Any clip we test a new Mac desktop or laptop computer — last week ’s MacBook tests are a thoroughgoing example — you’ll hear plenty of talk about a particular system ’s Speedmark mark . All well and serious — unless you ’re not sure what Speedmark is just .
leave me to explain , then : Speedmark is Macworld Labs ’ elementary performance testing puppet for all Mac systems . Though our principal focus is testing and reviewing the tardy Mac systems , we also wish to use Speedmark on older mac . That allows us to give reader a sense of how the figurer they ’re presently using — a Power Mac G5 , say — heap up against the latest craw of Apple hardware .
That destination requires us to see that the actual world exam making up Speedmark take to be capable to head for the hills on a vast raiment of systems . And that lead to some tough selection , poise the desire to use current applications with the penury to find programs that can run on many kinds of Macs so we can provide historical compare .
The release of a raw operating system means we have to update Speedmark . And , prior to Leopard ’s previous October unveiling , we asked for your help in finding applications that could be a part of an update examination cortege . You responded , and we rent that feedback into account when creating Speedmark 5 .
So here ’s the lean of test that make up the Speedmark suite and a couple of Good Book about the reasons we ’ve let in it .
Mac OS X—Startup
Nobody like to wait for their Macs to start up .
Mac OS X—Duplicate 1GB file
Our reader hint we double the sizing of the files we figure out with so we did . This task test both the read and publish speeds of a drive .
Mac OS X—Compress/Decompress 2GB folder
Again , we switched to a folder that ’s twice the size of it of what we tested in Speedmark 4.5 . These test involve the processor as well as the operose drive .
We did remove one Finder test , the Open Multiple Folders mental testing was have too fast on many systems . Unfortunately , repeat the amount of booklet made the test results become erratic . So we remove it from the mix .
Microsoft Office 2004—Word Scroll/Entourage Download E-mail.
Like it or not , a muckle of us depend on Office . These exam also demand Rosetta to run on an Intel Mac . We felt was important to include at least a duad of non - general Binary applications in the suite .
Pages ’08—Search/Replace.
reader require for an iWork test to be admit in Speedmark . In the premature version of our suite , we ran this test in Microsoft Word . Since we can duplicate it in Pages , we moved the trial run over to that app .
iTunes—Convert AAC files to MP3 from Hard Drive.
This test stay the same , though we ’re using the in vogue version of iTunes ( iTunes 7.5 , as of this composition ) .
iMovie HD—Export to QuickTime for E-mail, Apply Aged video effect.
This was tricky . We cogitate of using iMovie ’ 08 , but its minimum system requirements would have meant excluding a large phone number of Macs from being able to run all of the software trial in Speedmark . As Apple still offersiMovie HD for download , we decided to stick with it for now .
iPhoto—Import 100 photos from hard drive.
This trial run remain unchanged from the previous version of Speedmark , though we upgraded to iPhoto ’ 08 .
Camino—Multiple Page Loading Test.
We keep trying to utilize Firefox or Safari for this trial , but Camino remains the most stable web internet browser for our purposes , and its resultant are the most consistent .
Unreal Tournament 2004—Antalus Botmatch
Yes , this biz is a bit out-of-date , but much like iMovie HD , it runs on a wide reach of Macs . Our readers suggested Quake 4 , among other games , but new games have fairly high minimal organisation requirement which would have prevented many Macs from being able to endure Speedmark .
As a effect , we ’ve decide to stupefy with UT 2004 as the game we unravel on all Mac systems , but if a Mac meets the minimum requirements of Quake , we ’ll include those termination in their benchmark chart .
Incidentally , the Antalus Botmatch test is run at 1,024 - by-768 Max configurations with audio and art enabled .
Cinema 4DXL 10.5—Scene Render
This test generate a 3 - D tantrum and is one of the best multiprocessing psychometric test we have . The test remains the same as in former versions of Speedmark , though we ’ve updated to the latest variant of Cinema4D , 10.5
Compressor 3—Convert DV file to MPEG2 for DVD
This tests a system ’s multiprocessing power as well as surd driving force performance .
Adobe Photoshop CS3—Actions Script with 14 Actions.
Many Mac users use Photoshop , and this trial helps give a feeling for how the lotion runs across dissimilar Macs .
Also , since the last version of Speedmark was released before Photoshop ran natively on Intel - establish Macs , we could n’t admit Photoshop results in the Speedmark grudge computation . Now that Photoshop is a Universal Binary that runs on Intel systems as well as PowerPC Macs , we ’ll factor out the test solvent into the Speedmark score reckoning .
HandBrake 0.9.1—Encode one chapter from DVD to H.264
I ’ve include a chart with Macs tested with Speedmark 5 .
Speedmark 5 Results
Best result inbold . Recently summate systems are initalics . Asterisk ( * ) Denotes a organisation that does n’t meet the program program ’s lower limit requirements .
Speedmark 5 piles are relative to those of a 1.5GHz Core Solo Mac miniskirt , which is put a score of 100 . Adobe Photoshop , Cinema 4D XL , iMovie , iTunes , and Finder scores are in second : seconds . All systems were running Mac OS X 10.5 with 2 GB of RAM . The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 14 written undertaking using a 50 MB file . Photoshop ’s memory was set to 70 per centum and History was set to Minimum . We recorded how long it took to give a panorama in Cinema 4D XL . We used Compressor to encode a 6minute:26second DV file using the videodisc : Fastest Encode 120 min – 4:3 setting . In iMovie , we apply the Aged Film effect from the Video FX . menu to a one minute moving picture . We commute 45 minute of AAC audio single file to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality setting . We used Unreal Tournament 2004 ’s Antalus Botmatch average - frames - per - second gear score ; we test at a resolution of 1,024 - by-768 pixels at the Maximum setting with both audio and graphics enable . We ran Quake 4 timedemo at a resoluteness of 1,024 by 768 pixels at High Quality scene . We created a Zip archive in the Finder from a 2 GB folder.—MACWORLD LAB TESTING BY JAMES GALBRAITH , JERRY JUNG , AND BRIAN CHEN
Thanks to our readers for the psychometric test hypnotism . Please , keep them come !
[ James Galbraith is Macworld research lab theater director . ]
