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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.'"
Would anyone who happens to be lucky enough to own a G5 like to comment on how much heat it puts out in comparison to say, a Xenon? Just looking at the case is seems as if Apple has taken great care to make it as quiet, as well as cool, however it seems that there is a lot of space in that case.
On the PC, very very few games take advantage of SMP. DirectX itself seems to make zero effort, and games seem to be starting the draw from the same thread that runs the rest of the game logic. At best, you benefit a little (almost immeasurably) on I/O handling or some of the audio processing.
Since SMP is more pervasive on Mac than on PC, do Mac games take more advantage of SMP? Does GL on the Mac render retained mode data outside of the calling thread or otherwise significantly distribute game-related work in the OS itself?
In 'Time' magazine they have an ad every week on page 2, and this week it says the numbers are 16.9 against 16.7 for integer calculations and 15.8 against 11.1 for floating point calculations compared to a dual 3.06 GHz Xeon.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
I can see that Apple wants to emphasize that this is one really fast PC, trying to prove it by using 'un-cheatable' numbers as opposed to marketing speech, but I really think they'd look even better if they'd do some comparisions that show what a bandwidth monster those G5s are, which I have been informed is the key to how those Xeons were crushed in the showdown at MW a while ago.
Well... yes... of course. This will obviously happen when the computation is to dependant on results of earlier computations that the parallelism and interconnect speed of Earth Simulator cannot help at all! I expect you can do similar with a P4 (though almost all such examples are probably heavily contrived.)
...I may be wrong.
(Recall that the clock speed of an individual processor in the ES is 500Mhz, and each processor has only 1 scalar unit, the rest being specialised vector units.) Thus you could probably contrive an example where the raw clock speed of a P4 could get the work done more quickly. I can't think of such an example myself, but someone out there probably can.
John_Chalisque
You make a good point (actually several people have said similar things). I guess the most important thing to me will be which chipset (G5/Opteron/Other) will have the best support among motherboard and other hardware manufacturers. Traditionally the x86 family has been the hands-down leader in this regard, and if the trend continues I dont see myself migrating to another architecture anytime soon.
When the performance only varies by a few percent, the cost and availability will totally make the decision for me.
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
Mainstreat Intel based OS will see the same problems I guess, 32 and 64 bit versions, linux, windows versions...
But I bet you if id software releases doom3 for a dual g2 64 bits mac... it'll be fabulous performance compared to intel architectures.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Dual-processor macs have been shipping in one form or another for at least 3 years, and a number of game ports do explicitly take advantage of them. Also, the OS is smart enough to move things like sound and asynchronous OpenGL operations to the second processor for an automatic speedup.
If you're only interested in the G5, I'm not sure I understand where the situation differs from buying a wintelCPU product. Both sets of hardware can run Linux and BSD quite nicely.
It seems odd to me that wintel hardware makers like HP seem more desirable because they don't make an OS to support their products. They even use software driven hardware (e.g. winmodems) that will be non-functional if you ditch the OS they bundled.
Admittedly Macs aren't everyone's cup of tea, but finding fault with Apple because they actively develop their own operating systems (one of which is open source) is a bit like finding fault with your parents for actually raising you instead of putting you up for adoption when you were born.
I should think before answering... third time.
What does this mean?
AFAH/WG, the PowerPC is even more open than x86-64 or IPF, having two chip vendors (IBM and Moto) while the latter have one each (AMD and Intel) only.
AFAS/WG, the same holds true: the PowerPC runs GNU/Linux and BSD just fine, besides Apple's semi-proprietary Mac OS X instead of MS's completely proprietary Windows; the Hurd is being ported, there is Amiga-derived MorphOS and the AmigaOS itself.
Some PCI stuff is more expensive due to the presence of x86 assembly code in firmware of dirty cheap adaptors, but this should be fixed by AMD and Intel adopting OpenFirmware's Forth dialect. So all in all, it is a more open platform.
And BTW, if someday we get to use processors made from GNU GPL'd designs, RISC in general is a better candidate than x86-64 or IPF, being much simpler and more efficient. See that China is trying to go MIPS... MIPS in the East and PowerPC in the West would make for a much more open environment than, say, IPF in the US, x86-64 in Europe, MIPS in China and PowerPC in the high-end...
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
That's if you buy your computer based on games.
Personally, I don't even like 98% of the games released for the PC. They're mostly shitty first person shooters anyway. Instead, I got a gamecube. This provides just about as much games support as i could concievably want.
