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Motorola's MHz = Mega Hurts

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The Czar:
This whole mhz thing is way over rated. As most of you probably already know, Mhz is just cycles per second. While the x86 may make more cycles per second, the PPC pushes twice as much data through per clock cycle. It's like saying that a Honda Civic can beat a Corvette because its engine revvs faster. While you can wind a Civic up to about 8500 rpm and a Corvette to about 5000rpm, you're gonna get way more power out of the Corvette because it makes more power per revolution than the Civic does.

the_black_angel:
First of comparing the clock speed of processor with different architectures just shows peoples ignorance. The PPC processors use RISC, and the X86  processors use CISC.

take a look at this page its a bit old but it has a nice comparison on it.  
http://www.apple.com/g4/myth/

what matters is how fast an application will run, what you want to do wih that machine.

A true way to compare machines would be to see how many gigaflops they can do, not their clock speeds.

psyjax:
Actually, the true messure of how well a machine performes is to get spec's on which performes better using the specific software you plan to use on it.

Software code is a HUGE bottleneck. I find that now adays with these mega fast processors and large amounts of RAM that programmers are getting sloppy. They don't optamize their code and make sure things are clean and neat cuz they figure the CPU will pick up the slack.

It dosn't matter if youre running 90Mhz or 2Ghz, if your software is badly written, it won't make much diffrence.

NJDevils:
Wow this topic is right up my alley.

Yes the PPC is designed to be a 64-bit machine, but it really isnt. The architecture allows that headroom though, unlike the crapola x86, where the address lines are reserved. Note that IBM ships the 64-bit version if the ISA in the Power line(which WILL run PPC code minus Altivec). This architecture is still bar none the fastest for the desktop. It runs with a 7 CYCLE pipeline! It takes an instruction 7 cycles to complete, versus 22 for the P4, and 9 for the Athlon. That is why Mac-faithful can get away with unoptimized code and underclocked chips and still not be embarassed.

x86, I have explained my woes of this processor in another post. It is probably the SINGLE worst example of microprocessor design available today. Originally introduced in 1979 as the next generation 8-bit architecture, its longevity can only be attributed to that same stinking vat that M$ has come from, more programs are written for it. And so, more engineers are employed to eek more performance out this undisposed garbage. Imagine if this many engineers actually worked on a architecture with headroom, like the IBM 360. 1Ghz would have been achieved long long ago.

And why the hell would anyone other than the sci-comp guys need 64-bit computing? To address a terabyte of RAM? Besides, the common folk couldnt hope to afford a memory subsystem to saturate a processor like that, and winblows wont run any better with 64 bits. (but your local weather forecaster may benefit).

Alas, as the morons who bought windows have spoken with their spending dollars, x86 will live on. While computing's best hope has been quietly killed off. RIP Alpha, we hardle knew ye.

one more note to choa, though the SPARC may be reliable because of Solaris' excellent programmers, that rotating regfile will forever relegate it to the ass end of computing. It may break 2Ghz next century though on a .00001 micron process grown by microbes.

choasforages:
im thinking or buying an alpha based machine/*an old one*/ i heard that they were going to come out with the 21364,/*i might be spiting numbers out my ass, be carful now*/ probably not becuase of the merger, woo-fucking hoo, we get stuck with pa-risc. and the sparc being relageted for the ass end of computeing. it sure as hell won't go as fast as the mips processor will but its better for servers then anything else. and for my opoinoins of x86 read my sig, theres some other pretty funny stuff in it/*if you know what it means*/
edit, im a dumb ass that stays up too late and doesn't read what peoples last posts are really about i looked through and you *were* talking about my sig DOH!!!  :D

[ June 23, 2002: Message edited by: choasforages ]

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