“Apple has two performance headaches right now: the processor and the OS. Apple’s director of core engineering Brett Halle last month promised us that OS X performance was a paramount concern, and to be fair, his division need take no blame. The BSD he inherited has the industry’s best respected IP stack, for example. […] The problem is, one former Apple engineer told us, in serializing the twenty five year old BSD layer with the fifteen year old code of the extensions NeXT began to add in the mid 1980s.” Read TheRegister’s analysis of the G4 SPEC benchmarks Heise reported last week.
On MacOSX and G4 Performance
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I’m just happy that I now have a weapon to throw at any Mac fanatic that tries to give me crap about Mac being superior to PCs. But I’m still buying a Mac. I like the direction OSX is going in, whereas I refuse to use Win XP because I dislike certain aspects of it. At first, I felt that the PC was a better platform because it’s more upgradable and it was easier to bring an old PC back to life with newer hardware. Then I looked back at my PC building habits and realized that I’ve built entire systems once a year for the past 5 years. In other words, buying a new Mac every year is no different from what I’m doing now with my PCs.
Although i am really liking where the mac platform is going. I am going to wait a little while longer.
I am not one that needs new hardware, and personally think that our current habits are very wastefull. I wish people would just make better code, then go out and use faster hardware to make up for crappy slow code. but anyways
It looks like the G5 that is being developed now is going to be very very cool. I personally am going to make my next computer be 64bit, so i have a little while to wait. I would imagine that after the G5 comes out it will take a little while longer to get everything to take full advantage of the new 64bit power it will have, but i can wait.
I’m excited for G5 as well. I’m a programmer, so I would be able to take advantage of a 64 bit CPU right away by porting my programs to 64 bit code.
>>I’m just happy that I now have a weapon to throw at any Mac fanatic that tries to give me crap about Mac being superior to PCs.<<
Macs are still superior to PCs!… ha ha just kidding 🙂
If you read the message boards on sites such as MacNN and MacCentral, you’ll see a good number of mac die-hards claiming everything to “who cares” to conspiracy theories. I hope this gives Apple’s executives a kick in the pants to get their hardware up to snuff, now that they’ve got a kick butt operating system.
Here is the link if anyone is interested. These results probably the norm in mind of what end users are interested in…
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html
enjoy 🙂
“mac os x is slow..with legacy codefrom 1980s” nuff said
>>”mac os x is slow..with legacy codefrom 1980s” nuff said<<
How does this differ from Windows XP?
wow, I didn’t think that anyone else did benchmarks the way Apple did (choosing to not give any relevant information on what benchmark was actually performed except the application and furthermore using specs that can’t easily be compared (ie P4 and Athlon running Radeon 8500 cards but no Macs running them, and the Athlon running GF4Ti but not the P4 or Mac running it, on a Q3 benchmark which *should* be based mostly on the video card’s performance)), but that link just proved me wrong.
if you would have read further…
“I hope to do a special shootout between a Dual G4/1000 Power Mac, 2000MHz Pentium 4, and an Athlon 1667MHz (2000+), each with a GeForce4 Titanium, the ultimate graphics card (in collaboration with AnandTech.com).”
as quoted from BareFeats!!!
>>”mac os x is slow..with legacy codefrom 1980s” nuff said<<
How does this differ from Windows XP?
Not that it matters much how old the code is in an OS, but XP is based on NT, which only dates back to the early/mid-90’s (the development team was formed in February 1990, and the first version, NT3.1, shipped in August 1993). There’s some code that might date to the 80’s in it’s legacy support for OS/2 (not in XP), DOS, Win16, etc., but that isn’t core OS code.
Yes, I saw that, but the benchmarks that are published right now were the issue, imo. Even the non-Q3 benchmarks show the same issues (Photoshop, 20 functions; ok which functions?). Most people don’t publish benchmarks in that manner because it’s fairly useless information (and lacks important information).
>>but XP is based on NT, which only dates back to the early/mid-90’s (the development team was formed in February 1990, and the first version, NT3.1, shipped in August 1993).<<
Don’t forget VMS’s role, which came from the mid 70s…
http://www.win2000mag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=4494&pg=1
>>Yes, I saw that, but the benchmarks that are published right now were the issue, imo. Even the non-Q3 benchmarks show the same issues (Photoshop, 20 functions; ok which functions?).<<
I didn’t post the BareFeats to actually give the Mac praise (as might have assumed). I was more impressed with the Athlon numbers and thought it would be nice to post it for those folks interested in those types of benchmarks. Someone had commented that the benchmarks that were perceived by SPEC (which is well respected by the OEMs, since IBM always uses them for comparison charts on their website), other people want to know about paint programs, games and such. BareFeats usually doesn’t let the Mac off easy, and he usually tries to give a fair review and points out Mac strengths and weaknesses compared to the others.
