[cmderinchief]

I know what you are thinking.....NOT ANOTHER FNG

Don't fret, I am not a tech novice. In fact, I work in the IT field and I like to consider myself a "tech-head".....it has just been 8 years since I last played with a Mac, thats all

I made a decision to make myself a bit more rounded in my computer skills and bought a iBook yesterday from Apple.com. Since I am pretty much a PC driven person (there, I said the nasty PC word )....I want to know what a G3 600MHz is equal to in terms of a Intel/AMD chip. I have looked on the net and couldn't seem to find a conversion chart or anything. I need some fodder to fight back to my Anti-Mac boss. He in on the COMBEX advisory board and he goes on to tell me that, "Important people I know have Dells or ThinkPads."

Does anyone know this info or where I can find it on my own so I can shut him the heck up??

TIA!

[poppa kristof]

I use the equation the I have made up is take the current speed and multply it by 1.5

Many might disagree with me on this but as a fellow IT guy who builds networks and pcs for business I think that is about correct.

The G3 or G4 is not twice as fast as the current P3 or P4's.
But, it is not the same speed equivelant either.
That's why I settled on 1.5 : 1 ratio.

It can get cloudy though, since a P3 would be faster than a P4 at the same clock speed. That was why Intel pulled the desktop P3's a year early.
Then you got the whole AMD factor.

[Hobbes]

In my experience, I would have to say the diffenence is a little more than what poppa said. I would say that a Mac is 1.5 to 2 times faster than a comparable PC. So a 600Mhz G3 iBook would equal somewhere in the 900Mhz to 1.2Ghz PC range, probably in the neighborhood of 1Ghz.

Of course, a G4 would definately be on the 2x end of the scale. That's why that a Dual 1Ghz G4 can outperform a P4 by up to 70% in some tasks (optimized for the Velocity Engine, of course).

Being an IT guy, you of course know that there are other considerations. Comparing an iBook to a desktop is never going to be quite fair due to HD speed issues. However, comparing a 600Mhz iBook to a 1-1.2Ghz PC notebook should be quite favorable.

P.S. If you're running X, max out the RAM. X loves it. I've got 640 in my 600Mhz iBook, and X runs like a charm.

[Langdon]

Originally posted by cmderinchief:
<STRONG> I need some fodder to fight back to my Anti-Mac boss. He in on the COMBEX advisory board and he goes on to tell me that, "Important people I know have Dells or ThinkPads."

Does anyone know this info or where I can find it on my own so I can shut him the heck up??

TIA! </STRONG>

Lots of theories about how it compares. I guess it all depends at which benchmarks you look at. But its not 1:1 we can all agree on that. So its not wrong to assume its around that 1.5 area.

And as far as important people go: Colon Powell has been spotted on televison several times carrying a Ti Powerbook .

[rampant]

I can't give you an exact conversion, because there is none- for example, some Pentium 3 math operations are twice as fast as a G4 of the same Mhz- but for comparisons:

ATi Radeon mobility 16 meg DDR + Celeron 933: 58 fps in Q3 @ 1024x768@32bpp

ATi Radeon mobility 16 meg DDR + G4 667: 44.6 fps in Q3 @ 1024 x 768 @16bpp.

The best thing to compare with is a benchmark program that does dhrystone and whetstone with MIPS and MFLOPS, my Celery 933 (133 fsb) gets 2.1 gflops and 2.9 MIPS, and my ibook 500 (66 fsb) got something like 400 mflops. Different chips, different things, different performance.

[cmderinchief]

Thanks greatly for the input. At least I have some idea...which is a better improvement than this morning.

I plan on getting more RAM ASAP....ordered it with 256. I should have went with 512. DARN!

Hey Rampart....I see you are in Portland. My in-laws live there. My sister-in-law works for Intel. I can't wait to hear the comments when I break out my iBook when I am there in Sept.

[rampant]

Originally posted by cmderinchief:
<STRONG>Thanks greatly for the input. At least I have some idea...which is a better improvement than this morning.

I plan on getting more RAM ASAP....ordered it with 256. I should have went with 512. DARN!

