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Mac OS X, on REAL hardware! WOOO HOOO!

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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.

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Originally posted by thalo:

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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.

Oh come on. Notice the 2MB L2 Cache, and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.

This configuration QUADRUPLES the Level 2 cache, and deals with the extreme graphics requirements of Aqua with a media accelerator. It's still all about throwing significant hardware power at a bloated OS.

Meanwhile, on a dual 2.7GHz G5, with a giant NVIDIA GeForce card, and dual independent frontside buses (@1.35GHz each... but one-fourth the Level 2 cache, I also get a boot up to the desktop in as little as 10 seconds.

"REAL Hardware!" is what this hulking brute of an OS needs, or else everyone is shit out of luck with it.

I hope while you're all celebrating, you're seeing what it takes to run useless happy horseshit and visual superabundance. Imagine how much FASTER it would all be, if the interface was lean and mean; and less-is-more.

If you're thinking X-men will get more speed thanks to Intel architecture, think again. Because unless the low end Macs, the iMacs, the iBooks, and and all that get the same treatment as the developer towers... I'm not sure OS X is gonna be any more "snappy". Not for YOU. Not unless you pay through the nose for high end hardware.

The most interesting thing to me, was that the machine was dual boot! Uh, but not for the legacy... for WINDOWS? The Mac lives! Woo Hoo! [eye roll]

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Originally posted by thalo:
I think you make a very important point when you say snappy? Yeah? Doing WHAT?

I think since the advent of OS X, there's a huge difference between first-blush snappy, and real-world snappy. Now that I've been using the G5 for a couple of weeks, there is no doubt that it's snappier AT CERTAIN TIMES, and there is also no doubt that it stalls and slows down and beachballs at other certain times.

I think all the Mac Faithful get pumped up and fooled when performance looks great when you don't look too deep. I do it myself. I call it "I want to believe" syndrome. And yet, what's clear to me...what's BEEN clear to me from the beginning is that OS X performance is UNEVEN. And worse, it degrades with use. Back at MFI I once asserted that "Jaggy is Fraggy"... and that it must have something to do with OS X disk use. That made logical sense to me.

Now, some of the snappiness I felt aftert the initial install, is also going downhill fast. And the only thing that's different is that the machine has been put to work. At certain times I am noticing more of those unexplained stalls.

At first I thought maybe I had one of my hard drives set to spin down in Energy Saver... uh, nope. And I'm fastidious about nursemaiding, I make sure to run MacJanitor for my cron tasks (since I do shut down or sleep the machine at night). I'm telling you, something about the way people work, slows down the OS. The more you work, the worse the effect.

I think anything to do with OS X is optimized for that first start-up. Even I was impressed. But it'll never perform better than when the install was virgin. What's up with that?

I think hardware power COVERS that effect. When something in the architecture or OS is fundamentally weak, more memory, more graphics card, and larger caches will hide it. I think Apple worries more about snappy at the first startup (right before the reviews come out) than they do over the long term.

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So no its not OS X that is slow, its the PPC based hardware, ancient memory controllers, crappy video cards and video card drivers that have held Mac OS X back.

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It's not OS X, it's just all the hardware and software it has to put up with. Free X from all that, and its speed will blow your head off.

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Long live the Complex Instruction Set Computer!

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Originally posted by NDPTAL85:
Thought you all knew by now?

Macs have pretty much always been slower than PCs, at least since the Pentium II came out. Only in certain apps like Photoshop or niche A/V areas has the G4/G5 excelled.

So no its not OS X that is slow, its the PPC based hardware, ancient memory controllers, crappy video cards and video card drivers that have held Mac OS X back.

Of course Jobs could never admit this, no one comes out and says "hey our product underperforms even though its overpriced, enjoy!". He spiked the Kool-Aid to keep Apple afloat and keep the Cupertino way of life going.

But no more suffering! Deliverance be unto us via x86!

RISC vs. CISC
The Reduced Instruction Set Computer is dead!
Long live the Complex Instruction Set Computer!

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Originally posted by thalo:
Actually, my friggin' FAVORITE thing in this whole Intel-switchover drama is how X-Men are finally admitting that OS X had problems.

Seems they can do that, now that there is a "cure" on the horizon. But I've been reading some priceless gems out there... and much of the real denial façade that we here at thalo.net have been stripping away, is crumbling.

Just getting an X-Man to admit OS X is dog slow is a major victory for us. I say ga head and let them believe that new Intel processors are gonna cure the situation. When it DOESN'T, maybe then the user base will be ready to mount a united front and stop crap settling. Then the MacLash can begin. Although I'm sure there will be an intial "want to believe" effect when the first Intel Macs come out.