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Ars Technica Reviews Intel iMacs

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the here-we-go-again dept.

Milton Waddams writes "Ars kick off what I'm sure will be a torrent of reviews of the of the new Intel iMac. Overall it looks like it's a bit faster than the iMac G5 and a bit slower than the PowerMac G5 dual core. I'm sure it will surprise many slashdotters to find out that Jobs' statements about the new iMac being twice as fast as the iMac G5 as being slightly over optimistic. AND it doesn't run Windows...yet..." I'm still waiting for the most important benchmark: frames per second in molten core combat.

36 of 662 comments (clear)

  1. Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful


    To be fair, Steve's statements were absolutely 100% accurate (assuming the figures are accurate, which I expect them to be). For that benchmark, the intel machine is 2x-3x faster. If anyone really expected them to provide not-the-best-benchmark-results, can I have some of what you're smoking ? And I have several bridges to sell you too...

    My point is that the story write-up makes it sound like SJ is lying, and he's not. He's just presenting the best set of benchmarks he can, which is pretty much what I expect from the CEO of the company...

    As for the multimedia-style benchmarks presented in the review, I think you can expect those to improve as Apple gets its collective head around SSE3. I would have thought the G5/G4 implementations would have been altivec'd to hell and back, and SSE doesn't have the immensely useful 'permute' operation, so the transform operation will have to be rewritten to SSE's strengths - I doubt that has happened yet...

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
    1. Re:Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by conteXXt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      not to mention the intel GMA900 graphics processor isn't exactly the speediest thing around.

      1000fps in glxgears? I can beat that by a good 50% with a 4 year old NV GE440 go in my compaq laptop

      watch what happens when there are nvidia drivers and ATI drivers available.

      P.S. ATI 800 series cards do work (fully accelerated) on the development platform.

      I'd post a link but the lawyers are loose.

      --
      The truth about Led Zep should never be told on /. (Karma suicide ensues)
    2. Re:Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You've really just shown your bias haven't you? Absolutely 100% accurate, oh, unless they're not accurate.

      I think you've missed his point. This is a common industry practice used for just about every piece of hardware and software on the market. To single Steve Jobs out for this practice rather than accepting it as the "norm" shows a distinct anti-Mac bias.

      Steve Jobs may not have been lying, but he was most certainly being deliberately deceitful.

      It's hard to be deceitful when it comes to something as nebulous as benchmarks. Every benchmark you run will tell a different story. The result is that you can pull a variety of different conclusions from the benchmarks depending on how you spin it. Given that Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, we can expect that he will spin the benchmarks positively. On the flip-side, we can expect that the Mac haters will spin the benchmarks negatively. The ones to really listen to are the moderates who tell us whether we're generally being delivered what we're promised or not.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    3. Re:Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Steve Jobs wasn't "singled out" for this, he just happened to be the subject when the issue was raised.

      The fact is that lies and deception are (a) common and (b) shouldn't be. It is completely legitimate to (a) criticise liars and decievers, even if you haven't done so and (b) (as the submitter did) highlight lies and deceptions to reduce their impact. If Joe Blow tells me that Blow Inc's Widgets are "99% plutonium free", by which he means that 1% of each widget is plutonium, rather than that they contain 100 times less plutonium than his competitors as would be the most likely initial reading, I'll tell people. I'll not sit there and say "Hey, there are probably a lot of people who think that his widgets contain less plutonium than everyone else's" simply because of some misplaced "moral code" that says I shouldn't be seen to be apparently critical of someone for doing something that a lot of other people do.

      The Intel iMac isn't significantly faster than the iMac G5, despite Job's attempts to imply otherwise. Indeed, if the iMac G5 had undergone the same revisions that the PowerMac line had a few months ago, the chances are they'd be faster than the Pentium equivalents. I've written in my journal that I really don't understand why people reacted with such enthusiasm to the Stevenote this year: read between the lines Jobs spoke and you find that Apple actually was struggling to come up with convincing evidence that justifies the Intel switch. Nonetheless, Jobs used wording that implied massive (2-4X!) improvements in performance, which, surprise surprise, are clearly massive exaggerations and, in the context of comparing this year's Pentiums to last year's G5s, are actually covers for practical failure on their side.

