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The Godfather · Mar 9, 2011, 11:42 AM

YouTube - Apple - PowerMac G4 - Super Computer Tanks
<cue corny marching band>
For the first time in history, a personal computer has been classified as a weapon by the US government.
With the power to perform over a billion calculations per second, the Pentagon wants to ensure that the new PowerMacintosh G4 does not fall into the wrong hands.
As for Pentium PCs... well... they are harmless.
<close corny music>

Is the A5 more powerful or less powerful than the referenced G4 supercomputer?
What about the A4?

The Final Dakar · Mar 9, 2011, 11:43 AM

I remember that commercial fondly.

So, do they reclassify what constitutes a supercomputer every year or have they just thrown up their hands and said any computer can be used as a weapon now.

osiris · Mar 9, 2011, 12:39 PM

That was a great computer, I think it was called the Sawtooth.
Good times, good times...

The A5 looks like a great chip, can't wait for the next iPhone.

Eug · Mar 9, 2011, 01:14 PM

The G4 7400 puts out 825 DMIPS at 450 MHz. So at 500 MHz, it's 917 (or 1.83 DMIPS per MHz).
A 1 GHz ARM9 dual-core theoretically puts out 5000 DMIPS (or 2.5 DMIPS per MHz).

However, that commercial is based on the Power Mac achieving 1 GigaFLOPS. In fact, I think they could do up to 4 GigaFLOPS. I was reading on the net that theoretically with some recent ARM CPUs you could get roughly 1.5 MFLOPS per MHz, which would mean roughly 3 GigaFLOPS for a dual-core 1 GHz. However, the A5 probably has nowhere near that.

More importantly though, the iPad 2 can decode 720p HD H.264 in real time. The Power Mac cannot.

The Final Dakar · Mar 9, 2011, 01:17 PM

But can it run flash? dun dun dunnnn

Eug · Mar 9, 2011, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

But can it run flash? dun dun dunnnn

Theoretically yes actually. It's just that Apple won't allow it.

As for the Power Mac @ 500 MHz, it can run Flash, but it's exceedingly painful. Click2Flash is your friend.

The Final Dakar · Mar 9, 2011, 01:20 PM

I don't deal in theory! I deal in cold hard facts, sir!
For the purposes of this post

Eug · Mar 9, 2011, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

I don't deal in theory! I deal in cold hard facts, sir!
For the purposes of this post

Heh. Well, for cold hard facts... Flash does indeed run on dual-core ARM A9... just not in iOS.

The Final Dakar · Mar 9, 2011, 01:28 PM

Theories, technicalities... you should have been a lawyer, sir.

The bottom line is if I go buy an iPad today, it will not run flash.

Eug · Mar 9, 2011, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

Theories, technicalities... you should have been a lawyer, sir.

The bottom line is if I go buy an iPad today, it will not run flash.

It won't have a dual-core ARM chip in it either. The iPad 2 isn't out yet.

P.S. John Siracusa claims it's possible the iPad 2 is running dual-core A8, not dual-core A9 which everyone thinks it is. Personally I don't really care. I just care that the new iPad 2 supposedly is "twice" as fast as the old one... which was kinda slow at certain things.

The Final Dakar · Mar 9, 2011, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

It won't have a dual-core ARM chip in it either. The iPad 2 isn't out yet.

Saw that coming. That's why I said "iPad" and not "iPad 2".

Originally Posted by Eug

P.S. John Siracusa claims it's possible the iPad 2 is running dual-core A8, not dual-core A9 which everyone thinks it is. Personally I don't really care. I just care that the new iPad 2 supposedly is "twice" as fast as the old one... which was kinda slow at certain things.

That sounds likely. What I read on ars was indicating it was benchmarking lower (slower) than expected.

P · Mar 9, 2011, 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Heh. Well, for cold hard facts... Flash does indeed run on dual-core ARM A9... just not in iOS.

Skyfire

And no, it's not the complete Flash spec, but neither is the Android version - which BTW doesn't run on the tablet OS Android 3.0 yet.

The Godfather · Mar 13, 2011, 01:32 PM

In this context:
YouTube - Apple - MHz myth
ARM's pipeline is 13 stages. What would its pipeline tax be?

Eug · 08:08 PM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

That sounds likely. What I read on ars was indicating it was benchmarking lower (slower) than expected.

Well, Anand says there is no multicore A8, and that it is dual-core A9.

Geekbench reports it is running at 900 MHz, but Apple says it's running at 1 GHz. Perhaps 900 MHz is a power-saving speed. BTW, it has 1 MB L2 cache, double what it was before.

Here is Anand's Linpack bench:

So, 171 Mflop/s for the iPad 2

Here are other Linpack scores:

G5 2.2 GHz: 1681
G4 1 GHz: 284
G4 533 MHz: 231
PowerBook G4 500: 135
Power Mac 9500/233: 34
Original Mac: 0.0038

So basically, the iPad 2 has the compute power for fp in the range of a TiBook, whereas the original iPad was more comparable for fp to a System 7/OS 8 era Mac.