After effects mac vs windows

Digital Video editing did a little competion, link, what do people think was it fair, pretty minimal system specs given. My personal experience mirrors what they found.

I’ll add contention:<BR><BR>Macs are much slower then midrange Athlons and P4s in After Effects.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rorei:<BR> Digital Video editing did a little competion, http://digitalvideoediting.com/2002/05_may/features/cw_aeshowdown.htm, what do people think was it fair, pretty minimal system specs given. My personal experience mirrors what they found.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>As a Mac user, I think the benchmark was pretty fair, but (you knew a Mac user was going to say but, now didn’t you? View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif ), I’m left wondering one thing: the benchmark AFAIK was constructed / set up to see whether or not Apple’s claims about the G4 versus the PIV were true. I can follow the scepsis of pc users (and mind you, a lot of Mac users are aware of for instance the rendering power of the Athlon processor) wrt this marketing speak. What I don’t understand is, when you want to debunk Apple’s claims (G4 versus PIV), then why<BR><BR>a. take AMD’s word that Athlon X beats PIV X?<BR>b. Not also add a PIV workstation to the mix?<BR><BR>I mean, I’m not a big supporter of Apple’s MHz myth marketing drivel, but trying to debunk that by using another company’s marketing stuff isn’t my idea of ‘clever’.<BR><BR>Which, off course, I have no problem admitting and/or adding, doesn’t take away the figures.<BR><BR>Now here’s some stuff from the article (the link is from the first post):<BR> <BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> which originally had 1GB of RAM, but we removed two of the four 256 MB RAM sticks to equip it with the same amount of RAM as the Mac G4, 512MB <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Why not add 512 MB RAM to the G4, and run the tests with a gig of RAM on both machines? IMHO, anyone with either computer (the Athlon and the G4) is pretty stupid when not maxing out the RAM. IMHO.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> An Athlon 1800+ chip runs at 1.533 GHz, which Athlon says is roughly equivalent to a 1.8GHz Pentium 4 chip <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Shouldn’t that be AMD? Not that the mistake is earthshattering.<BR><BR>The point I raised at the beginning of my post still applies to this quote IMHO.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> After seeing the results of these tests, we can only conclude that Apple’s assertions that their G4 workstations are faster than their Pentium 4 or Athlon XP-based counterparts are exaggerated <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>I think no Mac user in their right mind would believe otherwise. It’s called marketing for a reason.<BR><BR>I agree with their conclusions View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> But if Mac users are under the impression that their machines can render After Effects composites faster than any Windows-based workstation, our tests do not support that conclusion <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Fair enough. Again: I think no Mac user in their right mind would believe otherwise.<BR><BR>/me goes back to hiding in the comfy RDF-distorted Mac Ach View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_razz.gif

This is just further evidence, that Apple is getting beat at their own game. Graphics, and Video, once the stronghold for Apple, are now being infiltrated by faster, and far less expensive machines. It’s no wonder that graphics pro’s have been slowly defecting to the pc over the past few years.

I don’t think this is going to switch any pros from Mac to PCs though, atleast not yet… nobody wants to relicense all their software on a completely different platform.<BR><BR>It does, however, show that PCs are now leading the way in Desktop Digital Media performance- A crown that once belonged to Amiga and Apple.

To be fair, the Athlon system used IDE RAID while the Mac most likely did not….how much this affected the results I do not know.

>»I don’t think this is going to switch any pros from Mac to PCs»<BR><BR>Many pros have already switched…some years ago, and some more recently….like Lucasarts. There is one simple reason…the hardware just doesn’t exist in the mac world to compete with the speed and cost of x86. In film making, animation, and even image processing; the mac is at least one if not two generations behind x86.

