Posts: 1370 from 2003/2/15
From: Central Europe
Quote:
AltiVeced wrote:
All in all, if you have a new CPU core, you have to optimized the code for it. An e600 core isn't the same as an e5500 or e6500 core.
Newer does not automatically equal "faster", however, especially not if the processor was not designed with maximum performance in mind in the first place.
Quote:
Do you really think, FreeScale is that silly? To develop a new core (approx. ten years later) and the new one is slower than the old one?
This is not about being silly but about target applications. The G4 and G5 CPUs used by Apple were specifically designed to be used in desktop computers. For this particular use case, there was a lot more leeway regarding energy consumption and thermal management than there would be for many embedded and industrial applications.
The P5020 processor has always been marketed for networking applications and was designed to use a mere 30 Watt. Networking devices tend to be constantly powered-on so power consumption is a much bigger factor than it would be for desktop computers that, even when used for business, would rarely be used for more than 8 hours a day on average.
As others have pointed out, Altivec is one part of the puzzle when you compare the performance of various MorphOS-compatible systems. Clearly, Freescale did not think it made sense to include it in a processor for networking devices, which may have been a sensible decision for that specific target market. In the context of "unintended uses" such as desktop computing, it is clearly a disadvantage and I think it is fair to point that out along with any other limitations.
