NASA Benchmarks the PowerMac G5!

Mr. Nice Guy · July 6, 2003, 21:23

This you can't deny! A fellow that works for NASA has benchmarked the Apple PowerMac G5. This test was done at a NASA research center. Now it's only a matter of time before NASA and the U.S. Government officially endorses these benchmarks. This page even has an e-mail link to the person that tested the system; notice it is a nasa.gov e-mail address. I have just e-mailed a message to this person to confirm his identity and am waiting for a reply.

Notice that these benchmarks are for single processor only. Pay careful attention to the following:

Quote:

Though dual processor benchmarks are not presented in detail here, it is worth noting that the G5 system benchmarked at 498 MFLOPS and 0.125 MFLOPS/MHz for scalar Jet3D performance when two processors were used.

Quote:

As before, it is worth noting that the G5 system benchmarked at 5177 MFLOPS and 1.29 MFLOPS/MHz for vector Jet3D performance when two processors were used.

This means that the PowerMac G5 nearly doubled in performance when using two processors instead of one. Way cool!!!

Drake Tungsten · July 6, 2003, 21:26

Why couldn't you have put this in the Macintosh forum, allowing all of us to gain sweet +1 on all posts made in the inevitable flame war with Asher? I swear, you guys are trying your best to make sure I never have an avatar.

Spiffor · July 6, 2003, 21:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
you guys are trying your best to make sure I never have an avatar.

I still don't understand why you don't frequent Demogames, Nation States, or simply the community forum.

I'm eager to see the hot chick you'd choose as an avatar

Mr. Nice Guy · July 6, 2003, 21:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Why couldn't you have put this in the Macintosh forum, allowing all of us to gain sweet +1 on all posts made in the inevitable flame war with Asher? I swear, you guys are trying your best to make sure I never have an avatar.

No offense Drake. I think it's going to be interesting to see what Asher's furious reply is going to be!

Asher · July 6, 2003, 21:37

Saw it a couple days ago.

I knew not to take it seriously once I saw that they, once again, used a horrible P4 compiler;

Quote:

P4 using Portland Group F90 v4.0-3: pgf90 -byteswapio -tp p7 -O1

And they also even disabled SSE/SSE2:

Quote:

Note that the higher level of optimization (-O2) and SSE/SSE2 options in the Portland compiler degraded Jet3D performance on the P4 system, and were therefore not used.

And they also used a 1.5 year old P4.

It's interesting only in comparing G4 to G5.

But you do see the P4 2.66GHz, crippled without the Intel compiler and w/o SSE and SSE2, got 255 MFLOPS while the G5 2GHz got 254MFLOPS.

That's not impressive performance.

Drake Tungsten · July 6, 2003, 21:49

Quote:

I still don't understand why you don't frequent Demogames, Nation States, or simply the community forum.

My problem is that I don't like to spam and few the threads in those forums interest me. All the issues I care to discuss are in the OT, but posting here won't get me an attractive woman under my name.

Imran Siddiqui · July 6, 2003, 21:57

Or under your body, when you come to think of it

Drake Tungsten · July 6, 2003, 21:59

Quote:

Or under your body, when you come to think of it.

Very true. God damn addiction.

Imran Siddiqui · July 6, 2003, 22:00

I'm thinking of suing Markos

Asher · July 6, 2003, 22:01

I'm confused why Cloud9 posted this.

What point does it prove when a crippled old P4 beats a brand new "fastest personal computer ever"?

It even has fun quotes like this:

Quote:

Based on an extrapolation of current P4 results, the 2GHz G5 would lag newly announced 3.2GHz P4 systems in Jet3D scalar floating point performance by about 20%

(this, again, without SSE/SSE2

)

Spiffor · July 6, 2003, 22:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Or under your body, when you come to think of it

Do you doubt the OT's use in sex appeal ?

Drake Tungsten · July 6, 2003, 22:03

Quote:

I'm thinking of suing Markos

Why? The only thing you'd be able to get from him in court would be some feta cheese and Yanni albums.

Spiffor · July 6, 2003, 22:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Why? The only thing you'd be able to get from him in court would be some feta cheese

When do we start ?

Imran Siddiqui · July 6, 2003, 22:08

We may also win the Poly server

Drake Tungsten · July 6, 2003, 22:11

Quote:

We may also win the Poly server

Cool! With that, we could start our own forum that inexplicably crashes once a week.

Imran Siddiqui · July 6, 2003, 22:13

at.... oppertune times

.