Good point there CattBeMac regarding the VMS origins of the NT kernel.
When Microsoft stole Dave Cutler and several dozen VMS engineers who worked under him from Digital, I think they may have brought over some of their actual working code as well as the architectual concepts. Copyright makes this seem unlikely, but I thought I read somewhere that they did that (it has been a long time). When you compare VMS and NT at the kernel level they are very similar in architecture.
When Digital was still Digital, Microsoft used to partner with them to some extent in having them contribute to parts of NT development, particularly for the Alpha port that they had at one time.
Since this article is about OS X and not NT, I’ll spare you any more comments about it.
“This squares a Mac Photoshop against a buggy, older version of Photoshop on Windows…”
As far as I remember (I do have bad memory so correct me if I’m wrong) the “bake-offs” use the same version of Photoshop on both machines. I would like to know where the author heard about different versions and why the windows version would be any more ‘buggy’ than the mac version.
ms could not compete withxp
ms could not compete withxp
ms could not compete withxp
>>I’m just happy that I now have a weapon to throw at any Mac fanatic that tries to give me crap about Mac being superior to PCs.<<
The mac diehards are in denial, the claim that it wasn’t
tested properly.
I tried it myself went to two macstores and played
with an ibook 500 and OS-X that one was dead slow.
turned me off the iBook…
Played with the new iMac (g4 800MHz) looks nice, felt
a lot quicker but still not a speed deamon.
Quick enough to get things done, but a bit pricey.
>>The mac diehards are in denial, the claim that it wasn’t
tested properly.<<
I am not in denial. I don’t usually take those tests seriously, but keep an openmind. I still will go buy a Mac tomorrow, because that is what I love to use!
>>I tried it myself went to two macstores and played
with an ibook 500 and OS-X that one was dead slow.
turned me off the iBook…<<
Yeah I can agree… I bought one last summer, owned it for 3 days and took it back because of slowness (though it was running Mac OS X 10.0.3 and 10.1 is definitely faster)… and it had only a 66 MHz Bus, talk about a bottleneck. I now own a Ti-Book G4 and have no complaints on performance. Next stop will be a Power Mac!
and still £2500 off
I went for a trip down Tottemham court rd yesterday, the new iMacs really do look sweet, hell even my g/f was impressed.
re: 64bits.
How many 64bit machines are there at the ~£1000 mark?
I can only think of the Sun Blade 100 at $999 (~£700).
Anyone know of any others? is the Itanium avaible yet (even if it is, I’m going to guess a £700 price tag for the processor)
Mlk
It was almost a year ago that http://www.xbitlabs.com had an article comparing Pentium 4 and Athlons in Photoshop performance. They made it very clear that Photoshop is not a good benchmark to use when comparing CPUs. There are inconsistencies even when running the same test on the same exact system. To avoid the possibility that data gets cached therefore running faster the second time around, they ran a test and timed it, rebooted the computer and ran the test again and timed it again. The results would vary wildly.
With that said, I can’t trust Apple’s claim that the Mac is better when they use Photoshop as evidence.
It’s rather the combination of NextStep & BSD that makes OS X slow. OS X will probably remain relatively slower than NT and other Unix OSes but…
While BeOS would have been nice for Apple, I don’t think Amelio could have done for Apple what Jobs has.
ciao
yc
Having moved to their new OS X/BSD platform, it would be relatively simple to bring it over to another processor. Now which processor to use? Why not ink a deal with AMD or Intel for them to produce slightly different chips for Apple computers? Just different enough to maintain hardware monopoly but close enough that they get the latest chip when it comes out.
At the same time they can slowly go back and rewrite portions of OS X bit by bit. Like they could support a new FS easily like ReiserFS or something and start shipping it as the default system on new Macs. Old mac users could keep their old FS or wipe and start over and the end user would never have to know the difference. Other aspects could slowly be updated to at least BeOS levels of advancement which would only put them at 10 yrs behind the state of the art.
“Not that it matters much how old the code is in an OS, but XP is based on NT, which only dates back to the early/mid-90’s (the development team was formed in February 1990, and the first version, NT3.1, shipped in August 1993). There’s some code that might date to the 80’s in it’s legacy support for OS/2 (not in XP), DOS, Win16, etc., but that isn’t core OS code.”
Windows XP isn’t based on NT, it is NT. Besides that small technicallity, NT and OS/2 began as the same project even though Microsoft tried to deny it. Early versions of NT would give error messages and numbers identical to those in OS/2. It’s not that there was just support for OS/2, it’s that OS/2 were once the same operating system.
I’m not sure what your agenda is, but you’re giving Be users the same bad rep as too many Amiga fanatics have given Amiga…begone!
