'Windowing' programs

From: Patrick Finnegan <pat_at_purdueriots.com>
Date: Thu Aug 15 08:59:00 2002

On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Owen Robertson wrote:

> on 8/15/02 2:22 AM, Patrick Finnegan at pat_at_purdueriots.com wrote:
>
> > Assuming that Photoshop for the PC is dual-proc capable, I'm sure my Dual
> > 1.466GHz athlon could beat it hands-down. Maybe I just have too much
> > faith or just know how crappy the PowerPC Price/Performance ratio really
> > is.
>
> But you're overlooking one important thing here. Photoshop is optimized for
> AltiVec (Velocity Engine, as Apple calls it). That gives it a tremendous
> speed boost on G4 systems. And if you run it on a dual processor G4, it
> really screams. No matter how many platforms Adobe ports it to, Photoshop
> is, and will always be a Mac application. Processor performance and
> everything else aside, Photoshop is deisgned from the ground up for the Mac,
> and adapted to run on Windows.

Ahh, A G4. Yea, forgot about the vector processor. Of coures, in real
life most things *I* do don't anything that'd use it. Otherwise, I think
I'd win.

This is the same reason an Astronautics ZS-1 at 25 or 33MHz could
outperform a P-IV 1GHz for some vector ops... But most 'real-life'
non-graphical or simulation/calculator type applications can't make
advantage of it.

If you're looking for REALLY bad Price/Performance ratios for "standard
stuff," look at Sun's Blade 100s. I swear that an 300MHz Sun Ultra 5 is
just as fast (and a helluva lot cheaper).

-- Pat
Received on Thu Aug 15 2002 - 08:59:00 BST