From MacNN: Rob Galbraith has posted an article on digital file transfers, comparing an Alienware Laptop, a discontinued Dell Desktop and a MDD Dual 1.25GHz PowerMac in RAW photo and Photoshop batch processing. The article concludes that the Windows machines beat the Mac in virtually all of the benchmarks:“The fastest dual processor Mac has been soundly thumped by one of the fastest single processor PCs. If this report had included a dual processor PC, the PC’s margin of victory could have been even greater. Even the Dell, a modestly equipped desktop by current standards, matches or bests the dual 1.25GHz desktop Mac in numerous benchmarks. And the recently discontinued Powerbook G4/800 trails by a significant margin throughout. If the processing of RAW photos in particular is where your workflow hangs up, a Pentium 4-equipped single processor PC offers a compelling solution.”
MacNN.com: “Windows beats Mac in digital file transfers”
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
51 Comments
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Anonymous
USB 2 is a clone of FireWire that is if it has any hardware supporting it. Guess what? There’s none. 
About the PC Magazine bit: does anyone still find this magazine useful?
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Do you post every single bloody Linux Zealot article that gets published around the net?
Ofcourse this will generate a lot of posts from Mac haters. If I wanted to know what Mac Zealots had to say I’d visit MacNN. I come to OSNews to read interesting articles not hear about a irrelevant article that somebody wrote.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, if your gonna post articles that make one community look bad, do it on your own Mac hating site. Linux Zealots have written far worse articles yet I don’t see them being posted here.
This my friend, *I* find it to be a VERY interesting article, and we got two submissions about it plus a submission via ICQ from an OSNews reader.
These sorts of articles generate a lot of discussion, which is what we want anyway.
>I come to OSNews to read interesting articles
This IS an interesting article by all accounts.
>not hear about a irrelevant article that somebody wrote.
Irrelevant it is NOT. It is very relevant and interests a huge load of people. If it does not interest YOU, then, just bypass it, you dont have to whine like a baby>
I wonder what the numbers would be if they used a Dell that cost the same as that PowerMac today…
Excuse me, but I dont see why we should not be posting articles that make the community A or B look good or bad. I found the article VERY informative, a benchmarking article to help people decide on buying decisions and see how fast or slow things are. And EVEN MacNN, a Mac-only site posted it. I say, it is a hot topic, the article is well written with interesting tests, I say post it!
A lot of articles by Linux zealots are rehashed stuff “We need to do this, blah blah blah blah” or “Microsoft is evil, we need to do this, blah blah blah blah” or “Microsoft is really evil, so we really need to do this blah blah blah blah blah”.
This article is about a benchmark that shows one of Apple’s competing egde in Photoshop rendering (which was only last year where they had their last PC vs. Mac Photoshop benchmark) being lost to Microsoft. It doesn’t say “PCs users, don’t buy a Mac” or “Mac users, buy a PC”. Now does it?
Besides, this article isn’t siding towards the Mac as you implied.
I agree with you all the way. This is an interesting article, and anything that starts a good discussion is worth posting.
Thank you RajanR, mburns. I believe so too. This is a great article with many interesting tests on a specific field: digital transfer rates. The article covers the field greatly with its tests, so it worths posting for sure. People need to know, no matter if company A or B gets to look good OR bad. Kissing a$$es is not one of my jobs over here.
Proof that the article *IS* interesting!! Slashdot *just* put up the story up, just 20 minutes later than when we posted this story! You can head there for more discussion if you want.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/12/2320219&mode=thread&tid…
I agree with you all the way. This is an interesting article, and anything that starts a good discussion is worth posting.
I second, thanks for post, Eugenia!
Back to the topic…
Honest, I always want to buy Apple, but I still can’t. Why? Because, it’s slower than PC and too expensive. Expensive on cheap/slow hardwares make no sense at all. Apple team does really need to get their asses busy on improvement and keep update the hardwares as PC. I am awaiting for Apple to improvement on the hardwares, then I will buy it.
It would have been more interesting to see how the test sets ran if you did two of them concurrently. For example, in the conversion of N images tests I am also certain it would be a case of:
while( image_count ) {
conver_image();
image_count –;
}
If you look at the single CPU Mac vs. the SMP Mac, the numbers are actually just about the same ratio as thier speed differences. Basically, the test is leaving a whole 1.25Ghz CPU idle. If the test was actually able to take advantage of an SMP system the Mac would fare a heck of a lot better. In fact, the dual Mac should be able to get it’s speeds down to 1/2 of the ones listed (with a proper parallel test), at which point it would beat the P4 in many more tests.