Last year I have bought a Mac. My first one. I know that PC hardware gives you more flexibility and more CPU power as well. Nevertheless I wanted to have a computer that just _simply_ works. CPU power is nice but that’s not all IMHO. Think of cars: Some people prefer uncomfortable sports car, some
prefer a comfortable limousine. I do not want to say that PCs and their major OSes are a bad thing. For most peoply its absolutely ok. And why not? As long as we have the possibilty
to choose between various systems to satisfy our needs
almost everyone should be happy =). We all should take care that there will be always the freedom to choice …
Apple should pick up palm’s os unit. They then would have a compelling offering for the cell phone/PDA/portable world. They could also release Beos for Intel. Fact is 90-95% of the world’s computers will continue to avoid apple due to cost. In addition, Apple’s 5% are unlikely to go away even to a beos pc.
Apple still has the advantage of a more controlled product and a pleasurable user experience. Apple is really about that user experience and not just necessarily speed.
browsing the web and word processing does not necessitate a 2.2 GHz P4. Computer power, even in the case of apple, far exceeds what is necessary for about 90% of all users. Thus these tests are meaningless to all but a tiny minority.
I bought an iMac/350 (slot-loader) just over a year ago, and recently boosted RAM to 320MB and installed OSX 10.1 on it. It’s a fine machine for the home, and I don’t see a major performance problem with it. Sure, IE bogs down once in a while but (unlike OS9) I can click over to a different app while I’m waiting on it to come home.
My other computer is a beige G3/266, over three years old now, and past its mid-life upgrade (to 416MB RAM, 17GB hard drive, and a USB card). I’m dual-booting Linux and MacOS 9 on it (actually running MacOS in a VM under Linux). I expect to get another two years out of it. The only reason I haven’t moved it to OS X is because USB printer sharing went away and there’s no /dev/usb/lp0 device like there is in Linux.
What’s the point? Simple: there are plenty of people out there who don’t need the newest, blazing-fastest machines. I buy Macs partly because the OS doesn’t generate constant “support calls” from the rest of the family, and mostly because they just keep going. Seriously, if you don’t make money by crunching numbers faster, buying a 1GHz system is little more than an extension of your, umm, ego. In an interactive application, the computer is sitting around waiting on you or the network most of the time anyway.
Having said that, I’ll probably replace the wife’s video editing system (8100/100 + Vincent, vintage 1995) with a G4 later this year. The Vincent does most of the hard work with transitions and the like, making the 8100 surprisingly useable, but it’s really showing its age now that her projects get longer than 30 mins of production video. Not to mention finding replacement parts… fortunately my own junk boxes have sufficed so far, but I’m dreading the day that one of the Vincent/Media100 components fails.
“Apple should pick up palm’s os unit. They then would have a compelling offering for the cell phone/PDA/portable world. They could also release Beos for Intel. Fact is 90-95% of the world’s computers will continue to avoid apple due to cost. In addition, Apple’s 5% are unlikely to go away even to a beos pc.
Apple still has the advantage of a more controlled product and a pleasurable user experience. Apple is really about that user experience and not just necessarily speed.
browsing the web and word processing does not necessitate a 2.2 GHz P4. Computer power, even in the case of apple, far exceeds what is necessary for about 90% of all users. Thus these tests are meaningless to all but a tiny minority.”
Although i agree that MHZ isnt anything .. i dont think that justifies paying a premium for what is undoubtably an inferiour machine in terms of hardware.
And i know that it has an “awesome” os … but … does that justify the premium either? .. is microsoft justified by charging 300$ for windows XP ?
so then … i understand the concept of the mac computer .. and as a PLATFORM .. i like the stability of it … but … the hardware is behind .. and im sorry .. but i dont think they can even command a premium … its just unfair to consumers … ESPECIALLY when they claim for it to be faster than a PC by using 1 benchmark … which is misleading the consumer …
anyways .. thats my oppinion … and im sticking to it.
Look at apple’s marketing. Notice that they’ve opened stores in malls. Apple is not after the raw number crunchers. They are looking for a far broader market segment.
Steve jobs noticed a long time ago that the future of competing is not this power game, granted motorola may have forced him to do so. The company has focused on other value in the network beyond just pure performance. There is a lot more to making a satisfied PC buyer than just raw performance metrics. And those increases in power don’t mean a lot unless you use them, few do.
Intel and the wintel crew are incapable of providing any value or differentation beyond intel’s performance specs or price. That makes these specs SOOOOOOOOO important to them because they have nothing else to stand on. The MHz is pretty much intels only selling point along with price, which works quite well.
As for releasing BeOS, it is a way of releasing an “apple” OS for the intel platform that still allows it to keep OX and Macs differentiated from the PC world. Releasing OS X on intel would not satisfy that.
“IE gets bogged down..”
You might like to try the Opera browser. While the OS X version is slower than the OS9 its still perceptably faster than IE