2CPU.com » News » August 2003 » G4 + G5 + Athlon XP + Cinebench = Interesting Reading

I stumbled across this link while surfing through the Tech Report just now. The author of the (linked) site took some time to assemble some Cinebench numbers from a G4 1.25ghz, a G4 1ghz, a G5 1.6ghz and an Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67ghz) and converted said numbers into some nice graphs for us all to peruse. What did he find?

Has Apple closed the speed gap? That remains to be seen. Certainly, it's evident from these benchmarks that the 1.6 G5 is competitive with the 1.67 Ghz AMD (2000+ rated), though in most cases the AMD showed itself to be slightly stronger. Of course, these are the results of only one benchmark. Personally, I like this benchmark (Cinebench) since I work graphics and video.

Personally I've been drooling over the new (dual) G5 boxes, and I think I'm ready to donate some blood to get my hands on one. Who knows... You may see me in the next "switch" commercial.

PatrickHenry SMP Qualified Posts: 362 Joined: 2003-03-14

#24385 Posted on: 08/25/2003 08:05 AM I may be biased (see sig), but it looked like the athlon kicked it's arse. I bought my first athon xp a couple of years ago (back when it was 330 bucks and its still in my dually) and the g5 just came out with "64" bit chips. The althon, which is a couple of years old still beat the brand new G5 in most benchmarks? Sounds like a lot of bucks and not a lot of horse power to go with it. I think the G5 is just apple hype. 2xMP2800 1 GB Ram GA-7DPXDW+ ATI AIW 9800 pro 3ware 8006

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2337 Joined: 2000-03-29

#24386 Posted on: 08/25/2003 08:11 AM But... Much like Opteron... The G5's FSB increases with the processor. I'd be curious to see a dual 2ghz G5 machine in action. It'd probably be a whole lot like a dual 2ghz Opteron. Now if I could just get a pair of Opterons to go in these boards I have sitting around After all these years of having the coolest, most powerful workstation parts cross my desk I am hard to impress. I must admit though, the dual G5 honestly has me foaming at the mouth. [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

haz Registered User Posts: 11 Joined: 2002-06-25

#24387 Posted on: 08/25/2003 10:52 AM These benches should be taken with a grain of salt. A Maxon rep posting on Ars has indicated that substantial performance increases (conservatively 30%) should be realized when C4D is optimized for the G5.

livpas r. mutt Posts: 86 Joined: 2002-03-24

#24388 Posted on: 08/25/2003 11:46 AM Originally posted by haz These benches should be taken with a grain of salt. A Maxon rep posting on Ars has indicated that substantial performance increases (conservatively 30%) should be realized when C4D is optimized for the G5. agreed, but still...a dual g5 1.6 against a single amd 2000+???!!! or maybe i should add another grain of salt Inspiron E1705|oxygen8 | eventPS5 heatware ebay folding

TwinTurbo SMP Folder Posts: 631 Joined: 2003-01-12

#24389 Posted on: 08/25/2003 12:08 PM Originally posted by livpas agreed, but still...a dual g5 1.6 against a single amd 2000+???!!! or maybe i should add another grain of salt I think the test was a single G5 1.6 against the Athlon XP2000+ The old Athlon did well against the newest Mac Heatware Evaluations eBay Feedback

vlads #1 in 2CPU distr. folding Posts: 232 Joined: 2001-12-22

#24390 Posted on: 08/25/2003 12:15 PM Originally posted by Hooz But... Much like Opteron... The G5's FSB increases with the processor... Actually, Opteron's HT FSB stays at the same 800MHz DDR for all CPU speed grades. You must be thinking of the on-die memory controller's clock speed, as well as the memory clock asymptoting toward the optimal clock speed. Iwill MPX2, 2x Barton @ 16*133=2133MHz, 1024MB Reg ECC DDR, Radeon 9700 pro, 4x 40GB Maxtor D740X in RAID10 on 3ware 7410, 500W EPS12V PSU, unstable ATM ...

Brad 30105 in 3dmark 03 Posts: 3646 Joined: 2000-12-06

#24391 Posted on: 08/25/2003 12:49 PM now lets rerun the test with a 3200+ Dual Channel Nforce 2 chipset AMD solution, Model 246 Opteron on an SK8N, P4 3.2ghz with 875P chipset, and an Asus PC-DL with 2x 3.06ghz Xeons with 1mb L3 cache. Then see who wins Clevo D870P Notebook, P4 3.4ghz NW, 1gb DDR400, Intel 865PE, ATI 9700 Pro 256mb, 60gb, 80gb, DVDRW, 17" LCD, TV Tuner, 1 hour battery life Athlon 64 3700 Sandy @ 9x315 with XP-120, Asus A8N32-SLI, 2x 512mb PC3200 @ 315mhz 2.5/3/4/8, 2x 7800GTX @ 490/1325, 1x 74gb Raptor, 3x 160gb SATA, Audigy 2 ZS, Silverstone TJ-03, Zippy 700w. P4 3.46 Gallatin EE at 12x300, Supermicro PDSGE, 2gb DDR2 @ 600, 6x 250gb, 6x 200gb, Promise SX6000, Adaptec 2610SA, Acbel 550w 7800GTX 512mb's on their way

