Mac Mini Speed

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Miniman

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How does the Mac Mini (1.25 and 1.42) compare in speed to a 2.0 GHz Pent 4? This may turn out to be a dumb question, but I understand that there is not a direct comparison. In other words, I heard that the 1.42 is as fast as the 2.0. What is the truth?

Thanks.
 
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2 whole different OS's man. I feel that the Mac OS runs better, way smooth'er then even Win XP Pro/home. I like both. But at this time I enjoy messing w/ my Mini Mac. :)
 
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The truth is that there is no easy way to compare the two. What do you want to do with the mac mini?
 
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Miniman

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mynameis said:
The truth is that there is no easy way to compare the two. What do you want to do with the mac mini?

Not trying to cause a problem here. I have heard that the Mac GHz is faster than the Pent 4. I realize that GHz is GHz, but is there a truth to the statement? What I want to do is not the issue, speed is the issue. I just want to verify what I had heard. I am switching either way.
 
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Rosaget

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Miniman said:
Not trying to cause a problem here. I have heard that the Mac GHz is faster than the Pent 4. I realize that GHz is GHz, but is there a truth to the statement? What I want to do is not the issue, speed is the issue. I just want to verify what I had heard. I am switching either way.
I don't really know the real mathmatics or theory behind how it really is calculated but from what I understand if you are trying to compare a G4 to a P4 straight across the board, you should take the G4 processor speed and multiply that by about 2 or 2.5 times to get what it would equal in PC performance. Though that's is just what I've been told. Makes sense to me though. Hope that helps out.
 
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A GHz is always 1'000'000'000 cycles per second.
Nevertheless, because of the completely different architecture of the PowerPC and Intel/AMD CPUs, both perform very differently at the same clock speed.
PowerPCs are a lot faster at the same clock speed than Intel/AMDs, but because of their different architecture, it's really difficult to compare them.

And at the other hand, the Apple architecture is build exactly around it's CPU, while in the Intel/AMD world, the CPU is just one of many parts in a PC. A P4 2.4GHz for example can perform very differently, depending on which board it sits...

So a real comparison is very difficult...
 
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Qaxpla

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Well my 800Mhz runs just as fast as my 2.4Ghz laptop. Sometimes it's slower but sometimes it's faster (with loading apps etc). I think the mac mini speeds are pretty good and for your basic computer tasks you'll be fine.

I watched something on the mac processor speeds actually. I'm pretty that it has something to do with tubing. (Information is processed through tubes). On the G4 there are 7 tubes whereas on the P4 there are 24 (correct me if i'm wrong). There's less tubes within the G4 so the information passes through at a faster rate. Thus, the Mac's don't need to have a high Ghz rating because it's simply not needed. Whereas with your P4's they have a higher Ghz trying to compete with the mac to pass information through quicker.

I think that's how it works.

If you'd like a comparison I think they compare at about a 2.0Ghz - 2.3Ghz P4.
 
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Prometheus

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Qaxpla said:
Well my 800Mhz runs just as fast as my 2.4Ghz laptop. Sometimes it's slower but sometimes it's faster (with loading apps etc). I think the mac mini speeds are pretty good and for your basic computer tasks you'll be fine.

I watched something on the mac processor speeds actually. I'm pretty that it has something to do with tubing. (Information is processed through tubes). On the G4 there are 7 tubes whereas on the P4 there are 24 (correct me if i'm wrong). There's less tubes within the G4 so the information passes through at a faster rate. Thus, the Mac's don't need to have a high Ghz rating because it's simply not needed. Whereas with your P4's they have a higher Ghz trying to compete with the mac to pass information through quicker.

I think that's how it works.

If you'd like a comparison I think they compare at about a 2.0Ghz - 2.3Ghz P4.

yeah you just about got it there. Your "tubes" are processor pipeline stages. The G4 has far fewer pipelines than the P4. So although in theory the P4 can crunch more data, it has to go through more pipelines. Also most processes reliy on the data that has already been processed, so while the G4 has completed its calculations, and the next step can be performed, the P4 has to wait till its gone through all of its stages.
Its this reason why the two processors cannot be directly compared, as in some situations, the G4 is much faster, and others the P4 is faster. It also means that you cannot compare processors on Ghz alone.
 
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Miniman said:
Not trying to cause a problem here. I have heard that the Mac GHz is faster than the Pent 4. I realize that GHz is GHz, but is there a truth to the statement? What I want to do is not the issue, speed is the issue. I just want to verify what I had heard. I am switching either way.

You can have a processor that has a lower clock speed but performs better or the same. Just look at Athlon 64 processors, they run at considerably lower clock speed but they are just as fast if not faster than a Pentium 4 of about the same price. It still depends on the application though, sometimes the Pentium 4 will be faster and sometimes the Athlon 64 will be faster, there is never a perfect multiplier you can use to say 2 processors are going to be equal, it might hold true for one test but i'll be off on just about every other.

What you want to do determines how you are going to perceive a CPU as being faster or not.
 
