Re:Apples and Oranges (Score 1)

>the shorter the pipeline, the more efficient the >processor is at performing tasks. Thats not true. A well built pipeline of PROPER length is the fastest of all. The macintosh has a shorter pipeline only because it has a more RISC-ish chip. The instructions sent to it require fewer processing tasks to perform, this is typically directly tied to the pipeline "length". (ie the typical number of processing levels is typically the same as the length of the pipeline, so if the pipeline has a length of 7 then there are probably 7 levels of processing) However, the p4 probably has 20 levels of processing to go through. While the macintosh can push more "weak" instructions through faster, the p4 can push more "powerful" instructions through for processing power which rivals or exceeds that of the macintosh. What the mac expo showed was not how much faster the macintosh is than the pc, it showed how many raw instructions it could send. Which in itself means absolutely nothing.