Another way to look at this is the fact that (in many tests) a single 1.25Ghz G4 was only 1.5-2x slower then a P4 that is nearly 2.5x faster and many years newer. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
Since u find the mac vs PC generates the most hits, why not just rename your site- mac vs the world?
Seriously though, i doubt that there is a lot of pro photogs who visit this site or those who actually use nikon raw files.
And since the article doesn’t seem to be relevant to OS’s, u guys are doing the hit counter thing.
Actually, the dual 1.25Ghz G4 is the latest PowerMac G4. And compared with that a 1.8Ghz P4, the P4 is about a year older. Plus, newer P4s is many many many many times faster than it. Not to mention its other specs weren’t all the impressive compared with the PowerMac in question.
A lot of articles here have nothing to do with OS. Real “THESE TERMS” at http://osnews.com/rules.php;
“8. OSNews is not just about operating systems. We are reporting on other technology news, on development issues and articles, hardware, and if are short on news, we might kick in some sci-fi movie news or other stuff we might find cool. This is normal. We do OSNews for fun/hobby, so it has to be fun for us too. Comments like “this article is not OS news” will end you up get flamed.”
Besides, to point out that it doesn’t matter whether there is a lot of pro photographers or not. The last PC vs. Mac benchmark posted here was about pro video, again, not OSNews target market. But it shows generally the performance difference between a PC and a Mac.
> And since the article doesn’t seem to be relevant to OS’s, u guys are doing the hit counter thing.
Who told you that OSNews is strictly about OSes, huh? And at the end of the day, OSes depend on platforms, and this was a small platform test. And even if it wasn’t, it is still interesting. Read here before you start whining:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=363
I’m not running OS X in work yet, so I haven’t done high-end Photoshop work on it to confirm this myself, but it seems that Photoshop on OSX has a serious bug when running on dual processor machines which prevents it from using 50% of the available processor power:
From Macintouch: http://www.macintouch.com/mosxreader10.2pt42.html
————————————————–
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 15:21:35 -0700
From: Chris Evans
Subject: Photoshop responsiveness
I have noticed something curious with system 10 and Adobe Photoshop, and am wondering if any of your readers have an explanation. I am running system 10.2.3 on a dual 1.25 GHz MDD with 1 GB of RAM and version 7.0.1 of Photoshop. When I use a processor intensive filter such as brush strokes/crosshatch with high sharpness and strength on a large JPEG (2 MB), the computer can take up to 90 seconds to complete the process. Now this in and of itself wouldn’t normally be an issue as I am used to having Photoshop tie up my machine while rendering filters. The curious thing is that according to CPU monitor or iPulse (I have used both separately), the rendering of the filter is only utilizing 50% of the CPU’s (both tend to fluctuate in the 50% range). And this is with only Photoshop running on the machine! Even more curious is what happens on my older dual 450 GHz computer with 1 GB of RAM running 10.2.3 and the same version of Photoshop. The exact same render takes longer (as one would assume), but not as long as would be expected based upon processor/bus speeds. The reason seems to be that the CPU’s are being utilized to a greater extent. When I look at CPU utilization on this machine during the rendering process, the CPU utilization is often in the 70% range (both), and sometimes in the 80% range. This never occurs with my new dual 1.25 GHz machine where the CPU utilization never exceeds 50%.
How can this be? Is the code Adobe is using unable to utilize the bandwidth of the new dual processors? Is there a bandwidth “limit” in Photoshop’s code that cannot be exceeded? Is this a system 10 issue? Any feedback would be appreciated.
————————————————–
Reading more in the Jaguar report shows other responses which fall in line with this.
If this is the case, it would explain why the Dual-G4 was so resoundingly trounced. Of course, that doens’t help much because the fact is that Photoshop is still running slower on OSX Macs, but it at least gives hope that this is something which can be fixed in software (Lord knows Motorola won’t be fixing the hardware!).
It would be interesting, purely as a point of comparison, to see the tests re-run under OS9. (yes yes, OSX is the future blah blah blah, I know and agree… but it is still a worthwhile comparison).
Would a video card matter in this benchmark testing? Just wondering.
