I haven't noticed a better place for a cross-project inquiry and I'm bored with an ObjC problem, so if you don't have a few minutes to waste then ignore this :-)

I just started running BOINC a week ago with three project accounts. I run them on both my dual 2.5 PMac G5 2GB DDR SDRAM (OS 10.4.3) and Windows PC x86 15,2,4 2519Mhz 1GB RAM (XP). Both processors are used on the Mac so there are two projects active at a time and since the PC has only one processor only one project is active at a time. I do all my work on the Mac and have BOINC set to Run Always. The PC is hardly ever used other than the BOINC projects.

A very unscientific observance of the CPU Time columns on each host reveals the following:
1) CP projects take forever on either computer so no HA conclusion
2) E@H projects complete significantly faster on my Mac by a factor of .6+/-
3) R@H projects complete somewhat faster on the PC by a factor of .8+

I'm, of course, assuming that like account project work units are roughly the same size regardless of host.

Could it be that for a given project either the type of calculations, or project software, is better suited for one computer or the other?

Lee C
"The early bird may get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese!" - Willie Nelson

Chinook,

I'm from Einstein, and I can tell you that the Mac version of the Einstein science app has been written to take advantage of the AltiVec instruction set which is native to G4s and G5s. This "optimization" has greatly reduced the processing times, by at least a factor of 0.5. We x86 people there eagerly await (OK, I'm not proud, we beg for) an app that similarly utilizes the SSE2 instruction set inherent in P4s and AMD64s, and are envious of you fortunate Mac folk.

Regards,

Michael

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"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Justice"

Thanks Michael,

At least I know I'm not just making things up now. I won't say anything bad about PCs, but I've never looked back since moved to Mac software development last year :-)

I'm already looking at the new processors due out sometime next year and it's not going to affect my ObjC/Cocoa development much, but what is it going to do to your effort?

Lee C
"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." -- Redd Foxx

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Chinook,

I don't work for Einstein, my computer crunches solely Einstein, and I've been working on the messageboards there quite a bit. The most recent line of code I've written was in 1983, when I was familiarizing myself with the C64, after having been recruited by Commodore. By "new processors", are you referring to the Intel x86 that Apple is moving to, or is there another step inbetween? The move to x86 will mean that Apple will have to come out of the closet with the x86 port of their OS, should make things Verrry Interesting.

I've nothing bad to say about Macs - one of my best friends is a Mac guy, and despite that, I still like him. Heck, my own brother has turned traitor, er... gone over to the Dark Side, er... gone back to using both platforms, I just pray that it's not a genetic flaw. ;-0

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"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Justice"

Chinook,

I don't work for Einstein, my computer crunches solely Einstein, and I've been working on the messageboards there quite a bit. The most recent line of code I've written was in 1983, when I was familiarizing myself with the C64, after having been recruited by Commodore. By "new processors", are you referring to the Intel x86 that Apple is moving to, or is there another step inbetween? The move to x86 will mean that Apple will have to come out of the closet with the x86 port of their OS, should make things Verrry Interesting.

I've nothing bad to say about Macs - one of my best friends is a Mac guy, and despite that, I still like him. Heck, my own brother has turned traitor, er... gone over to the Dark Side, er... gone back to using both platforms, I just pray that it's not a genetic flaw. ;-0

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Chinook,

I don't work for Einstein, my computer crunches solely Einstein, and I've been working on the messageboards there quite a bit. The most recent line of code I've written was in 1983, when I was familiarizing myself with the C64, after having been recruited by Commodore. By "new processors", are you referring to the Intel x86 that Apple is moving to, or is there another step inbetween? The move to x86 will mean that Apple will have to come out of the closet with the x86 port of their OS, should make things Verrry Interesting.

I've nothing bad to say about Macs - one of my best friends is a Mac guy, and despite that, I still like him. Heck, my own brother has turned traitor, er... gone over to the Dark Side, er... gone back to using both platforms, I just pray that it's not a genetic flaw. ;-0

OK :-))) To me arguing about the relative merits of Windows vs. OS X is like arguing about the relative merits of Basic vs. ObjC. In my experience neither party will budge. As far as Apple "coming out" they already have - at least as far as the development community. I've heard they have had an X86 port for at least a couple years now. Just my guess, but you're not going to see OS X on just any ol hardware ;')

BOT: The R@H software must be optimized for X86

Lee C
"Give me *nix or give me a burger flipping job"

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...As far as Apple "coming out" they already have - at least as far as the development community. I've heard they have had an X86 port for at least a couple years now. Just my guess, but you're not going to see OS X on just any ol hardware ;')

BOT: The R@H software must be optimized for X86

Lee C
"Give me *nix or give me a burger flipping job"

OSX for x86 has already been leaked, the developer's version of it, and Steve is livid. Can't blame him, but it won't hurt Apple, not really.

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"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Justice"

Yes it will ...

THen the only distinction is the fact that the Mac uses OS-X ...

Right now a 2.0 GHz Dual G5 more than keeps up with a 3.4 GHz dual Xeon ...

Go to Intel chips, and, well, it is anyone's old CPU ...