      If you're going to use wording that implies massive (and 2-4X really is massive) improvements in performance, don't expect your honesty and virtue to be unquestioned when we subsequently find that no such improvements have actually occurred. If Michael Dell does the same thing, we'll criticise him too. If Intel's CEO does, we'll do the same thing. Today it's Steve Jobs.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      AMD set about dispelling the "myth of the megahertz", but they did it in a reasonable fashion. Let's face it - clock rate isn't everything (the Pentium 4 proves that without a doubt), and the public needs to stop thinking that the clockrate of the CPU is important. Yes, the AMDs are clocked lower. Despite that, they routinely kill P4s clocked at over 1.5x their clock rate in nearly all applications. Cases where Intel wins are the rare exception and not the norm. Hell, even Intel has had to move away from publishing actual clock rate in preparation for the Netburst architecture's imminent demise.

      Average performance on a wide variety of applications is an excellent performance indicator. Raw clock rate and peak performance on a single app (the former being a favorite of Intel and the latter being classic Apple) are both crappy methods of measuring performance.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    5. Re:Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by pi42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This isn't entirely accurate -- most people can tell the difference between 25fps and 60fps in a computer game, while they can't on a film or video. I believe 3dfx released an infamous demo back in the day with a spinning cube at 30fps and 60fps and you could always tell the difference.

      What's the difference? Video and film have motion blur, which makes for smooth transitions between frames whereas games display things in discrete frames with no blur whatsoever.

      Ever tried waving your hand underneath a strobe light going at 30 cycles/sec? That's 30fps yet the motion still looks strange, since it's like you're seeing discrete frames and not continous motion burred between frames.

    6. Re:Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by djohnsto · · Score: 5, Informative

      While the dev systems uses intel GMA900 integrated graphics, both the MacBook and new iMac use ATI Radeon X1600 chips.

      The iBook and mini may use integrated graphics, but they will probably use newer chipsets with graphics faster than the GMA900.

      --
      Dan
    7. Re:Benchmarks, accuracy, and choice by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

      Consistently, since even the early 486 and Pentium days, AMD (and in fact also Cyrix) CPUs routinely beat Intel CPUs running at somewhat higher clock rates.

      Too far back in history, chief. In the 486 days, the AMD and Cyrixes were nothing more than a "cheap" upgrade for a 386. They simply didn't compete. Consumers were thus able to somewhat trust the MHz rating of Intel chips as a general performance indicator.

      When the Pentium era arrived, AMD was still not a competitor, but they did manage to produce chips that were "good enough" to be considered cheap alternatives to the Intel processors. As a result, the PC industry did start producing AMD-based machines for their "low cost" product lines.

      When the Athlon and PIII came to market, however, is when things got interesting. For the first time, AMD managed to put out an extremely capable chip in comparison to Intel's offerings. But far more interesting was that AMD started ramping their chips to exceptionally high MHz levels to pass up Intel's chips. This practice gave the AMD chips a reputation for high performance, but extreme heat levels and lower reliability. This left Intel with the server market as their chips proved more reliable over the long haul, and performed just as well in most non-gaming situations.

      Long story short, Intel and AMD traded various blows in performance, each one gaining a slight lead for a short time only to be quickly shown up by their competitor. AMD, however, managed to keep the MHz trophy the entire time.

      Intel got the bright idea to beat AMD at its own game and thus produced the Pentium IV chip. Now the PIV isn't a very good chip, but it can be ramped up in MHz in ways that AMD's Athlons couldn't. AMD struggled for awhile, but quickly realized that they could no longer win the MHz trophy. So they came up with a Jedi Marketing Trick to make consumers think that AMD's chips were running at the same clock levels. That trick was to assign an arbitrarily created "speed rating" that placed the direct competitors to Intel's chips right next to the Intel MHz rating. That way reviewers would pick up the slower AMD chip and compare it with the Intel chip, rather than look at the real MHz.

      AMD got a lot of bad press for the decision, but it did eventually pay off. Consumers accepted the PR rating as the "real speed" of the chip, and Intel again started losing market share. AMD finally ripped the market away from Intel with their AMD64 platform, which proved to be much more popular with consumers than Intel's own Itanium line.

