Barefeats disputes Apple's iMac G5 claims

Interesting indeed. But then, we all know that Apple's benchmarks should be taken with a grain of salt. And some would argue that BareFeats' tests can be just as bad. But this is a VERY significant difference. Good thing I'll be going with a PowerMac G5 DP.

I find this part very interesting:

My report obviously got Apple's attention because they contacted me to see what I was doing differently. I sent them all my information on hardware and software and settings. I expected them to reciprocate but, so far, the only bit of information I could get from them is that they used the lowest quality settings. I had used high to highest settings.

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So then he retests using the only bit of information Apple would share, that they used the lowest settings. Still his results show that Apple is grossly exagerating their results.

Elan0204 said:

Still his results show that Apple is grossly exagerating their results.

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Maybe what Apple meant to say was that they used highest settings on the G4 and lowest on the G5!

stoid said:

Maybe what Apple meant to say was that they used highest settings on the G4 and lowest on the G5!

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Well, happy happy happy with my PB purchase of a few months ago. Looks like my PB will remain the best laptop to be had on the market for a while longer because there is no way I can see them putting a slowed down G5 in a PB because of heat problems and not have it outpace my machine...

Macintouch ran benchmarks of its own.

http://www.macintouch.com/imacg5/benchmarks.html

It looks like the G5 iMac is holding its own just fine. This discussion also includes an explanation of why different tests can yield very different results.

I wonder if the guy at Barefeats remembered to set the CPU to Highest. I don't think it would have such a large impact on the scores, but you never know...

i dont put much stock in benchmarks, but i tend to compare from a wide range of sources i never trust one

Counterfit said:

I wonder if the guy at Barefeats remembered to set the CPU to Highest. I don't think it would have such a large impact on the scores, but you never know...

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actually i belive the difference in that setting provides quite a large difference in results... maybe not that large but considerable

Counterfit said:

I wonder if the guy at Barefeats remembered to set the CPU to Highest. I don't think it would have such a large impact on the scores, but you never know...

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Did you read his reviews? It's obvious he's doing a thorough job.

No, he didn't forget to do the CPU setting. This tester is VERY meticulous, and has done several passes and multiple updates and a rigorous set of comparison machines.

He's even gotten some communication with apple's performance marketing or some such division.

Remaining variables (that he knows) that could affect the game benchmarks (from http://www.apple.com/imac/graphics.html ) are:

* RAM-- not only might the g5 experience more FPS benefits than the G4 above 1G (where G4s tend to level off in gaming gains), but matched-dimms in the G5 allow for a 128bit path.
* patch version of ut2004-- currently at 3323, which was not yet released at the time of the imac release-- also the original retail patch was very unoptimized, to the extent that audio alone took up to 10% of the CPU load.
*graphics detail settings of the game (Apple may have used lowest)
*resolution for game: 17" LCD native of 1440x900, or a non-native standard resolution such as 1024x768. Word is that apple and barefeats (rightfully) used the LCD native version of the benchmark.

To do your own UT2004, get the Santaduck benchmark and do it yourself, if you have both a g4 & g5 17" imac with different dimms of RAM laying about.

The results from apple are sure a lie, if you want to +200% the speed on UT2k4 vs a G4 Imac@1.25ghz surely you need more than a few extra mhz (especially when they have the same GPU..).

All I can say that i didn't think apple would bulls**t their customers like that,
the truth is that the iMac is a darn nice computer, but its NOT built for gaming.
If they would show some benchmark (which aren't lies) they could use some videorendering or some other cpu dermanding stuff.

Its so dissapointing..

keysersoze said:

UPDATE FROM BAREFEATS:

"September 30th, 2004 -- APPLE BANS TESTING IN RETAIL STORES. Yesterday, I was informed by the local Apple Retail Store Business Specialist that "The retail stores will no longer be available for equipment testing." Many of the articles you have read on BareFeats.com (including the recent iMac G5 article) were produced through the cooperation of the local Apple Retail Store. My job just got a lot harder."

http://www.barefeats.com/quick.html

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Apple are sure on thin ice now.....

