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Performance and Rendering Times between Models

photogpab

photogpab

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 21, 2010
491
8
Is there a good website or resource where I can see performance speed tests between the different iMac models? Basically, I'm stuck trying to decide which 27" model I should get for myself, between the three different models.

Im mostly interested in speed results between the three models when running photoshop and when editing 1080p video in final cut pro.

is the high end i7 model dramatically faster than the base 27" model, etc... those type of questions. if i can see rendering times and stuff maybe it will help me decide how much i want to realistically spend.

if one is twice as fast as the other, it may be worth the extra money. but if we're talking seconds here... maybe i would just go for the base model.
 
iMAC 27" speed

I don't know of any objective tests other than what MacWorld magazine publishes- available at their website. I have the iMac 27" with quad 3.4 GHz i7 and faster video card. In retrospect, I should have added an internal SSD to the 2 TB hard drive, but I heard the apple SSD was slow and I figured I could add an external Thunderbolt SSD later. My set up handles video processing and photo-rendering extremely quickly. The faster video card is essential with the big screen. I think that anyone doing such work professionally should get the fastest set-up possible. TIME = $$$. I would definitely add several thunderbolt external hard drive since getting video into the computer is the slowest link in the chain. I'm not a pro but I have 10 years of home video and I'm going to get the Thunderbolt external drives - a SSD and a multi TB hard drive when prices come down a bit.
 
thunderbolt flys and it boots and it runs both snow and lion well. costs too much. i have a promise pegasus r6 with 6 ssds in it. I sold the 1tb hdds in it due to the hdd crisis I grabbed 4 kingstons on sale and a pair of samsung ssds. really fast and stable gear. I have 2 lacie little big disks they can run 2 ssds at speeds of 480MB/s read and 380 mb/s write, i did a long thread on them

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1280118/
 
so there are no websites where someone edited the same video across all three machines and then posted the rendering times to show the difference in speed?

im curious if the entry level 27" is drastically slower than the high end i7, etc... i figured speed tests like that would be readily available somewhere...
 
alsion - i know the i7 wasnt tested, and i assume its the fastest one. i was just curious to see the speed difference mainly between the 2 base models to compare... im not sure i can afford the i7. its such a significant price jump.

but who knows... maybe! fingers crossed.

whatever i get should "smoke" my 5 year old iMac :)
 
Macworld is not a very good source as they use their own baseline metrics. Speedmark is a made up "suite" of tests that constantly change the score of "100" to fit the current years offerings. Which makes it pretty much useless.
This may be what you are looking for:
http://www.barefeats.com/imac11f.html
 
derbothaus - thats a great page, however, it looks like they're comparing the two base models to the i7 model, BUT, the i7 model has 8GB or 16GB of RAM where the other two seem to have the standard 4GB Ram.

Id like to see the scores with all of them having 8GB or 16GB of RAM. Wouldn't that be the most fair comparison?
 
photogpab said:
derbothaus - thats a great page, however, it looks like they're comparing the two base models to the i7 model, BUT, the i7 model has 8GB or 16GB of RAM where the other two seem to have the standard 4GB Ram.

Id like to see the scores with all of them having 8GB or 16GB of RAM. Wouldn't that be the most fair comparison?
Click to expand...

Yes. But it was the best I could find:(
 
i appreciate it!!

im torn as to which model to buy :confused:

they have last years 2010 27" 2.93GHz i7 model for $1569 and this years 27" 3.1GHz i5 model for $1659.

Several of the tests I saw said last years i7 was still reasonably faster than the current i5 model. I guess that i7 makes a difference even if its a year older? plus its $100 cheaper because its a July 2010 model.

but i dont know what to do... i thought the new Sandy Bridge processors were supposed to be much faster than the previous generation iMacs, and since i dont upgrade my computers very often (once every 3 or 4 years) i thought it made sense to get "the latest and greatest" model.

but if the older 2010 i7 is actually the fastest one, should i get that???

so confused!
 
photogpab said:
i appreciate it!!

im torn as to which model to buy :confused:

they have last years 2010 27" 2.93GHz i7 model for $1569 and this years 27" 3.1GHz i5 model for $1659.