It is not the raw data that errs, but those that draw unsupported and hence fallacious conclusions from the data that err.<BR><BR>1. What is the state of optimization for this Adobe product?<BR>1a. On the Mac?<BR>1b. On the PC?<BR><BR>2. Does the software take advantage of dual cpus?<BR>2a. If so, is the software using the cpus at an equivalent level of optimization for the Mac and PC?<BR><BR>3. Does the software take advantage of SIMD?<BR>3a. If so, is the level of optimization on the PC equivalent to the level of optimization on the Mac?<BR>3b. If so, does the software take advantage of the latest techniques for the cpus?<BR><BR>These are very serious questions that must be answered <I>before any valid conclusions can be drawn about the cpus and the overall systems involved.</I> Tests such as these are «real world» in the sense that this is the software that we can buy. But on an enthusiast board such as ars, we know that it is likely that the software for the machines is <I>not</I> at an equivalent level of optimization, and <I>hence the results are meaningless.</I> This is really a test of two machines running completely different code: be careful about the conclusions you draw!

IllegalWeapons has a point; if the Mac wasn’t using RAID, but the PC was, then how much of the performance skew was drive thrashing once the 512mb of ram was overtaxed?<BR><BR>As per RRs point; you can draw conclusions. Adobe doesn’t sell 3 differently optimized versions of AE for the Mac or PC, so it’s fair to say ‘If I spend $7k on an AE box, which will give me better performance’ or ‘What kind of performance will I get for $5k'<BR><BR>I think that the PC had an unfair advantage if it had RAID but the Mac did not, myself. On the other hand I can’t deny that the P4 is now much, much, faster than either the AMD or the Mac solution, *if* you can pay the price premium for MP Xeon CPUs.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by <BR><BR>I think that the PC had an unfair advantage if it had RAID but the Mac did not, myself. On the other hand I can’t deny that the P4 is now much, much, faster than either the AMD or the Mac solution, *if* you can pay the price premium for MP Xeon CPUs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Price premium over a Dual 1Ghz Mac…you must be fucking joking.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> These are very serious questions that must be answered before any valid conclusions can be drawn about the cpus and the overall systems involved. Tests such as these are «real world» in the sense that this is the software that we can buy. But on an enthusiast board such as ars, we know that it is likely that the software for the machines is not at an equivalent level of optimization, and hence the results are meaningless. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>No they are not, nor do they need to be answered for answering the ? at hand… which setup is better for AE. Stop making excuses for Apple’s pathetic;y slow systems.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> This is really a test of two machines running completely different code: be careful about the conclusions you draw! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>No actually its two different systems running different binaries to produce, at least in theory, EXACTLY the same result. This is teh ultimate in Apples to Apples(hehe) comparrisons.

Can anyone work out what the price of the two machines used in the test actually was?<BR><BR>Bear in mind that the Polywell had half its RAM removed.<BR><BR>And if IDE RAID is an unfair advantage, isn’t not caring what the costs were giving the Mac an unfair advantage?<BR><BR>Although I’ve never heard of a hard drive rendering.

