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PC Mag Compares G5 to Xeon
zpok writes "PC Magazine did a comparison between a dual 2.0-GHz Power Mac G5 and an equally expensive Dell Precision 650 Workstation running dual 3.06-GHz Xeon processors. Their conclusion: 'we see that indeed the G5 is generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available.' But of course 'our cousin Ned can build you a better'un at half the dough.'"
according to PCMAG, the G5 cost $4349 as tested. Using the apple store, i can get that with the 2x1gb RAM modules, superdrive, no bluetooth/wifi, Radeon 9800, and a modem. now, let's configure a similar Dell Precision 650. the review doesn't mention that the Dell has a Radeon VE 32mb, no 56k modem, a 120gb ATA HD (compared with the G5 and its 160gb SATA), and uses DDR266 (compared to the G5 using DDR400, but that can't be blamed on Dell, but the mobo config). According to PCMAG, they were "comparing the results with a similarly configured (and priced) Dell Precision 650 Workstation". Funny how they give the exact price of the G5 and not of the "similarly priced" Dell.
... they don't explain what it is, but they make it obvious that said delay is not experienced on the Mac). According to the story, "on the Windows system, loading the controls often took a minute or more. If these times are added back to the actual test times, both Macintosh computers would have clearly outperformed the Windows-based computer." They don't make a note of it on the actual benchmarks, just the preface.
as you can see, the Dell is $835 more. now, let's try and be objective, something PCMAG disavowed in their introduction saying they took Apple's claims about the speed of the G5 "with a grain of salt". in other words, the test was designed to debunk Apple, thus throwing objectivity out the window.
IF we were to buy the RAM by a third party, drop the 56k modem on the G5, and leave the default video card (which is still better than the Dell), the system would cost $3188 (RAM is DDR400, 512mb+1gb on pricewatch). The Dell would cost $4057 (again, with RAM from pricewatch). That would make it $869 more.
On top of that, PCMAG admits to not taking into account a certain loading time (for controls
so if anything should be taken with a grain of salt, it's PCMAG.
Many pc morons fail to realize that their single processor P4 they built themselves for under 1k is nowhere near the dual processor G5 in performance. They bring up things like Dell's 350 dollar computer and how much cheaper pc's are, ya they are cheaper but you get what you pay for. for 350 you get every possible corner cut everywhere in that pc and it will most likely require another 500 at least to get it to respectable speeds. When comparing prices/computer, you need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Shoot the xeon processor, the most comparable to the G5 in terms of performance, is like 800 a chip or some ridiculous price, so start configuring guys, hit up pricewatch and try to make your system 200 bucks cheaper than the g5.........then also try to sell your system for 60% of what you paid for it 2 years later..........and finally try to add in 1 year of no questions asked award winning support..............and tell me what you get.......nothing....because you can't get that on pc's. I just sold my 2 year old 867 Mhz quicksilver for 1,000 on ebay, no monitor included. I paid 1600 for the thing........so i basically rented a mac for 300 a year for 2 years. Get with the program folks, and get a mac.
I know you hate all the hype and think they are overhyped, etc. Well believe the hype, and then some
-yet another satisfied mac user
run windows on that Dell too.
My karma is getting better everyday.
What I want to know is how long it takes to copy a 17 MB file from folder to another.
With the fact that they were giving the text to debunk apples claims and to come up with a comparable system. Is actually a good review. Could they have done things to improve Mac performance or make the tests more fair, probably. But there were things that they could probably do to the PC side to improve performance. But the fact that PC World was a hostile reviewer and they said it is a tie. Is a really good review for apple. But benchmarking PCs vs Apples is always tough because they were engineered for different jobs as shown in the results. So if you wanted a glowing PC review you subtract the benchmarks that Apple won. If you wanted a glowing Apple Review then you take out what the PCs shined in.
I don't tend to follow benchmarks I use what seems like it is good for me, A difference in milliseconds doesn't effect me that much because normally I cannot type that fast.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
For most of the stuff that most people do most of the time, today's machines are hugely overpowered, and whether the top-end G5 or the top-end Wintel machine wins the benchmark race hardly matters at all.
