iMac 1.8 Ghz G5 Benchmarks

[JasonL]

To all the whiners of the performance, CPU or GPU or otherwise, you have two easy choices:

1) don't buy it
2) wait for rev b

and three, which is mandatory, if you're gonna bash it, make sure you state that you're wanting something high end in the first place and that you won't be buying it. and most importantly, you have to state not everbody else has ths same needs as you.
kinda makes you feel stupid for bashing it, doesn't it, once you admit this to everybody else.

Um, I'm going with #2. I don't know that I was 'bashing' the new iMac. I think that it is a great computer for a very large number of people!

I'm not sure I understand the 'make sure you state that you're wanting something high end in the first place and that you won't be buying it'.

I may very well buy an iMac...when the next revision comes out.

All I'm saying is that for $2k+ (I'd be looking at a G5 1.8 20" model with 1GB RAM) I'd like to have a better GPU in my machine than the 5200. I'm not trying to bash anything. The fact is that I'd like to have the computer for at least a good three years or so. Not that gaming is anywhere near the top of my priorities (that would be digital video and photo editing, developing training material for work,and then your basic internet and word processing); but there are already games that I occassionally play that will not run all that great on an iMac now, nevermind in three years.

Please don't give me that 'buy a PC if you want to play games' stuff. I refuse to buy PCs...period. I play games maybe 2-3 hours a week, but I'd like for them to run fairly well.

I hope that you better understand where I am coming from now. Thanks.

 

[andyblac]

just seen some photo's of the inside os a 20" iMac on one of the other forums.

the 20" iMac inside cooling looks diferent to the 17" the part on the G5 chip cooling, it goes straight to one of the fans, the 17" does not, so the 20" should run cooler (ie faster, i hope)

 

[AmigoMac]

If people start bashing the iMac because it can't run Cinema4D & Motion...
and then they claim they need a mid-powerful machine because they don't have enough cash and apple should know that ...

Hello world! This a consumer-machine, the iMac is for those "NORMAL" users ... no Cinema4D/Motion/Shake/Whatever pro app wannabe's ...

Yes, there are already benchmarks but no one has posted real results with at least 1GB RAM, Pro users without enough $$$ wouldn't run Cinema4D with 256 RAM, would they?

 

[tex210]

If I hads listened to all the whiners out there...

I would have never bought my iMac in the first place.
600 mhz g3
ati rage pro 128
16mb vram
... and you know what? When I bought it (on clearance no less), the sunflower had just been introduced. I knew however, I would be fine for a while with it. Sent my 400dvse to the office(it still does it's job). Guess what, I play games! I do video, do photoshop and golive... got iTunes, surf and mail. In fact, I'm only considering an upgrade now for a dvd burner. If I thought I could burn a dvd on my current machine, I would have just swapped out my cd burner. I think a 5200 ultra would be more than a step up, don't you? Or are all these people implying this vidcard sux that bad? I doubt it. Be realistic. Benchmarks, Doom 3 and Half-life 2 are not the measure of computer performance, the user and it's use are.

 

[rdowns]

Sometimes I think that even if Macs came with a $1500 mail-in rebate, somebody would find reason to complain !

Damn right. I can"t beleive they didn't include a postage paid envelope with that offer. Can you believe I had to put my own stamp on it?

 

[myapplseedshurt]

Whiners? not in my case

I hope people don't think I'm whining when I complain about the imac's form design possibly limiting the chipset's temp range.

What I have a problem with is the fact that the design was intentionally made to look like an ipod. In order to achieve that, chipset cooling might have been sacrificed.

As I said before, I hope I'm wrong. The hardware monitors for temp could provide an insight to this postulation. However, if I'm correct, then the new imac is nothing more than a reach out to switchers, dropping the hands of the people that are loyal and wanted performance instead of new companions.

 

[Steve M]

While the new iMacs are very nice, I think it was foolish of Apple to provide such a low-powered graphics card. An ATI Radeon 9600 would have been a far better choice. In fact, if the new iMac came with that GPU, I'd probably be selling my 1.8GHz PowerMac G5 and upgrading to the iMac (mostly for the 20" LCD)

Note that I'm not blindly bashing Apple -- I honestly think the GPU choice was a serious mistake on their part.