Fundamentally, the G5 is a better chip than the Intels, and Apple is giving that away ... so, I think it is a short-sighted move ... why pay more for the same CPU power? RIght now, I can get, based on the specs, two Xeon 3.4 boxes (4 CPUs) in one PowerMac.

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Yes it will ...

THen the only distinction is the fact that the Mac uses OS-X ...

Right now a 2.0 GHz Dual G5 more than keeps up with a 3.4 GHz dual Xeon ...

Go to Intel chips, and, well, it is anyone's old CPU ...

Fundamentally, the G5 is a better chip than the Intels, and Apple is giving that away ... so, I think it is a short-sighted move ... why pay more for the same CPU power? RIght now, I can get, based on the specs, two Xeon 3.4 boxes (4 CPUs) in one PowerMac.

Hi, Paul,

When I said that it wouldn't really hurt Apple, I was referring to the leakage of x86 OS-X. It was only a developers version that was leaked, not the final product, so little risk financially, and like they say in showbiz, there's no such thing as bad (free) publicity.

On the hardware side, you may have a point there, I don't know. While the 2.0 G5 dual-proc isn't the top G5, I never got the impression that the Xeon was particularly known for speed, so I'm not sure that's a good comparison. As I understand it, Apple was in a bad position with the G5, up against a brick wall in the thermal envelope, the G5 dual-proc absolutely requiring water-cooling to get to the 2.5GHz level. There just wasn't any more room for scaleability (spelling?) with the IBM architecture. In the short term, I think it would have been better to transition to an AMD chip, because they presently enjoy the most thermal headroom and enough production capacity now to accomodate Apple's needs. Intel is abandoning the inefficient P4 architecture, the huge pipeline woefully inadequate at adapting to unpredicted branches, and their own thermal problems preventing them from scaling up to the 5GHz speeds that they'd anticipated. Intel's roadmap calls for the new direction to be based upon the Pentium-M model.

Historically, Apple has been very...let's say "flexible" regarding their CPU suppliers - IBM, Motorola, AMD at one point (I think), and Commodore Business Machines, my old employer back in the early '80s, supplied (was it the 6508?) the processors for the 8-bit Apple II. Apple's main assets have been their OS and their innovative adoption/development of peripheral tech, their vision of a system, rather than a component, approach, and their outstanding industrial design. I think they'll successfully carry that over to the x86, and beyond.

(edited for typos and punctuation)

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"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Justice"

While the 2.0 G5 dual-proc isn't the top G5, ...

Historically, Apple has been very...let's say "flexible" regarding their CPU suppliers ...

On servers, I have no idea what is the "better" chip. All I can tell you is that for the apps that _I_ run, the dual G5 2GHz I had ran circles around anything on the market, at _any_ reasonable price, from the AMD/Intel camp. The problem was that two years later, we STILL don't have anything much better than a 2GHz that doesn't require liquid cooling, and even _with_ the liquid cooling, we only have a 2.7GHz dual, or now, a 2.5GHz quad. I think there _is_ more room in the architecture, but IBM just wasn't delivering. Apple's just not a big enough customer of theirs to be able to force it, IBM would rather put the effort into PowerPC chips for things like the XBox - a 'cut down' version, runs 'faster-sortof-but-different', but they can sell a bazillion of them. And the Motorola side... the G4... well, the whole Apple-screws-Motorola, vice-versa, repeat, bit just got old, and Motorola's chip fab changing names, and Motorola buying and strangling Metrowerks, and Apple backstabbing Metrowerks, and, and... URG! If you just watched the relationship between those two companies, you'd swear they were deadly enemies, and not supplier/customer!

I agree AMD would have been a better choice based on current chips, and what "we the public" knows, so I don't know what Intel did/said to convince Jobs...

On the history; the Apple ][ was a 6502. Commodore also used it, but didn't make it; I think they later made variations of it for themselves, and used other CPUs as well. Then the Lisa and Mac were the Motorola 68000 family, then the Motorola/IBM PowerPC family (which was same-chips-dual-source, until the G4/G5 split). Newtons and now iPods use ARM and it's relatives. As far as I know, no Apple product has ever used AMD. Yet.

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On the history; the Apple ][ was a 6502. Commodore also used it, but didn't make it; I think they later made variations of it for themselves, and used other CPUs as well.

The 6502 (thanks, Bill, for that reminder) processor was made by MOS Technologies (Mostec), which CBM bought/acquired shortly before I was recruited there in March 1983. It was one of "Happy Jack" Tramiel's more aggressive deals, and went something like this: Commodore, with it's PET and VIC-20 lines, had just introduced the C64. All of those models were based on the 6502 CPU. With huge production capacity and virtually an open field before them, Tramiel enticed Mostec into greatly expanding their production capacity, Mostec over-leveraging themselves to accomodate Commodore and thus, became extremely over-dependent upon one customer. Tramiel then threatened to move away from the 6502, and in the ensuing panic, bought Mostec for a song, and thus became the supplier to Apple and Atari, his two main competitors.