      So to summarize, AMD started competing with Intel. Knowing that Intel customers used MHz to judge performance, they ramped up their chips to extreme levels. Intel responded with their PIV Northwood core and took the MHz trophy back. AMD got smart and skewed the market by printing a number on the box that wasn't actually a MHz rating, while convincing many consumers that it was.

      Clear as mud?

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Notable, regarding Windows by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/imac-cored uo.ars/7

    I tried to boot from a Windows XP installer CD. No dice. I then tried booting from a Vista installer DVD (Build 5270). Again, no dice. When holding down the Option key, the only icon that appeared was for the iMac's internal hard drive. Holding down the D key to try to force booting off of the optical drive failed as well. With the Vista DVD, the optical drive churned a bit and the iMac hesitated as though it were contemplating whether it wanted to boot the foreign OS. Soon afterwards, the familiar gray Apple logo appeared on screen and Mac OS X finished booting.

    The new Intel Macs don't have an EFI shell, so there's no way to directly get at the EFI. Someone is ultimately going to have to write and/or use an existing EFI shell to tell the EFI to boot from alternate media to get things going. Naturally, running Windows under virtualization, with technologies like Intel's VT/Vanderpool, which the Core Duo in the new Macs does support, are going to be the way to go for most users anyway.

  4. Watch boot video here. by gasmonso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    YouTube.com has a video of both systems booting. So if you're in to computer drag racing here ya go: http://www.youtube.com/?v=zmaAZwkhYeQ

    http://religiousfreaks.com/
    1. Re:Watch boot video here. by shippo · · Score: 5, Informative

      There's obviously something seriously wrong with that G5 if it is taking that amount of time to boot. My G5 boots in roughly the same amount of time as that Intel iMac.

  5. Re:Why? by TooMuchEspressoGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But what about if someone wants to run games (and perhaps other software that runs only on Windows) *and* still get the superior OS/apps found in Macs? Why should they be forced to buy two computers just so that they can preserve their "entire Mac experience"?

    --
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  6. Shut up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Haven't you heard? It's cool to hate Apple now. It makes you '1337.

    Anybody who says anything remotely positive about Apple, or especially about Steve Jobs, is a "fanboy." You don't want to be called a fanbody, do you? Then get with the program. Talk about how cheaply you can get a Gateway that's just as good as the new iMac or something, and insist that Woz is the only person who ever had anything to do with Apple worthy of any respect at all.

    Oh... and maybe Tog, if you are a UI nerd.

    1. Re:Shut up! by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Haven't you heard? It's cool to hate Apple now. It makes you '1337."

      [Warning: This is an OT rant, no hard feelings if modded down.]

      Wish I had known that before I made a not-so-nice comment about Apple which resulted in several mods going well out of their way to mod me down until I couldn't post on Slashdot for a couple of weeks. (From a certain IP, anyway. At least now you understand the origins of my sig.)

      If it has suddenly become a little too cool to hate Apple now, I blame extremist mods for it. Over the years I've made silly little quips about Apple that nobody on Earth should have taken too seriously and have been mod-bombed over it. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if, out of anger, they were finally M2'd out and the replacements came in to even up the balance by shifting over to the extreme opposite view. (i.e. over-modding anti-Apple sentiment.) Too much zealotry will always lead to people with too much opposition to your view.

      This has already happened with regards to Microsoft. Go back a few years and ANY comment ridiculing or insulting MS would be modded up, but polite criticisms of Linux would be modded down. Even uninformed posts (i.e. there still seems to be some impression that Win2K was built on the same kernel that Windows 98 was) would get modded up. 2K is nearly 6 years old now, XP is 4, and the BSOD is virtually gone. Yet, the blue screen jokes STILL fly with full karma around here. The result? People stand up and say "uh, you guys need to get with the 21st century." People whinge about MS fanboys flooding Slashdot. Sorry, can't see that from my point of view. Fire is being fought with fire. My advice? Don't give Apple praise for being wrong or Microsoft scorn for being right.

