The Megahertz Myth

From a keynote a few years back.

The VP of Apple Hardware explains what the megahertz myth is in a nutshell, as well as promote the hell out of the PowerPC G4 and diss the Pentium 4.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Apple
• Speech
• Keynote
• Megahertz
• Myth
• OSX
• PowerPC
• G4
• Steve
• Jobs

[drygnfyre]

I think this is the most technical thing I've ever heard at a mainstream Apple keynote.

[ez45]

very good explanation of why pentiums sucked back then.

i'd have liked to see the PowerPCs evolve further... x86 has been a low-cost chip in the 80s after all..

[hamzachilling]

now even apple computers and laptops use intel!!

[hamzachilling]

@Uejji but it you had the g4 overclocked than that would be a lot faster still and with 2 g4s it world be over 100% faster than the pentium 4 because how small the g4 was thats why pentium 4's sucked back then

[Uejji]

@DonOfTheInternet You're right, of course.

Both pipelines begin at 5:43. Short finishes at 6:29, long at 6:51.

So, short takes 46 seconds, long 68 seconds. Adjusted for clockspeed, the long would have taken about 34 seconds. That would have put the processor with a 100% speed advantage at a mere 35% performance advantage.

Of course, it's all a theoretical demo.

[DonOfTheInternet]

Shouldn't the P4 pipeline run twice as fast?

[Stashmyash]

Now sadly, everyone's fooled into the smartphone myth.

[ScottBookG4]

My oh my...the times have changed, haven't they? Really enjoying watching some of these old Stevenotes.

[thebloxxeronroblox]

Well the Pentium 4 sucked

[m0s3s]

Very good showing by apple, before their ethics went out the window and became rampant suing scumbags submitting shoddy manipulated evidence to legal courts.

[SuperMario811]

I hated Pentiums so much, but I do love the later CPUs such as the Core 2 Duo and i5/i7. I wish PowerPC did evolve further. It would be friggin' awesome. However, I like the recent Apple generation better; something just doesn't hit home with these new intel Macs and new iDevices like the iPhone and iPad, despite having both along with a 15" Mid 2009 MacBook Pro. Maybe it's because I still have my G4 tower and iMac G3. :)