# Power Mac G5 Quad and Xcode



## kainjow (Oct 19, 2005)

> Building an Xcode project on a Power Mac G5 Quad, for example, runs 76 percent faster than on the fastest dual-2.7GHz Power Mac G5.


Sheesh! And when I upgraded from a 1Ghz eMac to a dual processor 1.8Ghz G5, Xcode was tremendously faster. I can't imagine going from a DP 2.7 (1.5x faster then my 1.8) to a DP DC 2.5Ghz!!


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## Lt Major Burns (Oct 19, 2005)

some of the difference you experienced can be down to the jump from g4 to g5, a drastically faster processor in genenral. a 1ghz g5 would wipe the floor with a 1ghz g4.

but yes, the jump from 1.8 to 2.5 dc would be a nice one.


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## Viro (Oct 19, 2005)

I think you need to be careful when making claims, like the G5 is ridiculously faster than the G4 statement, or at least back it up. The only area the G4 falls short in, is floating point performance (non issue in compiling software), and memory bandwidth, which thankfully the G5 does solve to a certain extent.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 19, 2005)

Yep -- if you pitted a 1.5GHz G4 against a single-core 1.5GHz G5 chip, installed in identical machines (same bus speed, same amount of memory, same bus architecture), you'd have a tough time distinguishing the G4 from the G5.  Running benchmarks and comparing subtle-to-mediocre differences in the numbers would probably give you a few hints, but by strictly using the computer for a short length of time, it would be tough.

The jump from G4 to G5 wasn't as significant when compared with the jump from the 68k architecture to the PPC architecture, and the future jump from PPC to Intel -- the architecture was completely changed.  Also, the jump from G3 to G4 was more drastic than G4 to G5, since the G4 added vectorization units (which are REALLY noticeable when comparing G3s to G4s) -- revolutionary at the time.

Still, these dual dual-core Macs should really fly.  I'm thinking it's finally time to upgrade, and I'll most likely have one of the last PPC-based Macs (and WHAT a Mac it IS!) for nostalgic purposes.


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