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MacBook Faster than a Desktop G5 at Some Tasks

creativemac.com — This well-written review explains how the processor in the MacBook, a consumer laptop, is as robust as the processor in G5 desktop Macs -- and sometimes exceeds G5 performance on certain tasks.

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pshapiro 2 years 81 days ago, made popular 2 years 80 days ago

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Haly2k1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Good artilce, corrects some misinformation that's been floating around.
Hal
Jayeveryday, on 10/12/2007, -22/+4Nice considering I own a macbook yah. Anyone wanna trade me for a pro?
- zybch, on 10/12/2007, -20/+3What exactly are prostitutes worth these days anyway?
williamrocks, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14That's real good, even more reason to go with a Macbook!
- kwojniak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I've switched from a dual 1.8Ghz G5 to my 2GB MacBook as my full time dev machine. Works very well in comparison (and only recently upgraded to a 7200 RPM drive, when my G5 had a 10,000 RPM drive in it). So I can confirm first hand that the MacBook is a fast machine :)
- Hydroxyl, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1But I mean, it's also because maybe the Intel processors opposed to the G5.
  
  I'm shocked they haven't put them in a PowerMac yet.
- Chewie67, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Hydroxyl - "I'm shocked they haven't put them in a PowerMac yet."
  
  August is the latest rumor. Apple has it's annual developers conference early in the month. Speculation is that they'll announce the new PowerMacs and Servers. There have also been people suggesting that we may see a new iPod, an iTunes Music store, and an updated iMac.
  
  We'll see....
EmmEff, on 10/12/2007, -12/+20Geez, don't let certain G5 owners read this... many are still very delusional about the performance of their hardware. And don't get me started on the Mac zealots who thought the move to Intel was a bad thing.
- SonicRift, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Well, it's bad for them because now they probably feel they need to buy one of these new macs...
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7i don't think its odd that a next gen chip by intel can sometimes beat a chip thats beginning to age like the G5. i'm still waiting for someone to address the fact that console makers have moved to the PPC family. was that just stupid or do you think they might know something. that is the real reason apple switched. the G5 was getting old and they were looking at increasing production... and couldn't stand around waiting for CPUs.
- TheReport, on 10/12/2007, -10/+12"don't let certain G5 owners read this... many are still very delusional about the performance of their hardware"
  
  Im a G5 owner and a macbook owner, all i have to say is id like to see a macbook support at least 10 layers in Photoshop CS2 without unstable behaviour even when Photoshop becomes native in a macbook. Id also like to see it record up to one hours worth of garageband audio without a stutter. Believe me when I say sure the macbooks are fast but A G5 is still considered the standard for heavy film editing, heavt music editing and heavy photoshop use. Im sure what these tests dont tell you is that they dont take into condiseration the extensive use of these applications for hours at a time.
- mieses, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2freedom of choice is not apple's strong point. the G5 is better at many tasks, but you don't have the freedom to use it any more. If only those production apps ran on more flexible and open systems...
- triplah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@starmanjones:
  
  "was that just stupid or do you think they might know something."
  
  the truth is that they DO know something, the PPC's cacheing and pipelining system makes is a very good arch for specific tasks, like video editing as someone mentioned, funnily enough, well written games get good benefits from these features too.
  
  I know its useless to bicker about what could have been, but PPC as an arch is far superior to x86, it of course hasnt enjoyed the healthy competition that x86 has :)
- node3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@Emm
  
  The G5 *is* still really quite fast. I don't see how you can think otherwise.
  
  @TheReport
  
  I see no reason why a MacBook would not be able to handle similar tasks. The MacBook has a sufficiently fast dual core processor, and sufficiently speedy memory bandwidth. What, about the MacBook, leads you to believe it would become unstable in Photoshop with 10 layers (unstable at only 10?!?! WTF?), or would stutter while recording audio?
  
