Benchmark: Intel beats Apple easily

[JimF]

Source: PC magazine, October 2001:

Of course, Intel is not the only silicon in the valley. We also tested two systems based on the 1.4GHz Athlon, AMD's fastest processor. These reference systems are the MicronPC Millennia MAX XP2 (with the AMD-761 chip set and 256MB of 266-MHz DDK DRAM) and the SystelnaxAscent MA14 (with the Via KT133A and 256MB of 133-MHz SDRAM, since the Via chip set does not support the faster RAM). We also ran cross-platform tests on Apple's fastest single-processor system: the 867-MHz PowerMac G4.

Like the previous P4s, Intel's 2.0-GHZ processor is faster than its AMD Athlon competitors for demanding multimedia tasks, and even more so when the system is multitasking. The P4, however, doesn't necessarily outstrip the Athlon on business application performance.

While most of the 2.0-GHz machines were top performers on Business Winstone 2001, the fastest entry-the Dell Dimension 8100-was only 6 percent faster than the Athlon-equipped MicronPC Millennia MAX XP2. The MAX XP2 also outpaced the 2.0-GHz Gateway on the same tests. There was a mere 1 percent difference between MicronPC's 2.0-GHz Intel-based system and its 1.4-Gllz Athlon (both systems have identical hard drives and graphics subsystems).

On Content Creation Winstone, the Athlon-based MicronPC machine also edged out a 2.0GHz machine, this time the Dell (though the overall winner was the 2.0-GHz P4-equipped MicronPC Millennia MAX XS). All of this shows that other subsystems in a PC can make or break the processor's speed advantage.

The Windows Media Encoder test measures streaming video performance. P 4 CPUs are optimized for handling streaming data, and the test is embedded with SSE, so it was no surprise that the P4s outperformed the Athlon units by a fair margin. The bottom line, however, is that except on streaming media intensive tasks, the 2.0GHz P4 machines never really bested AMD's 1.4 GHz Athlon.

But what about the 867 MHz Apple PowerMac G4? We've seen that clock speed is not the whole story, but still 867 MHz? The difference in the clock rating is so high that we had to see how it would be reflected on our labs tests.

Our suite of benchmark tests doesn't run on the Apple platform, so instead we developed a few cross-platform tests to run on both this machine (under OS 9.2) and the HP Vectra VL800, which has the same video chip as the Apple.

The Apple's floating-point performance (not charted here) was weak. Our Bryce test took the Apple 18 minutes 21 seconds, while the HP completed it in 11 minutes. Surprisingly, the Apple couldn't even close the gap when encoding to QuickTime format. Our Canoma test of this function took the Apple 6 minutes 4 seconds, while the HP needed only 4 minutes 48 seconds. Add the slow Photoshop performance-33 seconds for an Unsharpen Mask filter (both Altivec- and SSE-enhanced) that the HP took only 7 seconds to compete-and the picture becomes even clearer: CPU speed does count for something.

[Baigley]

First off, i could of told you that the Mac was going to lose. lol

Anyways, I think that all of these people buying the new "P4" are wasting their money.

You could build a Athlon System that would slaughter the P4 for almost HALF the price.

And as for those "Craps" oh, Macs... :evil:

They are way to expensive and really, i have no use for them, except to light them on fire.. :D

[Silvorgold]

i hear theres a 1.6 ghz comp by apple soon...

[aco Veteran]

Originally posted by Silvorgold  

i hear theres a 1.6 ghz comp by apple soon...

That is a big jump from around 850Mhz!

There is no doubt that for their clockspeed G4's are the fastest desktop processors sold.

e.g. A G4 800 would be much faster than a P3 800 or a Duron 800.

Apple's big problem:

Mhz doesn't matter, its gigaflops that matter!

Many people aren't aware that clockspeed isn't everything, this is why they loose sales.

[Marshalus Veteran]

I love AMD, even though I'm an Intel user. A lot of my friends use Athlon chips and they can kick the sheet out of the Intel chips I have used, and I will be upgrading to an Athlon in a month or so.

But AMD's new chip rating style is dumb. 1600+ at 1.4GHz, etc.

[aco Veteran]

Intel is smart, they have the highest clockspeed but do not necessarily have the fastest processors.

2000Mhz P4 = 1400Mhz Athlon = 800 Mhz G4 (or something near that)

Don't look at it as misleading advertising by Intel, but smart advertising. Many people have in the past and still do measure processor speed in Mhz.

This is why Intel processors still sell, they have the highest clockspeed.

[ritsuke Veteran]

The new 1.6ghz G5 is a 64-bit processor at only 10 pipeline stages...They even have a 2 giger that is very stable but didn't finish the quality tests at the high standards Motorola has set for them (they wish to refine them)...These chips will probably go over to IBM when and if Moto steps out.

Here's something from mosr.com:

On wednesday, the 8500 (formely 7500) G5 was officially taped out. The version 1.0 which will ramp up production soon will come in six speeds: 800Mhz, 1Ghz, 1.2Ghz, 1.4Ghz, and 1.6Ghz. The 800Mhz and 1Ghz parts will be targeted to the embedded market, while the 1.2Ghz and up parts will be targeted to the desktop market. Sample chips have been stable as high as 2Ghz, but it has been decided that it is not feasible to wait until the process has been refined enough to debut the G5 at 2GHz.

The G5 will have a 10 stage pipeline. It will have the full book E spec, allowing for n-way crossbar capability. The transistor count will be 58 million, more than double the G4. Power dissipation at 1.4Ghz is 26W, initial non-SOI samples had a power dissipation almost double of that, and were on a .18 micron process. All addressing on the G5 will be 64-bit, featuring full speed 32-bit backward compatibility. Like the pentium 4, the G5 will have a 400Mhz bus. A completely new system bus is being developed to lauch the G5 which will have 1394b and USB 2.0, support for bluetooth, 802.11b, and support for DDR SDRAM up to 16GB, up from the 1.5GB limit. The initial lauch will be in the current quicksilver enclosure with no exterior modifications. Mac OS X 10.2 aka. Cheetah is going to be a 64-bit version of Mac OS X, and developers are being promised that porting over to Cheetah will only mean a simple recompile.

[Cubano]

Originally posted by Silvorgold

i hear theres a 1.6 ghz comp by apple soon...

Well, I know that the dual 800 MHZ are out, and those are supposed to kick ass when you use them with Mac OS X.

[aco Veteran]

Originally posted by Ritsuke

The new 1.6ghz G5 is a 64-bit processor at only 10 pipeline stages...

**** I never even knew they were anywhere near 1.6GHz! :o

Must be hellfast! :cool:

[Silvorgold]

hmm i wonder when macs are going to beat out pcs...hmmm....lol, not any time soon if XP becomes a success....

[xGROMx]

Well i'm a PC man but if anyone here realy thinks about the history of apple and microsoft......they would sie with apple!!!

Were do you think *** Bill got windows from? Dos? HaH

To bad apple has bad management!

Also there speeds maynot look as fast by # but there proformance will kick any intell/amd out of the water!