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M$ insults their customers unashamedly:
The dinosaur ads are a picture of this.

the MDN take on this is spot on. i guess Dvorak is doing the typical reporter thing of not actually checking up on FACTS involved. someone should e-mail him the link to this page.

I like my koolaid shaken, not stirred.

This about sums it up...

http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/357.html

Why am I all fo a sudden hearing this crap that Apple was decieving everyone with reports of processor speeds.
From what I can tell, all these people are completely disregarding the passage of time!

"OOO, Apple said they were fastest 2 years ago, but 6 months after that announcement Intel came out with a processeor that was a microsecond faster... and now the 3.6 Xeon totally kicks the PPC 1.8Ghz procs ass! Apple must have been lying!"

FEH!

What will all these people do now that Macs run the same processors as Windows machines? What can they whine about now?

MDN: nice try, but no cigar. Apple (and more glaringly mac zealot) claims regarding PowerPC got more and more obnoxious and far fetched each year, to the extent that yutzes on MDN were endlessly carrying on about how their 450 MHz G4 machine outperformes a 1.5 GHz Pentium, etc.

PowerPC has a speed advantage over x86, being more efficient at the same clock speed. For years, though, apple nuts have taken this to extremes of arguing that PowerPC chips are still faster than x86 chips at 2x and 3x the clock speed--a clear departure from reality that anyone who hadn't drunk the kool aid found laughable.

Finally a decent comparison. Looks like a 20% on average real speed increase over the 2.1GHz G5 iMac.

Oh yeah. Dvorak is too full of "himself" (my MW).

(had to be quick to get first post ...all in good fun)

So let me continue...
M$ insults the ones they serve (and serve more than just mediocre computing, but virus compatibility too!)

Has anyone thought this? Did anyone else think this, or see the "dinosaur" ad campaign featuring office people with dinosaur heads not using the latest Windows XP software?

ONLY a true monopolositic giant would dare such tactics in their advertising. Very telling, no?

the intel ads are funny.. but I don't think they're calling PC users dumbasses.

most PC's are in banks and office towers, doing.. MS Word...Solitaire.. Internet.. Email.. being taken down by viruses...

the business market (at least, Apple wants you to think) is void of any Macs.

so it's easy to attack the business market, since.. Apple's got nothing to lose.

they're saying the business market uses PC's (cheap dumb little boxes) and finally the Intel chip gets to go in a computer that's for PEOPLE.

iLife

Things change. S**t happens. When the PowerPC was new it was good. Now Intel have the edge. Overall Apple has the advantage becasue they can choose between their hardware platforms, that's why their pushing Universal Binaries. Maybe in years to come there will be some amazing leap in PowerPC processors, who will be the ones who can pick up on such happenings? Apple of course. Can you see M$ moving away from the X86 architecture? Not likely.

Okay, the latest results of real world benchmarks puts the DUAL core Intel iMac at between 1.2 and 1.3 times as fast as a SINGLE core G5. That would equate to ONE Intel core being about 67% of the speed of ONE core of G5. So who's spouting the BS, John?

> MDN wrote: Of note, too, are that the new Intel Core Duo processors are also fabbed at 65nm vs. the Power PC G5's 90nm process

I don't understand how some of you can take this as good reasoning.

Dvorak says "Apple fed Mac community BS for years" regarding the PowerPC processors. MDN replies by naming some of the deficiencies of of the PowerPC platform as a counterargument!

"Of course, Intel-based Macs are faster, they have twice the processors inside"

They counterargue by agreeing with him!

... and the very same people who believed the Apple hype are gobbling up MDN's BS with as big a smile!

AMAZING!!!

Which is exactly the reason all the console box makers have switched to the PPC. Were they BS'ed too?

Hey! I agree with MDN for once! How about that!

OpJ: Nice try, but no cigar.
I don't know anyone, Machead or not, claiming that the G4 was holding it's own against the x86's.
In case you haven't noticed though, Apple has been using this "new" chip called the "G5" for what, the last 3 years? I'm not sure that you're up on these things or not, but the G5 is a PowerPC, and yes indeed, it kicks x86 arse.
I don't know what you Wintel nuts are drinking, but it's obviously more potent than kool aid.

What is this guy smoking (I would really like to get me some)?!!!

