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First Impressions of Intel iMac Core Duo

rugonnaeatthat said:
I have a newly bought REV B iMac G5, 2GHZ 1GB RAM - took 118 secs to boot
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Boot times don't matter to me a whole lot, but that is just TOO long. i've never timed my Dual 867, but I'd say it takes around 30 seconds.
 
Randall said:
Why do you think that Apple's EFI implementation is customized? I would assume that it's the generic x86 EFI implementation that is used by all of intel's hardware. After all, intel were the ones that came up with EFI for the x86 architecture that they design.
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One of the major selling points of EFI is that it's very modular and very customizeable. Intel has been pushing EFI, literally, for years. I think they were trying to push out EFI in the late 90's.

My understanding is, EFI could have been used for years but its a chicken and egg thing. No vendor would release an EFI motherboard without MS Windows support and MS won't add it without EFI hardware available.

I strongly suspect that Intel's ViiV platform will use EFI since it will allow vendors to differentiate their platforms more, especially when you are talking about Multimedia PCs that will essentially become AV components.
If that is, in fact the case.. We'll likely see an EFI compatible version of Windows XP (probably Windows Media Center first).. and it should come pretty soon.. hopefully.

As for Apple's EFI being too different to boot windows anyway.. I don't think that's realistic. OS Vendors won't have to make a custom OS profile for every implementation of EFI. EFI is a standard after all. You'll always be able to access CPU interrupts in the same way. Modular EFI is more about enabling extra, special features or not implementing optional features.
I strongly suspect that EFI enabled Windows should be able to boot an x86 mac just fine.

ffakr
 
FadeToBlack said:
Boot times don't matter to me a whole lot, but that is just TOO long. i've never timed my Dual 867, but I'd say it takes around 30 seconds.
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Time it. I thought my iMac took about 30, but it actually took 89! :eek:
 
Nermal said:
Time it. I thought my iMac took about 30, but it actually took 89! :eek:
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Wow! I'll time it the next time I reboot if I remember. I timed my eMac and I believe it took like 35 seconds. The thing with it was it would sit on a black screen for like 15 seconds before the Apple logo would pop up. I believe that's normal with the eMacs.
 
How well do you think Rosetta will do in translation?

Hey everybody,

I know this is off the subject of Intel benchmarks but how well you think Rosetta will do translating old PowerPC apps to run on the Intel processors. I use Flash and Dreamweaver MX to build websites, and I like these versions; I don't really want to upgrade. Because Adobe like Macromedia will probably have software activation and anti-piracy measures in place just to screw with the honest user.:mad: Thanks Microsoft for teaching other companies how to screw the little guy! Idiots!

Sorry if I offended any Microsoft fan-boys or girls out there.
 
Mac Dummy said:
I know this is off the subject of Intel benchmarks but how well you think Rosetta will do translating old PowerPC apps to run on the Intel processors. I use Flash and Dreamweaver MX to build websites, and I like these versions;
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Since you're coming from a 1 GHz G4, I suspect you'll find those 2 perform just fine. Maybe not a huge improvement (other than UI elements responding faster) but I doubt many apps will be noticeably slower than your G4 for everyday use.

(However, I'm sure you'll notice Flash playing better in your browser, with Universal Flash player, than it does within Rosetta Flash.)

I'm keeping those same versions of both apps myself--until Universals are available.
 
FadeToBlack said:
Wow! I'll time it the next time I reboot if I remember. I timed my eMac and I believe it took like 35 seconds. The thing with it was it would sit on a black screen for like 15 seconds before the Apple logo would pop up. I believe that's normal with the eMacs.
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I timed it from pressing the power button until everything had loaded (dock, desktop, menu bar, Adium). Some people would say that I should make a new account with nothing loading at startup, but that's hardly a real-world test.
 
Nermal said:
I timed it from pressing the power button until everything had loaded (dock, desktop, menu bar, Adium). Some people would say that I should make a new account with nothing loading at startup, but that's hardly a real-world test.
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Well last night, my power ended up going out and my UPS didn't keep my Mac running. Time to buy a more powerful UPS, I guess. My Power Mac must need more power than my UPS' battery can give it.

Anyway, I timed it and it took appromimately 37 seconds, including typing the password.
 
Back on the topic of Rosetta, has anybody run Quark 6.5 on an Intel iMac yet?

I am about to order a new iMac and although I only rarely use Quark it is important that I can run it occasionally.

