Buying an eight - coreMac Profeaturing two 3GHz Quad - Core Intel Xeon buffalo chip will cost you approximately $ 700 more than a single quadrangle - core 3GHz machine . Yet , all that extra processing pizzazz will sack up you only a 4 - per centum carrying into action boost in Speedmark 4.5 , Macworld Lab ’s standard bench mark suite .
So does that mean the $ 3,997 eight - core Mac Pro announce in April is a bust ? Not barely — rather , it ’s more a case of this being a background better suited for different task than our tests typically measure .
As manyMacworldreaders fuck , Speedmark look to measure the carrying into action Mac users can expect when run distinctive real world tasks using distinctive applications such as Microsoft Office , iMovie , iTunes and OSX finder applications . That ’s a dead acceptable battery of test when dealing with Apple ’s stock offer — MacBooks , MacBook Pros , iMacs , and even the received Mac Pro constellation . An eight - core Mac Pro , however , does not fit into that crowd .
Rather , this Mac Pro configuration uses a pair of Clovertown 3GHz Quad - Core Intel Xeon 5300 serial processors , not to mention 8 MiB of L2 hoard per processor , 1.33GHz 64 - routine dual independent frontside motorcoach , and the capacity for 16 GB of primary memory . It ’s a machine that expand when running applications that are optimized to take vantage of multiple core . And while we include some higher - end tests like return scenes in Cinema 4D , using Compressor to encode some DV footage and running a Photoshop action script , these performance - hungry applications are in the minority in our test rooms . Thus , the overall Speedmark account for the eight - core Mac Pro suffers .
Eight-core Mac Pro Benchmarks
Best termination inbold . Reference systems initalics .
Speedmark 4.5 scores are relative to those of a 1.25GHz Mac miniskirt , which is assigned a score of 100 . Adobe Photoshop , Cinema 4D XL , iMovie , iTunes , and Finder scores are in minute : seconds . All systems were running Mac OS X 10.4.9 with 1 GB of RAM , with processor operation set to Highest in the Energy Saver taste pane when applicable . The Photoshop Suite trial is a stage set of 14 written project using a 50 MB file . Photoshop ’s memory was set to 70 pct and story was fix to Minimum . We recorded how long it took to interpret a scene in Cinema 4D XL . We used Compressor to encode a 6minute:26second DV filing cabinet using the videodisk : Fastest Encode 120 minute – 4:3 setting . In iMovie , we applied the elderly video effect to a 1 - second movie . We converted 45 minutes of AAC audio file to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality setting . We used Unreal Tournament 2004 ’s Antalus Botmatch fair - shape - per - sec score ; we examine at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels at the Maximum setting with both audio and artwork enabled . We created a Zip archive in the Finder from a 1 GB folder . To compare Speedmark 4.5 rafts for various Mac systems , visit our Apple Hardware Guide .—MACWORLD LAB TESTING BY JAMES GALBRAITH , BRIAN CHEN , AND JERRY JUNG
If you spend most of your day researching articles on the Web , tinkering with Excel spreadsheet and write tocopherol - postal service , this is definitely not the system for you . And that should n’t be a surprise — after all , how can you expect Microsoft Office to make effective employment of eight processing cores when it does n’t even work natively with the chips in an Intel - base Mac ? In fact , the 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 leaves all the Intel - based Macs in the dust in our Microsoft tests .
But that ’s not to say that the eight - core Mac Pro does n’t have its constituency . If you expend you time fork over 3 - D scenes in an optimise program like Cinema4D , these eight effect can crank up out a effect 44 - per centum quicker than the 4 - core system and 53 - percent faster than the Power Mac G5 . Compressor sexual conquest on the 8 - core can also be very telling , depending on the job . The trial we normally move involves converting six minutes of video using MPEG 2 ; however , we did n’t see a big boost between the four- and eight - core political machine . When we brought these results to Apple ’s attention , company representatives suggest essay some other codecs , such as H.264 . Using Compressor 3 ’s presets for converting to H.264 for Apple TV , we saw speed go from 9:13 on the four - core to 7:43 on the eight - core , a 16 - percent melioration . A nimble trial with extra RAM failed to make much of a conflict in these final result .
Apple agrees with our findings about routine tasks involving Office , eastward - mail , and Web browsing : This eight - core arrangement is not meant for the ecumenical consumer . Rather , Apple describes its eight - core Mac Pro as one of those instance where the hardware is intend to push the software package — Apple hopes that this eight - pith machine will avail developer of high - public presentation program optimise their software for multi - core systems . We trust so too .
contain back for our full review , including more mental test including a multitasking suite and tests with additional RAM .
[ James Galbraith is Macworld research lab director . ]
