This doesn't look too promising....

WeeZer51402 · #1 December 17th, 2003, 09:06 PM

Here are results posted at pcworld.com, they dont look too promising, I thought apple was hanging onto a lead in terms of performance...http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...49,pg,8,00.asp This comparison shows the difference from AMD 64-bit machines vs G5's....any thoughts.

**btoneill** · #2 December 17th, 2003, 09:29 PM

It's comparing apple's to oranges, it's not a fair test at all. Photoshop is the only app they tested that is actually optimized to use the G5, and it's the test that Apple was fast on. The other tests are poor comparisons for cpu speed as Adobe has said "Windows is the best platform for running Premiere", and ofcourse Word on Windows is going to run faster on a Mac because of the way MS integrates everything with the OS. Also the videocard had more memory on the PC's, which can account for alot of the Quake differences. They even admit that the test is not exhaustive, they just picked 4 apps that exist on both platforms. IE exists on a Mac, and we all know it's crap compared to the windows version. Benchmarks can say whatever you want them to say, and are for the most part useless, unless you're looking for say, a workstation to run Premiere exclusively, then you might care about this test, as for general use, it doesn't tell a thing.

Brian

mr. k · #3 December 17th, 2003, 09:39 PM

Just wait for macworld to run a test -- Chances are that the sword turns in the G5's favor.
And I don't think any of the apps that pcworld is running are G5 optimized except for Photoshop, which means that they can't take advantage of the 64-bit capability of the G5. In the fine print it doesn't say that they did or didn't include adobe's G5 patch for the mac, and I haven't heard, but kind of doubt that either Premier or Quake (whatever that game was) or MS Word are G5 optimized, so then the G5 wouldn't be performing at it's peak.

Randman · #4 December 17th, 2003, 09:59 PM

I think these tests have to be taken with a grain of salt. pcworld will obviously be slanted towards the peecee, while macworld also roots for the "home" team.
Fairest one I've seen, imho, is MacAddict's (the 20th anniversary cover). It gives bouquets and brickbats to both in fair treatment, I thought.

**Cheryl** · #5 December 18th, 2003, 06:03 PM

I moved this to the correct forum.

RacerX · #6 December 18th, 2003, 08:09 PM

Premier is cripple-ware on the Mac. It doesn't see both CPUs on the Dual G5s (or Dual G4s for that matter). It is why Final Cut Pro is so much faster than Premier on Macs (and faster than Premier on the fastest PCs) while doing the same tasks.

Believe me, the people who did the test knew about Premier ahead of time, that was why it was used even though it was discontinued for Macs months ago.

mindbend · #7 December 19th, 2003, 11:09 AM

It's a tough situation.

For one, it doesn't matter if apps are optimized or not. It only really matters (for people who care about such things) how a given app performs on a given machine right NOW. Right NOW, the very best high end PCs are faster in general than the very best Macs. We caught up for a brief shining moment.

For two, it is my belief that we will NEVER see true optimization in many key apps. Photoshop, for example, has pacified us with a G5 plugin, but that's a far cry from truly writing that app for a G5, where it would really kick ass. (See this link to see how a G5 can really perform when coded properly: http://www.apple.com/pro/film/lowry/ ). I suspect Photoshop will NEVER be really G5-pristine. Same goes for the other non-Apple major apps, unfortunately. Remember Altivec? Remember all those fantastic optimized apps for it? Neither do I, cuz they never existed. Apple's own flagship app, Final Cut Pro isn't even 64-bit aware. Yes, it's G5
"optimized", that's a start. Having said that, it's questionable how much benefit one would truly gain with a 64-bit FCP. There's a lot of myth and hype of 64-bit, when really many apps will not benefit at all, or so minimally that it's not worth the trouble. The biggest beneficiary of 64-bit? (according to one online article that I don't have a link for) That's right...games. Great, another reason for PCs to utterly dominate thanks to, of all things, games. Does anyone else see the irony? Macs have historically touted as the "toy", but you can argue that the single biggest reason why PCs dominate in the general buying (non-business) sector is because of games.

Like I said, it's a tough situation. And always will be. I'm just glad that the things I do most (Photoshop and video editing) are extremely fast on the best Mac hardware, so I'm happy. Fortunately, Apple owns FCP, so there's no excuse for them not to make it as optimized as it can possibly be, given enough time. Adobe has no particular incentive to really make Photoshop kick ass on a G5. Apple has every incentive in the world to make FCP shine, and it looks like they're taking that seriously.

ex2bot · #8 December 19th, 2003, 11:34 AM

Randman is right. MacAddict has the most interesting, and, in my opinion, even-handed and useful benchmarks. Check them out.

In summary (at least as I recall), the G5 did just fine overall. Game performance was not so great. It destroyed the X86 in video compression, although there was some question as to the two programs they used (Apple's Compressor on the G5 and something else on the PC).

Remember that Apple was comparing the G5 to the 3.0 GHz Intel chips and now we have 3.2 GHz chips. Of course, at this point it looks very promising for significantly faster G5s reel soon now.

I would call the speed of the G5s competitive if not faster. Of course, we know which operating system is better.

Doug