Thanks

JS
 
nagromme said:
Actually, the Pentium M (ancestor of Yonah/Core Duo) DOES come pretty close to high-end desktop Pentium performance. "Beats?" Maybe not always, but with a top GPU it could outrun a LOT of people's desktop gaming rigs. I don't have trouble believing that claim, having read the Pentium M review and head-to-head benchmarks at Tom's Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/05/25/dothan_over_netburst/index.html

"we were able to raise the FSB from 133 to 160 MHz without any trouble at all. The result was that our 2.13GHz Pentium M 770 ended up running at 2.56 GHz! At this clock speed, our two year old platform was able to beat the processor heavyweights Athlon 64 FX and Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition in all 3D games!"

Now, even ONE Yonah core is faster than a Pentium M--and the iMac/MacBook Pro have two cores.
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Tom got his up to 2.56GHz but others have gotten theirs as high as 3.8GHz. You can imagine the results. Mine is running at a mere 2.9GHz.
illegalprelude said:
I dont doubt the power of the unit but I have a feeling my PC would have no trouble running against once with ease would be my first thought. My second thought is the type of people who "mod their honda civiic and say they beat a mustang" Great, you are now comparing apples and oranges, no longer stock vs stock
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I am comparing oranges to oranges. Overclocked Athlon FX-57 to Overclock Pentium M Dothan. Stock vs. stock doesn't make sense here since the Pentium M is vastly underclocked to run on less voltage for less heat and power consumption. Yonah is basically a dual core Dothan.
 
Intel-based Macs will run Windows Vista

Has anybody that currenly owns the new Intel-based iMacs had a chance to try dual booting with the latest beta of Windows Vista, which supposedly has EFI support? Paul Thurrott has written that he believes that the new Mactels can dual boot with Windows Vista in this article he wrote Intel-based Macs will run Windows Vista. He says he has odered a new iMac and plans on trying this and posting the results on his website later this week. :D

I was just wondering if any of you own the new iMacs and have attempted to boot off the Windows Vista beta? I have read several reports of failed attempts at booting Windows XP on the iMac, but EFI-based Vista may have better results.
 
seancusick said:
Ran word. Seemed very fast. I hope all "old" binaries work as well.
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When you scrolled a document in Word, was it as fast as the keynote demo?
 

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Wow

Think we might actually have post that addresses relative performance?

I'd help, but picking that 500gb HD upgrade added a 3-4 week delay.
 
nagromme said:
Since you're coming from a 1 GHz G4, I suspect you'll find those 2 perform just fine. Maybe not a huge improvement (other than UI elements responding faster) but I doubt many apps will be noticeably slower than your G4 for everyday use.

(However, I'm sure you'll notice Flash playing better in your browser, with Universal Flash player, than it does within Rosetta Flash.)

I'm keeping those same versions of both apps myself--until Universals are available.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'm not worried about Flash Player itself, it really won't matter what version is used to open the file. As for creating that Flash movie file though, I sticking with MX, because there are no stupid licensing issues, at least as long as I can.
 
topgunn said:
Stock vs. stock doesn't make sense here since the Pentium M is vastly underclocked to run on less voltage for less heat and power consumption. Yonah is basically a dual core Dothan.
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/me goes off to register a new domain.. macoverclockers.com :p
 
My iMac G5 2.1GHz with 512MB of RAM takes around 1:08 (about 20 seconds faster than the one in the video) to boot to the login screen. I haven't read this whole thread so these might have been mentioned, but here are a couple of factors that could be affecting the boot speeds:

1) The Intel iMac is obviously brand new, whereas the iMac G5 has been used for a while so the operating system installation is no longer a factory install.
2) Perhaps additional RAM has been put in the iMac G5 in that video? Doesn't the computer do RAM check every time you boot up?
3) The length of time it takes for the iMac to turn on the screen. Could this be attributed to the new graphics card or new architecture rather than the Intel processors?

You would expect the Intel iMac to boot faster, but I'm surprised it is well over twice as fast.
 
Wsj

Walt probably has the best assessment of the Intel iMac in today's Wall Street Journal.

Bottom line: marginally better. Does great in the new iLife apps and 15%-25% faster. Speed in other apps offset by Rosetta. Only normal consumer type work done. No monster Photshop projects.
AOL for OSX does not work. Access via the website make this a minor point in his view.

Still considers it the "gold standard" for PCs.
 
Re: startup times

Shame on me for cross-posting this, but it's as relevant here as there:

I'd like to hear specific times between the various stages of startup, from power-on to chime to Apple logo to login screen (or desktop, for auto-logins).

Also, my understanding is that more RAM and certain devices will increase startup time because of POST initialization (or whatever it's called on a Mac). The selftest-#megs Open Firmware NVRAM variable controls how much RAM is tested, too. And differences in system startup items will cause variance.

Without more objective testing with known system configurations the random reports of startup times seem pretty useless for genuinely meaningful comparison purposes.
 
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