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Comparisons, of a sort

I found some interesting facts about the different CPUs on
Wikipedia.

More FLOPs for optimized apps equals more work done. Anyone
writing specific apps on Linux is enough of a geek to tweak it for
max throughput.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altivec

According to the Apple document at
http://developer.apple.com/hardware/ve/summary.html

Altivec as implemented on the G4 and G5 PPC processors can
perform 8 32-bit FLOPS per cycle and SSE as implemented on
processors by AMD and Intel can perform only 4 32-bit FLOPS
per cycle (x86s are also capable of 2 64-bit FLOPS per cycle
using SSE-2, whereas AltiVec is not). The obvious implication is
that SSE would need a clock 2 times the frequency of Altivec to
perform the same number of FLOPS per second.(present top o
the line G5 is 2.7 GHz meaning a 64bit AMD/Intel chip would
need to be around 5.4 GHz equivalent to match in the SIMD
units)

Comparing frontside bus speed throughput, PowerPC G5 is still
faster than Xeon. Haven't found info on Opteron FSB or
throughput.
G5 FSB = 1/2 CPU speed or 1GHZ + on faster systems , two
1GHz, 1.15GHz or 1.35GHz 64-bit DDR frontside busses
supporting up to 21.6 GBps data throughput
Xeon FSB = 800 MHz w/ 6.4GB/s bandwidth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon
http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html specs on
desktop versions, not Xserves

The Navy has a contractor using G5 systems. "Terra Soft
Solutions said the machines will be used as part of a sonar
imaging system that defense contractor Lockheed Martin is
building for the Navy."
In that instance, the G5 is more bang for the buck as opposed to
an AMD or Intel chip. Higher number of FLOPs and higher
bandwidth for more resolution. They can probably get a little
more out of the chips by using faster HW and not having to put
up with Apple additions meant for the consumer.

The PowerPC architecture still has a lot of life in it, just look at
what the new XBOX 360 is using.

All that means nothing to the granmother doing email and a
little web surfing. Only power users would be likely to use that
kind of computing power. So right now there is little between
the Intel and PowerPC types. In the past PPC was better but AMD
has caught up and pulled Intel along. Maybe Intel showed Apple
something more than vaporware that could be the next leapfrog
in the CPU world. We'll have to wait and see.

Posted by: Mr_Dave   Posted on: 10/03/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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