Ballkula 3D designer Posts: 124 Joined: 2002-04-21

#24392 Posted on: 08/25/2003 03:21 PM Ofcourse, we shouldn't read too much into a single primitive test like this, but nevertheless, this looks like yet another pr-stunt-hype from Apple. The thing is, that they claim that the G5 is the worlds fastest personal computer. Also, they claim, it's faster by a substantial margin - like more than twice as fast as a 3GHz P4 for instance. In the real world, it's more like that now Apple has a brand new computer that's on par with the 7th generation chips from Intel/AMD, in a time when these companies will soon move to their 8th generation chips (Opteron-A64/Prescott-P5(?)). I teach at an university parts of the year, and it really makes me laugh looking at the faces of macfanatics when you run a dp1.25 Powermac against a dual Xeon running Lightwave and the Xeon crushes the Mac by a factor of 2-300%... ----------------------------------------------- "Even a battlesuit wont protect you from the void..." -----------------------------------------------

ayt999 3D designer Posts: 3038 Joined: 2002-10-28

#24393 Posted on: 08/25/2003 03:28 PM I went to the Apple store today and thought about getting an iBook or powerbook for a while... they do look good. although I usually prefer performance over looks and noise, maybe I should consider an apple just for its looks (and somewhat usable performance). too bad they cost a lot and use some OS I have no clue what to do with... though their student discounts seem reasonable. SETI@home|folding@home|RC5|find-a-drug|DPAD|ZetaGrid|climateprediction.net| communityTSC|BOINC|Predictor@home|seventeen or bust|ECC2-109

sponz Ass Klown Posts: 279 Joined: 2000-08-19

#24394 Posted on: 08/25/2003 05:41 PM Those numbers are disturbing. I just wana know how much this g5 is gonna cost consumers. I'm not usually into the whole mac vs pc thing, cause I can typically argue either side well. Im curious as to what they are gonna do with all that hardware when software vendors such as adobe are stopping development on said hardware. I guess I'm confused why I would want to spend money on a peice of hardware that "preliminarily" is about as fast, maybe slightly slower in somethings than a 1.5 year old processor. I'd love to see the 1.6ghz g5 vs my Shuttle 45g. It has the 2500 barton with only 256mb of ram. I guess we need to see more benches to see what the status really is. Can I have a dollar? www.assklown.com heatware under sponz

Manatoba Retired Comp-Tech Posts: 328 Joined: 2002-09-02

#24395 Posted on: 08/25/2003 09:03 PM In Cinebench, the machine Apple needs to beat is a dual 3.06GHz P4 Xeon with 1Mb L3 cache, not the AMD-based machines, as Cinema4D, 3DS MAX (PC only) and LightWave3D are traditionally heavily "optimised" (by way of compilers or just the way their algorithms etc are) for Intel rather than AMD. For one example of this, see the dual 2GHz G5 Mac results here against an older dual 2.4GHz Xeon, on undisclosed chipset/RAM: http://www.barefeats.com/g5sum02.html Also note that Cinebench is as much a real-world test as anything else, despite comments at that URL and elsewhere, as you're basically running a save-crippled copy of the programme with example scene files under control of a script. As Cinema4D is one of the top three 3D app's you're likely to be running on a Mac (alongside Maya and LightWave3D), these results are important and indicative for potential buyers in this field. BTW, for Maya you may find that the AMD systems are the ones to beat, and certainly for math intensive/scientific type purposes the AMD CPU's with their very strong FPU's are Apple's big competition. One last point, the AltiVec (vector processing) engine of the G5 is maybe not up to what Mac users would like to see with a generation move on from their G4's. P.S. 3D users will have some concern on what gfx card they are going to run in the G5 systems for professional OpenGL work. If companies such as 3D Labs are ever able to justify development of Mac drivers for their Wildcat and Wildcat VP series gfx cards then things will look even rosier for Apple in the 3D section of the "Hollywood" market they have been courting of late (for e.g. with buying up software such as Shake). Xeon - Experiment: 2x SL6EP 2.4/400@3450+|PC-DL 1.04-B05 BIOS1009|2Gb GeIL Ultra-X PC3200 2-2-2-5| Gigabyte 6600GT Fanless Heatpipes|silent Samsung HD's|Antec Titan550|stock voltages|IWT+Agilent cooler| AMD - Experiment: Opteron165 1.8@2.25 CCBWE 0551WPMW|stock heatpipe HSF|HP/nVidia QuadroFX4500| Antec TPII 550W|Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe|4Gb Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT|2x Dell 2405FPW's|more 2 come..|

