Mac Punditry: Deranged and Dumb on any Processor

[pnosko]

This one deserves a thread of it's own. He makes a valid point about something in evidence here in prior Mac-related posts.

I had to post this beginning segment. Besides, it is even Reef-related!

http://www.macobserver.com/columns/devilsadvocate/2005/20050610.shtml

I wonder if the Atlantic ocean has as vast a collection of spineless jellyfish as seemingly comprises significant portions of the Macintosh user base and its ***-kissing punditry. With far too few exceptions, this is a group that just days ago was smugly debunking, dismantling, and railing against the notion of Intel processors in their Macs, only now to squirm and slither out explanations that provide justifications to the contrary.

They were all laying vitriol to those that dared speak and/or suggest notions contrary to the edicts laid out by their cult leader, Steve Jobs. The Megahertz Myth Mantra chanted by Mac users (http://www.macobserver.com/columns/devilsadvocate/2003/20030509.shtml) with regard to Intel chips was enough to annoy even the most dedicated monks. And like good little lemmings, like good 1984 citizens marching in goose-step, the entire lot has done an about face, justifying this move as the "one true way."

Only in the Mac community can the justifications for and against a given position flip-flop overnight with such fervor.

This about-face whiplash can be evinced by the number of half-baked articles that have been written in short order purporting that "if you buy a PPC based Mac today, the fact that Intel machines are coming around the corner should not concern you."

I can understand the loyal fanboy base frothing at the mouth with that kind of stupidity, but there is no excuse for the pundits to be drinking from the same trough of Kool-Aid.

[political rant snipped]

Anyway, to quote a far greater Steve authority, "Well excuuuuuuuse me" if some choose to think differently on the topic. As such, let me remind you folks of some reasons to actually hold off on purchases of PPC based Macs; here are eight-is-enough reasons:

Would the "A PPC MHz is faster than an Intel MHz" folks please stand up? :D

[thrlride]

Paging you know who! :D

[pnosko]

He's trying to figure out now if he can ban me for using the word "political" in a post. :D

[Dolfan0925]

So I'm going to have to go out with my girlfriend, but I brought enuf for everyone. Don't tell me how it ends! I'll read the closed thread later tonight :D

http://www.snappypopcorn.com/images/boxes.jpg

[beerguy]

Pete - You and I both know that you can't go by mhz when comparing RISC and CISC. Power consumption and quantity were IBMs biggest issue. They were unable to deliver the low power version of the G5 which left the whole notebook line in limbo. That being said, supposedly on the developer systems 3.66 P4s, OS X absolutely hauls.

[thrlride]

pnosko = troll

LOL

[pnosko]

Originally posted by beerguy
Pete - You and I both know that you can't go by mhz when comparing RISC and CISC.Yes, but one can go by tests. Did you read reason# 5 of 8? Granted, this 3.6GHz is not in any shipped PCs, but for me this puts to rest any notion that Mac's "outperform" PCs based on objective criteria.

5. The new Intel machines promise to be much faster than current machines.

Already there are reports that software that is natively compiled to run on Intel based Macs runs faster than on PPC machines. Xlr8yourmac provides an account of a mere single processor Pentium 4 running at 3.6GHz outperforming a dual processor G5 running at 2.7GHz (http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/jun05/060805.html#S19340):"First, the thing is fast. Native apps readily beat a single 2.7 G5, and sometimes beat duals. Really...They are using a Pentium 4 660. This is a 3.6 GHz chip. It supports 64 bit extensions, but Apple does not support that *yet*. The 660 is a single core processor. However, the engineers said that this chip would not be used in a shipping product and that we need to look at Intel's roadmap for that time to see what Apple will ship."And this is with an early build of OS X on Intel that reportedly is un-optimized. If we can expect orders of magnitude increases in performance as the above seems to suggest, then those that wish to make sizable investments in hardware might do well to hold off for a year or so, if they can. After all, it's reported that Steve Jobs' demo machine sported four such Pentium 4 processors. With greater optimization, faster chips, and more cores, we might expect to buy more of a power increase with the next Intel Mac iteration than we have with the past few PPC iterations combined.

[beerguy]

I see that you completely ignored this:

The UI tests in Xbench exceed a dual 2.7 by a large margin. (other specific tests are much lower than a G5 per Xbench site results.-Mike)

Different architectures do different things better.