Hey Rampart....I see you are in Portland. My in-laws live there. My sister-in-law works for Intel. I can't wait to hear the comments when I break out my iBook when I am there in Sept. </STRONG>

rampant , RAMPANT, RAMPANT!!!

rampant

Sorry, it's just not the first time.

[cmderinchief]

lol!!...sorry, flashed back to my Emergency TV days.

[rampant]

Oh, there is a conversion for G4 to P3 clockspeeds-

The G4 in normal operations is comparable to a 100-200mhz faster regular P3 (256k l2, 100fsb). This remains true for G4's between 500-1ghz, but it scales differently at different clocks. (Lower clocked G4's are only equiv. to the 100mhz faster P3 when at 500mhz, but it G4 clockspeed is higher).

Taking all things into consideration (velocity engine, etc) I would say the g4 is 1.6-1.7:1 compared to the p4. The P4s are slower then p3s, but can be clocked up to higher speeds.

Chris

[rampant]

Originally posted by Gilp:
<STRONG>Taking all things into consideration (velocity engine, etc) I would say the g4 is 1.6-1.7:1 compared to the p4. The P4s are slower then p3s, but can be clocked up to higher speeds.

Chris</STRONG>

Are you including Photoshop (altivec enhanced) in those figures? Cause my 933 Celery would be 1.3-1.4:1 to a P4.

933 Celery? dont you mean celeron (or am i just stupid [which i very well may be, thats what my parents always told me ] )
If it is celeron, how could it be faster than a p4?

I believe that the celeron is Simmilarly designed to the p3 except it has no cache, which now thinking about it, it may be faster than a p4 with the same clockspeed for ps

i dont really know what im talking about, as you can probaly tell

chris

[rampant]

Originally posted by Gilp:
<STRONG>933 Celery? dont you mean celeron (or am i just stupid [which i very well may be, thats what my parents always told me ] )
If it is celeron, how could it be faster than a p4?

I believe that the celeron is Simmilarly designed to the p3 except it has no cache, which now thinking about it, it may be faster than a p4 with the same clockspeed for ps

i dont really know what im talking about, as you can probaly tell

chris</STRONG>

The old (first version celerons) were a Pentium 2 with no l2 cache, which were horrible, but then were redesigned and then were better than the Pentium 2. The celeron gets updates just like the pentium, but the name doesn't change, so it's hard to tell. A modern celeron (which is what I have) is equivelant to a P3-E, probably. It has a 133mhz bus, 32k L1 cache, and 256k L2 cache. Since the current mobile celery is based off the Tualatin core, which is .13 micron, it's basicly now a Pentium 3-M (the best chip intel has mhz/performance, imho) but with 256k cache instead of 512k. Yes, it does get confusing because all celerons are named the same damn thing .

[Paco500]

There is so much more to computer performance than the CPU, so I would say, as a whole, this discussion is purely academic at best. You need to factor in HD speed, video, RAM, OS, software, etc, etc, etc.

Your new iBook will be exactly as fast as an identically equiped iBook. It's a great computer and more than enough for most users.

Welcome to the fold.

Once you go Mac, you never go back. Almost never. Well, a lot of folks don't. You really shouldn't anyway. If you continue to use a Mac, you will live longer, be more successful and irresistably attractive to your sexual partner of course. All of this is true by a 1.5-1.7 factor compared to PC users.

Paco

[rampant]

Originally posted by Paco500:
<STRONG>There is so much more to computer performance than the CPU, so I would say, as a whole, this discussion is purely academic at best. You need to factor in HD speed, video, RAM, OS, software, etc, etc, etc.

Your new iBook will be exactly as fast as an identically equiped iBook. It's a great computer and more than enough for most users.

Welcome to the fold.

Once you go Mac, you never go back. Almost never. Well, a lot of folks don't. You really shouldn't anyway. If you continue to use a Mac, you will live longer, be more successful and irresistably attractive to your sexual partner of course. All of this is true by a 1.5-1.7 factor compared to PC users.

Paco</STRONG>

This is probably the best post I've ever seen at the MacNN. This needs to be laminated and framed.

