At 9:44 AM -0700 3/23/2011, imrazor wrote:
On Mar 23, 9:34 am, Dan <[email protected]> wrote:
At 7:15 AM -0700 3/23/2011, imrazor wrote:
This is good too:
> <http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/ve/summary.html>
Thanks Dan, that's a very good summary for a non-coder like myself.
Apple claims that Altivec is twice as fast as SSE1/2/3 at 8 flops/
cycle vs SSE's 4flops/cycle, so theoretically shouldn't a G5 be twice
as fast as an Intel processor at SIMD operations at equivalent clock
speeds? Now the article mentions P4's, so I'm not sure if subsequent
improvements in Intel's lineup would change that number. Or maybe
Intel has added more registers? Plus I think SSE 4.1 is out now...
Google "altivec vs sse". There are some interesting articles, albeit
some quite old. Most complain about how nasty SSE is to use. As for
performance, it really it depends on the actual operation being
performed as to which is faster. The implementation of Altivec in
the G4 and G5 processors was quite good, and usually outperformed
Intelcarp. But there are a few benchmarks showing that SSE is
faster. Again, like any benchmark, it depends on the individual task
and coding and compiler and OS' runtimes.
*shrug*
This is all moot now tho as you just ain't gonna be running OS X on a
POWER based system! Get over it. Suck it up. Learn to enjoy the
Intel parts and their lower reliability. Or just hold your toes for
a few more months, or perhaps a year... As ARM ramps up their design
into the server market, I'll betcha a few million quatloos that we
start seeing ARM-based Macs.
- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth.
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