[pnosko]

I didn't understand it, and your broad and vague comment doesn't help any.

I see you're the only pundit left; all the other Mac-heads here crawled into the woodwork.

[beerguy]

I was pointing out that that, according to the article, many items also benchmarked slower than the G5. Benchmark data is largely manufactured anyway. I've never help much stock in it personally. I

[MarkS]

Originally posted by pnosko
Would the "A PPC MHz is faster than an Intel MHz" folks please stand up? :D

Right here.

The Intel move does not thrill me and I'm not afraid to say it. We've gone from a pokey CISC chip to a supercomputer speed RISC chip to a not-quite-supercomputer speed CISC chip. It's like we took we took one giant leap forward and then fell flat on our collective butts.

[pnosko]

Originally posted by beerguy
I was pointing out that that, according to the article, many items also benchmarked slower than the G5.I don't see where is says "many" anywhere. It said "some". It also said (about the Intel CPU)... First, the thing is fast. Native apps readily beat a single 2.7 G5, and sometimes beat duals. Really.
(I asked about real-world apps - if any were already available in native code-Mike)
All the iLife apps other than iTunes, plus all the other apps that come with the OS are already universal binaries....

[pnosko]

Originally posted by MarkS
We've gone from a pokey CISC chip to a supercomputer speed RISC chip to a not-quite-supercomputer speed CISC chip.Unadulterated pundit hype unless you can cite the proof.

[Scuba_Dave]

I'm not a MAC head, but having worked in the computer field we have always been able to skew speed tests on a Computer to get a better score. It's just a matter of knowing the tricks

[MarkS]

Originally posted by pnosko
Unadulterated pundit hype unless you can cite the proof.

Pokey CISC chip (MC68000) to supercomputer speed (> 1 gigaflop(s)) RISC chip (PPC) to sub-supercomputer CISC chip (Intel).

[pnosko]

You call that proof?!?

[MarkS]

Originally posted by pnosko
You call that proof?!?

What kind of proof do you want? The MC68000 line was extremely slow. The PPC line was so fast that the government stepped in to prevent it's sale in many countries. It had a > 1 gigaflop rating right out of the box. This has been well known and documented for years now. Does any single Intel chip, currently being offered for sale in an off the shelf system, do that? I'm not saying that Intel sucks, nor have I ever, but the PPC line is more advanced than what Intel currently offers. Does Intel even produce a RISC chip?

Pete, I do not want to get into one of your one sided fights right now. I've been up since 2:30AM. The "proof" you seek can be found if you really wanted to see it and you know that.

[pnosko]

Then how do you explain First, the thing is fast. Native apps readily beat a single 2.7 G5, and sometimes beat duals.?

[pnosko]

I guess questions based on reality aren't fair, eh?


How about this tidbit?

OS X for x86 already in the wild? (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000690046419)Wow, now that didn’t take very long. Apple had OS X for Intel machines (which we’re lovingly referring to as OS X86) under wraps for a half a decade, and not a week after its announcement, a “developer version� is apparently already in the wild on P2P and IRC networks. Supposedly it can be installed on just about any PC box, and Rosetta and the iLife suite are fully operational; one can assume fairly sketchy hardware support though, and the finer details like updates are probably out of the question without some serious shoehorning. Some are calling this stealth marketing, but if we know anything about Apple (and we’d like to think we do), we’ve got a sneaking suspicion that they, just like everyone else, just can’t keep a lid on their more highly coveted goods forever. Just like we have a feeling no amount of caveat emptor-ing is going to stop a lot of people from giving it a go—you know we are so not going to install this on all our boxen.

[AJP]

Hey Pete, I wish I knew enough about computers to say something. But in the mean time, keep poking Doug with that stick. I bet he ban's someone soon.

[beerguy]

Pete, I don't have the energy for the fight that you want this to be. ;)

I will give my take on that article, as I saw it when it was first "leaked." According to all of the information that I was able to come up with, that came out before any developer systems were shipped. IMO, I think Apple created the leak to drive interest.

In regard to benchmarks in general, I've been in the computer business far too long to give benchmark data anything more than a glance, especially on a Unix system. Benchmarks aren't viable indicators of real-world system performance. (You've been in the business long enough to know that too.)