 

[odo]

If people start bashing the iMac because it can't run Cinema4D & Motion...
and then they claim they need a mid-powerful machine because they don't have enough cash and apple should know that ...

Hello world! This a consumer-machine, the iMac is for those "NORMAL" users ... no Cinema4D/Motion/Shake/Whatever pro app wannabe's ...

Yes, there are already benchmarks but no one has posted real results with at least 1GB RAM, Pro users without enough $$$ wouldn't run Cinema4D with 256 RAM, would they?

You are absolutely right!
And beside that, who would run C4D on a single procesessor...? Not me!

 

[tex210]

just curious...

why would you be looking for a new machine at this point? If higher end cards and a larger monitor are what you want, just replace those components. Isn't that why you bought a tower? Honestly, Woz was right. People don't need more advanced hardware to get most work done. At this point in computer development, the focus should remain on the user interface. Let's get this hardware in the hands of the users and see how far down the road it takes us before we start asking for a better ride.

While the new iMacs are very nice, I think it was foolish of Apple to provide such a low-powered graphics card. An ATI Radeon 9600 would have been a far better choice. In fact, if the new iMac came with that GPU, I'd probably be selling my 1.8GHz PowerMac G5 and upgrading to the iMac (mostly for the 20" LCD)

Note that I'm not blindly bashing Apple -- I honestly think the GPU choice was a serious mistake on their part.

 

[tex210]

If memory serves me...

the sunflower came with similar arguments. The gpu was limited because of the specialty motherboard and the processor limited by the case design. The design looks to me to be made to look like the original macintoshes, not the ipod. Just white, not beige, and flatter than the old. If you aren't looking for a consumer machine, get a tower, or even a powerbook. Although I can already hear the arguments against the 'books already. So maybe you should stick with your machine until you see one that is worthy of your dollar. I do not believe this machine is just for switchers though, as it far surpasses my current Apple hardware, gpu and all.

I hope people don't think I'm whining when I complain about the imac's form design possibly limiting the chipset's temp range.

What I have a problem with is the fact that the design was intentionally made to look like an ipod. In order to achieve that, chipset cooling might have been sacrificed.

As I said before, I hope I'm wrong. The hardware monitors for temp could provide an insight to this postulation. However, if I'm correct, then the new imac is nothing more than a reach out to switchers, dropping the hands of the people that are loyal and wanted performance instead of new companions.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Here is a link to a Photoshop benchmark test.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Cafe/4363/

I am in the midst of many projects, so it may have to wait till the weekend for me to run a true test. Also I am not sure how much a difference PS7 vs PSCS will make on the Mac.

 

[myapplseedshurt]

imac and ipod together on apple's web page

the sunflower came with similar arguments. The gpu was limited because of the specialty motherboard and the processor limited by the case design. The design looks to me to be made to look like the original macintoshes, not the ipod. Just white, not beige, and flatter than the old. If you aren't looking for a consumer machine, get a tower, or even a powerbook. Although I can already hear the arguments against the 'books already. So maybe you should stick with your machine until you see one that is worthy of your dollar. I do not believe this machine is just for switchers though, as it far surpasses my current Apple hardware, gpu and all.

Clearly, apple is trying to make the connection to the ipod. How can you go to their website and say this isn't true? They blatently put the imac next to an ipod, same pose even!

 

[Steve M]

why would you be looking for a new machine at this point? If higher end cards and a larger monitor are what you want, just replace those components. Isn't that why you bought a tower? Honestly, Woz was right. People don't need more advanced hardware to get most work done. At this point in computer development, the focus should remain on the user interface. Let's get this hardware in the hands of the users and see how far down the road it takes us before we start asking for a better ride.

Because I've been contemplating getting an Apple 20" Cinema Display, and the iMac is pretty much functionally equivalent to the G5 tower I currently have and INCLUDES a 20" display (albiet one that's not quite as nice as the Cinema Display). If the iMac had a good enough graphics card, I might have considered selling the PowerMac (should be able to get roughly $1k for it) and getting the iMac for basically $899 -- quite a bit less than even a refurbished Cinema Display.

But the graphics card isn't good enough, so I won't be doing that

 

[stuepfnick]

If people start bashing the iMac because it can't run Cinema4D & Motion...
and then they claim they need a mid-powerful machine because they don't have enough cash and apple should know that ...