      No, I'm not pro-MS or anti-Apple, I'm just tired of these karma-fueled battles happening every year. I appreciate Taco's desire to keep Slashdot 'democratic', but it's irritating that ordinary Homer Simpson'ish people are allowed to be cops.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    2. Re:Shut up! by nathanh · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Wish I had known that before I made a not-so-nice comment about Apple which resulted in several mods going well out of their way to mod me down until I couldn't post on Slashdot for a couple of weeks.

      You hit the nail on the head, Nanogator.

      I have also noticed extremist Apple fanboy moderation around here lately. My Mac credentials extend back to the late 80s on System 6 and I've owned a half dozen Macs over the years. I'm even typing this from a Powerbook (running Linux admittedly). I'm a strong supporter of Apple and I love to read books about their history. Yet even the most mild criticism of Apple or MacOS on /. will result in my comments being moderated down as Flamebait, Troll and Overrated. I never get similar mistreatment for negative comments about Linux or Windows. It seems Apple fanboys have no qualms abusing the moderation system to ensure that only positive Apple comments are seen.

      Unfortunately this isn't new behaviour for Apple fanboys. As far back as I can remember - including the glory days of Usenet - the Apple fanboys have been the most intolerant, the least receptive to criticism, the most judgemental and often the least educated of all the enthusiast groups. The negative moderation of any criticism of the latest Macs is yet another example of this behaviour. Anybody who thinks Linux fanatics can be over the top has never seen an Apple fanboy in full swing. Even the Amiga users were never so extreme. That sort of stupid fanatacism is what led to one of my earlier sigs: "I love Apple hardware but goddamn I hate Apple users".

      The example at the start of this thread epitomizes everything I hate about Apple fanboyism. Steve said something that deservedly should be called out for being deceitful bullshit. If any other CEO - Gates, McNealy, Ellison - had said something similar we'd have people throwing figures around and using datasheets to prove that the CEO was a lying bastard. Even when a relative nobody from GNOME or Xorg attempts to massage the figures there will be 100s of /. comments crying "Bullshit". Yet when Steve does the same thing the Apple fanboys are rallying behind him, providing him with excuses, apologising for his behaviour, rationalising the lies, and moderating or shouting down anybody who points out that the emperor has no clothes. Apple gets "special treatment" and I find that despicable.

  7. Best Features of the iMac by Luke+PiWalker · · Score: 4, Funny

    1) Doubles as reading lamp
    2) Automatically emails fan letter to Steve Jobs during start up
    3) If you cup your palms over the domed base, your hair will rise in air
    4) Sprouts set of cybernetic insectoid legs and scutters away when threatened
    5) Perfectly matches the iBlouse
    6) Screen is flat, which is good for some reason
    7) Special drool tray catches saliva from enthralled technogeeks
    8) Communications directly with human pineal gland by firing information-rich beam of pink light
    9) Wuvs you

    Stolen from The Onion of about 4 years ago but still true today.

    --
    Fed up with slashdot? I am too.
  8. Waiting for the second generation by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Look at the history of Apple's processor switches. The first generation PPC machines (6100/7100/8100) were nice, but the second generation PPC machines (7500/8500/9500) were much better. The 2nd gen PPC machines had PCI instead of NuBus, a faster interleaved memory architecture, and a much improved dual-SCSI bus. With the first Macintel, it's obvious that Apple worked very quickly to put Intel Inside and I'm sure that some parts of the design represent a borrowing from PPC designs. I bet that second generation Intel machines are both faster, less likely to have flaws, and more likely to enjoy longer-term OS upgrades.

    I know its ungeek of me not to want to be on the bleeding edge, but I'm waiting for the second generation machines.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
    1. Re:Waiting for the second generation by Moby+Cock · · Score: 4, Funny

      Of course the second generation of Intel Macs are going to bet better than this generation. The third generation will be better than the second. Maybe you should wait for them instead...

    2. Re:Waiting for the second generation by geoff2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think the 68k-PowerPC transition is not quite apt. You are correct that the first generation of PPC boxes were not nearly as nice as the second generation boxes, which had much more extensive changes than just the processor. But I think there was a lot more room for improvement in the last 68K boxes versus the PC state of the art at the time than there is in the last PPC boxes versus the PC state of the art. The NuBus expansion card bus versus the PCI bus is just one example. Both the last PPC boxes and the first Intel boxes have the latest and greatest interfaces such as USB2 and PCI Express.

