Mac/PC showdown: and the winner is...
Posted by: Joe Petrik on 15 October 2004
Circumstance has allowed me an opportunity to try an interesting comparison -- well, interesting to me; you may be bored to tears -- putting a current G5 Mac up against a current Xeon-based Dell workstation on exactly the same task.
The comparison is interesting since both machines happen by chance to be the same purchase price (within a few dollars) after education discount, so the comparison is really about how much computing power you get for $x with a Mac vs a name-brand PC. The Mac is my home machine, bought in early August 2004 and the PC is my work machine, bought in early September 2004.
The two computers in question are spec'd as follows:
Entry-level Mac G5
* Dual 1.8 GHz 970fx processors
* 2 GB of RAM
* 160 GB SATA HD
* OS X (10.3.5)
Dell 670 Precision Workstation
* Single 3.2 GHz Xeon processor
* 2 GB of RAM
* 160 GB SATA HD
* Windows XP (SP2)
Both machines have the current "CS" version of Adobe Photoshop installed. The task was to render a 24,000 x 18,000 pixel image (which works out to be 1.2 GB) by rasterizing a PDF file, then apply a filter to that image.
Both computers had their Photoshop memory preference set to 75% of available RAM, so both had enough memory available to render a 1.2 GB image with at least a 100 MB to spare. No other applications, except OSs, were running at the time.
Here are the results for time taken to render a 1.2 GB image file:
Mac -- 10:24 (~10.4 minutes)
PC -- 3:32 (~3.5 minutes)
PC comes out about 3 times faster
Here are the results for time taken to apply a filter:
Mac -- 4:16 (~4.25 minutes)
PC -- 2:40 (~2.7 minutes)
PC comes out about 1.5 times faster
Obviously, this isn't the be-all and end-all of tests, but on at least one application I use regularly a decent PC workstation has a substantial speed edge over a current G5 Mac. Easy of use and the fun factor are clearly and decisively in the Mac's favour -- at least for me -- but that comes at a price that many will not want to pay.
The upshot is that I prefer Macs and will continue to recommend them, but I may back off from boasting how blindingly fast the new G5s are.
Joe
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by Richard AV
Yeah, but the Mac looked way cooler when doing it
A PC User.
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by Joe Petrik
Richard,
quote:
Yeah, but the Mac looked way cooler when doing it
Unfortunately, the same can't be said of some Mac users.
Something I neglected to mention. Although the PC handily beat the Mac on speed, images look more impressive and, for lack of a better word, "right" on the Mac, presumably because Apple Cinema Displays are nicer monitors than the UltraSharp LCD panels Dell supplies and because of tighter integration between hardware and software with Apple. In the end, this matters more to me than bare horsepower comparisons.
Joe
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by garyi
Joe this is very disappointing.
At least tell me the PC crashed a few times?
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by Mike Sae
Wow Joe you've really let yourself go.
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by Deane F
quote:
Originally posted by Mike Sae:
Wow Joe you've really let yourself go.
Well obviously the image has been doctored.
Deane
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by Mike Sae
With Xeon horsepower no less.
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by Deane F
No, I mean by the forum administrators.
Deane
Posted on: 15 October 2004 by Joe Petrik
Mike,
quote:
Wow Joe you've really let yourself go.
Three months of cumulative sleep deprivation (new baby and all that) will do that to ya. This is what I used to look like...
Joe
P.S. Sorry, iGary. The PC didn't crash, but it's ugly, black and plasticky.
Posted on: 16 October 2004 by Arun Mehan
Joe,
Well, I didn't want to say it but ... TOLD YOU SO, TOLD YOU SO! For all the folks who don't know this, Joe was trying to convert me to the Apple world when I was a young lad working with him: it didn't work then and it surely won't work now.
But I understand the Apple users. I still believe that if someone is looking for a computer that a PC is the best bet, certainly for everyday tasks.