Technology improves!! It keeps improving!! Should we shoot the horse and buggy despite the fact it was the best thing before the automobile?

C'mon!

PowerPC has a speed advantage over x86, being more efficient at the same clock speed. For years, though, apple nuts have taken this to extremes of arguing that PowerPC chips are still faster than x86 chips at 2x and 3x the clock speed--a clear departure from reality that anyone who hadn't drunk the kool aid found laughable.

PowerPC's biggest problem was the lack of good supporting architecture surrounding the chip; slow FSB (Rapid IO never surfaced from Moto), slow memory, etc... of course the G5 changed all that. What I would like to see is a PowerPC-based machine and an Intel-based machine specced exactly the same on the CPU, FSB and RAM and then let the two rumble

I bought my first Mac in 1995. Back then the PowerPC transition was under way, and the marketing spiel was "Blazingly Fast" or some such.

Of course, the logic of RISC vs CISC seemed to make sense, but all Apple could do to demonstrate speed was to use laboratory benchmarking, not real-world results that mattered to consumerrs. Once the pentium chips started clocking ridiculous speeds, Apple mainly shut up and MDN chugged our missives on the "Megahertz Myth."

What's old is new. Oh yeah, back in 1995, there was all this buzz about PowerPC chips being able to run Windows and Windows apps. Of course that turned out to be only in slow emulation mode, but its interesting that in the 11 years I've been in this community, and with all the ridicule and scorn we heap on MS, running Windows and Windows apps on a Mac is STILL being held up as some kind of holy grail.

Feh.

"Windows box assemblers like Dell simply cannot match Apple Macs in the area of processor choice or anything else, for that matter."

Absurd and false, typical of MDN. Xp pro installs on: Transmeta Crusoe, Via C3, Via Eden in addition to your mainstream x86 processors. And windows kernel is the basis for Xbox 360 (PowerPC) you dumbasses. And why the reference to Dell? They don't even use any other chip other than Intel (not even AMD). Other "windows box assemblers" do in fact "match" (and in reality exceed) Apple Macs in the area of processor choices, and everything else (can Apple match the plethora of choices in the area of video cards and memory & other hardware that "windows box assemblers" have available?)

Furthermore John's statement about Apple's credibility being low now is bunk. John is the kind of guy that isn't happy unless he's angry about something. Anyone who listens to him, reads his articles or saw his old show on ZDTV know what I mean.

"Apple now has the ability — if they wish to exercise it — to pick the best processors for any particular Mac from among Intel, IBM, Freescale, and AMD."

It's never that simple - having to support multiple processors and architectures inflates development costs geometrically. An example would be the HW drivers that would have to be written for each one.

Going down that road would be suicide.

MDN wrote: "The Intel-based iMac is faster than the PowerPC-based iMac G5 because the chip is dual core vs. single core."

Nah... reports all over the net are that the MacTels are faster even in single-core ops.

Did MDN actually run any tests or is MDN relying on third-party sources and therefore passing off uninformed commentary?

Finally a decent comparison. Looks like a 20% on average real speed increase over the 2.1GHz G5 iMac.

Oh yeah. Dvorak is too full of "himself" (my MW).

The reason you only can take SPEC benchmarks with a grain of salt. Oh, they're great for those who love to compile code, but for real benchmarks, they serve no real purpose.

"And windows kernel is the basis for Xbox 360 (PowerPC) you dumbasses."

We're not talking about video game consoles you dumbass, we're talking about personal computers. Windows XP will not boot on a PPC based computer and it never will.

what a faggot!!!
my stinky turds are smarter than this dousche bag!!
seriously.. how stupid do you have to be to compare new technology to old technology...
this almost as bad as people wanting to put windows on the new macs!!

Really

Never said it would dumbass, the kernel was recompiled with PPC instruction code specifically for Xbox 360. Obviously Microsoft didnt put their entire OS on Xbox360...only a bare minimum shell operating system. And that's the point dumbass, is that it can be done.

Wow, Mac & PC Guy, you really missed the point, didn't you? MDN's Take, and all these posts illustrating why the passage of time mattered, and how what was once a valid claim on Apple's part was eroded by time and technology, and you still missed the point. Perhaps proving once again that wetware may be immune to Moore's Law.