It all depends on what you want to do with your computer. There was a point where I might have considered switching from OS X to Linux, but the fact is I liked the OS X Cocoa programming environment to the point that it was enough to keep me on the mac despite the fact i hated Aqua. If you like PC games enough you're willing to let that rule everythign else about how you use your power, okay, go for it.
-- super ugly ultraman
The only benchmarks that should matter are: does it run Photoshop/Premiere/Final Cut Pro faster? I could care less that my computer is a 11.5 compared to 10.32 on another machine. That means nothing to the end user.
The performance gap would be very big, it might dissuade people from buying a mac laptop at this time, they'd wait until there was a G5 laptop... Could be a while before they figure out how to cool one down to fit into a laptop.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Ummm... not that the availability of games for macs hasn't been traditionally terrible. And they have been getting better with the move to OSX, but I still have a problem with this augur conclusion.
How is running a dual proc machine going to help software that isn't traditionally multi-threaded? The OS might have a fun time swapping which proc gets the game for the next 10 million cycles, but auguring well for performance.... what a farce.
Fnord.sig
Are you talking about gaming titles? That is probably still the case, yes. But for any other type of software, this is just a FUD argument. In terms of being an everyday computer for the masses, it works excellently. In terms of being an everyday computer for a Java developer (my case), it beats the pants off of any other platform I've worked with.
:)
No, I can't play the newest PC game title, but I get plenty of gaming in on the PS2. And as a bonus, I get the warm-n-fuzzy moral feeling of not giving WinTel any of my hard-earned $$$
--Mid
Sun machines are expensive because of reliability and other things that are needed/wanted in the enterprise space. Sun machines are NOT sold for their speed. I am betting if you put this up against a dual processor Sun workstation that the G5 would blow it away in the speed category.
Sun machines are great, all of my servers are running on Sun's but they are definitely not the fastest kid on the block but they sure are reliable.
seSales, Point of Sale software for OS X.
Agur is the basque word for bye...
;)
I think you meant to write "Say agur to Apple if you want to play games"
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
How is running a dual proc machine going to help software that isn't traditionally multi-threaded?
By allowing more than one program at a time to run well.
For example, I might have iMovie capturing DV to an external FW drive while I also doing something like play one of the games that are available for the Mac. I've actually tried and been unable to get iMovie drop out on a dual 1 GHz Mac. No matter what I throw at it, including Finder copies to/from the same external FW drive iMovie is captuing to or firing up Win XP in VPC, iMovie keeps capturing that video without dropping a frame.
Try that with a single processor machine!
and usually it will wait for the other threads to finish before continuing.
.plan files from the time when he was developing Q3 to see how SMP came out in the first tries with the Q2 code base (hint: he actually slowed the game down by using both processors).
Very few games take advantage of multiple CPUs. It takes a lot of work to get a modest advantage from a dual-CPU system when developing a game. Take a look at Carmack's
-PainKilleR-[CE]
I agree that dual CPUs provide little benefit to games, perhaps if Apple standardised on two processors developers might take advantage of them?
It's not that developers don't want to take advantage of them, it's that it takes a very large amount of work to get a very moderate boost (or any boost at all, initial work on using dual CPUs for Quake 2/3 slowed the game down) from most games. Oh, and then there's the fact that most games get most of their measured performance from the video card's capabilities, rather than the CPU.
The Q3 benchmarks Apple posted for the 3GHz P4 don't match up with benchmarks posted elsewhere. In fact, the first Q3 benchmark I found of a P4 using a Radeon 9800 Pro was at 333 fps, 4 less than the G5 benchmark (as opposed to the 275 posted by Apple for the P4).
Now, some types of games may benefit more from enhancements to use dual-CPUs, but most graphics-intensive games are waiting on the frame rendering, and in order to get any real benefit from a dual-CPU setup when you're waiting on the video card is to do as much as possible to limit the cost of moving threads and data between CPUs.
The real benefit is when you're running multiple applications, so you can dedicate one processor to the game and one processor to the rest of your applications, and hopefully minimize the performance hit from multi-tasking.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Specifically, can I avoid booting the G5 on Mac OS and install RedHat Linux on the hard drive? Are there ROM chips (within the G5) that lock you into the Mac OS?
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
The render farm aspect of Shake 3 and FCP was very intersting to us - we use a Dual 450 G4 as the primary editing machine (backed up with a 667Mhz Powerbook).
Handing off renders to multiple machines would be a big benefit to us, even if it's only to make the Powermac and Powerbook work together - three processors has to be better than two in this sort of task.