  @mieses
  
  I realize you post was a troll, but seriously, you can *still* buy G5's, and every single app that Apple sells works on G5's, and will for quite some time.
- mieses, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2most apple users won't miss the benefits of the G5 cpu once it's no longer available for purchase.
  
  different cpu architectures won't disappear. they just won't be provided by apple and their generic, albeit shiny, x86 pc's.
- DokterMac, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4The G5 is not an old chip , it's for certain a hot one. That's because Apple switched to Intel.
  Remember performance/Watt ?
  Remember that the G5 is still a very fast chip with very modern functions and that it's a 64 bit chip.
- zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"all i have to say is id like to see a macbook support at least 10 layers in Photoshop CS2 without unstable behaviour"
  
  They can probably do that under Parallels and still outperform the G5 as the Windows version of Photoshop has always been snappier. Of course they will need a RAM upgrade, but that's the case for everyone running Photoshop.
- 5555, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@TheReport
  
  "Id also like to see it record up to one hours worth of garageband audio without a stutter."
  
  I've done this several times in Logic, with several plug-ins running on several channels and I'm still not making the CPU sweat (I do have 2GB of RAM though).
SpacedCowboy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23Is it really so surprising that a new processor is faster than an old one ? Must be a slow-news-day...
csprech, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6faster at downloadin the pr0n especially!! :)
BladeMelbourne, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Even faster at cooking eggs? ;-)
Just joking, I really want a MacBook.
CaptShmo, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3*insert bitter pc user anti-mac comment here*
jbsnyder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Honestly, I think anyone who's gone from a G5 to a Core Duo MacBook could tell you the same thing, which is precisely what I did. I sometimes forget that this thing is a laptop and not a desktop, the only real downside is having a 5400 RPM internal drive and that certain apps aren't yet up to speed (pun intended).
- zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yeah, that's why I went for the (intel) iMac, but I do miss the portability at times (ie. surfing on the couch, and dare I say toilet!). The MacBooks are very sweet indeed. Hoping for a Nokia 770 type device which isn't by Nokia (= terrible customer service...just sold my 770 after 1 nightmarish warranty return. But I digress) to fill the portable surfing gap *prays for a new newton to be released (fat chance)*.
matperk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That third test (compressor) seems a little off on the MBP test. The fact that it is almost double the slower speed MacBook would make me run the test a couple of more times.
- DarknessGP, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2plus, what about the other components that effect performance?
- shutdown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Or even the components that affect it...
Pliep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Went from a Dual 1.8 GHz G5 to a 1.6 Ghz Mac mini Core Duo. It's faster at audio processing tasks but slower on drive access (eg slow HDD).
bordo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14That site went just a little over board with the mouse-over hyperlinks... half the damn article is underlined
- butchlink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I agree. I sent an e-mail to the webmaster informing him that I wouldn't visit the site again. They make websites look cheap and unprofessional. I know he probably doesn't care that I won't be coming back, and is probably laughing at my note, but if more people did write, maybe we could eliminate these annoyances, without an extension to our browsers.
Doughboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3So it should be a safe-bet that I could buy the lowest-end "MacPro" that are anticipated to be announced next month and it will walk all over my Dual 2.7Ghz G5! Makes me wanna cry and whine... whine louder than my G5's fans do when I open Firefox ;)
Midnightbrewer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Great to know the processor is faster, but it still doesn't change the fact that most pro-level apps are still not Intel-native. No matter how much faster the new Intels are, they still don't do me any good for the time-being.
- cesar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Personally, I'd rather have the hardware out first. Get the kinks out, then I'll worry about the software. But maybe I'm impatient.
- shutdown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Which Pro app are you referring to?
fowleryo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm not understanding why the 2.0 macbooks are trouncing the 2.16 mbp in certain areas. I see this a lot and I'm confused because most, if not all the components are the same... ?
tbf4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Reasonable enough until you get down to Compressor 2.1, Test 3 where the MBP is less than half as fast as the MB. After seeing that, I have absolutely no reason to believe he conducted these benchmarks competently, making me take the results with a grain of salt.

Of course, he probably just made a mistake and most of the other tests seem pretty reasonable, it just grates my cheese that he wouldn't go back and check it or at least provide a better explanation.
- ac3boy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1He said that the MacBook Pro tests were done on an older OS and Apple had seemed to update things that made the tests run faster on the MacBook with the latest OS. He did not redo the tests on the MBP. They were from the original G5/MBP tests earlier.
  
