By Pär Mostad (Meshbuilder) (62.108.194.34) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 05:51 pm:

Hi.. I had nothing to do and I was checking out Chris Lightwave benchmarks.. I know the fastes PCs are alot faster than the PowerMacs.. But if you look at this you will see that the dual 1250 Mhz G4 is pretty fast

Pentium4 3400 Mhz, Rad. Ref. Things 45 s
G4 (dual) 1250 Mhz, Rad. Ref. Things 45 s

Pentium4 3400 Mhz, Raytrace 90 s
G4 (dual) 1250 Mhz, Raytrace 101 s

By John A. Johnson (Johnny) (67.28.26.199) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 06:10 pm:

interesting...the Pentium doesn't *quite* mop the floor with the Mac, does it?

J

By luka (Lwperth) (203.59.227.82) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 09:27 pm:

Very interesting. I would like to see how the latest mac's compare? :]

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 10:57 pm:

I like the other reports that say that the upcoming IBM 970 processor (to be used in Apple machines later this year) can perform many more instructions at once than Intel's flagship XEON processor:

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20628.html

By Ed Mag (Ed_M) (205.188.196.47) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 11:37 pm:

Beam... The 970 is going to embarrass the competition when it arrives... On a chip for chip comparison, the 970 will easily hold it's own with whatever the competition has at the time. the kicker is that the 97- will have superior SMP over anything that competition has to offer; that is.. price/power/performace/energy efficiency and, the 970 will only be the tip of the iceberg. If Apple goes duals with this thing then the competition has a lot of catching up to do.. If Apple decides to go quads well... you get the picture. No matter what, the competition will be at a disadvantage

What will Micor$oft decide to develop on? IA64? That isn't meant for the desktop and developers will have to scramble to develop apps for the architecture while still maintaining x86 versions -- that's two very different and very separate platforms they will be developing for.. but wait, there's more... what about AMD and their x86-64? Micro$oft will have to support that as well.. that will be 3 separate and distinct versions of Windows. Oh wait then there are the developers.. will they have to code for that architecture too? That would make 3 distinct versions of the same app. for the same platform and then there are the drivers for each of those combinations it looks to be a disaster in the making.

IBMs chips will maintain backward compatibility be it 32-bit or 64-bit and there won't be any special coding that's required... unless you want to take full advantage of the chip. Apple has a great advantage.

--
Ed

By Pär Mostad (Meshbuilder) (62.108.194.34) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 01:43 am:

"interesting...the Pentium doesn't *quite* mop the floor with the Mac, does it? "

In the other test the PC is alot faster.. I don't know why?..

Pentium4 3400 Mhz, Tracer No Radiosity 326 s
G4 (dual) 1250 Mhz, Tracer No Radiosity 381 s

Pentium4 3400 Mhz, Tracer Radiosity 410 s
G4 (dual) 1250 Mhz, Tracer Radiosity 597 s

I also know things like skytracer and hypervoxels is much faster on the PC.. But that is a optimizing thing i think..
Anyway, intresting to see how fast the new dual G4 1.4 Ghz will be

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 03:14 am:

Hi Ed,

As the Newsfactor article suggests, what's to stop IBM offering the 970 processor to other manufacturers? Added to the fact that IBM has already stated that it'll be making its own boxes with the 970 + Linux. Apple won't be the only one with it.

However, it still remains a very positive step that Apple has decided to run with this processor. I hear that when running at a lower clockspeed, the 970 uses a minute amount of power, making it suitable for laptops and fanless computers.

The Windows lovers who crow about nothing else than clockspeed will have a dillema on their hands when the 970 is released. Then again, despite the marketing hype, Intel has traditionally had the slowest processors in the business. It's only since AMD came on the scene that Intel improved a bit. Now it's falling back to where it normally is.

By ingo (Ingo) (213.39.188.168) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 03:19 am:

Hi P?r, well the correct benchmarks speak a different language :

P4 (dual) 2800 Mhz, Raytrace 52 s
G4 (dual) 1250 Mhz, Raytrace 101 s

P4 (dual) 2800 Mhz, Tracer Radiosity 237 s
G4 (dual) 1250 Mhz, Tracer Radiosity 597 s
My G4 450 MHz, Tracer Radiosity 2700s

By Pär Mostad (Meshbuilder) (62.108.194.34) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 05:55 am:

"Hi P?r, well the correct benchmarks speak a different language "

yes I know.. A dual Xeon P4 is relly really fast..
But many people think that a single Pentium4 3400 Mhz is a pretty fast machine.. And I just want to show that a PowerMac is "almost" up to the same speed as that (single) Pentium..