But this was a very poor scientific comparison Mr. Petrik. What video cards did you use???
Posted on: 16 October 2004 by Joe Petrik
Arun,
Not sure what point you're trying to make.
I
never tried to convert you or anyone else to Apple. I've simply maintained over the years that I
prefer Macs to PCs. As a matter of fact, I'm always cautious to point out that what I prefer or personally find to be superior may not be true for others. Think back to the P9/LP12 debates. I told people what I heard, but stressed that the decision to switch to a P9 is, ultimately, up to them.
And, just to be a stickler for detail, we worked together back in the summer of 1997, when a lot PC users were still struggling with Windows 95, an OS I don't think many would defend in hindsight. Yes, 97 was better still, but both OSs sucked. (If you recall, I often lost work because the PC I was using would crash in mid-sentence.)
I came clean that the Dell Precision workstation beat the G5 on speed. If I had some agenda I would have kept quiet about the findings. But I reported what I found in the hopes it would be useful to someone. PCs are faster dollar for dollar, but other things are important, too.
The video card issue is, well, a non-issue since the tasks I performed -- rasterizing a PDF file and applying a filter in PS -- happens in the CPU.
A Mac is the correct choice for me because I get better colour matching between what I see on screen and what comes out of my Canon i9100 printer, thanks to OX S's
ColorSync. As far as I know, there isn't anything similar in the PC world -- at least something that comes stock with XP.
Joe
Posted on: 16 October 2004 by Dan M
Obviously, this isn't the be-all and end-all of tests, but on at least one application I use regularly a decent PC workstation has a substantial speed edge over a current G5 Mac.
Joe,
This is kind of a surprise. While for a single processor the speed for the PC is almost double, I think it is odd PS doesn't make better use of 2 processors. I wonder if CS is written to share the load across cpus. In the real world, you'll likely to be surfing/posting/etc. while PS does its thing, and in that case I think the G5 might gain some ground back, not having to maintain multiple threads on one cpu.
Dan
Posted on: 17 October 2004 by Joe Petrik
Hey, Dan.
quote:
In the real world, you'll likely to be surfing/posting/etc. while PS does its thing, and in that case I think the G5 might gain some ground back, not having to maintain multiple threads on one cpu.
That occurred to me as well -- that a G5 might fare better when running several tasks at once -- but I didn't want to make too much of that because it could be seen as special pleading for Apple. Plus, the Dell can do hyperthreading, which, as I understand it, sorta does the same thing as two CPUs.
It also occurred to me that the G5 should get a speed boost once OS X and Mac apps are written to fully exploit 64-bit processing. Come closer,
Tiger, so we can see you...
By the way, where have you been? Maybe I missed your posts but I don't recall your being here for a while.
Joe
Posted on: 17 October 2004 by Dan M
Good morning Joe,
Yeah, I've been trying to cool it with the forum posts, in an attempt to slow my pace to post 1K. I've been traveling as well -- just got back from a few days in Maine (spectacular fall color). On top of that, I have gone from a 62 to a 102, which has meant more time with the black boxes. But, I see Don has been setting some problems in the 'Teaser' thread and I should look into those.
re. G5's -- we are still waiting on the dual 2.5GHz G5 to show at work. It should pummel my dual 1.6GHz Xeon Dell. I'll let you know.
cheers,
Dan
Posted on: 18 October 2004 by Top Cat
Hmmmm...
As the owner of a Dell dual Xeon 3.0 with 2Gb RAM and RAID 36Gb U320 drives, I'd still choose the Apple even if it took five times as long.
There's more to computing efficiency than mere speed. I find the Photoshop figures surprising - perhaps you need to download the G5 patch from Adobe (like you do for PS7) in order to take advantage of G5 processing features over the G4? Just a thought.
Ain't never going back to PCs through choice...
