Luxology and those benchmarks

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Technology company Luxology, who's software was used to demonstrate the speed of the G5 during Steve Jobs' keynote last week, has posted a reply regarding the benchmark skepticism.

http://www.luxology.net/company/wwdc03followup.aspx

Luxology stands by its claim that the G5 is faster than anything on the Wintel platform. The G5 is indeed a very very fast machine.

Also interesting is the fact that not everyone within their company was allowed to see the G5 prototype machine Luxology acquired from Apple some time before the official launch.

On Apple's website they have a list of comments from companies that vouch that the G5 is fast:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jun/23quotes.html

Companies listed by Apple that attest the the G5 speed are:
Adobe (Photoshop)
Pixar (Renderman)
Macromedia (Flash)
Luxology (Mystery app)
Alias Wavefront (Maya)
Avid / Digidesign (Protools audio)
Wolfram (Mathematica)

[DaveW]

I don't think anybody doubts the G5 is fast, but a lot of people doubt it's as fast as Apple has claimed. If we were to believe Apples benchmarks then the dual 2ghz G5 is at least twice as fast as a dual 3ghz Xeon. However, according to the Adobe quote, it's twice as fast as a dual 1.42ghz G4. Do you think a dual 1.42ghz G4 is as fast as a dual 3ghz Xeon? I don't.

As for Brad's comments, they're pretty meaningless until we have Luxology's app installed on our dual 2ghz G5's.

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Significant in the Luxology page (linked above) is some insight into their set-up and their product.

-what workstations their software engineers are using.
-A projection of 30-35% Mac sales (that's higher than Maya quoted this week)
-Several concurrent products are in development (adding to the mystery!!!)

[riki]

As long as it's at least 4 times faster than my current G4 400 I'll be happy. I might even be able to start using radiosity :)

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We don't yet know what product Luxology is developing, nor whether it'll be good or not. However one thing for sure is that Luxology's Brad Peebler is doing a lot of things lately that please the Macintosh community.

-Evangelizing about the benefits of the Mac
-Appearing on-stage with Steve Jobs at a keynote address
-Quotes in online Mac magazines and even on Apple's own website and promotional videos
-Fiercely defending the speed advantages of the Mac, against the bias of the Windows press.

Mac users like to hear this kind of talk. You don't get the impression that the Mac is second fiddle to Windows. It feels like the Mac is actually something special.

I think Peebler's appearances at Mac events will go down well with Mac users.

Below: Brad Peebler's appearance on Apple's G5 promotional video

[riki]

Yeah it's exciting stuff. If they bring out Renderman at a reasonable price that would be a definate plus. I still think the price of Shake is too high, not really in the price range of most freelancers.