PC vs. Mac Revisited: Adobe Says PCs are Faster

The debate between PC and Macintosh partisans over which platform performs better reached an interesting impasse this week when longtime Apple Computer partner Adobe Systems published a document on its Web site that supports claims that the PC is indeed faster. This development is interesting for two reasons. First, Apple has always used specially written Adobe applications to demonstrate the Mac's performance claims, so it's a bit problematic when the creator of those applications basically refutes the information. Second, Apple has actually responded to the claims.

Adobe's Web site (see the URL below) republished information that first appeared in July 2002--a performance comparison of a then top-of-the line 2.53GHz Dell Precision Workstation versus an equally decked-out dual-processor Power Mac G4 running at 1GHz. The single-processor Dell Precision crushed the Mac in every test; Adobe noted, "While the computers used in this study are no longer the fastest in their respective classes, the information is still valid. The PC outperformed the similar Macintosh machine, at an impressive rate." Today, the fastest PCs feature clock speeds faster than 3GHz, whereas G4-powered Macs have jumped to 1.42GHz.

For years, Apple has been fighting what it calls "The Megahertz Myth." On the company's Web site, Apple describes its high-end 1.42GHz Power Mac as "32 percent faster than the fastest PC on the market with a 3GHz Pentium 4 processor [when] using nine commonly used actions and filters that stress overall system performance--including processor, memory, system bus, and hard drive--in [Adobe] Photoshop." And this week, Apple responded to the Adobe site specifically. "Apple stands by our claims that our latest Power Mac systems perform equal to or better than competing PC systems," the company wrote in a statement. "The reported tests on Adobe's Web site showing slower performance of After Effects on a Mac than a PC is more an application test than a platform test and is not indicative of all Pro [nonconsumer] application performance on the Mac." Apple's claim, apparently, is that the Photoshop tests it touts are somehow more indicative of the performance of all Pro applications than are the After Effects tests that the Adobe site describes.

My experience with both platforms refutes that assumption. After long-term tests with several desktop and notebook Macs, the only area in which I've found any Mac to outperform any comparable PC was notebook battery life, and the Centrino chipset, which powers new Wintel-compatible notebooks, recently overcame that advantage. I'm not saying that Macs perform unacceptably for everyday tasks; even my low-end iBook works fine for such tasks as Web browsing, email, DVD playback, and light word processing. But for resource-intensive tasks (e.g., video editing, graphics work), PCs running Windows have long dominated the Mac.

Also, the increasing performance gap between Macs and PCs comes at a tough time for Apple, which is reportedly examining a replacement for the Power PC platform. Apple once touted the RISC-based Power PC as the future of computing, but the Pentium line, in which Intel has incorporated various RISC-like technologies, long ago surpassed the Power PC in performance, blurring the line between CISC and RISC architectures and ending the debate over which is superior. Apple's choices appear to come down to an IBM advance on the Power PC platform called the Power PC 970 or possibly moving to an Intel-based architecture. Whatever the company chooses, it needs to move quickly; Apple's market share continues to erode. The company's high-profile Switch campaign has proven ineffective, and changing platforms is always risky. However, the company pulled off a similar change when it moved to the Power PC platform years ago. You never know, Apple could do it again.

End of Article

For the record. I currently own a 500 MHz dual-USB iBook (384 MB RAM) and a 1 GHz 17-inch flatpanel iMac (1 GB of RAM). Yes, I purchased these machines myself, and yes, I use them every day. In the past, I have tested other desktop and notebook Macs, including a 500 MHz PowerBook G4 (mid-2001) and an 800 MHz 15-inch widescreen iMac (mid- to late-2002), both of which I had in-house for several months. My standard desktop is a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4-based Dell Dimension 4400 with 1 GB of RAM, and I test one PC notebook computer every month for the magazine. Needless to say, the Dell (which is a far cry from the 3 GHz screamers available today) outperforms the Macs by a wide margin, across the board. It's not even close.

Paul Thurrott March 26, 2003

Well, there is an interesting point about this issue on http://www.oscast.com/stories/storyReader$216 which refutes many of the claims in the report. While your experience may differ in general, there is little to suggest that Apple's tests are less valid than the tests in the article. Apple states that its results use "nine commonly used actions and filters that stress overall system performance--including processor, memory, system bus and hard drive--in [Adobe] Photoshop" as you state, while the other article makes reference to a couple things done in After Effects, and doesn't state that they are representative of common actions or that they "stress overall system performance--including processor, memory, system bus and hard drive." However, even if this was an oversight, all this would show is that for some things the PC is faster, and for others the mac is. Mac users tend to use macs because they prefer the way the mac works and believe its OS allows them to be more productive, not simply because they may believe the processor is faster. There is strong evidence to support these feelings, bit regardless, the fact that the original article was written by a guy who has always actively done whatever he could to shoot down macs makes his test somewhat suspect, not to mention that he misrepresented the price of the PCs, didn't bother mentioning the price of the new dual processor model he just received, and used PCs using processors within a week of their being released, and compared them to six-month old macs (two days before new models were expected to be released (Macworld Expo) makes his test almost laughable. If you prefer your PC for whatever reason, great. But this Adobe page (which also includes completely misrepresenting graphs that seem to forget that there are only 60 seconds in a minute) should not be a significant point to either side. Though I suppose if you follow the adobe store link to buy the Dell they refer to, I suppose maybe it helps their bottom line).