Really

Never said it would dumbass, the kernel was recompiled with PPC instruction code specifically for Xbox 360. Obviously Microsoft didnt put their entire OS on Xbox360...only a bare minimum shell operating system. And that's the point dumbass, is that it can be done.

Sammy,

I wouldn't sweat it, this kid probably didn't realize that Windows NT ran on PowerPC back in the '90s and Microsoft probably just updated that codebase to run on the new custom PPC chips from IBM.

It will be interesting how long it will take the Linux community to get Linux running on those Xbox 360s

I'll believe the Core Duo is faster than PPC when I see a supercomputer that beats the PPC in per - core (or processor) performance.

The Core Duo and other x86 processors may be faster at a some consumer based functions like loading web pages? (did I actually read that somewhere?), but for actual work - processor intensive tasks such as 2D/3D rendering and scientific applications, the PPC still wins.

I knew this was going to be an issue for some journalists when I first heard the term "performance PER WATT". Couldn't they read between the lines as well?

I agree with Macromancer, but would clarify that IBM seemed to slow/stop focusing on Apple's needs to go after the Gaming console brass ring, due to the huge market. Anyone who was awake during the holidays may have noticed that the xbox360 had some hauntingly familiar supply problems, too...

I'm just glad to see that Universal binaries are going to be the standard for awhile... Apple can create more product options than the competition, using the best processor for the specific product...

Let's get this straight, once and for all, PowerPC is a GENERIC NAME applied to multiple families of processors!
For example, the PowerPC used by Apple comes in different flavors, the G4 and the G5. And yes, while it's true that the PowerPC G4 can no longer match any current processor for performance, the PowerPC G5 most certainly can.
Saying things like "The myth of PowerPC superiority" only serves to demonstrate a persons complete and utter ignorance of some pretty basic concepts in computing. It'd be equally stupid not to differentiate what separates an x86 486 class CPU from an x86 class Pentium 4, but that's what Dvorak (and every Wintel troll here) is doing.
I can't believe anyone takes anything he writes seriously.

NFK. Speed isn't only about clock cycles.

First, I think Apple would be better served by ads showing Mac OS X in use than the creative buzz ads like what they are running. They should be touting what their strengths are rather than where they finally chose to switch to the inferior processor.

OK, inferior is a strong word, intel has done a good job with laptop chips. But lets face it, the move from PowerPC to Intel is a step back in processors. From 64 bit to 32 bit, from a relatively new and better design principles to the architecture chosen by IBM in 1981 in part to keep personal computers weak.

All that having been said, it was the best move Apple could make. It allows them to catch up on laptops which have become Apples bread and butter and it puts the same processor in the mac that the rest of the world is using. Sure I wish PowerPC had won the world, as the architecture is clearly superior, but it didn't. Like beta and VHS, sometimes the inferior product wins the battle.

There are two reasons why the move was good for Apple, first the overt plan to make better faster laptops. But more importantly is the covert goal to run windows apps at full speed. Someone will soon release virtualization software to allow windows to run like virtual PC for Windows does (VPC will not be first as MS will drag their feet on in in-spite of the reality that they could modify the windows version in a month). Wine too will be not too far behind. Once you can run your windows apps at full speed on OS X without the security risk that is Microsoft the numbers of people switching will go through the roof. This is why the move to the x86 architecture though backwards is a good one. Apple will need to follow up with a few concessions. Look for the mouse button on the mack to end up using the same technology of the mighty mouse to give a second button to the windows users (it is a big deal to them for some reasons). Also expect Cocoa for windows (not to give any credence to the Dharma rumor), but Apple needs to win developers to their API - that means targeting windows. Apple needs to start thinking on multiple fronts. Increasing market share trough this step backwards in processors, then winning developers to OS X by offering an alternative to Visual Studio .NET.

If Apple is smart (and I think they are) they will be building Mac OS X on the best processor choice they have. I think they should keep making PowerPC based servers to keep developers making universal binaries and keeping their options open. There is a reason why everyone is choosing PowerPC for their next generation of video games - it is a superior processor. But in the desktop world, running windows Apps is an unfortunate limiting requirements. Intel (or AMD) will leapfrog the PowerPC soon, and the cycle will continue, perhaps the ability to change is what will set apple apart and finally break the grip of Microsoft and bring another era of processor innovation.