If it really works well, for a small outlay it would be pretty easy to put together a little farm of old G4 boxes - dual 450s and 500s to use them purely for the times you hit "render all" in FCP and have 22 layers of video and photoshop files to put together.
I am continually amazed at the performance we get out of our 'humble' Dual 450 machine in Final Cut Pro. It's a tribute to Apple's hardware and software shops that it's so good. Makes me wonder just how mind blowing FCP is on a G5 box!
If you look at the numbers Apple is claiming vs. the latest numbers posted at the SPEC site, then it would appear that the G5 is getting creamed by the Pentium 4 / Xeon.
First, single CPU performance. Apple claims 840 for SPECfp_base2000, and 800 for SPECint_base2000. A Dell Precision 360 with 3.2GHz P4 and DDR400 memory gives 1267 and 1242, respectively.
Next, dual-CPU. Apple claims 15.7 for SPECfp_rate_base2000 and 17.2 for SPECint_rate_base2000. A Dell Precision Workstation 650 with dual 3.06 GHz Xeons gives 18.0 and 25.6, respectively.
Of course, there are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks, but in this case I think it's fair to compare actual SPEC numbers with vendor claims.
And don't get me wrong, I think Apples are wonderful systems. I recommend them to many of my friends. But for raw CPU power, they lag the Intel powerhouse.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
>>The Mac is easier to use.
:-)
.Mac were still free it would really be no contest.
>
>Arguable. Mostly depends on what you're used to. I've
>been around plenty of noobs with their shiny new boxes.
>I've seen people take to Windows with no problem, and
>I've seen people trip up over Mac OS X.
But - easier to use for advanced users? I'd have to give that to a Mac. I could care less what is easier to learn... Or, if not easier to use, how about less frustrating.
>Could go either way. The other question is what do your
>friends, who will (hopefully) guide you through your
>dark days, use?
Counterpoint - 10 people come up to me and say "my computer keeps rebooting...". I just shrung and say "Sorry mac, I have an Apple". Sometimes it's good to be alone.
>>Now it's also as fast (or significantly FASTER) the the PC.
>For the sake of argument, let's just say that both are
>equally well suited for common consumer tasks: web
>browsing, digital cameras, email, burning CDs, average
>3D games. Stay away from fancy stuff for a second--no
>firewire 800, no DVD burning, etc. Still with me? OK,
>good.
Lost me at the first one. Web browsing? Safari at least lets you block popups. I don't know how many people I've directed to the google toolbar - after I've pointed them to AdAware because they have a large number of very suspicious popups (hey look, the company intranet just added popunders! don't think so...). Oddly, I have yet to need AdAware or the like on my Powerbook.
Email? I get bayesian filtering out of the box. If
Burning CD's? PC's (even modern ones) still seem a bit more fragile in that regard.
Digital camera support might be about equal... but what about digital video? I hate hate hate trying to edit video on a PC. I will never do it again, and I will do everything in my power to save others from doing so as well.
Only a PC user considers burning a DVD "fancy". I consider it nessicary for backups and great for pictures too (for large slideshows). That kind of thing should be basic sttuff for all computers by now, all the parts are there.
You do have a point at games.
>>It runs all the commercial apps you need.
>
>Unless you want games, or cheap clip art, or scores of >other things. Most people do *not* buy MS Office for their
>home computers--the use MS Works or AppleWorks or
>whatever comes with them. Most also steer towards
>cheap photo editors (more than jusr rotate & enhance
> that iPhoto offers) like PSP or the cheap Adobe products, >rather than Quark-Photoshop-Illustrator stuff.
So what's wrong with Appleworks for what most people really do? Why can't I use any of the thousands of cheap clip-art or font CD's? I can... If they need office to read work files, they will just buy (or pirate) Office X. End of story. Windows makes it a little easier to pirate Office if it was not bundled. I can access my corperate intranet just fine from the mac with Citrix and RDC clients for OS X.
And as for Photoshop, you have Elements on both platforms. And the Mac also has GraphicConverter, a really good program for very little money. It even works with 16-bit Tiff's which Elements does not accept... I'm not sure what you were getting at there. Again, games are really the only thing where you have a significantly better library of software.
>It can play all the latest games, even if they laga couple months (get a PS2, also!).
>So after you've bought your expensive (see below) Mac,
> you recommend a $150 console too?
How many PC owners have an XBox? What's up with that? You need as console anyway if you are really into games. Personally I bought a PS2 some time before my Mac because I was tired of the PC merry-go-round of upgrades and driver failures.
>>It's UNIX u
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley