G4 400mhz vs Thunderbird 1ghz in graphics edititing

[vulejo]

despite all the hype, are G4s really superior in graphics / video / 3d editing ?

i have tried to search for comparisons between G4s and PCs, but i've only found articles written by pro-mac sites that try to brain-wash the computer-illiterates. they did not give me convincing argument and support, most of which i found quite ridiculus, such as in one price/performance comparison the author added a $100 standard floppy drive and a $500 dvd drive to the PC system inorder to make the G4 look better. we all know the story...

the reason i picked G4 400mhz vs Thunderbird 1ghz is because i think they fall into abunt the same price category. $1600 will get u a G4 400mhz, 64mb sdram, 20gb, rage 128, dvd, no monitor. the same amount of money should be able to get u a close to (if not) 1ghz Thunderbird with comparable features, if not better.

under distributed.net they also have roughtly the same rc5 benchmark, with t-bird slightly faster ( approx 3.5 mkeys/s )

anyways, does anyone know where i can find an unbaised, and convincing comparison between the two? or does anyone have extensive experience with the two systems ?

 

[hans007]

i'd say the tbird would kill the g4 . I know byte magazine used to do comparisons, but i'm not sure if they do it anymore. www.byte.com maybe they have something there

 

[troubledshooter]

RISC processors are fundamentally superior. The g4 is an incredible RISC cpu. With the original release of the G4 the price/performance ratio was actaully pretty good. Since then, well AMD pulled through

(I've been a mac user all my life till being forced to convert due to college major. All I can say is Thank God win2k was out before I had to make the changeover. There is nothing worse on this planet than win98)

The 500 would be at least a match for a 1ghz TB I would postulate, but if you are looking at 400/1000 despite my personal affection get the TB.


EDIT: That is for general use as listed above. I would contact the maker of the software you plan to use and ask about any platform/cpu opyimizations.

 

[obeseotron]

General purpose: Both are so fast it's not worth it to compare.
2D (Photoshop): Mac still has the edge because of extreme Altivec optimization. I actually think that a P3 is faster than a Tbird in Photoshop because of SSE, but I could be wrong. Anyway the difference is very small either way.
3D (3DMAX type stuff): No contest to the Athlon.
3D (Games): No contest doesn't even come close. Athlon 4-10X over the Mac.
Video: Tbird is probably a better option because of more software/hardware on the PC side.

If you're only using this for photoshop and you like that garbage ass slow, unstable OS (Try OS9 on a G4...), then it might be a better option. Macs also tend to be more upgradable than PCs. My dad's 6-7 year old PowerMac 7100 66Mhz could be upgraded to a 400Mhz G3 for $300. Try that with a P60 or better yet a 486/66.

If the above doesn't completely apply to you than the PC is better.

 

[Warrenton]

Well Photoshop only has a FEW filters that are optimised for Altivec. Someone, can't remember who, ran a G4-500 and did a simple bumpmapped filter, and the G4 took two and a half minutes. The AMD Duron@1Ghz he had did it in 35 seconds.

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

Observe the link.

LINK!

 

[vulejo]

thx for the link,
i did do a search b4 the post but some how that topic didnt show up

anyway i asked this question cos my sister who is a graphic artist major (or something like that) is a typical victim of G4-superiority brainwashing, and she wanted to buy a G4. all her friends use G4 cos the school uses G4s, so naturally she comes to what appears to her, the 'obvious' conclusion that G4s are better.

 

[Argo]

Despite the general misconception, both P3 and Athlon are RISC processors. They do have CISC instruction set, however, both have CISC-to-RISC decoders which break CISC instruction into several RISC instructions. It's widely known that RISC architecture is superior to CISC, therefore, that shouldn't really surprise anybody.

 

[hans007]

i think jc's pc news and links www.jc-news.com/pc has a page that has all the benchmarks for this. I recall a athlon classic 700 was as fast as a g4 500 on most of the photoshop tests and quite a bit faster on some. Also for those of you who are saying that the g4 is risc etc, the athlon is also risc, it just has a x86 to internal risc-op translator

 

[Varborta]

Thunderbird is better is better in virtually everyway especially you pulled a 1ghz against 400mhz in no way g4 can compete with core speed only 400mhz although I am sure there might be some spec advantage g4 might have but 400mhz just cant pull the load.

 

[vulejo]

i guess im overestimating the 'power' of G4s myself...

seems like the only marketing strategy Apple has it to jack up the price and give it a fancy case, so ppl naturally think it as a superior product.

 

[PowerJoe]

And for god's sake, get more than 64MB of RAM!

-PJ

 

[Goi]

x86 isn't RISC, even though the internal datapath beyond the fetch and decode stage is basically RISCy. Its still fundamentally CISC since the ISA is x86, which is CISC. However, the lines are really blur, and it shouldn't even be labelled as CISC or RISC. No chip architecture right now is pure RISC or pure CISC. Most are hybrids which use the better concepts of CISC and RISC.

 

[BFG10K]

Don't believe any of the market bullsh*t Apple constantly bombards you with. Those Photoshop "benchmarks" are done by Jobs so he can justify the outrageous pricing of the hardware and its inferior performance to much cheaper PCs.

There are some main points to note:

(1)
Jobs always runs the same filters and they are the ones with the heaviest Altivec/OS tweaks and with the lowest SSE optimisations as possible. Therefore you are getting the most extreme and un-accurate picture possible.

(2)
Photoshop is poorly written for the PC. It is a Mac program. Even despite this, a similarly equipped PC will scorch the Mac in a wide variety of other Photoshop tasks, which coincidently are the ones that Jobs never runs.

(3)
Do graphics artists only run Photoshop? The PC pounds a similarly configured Mac in a wide variety of other graphics programs, and it is also cheaper and there are a wider range of graphics programs for Windows.

(4)
Mac OS is the absolute worst OS in existance. The poor performance and instability will squander any possible advantage you may have had even if you were only running Jobs' filters. Mac OS is the only operating system in the 21st century that has none of the features of a modern opertating system. Windows 98 is far superior to the dinosaur Mac OS and there is just no comparison to Windows 2000.

 

[noxipoo]

anyone compare PS on unix/windows/mac before? i only ever see mac and windows even though mac are always falsly advertised. (Cube thing a supercomputer my ass, pentigon won't allow export my ass, there is no such law that says you can't export a mac.) Its sad that the mac has to rely on false advertising to get its products out to people. not only that but the price is outrages. $100 for a floppy drive they could included for $10? they should stop using 5 year old benchmarks thats optimized for the mac only and try something made this year.

 

[Oreo]

The G4 400MHz is about as fast as a T-Bird 600-700MHz in Photoshop, but alot slower in most other apps. Don´t believe the Jobs propaganda, as BFG10K said, ALL the PS tests shown bye Jobs & Co are totally biased.