Mac Hardware

[digitaloracle]

I fully realize that processors are virtually incomprable when simply the typical banner specs (namely clock speed) are considered. But with macs does that same extension extend into system RAM, video RAM, and GPUs? Most Macs ship with only 256 mb of ram, usually a 32 or 64 mb radeon 9000-9700. From what I can tell, unlike a megahertz, a meg of ram is a meg of ram no matter how you slice it. So how do Macs not choke on space, especially when gaming or doing other intensive apps? And how can a 9700 preform on the level of a 9800XT(a much better chip) with 2-4 times the RAM? I realize Macs (being unix) are more efficient than windows, but ...

OK, real world comparison- can a 1.25GHz/256/9700 with 64MB Mac run halo (or UT2k4) at 1024x768 max settings? 1280x1024 maxed out?

 

[nak-1]

Short answer is that they do choke on space. RAM is RAM is RAM. the biggest speed bottleneck in any computer is how fast you can get data to the processor. It doesn't really matter what technology from what vendor you use they all have the same problem.

This is most clearly indicated by the rise of fast, on chip cache on virtually every processor model out there. It doesn't matter how fast your processor is if you can't feed it with data/instructions. the slowest movement of data is from the hard disk (or even slower from media like CD's/DVD's etc.) to RAM. Hence the biggest performance hit is when you have to use lots of virtual memory. Running OS X with 256Mb of RAM is not a good idea as you will have to use lots of virtual memory. However they can always install more for you at certain price...

This is something that annoys me, but is not a practice that is unique to Apple. All the major PC vendors do it. For those of us that understand you can buy RAM at commodity prices from a third party supplier and install it yourself (and do not try to claim kudos for pushing a card into a slot...) this is obviously a money making tactic. However for 90% of the market this is an arcane art, if they understand the necessity, and anyway they are probably not shopping around and are looking for a one-stop-shop solution.

As for video/graphics cards and the Mac, they perform exactly the same as their PC conterparts, except for the drivers... The focus on driver development for the PC models is enormous, the Games industry is now worth more than Hollywood. This means that there is huge amounts of money to be made in the PC market if you are making graphics cards that run the newest games, well. this market doesn't exist on the Mac and it's doesn't support DirectX either(a windows technology). This means you a reliant on openGL. While this is a perfectly respectable API it's the quality of the drivers that really drive the performance of the cards. Does any of this actually matter for apple? No. Their market is not a games players market. They are targetting a completely different set of individuals who have no need what so ever for most of the bells and whistles of this graphics technology.

As for a real world comparison, sorry but I do not have the software and I maxed out the RAM a long time ago. Besides I only have an ATI Rage pro in this machine that I am typing on (4 year old Mac G4 Dual 450Mhz). Still makes no difference to surfing the web, email, word processing, web serving, providing firewall and routing for my home network... (Can someone remind me why I need a P4 at 2.8 GHz??)

(Ahhh that's right!)
If I want to play games I have a custom built PC sat just next to me, which is actually all I use it for. (If I used it for anything else it would go totally foobar with all the spyware and virus's, save yourself the trouble and completely quarantine it behind two firewalls and NAT and disable those pesky browsers....)

PS. you can make any computer/hardware configuration more efficient by turning off all those silly software features that soak up processor time and RAM and are completely F***ing pointless. All software manufacturers are guilty of this as of they have to have some reason to sell the next round of hardware... However I find that I have always had much more control over this under some form of *nix. currently the easiest way to do this on x86 hardware is with Linux. Still there's all those nasty configuration hurdle's to get over...

 

[horndude]

wow, very well said, and someone else that feels the same way I do, was starting to think I was the only one

long live fluxbox,blackbox, and xfce gotta love lightweight GUI's

 

[g5orbust]

I fully realize that processors are virtually incomprable when simply the typical banner specs (namely clock speed) are considered. But with macs does that same extension extend into system RAM, video RAM, and GPUs? Most Macs ship with only 256 mb of ram, usually a 32 or 64 mb radeon 9000-9700. From what I can tell, unlike a megahertz, a meg of ram is a meg of ram no matter how you slice it. So how do Macs not choke on space, especially when gaming or doing other intensive apps? And how can a 9700 preform on the level of a 9800XT(a much better chip) with 2-4 times the RAM? I realize Macs (being unix) are more efficient than windows, but ...

OK, real world comparison- can a 1.25GHz/256/9700 with 64MB Mac run halo (or UT2k4) at 1024x768 max settings? 1280x1024 maxed out?

All other things except CPU speed are industry stardard specs, so they are compatably compared. GPU's for Macs, especially of the Radeon breed, are virtually identical (difference is in the output ports if they deicded to include ADC) to the ones sold on PC's unde the same name. RAM is the same, so is the system achitechture (I/O, nortbridge/southbridge type architecture).

Many PC's only sell with 256MB of standard RAM. Aftermarket upgrades are where you should head if you want more.

Apple doesnt sell the Radeon 9700 anymore, they havent for at least a couple months. They sell the Radeon 9600XT, 9800XT and Geforce 6800 ultra and GT as replacements now. They x800 for ATI should be coming very soon. So, seeing this, you should not be surprised that your "real world comparison" isnt quite as real world as you thought, especially sicne that 1.25Ghz G4 you speak of has been relegated to the likes of the $500 mac mini. Also, Apple stopped using extra on-die cache long ago (I assume youre referring to L3 cache), so you cant mention that if youre talking current Mac. Id say Apple's mid range is a single 1.8GHz G5 tower ($1499), though the video card on there is skimpy, upgrading a more respectable 9600XT would bump the price only 50 bucks, while bumping it up to 512MB of DDR400 only ups the price 75 bucks.

 

[digitaloracle]

I stand corrected. Now that I look at it, my first post was not particurally well thought out. It too despise applications that want to constantly soak up ram just for a few seconds-faster application startup time. It's silly. The worst infraction I have seen on windows would have to be that friggn MSN messenger. Even after killing the startup item, it still launches a process that consums 8 megs of ram that if very difficult to kill permanently. Thanks for the excellent responses to a silly post