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iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks

miggyb said:
Is it just me, or does using "benchmarking" and "mac mini" in the same sentence sound kind of... odd? :rolleyes:
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It would until you realize the lowly Mac Mini of even the prior Core Duo rev is comparable with or superior to pretty much any Mac of the G4, Core Solo or Core Duo variety, except the highest end iMac of the same processor family or better. It really is an outstanding value considering the external expandability, headless capability and the abilito run essentially ANYTHING from OSX to Parallels and thus every flavor of DOS, Windows, Linux, etc.

If you use Macs for anything but your only CPU for email, browsing and Pro Apps, then you probably have, or need, a Mac Mini for "utility" purposes. A backup server, a media server, print server, alternate OS system, etc. For cheap. Most importantly it is NOT a peecee!

Rocketman
 
First time

First time I see an upgrade that sports a worse graphic card. I'm a happy owner of 24" with a 7600 GT, this long awaited new iMac has been quite disappointing. Glossy screen, bleah!
 
I find it so funny that Doom III is the test platform. Who plays Doom III anymore anyway!? lol :) It's very old and it was just terrible...

I guess when you got slow hardware you gotta test with "old games"
 
You know what'd be cool? If you could pick the model of Mac you already have and then compare it with the current crop. Like, how does my 1st gen dual 2GHz G5 compare with, say, a Core2 Duo mini? I realize my FSB is still faster but if I could eBay off Gigantor here and replace it with the postage-stamp mini and still be in the same performance ballpark, I'd consider it.
 
WannaGoMac said:
I find it so funny that Doom III is the test platform. Who plays Doom III anymore anyway!? lol :) It's very old and it was just terrible...

I guess when you got slow hardware you gotta test with "old games"
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Calling Doom 3 "old" is something not many Mac-gamers will agree on.... not many newer Mac games are available, or are such a burden on your hardware ;)

It sill is a good benchmarking game. New enough to show horsepower using OpenGL, and as it doesn't really require 512 MB VRAM (like Quake 4...) you can run good tests on today's cards, and cards which are of the last couple of years.
So, good for comparison.

And TBO I liked the game! I like the way it startles you... hehe :cool:
 
I still think bulking up the Mini so it has a Desktop CPU, and upgradeable GPU would be a nice machine. Take the Mac Pro, remove extra HDD bays, remove extra disc bay, lower it to 2-4 sticks of ram, and put a regular desktop CPU (not a high class xeon) and BOOM! A very kick ass Mac.
 
organic bond said:
First time I see an upgrade that sports a worse graphic card. I'm a happy owner of 24" with a 7600 GT, this long awaited new iMac has been quite disappointing. Glossy screen, bleah!
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I'm not so sure that the Radeon 2600 is not better than the GeForce 7600. Surely, the 2600 isn't as good as the GeForce 8600, but it should be better than the 7600, which leads me to believe that there is a driver issue here.
 
reallynotnick said:
I still think bulking up the Mini so it has a Desktop CPU, and upgradeable GPU would be a nice machine. Take the Mac Pro, remove extra HDD bays, remove extra disc bay, lower it to 2-4 sticks of ram, and put a regular desktop CPU (not a high class xeon) and BOOM! A very kick ass Mac.
Click to expand...

Something like this:

The Mac Fun™:

Conroe CPU
Radeon HD 2900 XT / GeForce 8800 GTX
2 internal HD
2 GB RAM
BlueRay drive
PCI sound card Dolby 5.1
 
longofest said:
I'm not so sure that the Radeon 2600 is not better than the GeForce 7600. Surely, the 2600 isn't as good as the GeForce 8600, but it should be better than the 7600, which leads me to believe that there is a driver issue here.
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Don't forget it's desktop Vs. mobile.

If the Mobility HD2600 XT is clocked to its stock speeds there wouldn't be such a gap in performance.
 
