Intel macs, very very fast
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 25,967
Likes: 2,685
From: Jersey
Intel macs, very very fast
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1175
Speed of Apple Intel dev systems impress developers
By AppleInsider Staff
Published: 12:45 PM EST
The speed of Mac OS X running on Intel hardware is impressing some developers who've been privy to one of Apple's first Intel-based developer transition systems.
The systems started shipping to Mac OS X developers three weeks ago, each equipped with a 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 2 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz front-side bus, 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 Dual Channel SDRAM, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.
Developers are renting the $999 hardware from Apple for a period of 18 months in order to get a head start in porting their applications to run on the Intel version of Mac OS X.
"It's fast," said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel's Pentium processors. "Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5." In addition to booting Windows XP at blazing speeds, the included version of Mac OS X for Intel takes "as little as 10 seconds" to boot to the Desktop from when the Apple logo first displays on screen.
Included with the Mac OS X for Intel distribution is an Applications folder stocked with a mixture of PowerPC and Intel-native applications. Applications that are compiled only for PowerPC processors are of filetype "Application (PowerPC)" whereas Intel-native binaries are labeled of standard type "Application".
Developers sources say the early version of Rosetta, a dynamic binary translator that is designed to run unaltered PowerPC applications on Intel Macs, is also impressive. "Rosetta is completely 100 percent seamless and nothing like the Classic environment used to run older Mac OS 8 and 9 applications under Mac OS X," one source told AppleInsider.
"With the exception of the "PowerPC" denotation and the presence of "Open in Rosetta" checkbox in the application info boxes, you can't tell which applications are universal and which are PowerPC-only unless you examine package contents," the source explained.
Since the developer version of Mac OS X for Intel offers users the option of running any application under Rosetta, developers have been able to perform rudimentary speed comparisons between native Intel Mac applications and those that must first filter through the Rosetta binary translator.
"Taking a universal binary and timing its startup in Intel native speed versus its startup when opened via Rosetta results in a slowdown, but not as much as one would think," said another source. "The apps run at about 65 to 70 percent of their normal speed."
However, some PowerPC-native applications realize little to no speed reductions while running under Rosetta. A source told AppleInsider the current PowerPC version of the popular Firefox web browser loads just as fast under Mac OS X Intel as it does on a high-end dual processor Power Mac G5.
If reports are accurate, Mac users have a lot to look forward to in regards to web browsing under Mac OS X for Intel. According to sources, web browsing in general is much faster under Mac OS X for Intel than it is under the shipping version of Mac OS X for PowerPC. Web pages snap to the screen, the same way they do in Internet Explorer running on a new Pentium system, they say.
The first Mac systems to sport Intel processors are expected to hit the market around the middle of next year according to statements made by Apple, though recent mumblings indicate that the company may be striving to beat those estimates by several months.
Speed of Apple Intel dev systems impress developers
By AppleInsider Staff
Published: 12:45 PM EST
The speed of Mac OS X running on Intel hardware is impressing some developers who've been privy to one of Apple's first Intel-based developer transition systems.
The systems started shipping to Mac OS X developers three weeks ago, each equipped with a 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 2 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz front-side bus, 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 Dual Channel SDRAM, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.
Developers are renting the $999 hardware from Apple for a period of 18 months in order to get a head start in porting their applications to run on the Intel version of Mac OS X.
"It's fast," said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel's Pentium processors. "Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5." In addition to booting Windows XP at blazing speeds, the included version of Mac OS X for Intel takes "as little as 10 seconds" to boot to the Desktop from when the Apple logo first displays on screen.
Included with the Mac OS X for Intel distribution is an Applications folder stocked with a mixture of PowerPC and Intel-native applications. Applications that are compiled only for PowerPC processors are of filetype "Application (PowerPC)" whereas Intel-native binaries are labeled of standard type "Application".
Developers sources say the early version of Rosetta, a dynamic binary translator that is designed to run unaltered PowerPC applications on Intel Macs, is also impressive. "Rosetta is completely 100 percent seamless and nothing like the Classic environment used to run older Mac OS 8 and 9 applications under Mac OS X," one source told AppleInsider.
"With the exception of the "PowerPC" denotation and the presence of "Open in Rosetta" checkbox in the application info boxes, you can't tell which applications are universal and which are PowerPC-only unless you examine package contents," the source explained.
Since the developer version of Mac OS X for Intel offers users the option of running any application under Rosetta, developers have been able to perform rudimentary speed comparisons between native Intel Mac applications and those that must first filter through the Rosetta binary translator.
"Taking a universal binary and timing its startup in Intel native speed versus its startup when opened via Rosetta results in a slowdown, but not as much as one would think," said another source. "The apps run at about 65 to 70 percent of their normal speed."
However, some PowerPC-native applications realize little to no speed reductions while running under Rosetta. A source told AppleInsider the current PowerPC version of the popular Firefox web browser loads just as fast under Mac OS X Intel as it does on a high-end dual processor Power Mac G5.
If reports are accurate, Mac users have a lot to look forward to in regards to web browsing under Mac OS X for Intel. According to sources, web browsing in general is much faster under Mac OS X for Intel than it is under the shipping version of Mac OS X for PowerPC. Web pages snap to the screen, the same way they do in Internet Explorer running on a new Pentium system, they say.
The first Mac systems to sport Intel processors are expected to hit the market around the middle of next year according to statements made by Apple, though recent mumblings indicate that the company may be striving to beat those estimates by several months.