      In addition, the first Intel box is not a motherboard that Apple slapped together on its own, like it did for the first PPC boxes. It is a state-of-the-art Intel motherboard with all the latest doodads. Sure, Apple could stick in a fastre graphics card or hard drive, but the motherboard support chips are all modern. I think the next rev of the MacBook Pro will include Firewire 800, which I assume Apple couldn't integrate into the MacBook Pro motherboard in time to meet their ship date, but that's more of an incremental change than was included in the second-generation PPC boxes. (And don't forget the problems with the then-new PCI-bus Macs. Networking was so broken -- remember the Open Transport fiasco? The brand-new networking architecture that wasn't ready at the time the 7200/7500/8500 were released and which those new machines relied on, MacTCP having been deliberately obsoleted? It took several months after the boxes were shipped for *any* PPP dialing software to work at all with the Mac, and it took more than a year after that until most of the more significant networking bugs to be quashed.)

  9. Re:The G5 is still quite the chip by chipset · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The fat binaries (or Universal) has been around for a very long time. NeXT first introduced them in this exact same format. Knowing that Mac OS X is the current incarnation of NextStep (the OS for NeXT machines), I assumed the Intel move would be relatively easy, if the had been maintaining the code.

    Now, in retrospect, it looks like they have for Mac OS X, but maybe not for all the other applications (iLife, FCP, etc).

    Now, given that the OS has a long history of multi-platform support, it is only a piece of the puzzle.

    Application level changes are a bit harder, especially in relying upon functions specific to a chip. Which, for some applications, is the case. Others should be able to do a direct recompile, if the application is still around in source form, the author is interested, etc.

    Back when I had acess to NeXT Cubes, I didn't have to worry about it. However, when I later bought NeXTStep 486, I had to. There were lots of applications for the 680x0 systems, I sometimes had to search for those 486 applications. I assume we are headed back into that world.

    So, can it happen? Yes. However, I suspect that Apple will move on with the Intel architecture. I assume the PowerMac G5 will be a well respected machine in the meantime, as it does great for video editing, something Widnows machines still work hard to do poorly.

    I suspect it might be like the Amiga. While the Amiga didn't get a lot of respect, those in the video editing world used it much longer than people antipicated.

    But, in the end, the new macs will be Intel. As a side note, I just sold my G5 DP to someone looking to do video editing with FCP. Even with them knowing the Intel systems were coming out, they still wanted it.

  10. Cell isn't a desktop processor by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It has insane floating point throughput capability which will help on some apps, but for most desktop apps the Cell is extremely slow. It was designed for a very specific set of tasks.

    Existing PPC binaries won't run fast on the Cell. In fact, they most likely won't run at all.

    There is no way we'll see a general purpose desktop system based on the Cell - it's just not designed for that kind of purpose. We might see some sort of Cell coprocessor board become available though.

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  11. Re:Why? by tgd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thats a bad analogy. Its more like buying a race car and deciding you really want to have turn signals, seat belts, emergency brake and other stuff you need to drive your vehicle once in a while on the same roads everyone else is on.

  12. Steve doesn't lie by palad1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    He just momentarily bends reality to his will.

    He's Q, with a turtleneck and a pair of jeans.

  13. Re:No AMD macs? by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, the new Yonah processor is significantly faster than the Turion. Check out these benchmarks:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/16/will_core_d uo_notebooks_trade_battery_life_for_quicker_respon se/

    --
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  14. the specs will not change drastically by asv108 · · Score: 4, Informative

    That was my thought initially too, wait for the second generation. Its probably still good advice, but I think they fact they are using a widely implemented Intel product will increase the reliability of these first generation Intel macs. My first generation pentium-m is still a good performer today. Apple will be using the standard processors, boards, and components of the Centrino duo, which will have a long a lifespan. There is not going to be some earth shattering change in the Macbook components a year from now. Apple will be using the same Intel specs that every other major pc laptop manufacturer will be using, so we can probably through all the first-gen history out the window.

  15. Yes, 32-bit... by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    The 64-bit version are out later this year.

