Macworld Lab ’s 3GHz Mac Pro arrived at our offices , and , as bear , the background equip with the fastest Xeon currently uncommitted to Mac user outpaced the 2.66GHz Mac Pro .
If you remember , that standard oblation of Apple ’s new screen background tallied the dear grievance ever in our Speedmark test . That record did n’t support for tenacious , as the 3GHz machine posted a score of 313 , gear up a young standard for our system performance test suite .
When Apple supply Intel - built Xeon CPU to its telephone circuit of professional desktop , the company offer only one standard conformation featuring two twofold core group Xeons running at 2.66GHz , a 250 GB hard campaign , an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics card with 256 MB of video memory , 1 GB of fully buffered DDR2 system memory , and a 16x dual - level open Superdrive . Of course , with an impressive list of available selection , custom configurations number in the millions . We ordered a few tradition role model and the first two — standard configurations powered by two 2GHz and 3GHz chips , respectively — get in just hour after our Mac Pro reappraisal was post .
Because processor represent just one piece of the carrying out puzzle , we found that the 3GHz motorcar post an improvement over the 2.66GHz Mac Pro of about 5 to 6 percent on most tests , even though the 3GHz chips have a 13 percent faster clock velocity . With all of our Mac Pro systems sport the same drives , bus speeds , computer memory size , and graphics cards , only CPU - intensive test like our Cinema 4D render times draw close that 13 percent improvement . The 3GHz flap the 2.66GHz model in all exam , but usually just by a few instant . That ’s an important consideration for users mull over paying the surplus $ 800 above the 2.66GHz Mac Pro ’s $ 2,499 asking price .
As we ’ve come to expect , applications like Photoshop not running natively on Intel Macs run slower than on system with G5 processor .
3GHz and 2GHz Mac Pros Tested
skillful results inbold . extension system initalics .
Speedmark 4.5 scores are relative to those of a 1.25GHz Mac mini , which is assigned a score of 100 . Adobe Photoshop , Cinema 4D XL , iMovie , iTunes , and Finder grade are in minute : seconds . All systems were hightail it Mac OS X 10.4.7 with 1 GB of RAM , with processor performance set to Highest in the Energy Saver predilection pane when applicable . The Photoshop Suite mental testing is a stage set of 14 scripted labor using a 50 MB single file . Photoshop ’s memory was set to 70 percent and History was set to Minimum . We record how long it took to hand over a scenery in Cinema 4D XL . We used Compressor to encode a 6minute:26second DV filing cabinet using the DVD : Fastest Encode 120 hour – 4:3 stage setting . In iMovie , we applied the elderly telecasting upshot to a 1 - minute picture . We converted 45 arcminute of AAC audio file to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality setting . We used Unreal Tournament 2004 ’s Antalus Botmatch average - frames - per - second score ; we test at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels at the Maximum setting with both audio and nontextual matter enable . We produce a Zip archive in the Finder from a 1 GB folder.—Macworld science lab examination by James Galbraith and Jerry Jung
The 2GHz example performed as well as expected , with results reflecting the fact that its processors have a 25 per centum slower clock fastness . And again , with so many similarities between system , the carrying into action difference when move Speedmark was in reality close to 15 percent . With twice the number of processing cores , the 2GHz Mac Pro did wash up the 2GHz iMac Core Duo in all exam , but again , only the Cinema 4D test present the full effect of doubling the processors .
As mentioned before , these results are from our first circle of testing with these Mac Pros . Check back soon for many more event , including trial run involving increase RAM , multiple hard drives , different applications , and art card .
