It's Benchmark Time for iMac owners ! Updated with results

lali · Mar 17, 2011

Hi everyone,

Our buddies with Macbook Pro’s are having lots of fun benching their latest and greatest laptops with Sandy Bridge processors. There is a great thread by acedickson right here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1111126/

I bought my iMac 24 Inch alu (model 7,1) in November 2007 and I feel it is getting a bit old, especially for Handbrake encodes.

So, in order to give us some kind of an idea as to where our current (and older) iMacs stand in terms of performance, I propose that we run the same benchmark.

Step 1: Download Handbrake
The link is here: http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php
Click on Download (Intel 64bit)

Step 2: Download a movie called “Big Buck Bunny”.
The link is here: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/
Make sure you select the right movie (1920x1080 MP4)

Step 3: Set up Handbrake log
Open up Handbrake, open preferences, select Advanced, then click on “put individual encode logs in same location as movie”  

[URL=http://img37.imageshack.us/i/pic4m.png/]

[/URL]

Step 4: Select Handbrake Apple TV2 Preset (it's the only quality setting you change !!!)
Open up Handbrake, click on “source”, select the file named big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround.avi, select the Apple TV 2 preset, add to queue, then start !

[URL=http://img231.imageshack.us/i/pic5.png/]

[/URL]

The end result
The file will encode and after it’s finished you will go into your encode log
Mine was called big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround 2011-03-15 21-46-48.txt

You will find the average frames per second in this segment (do a search in textedit)
[22:02:12] work: average encoding speed for job is 13.115541 fps

You have your FPS. You will then need to calculate your total encode time. 
[21:46:48] macgui: Rip: Pending queue count is 1
[22:02:12] work: average encoding speed for job is 13.115541 fps

My 2007 iMac 24/2.4GHz has run this encode in 15 minutes flat.

Let's see the benches while we wait for our Sandy Bridge iMacs !

BENCHMARK RESULTS

Thanks

François

PS: If someone has a suggestion to make on the above please do so!
PS2: For those for are holding off from buying a current top-end iMac, just look at the results compiled in the Macbook Pro thread. Similar speed to the Sandy Bridge Macbook Pros.

Thermonuclear · Mar 17, 2011

2.66 GHz 4 core Mac Pro (year 2006):

work: average encoding speed for job is 26.176996 fps

9 minutes 6 seconds (546 seconds)

ChunkAhoy · Mar 17, 2011

New MacBook Pro 15" 2.2Ghz HD 128GB SSD 2011

Hello Lali !

Here's my new computer ;
MacBook Pro 15" 2.2Ghz HD 128GB SSD 2011

And here are my results ;
[22:36:07] work: average encoding speed for job is 43.855663 fps
5 minutes 26 seconds (326 seconds)

iSightG5 · Mar 18, 2011

iMac 27" i7 2.93

43.529934 FPS

5 min 29sec (329sec)

mrzeigler · Mar 18, 2011

For ***** & giggles, I'd love to clock my G4 iMac from 2003, but, alas, it's power PC.

BriR · Mar 18, 2011

2010 imac i5 6mins 51 sec
[20:21:01] macgui: Rip: Pending queue count is 1
[20:27:52] work: average encoding speed for job is 34.965992 fps

DeusInvictus7 · Mar 18, 2011

iSightG5 said:
iMac 27" i7 2.93

43.529934 FPS

5 min 29sec (329sec)

If this is what the current iMac i7 does...I really wanna see what the SB iMac does in a couple months.

They'll be beasts.

iSayuSay · Mar 18, 2011

ChunkAhoy said:
Hello Lali !

Here's my new computer ;
MacBook Pro 15" 2.2Ghz HD 128GB SSD 2011

And here are my results ;
[22:36:07] work: average encoding speed for job is 43.855663 fps
5 minutes 26 seconds (326 seconds)

iSightG5 said:
iMac 27" i7 2.93

43.529934 FPS

5 min 29sec (329sec)

Damn .. iMac i7 2010 beaten a bit by MBP 2011 .. I'm gonna get myself one of those Sandy Bridge iMac this year. I swear I will

MBP 2011 only use the mobile Sandy Bridge, imagine how good it will when the new iMac using desktop Sandy Bridge, more power than Vin Diesel can handle

spcdust · Mar 19, 2011

27" iMac 2.8 GHz 4 core i7 (late 2009) 6 mins 18 secs @ 38.015854 fps

Fast enough for me for home use, I can't really see why anyone would really need to chase faster speeds just for the sake of them. Personally I'd have to wait a couple more iMac generations before I considered it was worth upgrading my current iMac.