Anyway,, a dual Xeon cost ALOT more than a PowerMac.. And you can't run OSX on them ;)

Boxx computer..
Dual P4 Xeon 2800 Mhz
With combodrive, gigabit ethernet, I GB DDR memory....
= 4421 $

Dell Computer..
Dual P4 Xeon 2800 Mhz
With combodrive, I GB DDR memory..
= 4007 $

The powermac dual 1250 Mhz..
With combodrive, gigabit ethernet, I GB DDR memory..
= 2345 $

By Darthmole (Darthmole) (212.113.199.253) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 06:14 am:

Do we definitey know for sure that Apple is going to use the new IBM chips? And what amount of recoding of OS X and its apps is needed? Will they run OS X as X apps as they stand?

I'd love super-fast Mac, but if I have to wait for ALL of may apps and plug-ins to be recompiled again... well, I'm not sure that's going to be much fun.

By ted devlin (Eblue) (12.149.3.2) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 09:57 am:

points of contention:
ibm's 970 chip in any mac is idle speculation.

that it will do anything remarkable, is idle speculation.


yeah it sounds like i'm trying to rain on the parade here, but i'm just tired of hearing rumors about whats coming, when the reality never lives up to the potential. If everything happens the way the rumor-mongers hope, the uber-mac will only be one step ahead of the competition.
And even then, all that horse-power will be compromised by LW. I stand by my earlier remarks about LW having serious rendering issues on a mac (in fact, i take those radiosity stats as evidence). Lw is obviously much slower than it has to be, due to a lack of research and understanding of the G4. what makes you guys think things will be better with the 970? the same problems will crop up, and that is because the problems are rooted in Software! I like rumors, but pound for pound, the G4 is much better than the intel for rendering, and the realworld stats from LW don't agree. Adding a new fancy chip, won't fix this problem, but it might make it worse.

Something is up with the rendering software, and i'm comparing mac to mac. Mac LW rendering times have been slowly dropping off, when they should be accelerating, (g3s used to be the fastest renderer period) based on the hardware stats. I think the loss of the cali-office has hit us very hard.

of course, its just my opinion,
eblue

By Pyx (Pyx) (80.15.20.44) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 05:03 pm:

HI all,

The Intel 3.40ghz is an overclocked processor!
please compare to the 3.06ghz one...

By toby gaines (Toby) (64.105.35.84) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 05:13 pm:

I'd like to see render tests include crashes and re - starts.

By Arnie Cachelin (Arnie) (65.164.224.3) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 07:10 pm:

>pound for pound, the G4 is much better than the intel for
> rendering, and the realworld stats from LW don't agree

If the real world stats don't agree, then how can you claim that the G4 is better for rendering? What FP rendering benchmarks are you using to make that assertion?

By js33 (Js33) (12.255.168.208) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 07:47 pm:

Hey Ed and Beam,

Yeah the 970 is supposedly the fastest Apple vaporware yet. Maybe it will be good or maybe it's just alot of hype. Also it is the biggest rumor in the Apple world so far. It's just sad that all the Mac community can rely on for upcoming technology info is hype, vaporware and the stupid rumor web sites. Also where do you think Intel/AMD will be by then? They are not going to sit around waiting for something to beat them like Motorola did. Oh and I own an iMac so don't think I'm just a PC user Mac basher. But in hindsight I wish I hadn't bought the Apple as it sits unused most of the time since I also bought a P4 2.5 Gig about 2 months later. If I want to know about upcoming technology I just go to Tom's hardware or any other pc tech site and they have real reviews and stories about real upcoming products.
It's kind of nice to live in the real world and actually be able to look forward to real products that really come out. Oh not to mention that if a 970 based Mac ever does come out the price will no doubt be very high.

Cheers,
JS
(Living in the real world again after a brief stint in the rumor filled vaporware Apple world)

Oh I still like my iPod though I wish I had the PC version now.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Tuesday, February 04, 2003 - 08:34 pm:

"where do you think Intel/AMD will be by then?"

Ah ha ha!!!! Intel will have its Itanic processor. Now that will be really funny!

By Ed Mag (Ed_M) (152.163.206.177) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 12:32 am:

[[[As the Newsfactor article suggests, what's to stop IBM offering the 970 processor to other manufacturers? Added to the fact that IBM has already stated that it'll be making its own boxes with the 970 + Linux. Apple won't be the only one with it. ]]]

Yes, but Apple has OS X ;-)

On Ted's points...