Basically, we all want a mini-tower mac. And apple is saying f*ck you to all of us...End of discussion.
 
longofest said:
I'm not so sure that the Radeon 2600 is not better than the GeForce 7600. Surely, the 2600 isn't as good as the GeForce 8600, but it should be better than the 7600, which leads me to believe that there is a driver issue here.
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I'm afraid the Radeon 2600 Pro is not any better than the GeForce 7600 GT, even on Windows XP SP2:

Take a look here
You'll find that the GeForce 7600 GT more often than not is slightly less bad than the Radeon 2600 Pro.
The Radeon 2600 XT OTOH.... :rolleyes:

One of the graphs from that site:
 

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MacsRgr8 said:
I'm afraid the Radeon 2600 Pro is not any better than the GeForce 7600 GT, even on Windows XP SP2:

Take a look here
You'll find that the GeForce 7600 GT more often than not is slightly less bad than the Radeon 2600 Pro.
The Radeon 2600 XT OTOH.... :rolleyes:

One of the graphs from that site:
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OMG! That's incredible!

opeter said:
Yep, that right. It seems as the only choise for gamers is the Mac Pro...
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Crazy isn't it? Oh well, I am not even a "real gamer" but I do like to play new/current games occasionally and Macs won't let me :(. I am hoping the Mac Mini refurbs at $429/479 re-appear (for some reason they are back up to $649??)...
 
opeter said:
Yep, that right. It seems as the only choise for gamers is the Mac Pro...
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That's right.
Couple of problems there though:
- You're paying alot for the fact that you're buying a Xeon CPU
- Not good enough grfx for that money

But... you can justify paying more for the Mac Pro, because you don't have to buy an iMac and gaming PC!
So.. I'm waiting for the next updated Mac Pro with today's grfx (please), and be über happy! :cool:
 
Guess I'll have to take the $300 I saved on my 24" Imac compared to the previous generation and buy a game console.
 
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.
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Mac mini - 3 revisions with the GMA 950
MacBook - 3 revisions with the GMA 950
MacBook Pro - 3 revisions with the X1600 (Recently upped to the 8600M GT)
iMac - 2 revisions (1.5 years) with the X1600 (Recently upped (or downed if you consider the 7600 GT) to the HD 2400 XT/ HD 2600 Pro)
Mac Pro - A year with the X1900 XT, a card that was "old" when it debuted a year ago.

I know Apple normally doesn't do amazing stuff with graphics cards but recently it's been depressing. Even when Apple went from a very bad graphics card to a bad graphics card, the update was welcome.
 
longofest said:
I'm not so sure that the Radeon 2600 is not better than the GeForce 7600. Surely, the 2600 isn't as good as the GeForce 8600, but it should be better than the 7600, which leads me to believe that there is a driver issue here.
Click to expand...


The Radeon should have much better Shader performance, so I'd expect the 2600 to perform a lot better on DX10/OGL2.0-level games.
 
Any sign of benchmarks comparing the 2600 to the X1600 that was standard in most of the old iMac lineup? It's surely disheartening that it performs worse than the previous CTO option but I'm very curious how well the new hardware compares to the older standard feature set.
 
Jawbreaker said:
Any sign of benchmarks comparing the 2600 to the X1600 that was standard in most of the old iMac lineup? It's surely disheartening that it performs worse than the previous CTO option but I'm very curious how well the new hardware compares to the older standard feature set.
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http://www.macworld.com/2007/08/firstlooks/imacbenchmarks/index.php

This doesn't include the new iMacs, but it's the same barefeats tests so you can compare:
http://www.barefeats.com/imcd4.html
 
Jawbreaker said:
Any sign of benchmarks comparing the 2600 to the X1600 that was standard in most of the old iMac lineup? It's surely disheartening that it performs worse than the previous CTO option but I'm very curious how well the new hardware compares to the older standard feature set.
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I posted a few earlier.

To the poster who asked about Quake 4/etc just being better on nvidia - YES, that is definitely the case.

Prey, Quake 4, and Doom 3 are all running on the same engine and definitely seem to cater to nVidia GPUs.
 
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