G4 vs G5
========
Yesterday I was able to compile my FEA [1] software [2] on a PowerPC
Mac, finally. Even with some graphics output (it's just a simple GLUT
window, nothing fancy). It was on my PowerBook G4 (1.67GHz CPU, OS
10.5). Today I repeated the same on my (first generation) iMac G5 (1.8
GHz CPU, OS 10.4).
I read a lot of articles about G4 vs G5. Some people claim that the
latest G4s (my G4 it the latest and fastest one) are faster than G5
(and my G5 CPU is one of the oldest) but some claim that G5 is a newer
generation CPU and it is obviously faster.
So I have decided to test it on a real-world problem. On some simple
structural analysis with use of finite element method. I ran the
solution three times and recorded an average from the last two (there
was 1s difference between them in both cases).
I got these results:
* G4 (1.67 GHz): 148 seconds
* G5 (1.80 GHz): 98 seconds
Even if we consider the difference of frequencies (the G5 has 8% higher
frequency than the G4) the G5 is clearly faster (1.5-times faster, it
I'm not mistaken). And the G5 computer has traditional HDD but the G4
one has a SSD. Thus for me the G5 is a clear winner.
References:
[1]
gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Finite%20element%20method
[2]
https://github.com/jurabr/ufem