It is not a matter of «making excuses»; far from it.<BR>It is a matter of science and logic, and drawing rational and valid conclusions from data. <BR>The software is the wild card: we cannot draw valid conclusions about the cpus and the systems from the unknown. It is highly likely, in fact, based on overwhelming market share for the x86 platform, that Adobe has spent a greater amount of resources optimizing their code for x86. <BR>Orange Cream is correct and follows the logic that this is the software that we can buy, and hence we can judge the actual performance and make value judgements about the platform of our choice. But a rational person must withhold judgement regarding the relative performance of the machines themselves unless and until we can determine the level of development and optimization of the software for the platforms. <BR>It could be, for example, that this version of After Effects does <I>not</I> take advantage of the latest Altivec techniques. If so, then it is clear that the tests are flawed as far as judging the relative power of the machines involved.<BR><BR>PS:<BR>What OS is the Mac in this test using? I’m probably overlooking it, but I do not see it posted.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RiscRocket:<BR> It is not a matter of «making excuses»; far from it.<BR>It is a matter of science and logic, and drawing rational and valid conclusions from data. <BR>The software is the wild card: we cannot draw valid conclusions about the cpus and the systems from the unknown. It is highly likely, in fact, based on overwhelming market share for the x86 platform, that Adobe has spent a greater amount of resources optimizing their code for x86. <BR>Orange Cream is correct and follows the logic that this is the software that we can buy, and hence we can judge the actual performance and make value judgements about the platform of our choice. But a rational person must withhold judgement regarding the relative performance of the machines themselves unless and until we can determine the level of development and optimization of the software for the platforms. <BR>It could be, for example, that this version of After Effects does _not_ take advantage of the latest Altivec techniques. If so, then it is clear that the tests are flawed as far as judging the relative power of the machines involved.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <BR><BR>But you attempt to dismiss the entire article. In fact, the article is very well done IMO in that is makes a perfectly valid comparrison at one point in time. Irrespective of Altivec, SSE2(which teh P4 has and the AthlonMP does NOT) or SSE1, this is a benchmark of AE vs. AE. Of one finished product against another. It doesn’t matter HOW it gets there, just that it did, and how long it took. <BR><BR>Is this the end all be all of cross platform comparrison, of course not. But it shows that at least in AE, the AthlonXP maintains approximate clock-per-clock sped witht the G4.<BR><BR>-Kevin

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bash666:<BR> <BR>Price premium over a Dual 1Ghz Mac…you must be fucking joking.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <BR>Well, sure; even if it’s only $1100 more. A dual Xeon P4 with 3 10krpm SCSI160 drives, DVD-RW, GF4Ti, and GigaE from Polywell costs $8385 to Apple’s $7199.<BR><BR>Admittedly the dual Xeons had 2gb of RDRAM to the Mac’s 1.5GB of SDRAM; and a sound card, too. That probably accounts for the price difference right there. Of course it’s a pointless comparisonbecause the dual Xeons will wipe the floor with the dual G4s, right?

bash said:<I>But you attempt to dismiss the entire article.»</I><BR><BR>The conclusions drawn are flawed. <BR><BR> <I>In fact, the article is very well done IMO in that is makes a perfectly valid comparrison at one point in time.</I><BR><BR>The article gives the <I>appearance</I> of being very well done, but again it is not the raw data that errs but the conclusions that are drawn that errs; the authors do not take into account the software variable.<BR><BR> <I>»Irrespective of Altivec, SSE2(which teh P4 has and the AthlonMP does NOT) or SSE1, this is a benchmark of AE vs. AE.»</I><BR><BR>It is AE vs. AE only in <I>appearance.</I> The code bases are far different, and are likely to be more optimized for x86 based on the «real world» of 90%+ market share. Hence the test is of two machines running code of unknown equivalency, and therefore any conclusions about the Athlon cpu vs. the G4 cpu must be withheld.<BR><BR> <I>»Of one finished product against another. It doesn’t matter HOW it gets there, just that it did, and how long it took.»</I><BR><BR>Yes, in a «run what ya brung» environment, that can be fun. But it is not valid to draw conclusions about the cpus / systems when the software is a wildcard. <BR><BR><I>»Is this the end all be all of cross platform comparrison, of course not. But it shows that at least in AE, the AthlonXP maintains approximate clock-per-clock sped witht the G4.»</I><BR><BR>If the AE software does not take full advantage of the G4 and the Athlon, we cannot state where the relative performance is.

Actually, Adobe’s history of SMP has always been better on mac than x86…but neither were near as good as they could have been. Only a few operations really seemed to take advantage of two or more CPU’s. And the OS does play a major role in distributing the load as well.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR><BR>But you attempt to dismiss the entire article.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>It’s always amusing that when Apple does a cross-platform application benchmark and wins by some huge margin, this is proof that Macs are better for graphics, but when an independant organization performs a cross-platform application benchmark and finds that, surprise, the PC is much faster, then all of a sudden we have to talk about being fair and comparing CPUs fairly and optimizations and theoretical bullshit.<BR><BR>Be fair to the poor G4! It’s not the G4’s fault! It’s all a big conspiracy! MHz Myth!! MHz Myth!!!<BR><BR>Oh well. It’s all in good fun.