Dvorak trolls again for hit traffic

Sorry @$$h01e no takers here.

By the way the new Core Duo's are not all that much faster than a single G5 processor, certainly not 2x faster in real world use.

X-Bench tests show them to be about equal in the iMactel vs iMac G5.

The G5 processor is a monster, and Intel has to dual core just to get a slight advantage.

I can only imagine what a dual core G5 will do to a Core Dual.

Get a Quad folks, there will be nothing like it ever again because Intel has too much other crapola in their processors robbing it of performance.

Apple is giving worst comparison now (2x as fast bs). Look at the macworld review. A dual G5 would blow the core duo away. Of course it would also send an imac up in flames.

I can't believe anyone takes anything he writes seriously.

True, since John Dvorak gave great praise to Genesi's Pegasos computer, a PowerPC-based Amiga clone running MorphOS and other great operating systems.

Video explanation of the Mhz Myth


http://www.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/graphics/movies/mhz_myth_320f.mov

It's all in the benchmarking.

Any sane person can show anything they want with enough research and cunning choice of benchmarks. Even compilers come into play.

Heck, Byte magazine once showed by using a specific choice of "standard" benchmarks that a 68030 based Mac running at 25 MHz which included a floating point specific coprocessor (the 68882 also at 25 MHz) was actually slower -- for floating point calculations no less -- than machine running DOS on a 16 MHz 80286 *without* a floating point coprocessor! I don't remember the exact benchmark (Whetstone maybe?) but it was a "standard" one way back then (late 80s). That's right: Byte showed a then current generation Mac with floating point hardware was slower than an earlier generation DOS machine without a coprocessor specifically for floating point!

Steve Jobs has always cleverly chosen benchmarks which illustrated what he wants. This time he chose the SPECrate benchmarks (int and fp). The SPECrate benchmarks are optimized for multiple CPUs. True, there is not much of a degradation when they are run on single processors, but it is not zero. So he specifically picked a benchmark which would highlight the capabilities of the dual core systems over the single core systems. If Steve had presented the benchmark numbers based on the basic SPEC benchmarks he might have shown radically different numbers. If Steve had shown the numbers using HINT or SLALOM then he might have shown very different results.

Steve chose a benchmark which illustrated what he wanted to say. As his keynote addresses are 99% marketing pitches is ANYONE surprised he did/does this?

As someone who was involved with the original formulation of the SPEC set of benchmarks, it was an attempt to make an independent set of benchmarks to put an end to all the benchmarking wars. It did not. (Shortly after SPEC came out one compiler developer went so far as to change their compiler so that it was specifically optimized for the SPEC benchmark and not optimized for real world tasks -- thus completely defeating the purpose of the benchmark.) I truly believe there is -- and probably never will be -- a truly unbiased benchmark.

The only faithful thing you can ever do is try the machine out with the software you want to run on it. If it's fast enough for you, and it does what you want: buy it. If not: don't buy it.

Bobby Skinner said:
"Once you can run your windows apps at full speed on OS X without the security risk that is Microsoft the numbers of people switching will go through the roof."

Nice. Could this be Apple building a nice, low risk on-ramp for tons of fed up PC users to migrate over onto Apples path, where they will undoubtedly stay? There HAS to be a strategy like this in the works, even if it is not directly stated, as Apple now has to come up with incredible growth rates every quarter...

Now, let's see if Intel will be able to keep up with demand...

Whenever I have taken my Windows owning friends into an Apple store to try out the PowerPC macs they always said the same thing - why is this computer so slow, so sluggish compared to my Intel PC? They thought the computers looked cool, but we not impressed by its speed.
Guess they were right.

Lets have a comparison between a Mac Intel and PC intel same chips, same ram running the same program and see which is faster!

Sounds like Dvorak is blowing smoke up somebody's butt !

I haven't seen Dvorak bring up the REAL issue, which is the lousy operating system that Microsoft has been providing for years. Why hasn't he suggested that Microsoft be accussed of either fraud or grand theft for taking people's money and deliverying such a piece of crap called " WINDOWS " ?

