Powerbook 15" @ 1.5GHz

[imported_Lucifer]

Is there anything wrong with defending the platform I use? Is Burbot not doing the same thing? Defending the platform he uses? Why didnt you tell him to stop being a PC fanboy?

 

[randumb]

Instead of getting over stupid fights about bits, let's face the facts - overall the G4 performance was lacking and Macs weren't able to match PC performance until the G5s.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Care to back this statement up?

 

[hopejr]

I use OS X (since August when I got my iBook) because I rather it over Windows. Over the many years of using Windows, I got a bit tired of it. I still use it, but I use it less. Before August I used Windows more, OS X when I got the chance and Linux the other times. I personally don't care so much about performance.

 

[Wuzup101]

I'd wait until the new powerbooks come out. There will definitely be a clock bump but they will probably still be G4s. Some believe they will incorporate a dual core G4 which would be awesome... but I highly doubt it. Most people don't buy a mac for pure speed... we all know that. I can say that I went from using a desktop athlon xp "barton" @ 2.3ghz w/ a gig of pc3200, 7200rpm drives, and a radeon 9700 pro to using a 1.5ghz powerbook w/ 1.25gb of ram and a 5400rpm drive. I don't notice any slowdown at all besides in games... and that's just something you give up on the mac. I find it's much easier to have a ton of stuff open on the mac as it manages memory much better...

 

[hopejr]

Originally posted by: Wuzup101
I find it's much easier to have a ton of stuff open on the mac as it manages memory much better...

Same.

 

[Burbot]

Read This
Quoted from that page.

You are using a *reader letter* to The Register as a confirmation of your position? First of all, the letter author's problem is not really with SSE2, but rather with Pentium 4 Wilamette implementation of it. P-M shares most of traits of P3 and offers SSE2 capabilities, and Northwood and Prescott are quite a lot better from memory bandwidth point of view. Second, I'd really prefer a whitepaper of some sort to El Reg letter to editor. Letters to Reg are frequently just as opinionated and intentionally biased as their articles.

Is there anything wrong with defending the platform I use? Is Burbot not doing the same thing? Defending the platform he uses? Why didnt you tell him to stop being a PC fanboy?

You were not defending platform you use. You were spreading lies and disinformation about Pentium M (such as Pentium M being unable to support SSE2, SSE being unable to produce data in 128 bit fragments, and Pentium M limited to "32-bit chunks"). I caught you in the act.
On the other hand side, I did not try to lie about G4 specifications or misrepresent it as inferior CPU. So who is the fanboy? I leave the judgement to the readers.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

You didnt try to lie about the G4 specifications?

When you say:

SSE registers are 128 bit, so G4 has no advantage here.

How does the G4 not have an advantage? What are you trying to say here? A better architecture does have a better advantage am I right?

and when you say:

G4 is nothing special.

Well, obviously you dont know anything about the G4 architecture to say something like this.


People can call me a fanboy all they like. What, is it supposed to offend me? IMO, thats quite childish.

 

[Burbot]

How does the G4 not have an advantage? What are you trying to say here?

That G4 does not happen to produce data in "bigger chunks" as some fanboys tried to prove.

Well, obviously you dont know anything about the G4 architecture to say something like this.

That's more then you know about architectures you try to badmouth.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Then you must have not read my other post about the G4 architecture.

Altivec:

32 separate Registers

128 bits per register

No interference with FP registers

no context or mode switching

max throughput: 8 Flops / cycle

SSE, MMX

8 MMX registers shared with the FPU, 8 for SSE

64 bits per mmx register, 128 bits per xmm register

MMX stalls the FP registers

context switching required for MMX

max throughput: 2 Flops / cycle

Apparently, it seems you think that producing data in 128 bit chunks is the only important thing on the architecture of the processor.

That's more then you know about architectures you try to badmouth.

I can say the same thing about you.