Bash666:<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Is this the end all be all of cross platform comparrison, of course not. But it shows that at least in AE, the AthlonXP maintains approximate clock-per-clock sped witht the G4.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Not really, since this the working set seems to be pretty large I doubt that it would scale perfectly with clockspeed. The benchmark might also show some bandwidth dependence.<BR><BR>Riscrocket:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>It is AE vs. AE only in appearance. The code bases are far different, and are likely to be more optimized for x86 based on the «real world» of 90%+ market share. Hence the test is of two machines running code of unknown equivalency, and therefore any conclusions about the Athlon cpu vs. the G4 cpu must be withheld.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>One could also say that Adobe has historically been a Mac company and hence their apps are better optimized for PPC. Considering that a disproportionate amount of their sales are Mac software this wouldn’t be an unreasonable conclusion. This sort of speculation is useless.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Yes, in a «run what ya brung» environment, that can be fun. But it is not valid to draw conclusions about the cpus / systems when the software is a wildcard. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>By this reasoning the only valid way to judge CPU power would be to compare algorithms coded in assembly, as otherwise the quality of the compilers used would be a «wildcard».<BR><BR>Does this, by itself, prove that the Athlon is faster? No, of course not. But if you look at a broad spectrum of applications, and see that the same trend holds true (x86 systems outperforming macs by a wide margin), then you must conclude one of two things:<BR><BR>1) PC systems are faster<BR><BR>2) All Mac applications tests are poorly optimized relative to their x86 counterparts.<BR><BR>A judicious application of Occam’s Razor would be useful here……

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>It is AE vs. AE only in appearance. The code bases are far different, and are likely to be more optimized for x86 based on the «real world» of 90%+ market share. Hence the test is of two machines running code of unknown equivalency, and therefore any conclusions about the Athlon cpu vs. the G4 cpu must be withheld. <BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Man quit the bullshit. If I take Apache on the fastest Dual P4 or AthXP CPU box I can find, and Apache on teh fastest G4 box I can find, and run a web server benchmark, am I not benchmarking Apache on differetn platforms. DO the conclusions I find not show how well APache performs on different platforms View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif<BR><BR>[This message was edited by bash666 on May 01, 2002 at 21:52.]

Apple doesn’t have to do jack as long as people say «I’m a Mac user and always will be….». They can live off consumer loyalty for a good 50 years.

