Mac Vs PC: Mac Slaughtered Again

[C-Force]

Dell has just introduced a new workstation featuring the latest Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz processor with hyperthreading and faster PC1066 RDRAM. Accordingly, we decided it was time for another Mac vs. PC duel, created especially for digital video editors and compositors. So we got our hands on one of those new 3.06GHz Dell boxes and the fastest Mac on the market, fired up our trusty After Effects 5.5 and Photoshop 7.0 benchmarks on both of them, and man oh man, you won’t believe what happened this time. It was just downright startling.

We published an extensive and somewhat favorable review of our Mac dual 1.25 GHz G4 box in a recent DMN report, so if you haven't seen that article yet and would like deep background on the Mac side of this duel, click here for the full scoop. That said, here's the lowdown on the PC entry in this Mac vs. PC Duel III.

A few months ago, we reviewed a Dell system that packed the fastest PC processor available at the time, the Pentium 4 2.53GHz. Since then, the chipsters at Intel have topped themselves twice, and this time, the newest chip runs at an unprecedented 3.06 GHz. The big story, though, is the new hyperthreading technology included inside the processor that promises to speed up the festivities even more. Coupled with faster RAM, the new $2,964 Dell Precision Workstation 350 was startlingly fast.

All the things that were great about the last Dell Precision Workstation reviewed here are still present in this newest iteration, and a lot of the features have been enhanced. For example, this unit is even quieter than the last one tested, while its neatly arranged components inside and its sleek, easy-open black case all look the same as before. The computer still uses RDRAM, the same Intel 850e chipset and 533MHz frontside bus as its predecessor. But there’s more than meets the eye here, and it’s these certain modifications, along with a faster processor with its remarkable new hyperthreading feature, that are the reason for this newfound speed.

So what is this hyperthreading, anyway? Without boring you to tears, I’ll tell you that hyperthreading is a new technology from Intel that makes one processor act like two. It doesn’t double the speed of a processor, but makes it able to do most operations faster, and is particularly effective if you’re doing more than one thing at a time with your computer (multitasking). Hyperthreading comes in handy, for example, if you’re watching a DVD and working with documents at the same time. You could drop frames without hyperthreading, but with it switched on, all is smooth. A neat trick is that applications don’t even need any special programming to use this new feature, although you will have to be using either Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home to take advantage of the hyperthreading.

We'll talk more about hyperthreading later, but for now, let's get to the benchmarks. Put succinctly, this is the fastest workstation we’ve tested, too, by a long shot. Wow. We ran our After Effects and Photoshop benchmarks on this machine, nine in all, and saw a speed improvement that was far beyond what we anticipated. Mac users will be disappointed to see that this new Dell machine, while priced $629 less than the Mac Dual G4 1.25 GHz machine, was nearly twice as fast on most of the nine benchmarks we ran.

Continued

[Alex_Ivanov]

Hyperthreading is a technology of yesterday. It was some kind of fake 2-core processor, in fact 1.5-core. After AMD and Intel issued "true" 2-core processors for workstations, hyperthreading's days are counted.

P.S. In Russia we don't like brand computers, we buy parts separately and assemble them on our own.

[C-Force]

Originally Posted by Alex_Ivanov

In Russia we don't like brand computers, we buy parts separately and assemble them on our own.

You definately don't have Macs in Russian then. You have to buy their computer and OS all in one. They are worse than the Microsoft monopoly.

P.S. I think that article is a couple of years old.

[Alex_Ivanov]

Originally Posted by C-Force

You definately don't have Macs in Russian then. You have to buy their computer and OS all in one. They are worse than the Microsoft monopoly.

Tell me one reason I should buy Mac, if even photoshop works fine on PC? In Russia Macs aren't popular, because it's difficult to get software for them, not to say about upgrading hardware.

P.S. I think that article is a couple of years old.

Yeah, but hyperthreading never was really revolutionary technology, it played its role to feel the gap and now rests in peace.

[justoleme]

i built two PCs so far. Both about 1.5 to 1.8 gig CPUs. I like ordinary PCs as they are fast enough with 512 or more memory,One is AMD the other is Microtel CPU.My favorite loads are WIN 2000,Santa Fe Linux. Damn Small Linux.Mepis Linux. But I use Xandros2 and XP Pro at times. I switch hard drives a lot. I hate the on/off button wire connecting to MB as the pins/connectors are small and the case wires and motherboard pins are not very easy to figure out. ( But I expect this was posted as a private conversation)

[Voyager13b]

Originally Posted by Alex_Ivanov

Hyperthreading is a technology of yesterday. It was some kind of fake 2-core processor, in fact 1.5-core. After AMD and Intel issued "true" 2-core processors for workstations, hyperthreading's days are counted.

P.S. In Russia we don't like brand computers, we buy parts separately and assemble them on our own.

Very true, Alex. Hyperthreading is pretty much nonsense. I always build my own PC's, and prefer AMD at the core, as AMD is the single most important reason that Intel sells new generation CPU's at a reasonable price today. MAC appears to be a loser technology, as they attempted to build a (small) monopoly based upon creative case colors, and multimedia performance. Apple failed on both counts, and is now hawking their lousy excecution of a Linux/Unix based OS on Intel hardware. I have no use for an OS that doesn't take advantage of the right mouse button, and in recent years, MAC OS does nothing for me that either Win or Linux cannot do.
Consumers benfit from the competition between AMD and Intel. Most people don't even care about Apple and their ultra proprietary way of doing business.

Voyager

[C-Force]

You can get a green one or you can get a blue one.