Another "Happy Jack" move - in the summer of 1983, Commodore and Mostec greatly simplified the mainboard of the C64, incorporating many individual components into ICs. This board was known internally as the "cost-reduction" board. Together with the integration of components and the economy-of-scale, it was much less expensive to manufacture. Instead of immediately passing along the savings to retailers, Tramiel and the Marketing department introduced a rebate program, offering customers a $100 rebate in return for giving Commodore ANY old computer or game console whether they were functional or not. It was a double-edged knife, making the flagship C64 product more affordable and stealing some of the customer base of the competition as a secondary benefit. The program was a huge success - I remember going downstairs from my office to the production/warehouse/shipping area and seeing vast bins, hundreds of cubic yards each, of rebate turn-ins, arriving faster then we could scrap them. At the end of the rebate, which had been extended through a second month, Commodore finally dropped the retail price by $100, the "shake-out" of the computer industry was all but over, Coleco wiped out, Radio Shack, Atari, and even Apple were marginalized, and the Commodore 64 on it's way to becoming the biggest-selling model computer in history.

(edited for typos)

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"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Justice"

The 6502 (thanks, Bill, for that reminder) processor was made by MOS Technologies (Mostec), which CBM bought/acquired shortly before I was recruited there in March 1983.

Ah, that explains my not knowing that. Pre-1982, I was selling Apple ][s, S-100, CBM, Pet, Atari, etc... By late 1982 I was programming and not dealing as much with the hardware side, and in 1984 moved to the Mac and never looked back at the 6502 products... :-)

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Back to the MHz debate, a 1 MHz 6502 was faster than a 4 MHz Z80 ...

I am sort of aware of the fighting/apathy on the Apple CPUs, I am just saying, that in the case of BOINC and other scientific processing, well, Apple will not have the potential performance increase to entice shoppers.

In my case, my plans now include an upgraded PowerMac on one of the dual-dual G5; but, after that, I will likely spend my money on something like the Dell Xeons. Though, I have been thinking to try an upgrade on one of my oldest PCs which has a single threaded P4 2.8 GHz to a dual core AMD. Frys has been advertising, off and on, a $650 CPU MB combination that is in the 3500+ area (I forget the exact number).

That would increase my throughput nicely for not that much money. Though I have not had good luck with AMD computers/MB historically. An alternative is to just buy an "all-up-round" box with a dual core AMD for about $1K to avoid those hassles.

I also need to get a Linux box going too ... my last tiral did not fare well. I could not see or be seen on the local network, though I could connect to the Internet. Well, I may do that too next year (assuming we get the loan paid off).

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et al, (this actually leads somewhere)

Well, I got a real history lesson plus out of this post as a bonus :-) Actually, I'm a retired SE that right after school and the military began work at the tail end of the IBM unit record equipment (do you remember programming as wiring boards :-). Having been on the software end since IBM 360 assembler, I certainly don't have the in-depth hardware knowledge that you-all seem to have.

The first PCs I worked with were the original IBM PCs (before Windows 95) and that was just to develop a network software framework between them and HP3000 hosts. Later, of course, I became more and more involved with PC software because PCs were all the rage with "power to the people."

Alas, the mid-range HP3000s, Decs and others I can't remember the names of went away in favor of PCs, server clusters and the ultimate server cluster the super computer. Meanwhile, I developed for Windows PCs and became more and more disenchanted with what there was to work with. I really didn't have an opportunity to work with Apple systems and I'm not convinced I missed much in the "Clasic" days.

However, the end of last year I gave up the ghost and began learning OS X software development. I already knew a little about Unix so it wasn't a completely fresh start, but I'm actually enjoying keeping my head busy again. "Different folks, different strokes," but my bag is the intuitive Unix foundation, the logical and organized ObjC/Cocoa development environment and the superior OS X GUI doesn't upset me :-) I could, of course, easily adapt to the Linux environment sans a superior GUI, but I'm happy for now. Personally, though, I could never go back to anything MS. Software has three stages; the geeks (no disrespect - they're the pioneers), the practical SEs, then the suits who kill it off. To me personally, MS started with the suits and became a monopoly because they only gave lip service to software piracy until they were a monopoly (every pirated MS software package was a lost sale to a competitor). With most suits, the ends justify the means.

Wherever Apple goes with their hardware, I'll probably keep working at their software because I enjoy it. Which, if I get far enough along, might entail helping some of these "worthy" projects with their software in addition to just providing more hardware.

Did I get all the way back to BOINC? 8<)))

Lee C

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Did I get all the way back to BOINC? 8<)))

Nope! But it was interesting - since my "paid jobs" since the late 80's have almost all been HP3000 or VMS, having started before that with writing code to link Apple ][s then Macs to HP3000's... and in reverse of your Mac side, I did a lot of Mac work and _zero_ PC work, _until_ OS X. Now I'm a dinosaur on both ends. The Mac part I knew is gone, and the minis I knew are gone, and all that's left are various flavors of Unix and Windows. Sigh.

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You might be interested in a brief tour of hardware history. if you go to my old web site at http://boinc-doc.net/index.php you will find a link to lectures that are a few of the 50 I wrote for my days as a college instructor.

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