A Hertz isn't a byte. 1GHz = 1000MHz = 1000000kHz = 1000000000Hz EXACTLY. A Hertz is simply a periodic event measured as "the number of events per second". A byte is made of 8 bits each having two states and is most easily described with the binary or base 2 numerical system.
I compared our companies G4 450 to my Athlon 600 using Matlabs "bench" utility. The Athlon was much faster in the "Integer" (0.33),"Mixed Integer/Floating" (0.33), "2D" (0.77) and "3D" (0.71) catagories and the same in the "Pure Floating" (0.27) catagory. My Athlon is much slower when looking for ET but at least comperable if not better when running our companies propritary software.
It may sound like a "i hate these macs, they are not windows-compatible" rant but it's not. I'm not in MIS and not affected by their presence.
Using only macs here is not a viable option for us so the compatibility issue is a very real argument.
There are always cavets and I'm not any happier with Windows than you appear to be with the Mac-OS. And SETI does run much slower on the Athlon than I had expected. However, we don't make money here by running SETI, we make it by running our own sofware which runs very, very well on an Athlon compared to the G3 & G4.
I too would like to have our software ported to Linux and run side by side. Regrettably I don't think our Mac people will do that.
Our company runs mission critical sofware on G3's and a new 450MHz G4. Floating point performance is all important.
I ran a benchmark utility that our Mac advocates promulgate here on my Athlon 600Mhz (256Meg Ram). The Athlon came out 44% faster than our fastest G3 and the same as our new G4 in floating point. It blew them both away with the other metrics (2D, 3D etc.).
What the Mac guys could say is that the G4 only consumes 5W. Yes the Athlon's hotter... it also cost me $1400 compared to $3500 for the G4 with little to no performance advantage as far as our company is concerned.
Commpared with the extra expense, the headaches our MIS department has to go through with compatibility issues, the isolation certain of our engineers suffer 'cause they have to use Mac's to get their job done does anyone think upper managment cares about the 5W vs. 17W issue?
Going with a Mac was the right decision 5 years ago. Justification is much, much harder today.
Slashdot Mirror
A Hertz isn't a byte. 1GHz = 1000MHz = 1000000kHz = 1000000000Hz EXACTLY. A Hertz is simply a periodic event measured as "the number of events per second". A byte is made of 8 bits each having two states and is most easily described with the binary or base 2 numerical system.
I compared our companies G4 450 to my Athlon 600 using Matlabs "bench" utility. The Athlon was much faster in the "Integer" (0.33),"Mixed Integer/Floating" (0.33), "2D" (0.77) and "3D" (0.71) catagories and the same in the "Pure Floating" (0.27) catagory. My Athlon is much slower when looking for ET but at least comperable if not better when running our companies propritary software.
I thought the halos or starts around lights at night are normal...maybe I should get yet another pair of contacts...
It may sound like a "i hate these macs, they are not windows-compatible" rant but it's not. I'm not in MIS and not affected by their presence.
Using only macs here is not a viable option for us so the compatibility issue is a very real argument.
There are always cavets and I'm not any happier with Windows than you appear to be with the Mac-OS. And SETI does run much slower on the Athlon than I had expected. However, we don't make money here by running SETI, we make it by running our own sofware which runs very, very well on an Athlon compared to the G3 & G4.
I too would like to have our software ported to Linux and run side by side. Regrettably I don't think our Mac people will do that.
Our company runs mission critical sofware on G3's and a new 450MHz G4. Floating point performance is all important.
I ran a benchmark utility that our Mac advocates promulgate here on my Athlon 600Mhz (256Meg Ram). The Athlon came out 44% faster than our fastest G3 and the same as our new G4 in floating point. It blew them both away with the other metrics (2D, 3D etc.).
What the Mac guys could say is that the G4 only consumes 5W. Yes the Athlon's hotter... it also cost me $1400 compared to $3500 for the G4 with little to no performance advantage as far as our company is concerned.
Commpared with the extra expense, the headaches our MIS department has to go through with compatibility issues, the isolation certain of our engineers suffer 'cause they have to use Mac's to get their job done does anyone think upper managment cares about the 5W vs. 17W issue?
Going with a Mac was the right decision 5 years ago. Justification is much, much harder today.