Mr. Nice Guy · July 6, 2003, 22:29

Asher:

First of all, I don't see any consistencies in your arguments. I'll explain later.

Second of all, explain to me why the government would deliberately do something to slow down the P4s?

Asher · July 6, 2003, 22:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Cloud9
Asher:

First of all, I don't see any consistencies in your arguments. I'll explain later.

There are absolutely no inconsistencies in my arguments, people can even predict what I'll say.

Quote:

Second of all, explain to me why the government would deliberately do something to slow down the P4s?

It's not the government doing the testing, it's some guy who happens to work for NASA because he plays with their Jet3D software
And for whatever reason, they chose a shitty compiler when Intel's Fortran compiler is widely known to be the fastest. Hell, you know your compiler sucks ass when you enable the highest level of optimizations and enable SSE/SSE2 and it slows down.

It's obviously not a general comparison test, it's a test for their specific Jet3D environment to compare what they have available and what would work.

For whatever reason, NASA had licensed Portland Group's compiler, so they used that. That's also why they used what they had on hand, 2GHz and 2.66GHz P4s rather than the new ones.

And even so, with the crap compiler & settings and outdated P4 chips, the P4 is still quite a bit faster.

"Fastest personal computer in the world!" Steve Jobs rules.

monolith94 · July 6, 2003, 22:37

Well, it's faster than the G4.

Mr. Nice Guy · July 6, 2003, 22:37

Hey Asher, what college did you go to?

Asher · July 6, 2003, 22:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Cloud9
Hey Asher, what college did you go to?

Um. Why?

Mr. Nice Guy · July 6, 2003, 22:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher

Um. Why?

nevermind. found it on your website.

Asher · July 6, 2003, 22:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Cloud9
nevermind. found it on your website.

Boris Godunov · July 6, 2003, 22:51

STALKER! GAH!

Urban Ranger · July 6, 2003, 22:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher
And even so, with the crap compiler & settings and outdated P4 chips, the P4 is still quite a bit faster.

"Fastest personal computer in the world!" Steve Jobs rules.

Hm, since 2 G5's run almost as fast as a single G5, while 2 P4's gives you at best a 50% gain, if that much, and there's no rule that a personal computer can only have a single processor, you can't say Jobs is wrong.

Agathon · July 6, 2003, 23:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
STALKER! GAH!

No one needs to stalk Asher, he's told everyone on Poly almost everything about himself.

For example, I know his name is Dave Milford, his age, the city he lives in what he looks like, his sexual and computer preferences and the fact that he's taking some sort of mind altering drug.

And I just found out your name is Mark. Mark? Mark!!!! bwahahahaha - hardly suave is it? Then again this is coming from someone named after a Confederate General so I can't talk.

And I'll say it again, there is not much point in these benchmark tests. The sensible thing to do is see how good they are with Photoshop and Quark (which is what the vast majority of users will be doing with them).

Asher · July 6, 2003, 23:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Hm, since 2 G5's run almost as fast as a single G5, while 2 P4's gives you at best a 50% gain, if that much, and there's no rule that a personal computer can only have a single processor, you can't say Jobs is wrong.

FLOPS benchmarks scale extremely well on the P4, nearly a 100% performance improvement with dual processors as well.

You know this ****, UR.

I'll also have fun with your brainfarts:

Quote:

2 G5's run almost as fast as a single G5

What an accomplishment!!!!!!!!!!

Mr. Nice Guy · July 6, 2003, 23:19

So, uh, Asher. Tell me about your educational background.

And what is this about a mind-altering drug that you are taking?

I'll read your answers sometime tomorrow. For now I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

Asher · July 6, 2003, 23:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Agathon
No one needs to stalk Asher, he's told everyone on Poly almost everything about himself.

For example, I know his name is Dave Milford, his age, the city he lives in what he looks like, his sexual and computer preferences and the fact that he's taking some sort of mind altering drug.

Actually in another thread today I also gave my middle name.

It's not like you're some mystery guy either.

Lee Churchman. BA and an MA in philosophy from the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Currently a PhD candidate in the Collaborative Program in Ancient and Mediaeval Philosophy at University of Toronto, specializing in the philosophy of Plato.

Asher · July 6, 2003, 23:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Cloud9
So, uh, Asher. Tell me about your educational background.

Computer prodigy.

Quote:

And what is this about a mind-altering drug that you are taking?

Depends on the night.