<I>»By this reasoning the only valid way to judge CPU power would be to compare algorithms coded in assembly,»</I><BR><BR>You make a great point. My point is that the variables must be accounted for; else the conclusions are invalid. The author of this test on page one makes an issue of the Altivec SIM<BR>he states:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>but since the G4 chips have an Altivec processor and can do more operations per clock cycle than the Athlon MP<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>but he offers us no assurance that the software takes full advantage of Altivec as installed in this machine!! We simply do not know where the software stands, on either platform.<BR><BR> <I>»as otherwise the quality of the compilers used would be a «wildcard».</I><BR><BR>Yes, compilers are an issue; again the point is that when conclusions are drawn, when one states that ‘machine x is faster than machine y’ it is important that those conclusions account for the variables. If machine x used a later compiler, then that must be noted whenever the results of the test are posted, along with an explanation of the ‘best guess’ of the effects of the compiler on the results.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RiscRocket:<BR><BR><B>but since the G4 chips have an Altivec processor and can do more operations per clock cycle than the Athlon MP</B><BR><BR>but he offers us no assurance that the software takes full advantage of Altivec as installed in this machine!! We simply do not know where the software stands, on either platform.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>But you make assumptions that AE is Altivec’able. If it only uses Doubel Precision then Altivec gets it nothing. <BR><BR>No matter how much you try and deny it theer is but one Fact: If you need AE NOW, or work on AE and have a choice of platforms, A dual MP1800+(not even a 2000+, about 10% faster) spanks a dual G4 at common tasks.<BR><BR>Seriously you excuses are truly pathetic. Why not read their most terse conclusion<BR><BR><B>we can only conclude that Apple’s assertions that G4 workstations are faster than all Pentium 4 or Athlon XP-based systems are exaggerated, at least as far as After Effects is concerned</B><BR><BR>I think they wrote an extremely unbiased and fair assessment of BOTH patforms and came to extremely reasonable conclusions. <BR><BR><BR>In fact, their ENTIRE conclusion <BR><BR><B><BR>After seeing the results of these tests, we can only conclude that Apple’s assertions that G4 workstations are faster than all Pentium 4 or Athlon XP-based systems are exaggerated, at least as far as After Effects is concerned. Not one of the objective tests we conducted using After Effects bore out Apple’s claim of Mac superiority. In fact, in most of the tests, the Mac was left lagging far behind. And, this was when we were using a PC whose chips are now three steps below the fastest Athlons available (now the fastest Athlon XP is the 2100+ running at 1.73GHz), and far slower than the latest Intel Xeon chips, now shipping at 2.4 GHz. Of course, there are many valid reasons for using a Mac that go beyond raw speed. But if Mac users are under the impression that their machines can render After Effects composites faster than any Windows-based workstation, our tests do not support that conclusion. <BR></B><BR><BR>is dead on, and relies on NO assumptions about any of teh binary code.<BR><BR>-Kevin

bash,<BR>I made no assumption: pay attention. That quote is from <B>the author of the test! On page one.</B><BR><BR>And if you were paying attention, it has been acknowledged that we can only buy the software that is made available to us. Just don’t tell me that ‘machine x is faster than machine y’, or that ‘this rendering on machine x completed in 2 minutes less than machine y’ without accounting for the variables.<BR><BR>The Apple G4 machines have a tremendous asset in the Altivec EU. If the software being used does not take advantage of it, then that must be made clear.<BR><BR>I’m not a video guy, but what would you think of using the same projects, and run the PC under AE and the Mac under FCP?<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> FROM ADOBE: AE Performance Optimizations page 10 <BR><BR>After Effects 5.5 introduces important performance improvements, including <B>Pentium 4 optimizations</B> and<BR>faster parsing of expressions. In addition, After Effects 5.5 now supports asynchronous output of Photoshop,<BR>Cineon, and PICT sequence formats, which speeds output by separating the rendering and writing to disk of<BR>each frame into overlapping rather than sequential tasks. Now, as soon as the rendering of one frame is com-plete, the rendering of the next frame in the sequence can begin; writing to disk is handled separately, so the<BR>process can be considerably faster.<BR><BR>Native Mac OS X Support page 8<BR>Take advantage of system-level enhancements, such as improved memory management and the new Aqua<BR>user interface, with native Mac OS X support.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Not a single word about optimizing for either the Athlon or the G4.<BR><BR><B>Therefore the conclusion, as you posted, is fatally flawed.</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RiscRocket:<BR> bash,<BR>I made no assumption: pay attention. That quote is from _the author of the test! On page one._<BR><BR>Not a single word about optimizing for either the Athlon or the G4.<BR><BR>_Therefore the conclusion, as you posted, is fatally flawed._<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR><BR>No it’s not. What does it say ABOUT one system being faster than the other. IT says nothing. All it says is that IF you run AE, then the tested Athlon XP is faster at AE then the tested Mac. Period. You keep trying to dismiss it by injecting your own bullshit in about being a test of system speeds, whcih is ti not. It is a test of runnign AE. And that’s all the authors made it out to be. Get a fucking clue.<BR><BR><BR>Hell, even for teh slow among us(read RR), I’ll break it down sentence by sentence:<BR><BR><B>After seeing the results of these tests, we can only conclude that Apple’s assertions that G4 workstations are faster than all Pentium 4 or Athlon XP-based systems are exaggerated, at least as far as After Effects is concerned.</B><BR>True, since it only applies to AE.<BR><BR><BR><B> Not one of the objective tests we conducted using After Effects bore out Apple’s claim of Mac superiority. </B><BR>Fact. See timings.<BR><BR><B>In fact, in most of the tests, the Mac was left lagging far behind.</B><BR>Absolute FACT. See timings.<BR><BR><BR><B> And, this was when we were using a PC whose chips are now three steps below the fastest Athlons available (now the fastest Athlon XP is the 2100+ running at 1.73GHz), and far slower than the latest Intel Xeon chips, now shipping at 2.4 GHz.</B><BR>Mere facts. Indisputable. Althought the fastest MP is 2000+<BR><BR><BR><B> Of course, there are many valid reasons for using a Mac that go beyond raw speed.</B><BR>Debatable. Mostly devition ot the church of Jobs.(not pronounces Job s)<BR><BR><B> But if Mac users are under the impression that their machines can render After Effects composites faster than any Windows-based workstation, our tests do not support that conclusion. </B><BR>Absolutely true. Again, they limit it to the tests conducted.<BR><BR>please show a single non-factual point, aside fomr other reasons to run a Mac in that PP.<BR><BR><BR>-Kevin