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Echo_

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ghz is NOT ghz
like you cant compare an amd fx 55 proc which runs at 2.6 to a intel 2.6 because the amd would smoke it. the amd fx55 is about equal to a intel that would run at 4.0ghz

its just how the manufacturers clock it
 
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Echo_ said:
ghz is NOT ghz
like you cant compare an amd fx 55 proc which runs at 2.6 to a intel 2.6 because the amd would smoke it. the amd fx55 is about equal to a intel that would run at 4.0ghz

its just how the manufacturers clock it

You can't compare because the way they work, that's true, but still, physically speaking, 1GHz IS 1GHz.

It's like comparing 2 cars, each with 350hp, but one weighing 1000kg and the other 1500kg.
Both will perform very differently, but still, the engine power is the same...
 
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I forget who it was, but osmeone on these forums ran Vurtual PC on their mac, and under the specs in windows, it said it was a 1.5GHz Pentium. So it's definatly faster. I would jsut think you double the speed of the mac and you get the windows equivalent.
 
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Honestly, I think OS X is a slug compared to Windows XP... my iMac running OS 9, at 400 MHz and 256 MB of RAM is faster than my PowerBook...

I know, I know, upgrade my RAM. Money is scarce these days kiddos...
 
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Absolute Zero said:
Honestly, I think OS X is a slug compared to Windows XP... my iMac running OS 9, at 400 MHz and 256 MB of RAM is faster than my PowerBook...

I know, I know, upgrade my RAM. Money is scarce these days kiddos...

Yep, lack of RAM makes OS X running sluggish...
To compare, try to run XP on 128MB...it'll be VERY sluggish too... :black:
 

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Qaxpla said:
I watched something on the mac processor speeds actually. I'm pretty that it has something to do with tubing. (Information is processed through tubes). On the G4 there are 7 tubes whereas on the P4 there are 24 (correct me if i'm wrong). There's less tubes within the G4 so the information passes through at a faster rate. Thus, the Mac's don't need to have a high Ghz rating because it's simply not needed. Whereas with your P4's they have a higher Ghz trying to compete with the mac to pass information through quicker.

It's called Pipes or Pipelines. In fact the new P4 Prescott core has 31 I believe and per clock gets less done than even the older Northwood P4 with 21 or so Pipes. AMD has always has very few pipes and is much faster than the GHZ would show. The Speed of getting stuff done is IPC, Instructions Per Clock. Because of the 31 or even 21 Stage Pipeline that Intel uses it gets less work done per clock cycle. The PPC is very low as is the AMD. The AMD Athlon is something like 12 pipes.
 

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Miniman said:
Not trying to cause a problem here. I have heard that the Mac GHz is faster than the Pent 4. I realize that GHz is GHz, but is there a truth to the statement? What I want to do is not the issue, speed is the issue. I just want to verify what I had heard. I am switching either way.

There is a difference - Ghz is not necessarily the same between the two. The difference is in the architecture of the CPU and with how much each can complete in a clock cycle. Apple's CPUs are RISC-ish processors and generally get a bit more work done per clock cycle than a CISC chip like a P4 does (although thr P4 has some semblances of RISC in it too - the definitions have become blurry over the decades as each have adopted techniques of the other).

In the end a Mac is likely to run about as fast as an Intel that runs up to 50% faster in raw clock speeds (guesstimate here).
 
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ped said:
There is a difference - Ghz is not necessarily the same between the two. The difference is in the architecture of the CPU and with how much each can complete in a clock cycle. Apple's CPUs are RISC-ish processors and generally get a bit more work done per clock cycle than a CISC chip like a P4 does (although thr P4 has some semblances of RISC in it too - the definitions have become blurry over the decades as each have adopted techniques of the other).

Actually they both have a RISC core the difference is that the Pentium runs a sort of x86 emulator (in hardware of course) and has a deep narrow pipeline. The PPC is a shallow and wide pipeline (except the G5 which is deep and super wide).

The Pentium M which is probably the nearest Intel chip (clock for clock) to a G4 is narrow and wide as well but has a high density Pentium 3 core (remember the G4 was the original P3 beater when it was clock for clock).

What this means is that a Pentium M at 1.6 Ghz is probably around the same performance as a G4 at 1.5 Ghz but has a faster FSB.

The only way of doing a proper comparison is with code optimised for each CPU which does exactly the same tasks, not easy and IMHO something that has never been done.

The G5 and Pentium 4 extreme just cannot be compared in any meaningful way and currently there are no 64 bit optimised applications for the Athlon 64 and very few for the G5 so that is in a similar no-compare situation.

Custom PC magazine this month did a massive comparison across all current PC CPUs and they are all much of a muchness. i.e just to pick one category at the bottom of the results came the Celeron 2.66Ghz and the 1.6Ghz Pentium M with a Doom 3 frame rate of 48 ish and top of the pile was the Athlon 64 FX-55 with 80 ish (all tests ran with the same hardware on the PCs with the same game settings). Other test categories like video compression had results that were farther apart with the Athlon being about 3x the M and 2.5 times the Celeron, it all really depends on what you are using the CPU for.

Personally I find my twin G5 to be blindingly fast at everything I throw at it and although I don't play Doom 3 the games I do have for it will easily top 100 FPS with the options at maximum (Medal of Honour for example).

Amen-Moses
 
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Miniman

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Thanks for all the responses. Appreciated. I have been looking here everyday and I have to say that I am amazed at the quality of the responses both in this thread and in others that I have been following. In the words of terminator 'I'll be Back'.
 

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