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iMac Pro iMac Pro Win10 vs Mac OS X High Sierra

S

spikerules

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 17, 2012
214
6
Hi all,
I've created some benchmarks on my iMac Pro for both Mac OSX and Windows 10 for comparison purposes. Some of the results are surprising and some are not (hint - gaming is better on Windows 10). Sorry for the resolution differences!

Firstly my specs!

24grlfd.jpg


Here are some of my results!

Cinebench Windows 10

2z52l2v.jpg


Cinebench for Mac OSX

10rmp35.jpg


Geekbench OpenCL Windows 10

302m55f.jpg


Geekbench OpenCL Mac OSX

2s76jvc.jpg


Geekbench CPU Windows 10

20v1bmc.jpg


Geekbench CPU Mac OSX

1zbex5s.jpg


Heaven Windows 10

el5wd1.jpg


Heaven Mac OSX

21n1thc.jpg


It seems that Windows 10 is beating Mac OSX in all tests, apart from the CPU test within Geekbench. For GPU intensive tasks like playing games it looks as though Win10 is the place to be as always, but what is surprising is that the CPU intensive tasks are doing so well in Windows 10. I'm not a OSX hater or a pro Windows 10 zealot, but I thought OSX was supposed to well optimised and a better all-round performer?

I'm not new to the Mac ecosystem, but I have been away for a while and only just returned so this is quite a surprise - well to me at least. What are your thoughts?
 
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I'd imagine that the GPU tests are affected by direct x / OpenGL implementations on the respective platforms.

Apple's OpenGL implementation historically being weaker for various reasons, and them deciding to focus on their own APIs (Metal/Metal 2) instead.

The CPU test is interesting to me though, since it shouldn't really be affected as much between platforms. I'm wondering why it is so much lower in Windows. Did you do the test directly after testing something else? There could be some kind of sustained CPU use thing affecting the numbers (but if not then ignore this).
 
sputnikBA said:
I'd imagine that the GPU tests are affected by direct x / OpenGL implementations on the respective platforms.

Apple's OpenGL implementation historically being weaker for various reasons, and them deciding to focus on their own APIs (Metal/Metal 2) instead.

The CPU test is interesting to me though, since it shouldn't really be affected as much between platforms. I'm wondering why it is so much lower in Windows. Did you do the test directly after testing something else? There could be some kind of sustained CPU use thing affecting the numbers (but if not then ignore this).
Click to expand...

I think it was the first test. I did it again after a restart and got better single but around the same multi results. Seeing as Cinebench is better on both I’m wondering if it’s a Geekbench issue?

I guess we’ll have to wait for other results. I might test again without any peripherals attached.
 
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Creedog said:
@spikerules - are you using the default Apple bootcamp video drivers for win 10, or the custom ones from bootcampdrivers.com?
Click to expand...

I’m using the default drivers. I didn’t think the custom ones were available yet?

Edit - just seen the driver update. Will download tomorrow or Monday and update the graphics results in windows.
 
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Someone else on these boards had good luck across the board with the custom drivers, except for overwatch( or some other game), where performance actually went down.
 
Creedog said:
Someone else on these boards had good luck across the board with the custom drivers, except for overwatch( or some other game), where performance actually went down.
Click to expand...

Not tried overwatch yet, but I have downloaded it. Diablo 3 plays at 5k buttery smooth for me. Much better than my Razer Blade 2017 does at 1080p!

Don’t forget these are not gaming machines and weren’t really intended to be used as such, no matter what the marketing lingo might state.
 
Did you take precautions against thermal problems when running the benchmarks ?
Not sure if the iMacPro package size is ideally suited to dissipate the heat generated by the actual components.
 
I think a huge problem with the iMac Pro is that most software doesn't utilize its 8/10/18-core processing powers even close to optimal. I've seen Premiere Pro load up the CPU only to 50% while rendering 8k footage, for example. So I don't think it has to do with windows being better (which it could be), but more with the fact that there is very little software making use of all the cores available.
 