[nest18]

thats a very good one indeed


you made my days

[cmderinchief]

Heh heh!

Who would have thought this thread would have been so much fun and yet informative?

Thanks again for the knowledge.

[Superchicken]

My suggestion first tell your boss you look more sexy with the iBook.

Second tell him your icons bounce.

Third tell him you have a Gene in there.

He'll think you're nuts and leave you alnoe

[Gerson]

LOL....

Jokes aside, does anyone have any actual benchmarks to offer, aside from "gut" feelings about what might be the case?

[rampant]

Originally posted by Gerson:
<STRONG>LOL....

Jokes aside, does anyone have any actual benchmarks to offer, aside from "gut" feelings about what might be the case?</STRONG>

Well, you have my two Q3 benchmarks- and I've got an ibook one (32 fps @ 640 x 480 @normal in OSX, 40 in OS9) but I have no benchmarks that are universal because I was never able to find a good universal one. (Cinebench and throughput are unreliable and uninformative of performance)

[Langdon]

Originally posted by Gerson:
<STRONG>LOL....

Jokes aside, does anyone have any actual benchmarks to offer, aside from "gut" feelings about what might be the case?</STRONG>

I dont think there can be set benchmarks, its too easy to mess with the stats. So I think if you want some numbers to go by then find ones for the most common apps you use and take that as your comparison.

[NeoMac]

Originally posted by cmderinchief:
<STRONG>
Does anyone know this info ...</STRONG>

THIS IS THE TRUTH right here:

• G3 processor == 1.15% of equivelent Mhz P3 processor.
• G4 processor == 1.15% of equivelent Mhz P4 processor EXCEPT, if the process favors Altivec, then you could be looking at as much as a 300% performance difference of equivelent P4 processor.

That is the truth.

As for "important people using PCs", POTUS uses Macs and nobody is more important or powerful than him. So you can tell your boss to take his "important people" and take a hike. POTUS runs the world with his Mac.

POTUS = President of the United States.

Hell, the CEO of AOL personally has five Macs of his own.

How do I know this? Forbes or some other big magazine has a Top 100 or something profile of powerful people and the technology they use. You'd be surprised who and how many use Macs.

Anyone know the link to the article?

[ 04-25-2002: Message edited by: NeoMac ]

[ 04-25-2002: Message edited by: NeoMac ]

[Gerson]

Originally posted by rampant:
<STRONG>

Well, you have my two Q3 benchmarks...</STRONG>

Yes, thanks for the info! I noticed, though, that the color bitdepth was different in the two trials...what would happen to the G4 framerates at 32bpp?

[Superchicken]

NeoMac thanks for the info.
I was always wondering what the offfical thing was.

But now, any idea what the speed is when comparing running windows and mac OS 9?
or like windows 98 and mac OS 9?
Which gobbles more proccessor power and what not?

[rampant]

at 32bpp? They would have gone down, but not more than 3 fps. The radeon is excellent at 32 bit.

[cmderinchief]

This is ALL excellent info (and good humor to boot). NeoMac...everytime I use the term POTUS on them, they always give me a blank look. Being a fan of the Clancy novels, I had no problem making the connection.

Now I just wish my darn iBook would get here. The box has been sitting in Sacremento for two days now. The Airport hub that I ordered shipped from Taiwan and got to me like in three or four days. What is up with that!?

[Gerson]

Originally posted by NeoMac:
<STRONG>

THIS IS THE TRUTH right here:

• G3 processor == 1.15% of equivelent Mhz P3 processor.
• G4 processor == 1.15% of equivelent Mhz P4 processor EXCEPT, if the process favors Altivec, then you could be looking at as much as a 300% performance difference of equivelent P4 processor.

That is the truth.
</STRONG>

NeoMac, where are you getting your numbers from? I don't mean to be the obnoxious skeptic, but some people are saying that there are no good benchmarks, you're saying that the truth is 1.15% (I assume you mean 115%, right? ) and yet no one except Rampant has offered any actual evidence.

I don't mean to be rude, but guesses or "feelings" about CPU speed are really not accurate enough to answer these questions.

