More Intel iMac Benchmarks

[gmanrique]

Totally agree.

So far, the Macworld test was something like comparing a BMW and a Cavalier (No offene intended to Cavalier owners) and concluding that even the BMW has double the horsepower, performance is just a little better, by testing them in the city respecting the speed limits

Geez, you'd think benchmarking was rocket science because no one seems to know what they're doing. I expected MacWorld to do a good job, and they seem be be technically accurate, but MacSpeedZone makes some excellent points that you'd expect a good magazine staff to know.

The iMac Duo has two processors, and at least some tests need to take this into account. For example, I currently have iTunes, Safari, Quark 6.5, Entourage, InDesign, Photoshop, iBiz, iCal, Address Book, Word, Excel, Preview and Firefox open. While I'm waiting for Quark to output a postscript and distiller to make a PDF, I often switch to Entourage to check my email accounts, and then switch over to Photoshop to check a file. There are no benchmarks for what I expect is pretty typical usage, but I know from experience that dual processors (or cores) make a big difference in speed and responsiveness.

 

[Nuc]

I went and checked out the 20" intel iMac. It had 1Gb ram and the usual specs. I was surprised that it opened up word and excel so fast. Probably about 3-5 seconds faster than my PB G4 (1.5Gb ram). I couldn't test any other apps that ran on rosetta because they didn't have any installed. I was going to test out photoshop but it wasn't on the machine. Hmmm I wonder if they did that on purpose...

Nuc

 

[MacinDoc]

But I like seeing consumer machines go dual core: it means app developers (and Apple) have incentive to do even more with multiple CPUs, for even more kinds of app.

...which is one of the reasons I'm expecting all new Apple computers to be multi-core, to encourage all developers to take advantage of the processing power that would otherwise be underutilized on the pro grade Macs. There has to be a critical mass of multi-core machines to make it worth developers' efforts.

 

[Homy]

Wow, I guess Steve was right after all.

Check out these numbers! 36 fps in Doom 3 v1.3.1303: Universal Beta Demo 1. Why is it impressive? Cause they tested with Ultrahigh graphics and shadows . That's with only 512 MB RAM.

"We ran the Demo 1 test on a beta Universal version of Doom 3, which was set to use Ultrahigh graphics at a resolution of 1,024 by 768; all advanced options were set to Yes except for vertical sync and antialiasing."

iMac G5 2.1 GHz gets 17 fps.

 

[bugfaceuk]

Check out these numbers! 36 fps in Doom 3 v1.3.1303: Universal Beta Demo 1. Why is it impressive? Cause they tested with Ultrahigh graphics and shadows . That's with only 512 MB RAM.

"We ran the Demo 1 test on a beta Universal version of Doom 3, which was set to use Ultrahigh graphics at a resolution of 1,024 by 768; all advanced options were set to Yes except for vertical sync and antialiasing."

iMac G5 2.1 GHz gets 17 fps.

Do you know if this includes the changes to the Doom 3 engine that iD have made with Intel? I was reading the latest PC Format in the UK, and apparently Intel and iD spent some time making the graphics pipeline more "Dual Core friendly" and gained a 70% performance boost which the magazine was able to see as a 30%-60% boost depending on the particular machine. I'm curious to know if the Mac version of the engine has this extra booster strapped on?

 

[bugfaceuk]

...which is one of the reasons I'm expecting all new Apple computers to be multi-core, to encourage all developers to take advantage of the processing power that would otherwise be underutilized on the pro grade Macs. There has to be a critical mass of multi-core machines to make it worth developers' efforts.

I must admit I agree with this, like, 160%. I'm more than a little concerned (and I know all the product differentiation arguments, and they are good ones too) that there will be some single core machines (iBook and MacMini). Although again, there's the whole cost argument. There would seem to be a real competitive advantage to be had in the Mac platform being entirely dual-core. It would allow Mac developers to say "well I know I have at least 2" and start coding for that.

Now all we need to do is for intel to chop the cost of the dual core's, and to release the faster dual-core's early, and Apple will be able to implement it.

I guess the thing that disappointed me the most was that the MacBook Pro came out at this stage, I would have prefered to see that processor in an iBook, and save the faster ones due out later this year for the Pro 'books.

 

[BenRoethig]

Do you know if this includes the changes to the Doom 3 engine that iD have made with Intel? I was reading the latest PC Format in the UK, and apparently Intel and iD spent some time making the graphics pipeline more "Dual Core friendly" and gained a 70% performance boost which the magazine was able to see as a 30%-60% boost depending on the particular machine. I'm curious to know if the Mac version of the engine has this extra booster strapped on?

Those changes were made for Quake 4 and were added because of the Xbox360 version than anything else. Doom 3 has no plans for an MP patch.

 

[bugfaceuk]

Those changes were made for Quake 4 and were added because of the Xbox360 version than anything else. Doom 3 has no plans for an MP patch.

Doh, my mistake I mistook the screen shots obviously. Not that iD games have all begun to look the same or anything...

 

[Homy]

More results from Barefeats

 

[wasimyaqoob]

My advice is that grab a PowerBook G4 and a PowerMac G5 while you can