Editor's note: Someone else posted this URL, and I'll leave in here in the interests of fairness, but Adobe gets nothing out of slamming Apple, and certainly many sources have backed up the performance claims cited on the Adobe site (including a hilarious Maximum PC writeup that cannot be reprinted here, sadly). Are the opinions of a Mac fanatic somehow more believable than those of one of Apple's closest partners? I don't think so. And, as I said, my own experience confirms what Adobe published. The short answer is that Apple has been touting performance improvements that exist only in specific components of PhotoShop that were specially written for Altivec, while most of the nonpartisan performance comparisons simply discuss actual real-world performance. Apple's systems are great, don't get me wrong. But the performance line coming out of Cupertino has been suspect for years, and I think it's about time someone called them to the mat on that. --Paul

Andrew Kinnie March 26, 2003

Why do you use the Mac machines? Interest? Curiosity? Is there something in the overall experience? Do you have too much money and don't know what elese to buy?

Editor's note: I write about non-Windows issues for Connected Home Magazine, and that was the primary reason I got the iBook about a year and a half ago. There are two reasons I got the iMac: First, I needed a more powerful Mac for a book I'm working on (an educational title that covers about 70 percent Windows, 30 percent Mac). Second, I want to be able to write about SuperDrive-related topis such as CD/DVD burning and iDVD, and my iBook only has a DVD drive. From a more abstract standpoint, it's important for me to actually have experience with the topics I'm writing about, and I also maintain a Linux box, which is less stable because I'm always updating it with the latest distribution. But the idea is the same: If I don't actually use this stuff, how could I possibly write about it? There are plenty of people that do that, and I don't want to be lumped into that crowd. --Paul

cc March 26, 2003

I agree that Apple needs to move quickly, and they are. Top of the line PowerMacs have moved from a max of 1 GHz to 1.42 GHz in the last year. Bottom of the line machines have moved from the just introduced G4 iMac with 800 MHz to the 1 GHz model available now. In the same time, Apple has moved it iBook from 600 MHz to 800 MHz, and it's PowerBooks from 667 MHz to 1 GHz. Across the board that's an average speed increase of about 40% (in raw numbers). Meanwhile, they have slashed prices an significant amount across their entire product line. How can you say that they are not moving to attract new customers?

They have done all this while producing and perfecting a new OS - which is unique in it's combination of killer UI and stable under-pinnings. They have also pushed technology faster than any other computer manufacturer in the industry: FireWire, Rendevous, Bluetooth, and USB are all firmly integrated into the product line. Yes, you could possibly get all of these technologies on a PC running Windows. But the Mac had them first, they come standard on the newer machines, and they are integrated much better. PS2, anyone? Serial? Why do most OTC Windows machines still come standard with these antiquated ports? Granted my new Dell running Windows 2k (at work) works very well with a USB mouse, a first for me on a Wintel. The Mac that I bought almost 4 years ago did this with no difficulty because Macs have had USB starting in 1998 with the first iMac.

You state in your article that Macs have long been dominated by PCs for resource intensive tasks. I can think of no more resource intensive task than gaming, of which I am a hopeless addict. I have always been much happier playing games on my Mac than on the PCs I have owned. Fewer freezes, easier installs, and better graphics are the norm on a Mac, at least in my case. And the number of games (at least the ones I am interested in) on the Mac platform is finally starting to catch up. If Adobe cleans up its Apps, and finds ways to use the OS X architecture to their advantage, I am sure that this experience will be the same for the users of their products on OS X.

Editor's note: Come on. Game playing on the Mac is a joke, and that's not even debatable. As for your performance statistics, I'll just leave you with this thought: It's easy to make a 40 percent jump when you're starting in the basement. PC's hit 1 GHz years ago and kept going. Are 3 GHz PCs over twice as fast as 1.42 GHz Power Macs? No way. Are they faster? Yes. Are they cheaper? Yes. Are they more versatile? Oh yeah. And so on. --Paul

Sef Tarbell March 26, 2003

wanker

Editor's note: Well said! --Paul

x March 26, 2003

Interesting. I run my own media production company in Portland, OR. For the past several years I have been using a combination of Lightwave, Video Toaster, (Amiga and PC), Aura, and some After Effects from time to time. I say time to time, in that I try using After Effects from time to time, but the performance is so poor compared to other NLE/compositors/effectors that I really cannot recommend it.

Recently I purchased a powermac 1.25Ghz with Final Cut Pro 3. This system completely blows me away with what it can do. It is fast, fun and affordable. I have been doing more and more lightwave work on the mac, along with doing a lot more video post/compositing in FCP. I can say with utmost confidence that FCP on my powermac is much faster at rendering effects, editing, and just simply using the product than After Effects ever was on my various PC's. Typically, I use mostly Xeon-based systems, but have several 2+Ghz P4 systems as well.