[[[points of contention:
ibm's 970 chip in any mac is idle speculation. ]]]

Indeed, but I really think AltiVec was the BIG giveaway. C'mon, Ted you can do better than that ;-)

I thought I explained this before, man.

[[[And even then, all that horse-power will be compromised by LW. ]]]

Now we are on the same page! :-)

[[[I stand by my earlier remarks about LW having serious rendering issues on a mac (in fact, i take those radiosity stats as evidence). Lw is obviously much slower than it has to be, due to a lack of research and understanding of the G4. ]]]

Yep. And so far the only person that I know (which isn't saying much) that has the qualifications to determine the state of the LW code base is Chris Cox from Adobe -- the guy who made NT the offer to actually sit down and Iron out at least *some* of the wrinkles. To my knowledge and contact with Chris, NT has yet to contact him. Egos at play perhaps?

[[[what makes you guys think things will be better with the 970? the same problems will crop up, and that is because the problems are rooted in Software! I like rumors, but pound for pound, the G4 is much better than the intel for rendering, and the realworld stats from LW don't agree. Adding a new fancy chip, won't fix this problem, but it might make it worse. ]]]

I agree to a point. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what you are saying is that throwing a *faster* processor at the problem will only *cover up* those code inefficiencies... If that's it then you are correct, It is that sole tactic that's been aiding the Intel crowd all these years. Intel think all you have to do is up the clock and spray additional transistors at the problem. Brute force so to speak... In other words, developers will become more reliant on hardware to cover up their code inefficiencies.

js33...


[[[Also where do you think Intel/AMD will be by then? ]]]

Not to good. It appears that AMD is again slammed with delays.. Intel will be in its own bind trying to deal with the MHz. myth themselves and remember, the Itanic isn'r meant for the desktop AND the archetectures of BOTH Intel and AMD are completely different which means that M$ will be forced to either try and maintain 2 seperate Winbloze code bases or pick between them -- Developers are in a similar situation. Which platform do you choose to support? ISAs of the AMD and Intel 64-bit roadmaps are completely different... Of course the driver issues also crop up... More confusion, eh? Anyway, x86 will probably be hitting a wall, since the latest blurbs coming froim Intel lately state that they are actually going to try and follow what Apple has been doing for years now. Oh, and what the 970 lacks in the way of brute force, it makes up for in sheer numbers. Then there is the 980 and the rest of the line to think about. IBM is NOT Motorola. As a matter of fact, I suspect that Intel is sweating because they just realized that what appeared to be a dark cloud hanging over their head really isn't a cloud at all, but rather the shadow cast by IBM's enormous foot.

[[[If I want to know about upcoming technology I just go to Tom's hardware or any other pc tech site and they have real reviews and stories about real upcoming products. ]]]

Tom's is not Real World Tech... *sigh*

--
Ed M.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 12:42 am:

The message is that Newtek can continue to optimize for Altivec, as this will be viable for many years to come. Today's optimizations will still accelerate Lightwave on tomorrow's hardware.

Also, expect the Macintosh platform to make big gains in the 3D arena. Faster hardware, new graphics cards + OS X is a compelling combination.

By js33 (Js33) (12.255.168.208) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 12:51 pm:

Guys,

I'm not knocking OSX because I actually like it but if Windows and Intel are so inefficient how come it continues to kick the crap out of Apple and OSX? There may be some seemingly divergent paths going to 64 bit but AMD always falls in line with Intel because after all they are a clone chip maker. Also if the 970 can run linux
whats to keep it from running Windows also?
So maybe the PC world will have another choice if so desired. Also the Xeon chip was originally a server chip then it came out on the desktop so the Itanium will follow the same path. The original Itanium I agree did not generate much interest but Itanium 2 will come into its own soon.

[[Tom's is not Real World Tech... *sigh* ]]

Well it's alot better than having to get your information from a rumor site! I agree it's not the IBM web site but they have real reviews about real products.

Don't think IBM is abandoning the PC world, after all they started it, and they know where the real market is. What would you rather sell 95 processors or 5?

Cheers,
JS

By Ed Mag (Ed_M) (64.12.103.36) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 06:00 pm:

[[[Also if the 970 can run linux
whats to keep it from running Windows also? ]]]

Cuz IBM said it won't... It wasn't designed to. LINUX for x86 is different from LINUX for PPC. IBM's 970 is PPC. I can't seem to find the article that quotes a fellow from IBM saying exactly that, but here is something close:

http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/1481061

--
Ed