 

[Burbot]

Removed by poster

 

[hopejr]

While reading through Arstechnica, I stumbled across this page, comparing the P4 and the PPC 7450 (aka G4e). I couldn't help but notice some interesting points about the different ways that they were designed (and it seems to support some of the comment by the person at the register, from what I can tell). The P4 has a narrow and deep approach to instruction processing, which can lead to longer delays when there are so-called "pipeline bubbles". The G4 has a "wide and shallow" approach which has shorter delays even with a clock speed half that of the P4. However, this doesn't make either one better than the other.

IMO, if the PPC's had faster clock speeds (closer to that of the P4's), then they'd whip anything that Intel could throw at them.

here's a good quote from that page:

It might help you to think about these two approaches in terms of a McDonald's analogy. At McDonald's, you can either walk in or drive through. If you walk in, there are five or six short lines that you can get in and wait to have your order processed by a single server in one, long step. If you choose to drive through, you'll wind up on a single, long line, but that line is geared to move faster because more servers process your order in more, quicker steps: a) you pull up to the speaker and tell them what you want; and b) you drive around and pick up your order. And since the drive-through approach splits the ordering process up into multiple, shorter stages, more customers can be waited on in a single line because there are more stages of the ordering process for different customers to find themselves in. So the G4e takes the multi-line, walk-in approach, while the P4 takes the single-line, drive-through approach.

It seems to be saying that neither is better than the other, as far as I can tell.

 

[Burbot]

IMO, if the PPC's had faster clock speeds (closer to that of the P4's), then they'd whip anything that Intel could throw at them.

That's why chip engineering is that hard. You can make a powerful "wide" design and hit clockrate brickwall, or could try slimming design down and hope you could get it to clock higher. You can't have both - it's like trying to design a humwee that fits in a closet. So all the statements like "if Gx/Kx/whatever else would reach 3 Ghz, it would rip Intel apart" are akin to "everybody would get a dirt bike if they offered limo grade comfort" - both true and meaningless at the same time.

 

[losershot]

it is pretty darn fast, and should beat a P-M in scientific benches and such. Unfortunately a lot of software companies aren't willing to make the appropriate optimizations for it, a really good example is macromedia flash, just try loading a flash intensive site on your brothers emac.

Otherwise, I have a 1.33 that i'm selling here and it is more than better for programming and web browsing, aside from pesky flash stuff.

 

[MoneyMINTR]

Just chiming in.


The Pentium M Dothan chips have SSE2.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: MoneyMINTR
Just chiming in.


The Pentium M Dothan chips have SSE2.

Burbot showed that to me many times.

 

[randumb]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=85347

 

[halfadder]

Wow! Lots of arguing and conflicting statements. I'll throw in my 2 cents because I bought a PowerBook G4 last December. It was my first Mac and I did a lot of research before I bought it. This is going to be a loooooong post because there are a lot of details to cover. Don't bother reading it unless you're curious about Macs.

Until recently, the iBooks and PowerBooks have had very different motherboard chipsets. The iBooks were designed for lower power consumption and lower performance, they often featured G4 chips with 256 KB of L2 cache. The PowerBooks were designed for higher performance, high bus speeds, and extra features like 800 Mbit FireWire 2 and onboard gigabit ethernet. They had double the L2 cache, 512 KB. (With the exception of the original 17" PowerBook, which had 256 KB L2 and 1 MB L3).

Up until recently, it was hard to compare iBook and PowerBook performance based on the specs alone. The same can be said for the eMac, which uses a few low cost chipset and is usually found with Radeon 7000 or 9200 graphics. In general, the iBooks and eMacs usually performed similarlly. And the iMac G4, Minitower G4s, and PowerBook G4s performed similarlly.

The current iBooks and Powerbooks finally compare quite well. Whew. They now use the same Intrepid chipset and the same series of G4+ processors with 512 KB L2 cache on all models. The only difference is that iBooks have 133 MHz CPU bus while PowerBooks and the newest (1.25 GHz) eMac use 167 MHz CPU bus. Because of this, the iBooks use DDR266 RAM while the PowerBooks and the new eMac use DDR333. This does affect CPU performance, sometimes as much as 22% in some apps, but it's nowhere near the huge differences thes machines used to have not very long ago.