John
Posted on: 18 October 2004 by MarkEJ
In my experience, it is actually in quite rare and specific circumstances that a Mac will perform a given individual task faster than a PC. However, the range of tasks tackled by a given human being in a typical day can often be acomplished much more productively on a Mac, as it doesn't fuss. Add this up over a year, and the business case for the Mac is practically unassailable, particularly when you factor in support costs and working life expectancy.
PCs work well for RIPing PostScript, or any other sort of "embedded" application. It's when you add a human user and peripherals that they seem to fall on their faces. The Mac just copes better with the real world. It'll smoke its tyres on the drag strip pretty well, but it also goes round corners.
Best;
Mark
Posted on: 18 October 2004 by Joe Petrik
Mark,
As long as I have your attention on things Apple, what are your thoughts on installing 2x512 MB Kington HyperX DIMMs in a new dual 1.8 GHz G5? The sorid details are
here.
Joe
P.S. Congrats on the 102, Dan.
Posted on: 18 October 2004 by Dan M
P.S. Congrats on the 102Thanks Joe. And thanks for posting the picture -- nice to put a face with the name
Dan
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by Alex S.
When I bought my first computer I approached friends in advertising (in those innocent days it was possible to have friends in advertising) and they said buy a Mac. They said this because they were using Mega Macs. I bought one. It was driven by a bored hamster on a wheel needing oil. I've never looked back. I bought Macs for the fun of it, not for the speed thrill, rather like most girls I knew bought 2CVs (although I never understood that one).
Joe, TC, iGary, Matthew's told us enough times we use girlie computers and now Joe's proved it. But do we care?
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by Top Cat
Do we care? Nope. We know we made the right choice, even if it took some of us years to get there (i.e. me).
Hey, I liked the car analogy:
PC is like a fiddly, unreliable fast car which doesn't handle and whose wheels can fall off at any point.
Mac is like a slightly slower car that corners on rails and is much more fun to drive, ultra-reliable, extremely confortable and despite being slower, always seems to get you to your destination first.
John
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by garyi
I am not falling for these excuses, strictly speaking the mac should have performed a lot better.
I don't usually take the apple sales team at their word, but surely the results should at least be comparable, what reason is there that it would be three times slower?
As apple GUI is basically based on PDF should it not be faster.
Also what is rastersizing a PDF? LOL
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by Stephen Bennett
It does look like both CPUs are not being used - though OSX is supposed to spread the load.
Maybe Joe could redo with the CPU monitor open and see what is going on?
Regards
Stephen
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by Joe Petrik
Gary,
quote:
what reason is there that it would be three times slower
Ummm, because the 3.2 GHz Xeon was three times faster? I'm a bit disappointed, too, that my G5 wasn't faster -- or as least as fast as the PC -- but that's what I found. But, to be fair, it's not so much that the Mac is a dog, it's that the 3.2 GHz Xeon-based PC is a speed demon.
quote:
As apple GUI is basically based on PDF should it not be faster.
If all the Mac had to do was open and display a PDF file maybe it would have been faster. But that's not what I did -- I opened a PDF file
within Photoshop and rasterized it to my specs -- a 1.2 GB RGB 24,000 x 18,000 pixel image. The result is a file that's no longer a PDF.
quote:
what is rastersizing a PDF?
Although I usually rasterize .eps files exported from QuarkXPress, the process can also be done with PDFs. In short, rasterizing is a way of resizing a file to the exact size, resolution and colour space you want (say, a 3x5-foot poster at 300 dpi in RGB space) without loss of quality.
Joe
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by Alex S.
Joe, you really shouldn't have told iGary that; he'll spend the next week rasterizing everything in sight, maybe even himself.
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by garyi
Hey Raster man, pass me the spliff, etc etc
Posted on: 19 October 2004 by Joe Petrik
Alex,
quote:
you really shouldn't have told iGary that; he'll spend the next week rasterizing everything in sight, maybe even himself
Rasterizing only works well with vector-based art, and iGary strikes me much more as being a bitmap.
Joe