Now I'm quite well aware of the special advantages of Macs in other areas, and I agree that perception of speed and ease of use are more important than raw speed, and that hard drive speed, RAM, OS, etc. are very important too.

With all those disclaimers, I'd like to ask Cmderinchief's question again, because I don't think anyone (except Rampant) has offered an answer: what is a G3/600 Mhz equivalent to in Intel/AMD?

You can say this is a trivial question--fine! But I still want to know...
Thanks in advance!

[TNproud2b]

Originally posted by Gerson:
<STRONG>

NeoMac, where are you getting your numbers from? I don't mean to be the obnoxious skeptic, but some people are saying that there are no good benchmarks, you're saying that the truth is 1.15% (I assume you mean 115%, right? ) and yet no one except Rampant has offered any actual evidence.

I don't mean to be rude, but guesses or "feelings" about CPU speed are really not accurate enough to answer these questions.

Now I'm quite well aware of the special advantages of Macs in other areas, and I agree that perception of speed and ease of use are more important than raw speed, and that hard drive speed, RAM, OS, etc. are very important too.

With all those disclaimers, I'd like to ask Cmderinchief's question again, because I don't think anyone (except Rampant) has offered an answer: what is a G3/600 Mhz equivalent to in Intel/AMD?

You can say this is a trivial question--fine! But I still want to know...
Thanks in advance!</STRONG>

There are no 'good' benchmarks because nearly all show the PPC chip to have comparable performance to an similarly-clocked Pentium3.

This holds true for Cinebench, Photoshop (except for 3 filters), most distributed computing clients (excluding RC5), and other "cross-platform" applications.

[ 04-26-2002: Message edited by: TNproud2b ]

[rampant]

Originally posted by Gerson:
<STRONG>

NeoMac, where are you getting your numbers from? I don't mean to be the obnoxious skeptic, but some people are saying that there are no good benchmarks, you're saying that the truth is 1.15% (I assume you mean 115%, right? ) and yet no one except Rampant has offered any actual evidence.

I don't mean to be rude, but guesses or "feelings" about CPU speed are really not accurate enough to answer these questions.

Now I'm quite well aware of the special advantages of Macs in other areas, and I agree that perception of speed and ease of use are more important than raw speed, and that hard drive speed, RAM, OS, etc. are very important too.

With all those disclaimers, I'd like to ask Cmderinchief's question again, because I don't think anyone (except Rampant) has offered an answer: what is a G3/600 Mhz equivalent to in Intel/AMD?

You can say this is a trivial question--fine! But I still want to know...
Thanks in advance!</STRONG>

The Intel/AMD equivelant is hard to pinpoint, because it's arguable how much faster an athlon T-bird or XP is than a P4. My best estimate is probably to a 700mhz P3-EB and a 650 Athlon. It's really complicated, all I can give is estimated, as I don't have anything other than my celeron and a 500 ibook.

[segaslave]

see what you been missing all the years on your pee-cee dooood, mac people are always(usually) cool im glad my constant nagging finally got you to get that ibook : )

Originally posted by cmderinchief:
<STRONG>Heh heh!

Who would have thought this thread would have been so much fun and yet informative?

Thanks again for the knowledge.</STRONG>

[rampant]

Originally posted by segaslave:
<STRONG>see what you been missing all the years on your pee-cee dooood, mac people are always(usually) cool im glad my constant nagging finally got you to get that ibook : )

</STRONG>

If you wanna think mac users are mostly cool, don't look at the macaddict forums. People there make me sick.

[segaslave]

nah just the good ole macnn crew.

Originally posted by rampant:
<STRONG>

If you wanna think mac users are mostly cool, don't look at the macaddict forums. People there make me sick.</STRONG>

[cmderinchief]

Yes, I give Segaslave all the credit for me getting an iBook....well, that and I wanted to gain more skills. Not to mention that I got sick of bickering with him

My iBook is still sitting in Sacremento!

[seanyepez]

Yeah. Right. Industry officials that Iknow (CEO's and chairmen of multiple companies, namely RSA Security) use TiBooks.

