My PC really *was* faster!

Something happened the other day that totally blew my mind. If you're a long time Macaholic, just stop reading here. There are somethings you're better off just not knowing.

What could this mean?

Admittedly, the performance of the new MacBook Pro 17 has been, well, a bit less than spectacular. Oh, it's not slow by any means, but it's not exactly "5x faster" than anything on the market as Apple would like to claim. Oh no. Far from it.

Obviously I spend many hours each week using Photoshop. Currently I'm running CS2, the previous PowerPC config via Rosetta under Mac OSX. (Geek speak aside - the Intel Core Duo processor in the new Macs must translate all instructions from the current version of Photoshop - which really slows things down). It's slower than anything I ever used on a Windows PC machine, but some slow down is understandable given the required translation.

A good friend of mine, Matt Adams of Factor1Studios (www.factor1studios.com) is running a pre-Intel based Mac - a G5. The specs escape me but suffice to say it was a top end machine a year ago. Anyway, I had a seat at his desk and played with CS2 in it's native environment - this should be a good indication of how it is intended to perform.

Two things slapped me into surprise.

1. CS2 running on a pre-Intel G5 was, oh, about the same exact speed I get running a MacIntel MacBook Pro via the Rosetta translator.

2. Matt thought this was "fast" when in fact, it was still significantly slower than I'd been used to running the same app on my old Windows XP workstation (P4 3.0Ghz HT, 2GB Ram).

Which leads to a few conclusions worth noting:

1. Once CS3, the Universal Intel native version of Photoshop is out - it should be screamin' fast on my current machine and any other Intel based mac as it'll no longer have to contend with the translation.

2. Until the advent of the MacIntel, PC really *WAS* faster! No joke, without a doubt. "Macs are better for graphics" is simply an obsolete statement.

3. Hats off to Intel for creating this super fast chip - even requiring the additional horsepower for Rosetta to translate CS2, it still performs right on par with last year's crop of G5 workstations, and 'mad props' to Apple for having sense enough to adopt the new chips for it's new generation of computers.

4. Anyone considering the switch - the second CS3 is out, run, don't walk - and pick up a new Mac Pro or MacBook Pro. You won't regret it.