🚀 go-pugleaf

Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch (Dan Pop) wrote:


>And ask Microsoft advocates for studies proving the opposite.  I'm willing
>to bet there are plenty of them.  Who cares?  Each individual is different
>from the mythical "average user", whether the definition of the average
>user is coming from Microsoft or Apple.

Actually, I'm willing to bet there aren't.  Why would there be?  How
does the Mac market threaten Microsoft, which also makes software for
the Mac?  The Mac studies may hold truth, and even if they didn't the
Mac would have to become a far larger player for Microsoft to attack
its usability.  It's just not necessary for them.

>>Besides, if the MacOS is so slow, can you explain why the PowerMac 9500
>>was approximately twice as fast as a fast Pentium in side-by-side
>>application tests?

>That's easy.  What OS was the Pentium running?  What applications were
>involved in the tests?  You can prove anything you want to prove by using
>"real world" applications.  All you have to do is to choose the applications
>according to what you want to prove.  This is why the industry recognizes
>the SPEC suites and not "side-by-side application tests" as a measure of
>performance.  Get a clue.

I believe it was NT running Photoshop, and WFWG on some other apps.
They would naturally choose the OS that most users would be running-
comparing against Linux would be pointless for them.

>BTW, there is no ideal way to test the performance of a machine as a 
>general purpose system.  It just happens that the SPEC benchmarks are
>the best we have right now.  But they show the PPC to be too slow and
>the Pentium to be too fast for the Mac bigot's tastes, so let's screw them
>and go back to side-by-side application tests performed with a carefully
>chosen application set.

I don't know about this Dan.

What the Spec results may show is that certain apps, like Photoshop,
are not coded that well for the Pentium, which may not surprise me
considering the deragotry comments I've heard from Photostyler users
after switching over.

But most people buy machines to run apps, not benchmarks.  If the
situation was reversed, and it was with the 040 vs. 486 benchmarks, PC
users would be touting superior application speed.  And they were, and
even comparisons in MacWorld at the time for "speed" of machines
compared apps, and Windows won in many of them before the PPC arrived.

Look at the apps.  If you MUST use Photoshop and Fractal Design
painter, you probably want a Power Mac.  If you must use Word and
Excel, you probably want a PC.  Application benchmarks, while being
very innacurate at times, are THE most important "benchmarks" out
there, because it's how we use a machine.  If the SpecMarc claims a
Pentium is only 15% slower than a next-generation 604, but Photoshop
is twice as fast- THAT'S what MATTERS to my business.