Sending e-mail, writing reports, editing web pages, and 98% of what we do as software developers can be done with equal speed on a dual-processor G5, a G4-based iMac, or a G3-based iBook. Same goes for the Wintel world. Speed matters a little more if you're crunching a truly huge spreadsheet or running a filter on a large digital image. And speed really starts to count when you're editting video or running a large simulation. But most people don't run large simulations or edit video most of the time.
Those that do a lot of video editting, etc., generally do it for a living, and the speed improvements are so important that the price differential usually isn't a problem. Time is money and all that.
"We started [Photoshop testing] with a 59.5 MB test image, but many operations completed too quickly to time...."
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Another insight was that one of the oft-criticized older Mac G4s beat the Xeon in one test (two if you factor in the controls issue), nearly tied it in another, and wasn't so far behind in two more. Heh.
Objectivity, wherefor art thou?
Right here.
Both the Power Mac and the Dell are decent computers. Neither one is fast in any absolute sense, but both are faster than they need to be for average users. The Dell has more configuration options, but the Mac is far better designed.
If you are in the market for a desktop computer as fast as these, you won't make your decision based on which one squeaks out the other in some test.
These sorts of "shoot-outs" are a colossal waste of time and effort.
Yes, it's certainly trolling to suggest that waiting a minute for a menu to pop up could hurt productivity. I just love double-clicking "My Computer" on a PC and going off to make a pot of tea while it loads.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
The G5 in these tests was running 10.2.7. Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) will, by all accounts, increase performance even more. For example, from this Bare Feats test:
....CPU score increased 40%
....Thread score increased 44%
....Memory score increased 38%
"PANTHER PUNCH"
Meanwhile, here's some data on the speed increase that OS X "Panther" (10.3) will provide G5 owners once it's released. We ran Xbench 1.1 on a G5 1.8GHz with 10.3 beta build 7B49. Compared to 10.2.7 "Jaguar"....
It was objective alright, but most (intelligent) people objected on other grounds than -erm- objectivity.
They argued PC's should have run an optimized compiler, as the G5 should have. That way you'd have a subjective but real world benchmark. Because that's the thing most people would do with a machine like that, when programming. Only makes sense.
What Apple showed with that benchmark was that the G5 was faster at a bunch of tasks people wouldn't necessarily want to perform under that set of circumstances.
I personally only started drooling after that. When Stevie Wonder showed Photoshop, Mathematica, Logic/Cubase, rendering and FCP stuff. That's what this beast is made for, that's why you'd buy a G5 instead of a Dell. Not only good soft, but screaming hardware... etc etc
And that's why this PC Mag article is for most people more interesting than two high-end machines running an open source all-purpose compiler.
Apart from that it shows the G5 in a decent light to a mostly PC audience. Could have been worse.
Disclaimer: if I were Apple I would have done the same thing. It might not excite me personally, but it did show the G5 advantage in a levelled field, set up by the best and most impartial people they could have hired.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
is by Celebrity Deathmatch. Nothing like a good fist fight. What they're computers? I guess we'll have to settle for a game of chess then.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
Talk about a tragedy! Dude, my P4 takes like four seconds to install spyware, where my Mac, won't even let me install it at all!
And does anyone realize that Macs don't even run Windows natively? What's the deal with that? What am I supposed to do with that software that I bought at the checkout line in Walgreens?
I mean benchmarks are cool and all, but let's focus on the important thing here: will it be able to run crippled software made by monopolistic theives who want to take over the world?
You crazy Slashdot people sure know how to blow things out of proportion.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
The review begrudgingly acknowledges that the G5 is "generally as fast" as the Dell, but the performance table suggests the G5 is much faster than that. The G5 bests the Dell in 4 out of the 6 tests. While the G5 is more than twice as fast on one test, the Dell wins by an unnoticable 2.5% for one of its wins.
Its not surprising that PCMag is a sore loser because they are afraid of losing subscribers to Mac magazines.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.