Speaking of PowerPC versus Pentium speeds (and we sort of were), we've long wondered how true Apple's G3 performance claims are. That whole "up to twice as fast" thing is based on a single benchmark-- the BYTEmark, which some people dismiss as an inaccurate test of relative processor speeds. Several real-world tests show that in plenty of situations, Intel's finest more than holds its own against the mighty G3; heck, it shouldn't come as any particular surprise that Microsoft Office generally runs faster on a Windows system with a fast Pentium II than on a fast G3 Mac, and given the historical-- and yes, even present-- differences in sticker price, sometimes it may seem tough to justify getting a Mac instead of a PC when looking at nothing but price and performance.

Then again, the Mac's traditional high-end users don't run Office all day long; they run Photoshop. So how does a G3 Mac stack up against a PII-equipped Windows NT system? And more importantly, considering that dual-processor PC's are pretty easy to get hold of (whereas Apple hasn't had a multi-processor system since the 9500), how does Apple's latest blue-and-white G3/400 hold up against an NT system running two Pentium II's, each running at 450 MHz? Remember, Windows NT supports symmetric multiprocessing, one of those modern features that the Mac OS still lacks. Personally, we at AtAT admit it: we would expect the G3 to get smoked. After all, the NT system has a combined clock speed of 500 MHz more than the Mac, and the Mac OS, while loveable, is a little behind when it comes to some of the modern operating system technologies found in NT. So we were fully expecting to see the Mac come in second, at which point we'd have to remind everyone that the Mac offers greater ease of use, higher levels of user satisfaction, and a look that knocks beige boxes flat on their butts.

But when Accelerate Your Mac actually pitted these two systems head-to-head running the PSBench 21-filter Photoshop benchmark, guess who won? Much to our surprise, the G3 finished in 148.6 seconds, while the dual PII box took 177 seconds. Sure, in many of the shorter subtests the NT box was faster, but for beefy filters like a fat Radial Blur, the G3 easily made up the difference and pulled ahead. Color us surprised, but in a good way: it appears that for raw Photoshop performance, a Mac is still the way to go, overcoming a 500 MHz handicap to win the gold. We can only imagine how things are going to look once the multi-processor G4 boxes ship in a year or so, loaded with a symmetrically-multiprocessing Mac OS X-- betcha the Vegas odds will shift mightily in that match-up...