Thanks to Dvorak, and his inability to tell the truth, millions have been turned off to the computing experience, and have relegated their PCs to permenant residence in attics, garages, basements and junk piles. Perhaps Dvorak should be charged as a co-conspirator in this grand scheme of fraud .... ir is it just sheer incompetence ? In either case, Dvorak remains silent.

Cretin!

The new Intel's are dual-core 65nm, as opposed to single-core 90nm (or, even worse, 120nm - as it was for both G4 and G5 for some while).

Like Wolverton from yesterday, Dvorak is an asswipe.

The Core Duo and other x86 processors may be faster at a some consumer based functions like loading web pages? (did I actually read that somewhere?), but for actual work - processor intensive tasks such as 2D/3D rendering and scientific applications, the PPC still wins.

Actually, reality shows the AMD Opteron head and heels above both Intel and the G5 when in comes to CPU driven 2D/3D rendering. Opterons are the workstations of choice these days especially for CGI animations. And despite having the stronger FPU, AMD was never really a strong presence in the scientific community.

http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/features/imaclabtest1/index.php
G5 vs iMac Intel

Hey President Bush

Dvorak is an Al Qaeda operative trying to disrupt a great American company. Get 'em!

Dvorak is the Rush Limbaugh of the computing world. Make a few untruthful statements every month, just to rile people up, doesn't really care if they're truthful or not. Money-grubbing whore.

Lo, even Intel has gone this route.

For many years they focused on being the binary compatible solution as their chips evolved; one day they announced Itanium/IA64 as their top end performance solution, a position is still holds in the Intel product line.

Obviously conditions changed to some extent.

Dvorak being a computer historian should very well understand the significance of the Osborne effect.

Put yourself in Jobs' shoes in 2000; you know you want to get out from under the hassles of Motorola/Freescale, but how do you go about it-

a) the way that actually took place (5 year secret porting project, announce to developers and public six months before it ships)
-or-
b) In the year 2000, announce with great public fanfare that you're going to phase out PowerPC and switch to Intel sometime in the next five years, and it's gonna be great. OS X isn't even done yet, but hey everyone, we're going to switch chips out too.

I don't think it was Mac sales volume that caused IBM to be unenthusiastic about developing the PowerPC processor.

Did you notice how many of the world's super computers were based on the Mac back when Virginia had #3? IBM sure did.

IBM Boardroom:

Chief Exec: "WTF? Super computers are what *we* do."
Minions: "Err." "Umm."
Chief Exec: "Stop work on the G5. Concentrate on Power4. I hear PlayStation and Xbox want chips for their games boxes. Can they make super computers out of those?"
Minions: "Err." "Umm." "Don't think so."
Chief Exec: "OK. Make those chips too. Just stonewall the G5. Dismissed."

Its the experience that matters. its the combination of OS, hardware, industrial design, etc that makes a mac different.

Apple spent years fighting the megaherz myth, and the fact that they switched processors does not discredit that.

Now, if intel makes a newer, better processor, and apple's OS is able to make use of it better than a windows computer, I think this is the possibility that might freak people out. this is why Microsoft is trying to hamper the OS by discontinuing some of its Mac software so that they can't compete on equal footing.

Anyway, my powerbook still has plenty of life in it so I'm waiting for the next revision of the macbook pro. Maybe its Kool-Aid, but its damn good.

Dvorak shills for anyone who is on the top the heap - the financial heap that is. He will use any anachronistic argument, any twisted comparison to promote himself and his financial backers. He is the typical talking head/"expert" of the main stream media - except he's in the computer world.

MDN word: "cause" - 'cause he's a wanker!

The Power PC chip IS NOT inferior to the x86 chip. Apple's decision was forced by the decisions made by FreeScale and IBM- not any natural superiority of CISC type chips.
The truth of the matter is that Apple's business was TOO SMALL for IBM or FreeScale to develop CPU design at a pace that would satisfy Apple's market needs. If Apple would have been willing to pay more per chip they could have gotten more from their suppliers.
The reason IBM decided to concentrate their recent hip development on Cell & X-Box 360 chips is really simple--VOLUME. Microsoft will sell more X-Box 360s in 2006 that Apple sold computers of all kinds worldwide last year. Not 10-12 different designs-- 1 design.
Simple economics.
Dvorak is either dishonest or a moron.
We report, you decide.

Dvorak is just a crabby old man now. Not worth clicking the link.