    Not that many people actually need 64-bit capabilitity, mostly for programs that need very large memory access. iMac users certainly will not, Macbook Pro users is more questionable - my guess is they will upgrade that line with the 64-bit chip at the same time they release the Intel Powermac equivilent.

    Hmm, that leads me to wonder what the new name for the Powermac will be... MacMac?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  16. Spanning by ronanbear · · Score: 5, Informative

    The intel iMac supports spanning! I'm surprised Steve didn't make a big deal about this. There goes one more major reason for people to buy a powermac. Kudos for Ars for mentioning that on the first page.

    --
    the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
  17. No way, that's a myth. by cbreaker · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's entirely untrue. You can easily spot the difference in smoothness between video captured in 24FPS and video captured in 60iFPS.

    Try playing a video game at 25FPS, and then at 60FPS. Can't tell the difference? If you can't, you've got to be full of it.

    Maybe your brain can't absorb all the information on each frame past a certian point, but *anyone* sure as hell can see the difference when it comes to smoothness and fluidness of movement.

    And a note about GLXGears - the higher the number, the better chances of getting more complex objects on the screen at a decent frame rate. If you haven't noticed, games are a little more detailed then GLXGears. So while you can spin a few objects at 2000FPS, you might only see 20FPS in the latest game title. But if you get 10,000FPS in GLXGears, you'll probably see much higher performance in the game. It's a BENCHMARK. Seriously.

    And what does this mean: "a lot of resources are wasted computing and rendering"? Explain to me what else you want the computer doing when you're running a graphics benchmark? I want mine running the damned benchmark, what else? It's not like everyone's machines are attempting to cure cancer and we should let that happen at all costs. I buy fast computers because I want to use all of the speed, not have an abundance unused in the background.

    --
    - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
    1. Re:No way, that's a myth. by LetterRip · · Score: 4, Informative

      [QUOTE]That's entirely untrue. You can easily spot the difference in smoothness between video captured in 24FPS and video captured in 60iFPS.

      Try playing a video game at 25FPS, and then at 60FPS. Can't tell the difference? If you can't, you've got to be full of it.[/QUOTE]

      You have confused video and video game - videos will tend to have good (or real) motion blur and hence can be percieved as smooth even at lower frame rates. Games tend to have poor if any motion blur, and thus need a much higher frame rate to appear smooth.

      LetterRip

  18. Memory Anyone? by puppetluva · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These benchmarks don't seem entirely objective.

    The older imac was sporting twice the memory, and the g5 desktop had 9 times the memory.

    Clearly the memory disparity was a factor in many of the tests.

    I would give more credence to a test where all three machines had the same amount of memory so that paging/swapping/caching would be more at parity.

  19. Don't people WTFK??? Speed claims were qualified! by Jewdass · · Score: 5, Informative

    Who here actually watched the keynote? Show of hands? I know I did.

    Let's all go to www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf06/ and load the keynote up to 1:07:00.

    Steve Jobs is completely up front about which testsproduced the numbers (SPECint_rate2000 and SPEC_fp2000) and outright says "Now, everything is not going to run 2-3x, the discs aren't 2-3x faster, etc." He makes it very clear that his numbers are based off of these two benchmarks. He claims they are the most important benchmarks of performance, which is debatable, but they are certainly a fair test of raw cpu power. Other than the chip and motherboard, the only other significant component that has changed is the GPU, going from a Radeon x600 to an x1600. Does anyone disagree that this is in the 2-3x faster range?

    All in all, people are making a mountain out of a molehill rather than checking the source of the numbers. god bless the internet.

    -justinb

  20. amount of ram in benchmark by DietFluffy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is the significance of arstechnica benchmarking the 3 macs with the following ram configurations:

    iMac Core Duo: 512MB
    iMac G5: 1GB
    PowerMac G5: 4.5GB

    Wouldn't such a large difference in the ammount of ram have a significant impact on benchmarks?

    1. Re:amount of ram in benchmark by ottffssent · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That would depend on the working set size for the given app.