There are also differences with features and graphics. Only the 15" and 17" PowerBooks have the Radeon 9700 Mobility, gigabit ethernet, 800 Mbit FireWire2, and optional backlit keyboard. (Let me tell you, it is the COOLEST, most classy backlit keyboard ever. They keys look like the same brushed aluminum finish as the rest of the PowerBook, and the letters on the keys looks like black laser engraving. But when the ambient light drops (or you turn it on manually) the "black" letters begin to glow white!! Much cooler and classier than the cheap blue glowing keyboards you can buy for $20).

The other bizzare difference I can think of is the 12" PowerBook's graphics. It only comes with FX5200Go 64M graphics. In many benchmarks, even the 9200 Mobility graphics on the iBook are faster, though the iBook only has 32M. Strange stuff.

I love my PowerBook, even though it's a 1.25 GHz model, not the newer 1.33 or 1.5 GHz model. But either way, G4 is a dead end street. Apple and IBM are moving to G5. The G5 is only slightly less efficent than the G4 clock per clock. Apple would have to make a 1.6 GHz PowerBook with a 800 MHz FSB soon to even begin to compare to the G5 desktops. I say that because the G5 desktops have a FSB that's only 1/2 the speed of the CPU itself. In the dual 2.5 GHz model, there are two independent 1.25 GHz CPU busses for each CPU (not shared like on a dual Xeon). The PowerBooks and iBooks are crippled with 133 and 167 MHz busses. They are also in need of a refresh soon. The 9700 Mobility graphics are getting old and the 1.5 GHz model has been out for awhile now. Plus the iBooks are catching up to the PowerBook performance. There are rumors of a dual core G4, but time will tell.

So what do I think? PowerBook or PC laptop? I guess it depends on your needs. I would say that the G4 is very close to the Pentium-M in clock per clock performance. It depends a lot on the application. In some cases, like RAW image converison, the G4 tromps all over the P-M. But in other cases (DiVX encoding) the P-M is faster. Also keep in mind that while most of the PC notebooks on the market have crappy integrated graphics, all Apple computers have a dedicated GPU. They always have. This make a real difference in performance, even if it's a low end GPU. It keeps the CPU and the CPU FSB free for more important work. But at the same time... most games are optimized for PC hardware, not for Macs.

I bought my PowerBook as an experiment, but it has since become my surfing / emailing machine, as well as what I use for presentation slides, and now is also my photo and home video hub with help from iPhoto and iMovie. It has a lot of pep and runs both UT2004 and WoW very well. Not bad for 1.25 GHz G4, 1GB, Radeon 9600 Mobility 64M.

If you already have a PC and don't need a "PC desktop replacement", and would be interested in experimenting with a Mac like I was, then I highly recommend giving the PowerBook a try. It's a very classy piece of work and is as solid is a machined piece of aluminum.

Whew!

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: randumb
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=85347

Why are you using a rumors site to back up your statement? Its all opinionated and cannot be used as a valid arguement.

 

[randumb]

Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy

Originally posted by: randumb
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=85347

Why are you using a rumors site to back up your statement? Its all opinionated and cannot be used as a valid arguement.

It's actually a forum. I'm just showing that a lot of Mac people admit that the P-M is faster than the G4. And since I haven't seen anyone post benchmarks or any hard numbers yet, their arguments are just as valid...

 

[halfadder]

G4 versus whatever arguments are only useful within a specific context. RAW image conversion, BLAST routines, and some photo and video manipulation routines are very fast on G4. But even if the G4 was always faster than the P-M (even though it's not) there's still the case of many applications simply being optimized for x86, not PowerPC. Most games and MS Office will always be better on Windows, but there are often great native-Mac equvalents (like Keynote versus PowerPoint). And, obviously, a G5 will always be faster than a G4... and the G5 has been on the market for about 15 months already.