Hello world! This a consumer-machine, the iMac is for those "NORMAL" users ... no Cinema4D/Motion/Shake/Whatever pro app wannabe's ...

Yes, there are already benchmarks but no one has posted real results with at least 1GB RAM, Pro users without enough $$$ wouldn't run Cinema4D with 256 RAM, would they?

It seems to me, you don't get it. It is the same with iMovie, Dashboard, Photoshop, Mac OS X itself, maybe Safari, lot of games, whatever.

BTW: Motion is a prosumer App with it's low price and Final Cut Express runs even fine on an iMac G4, so what?

This graphics card is just outdated, but the rest of the iMac is a very powerful computer.

Just 60$ more for the end user is the BTO option for the Powermac Radeon 9600XT with 128.

Or even more simple: Don't solder the GPU on the mainboard... So later an upgrade board can be made. Already fine would be, if it's only a newer low end gpu next year and maybe later another one too.

 

[JOD8FY]

I'm impressed with the GPU's scores

From what I saw on the XBench test, it said that the iMac got 131 fps on the OpenGL test. To me, that seems great! I know that you're going to give me some charts that show a card that can get 500 fps, but really, can you tell the difference after a while? Unless you're in the middle of a battle of epic proportions, could you really tell? Also, don't forget that this iMac has only 256MB RAM and that Panther is not optimized for the G5, so Tiger will bring even better scores. And then with these possible "consumer upgrades"? This iMac is looking better and better....

Cheers all,
JOD8FY

 

[skumancer]

This are the results for my machine DP 1.8Ghz G5)

Considering the machine is running as a full time web/filemaker/web/file and ssh server, the results are not bad. The machine has been on for 9 days.

Results 191.79
System Info
Xbench Version 1.1.3
System Version 10.3.5 (7M34)
Physical RAM 1536 MB
Model PowerMac7,2
Processor PowerPC 970x2 @ 1.80 GHz
Video Card GeForce FX 5200
CPU Test 174.76
Thread Test 178.12
Memory Test 325.01
Quartz Graphics Test 219.07
OpenGL Graphics Test 203.41
User Interface Test 318.60
Disk Test 105.66


CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************

Tester : Ricardo

Processor : PowerMac G5
MHz : 1800
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : Mac OS X 10.3.5

Graphics Card : GForce FX 5200
Resolution : <1024x768>
Color Depth : <millions>

****************************************************

Rendering (Single CPU): 255 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 402 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.58

Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 247 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 692 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 1079 CB-GFX

OpenGL Speedup: 4.37

****************************************************


I'll perform the tests again as soon as I can restart. Next week I'll perform the tests on an Xserve G5 DP 2.0 that will arrive monday.

 

[stuepfnick]

Um, I'm going with #2. I don't know that I was 'bashing' the new iMac. I think that it is a great computer for a very large number of people!

I'm not sure I understand the 'make sure you state that you're wanting something high end in the first place and that you won't be buying it'.

I may very well buy an iMac...when the next revision comes out.

All I'm saying is that for $2k+ (I'd be looking at a G5 1.8 20" model with 1GB RAM) I'd like to have a better GPU in my machine than the 5200. I'm not trying to bash anything. The fact is that I'd like to have the computer for at least a good three years or so. Not that gaming is anywhere near the top of my priorities (that would be digital video and photo editing, developing training material for work,and then your basic internet and word processing); but there are already games that I occassionally play that will not run all that great on an iMac now, nevermind in three years.

Please don't give me that 'buy a PC if you want to play games' stuff. I refuse to buy PCs...period. I play games maybe 2-3 hours a week, but I'd like for them to run fairly well.

I hope that you better understand where I am coming from now. Thanks.

Very well said, that's my opinion too.

 

[stuepfnick]

After some trials and tribulations with replacing a 20 incher I posted a pretty good score on xbench.
1.8ghz
1 gig ram
160gig hd
20 inch
chiggity check it out

Hello!

Please could you do the whole Cinebench Test, with the Cinebench G5 beta? I would like to see all values (especially the OpenGL values) with enough RAM (1GB dual channel) in the new iMac. Would be fine, if anyone of you could do that test!