  He should have ran all new tests with every machine on same OS and same updates on the software.
andrebrown, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4Moral of story: Intel>PowerPC
- triplah, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8hah, i love how people say things like "intel > ppc", way to show your ignorance. the comparison would be "intel > ibm" or "x86 > ppc"
  
  the company comparison is debateable, but PPC is certainly a cleaner more elegant architecture than x86.
  
  like i said earlier, PPC hasnt enjoyed the competition in making it perform better like x86
MonkeyLives, on 10/12/2007, -18/+0Pathetic.

It is so sad to see the desperate need for validation the tiny Intel Mac owning crowd will doing anything for. These bogus 'tests' are as silly as the infamous and rigged Mac startup benchmark tests from six months ago.

It appears to be a pervasive attitude that Intel fans have regardless of platform. Thank god IBM dumped Apple last year, Jobs and Intel are match made in heaven for those who are willing to believe any inane benchmark as long as it validate their own personal hardware choices.
adb22791, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2I don't really see anything special about this article. So what if a MacBook is faster than a G5, Intel's Core Duo technology is better than IBM's G5 technology in many respects, so this is to be expected. A windows server is better at some tasks than a *nix server, a hybrid is better at some tasks than a diesel, and vice versa. Nothing revolutionary here.
telielio, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1misinformation is the rox0r
greenamp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3As the owner of both a dual 1.8 G5 Powermac and a 2.0 MacBook, I can attest to this. Working with PS and Illustrator is just as fast and sometimes feels faster on the MacBook than it does the PowerMac. And that's while running under Rosetta emulation.
(My PowerMac is 3 years old though)
GrayOne, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1........Geez, don't let certain G5 owners read this... many are still very delusional about the performance of their hardware. And don't get me started on the Mac zealots who thought the move to Intel was a bad thing.

Maybe the reason they think the G5 is so much faster is because Steve Jobs has been lying through his teeth for years about how much faster PowerPc is to x86?
ciurana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Greetings.

I had similar thoughts in terms of the performance of various systems and wrote an article about it. I noticed that someone else already submitted it to Digg -- check it out. It's a performance-based evaluation of Macs used for Java software development but you may be able to extrapolate the quality of a Mac for your conditions, given that some of the tests are about native code on various Mac and non-Mac systems.

The comparisons of the MacBook and MacBook Pro against the dual G5 Xserve are of particular interest. The dual G5 outperformed almost everything else in one test, but was more-or-less on target for all other benchmarks.

Check it out at: http://digg.com/apple/The_Mac_as_a_Java_platform

Cheers,

Eugene
jevons, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0Great article, I might be changing my mind from upgrading to a G5 or G6 (if they come out soon).
- reiggin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6jevons, I highly encourage you to hold your breath until the "G6" comes out. Please. You could turn some very interesting colors.
- emilheinsen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think I'll skip the G6... Heard some rumors about some heat issues with that... I want that new spiffy G7! Yeah that should rock your socks! Jokes aside, they will NEVER produce a G6 nor a G7, they've switched to Intel, so PLEASE start breathing! ;)
SoonerPet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3They tested this on a dual 2.0GHz G5. that computer is almost 3 years old now, I sure hope Intel's latest and greatest processor can keep up with a 3 year old CPU. I personally have both a dual processor 2.5GHz PowerMac and a new 2GHz core duo imac. The powermac is faster on just about everything. The only thing I've found that the imac is faster on is some various seti benchmarks. Day to day work, a dual 2.5GHz G5 will smoke a 2GHz core duo. Plus, they don't even mention the quad core G5's. And anything that requires any great amount of memory is out of luck. I have 8GB of memory in my PowerMac, let's see them do that in their laptop or imac or anything else. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel here trying to be sensationalist, testing an old lower end, 3 year old G5 with the top of the line core duo, give me a break.
davidhildreth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i like the comment about the "bizarre rumors" about how finalcut doesn't work on a macbook.
heh, its the new version that wont work, not 5.
albertross, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0> and certainly proved itself competition for all but the highest-end (G5 Quad) Mac
> systems on the market today.
hiro, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I can't find a single thing that my MacBook can do faster than my Pentium 1.73M Vaio laptop so the G5 must have been a pretty sluggish rig. It is much quieter and more portable though and I haven't experiened any mooing or odd noises either. It's main problem though, apart from a lack of speed, is the operating temperature. It's much, much hotter than the Vaio and impossible to keep on your lap for more than 2-3 minutes after starting up. I personally would sacrifice some more fan noise for a bit more speed and a cooler base.
weiran, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3There are some *big* anomalies in his results which he should've checked out and corrected. It also seems like he ran the test once on all machines, when you need at least the average of three for reliable results (and to flush out anomalies like his).