I'm not kidding, either. My dad regularly meets with a lot of them, and the two I've seen after meetings both tote 667-megahertz TiBooks running OS X. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else in those meetings did, either. Macs are the "classiest" computers out there, and even heads of PC-using companies recognize that.

[ 04-28-2002: Message edited by: seanyepez ]

[iNub]

In my experience, Macs are just as fast as a PC at the same clock speed. There's no real perceptible difference. There are some exceptions, though, and the iBook is one of them. The video card in the iBook sucks, so 3D gaming is kind of out of the question. Unless you like putting up with 30 fps at 640x480. And web browsing. All Mac web browsers are slow as H-E-L-L.

Other than that, though, my 500 MHz G3 completes a SETI unit in roughly the same amount of time as a 500 MHz P3 (or a 1 GHz P4 - I hate that chip), completes an RC5 unit in roughly the same time as the 500 MHz P3. GIve or take a half hour.

That said, once your computer is fast enough to keep up with YOU, the speed is moot. You'll find the computer to be faster if you find it more intuitive. You'll just get more done. Nobody (barring speed-critical apps) really *needs* a 4 GHz G4 with 9 gigs of RAM, it's just a high tech dick measuring contest.

[iNub]

Oh, and I've found that the best way to keep a PC weenie quiet is to do the Apple Jacks commercial thing: "I use what I like, you use what you like. It gets the same thing done."

There's no way to argue with that.

[seanyepez]

Even though a computer doesn't have to be equipped with a 4-gigahertz G4, software will eventually catch up, and faster CPU's will be able to handle more complex software better than older ones will be able to.

[sniffer]

Threats like this often tends to move in a direction wich is comparable to discussions like the size of each ones d.. Eh.. Whatever.
My point is, you choose what suits you best. I choosed the mac platform because of the OS (X), and that I am tired of the not so good, in my opinion, Windows platform. But I have to admit that the raw performance of peecee hardware is very good. Cheap introducing hardware on the PeeCee side is quite good, and often tends to be faster than those in the same class on the mac side (iBooks i.e.) I think. But I think I'll stick to the mac platform still. You get much more bang for the bucks, since there is less fuzz with the hardware/software integration.. And lets not forget that Apple tends to have very good quality on their innovative products.. What suits each one, is their decision..

[ 04-29-2002: Message edited by: sniffer ]

[ 04-29-2002: Message edited by: sniffer ]

[cmderinchief]

Well, my iBook arrived on Saturday! Been having a blast setting it up. I REALLY miss my ability to "right-click," but I assume I'll adapt. The AirPort add-on is really great. Luckily I had an old switch from work so I could keep my XP bawx connected and have my iBook connected as well. However....had to buy another IP from my ISP to get everything to work. Looks like a nice router is what I need next.

I hear the new AirPort base will allow you to share one IP and run two computers off it. I am thinking about getting another base station and setting it up at work, but if the new base is THAT much better, I might just get a new one from home and bring the old one to work. I have also been told that the AirPort base that I have should share an IP, but damned if I could get it to work. How is the new AirPort base going to be better than the one I have.....in terms of upgrades and added abilities that is?

Outside of a carrying case, is there any sleeve-like protector that I can put over my iBook to keep it pearly white....kinda like a cover protector on like we had on our text books in school? I don't know if such an item exists, but I figured heat retention would be a negative factor for this.

[skalie]

The new Max OS has the right click ability with USB external mouse, otherwise it's control click or something.

Er......I shouldn't really be giving advice, I'm a newb myself, getting an iBook (first Mac) a month or so ago.

Love the thing, although the white cover doesn't just get dirty, it scratches like nothing on earth.

[bartman00]

rampant: Ahh.. I just happened to notice something in your benchmark.. why is the color depth different between the 2? your running the PC at 32bit and the mac at 16.. what gives.. that makes a HUGE difference in fps..


Bart

[rampant]

It's not a huge difference with the radeon- but the reason is because the titanium bench was off of apple's web site, and mine was what I remembered it to be last time I benched at, and I didn't bench it at 16 bpp.