Rumor: Alleged PowerPC 970 Benchmarks Posted


MacBidouille have posted what they claim are benchmarks for Apple's as-yet unreleased PowerPC 970-based Macs.

The performance levels, if accurate, are staggering. The Mhz/GHz rating the 970s (and competing Pentium 4s, for that matter), become superfluous. A major contributor to the reported speeds includes the 64-bit ('Mach-64') motherboard.

Cinema 4D, Photoshop Actions and Bryce 5 (suspected to be a version of beta 6) benchmarks show a 1.4GHz 970 would be the equivalent of a P4 at 3GHz. On the other hand, according to these results, a DP 1.8GHz 970 would smoke a P4, although a DP Pentium would make a fairer, and more interesting comparison.

Analysis: Regardless of the veracity of these benchmarks, the real test of the 970 will not be just its speed in the creative pro arena, but how it performs using standard business software. Many developers never hopped on board with AltiVec, leaving Apple AlitVec's biggest supporter, with apps such as FCP and iMovie. Microsoft, for example, hasn't ever been known for optimizing its apps for the PowerPC family, including the 604, G3 and G4 - or even OS X, especially (unkind people might say Office is scarcely optimized for anything). Acceptance of consumer 64-bit computing by developers will be the real litmus test. First, developers had to write not just OS X ports, but also good Carbon and Cocoa apps. Many have done a great job moving their apps to OS X. Some have not. Transitioning to 64-bit will involve not only a major effort on Apple's part in leveraging OS X to take advantage of it, but also a convince developers Mac-64 is the way to go. Until then, however, 32-bit apps should blaze away with enough speed for most of us.