      512MB may be slightly cramping the style of the new imac, but it didn't look like any of Ars' benchmarks would need much more than that. Certainly 4.5GB isn't going to make any difference, and if you've been following Ars' articles, you'd know why that particular machine is so loaded. The CPU-bound, disk-bound, or graphics-bound benchmarks aren't going to notice the change in RAM amount. The photoshop test, being done on a fairly large image, might have seen some impact from the difference in available memory.

      Given how heterogenous the systems are already, I'm not too concerned with a slight difference in memory size. Given the different instruction sets, execution hardware, cache layout, and memory controller, I think having only 512MB rather than a gig is unlikely to show up in the benchmarks or in most users' usage.

      --
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  21. Re:Why? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful
    But what about if someone wants to run games (and perhaps other software that runs only on Windows) *and* still get the superior OS/apps found in Macs? Why should they be forced to buy two computers just so that they can preserve their "entire Mac experience"?

    IT's not Apple's job to help you run Windows software. Least of all on their hardware.

    As the OP said, if I bought a new Mac, the last thing I'd want to do is try to figure out how to run software for Windows on it. Period.

    Nobody is forcing you to buy a second machine to do anything. You can do without that software, buy a second machine, or (possibly) void your warranty by trying to get Windows to run on it. That doesn't mean you should expect Apple to roll over and give you a machine which it is easy to make run both OS's. They want to give you a good user experience if you bought their stuff.

    If I buy a Honda Accord, is it reasonable to expect Honda to ensure that the turbo-kit I got for my Ford Escort runs on that Honda? Of course not. What does Honda care? And it's not about "the full Honda experience", I'll tell you that.

    Apple would probably prefer you leave them out of the equation when it comes to running your Windows games. Specifically so they don't get calls from people who have either bodged their systems together from spare parts, or generally done stupid things with them.

    You have complete freedom to buy, or not buy an Apple computer, and all that implies. Whining about being 'forced' to own a second computer to be able to have another platform is a completely specious argument in my opinion -- how is this any different than from when the computers were on completely different platforms?
    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  22. Re:Watch boot video & Incompetent Benchmarking by DECS · · Score: 4, Informative

    MacWorld demo people, although trained not to demonstrate or allow rebooting the new Macs on display, did remark that they booted up really fast.

    In the video, the G5 likely had more RAM installed, which would make it POST considerably slower. The boot time, however, is probably very representative of how much faster the Intel iMac is at booting. Other reasons the Core Duo may have booted so fast compared to the G5:

    - Two processor cores!

    - Mac OS X is expressly designed to boot fast by bringing up as much as possible in parallel. That's part of the point of launchd: to identify dependancies and kickstart multiple things at once. This is also why Apple gave up on displaying what was being booted in 10.4, and now just shows a progress bar (which is unrelated to what's actually happening, and only timed to match the previous boot time as a relative indicator). Reporting what servers are being launched would take longer than actually starting them. This parallelism would clearly benefit from multiple processor cores in the Core Duo.

    - the G5 may have been booting for the first time, or they may have deleted the cache in an attempt to make the test "fair," not realizing that the cache has a huge impact on boot times. Among other things, Mac OS X caches the kernel extensions so that the next boot only stops to numerate which kexts to load if something in hardware has changed. If you wipe your cache files (/Library/Cache, ~/Library/Cache and System/Library/Cache), the next boot will take a lot longer while boot performance caching is rebuilt.

    - other hardware may have been unfairly compared: how fast was the G5's drive? was something wrong with it? was the G5's drive full, and struggling to find space for cache files? was it bound to a directory server, and stalling on boot while looking for the server? was it full of 3rd party software, kexts, startup items, etc?

    The video doesn't reveal anything about the demonstrators competence at setting up fair comparison, or their motivation, so we don't know.

    Recall the comparison of database servers running on OS X server vs Linux, where they intended to be fair but their assumptions about how to do so were actually really bad?

    Or look at the Ars review and benchmarks of the new iMac Core Duo vs the iMac G5. He does an array of benchmarks where the G5 has 1 GB of RAM, and the Intel iMac has 512MB! Sorry Ars, but that's just plain incompetent. Your benchmarks are WORTHLESS to even skim over. How about benchmarking the G5 iMac with 512 and 1 GB installed, and reporting if that makes any difference?!