Three Wheelin'
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,649
Likes: 0
From: CA
I love it. I've used Macs from time to time over the years and never really been impressed with the overall speed "feel" of the machines. They've always seems a little sluggish and unresponsive. I guess I wasn't imagining it.
Trending Topics
Homeless
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 9,210
Likes: 0
From: Northern DEL-A-Where?
The systems started shipping to Mac OS X developers three weeks ago, each equipped with a 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 2 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz front-side bus, 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 Dual Channel SDRAM, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.
With that much memory & 2 MB cache...what wouldn't be fast?
With that much memory & 2 MB cache...what wouldn't be fast?
Three Wheelin'
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,649
Likes: 0
From: CA
Originally Posted by NYZGREATST
so is mac gonna use XP as their OS? if so what the hell is the point of getting a mac then?
Suzuka Master
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 7,103
Likes: 1
Originally Posted by chef chris
The systems started shipping to Mac OS X developers three weeks ago, each equipped with a 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 2 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz front-side bus, 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 Dual Channel SDRAM, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.
With that much memory & 2 MB cache...what wouldn't be fast?
With that much memory & 2 MB cache...what wouldn't be fast?
Drifting
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 2,128
Likes: 5
From: NJ
Originally Posted by NYZGREATST
so is mac gonna use XP as their OS? if so what the hell is the point of getting a mac then?
Administrator Alumnus
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 26,326
Likes: 131
From: Northwest IN
oye
Mactels will come with Mac OS, will be marketed as Macs with Mac OS and no communications will ever come from Apple that you can run Windows on these boxes.
There will be digital security signatures on the MacTels that the OS will look for in order to install/boot, which (in theory) will prevent Mac OS to be run on any Intel PC (Dells, etc).
XP will run just fine on MacTels provided you have the proper drivers. But again, this will never be supported from Apple.
Mactels will come with Mac OS, will be marketed as Macs with Mac OS and no communications will ever come from Apple that you can run Windows on these boxes.
There will be digital security signatures on the MacTels that the OS will look for in order to install/boot, which (in theory) will prevent Mac OS to be run on any Intel PC (Dells, etc).
XP will run just fine on MacTels provided you have the proper drivers. But again, this will never be supported from Apple.
Senior Moderator
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 45,641
Likes: 2,335
From: Better Neighborhood, Arizona
Originally Posted by Python2121
weren't we led by apple to believe that the g5 was ohh so much faster then the itel procs
they even had side to side benchmarks...so now they are saying that they aren't faster??
they even had side to side benchmarks...so now they are saying that they aren't faster??
But in my experience, Apples are slower. Not always but usually.
Cause of power outages...
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,586
Likes: 0
From: Champaign, IL
Originally Posted by anothercls
W2k3 Server would still take a long time to boot...
The Third Ball
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 50,492
Likes: 5,869
From: Los Angeles, Ca
From macrumors. Pretty says what post #1 says but the last paragraph sites a % for rosetta.
Appleinsider has posted some subjective feedback from developers regarding the speed of the Mac OS X Intel developer boxes which were sold to developers for $999.
The $999 developer boxes house a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 and a standard PC motherboard, allowing it to boot Windows. As has been hinted previously, nothing definitive about the final Mac-Intel design can be gained from the current developer design.
Previous benchmarks demonstrated how well Rosetta (the PowerPC emulator) faired. And the comments by some developers have observed that PowerPC apps run at approximately 60-70% their native speed -- with some apps, such as Firefox, running at full sp
Appleinsider has posted some subjective feedback from developers regarding the speed of the Mac OS X Intel developer boxes which were sold to developers for $999.
The $999 developer boxes house a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 and a standard PC motherboard, allowing it to boot Windows. As has been hinted previously, nothing definitive about the final Mac-Intel design can be gained from the current developer design.
Previous benchmarks demonstrated how well Rosetta (the PowerPC emulator) faired. And the comments by some developers have observed that PowerPC apps run at approximately 60-70% their native speed -- with some apps, such as Firefox, running at full sp
Masshole
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 1,273
Likes: 1
From: MA
Originally Posted by doopstr
Running a domain controller on W2K3 will own the boot time.
Absolutely...my W2k3 SBS was slow on boot, and also on shutdown. When compared to my system before promoting it to a domain controller, it was much faster.
Bootvis is also a nice tool for those who want to boot their systems faster. Use at your own risk.
Work safe avatar bish :D
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,056
Likes: 0
From: Avon Park/Gainesville FL
Originally Posted by Python2121
weren't we led by apple to believe that the g5 was ohh so much faster then the itel procs
they even had side to side benchmarks...so now they are saying that they aren't faster??
they even had side to side benchmarks...so now they are saying that they aren't faster??
Im with stupid
The Third Ball
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 50,492
Likes: 5,869
From: Los Angeles, Ca
Originally Posted by Malayalee King
wooo...all that speed and no apps/games! 
Suzuka Master
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 7,083
Likes: 0
From: Los Angeles, CA
Originally Posted by The Sarlacc
No games I'll agree with.....but how about trying to tell me what apps mac doesnt have? Cause you're full of it on that one.
The Third Ball
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 50,492
Likes: 5,869
From: Los Angeles, Ca
Originally Posted by cusdaddy
Probably about 90% of the applications I use at work
Suzuka Master
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 7,083
Likes: 0
From: Los Angeles, CA
Originally Posted by The Sarlacc
For business or IT yeah probably. But for most home users or even small business, everything need is available on a mac.