The fact that Apple's benchmarks gave just percentages and no exact framerates should have been enough to make people suspicious already.

keysersoze said:

UPDATE FROM BAREFEATS:

"September 30th, 2004 -- APPLE BANS TESTING IN RETAIL STORES. Yesterday, I was informed by the local Apple Retail Store Business Specialist that "The retail stores will no longer be available for equipment testing." Many of the articles you have read on BareFeats.com (including the recent iMac G5 article) were produced through the cooperation of the local Apple Retail Store. My job just got a lot harder."

http://www.barefeats.com/quick.html

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Well it becoming clear apple does not like the truth about there bogus testing to come out to light. They like to hide behind there false advertisting and lies. That or they have 0 faith in there product holding up to there claims

now see the thing is that both benchmarks are probably accurate as when the details are at the highest the game is bottlenecked at the gpu which is the same in the imac g5 and the imac g4 when the details are set at the lowest it's cpu bottlenecked as the details are easily processed by the gpu and the cpu can pump up the fps.

keysersoze said:

"September 30th, 2004 -- APPLE BANS TESTING IN RETAIL STORES. Yesterday, I was informed by the local Apple Retail Store Business Specialist that "The retail stores will no longer be available for equipment testing." Many of the articles you have read on BareFeats.com (including the recent iMac G5 article) were produced through the cooperation of the local Apple Retail Store. My job just got a lot harder."

http://www.barefeats.com/quick.html

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Hmm... Could there be a class action lawsuit in the making? Maybe some lawyers are beginning to get ideas about suing Apple for false advertising, and Apple certainly doesn't want to make their job easier by supplying the computers used in the testing. Regardless, Apple is obviously getting scared about some sort of backlash, legal or otherwise.

Hector said:

now see the thing is that both benchmarks are probably accurate as when the details are at the highest the game is bottlenecked at the gpu which is the same in the imac g5 and the imac g4 when the details are set at the lowest it's cpu bottlenecked as the details are easily processed by the gpu and the cpu can pump up the fps.

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Agreed. Of course, Apple chose not to publish benchmarks done at the highest settings, because the company knew that the results at these settings were much less impressive, due to the lack of GPU upgrade.

Now, I'm not much of a gamer, but I've had no troubles with SimThemePark or Age of Mythology on my G5 iMac. Definitely much faster than my old Radeon Mac Edition 32 MB card.

Apple is indeed scared of BareFeats' results. Hopefully they can address this issue and thus, improve their G5 iMacs in their next update. Or else, not make any claim about gaming performance of G5s to G4s.


It is disappointing...

MacinDoc said:

Now, I'm not much of a gamer, but I've had no troubles with SimThemePark or Age of Mythology on my G5 iMac. Definitely much faster than my old Radeon Mac Edition 32 MB card.

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i can play age of mythology fine on my 600MHz ibook g3 with it's radeon mobility.

i and allot of people said the 5200 would cause trouble for apple and it is .

I think its sad that Apple resorts to spin/lies on benches period. They dont want the truth. That isnt going to help sales. Its a sad state of affairs that imac has been so crippled when compared to powermac and even sadder when you think these expensive machines(iMac/Powermac) are pushing $16.00 video like fx5200. I remember when Macaddict/macworld tested the dual 2.0 G5 and both publications had to admit the dual G5 wasnt fastest. Heck if George can spin us into a war for 200 billion i guess Apple can lie on its benches. Gamer beware, nongamer the imac is for you.

cluthz said:

The results from apple are sure a lie, if you want to +200% the speed on UT2k4 vs a G4 Imac@1.25ghz surely you need more than a few extra mhz (especially when they have the same GPU..).

All I can say that i didn't think apple would bulls**t their customers like that,
the truth is that the iMac is a darn nice computer, but its NOT built for gaming.
If they would show some benchmark (which aren't lies) they could use some videorendering or some other cpu dermanding stuff.

Its so dissapointing..

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Yeah. I bet they had a 128 meg card in for those tests...

This is so disappointing.... jeez.

But we saw it coming. Ever since the rumored specs of the iMac G5, there was, and rightly so, whining about the 5200-POS card.

OK, only in the low-end 1.6 GHz.... I could live with....

It is so cheap.

They'll have to remove the Doom 3 remarks too.

MacsRgr8 said:

This is so disappointing.... jeez.

But we saw it coming. Ever since the rumored specs of the iMac G5, there was, and rightly so, whining about the 5200-POS card.

OK, only in the low-end 1.6 GHz.... I could live with....

It is so cheap.

They'll have to remove the Doom 3 remarks too.

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Get screen shots now

I was surprised that the 1.5Ghz PB beat out the 1.8Ghz G5 iMac in some cases. How can this be?

Also, Barefeats only used 256MB RAM. However, I'm sure Apple is really questioning the 5200 now. I say the next revision will have the 6800 Ultra . Tuesday anyone?

JOD8FY