ChunkAhoy · Mar 19, 2011

iSayuSay said:
Damn .. iMac i7 2010 beaten a bit by MBP 2011 .. I'm gonna get myself one of those Sandy Bridge iMac this year. I swear I will

MBP 2011 only use the mobile Sandy Bridge, imagine how good it will when the new iMac using desktop Sandy Bridge, more power than Vin Diesel can handle

Lol, 3 seconds man. Consider this a tie.

infidel69 · Mar 19, 2011

AMD 1055T @ 3.8GHz = work: average encoding speed for job is 55.087067 fps. Not bad for a $500 PC. AMD hexcore CPU's kick ass in multi threaded tasks.... single threaded not so much. We should also do an audio encoding test for single thread performance. That's where SB really shines.
I'm going to do this test on my wifes computer (Core i7 920 @ 4.2GHz) tonight when she isn't using it. It should break 60 fps easily.

randomhkkid · Mar 19, 2011

Mid 2009 2.66ghz Macbook Pro 15" 4gb RAM
work: average encoding speed for job is 14.108010 fps
Duration: 00:09:56.45,

infidel69 · Mar 20, 2011

My PC must of scared all the imacs away.

shaynes · Mar 20, 2011

Waiting for the update before I get my first iMac, but I thought for fun I'd run this with my 2007 Macbook, 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo.

[16:02:48] macgui: processNewQueueEncode number of passes expected is: 1
[16:39:41] work: average encoding speed for job is 6.504608 fps

Time: 36:53 min
Framerate: 6.50 fps

Turns out that was no fun at all for my processor.

matonuser · Mar 20, 2011

When i saw that the 2011 Macbook Pro had beaten the score of the 2010 Imac i7, i knew i had to try mine to try to see if i couldn't edge it out - Success!!

iMac 27' i7 2.93 - 2010

44.062141 fps

5 mins 25 seconds (325 Seconds)

ChunkAhoy · Mar 21, 2011

matonuser said:
When i saw that the 2011 Macbook Pro had beaten the score of the 2010 Imac i7, i knew i had to try mine to try to see if i couldn't edge it out - Success!!

iMac 27' i7 2.93 - 2010

44.062141 fps

5 mins 25 seconds (325 Seconds)

Hey man don't push it or i'll run my bench 4 or 5 times and fall under that

wkw · Mar 22, 2011

late 2009 i7 2.8ghz 12gb ram: 41.84fps 5min 44.9sec

tsugaru · Mar 29, 2011

I'm gonna run this in a few minutes, just to see how my iMac 27" i7 2009 runs this.

[16:38:16] work: average encoding speed for job is 42.016090 fps

i7 2.8GHz - 16GB DDR3 1333 MHz RAM (might be the reason for the slight speed boost)

Dunno what I'm supposed to divide that from. There's a number of 14315 frames, 14339 and the render actually did 14313 frames.

So I'm either at ...

14315 / 42.016090 = 5.678380195142070 = 5m 40.7s
14339 / 42.016090 = 5.687900357537636 = 5m 41.3s
14313 / 42.016090 = 5.677586848276458 = 5m 40.7s

So let's call it 5m 40.7s.

Can't wait to see an 8 core Sandy Bridge iMac. Especially an i7-2600. Sandy Bridge, clock for clock, is supposed to be 10-20% more efficient at the same speed. The i7-2600 is a 3.4GHz turboing to 3.8GHz. So faster all around, and more efficient.

GeekBench scores should be around 12K + for them.

pcguru83 · Mar 29, 2011

I'm going to put my Mini in the running for the slowest time.

This is a great idea though, as I'm going to pull the trigger on a Sandy Bridge iMac, so this should be an interesting test to show just how tangible the difference is.

<sarcasm>
I'll have my results sometime tomorrow.
</sarcasm>

In case you have signatures hidden, I'm running a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo Mini with 4GB RAM.

tsugaru · Mar 29, 2011

pcguru83 said:
I'm going to put my Mini in the running for the slowest time. This is a great idea though, as I'm going to pull the trigger on a Sandy Bridge iMac, so this should be an interesting test to show just how tangible the difference is.

<sarcasm>
I'll have my results sometime tomorrow.
</sarcasm>

In case you have signatures hidden, I'm running a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo Mini with 4GB RAM.

Prolly take about an hour or so for you.
I finished mine but I'm looking in the log where the time is.

pcguru83 · Mar 29, 2011

Just noticed the OP asked for iMac times. I'll still contribute my Mac Mini time though, if for nothing else but my own use.

MST · Mar 29, 2011

Please forgive my ignorance and/or stupidity but once the encode is complete and I have my average FPS how do I then calculate my total encode time?

...

tsugaru · Mar 29, 2011

MST said:
Please forgive my ignorance and/or stupidity but once the encode is complete and I have my average FPS how do I then calculate my total encode time?

...

I just divided by the frames of work done.
For mine though I had 3 sets of numbers, so I did math on all 3.

pcguru83 · Mar 29, 2011

OK, the time for my Mini is in, and I have to admit, it's much quicker than I expected.

Average FPS: 9.295321
Encode Time: 25 minutes, 36 seconds

Again, this is with a 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac Mini with 4GB of RAM.

pcguru83 · Mar 29, 2011

MST said:
Please forgive my ignorance and/or stupidity but once the encode is complete and I have my average FPS how do I then calculate my total encode time?

...

Here is a handy calculator:

http://www.timeanddate.com/date/timeduration.html

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It's Benchmark Time for iMac owners ! Updated with results