This wasn’t really all that fair..both the PCs were seriously hampered: the Dell was obsolete and the laptop hampered by a sloew hard drive. Had a fast dual processor PC with a high end graphics card been tested I’m sure the results would have been more startling.
..post intersting news, why do you post rumours like http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2472 but not the infos that it was NOT true ? Maybe also in fat Headlines like the Lies ? Or is this now a rumour-site ?
Mac friend
More repetition of what we already know. I think it’s been known and generally accepted for years that in terms of raw throughput, a Mac is slower. The problem, of course, arises from any motivation on the part of Motorola to continue to develop their G4 line, so Apple is stuck with inferior processors.
But do we see some mass exodus from the Apple platform? I’m not seeing that, and I think in that lies a very important distinction.
Furthermore, I don’t see how this article is the work of “Linux zealots,” considering the platform it appears to be advocating is Windows XP.
how long will they last below 2 GHz? If they can’t make it to 2Ghz or put out a 64-bit processor (OS X 64-bit version exists?) what is gonna become of Apple? They have the greatest O.S. ever made(Jaguar) and the best of breed apps(iTunes) yet their hardware is seriously outdated.
I doubt that IBM will save the day with their low-cost PowerPCs. I expect another year of MacWorlds with no seriously needed intervention in the speed department.
Apple is in deep-sh!t. Like last year. And the year before that…
As sad as it is true, we have known for some time, and seen various reports on this earlier on, that Macs are outperformed rather easily by PCs. On virtually every Mac board there have been discussions on this subject for as long as I have followed them (about a year), and everyone is waiting for IBM cpus or an alliance with AMD, preferably going 64bit.
I found this article an interresting read, but as explained above, its not exactly new, but rather another nail in the coffin for Apple.
For my own part, I live and trive with my dual 1Ghz PowerMac, and even though I have faster PCs at my fingertips, I rarely touch them. I feel more and more at home in my nice looking *nix environment, but I would of course enjoy better speed – who wouldnt!?
Lets just hope that Apple and someone (IBM/AMD/whatever) have some serious business going on – it would be a shame indeed to see such an innovative computer company go down the drain because of Motorolas mishappenings…
Yes, a lot of responses which will be nothing but a flamefest. I stoped reading after the fourth comment as it was more than obvious by then.
Do those benchmarks tell me anything new? no, it’s established that a P4 at 2GHz will be faster than a G4 at 1GHz.
I’ll repeat myself in stating that I’d for a first time rather see a benchmark stating how fast user interaction with a given OS is, as in, how long does it take me to get a task done on various platforms.
“I’ll repeat myself in stating that I’d for a first time rather see a benchmark stating how fast user interaction with a given OS is, as in, how long does it take me to get a task done on various platforms.”
Well this benchmark tells you that if your use of a computer involves a lots of processing of images in photoshop, and you cannot structure your work so that you can do something else while they are rendering (which is almost certainly the case unless you are batch processing large numbers of pictures, the render times are generally short enough that by the time you switched to another task they would be done), then it will take you a hell of a lot longer to get the task done on a Mac than on similarly priced PC.
It all depends on where your bottlenecks are, if you spend 80% of your time “interacting” with your computer (e.g. browsing, word processing, reading emails and so on), so that you never approach the performance limitations of your system, then doubling the speed of the system in processor intensive use (that other 20%) will only save you 10% of your day, improving the user interface will give you more gains.
However if you spend 80% of your time waiting for processing of images, video, scientific calculations or financial predictions for example, then doubling the processing speed will give you a 40% saving, for which it is worth putting up with a less than ideal user interface.
Interestingly, many of the traditional strongholds for the Mac have been in processor intensive applications suxh as image manipulation, video and audio processing and production.
I say that this benchmark tells me nothing new. there are dozens out there which were conducted in a similar way with the same result. I also say I miss any benchmarks at all which compare how fast I get my home use done and how userfriendly the interface is.
Jon is right, this benchmark is interesting and relavant IF you are one of the people who perform this type of processor intensive work.
Benchmarks that test the type of activity that most of us do most of the time are where the Mac shines. I have a PC & a Mac and (as long as you don’t use IE for Mac) I can say that the Mac browses, burns CDs, prints, copies files, creates spreadsheets etc every bit as fast as my 2.1Ghz PC. Thats not factoring in the fact that the Mac is more stable (a big big plus) and that a lot of actions are just that much easier.
