomes very very handy.
I typically never noticed the benefits of an MP box until I start doing web development or design on a single processor system. There are noticeable delays when switching between tasks... even on a fast machine.
But, hey, Apple has been selling MP boxes for years now. There are a lot of applications and games that take advantage of SMP on OSX.
Buying an MP system from Apple was the best thing I ever did. My Dual 450 g4 still feels like new to me (as long as I'm not playing games)... even with modern software.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
At the most, MacPlay and Aspyr lag 2 years. To be honest, if it's that long they rarely ship with all the problems the PC version did. Obviously I'd like simultaneous release, which Blizzard has always done, but you can't have everything.
The Mac is easier to use. Now it's also as fast (or significantly FASTER) the the PC. It runs all the commercial apps you need. It can emulate proprietary in-house apps with VirtualPC. It can play all the latest games, even if they laga couple months (get a PS2, also!). It's UNIX under the hood and runs X11 for added compatability. All of this, and it's not any more expensive than comparable PC hardware.
It's time to take an objective look at these systems if you're in the market for a new machine. Just take a look. If you don't like it, then don't buy it... but the Mac is a VERY viable platform these days. More so now than ever.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."