Riscrocket:<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>but since the G4 chips have an Altivec processor and can do more operations per clock cycle than the Athlon MPT<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>But this is not the authors <B>conclusion</B>. He merely pointed out (rightly so) that Apple machines have an architectural advantage in Altivec. Whether After Effects actually uses altivec is neither here nor there, the above statement was merely the author’s <B>expectation</B> that Macs should be able to hold their own due to Altivec.<BR><BR>His conclusion, on other hand, was that PCs are faster than Macs in After Effects.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by IlleglWpns:<BR> <BR>His conclusion, on other hand, was that PCs are faster than Macs in After Effects.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Nothing more, nothing less, irrexpextive of what BULLSHIT you try and inject into it RR.

Agreed that the comment about altivec is not his conclusion!<BR><BR>But <B>the author brings up Altivec>></B> <BR>which leads one to believe that the software uses it..<BR>does it?<BR>how well?<BR>how much $$$ went into Altivec development, if there is any?<BR>Is there an architectural advantage <B>if the EU is not being used ??</B><BR>Of course not, and that is the point.

bash, you really need to chill.<BR><BR>Timings are meaningless in and of themselves; it is just raw data.<BR><BR>Take 2 identical PCs.<BR>Run v1.0 of software x, not optimized for SSE2, and record the test results.<BR><BR>Run v6.0 of software x, now fully optimized for SSE2.<BR>Record the results.<BR><BR>Compare the results.<BR>Is PC #2 faster than PC #1?<BR><BR>In your world, you will answer ‘yes!’ View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

After skimming over at MacNN I notice the test is between a dual Athlon and a dual G4. Fair enough, the Athlon’s probably cheaper and demonstrably faster.<BR><BR>I quote the first line from the article:<BR><BR>»Apple has been advertising its G4 processors as faster than any Windows-based chips»<BR><BR>Not true, Apple has been claiming that it is faster than a 2GHz Pentium4. Apple is making a comparison with a specific chip at a specific speed (they also use specific Software with specific filters). <BR><BR>So from the start the article is trying to prove wrong something no one at Apple ever claimed. So yeah a dual Athlon is faster than a dual GHz Mac. Duh… <BR><BR>Now compare a 2 GHz P4 against a dual Ghz G4 and we’ll see how close they are in AE renders. Whats the big deal? I’ll draw a picture so its easier.<BR><BR><BR>2GHz P4 =< dual 1GHz G4 < dual 1.60??GHz Athlons