Mac users shouldn’t be scared of this type of benchmark as it is very specific, and anyway choose the platform you like and stick with it, who cares if other people want to use other platforms, I’m still interested in knowing about them.
I have to say though, for the uninformed, the gap between the G4 clock speeds and the x86 chips may be a turnoff if it continues to grow. OSX on Intel anyone?
Yeah, it wouldn’t be an OSNews article without a mindless Mac-head making excuses for Apple…
That Alienware notebook is a monster. They stuck a desktop chip inside a notebook computer. It weighs 9.6 lbs. According to PCWorld (http://pcworld.shopping.yahoo.com/yahoo/article/0,aid,103253,00.asp), the 2.4 GHz model had a 1 hour 35 minute battery life, and I can’t imagine the move to 3.06 made this any longer.
Also, let’s go through a few things that you can now get on a PowerBook that you can’t get on the Alienware:
– A DVD burner
– Gig-E
– DVI Output
– FireWire 800/A larger screen/802.11g…
So, alll I’m saying is that there is more to a computer than RAW (pun!) speed. One other thing. Did anyone else notice that all the times were extremely low? Converting a giant photo from TIF to JPEG took between 1.7 and 5.1 seconds. That’s an extremely short amount of time. In the field, does that kind of time really matter?
Because it was a interesting piece of news, and the fact that it was posted and carried on respected websites shows that it wasn’t your regular rumour. Besides, Eugenia never said that OSNews wouldn’t post rumour news. And to point out, that rumour indeed became true.
User friendlyness is extremely relative. If you give me a KDE 2/3-like user interface, I’m most productive. Why? It is the UI I am used most. Is it the best? Hell no.
Ease of use is extremely relative, and completely a non-issue. If someone have problems with the ease of use with a Windows system, I’m quite sure he wouldn’t be using Photoshop. *Productivity* is what that is important. How fast can you do thinks once you get used to a operating system.
Again, this is extremely relative, and it is impossible to benchmark it. Plus, to point that most apps, including Photoshop, the difference with the UI for the Windows and Mac version is very very very very small.
Then for home use…. did the author said anything about home use? He was talking about his work. Not home use. *Work*. How would you know what his preferences are for home use?
Why would a photographer needs a DVD burner, a gigabit ethernet connection and a FireWire 800 connection? Yeah, maybe the battery life is much lower on AlienWare’s part, but then again there are plenty of laptops that have at least 3 hours of battery life that uses P4 that is at least faster than that 1.8Ghz P4 used in the Dell.
Besides, the Alienware PC has a DVI output (It uses a Mobility Radeon 9000, after all). But then again, it doesn’t have ADC (Apple’s own propreitary connection) but big deal.
Besides, in the article, I don’t see the author comparing the PowerBook and the AlienWare together only. They tested four machines. 2 out of date (the Dell and the PowerBook), two new (the Area-51 and PowerMac).
Kosh: I’m not running OS X in work yet, so I haven’t done high-end Photoshop work on it to confirm this myself, but it seems that Photoshop on OSX has a serious bug when running on dual processor machines which prevents it from using 50% of the available processor power:
And given the fact that Apple is using SMP G4s to hide the fact that Motorola doesn’t think G4s are important, AND imaging is an Apple stronghold, this looks a very serious bug.
Ronald: I doubt that IBM will save the day with their low-cost PowerPCs. I expect another year of MacWorlds with no seriously needed intervention in the speed department.
Hey, at least IBM Semi is INTERESTED in becoming a player in the computer semiconductors market! Motorola isn’t anymore.
It’ll not be salvation to Mac, but it helps a lot.
Ease of use is extremely relative, and completely a non-issue.
that must be the most ridiculous statement ever. relative? yes. not an issue? good joke.
However if you spend 80% of your time waiting for processing of images, video, scientific calculations or financial predictions for example, then doubling the processing speed will give you a 40% saving, for which it is worth putting up with a less than ideal user interface.
Anyone who spends 80% of their work time waiting is either an idiot or has an idiot for a boss.
Well, since you people seem to care so much about stupid benchmarks done by who knows who and testing something like 0.1% of what you’ll actually be doing with your computer…
PC Magazine puts a 2×1.25GHz G4 againt a 3.06 P4 with Hyper-Threading and benchmarks Photoshop, gues who wins? What? Do I hear P4? Try again!
http://www.powerpage.org/story.lasso?newsID=10439“