Several of the tests I saw said last years i7 was still reasonably faster than the current i5 model. I guess that i7 makes a difference even if its a year older? plus its $100 cheaper because its a July 2010 model.

but i dont know what to do... i thought the new Sandy Bridge processors were supposed to be much faster than the previous generation iMacs, and since i dont upgrade my computers very often (once every 3 or 4 years) i thought it made sense to get "the latest and greatest" model.

but if the older 2010 i7 is actually the fastest one, should i get that???

so confused!
Click to expand...

So what Final Cut are you using? And what codecs are you planning on using. And yes it is important as the iMac's are pretty close in performance overall. Final Cut X would benefit more from the i7 2.93. Final Cut Pro 7 would be better served by the i5. Why? Because FCP 7 is not multithread aware in the host app so the faster the single core execution you have the better. The i5 clocks itself to 3.4GHz the i7 to 3.2GHz. The i7 has hyperthreading though so it is the fastest overall if the app can use all 8-core/ threads. And the i7 would be the fastes on something like Handbrake. Personally I would rather have the double thread execution over 200MHz. The i5 will show 4 procs and the i7 will show 8.
 
derbothaus said:
So what Final Cut are you using? And what codecs are you planning on using. And yes it is important as the iMac's are pretty close in performance overall. Final Cut X would benefit more from the i7 2.93. Final Cut Pro 7 would be better served by the i5. Why? Because FCP 7 is not multithread aware in the host app so the faster the single core execution you have the better. The i5 clocks itself to 3.4GHz the i7 to 3.2GHz. The i7 has hyperthreading though so it is the fastest overall if the app can use all 8-core/ threads. And the i7 would be the fastes on something like Handbrake. Personally I would rather have the double thread execution over 200MHz. The i5 will show 4 procs and the i7 will show 8.
Click to expand...

right now i use Final Cut 7, but despite hearing so many negative things about Final Cut X I would like to switch over at some point and give it a try... but video editing is something i do maybe once or twice every few months.

most of my time is spent in Photoshop. As a part time freelance photographer Photoshop is the app I probably use most. On a daily basis almost.
 
photogpab said:
right now i use Final Cut 7, but despite hearing so many negative things about Final Cut X I would like to switch over at some point and give it a try... but video editing is something i do maybe once or twice every few months.

most of my time is spent in Photoshop. As a part time freelance photographer Photoshop is the app I probably use most. On a daily basis almost.
Click to expand...

i5 is better for photoshop as CS5-5.5 only use up to 4 cores. The rest of Adobe suite except for After Effects really does not use multicores at all or very little and again, the i5 would be slightly better. And you get full 3 year Applecare possibility. But the differences are very slim. More video, get the older i7, more non video Adobe, get the i5.
If you can swing it though I would get the new 2011 i7-2600 27" as it is the best of both those worlds and is the 2nd fastest consumer processor available. The fastest being same chip only 100MHz faster.
 
derbothaus said:
i5 is better for photoshop as CS5-5.5 only use up to 4 cores. The rest of Adobe suite except for After Effects really does not use multicores at all or very little and again, the i5 would be slightly better. And you get full 3 year Applecare possibility. But the differences are very slim. More video, get the older i7, more non video Adobe, get the i5.
If you can swing it though I would get the new 2011 i7-2600 27" as it is the best of both those worlds and is the 2nd fastest consumer processor available. The fastest being same chip only 100MHz faster.
Click to expand...

derbothaus - i mentioned above that i ordered the 3.1GHz i5 this morning... I know several people said the 3.4GHz i7 was even faster, but it wasnt available in the refurb store at the time and at $2k was really breaking my bank account.

the 2010 2.7GHz i7 wasnt available either.

Either way, i5 or i7, I have a feeling my new 3.1GHz i5 machine will FLY with both photo and video editing. I've also ordered extra RAM from Crucial and will bump it up to 12GB. it arrives tomorrow! excited!!
 
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