Mini Bash! - 1.5Ghz G4 vs 1.5Ghz Intel

[livingfortoday]

So, I overclocked my gf's 1.25Ghz G4 Mini to 1.5Ghz last night, and as that's the same speed as my 1.5Ghz Core Solo Mini, I thought I'd run XBench and Geekbench and compare some numbers.

Now, on XBench, the Intel Mini blew away the G4 on the overall score. 77.27 compared to 41.46. Not even close. Most of this comes from much better graphics, disk, and RAM performance. Oddly enough, though, the G4 beat out the Intel Mini in overall CPU score. I don't know if this is a glitch with the notoriously crappy XBench, or if the G4 is just better than a Core Solo:

red is G4, blue is Core Solo

The Geekbench scores were a little more straight-forward, though. I got a 70 even on the G4 Mini, and on the Intel I got a 127.7 (this was an older result, with only 1GB of RAM in it). I've read that Geekbench is a bit more fair than XBench, but I take both with a grain of salt, of course. Oh, and for comparison, pre-overclock, the G4 at 1.25Ghz was getting a score of 62.1.

Here are the specs of both, for better comparison:
G4 Mini: 1.5Ghz G4/40GB HD (4200rpm)/1GB PC2700 RAM/Radeon 9200 (32MB)
Intel Mini: 1.5Ghz Core Solo/60GB HD (5400rpm)/1.5GB PC2-5300 RAM/GMA950 (64MB)

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I just thought it was interesting, and felt I should share. Maybe it'll help someone make a decision if they're wavering between the two. If you want more detail or to compare to your own system, go to the XBench results site (http://db.xbench.com/) and look up "Mr. Doom" for the G4 (there's a pre-overclock and post-overclock one) and "Selene" for the Core Solo Mini. Enjoy!

 

[Silentwave]

probably the G4 got that score because the test could make good use of its AltiVec engine?

 

[livingfortoday]

probably the G4 got that score because the test could make good use of its AltiVec engine?

That's most likely the cause, as there no AltiVec result for the Core Solo. The G4 does come close to it on some things, though. Here are the CPU results, G4 on top, Core Solo on bottom:

GCD Loop
142.97 7.54 Mops/sec
186.69 9.84 Mops/sec

Floating Point Basic
40.40 959.98 Mflop/sec
60.96 1.45 Gflop/sec

AltiVec Basic
167.69 6.68 Gflop/sec
n/a

vecLib FFT
89.81 2.96 Gflop/sec
28.66 945.42 Mflop/sec

Floating Point Library
44.92 7.82 Mops/sec
44.22 7.70 Mops/sec

Thread Test
65.77
83.11

Computation
64.20 1.30 Mops/sec, 4 threads
66.19 1.34 Mops/sec, 4 threads

Lock Contention
67.43 2.90 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
111.67 4.80 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads

 

[gallagb]

guide to overclocking?

 

[livingfortoday]

guide to overclocking?

I just followed this:
http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/macmini/

There are a lot of other guides out there, as well as a disassembly guide at ifixit.com.

 

[SkyBell]

From the link you provided.

1.5GHz setting caused some glitches in Xbench Altivec routines. At 1.58GHz the system profiler reported the speed as 750MHz (Open Firmware does not recognise unexpected clock frequency) but apart from mentioned Altivec problems system was usable. As the result I have 1.42GHz Mac mini and it works just fine.

Maybe this has something to do with with it?

 

[Shadow]

Try GeekBench, Xbench is terrible.

 

[Macmadant]

The G4 was the best chip to come out of the Aim alliance, the G5 was good, but couldn't beat the equivalent Pentium, whereas the G4 could

 

[livingfortoday]

Try GeekBench, Xbench is terrible.

From the original post:

The Geekbench scores were a little more straight-forward, though. I got a 70 even on the G4 Mini, and on the Intel I got a 127.7 (this was an older result, with only 1GB of RAM in it). I've read that Geekbench is a bit more fair than XBench, but I take both with a grain of salt, of course. Oh, and for comparison, pre-overclock, the G4 at 1.25Ghz was getting a score of 62.1.

Yeah, I know the G4 isn't really the best processor out there, and this kind of shows how far behind the G4-based systems were even when the G5's were out. But, I hope this is informative for anyone considering getting a Mini, and trying to decide between a high-end G4 and a Core Solo or Duo.

 

[California]

Interesting and as I have the silent upgrade G4 Mini 1.5ghz with 64mb vram, that should perform even better?

For me the limitation on the G4 mini is only one gb of ram.

On it now, tho, great little machine. With 100gb 7200hd Wish I could stuff 2gbs of ram into it!

 

[livingfortoday]

I assume the extra VRAM does help raise the overall score of the Mini, and will help in graphics-intensive tasks. I found it interesting looking at the pre-overclock and post numbers in XBench, because the scores for the memory and graphics card also increased, probably because you're accelerating the bus multiplier? I think?

Anyways, good fun, and you might even think of upping the speed on that Mini. Apparently you can get it up to 1.67Ghz, and with some decent thermal grease still keep temps low.