WAY OFF TOPIC: Re: MacOS 8.5

[Douglas Wright]

In our experience, running BeOS on both platforms, PC hardware is 
faster AND cheaper.  The PowerPC processor is a great design and the 
RAW floating point performance is higher per Mhz, but the io subsystems 
on the PC are much more optimized because of the competition in the 
marketplace.  And that whole thing Apple is spreading about the PowerPC 
233 being flat out faster than the PII 400?  BS.  Here's what 
PCMagazine found when they recompiled the benchmarks that Apple used 
with a better compiler:

<http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/firstlooks/9808/imac_tests.html>

Watch those number DOUBLE when you use a really good compiler.  In 
fact, this is why Be has recently switched from using Metrowerks to 
EGCS tools for the Intel version of BeOS.  We found that using gcc gave 
us a 30% performance improvement with the same code.  It would be even 
better if we could use the intel compiler, but there is more to a tool 
chain than the compiler and we couldn't work it out in the short time 
we had.

So, as long as I'm here going off.  I'd have to recommend (from my 
highly biased viewpoint - you could even say this is a shameless plug) 
that you buy an intel machine that will run Windows, BeOS and Linux so 
that you are prepared for the coming years and whatever they may bring.

dug

>
>In a message dated 10/26/98 1:06:29 PM Pacific Standard Time,
>SMcDonald at doe.mass.edu writes:
>
><< 3. Compared to a Pentium II, for most operations the G3 processors 
are
> twice as fast. So, if you buy a 233MHz, double it to 466MHz. That'd 
make
> it comparable to Pentium II. >>
>
>
>Why is this speed difference?, are the two not runing at the same 
clock speed?
>What makes the MAC hardware faster then the PC hardware?
>