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Timings are meaningless in and of themselves; it is just raw data.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Timings in a vacuum are meaningless, comparative timings are not.<BR><BR>In this case we have one conclusion, a Dual AthlonXP is faster than a Dual G4 in After Effects.<BR><BR>This data is not meaningless, in fact it probably means a lot to people who do real work with AE.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RiscRocket:<BR> bash, you really need to chill.<BR><BR>Timings are meaningless in and of themselves; it is just raw data.<BR><BR>Take 2 identical PCs.<BR>Run v1.0 of software x, not optimized for SSE2, and record the test results.<BR><BR>Run v6.0 of software x, now fully optimized for SSE2.<BR>Record the results.<BR><BR>Compare the results.<BR>Is PC #2 faster than PC #1?<BR><BR>In your world, you will answer ‘yes!’ View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <BR><BR>Uhh, no. Pay close attention. PC#1 running software product version B is faster than PC#1 running software product version A. But is A and B produce the exact smae output(as is the case here), then you can compare the two machines/software packages(as was clearly the case here and teh authors say that) and say Version B is 2x faster then version A.<BR><BR>-Kevin

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> Apple is making a comparison with a specific chip at a specific speed (they also use specific Software with specific filters). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Except you can’t tell me what softwar and which filters it uses, can you.<BR><BR>-Kevin<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR> 2GHz P4 =< dual 1GHz G4 < dual 1.60??GHz Athlons <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>more likely dual 1GHz G4 < 2GHz P4 ~= dual 1.533GHz Athlons

<I>»Timings in a vacuum are meaningless, comparative timings are not.»</I><BR><BR>Comparitive timings in a ‘benchmark’ scenario are far different than the realities of consumer software, and it has been acknowledged that we can only buy the software that we are offered, on any platform. <BR><BR>Since the word ‘benchmark’ was used in the author’s article, I am criticizing his conclusions as a benchmark, which holds the <B>burden of proof.</B> He has ignored the software disparity variable, and hence <B>his conclusions are fatally flawed.</B>

bash said:<I>» then you can compare the two machines/software packages(as was clearly the case here and teh authors say that) and say Version B is 2x faster then version A.»</I><BR><BR>But on a cross-platform ‘benchmark’ we cannot run the x86 software on the PPC, or vice versa! Therefore the disparity, if any, in the level of optimization of the software must be ascertained in some other fashion before we can draw any valid conclusions. Unfortunately, Adobe will not let us have that data. But clearly in the post that I made from Adobe, they do not mention any G4 or Athlon optimizations, while they do mention P4 optimizations. So, we certainly can deduce that there is some level of disparity in the software.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>Since the word ‘benchmark’ was used in the author’s article, I am criticizing his conclusions as a benchmark, which holds the burden of proof. He has ignored the software disparity variable, and hence his conclusions are fatally flawed<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>His conclusions are not flawed. Bash posted his conclusion word for word. It is clear to anyone who has a modicum of reading comprehension.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR>But on a cross-platform ‘benchmark’ we cannot run the software on each computer! Therefore the disparity, if any, in the level of optimization of the software must be ascertained in some other fashion before we can draw any valid conclusions.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Yes we can draw valid conclusions, that is exactly what the author of the article did.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class=»ip-ubbcode-quote»><font size=»-1″>quote:</font><HR><BR>Unfortunately, Adobe will not let us have that data. But clearly in the post that I made from Adobe, they do not mention any G4 or Athlon optimizations, while they do mention P4 optimizations. So, we certainly can deduce that there is some level of disparity in the software.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Or it could be that After Effects was optimized for the G4 in a previous release and they saw fit not to mention it as a «new feature» for AE 5.5 <BR><BR>This is certainly plausible given that the G4/Altivec has been around in one form or another considerably longer than the P4.

So, since bash posted his conclusions, they are not flawed!!<BR><BR>Right on dude!