Manatoba Retired Comp-Tech Posts: 328 Joined: 2002-09-02

#24396 Posted on: 08/25/2003 09:33 PM For anyone wanting some idea of LightWave3D benchmark results on a range of platforms, a very good site is this one: http://www.blanos.com/benchmark/ You will see how the fast P4 machines (dual P4 Xeons) dominate the majority of the 8 standard LightWave3D benchmark scene results. (These scenes are included, among many others, with the app' on CD, the latter 4 coming with LW 7.0 and above.) A couple of the tests though show more of a liking for the strong AMD FPU power. Xeon - Experiment: 2x SL6EP 2.4/400@3450+|PC-DL 1.04-B05 BIOS1009|2Gb GeIL Ultra-X PC3200 2-2-2-5| Gigabyte 6600GT Fanless Heatpipes|silent Samsung HD's|Antec Titan550|stock voltages|IWT+Agilent cooler| AMD - Experiment: Opteron165 1.8@2.25 CCBWE 0551WPMW|stock heatpipe HSF|HP/nVidia QuadroFX4500| Antec TPII 550W|Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe|4Gb Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT|2x Dell 2405FPW's|more 2 come..|

AzraelsCurse Registered User Posts: 41 Joined: 2003-05-12

#24397 Posted on: 08/26/2003 04:04 AM Hm... build a 2000+ Athlon XP system for about $500, or buy a 1.6 Ghz G5 system for $1999. Decisions decisions...

Cld12pk2go SMP Newbie Posts: 25 Joined: 2002-05-21

#24398 Posted on: 08/26/2003 08:02 AM Looks like the G5 will be just as underpowered as the G4 compared to its competition. Somehow i imagine that won't that that will stop apple from claiming it is (insert random number) times faster than anything else...

CroakedOne deliverer of bad news Posts: 59 Joined: 2001-11-08

#24399 Posted on: 08/26/2003 04:17 PM The only reason I would buy a dual G4 or G5 would be that it kicks ass in distributed.net. P4 is pitiful and the Athlon is better but comes no where near what the G4 does in crunching blocks. rig 1:Athlon 900 thunderbird rig 2:dual PIII 1 gig rig 3: dual freebsd PIII 667 mhz rig 4: would like a rackmount system :P

hyperspace SMP Freak Posts: 38 Joined: 2001-04-06

#24400 Posted on: 08/26/2003 10:27 PM Originally posted by Hooz Personally I've been drooling over the new (dual) G5 boxes, and I think I'm ready to donate some blood to get my hands on one. Who knows... You may see me in the next "switch" commercial. Now, this is a scary thought! Lost in hypertime... [url=http://216.170.15.226/multiverse.html]multiverse[/url]|[url=http://216.170.15.226/hyperspace.html]hyperspace[/url]

sponz Ass Klown Posts: 279 Joined: 2000-08-19

#24401 Posted on: 08/27/2003 01:32 AM Originally posted by CroakedOne The only reason I would buy a dual G4 or G5 would be that it kicks ass in distributed.net. P4 is pitiful and the Athlon is better but comes no where near what the G4 does in crunching blocks. Can I have a dollar? www.assklown.com heatware under sponz

Manatoba Retired Comp-Tech Posts: 328 Joined: 2002-09-02

#24402 Posted on: 08/28/2003 05:42 AM The high speed on RC5-72 is due to the Mac client being written to take advantage of the AltiVec vector processing engine on the G4/G5 CPU die. If you're only worried about RC5-72 speed, you'd be better off just buying a bunch of YDL briQ's or Total Impact multi-cpu PCI cards. YDL briQ's info here: http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/products/ Total Impact cards with up to four CPU's per card: http://www.totalimpact.com/mPOWER.html Example single CPU card: http://www.agelectronics.co.uk/tpe3.html Xeon - Experiment: 2x SL6EP 2.4/400@3450+|PC-DL 1.04-B05 BIOS1009|2Gb GeIL Ultra-X PC3200 2-2-2-5| Gigabyte 6600GT Fanless Heatpipes|silent Samsung HD's|Antec Titan550|stock voltages|IWT+Agilent cooler| AMD - Experiment: Opteron165 1.8@2.25 CCBWE 0551WPMW|stock heatpipe HSF|HP/nVidia QuadroFX4500| Antec TPII 550W|Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe|4Gb Corsair TwinX2048-4000PT|2x Dell 2405FPW's|more 2 come..|

sponz Ass Klown Posts: 279 Joined: 2000-08-19

#24403 Posted on: 09/04/2003 06:08 PM WTF. Either I'm A: An idiot or B: Got my post modified. Heh. I'd likely vote for the idiot portion. Can I have a dollar? www.assklown.com heatware under sponz

2CPU.com » News » August 2003 » G4 + G5 + Athlon XP + Cinebench = Interesting Reading