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iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks

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Apr 12, 2001
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PrimateLabs, the developers of GeekBench have published benchmark comparisons for the new Core 2 Duo Mac Mini and new aluminum iMacs.

Mac Mini (August 2007)

Apple's Mac Mini update replaced the aging Mac Mini's Core Duo processor with a Core 2 Duo. Their conclusion was that moving from Core 2 Duo and clock speed updates provide "modest" performance improvements but "no real reason to upgrade" from the previous generation Mac Mini. Speed increasines were much more dramatic, however, for owners of the PowerPC or Core Solo Mac Mini. (graphs available)

24-inch iMac (August 2007)

Apple's iMac update brought in the Santa Rosa chipset (faster front-side bus) along with the option for the faster (2.8GHz) Core 2 Duo Extreme processor. Both of these improvements can bring increase in performance, especially in memory intensive applications such as Aperture and Photoshop. (graphs available)

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2007/08/14/imac-and-mac-mini-benchmarks/
Hmm, Mac Mini is a possibility for me now to replace my "dead" Win 2003 server at home. I can hook into my HDTV to view things and get a USB HDD or NAS for more space. Altho those new imacs look awesome too. Ugh, Apple, I both love and loathe you!
 
Is it just me, or does using "benchmarking" and "mac mini" in the same sentence sound kind of... odd? :rolleyes:
 
Ram??

will i notice a big difference if i buy a 2gb stick of RAM that's 800Mhz instead of 667MHz??
 
What surprises me is that there isn't much speed difference between a Core Duo and a Core 2 Duo if both are clocked at 1.83Ghz if they are running on the same platform. The only advantage I can see is that the Core 2 is 64 bit.
 
I believe Core Duo and Core 2 Duo use the same socket and everything?

So all Apple had to do was simply change what chip they plug into the board. No motherboard changes/upgrades or anything.

It makes me wonder why they took so damn long to do this. Were they waiting until Core 2 Duo prices dropped enough to keep their profit margin on the Mini? It's annoying.

-Z
 
Mac mini!!!

wow, I knew the new processors were fast, but this is the first independent proof I've seen, that compared "my" G4 1.25Ghz Mini, with the newest version.
Improvements of over 4 to 5 times faster are very common here.

I hope to put some money aside and save up for one of the new Intel types myself, should be possible I guess :) :apple:
 
zorinlynx said:
I believe Core Duo and Core 2 Duo use the same socket and everything?

So all Apple had to do was simply change what chip they plug into the board. No motherboard changes/upgrades or anything.

It makes me wonder why they took so damn long to do this. Were they waiting until Core 2 Duo prices dropped enough to keep their profit margin on the Mini? It's annoying.

-Z
Click to expand...
The Mac Mini and iMac (Pre-Aluminum) shared the same CPU socket after the Intel switch. (Socket M)
 
aye5882 said:
so what's the big deal about SR then if there's no performance difference w/ the FSB?
Click to expand...

You asked the wrong question.

There are lots of things in a computer running at all different clock speeds. For example, the clock speed of the FSB and the clock speed of memory are unrelated. The MacMini cannot use memory faster than 667 MHz (if you put in faster memory, it runs at the slower speed, that is why 800 MHz memory costs money without benefit). However, because you have two memory chips, they can deliver more data than the FSB can handle. So the 800 MHz FSB is still not fast enough to handle two 667 MHz RAM chips, but it is faster than 667 MHz FSB.

Anyway, look at the numbers, and you see that Core2Duo at 1.83GHz is faster than CoreDuo at 1.83GHz in the memory benchmark.
 
Here's the surprise to me: The performance of the Core 2 Extreme 2.8 iMac vs Core 2 Duo 2.4 iMac (both new iMacs).

Overall, it runs about 17% faster, which is a pretty nice speed bump.

Actually it's in line with the difference in clock speeds, which never happens (that is, a 20% clock speed increase never gives you a 20% overall performance increase because of various other parts of the system).

I guess "extreme" isn't just a marketing word. Maybe the $250 upgrade price is worth it.
 