From my own experience, I've found the G4 to be very competitive against P-M. But the G4 is an old CPU and has a limited FSB. Heck, when it came out it was originally 350 and 400 MHz! (Granted that was the original PPC 7400, not the current 7455/7447 series). But it's still a powerful force for a nice line of notebooks. My 1.25 GHz PowerBook with Mobility 9600 graphics is a year old, but can play UT2004, Halo, and WoW quite well. And it's way more than powerful enough for my home videos and digital photos. With the student price, an iBook 1.2 GHz, Mobility 9200 is only $950 with CDRW/DVD-ROM combo drive. Not too bad for a Mac. A PC would be far cheaper, but make sure you spec out a PC with 9200 graphics, not embedded/onboard. I bought my PowerBook out of curiosity and because I liked the fit and finish. I haven't been dissapointed yet! (Though I'm glad I also have some PCs for the latest games).

I hope IBM gets their 90nm process refined so we can get the G5 in the PowerBooks... now that'll be a workhorse!

 

[imported_Lucifer]

What, do you believe benchmarks? A lot of Mac people say may say the P-M is faster, but that is their opinion isnt it?

 

[hopejr]

I bought my iBook G4 as an experiment too, with a lot of research first, and I am very impressed with it. I've had less problems with it than I did with my old PC notebook.
I may now be a converted Mac user (who still uses windows a lot, more out of necessity - I'm too poor to buy a Mac desktop), I may prefer OS X over any other OS on the market, and I may love the coolness of the Apple designs, but I have one complaint about Macs (one that I've had for a while) - they cost a lot for what they have. I find it hard to justify buying an iMac G5 (heck, even an eMac) because it is possible to get a PC for the same price with better hardware (even with student discounts). Note though, that this is the only complaint that I have. I'm still planning to save enough to buy an iMac G5. If Apple dropped their prices, or put better hardware in, it would be really good. There'd probably be more people willing to switch too.

 

[halfadder]

hopejr: which spec iBook?

I hear you on the price issue, though I don't think it's quite as bad as it once was. The $950 edu iBook with combo drive isn't a bad price. Too bad they didn't crank up the CPU FSB to the full 167 MHz and up the gfx ram to 64 MB though. That would make it on-par with PC notebook prices.

I too am interested in a desktop Mac, but I think I'll build a better PC first. There are a few prices that interest me, but they're still a little high. I've thought about the single 1.8 GHz G5 for $1350 or the dual 2.0 for $2100. But I think I'll hold off for awhile. After having used Mac OS X heavily for a year now and having used the new G5s in my local computer store, I think I would be very happy with whatever is the equivalent of a dual 2.0 with Radeon 9600 graphics. But I'll wait until that's a low end configuration some day. Actually, the dual 1.8 feels like more than enough, but it's been the low end configuration for awhile now and I'll bet it's going to be replaced soon. (I have always liked dual CPUs, back to the days of our dual CPU Sun SPARCstations at work and my Abit BP6 dual 500 several years ago. They're not *that* much faster than single CPU, but they don't bog down as fast either. Sort of like doubling the torque, while only adding a little horsepower)

 

[hopejr]

The prices of iBook G4's are really good IMO, otherwise I wouldn't have got one . I started considering getting an iBook back when they only had the G3 in them, but they weren't really worth the money (and IMO, didn't look as good as the G4's). My iBook G4 is a Rev B model with the following specs (straight off the box):
- 1GHz PowerPC (it's actually 1.07GHz, lol)
- 256MB DDR SDRAM; supports up to 1.25GB (first iBook that supported this much)
- 30GB Ultra ATA hdd
- 12.1-inch TFT
etc.
The rest is the same as the current one except it doesn't have an Airport Extreme card (it's only airport ready) and has Tony Hawks 4 and Deimos Rising instead of that Marble game and the other one. I got it in August.