Filed under: Hardware, Podcasting, PowerMac G5
Video of a MacBook Pro stomping a PowerMac G5 compiling Java
What's a
big news day without a little bit of a hardware smack down? Call me crazy, but I just found this Gear Live site through diggdot.us, and these guys posted a video podcast in
a variety of formats of a MacBook Pro with a (comparatively) measly 1 GB RAM making mince meat out of a Dual 2.0 GHz
PowerMac G5 with 4 GB RAM in a Java compile test.While it isn't a comprehensive rundown of a variety of tasks and apps these two systems can run, it's still pretty impressive to see how well this next generation hardware can perform.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Derek said 8:05PM on 4-05-2006
DUH!!!!! 1GB compared to 4GB!!!!!!!! NO SHIT!!!!!!!
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henryaj said 8:12PM on 4-05-2006
Derek, it was the POWERMAC that had the 4GB of RAM. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!1!!
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andy said 8:17PM on 4-05-2006
i think you may have got muddled there derek by the sounds of it - but sheeet, im feeling out dated already - only had this dual 2.7 a year :( cant even migrate to intel yet cause alias/autodesk hasnt even announced maya yet - that and the wait for photoshop
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dashiel said 8:47PM on 4-05-2006
shawn. just because a brand new chip architecture from intel beats out a 3 year old chip architecture from ibm doesn't mean all intel chips were always faster than ppc. that's equivocation.
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Corbin said 8:54PM on 4-05-2006
I'm sorry Derek, you just started running before you knew where you were running to! And the obscene use of derogatory words was an instant "you're less than intelligent." With that said(sorry Derek), I'm pretty impressed with the MacBook Pro. I've got googley eyes now and want one, even though I'm on a 1.67 ghz 17" PowerBook G4. I've used one for about 1 min. and in that one minute after doing a few things, I knew then I was in love. I'll have to wait however to get my hands on one. I'll also have to wait for the 17", it's the only way to go.
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Joshua Ochs said 9:00PM on 4-05-2006
Many, many people have commented on this. The new Intel architecture has a much faster I/O subsystem and bus. It really shines in compile benchmarks - most people who make a living doing this stuff have seen outstanding compile times:
http://www.glorifiedtypist.com/2006/03/macbook_pro_updated_build_timi.html
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Shawn said 10:17PM on 4-05-2006
Yo, TUAW! Why'd you remove my previous post??
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David Chartier said 10:54PM on 4-05-2006
#7: Because, as #4 pointed out, it was a clueless and baseless satement. Furthermore: telling a bunch of Mac users on a Mac-centric blog to 'save some money' and buy a PC doesn't have much more of a purpose than to incite argument.
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Kristin Wenzel said 11:57PM on 4-05-2006
Hi! What a surprise to see an article about GearLive on TUAW - I write for GearLive and for a moment was like "Dude, did I read the wrong feed?" Nice to see you've found us :)
I think I met a few TUAW-ers at MacWorldExpo in Boston last summer while I was there covering it for GL :)
--Kristin
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Shawn said 12:00AM on 4-06-2006
What I said isn't clueless or baseless: Dual 2Ghz vs. Dual 2Ghz, laptop vs tower, 1G RAM vs 4G RAM... I could see where the insides of a tower with more RAM and probably a faster HD could be on par with a newer laptop (we all know laptops lag towers in performance). The only big difference might be the bus (I don't know the speed of the tower's bus). Sounds like a reasonable comparison to me... And if this site is so Mac-centric that you aren't open to discussion then why are most of the articles on the front page about XP on a Mac???
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Matthew Presley said 12:00AM on 4-06-2006
It might not just be compiles that are faster with respect to Java. Note that the Java compiler is written in Java. My coworker and I can run the same exact Java code (our code) and he runs much faster on his Windows laptop relative to my G5 PowerPC tower. My PowerPC Mac has overall better specs, but I think the JVM on the PowerPC Mac is really, really slow compared to the Windoze version (which I find extremely annoying). Perhaps the Intel Macs are using a much different JVM (not just a recompile to Intel) than the PowerPC version.
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Scott said 10:25AM on 4-06-2006
#10, you ask, "if this site is so Mac-centric that you aren't open to discussion then why are most of the articles on the front page about XP on a Mac???"
Because, it's XP *on a Mac*, and the software to do this officially was just recently released by Apple.
There are many users who prefer Mac OS X, for whatever personal reasons, but need or want to use just a few pieces of software only available for Windows. XP on a Mac = not having to save up money to buy a Mac AND a PC, just a Mac (and a licensed copy of XP) -- or just a copy of XP if they are fortunate to already own an Intel Mac.
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