Well, benchmarks mean nothing special to begin with, but Apple would be ill-served to submit for this benchmark, BECAUSE 1. Apple flip-flopped so badly on processors for a while that Motorola concentrated on a multiple-market (read "embedded" PowerPC603) architecture and is now well behind the curve for power/speed, even though the G4 at 500 MHz performs better than a Xeon III at 733 and between an Athlon 700 and an Athlon 750. 2. The Apple bus and peripheral speeds are way down compared to PC FSBs. Catch-up for a proprietary design is harder. Apple has much going for it and is a wonderful platform for many things, including web services, but their rather small market is not well-served by advertising differences in speed (which used to change hands frequently until Intel and AMD really lit the afterburners competing for market share), Besides, Apple is still trying to live down the marketing fiasco about the (nonexistent) prohibition of exports of the G4 because it was too fast. Please don't get me wrong, I am a fan of MAC. But I find it unsurprising that there was no G4 here. Now in a competition for aesthetics, or for cool and economical operation, Apple takes it hands down. (Course, the little NEC Powermate might win "cute")
Slashdot Mirror
Well, benchmarks mean nothing special to begin with, but Apple would be ill-served to submit for this benchmark, BECAUSE 1. Apple flip-flopped so badly on processors for a while that Motorola concentrated on a multiple-market (read "embedded" PowerPC603) architecture and is now well behind the curve for power/speed, even though the G4 at 500 MHz performs better than a Xeon III at 733 and between an Athlon 700 and an Athlon 750. 2. The Apple bus and peripheral speeds are way down compared to PC FSBs. Catch-up for a proprietary design is harder. Apple has much going for it and is a wonderful platform for many things, including web services, but their rather small market is not well-served by advertising differences in speed (which used to change hands frequently until Intel and AMD really lit the afterburners competing for market share), Besides, Apple is still trying to live down the marketing fiasco about the (nonexistent) prohibition of exports of the G4 because it was too fast. Please don't get me wrong, I am a fan of MAC. But I find it unsurprising that there was no G4 here. Now in a competition for aesthetics, or for cool and economical operation, Apple takes it hands down. (Course, the little NEC Powermate might win "cute")