Also, does sound a bit sensationalist don't you think?

"OMFG MY NEW MAC PWNS MY 3 YR OLD ONE!!11!!1"
NeoRicen, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Pity Final Cut Pro costs more than a MacBook.
- t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Get Final Cut Express then. It's not that expensive.
  
  Final Cut Pro is a full professional editing/producton suite, including much more than Final Cut itself.
DokterMac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2They picked the right machine (a 2Ghz G5) out to be outperformed by an IntelMac.
Try one like the Quad G5 , or my own dual G5 2.7 Ghz.
I'm certain that those G5's will be a lot faster!
With Cinebench the IntelMacs does not even come close to the performance of my G5!
- DokterMac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2And even with games it does not outperform my G5.
  In games like Quake 4 and Doom 3 , the PowerMac G5 is still faster then the IntelMacs.
  And yes they are universal applications :-)
- zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"In games like Quake 4 and Doom 3 , the PowerMac G5 is still faster"
  
  Well let's move to Apples and Apples for a moment. I bet Call of Duty 2 and UT2004 on my intel iMac outperforms your G5 one with the ageing video hardware. Let it go.
DokterMac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Okay , i have an ATI X850 XT video card in a AGP 8X slot and Call Of Duty 2 is running great with all settings at high or extreme @ full resolution! I only have the demo , but i can tell it rocks on my dual G5 2.7 Ghz.
UT2K4 runs great also , it peaks easily over the 500 fps limit :-) All settings very high and @ full resolution.
And that are framerates you can only be dreaming of with a MacBook and integrated graphics from Intel (lol). Also the G5 PM has place for 8 Giga RAM !!!!
Also the MacBook Pro with an ATI X1600 GPU is underclocked and from the benchmarks i have seen , i still not performs like my "old" G5!
Kind regards.
- zetsurin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1LOL, well, let's wait for the Intel PowerMac's and then talk shall we? Core 2 Duo anyone? How many MacBooks could your setup have purchased? With the difference in cost, I think a CPU upgrade in that MacBook Pro can be justified for a more level comparison.
  
  Also, can you carry that G5 around with you? I've heard that the city lights in your area dimm momentarily whenever you power your machine up. I wonder what the ait temps are like in your bedroom.
DokterMac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This topic is not about the Intel PM versus the PM G5! It's about the MacBook and the PM G5!
I'm certain the Intel PM will be a machine that will be very expensive , close to the purchase of a PM G5! And they will run faster then the current PM G5 (latest models , like the quads).
Maybe i can't carry my G5 around , but at the other hand , i have more slots to put extra cards in and i can put 8 Gigs of RAM in it.
My PM G5 is water cooled so it's a very quiet machine ;-) And he is not standing in my bedroom :-) I use my iBook G4 with a Radeon 9200 Mobile for portable use , without burning my legs. BTW , did you know that the Radeon 9200 outperformed the Intel GPU in the new MacBook?
The heavy horsepower tasks are for my PM , like gaming and others.
maninblac1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is a stupid test, the Core Duo is

1: In a totally different processor class
2: A newer architecture
3: Has optimized SSE instructions (calculate in 1 cycle instead of 2) making it obvious that multimedia tasks will perform better

Yeah it's nice to know it's fast, but tell us something we didn't already know!
NerdyNinja, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@starmanjones

I heard a funny rumor by word of mouth that Microsoft was pissed that people were buying the original xbox and using it as a $300 linux box, so they decided to put Apple's chips in the 360 in hopes of taking hardware profits away from Apple. And then Apple switched to Intel.

No idea how true this is, but I thought it was interesting.
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MacBook Faster than a Desktop G5 at Some Tasks

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