[Ti] computing power [laptops]

[Dennis Fazio]

On Apr 6, 2009, at 8:10 AM, Dr. Trevor J. Hutley wrote:

> Do PC laptops really have more computing power than a [comparable  
> specification] MacBook (Pro) ?
>
> In Ti days, I used to have a program that determined the 'speed' of  
> my Ti-book in gigaflops, but can no longer recall what that software  
> was.
> Is there anything like that we can use these days on Intel-based Macs?

Depends what you mean by "computing power"

If you mean raw Linpack megaflops, equivalently spec'ed machines are  
about the same since they use the same processors and memory  
architectures.

If you mean graphics display performance, that's strictly a function  
of the graphics accelerator hardware, again which is the same Nvidia  
and ATI Radeon chipsets.

If you mean interactive responsiveness based on a person sitting at a  
workstation launching Excel, Word et al, that's where Windows and OS X  
come into play. In many cases, Windows may seem quicker on the Office  
apps because of the heavy pre-caching they do by loading a lot of the  
stuff ahead of launch.

On other apps, it depends upon how the developer invested their  
optimization resources. E.g. something like Photoshop may be faster on  
one than other because it was more optimized for running on one OS vs  
the other.).

For equivalently configured and spec'ed machines, their performances  
should be about the same when doing things that don't depend upon the  
OS.

One thing that's clear is that Apple does not build low-cost lower- 
performing machines, so the MacBooks and iMacs will never come out  
ahead in a price/performance matchup with many bargain PCs. When you  
get up to higher-performance equivalently spec'ed MacBook Pros and Pro  
desktops, the price/performance/feature numbers are pretty well  
matched up.

The current Microsoft ads are targeting highly cost-conscious  
consumers, and PCs will be a better price/performance buy in that  
market segment. But for those consumers for which other aspects like  
overall usefulness, features, software apps, reliability and design  
are also important (and that is a large portion of the consumer  
population). Macbooks and iMacs do just fine.

In short, it's a false comparison, because the products are oriented  
to different market segments.
The aesthetics (and smart design) are definitely there in Macs and not  
PCs. The "computing power" requires a lot more explanation that is  
well beyond the capability (or interest) of a 30 or 60 second TV spot.

-- 
Dennis Fazio
dfz at mac.com