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Interesting numbers, the video benchmarks are not totally surprising, I think Windows has an edge with regard to the drivers being produced and also DirectX but the CPU number is a bit surprising. Why is it faster in OS X then Windows. I'd expect them to be closer to each other
 
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maflynn said:
Interesting numbers, the video benchmarks are not totally surprising, I think Windows has an edge with regard to the drivers being produced and also DirectX but the CPU number is a bit surprising. Why is it faster in OS X then Windows. I'd expect them to be closer to each other
Click to expand...
The geekbench scores are actually in line with what I would expect for the W-2150B / W-2155.

(Pedantic, I know) It's more accurate to probably ask why Windows is slower than the result should be than why OS X is "faster". Maybe it's something to do with the Meltdown / Spectre mitigations. Window's fixes might just have more of a performance penalty?
 
maflynn said:
Interesting numbers, the video benchmarks are not totally surprising, I think Windows has an edge with regard to the drivers being produced and also DirectX but the CPU number is a bit surprising. Why is it faster in OS X then Windows. I'd expect them to be closer to each other
Click to expand...

It may well be a driver bug or something hogging resources within windows. I could try doing the test again with things like TB3 NAS drives, extra screens etc disconnected and closing down as many resources in the taskbar as I can. This may well show if there is something bugging out the multi cpu workload?

As I stated above I did do the test again after a restart with the single CPU test scoring over 5k and more in line with Mac OSX, but the multi score was still below 30k.

However this doesn’t explain why the Cinebench CPU score was higher in Win10? Surely both would have been lower?

sputnikBA said:
The geekbench scores are actually in line with what I would expect for the W-2150B / W-2155.

(Pedantic, I know) It's more accurate to probably ask why Windows is slower than the result should be than why OS X is "faster". Maybe it's something to do with the Meltdown / Spectre mitigations. Window's fixes might just have more of a performance penalty?
Click to expand...

May well be the case. I think we won’t know for sure either way unless we can get someone else with a 10 core iMac Pro system to do the test again in Windows 10. It may be a specific issue with a driver or resource in my system.
 
well I just moved back to windows and I am glad i am not missing much on mac os. iOS is still my favorite though
 
thetruth9000 said:
well I just moved back to windows and I am glad i am not missing much on mac os. iOS is still my favorite though
Click to expand...

Moved back as in using Mac hardware for windows or moved away from Mac entirely? Surely buying Mac means buying into Mac OS. Why buy Mac hardware for windows? Cheaper ways of running Windows:)
 
Updated Geekbench score with as many tasks shut down as possible and with all external devices disconnected.

upload_2018-1-15_8-42-47.png


Single thread has improved to the point of surpassing the OSX, but Multi is still lagging behind!
 
thefriendshipmachine said:
my condolences.
Click to expand...
LOL I literally regretted it in just 3 days. Not nearly as stable as Mac OS, half done OS, everything is a mess, downloading, installing and organizing apps is a mess, hard to sync my apple things, nothing compared to apples touchpad, multitouch gestures don't compare. Only major things I will miss is the better splitscreening and windows version cmd-tab actually making sense I will never leave mac again until iOS is capable of doing so.
 
thetruth9000 said:
LOL I literally regretted it in just 3 days. Not nearly as stable as Mac OS, half done OS, everything is a mess, downloading, installing and organizing apps is a mess, hard to sync my apple things, nothing compared to apples touchpad, multitouch gestures don't compare. Only major things I will miss is the better splitscreening and windows version cmd-tab actually making sense I will never leave mac again until iOS is capable of doing so.
Click to expand...

Sounds about right. I've owned all the surface pros and Windows is awful. I hate how it boots itself from sleep, installs updates and just stays on.... like gee thanks I really wanted you to close all my apps, install updates and keep the screen on at 5am that's so useful.... the fact that it comes with built in ads and promo apps is also frustrating, and the search feature in the start menu has somehow gotten *WORSE* than the one in windows 7, it can never find my files.
 
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