Update

Barefeats posts some gaming/graphics benchmarks that show less than desirable results for the new iMac's Radeon 2600 HD vs. the previous iteration's GeForce 7600 option. The site has promised to re-run the tests under Windows XP to see if the issue is driver-related, as Windows drivers would be more mature than Mac OS X versions (note: driver issues were to blame for initially low-scoring current MacBook Pro benchmarks).
 
longofest said:
Barefeats posts some gaming/graphics benchmarks that show less than desirable results for the new iMac's Radeon 2600 HD vs. the previous iteration's GeForce 7600 option. The site has promised to re-run the tests under Windows XP to see if the issue is driver-related, as Windows drivers would be more mature than Mac OS X versions (note: driver issues were to blame for initially low-scoring current MacBook Pro benchmarks).
Click to expand...

Just Ouch. What pains me even more for some reason is how much better the MacBook Pro's are in some tests. Do Quake and Halo just do better with Nvidia cards?
 
soosy said:
Just Ouch. What pains me even more for some reason is how much better the MacBook Pro's are in some tests. Do Quake and Halo just do better with Nvidia cards?
Click to expand...

It's pretty lame to use in a desktop mac/pc such low-end videocard, an nvidia 8600 should be the MINIMUM. So bring on an affordable desktop mac! Or you can forget ID & EA to bring more games to the mac.
 
I really thought that with Games companies appearing at WWDC and announcing their return to the Mac, Apple would put some decent video cards in their computers. Missed opportunity I think.
 
MacSA said:
I really thought that with Games companies appearing at WWDC and announcing their return to the Mac, Apple would put some decent video cards in their computers. Missed opportunity I think.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. PLEASE READ THIS APPLE
 
They did not benchmark 3D graphics for iMac. So I call it not a benchmark.

Edit: Well, they did in another benchmark.
7600 GT FTW!
 
MacSA said:
I really thought that with Games companies appearing at WWDC and announcing their return to the Mac, Apple would put some decent video cards in their computers. Missed opportunity I think.
Click to expand...

+1

I was looking forward to this iMac upgrade for Apple to put its money where its mouth is, so to speak. They've talked about taking gaming on the Mac more seriously, yet then they turn around and put a sub-par graphics card into the new iMac.

Mind you, I suppose for serious gamers who like to upgrade their video card every1-2 years to stay current and be able to play the current games, the iMac isn't the ideal gaming machine in the first place, being that its an AIO.

Hmm, so does this mean Apple is planning on releasing a mini-tower? :p ;) The power of the 24" iMac but the upgradability of the Mac Pro? :cool:
 
Some thoughts...

I've see a lot of numbers flying around, but I never really test framerates in games - I usually just play through them, so I have no "frame of reference" to see what 58 fps in Doom 3 "feels" like. So I ran Doom 3 on my PC (don't have the Mac version) which I think plays really well (being subjective here!!). This is on an old X800XT at high detail, 1280x1024 resolution. This averages between 50 and 65 fps. I adjusted the settings to vary the framerate. At 15-25 fps the game is barely playable, at 30 and above I thought the game ran fine!

So despite the new cards being slower I still think the iMac would be fine for most games (of course this is my opinion, I am sure there are people out there who want top performance and who will disagree).

Does anyone know if these tests included AA/AF? I know the ATI cards have a different architecture from the nVidia cards in that they are designed around shader-based AA/AF, not back-end hardware (ROP) AA/AF. This difference has accounted for the ATI cards' reduced performance when compared against nVidia's latest cards in previous benchmark tests. Even if AA/AF was not included, the ATI cards have fewer back-end ROPs (Render Output Processors) than other cards, so this may be another factor.
 
longofest said:
Barefeats posts some gaming/graphics benchmarks that show less than desirable results for the new iMac's Radeon 2600 HD vs. the previous iteration's GeForce 7600 option.
Click to expand...

As the owner of a 2.33 GHz iMac w/ the 7600GT, I'm feeling pretty good about my decision not to wait for a new model. In fairness, three of the four games are based on Doom 3, where ATI has lagged, for some reason. However, the Halo disparity is similarly large.

I really hope that Apple doesn't view the 7600GT BTO option as a failed experiment. I haven't looked closely at the tear-down articles. Does anyone know if the new iMac still has the MXM slot?

Edit: it appears that MXM is kind of an NVIDIA thing, and that the new iMacs do not support it.
 
It's not a driver issue, it's that Apple has employed some component buyer who doesn't know a video card from a hole in the ground.

Otherwise what series of decisions, what twisted rationalizations, what utter disconnection from reality, could lead to a new model of something having half the 3D power of it's predecessor?
 
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