All in all, I find the powermac much more enjoyable to use than any PC (or Amiga!) that I have ever used. It is fast(!!!), stable, reliable (something that I cannot say about my Video Toaster PC's, which blue-screen quite frequently (Windows 2000). MacosX has been, quite frankly, bullet-proof in the six months I have been using the system.

While I probably will not change my workflow from Video Toaster to FCP (depending on what the new Toaster and FCP releases look like at NAB this year), I will most definately incorporate more powermacs running Lihtwave and FCP into my studio. After Effects will always warrant a look as the product develops as a semi-usefull tool for some tasks, but over all, I'll pass on it.

As for photoshop, I use it sparingly, which is to say I use if for light tasks. Generally speaking, I have found the photoshop/powermac combination to be on-par with my fastest PC's for most things I do, if not slightly faster. Automating workflow on tha powermac, however, leaves the PC in the dust. I am still learning Apple script, but have already automated several tasks for manipulating digital still frames using Photoshop, Debabelizer and FCP in ways I simply could not have done on my PC's. My next tool in the chain that I am looking to learn and add is DVD studio pro. This looks to be a simple matter to automate as well, although I haven't tried it yet.

All in all, I would not judge a platform by how well it runs After Effects. In my opinion, nothing run After Effects very well because the application is simply poor. For most tasks, the powermac is head and shoulders above My PC's it useability, automation, reliability, and just simple enjoyment.

Sorry if this is rambling, I have a deadline today, but thought I'd put in my $.02

Ed

Editor's note: It's appreciated, and though I don't have any experience with applicatons such as Lightwave (or AfterEffects), I'm an Amiga old-timer myself, so I appreciate your background. --Paul

Ed March 26, 2003

I am a 100% MAC user since the original 128k machine introduced in 1984. I thought your article was quite fair and balanced...and in many respects reiterates the concerns of many MAC users, who hope that the 64 bit PPC G5 970 arrives this summer before any more high-end customers 'switch'.

Editor's note: First of all, thanks for that. I'm really trying to be honest about this issue, which I do think is important. And as I've been saying, I buy Apple products, so I have a stake in the company being successful. I hope the Mac thrives, but Apple needs to do more to address some core issues, and performance is probably at the top of the list. --Paul

Art Kerley March 26, 2003

Consider the source...

Adobe's statistics not only skewer results grapically to accentuate a larger difference than these results supposedly show (ie. 47 seconds is not .47 minutes - look at the charts), but the Adobe author is longtime anti-mac pundit Charlie White - see the OSCast story http://www.oscast.com/stories/storyReader$216

Editor's note: That doesn't change the statistics. The Apple is slower and considerably more expensive. Only an Apple fanatic would try to pick apart these results and suggest that there is some bizarre conspiracy going on here. Again, if you've used both, you know. The Mac has strong points, and a certain elegance. But it is slower--and much more expensive--than a comparable PC. --Paul

A Blair March 26, 2003

I read this back when it was new, and there's actually a more recent comparison between a 3Ghz Pentium 4 and a Dual 1.25Ghz G4. Not unlike this test, the Pentium 4 was approximately twice as fast. It was also a full THOUSAND DOLLARS CHEAPER.

Bang for buck Apple is in iTrouble. Considering the sheer grunt needed by todays machines in the markets Apple target most heavily, and still hold by their fingernails, Apple needs to be competitive.

I often think of Apple in very similar terms to Sony. Sony make nice products, well designed and often very "lifestyle" based. Yet despite the Sony brand success their actual products are usually not as good as cheaper competitors, with less "fancy" designs. A good example is that when I was shopping for a stereo micro system a while ago we looked at a little Sony system, with capacitance buttons, gentle blue glowing lights, slot loading glass fronted. It was a very cute little unit. But for about $500 less there was a Panasonic that had NOTICABLY better sound. It was simpler, and had some extra features.

We bought the Sony.

The difference here is that Sony are the largest consumer electronics company in the world, thanks to extensive branding and marketing.

Apple are 2.4% and shrinking.

Anyway, I'll end my two cents with a quote from the recent article comparing Apples with Oranges. "Apple is right. 'Megahertz doesn't matter!' But Gigahertz does."

Matt Burgess March 26, 2003

One issue that's consistently ignored in these discussions is relative cost of systems. While a Dell 3GHz may be price equivalent to a PowerMac 1.42GHz, I have a wide range of choices other than Dell and can get an equivalent PC for much less.

With Apple, I have one price and one choice: Apple.

Editor's note: Right. I bought a 17-inch iMac earlier this month for about $2150, including an upgrade to 512 MB of base RAM and a three year warranty. Add another $160 for another 512 of RAM and the price was about $2300. What kind of PC could you get for this money? Right: A total, top-of-the-line screamer. The iMac is nice, and as one reader said earlier, fast enough, but it's not a top-of-the-line Power Mac G4, which could cost twice as much money. This is a huge problem for Apple. --Paul

Jeff Lewis March 26, 2003

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