Intel macs blazing faster than G5's

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-07-14 01:41am

Developers working with the new Intel-based, developer-only Macs are impressed with the performance
The machines take as little as 10 seconds to boot from Apple logo to desktop, and apparently run Windows XP at 'blazing speeds.'
Rosetta tests demonstrate the PowerPC-native build of Firefox running just as fast as it does on a high-end G5

So let's see: It boot's up much faster and runs a non-optimized version of Firefox just as fast as a top-end Mac.
(Of course, Firefox hardly requires a dual core system like the G5 but it is still impressive) maccie

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-07-14 01:48am

Only one applicate and whats the bit about Intel-based macs booting WindowsXP?

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-07-14 02:24am

Heres another link with more details: thinksecret

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-14 02:38am

It should be noted that the FireFox build isn't just non-optimized; it's PowerPC compiled.

It's running under Rosetta, a binary translator. It's pretty much emulated (I'm sure a nitpicker will kill me for that). So that's quite impressive.

10 seconds to boot from Apple logo to desktop is nothing short of shocking to me, comparing to the boot time of the Macs I've seen (all G4's and G3's, I've never had to reboot a G5

).

It should be noted that the developer systems are 3.6 GHz Pentium 4's. That's it.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-07-14 04:52am

Shocking good, shocking bad Praxis?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-07-14 06:10am

I've never been that keen on reboot times as a major determining factor of system performance. Besides, they aren't a major factor in how you use a computer, or what really slows you down. Now, transcoding a 2 hour movie from MJPEG to MPEG-2; that is a useful test of performance.

WyrdNyrd · Post by **WyrdNyrd** » 2005-07-14 07:15am

Darth Wong wrote:I've never been that keen on reboot times as a major determining factor of system performance.

True, boot-up time is not terribly important in and of itself, except in two situations:

Consumer Electronics. People expect their TV, DVD playe or HiFi to switch on instantly, which reduces the enthusiasm for Windows Media Center-style devices.
Windows PCs, which are always rebooting.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-07-14 07:46am

Consumer electronics have short bootup times because they have zero customizability, so they don't have to check for anything. I'll take a highly customizable system over that anyday.

WyrdNyrd · Post by **WyrdNyrd** » 2005-07-14 07:57am

Darth Wong wrote:Consumer electronics have short bootup times because they have zero customizability, so they don't have to check for anything. I'll take a highly customizable system over that anyday.

Sure, you would, and I probably would, too.

But most people are conditioned to expect instant response these days (the days of waiting for valves to warm up are looong gone) and it will take a while for them to decide the pay-off is worth it.

So in the meantime, we have Media-edition type devices with a stripped-down Linux in firmware, which boots in a couple of seconds, as an alternative boot-mode. If you want "quick", boot to BIOS, if you want slow-but-featureful, you boot to XP, all on the same machine.

So I wouldn't call boot-up times in CE devices a show-stopper, just that it will add some resistance to adoption (as will the ever-increasing DRM restrictions that both MS and Apple are adding to their devices.) Nothing that good marketing won't eventually overcome.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-14 01:11pm

Mr Bean wrote:Shocking good, shocking bad Praxis?

Very good. My biggest complaint about OS X is that on my computers it takes a lot longer to boot than Windows does (but remember, my fastest Mac is a 1 GHz G4, no G5's).

I rarely need to reboot, but when I do turn on the Macs I usually go get a snack or go check SD.net on my PC or something while it boots, lol.

Ten seconds is astoundingly fast, at least from my OS X experience.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-14 01:13pm

What I'm happy about is that we can finally get some real benchmarks. OS X running on x86 vs OS X running on PowerPC.

We're not going to get any actual benchmarks for a year, at least not many, because the developers had to sign an NDA that states they cannot release benchmarks on the dev kit. But when the Intel Macs come out, then we can finally see how well they REALLY compare.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-07-14 01:38pm

Praxis wrote:
Mr Bean wrote:Shocking good, shocking bad Praxis?
Very good. My biggest complaint about OS X is that on my computers it takes a lot longer to boot than Windows does (but remember, my fastest Mac is a 1 GHz G4, no G5's).

I rarely need to reboot, but when I do turn on the Macs I usually go get a snack or go check SD.net on my PC or something while it boots, lol.

Ten seconds is astoundingly fast, at least from my OS X experience.

Now remember kids, the thing about a fast-looking Windows boot time is that, yes, it reaches the desktop quickly, but it takes thirty seconds after that to really finish booting (for the OS to stop flogging the hard disk to load crap.)

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2005-07-14 03:00pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Now remember kids, the thing about a fast-looking Windows boot time is that, yes, it reaches the desktop quickly, but it takes thirty seconds after that to really finish booting (for the OS to stop flogging the hard disk to load crap.)

It doesnt for me

Thats generally because of all the crap that finds its way into people's auto-startup for their profile.

However, the file system cache is completely useless after that. So IO operations are slower than normal, but the prefetch system in WinXP makes that a non-issue for application launch (Including explorer.exe!)

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-14 03:04pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Praxis wrote:
Mr Bean wrote:Shocking good, shocking bad Praxis?
Very good. My biggest complaint about OS X is that on my computers it takes a lot longer to boot than Windows does (but remember, my fastest Mac is a 1 GHz G4, no G5's).

I rarely need to reboot, but when I do turn on the Macs I usually go get a snack or go check SD.net on my PC or something while it boots, lol.

Ten seconds is astoundingly fast, at least from my OS X experience.
Now remember kids, the thing about a fast-looking Windows boot time is that, yes, it reaches the desktop quickly, but it takes thirty seconds after that to really finish booting (for the OS to stop flogging the hard disk to load crap.)

Oh, you're certainly right, I'm not comparing OS X to Windows' boot times...but OS X on my Macs to OS X on this Mac.

A minute of the Apple logo vs 10 seconds. Yeow.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-14 03:39pm

Hm, someone on Macrumors pointed out that there are no benchmarks at all; everything quoted is just how fast the guy sitting at the computer feels a web browser runs. And it turns on real fast.

He's got a point at that. I'll wait for Photoshop benchmarks to be leaked

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2005-07-14 04:43pm

Boot time is highly variable in OS X. I've seen an 867 MHz G4 be up and to the login screen in 15 seconds easily. It all depends on the state of shutdown, speed of the hard disk, memory, et cetera.

The x86 build of OS X probably doesn't have nearly as many kernel extensions loaded at boot time as the PowerPC build, either. So it's no surprise that the x86 build would boot faster.

In any case, I've never considered boot time to be a reliable performance indicator. I barely ever have to reboot OS X, so why should I care?

This hype about the developer boxes being so much faster than Apple's shipping hardware seems like a bunch of placebo nonsense. The GPU in those things is an Intel graphics set with bare-bones DirectX 9 compliance. I'd be very surprised if Exposé on the x86 developer boxes was as smooth with a large number of Windows as it is on a shipping dual G5, for example. And several parts of OS X are probably still running under emulation in the x86 build.

I have no doubt that future shipping rigs with dual-core Pentium M's, PCIe GPUs, faster hard disks and such will be fast-as-fuck, but those are a while off yet. People can wave their dicks about the G5 vs. the Pentium 4 all they want, but frankly, the biggest difference in this change will be mobile computing. The G4 continues to be an embarrassment in Apple's mobile line, but the PowerBook sells very well in spite of that because it is light, thin, has a DVD burner, is priced well and "fast enough." Put a dual-core Pentium M in PowerBooks and watch them sell like mad. People would buy them just to run Windows on them.