 

[HiRez]

Cinebench Scores

Here's a long list of Cinebench scores, including Mac and x86 models:

http://www.3dfluff.com/mash/cbtop.php

It looks like the iMac is right in line with the single 1.8 G5 tower scores, not too shabby considering this test was run with only 256 MB of RAM and the ones in the list were most likely run with a lot more. The OpenGL shading scores, however, are pretty pathetic, which I suppose is not unexpected.

 

[tex210]

uhm...

I said no such thing.
"The design looks to me to be made to look like the original macintoshes, not the ipod. Just white, not beige, and flatter than the old."
I should have said...
It reminds ME of the old macintosh... sorry
Yes Apple is making the iPod connection.

Clearly, apple is trying to make the connection to the ipod. How can you go to their website and say this isn't true? They blatently put the imac next to an ipod, same pose even!

 

[HiRez]

Apple will never (nor will a 3rd party) offer a replaceable board that contains the CPU, Video Card, etc. It's replaceable incase it breaks, but its just not profitable.

I agree with you it's very unlikely, although I remember they did do this with the original Macintosh. I remember having my my Mac 128k upgraded to a Mac Plus with an Apple kit. Replaced the whole logic board and floppy drive, basically everything except the case and screen. However, it had to be performed by Apple, and it also cost, IIRC, ~$1,000.

 

[kangaroo]

Doug and Wendy Whiner

A few points...

By now, I'm sure, Apple knows you're unbelievably, extraordinarily, upset by this graphics card. They got it, ok?

This card allows Apple to incrementally 'upgrade-to-death' the new iMac so that for the next 3-5 years they can introduce a 'new' model with better specs. Apple is known for this, right?

If you don't like the card, buy a PM and customize to your hearts content.

Now get OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[wookitus]

1.8 g5 sp

Here are some xbench scores for comparison. This is the original g5 powermac 1.8sp and an ATI 9600.

Results 157.36
System Info
Xbench Version 1.1.3
System Version 10.3.5 (7M34)
Physical RAM 512 MB
Model PowerMac7,2
Processor PowerPC 970 @ 1.80 GHz
L1 Cache 64K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 512K @ 1.80 GHz
Bus Frequency 900 MHz
Video Card ATY,RV350
Drive Type ST3160023AS
CPU Test 166.53
GCD Loop 100.65 3.93 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 245.84 889.03 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 123.70 3.59 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 195.06 3.03 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 355.70 14.24 Mops/sec
Thread Test 103.96
Computation 68.26 921.50 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 217.94 2.74 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 306.60
System 338.09
Allocate 654.42 426.88 Kalloc/sec
Fill 286.80 2282.96 MB/sec
Copy 259.17 1295.83 MB/sec
Stream 280.48
Copy 237.88 1738.93 MB/sec [G5]
Scale 247.90 1829.53 MB/sec [G5]
Add 324.00 2073.61 MB/sec [G5]
Triad 340.44 2080.08 MB/sec [G5]
Quartz Graphics Test 218.82
Line 199.94 5.09 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 209.22 14.72 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 215.87 4.98 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 196.13 2.13 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 299.59 4.88 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 143.28
Spinning Squares 143.28 100.27 frames/sec
User Interface Test 257.07
Elements 257.07 82.69 refresh/sec
Disk Test 98.44
Sequential 100.11
Uncached Write 116.38 48.51 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 99.24 40.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 85.12 13.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 104.85 42.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 96.82
Uncached Write 91.35 1.37 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 93.63 21.12 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 99.00 0.65 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 104.31 21.47 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Maybe OT: Adobe CS Suite

Does this particular package take advantage of the G5 and dual G5's?

What about Safari and Filemaker 6 or 7? And the Epson printer drivers for the 2200 and the CX6400?

I ask, since IF Apple does a revision in the next few months of the PB's; there may not be much of a reason for the "average" user to move towards the iMac G5.

 

[JohnSmiley]

The Future

I would like to make a side note on the iMac performance that many seem to complain about.
1st think about what the iMac and iBook is directed at low end home use.
2nd the true power of any machine running a G5 has yet to be tapped as the core OS is not yet fully optimized for the 64 bit processor.
Finally yes the card may not be so awesome but it will get there.