Since the introduction of Leopard , a fussy bunch of testers have taken over the Macworld Lab , put the newfangled and the not - so - new Macs we have around through the paces of our raw overall performance benchmark , Speedmark 5 .
Unveiled a few hebdomad ago , Speedmark 5 is a suite of 17 veridical - man tests that we run on all new Mac systems . We test each organization running Mac OS X 10.5 with 2 GB of RAM installed ; we compare the results to a 1.5GHz Core Solo Mac miniskirt .
Our first priority was to write results for all transport , standard configuration Macs — which we did earlier this month . Now we ’re lend consequence for seven system to our main Speedmark 5 trial run results graph . Six of these systems are sr. , pre - Intel systems , while one is the recent ( and much - requested ) build - to - order iMac with a 2.8GHz Core 2 duet C.P.U. .
The 2.8GHz iMac scored very well in our Speedmark 5 mental testing , even beating Apple ’s current highest standard configuration system , the 2.66GHz Quad Core Mac Pro . It finish up second overall to another ramp up - to - order organization , the 3GHz Quad Core Mac Pro .
Speedmark 5 Results
Best results inbold . late added systems are initalics . Asterisk ( * ) Denotes a system that does n’t meet the app ’s lower limit requirements .
Speedmark 5 scores are proportional to those of a 1.5GHz Core Solo Mac miniskirt , which is assign a grudge of 100 . Adobe Photoshop , Cinema 4D XL , iMovie , iTunes , and Finder scores are in minute of arc : seconds . All systems were running Mac OS X 10.5 with 2 GB of RAM . The Photoshop Suite tryout is a circle of 14 scripted task using a 50 megabyte file . Photoshop ’s retentiveness was set to 70 percent and History was rig to Minimum . We recorded how long it take to render a scene in Cinema 4D XL . We used Compressor to encode a 6minute:26second DV filing cabinet using the DVD : Fastest Encode 120 minutes – 4:3 mount . In iMovie , we employ the of age Film effect from the Video FX . menu to a one minute movie . We converted 45 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality setting . We used Unreal Tournament 2004 ’s Antalus Botmatch average - form - per - second score ; we prove at a resolution of 1,024 - by-768 pixels at the Maximum background with both audio and graphics enabled . We play Quake 4 timedemo at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels at High Quality background . We created a Zip archive in the Finder from a 2 GB folder.—MACWORLD science lab TESTING BY JAMES GALBRAITH , JERRY JUNG , AND BRIAN CHEN
Though not as tight as the Mac Pros in the few software that can make use of four processing effect such as Cinema4D and Compressor , the iMac ’s quick hard drive supporter beat those systems in the 2 GB Zip archive / unarchive tests as well as the 2 GB folder duplication mental test . The Mac Pros also did well in the Quake 4 frames - per - second trial , but those solution are not calculated as part of the last Speedmark grievance due to the plot ’s eminent minimum hardware requisite .
Of the older systems , the Power Macintosh G5s scale about as you ’d expect . The Quad 2.5GHz G5 was the top scorekeeper among these system ; it held its own against New Intel system . The rest of the Power Mac strain fell into place with the 2.7GHz dual - processor G5 beat the 2.5GHz dual - C.P.U. G5 , which beat out the 2GHz double - C.P.U. G5 .
The 15 - inch 1.67GHz PowerBook earned the doubtful pureness of being the first Mac to score under 100 points in Speedmark 5 . The results show just how knock-down Mac portable have become over the last two geezerhood . The PowerBook ’s HandBrake account was painfully slow , train five time as long as today ’s accounting entry - story Mac laptop , the 2GHz MacBook Core 2 Duo .
If you do n’t see your favorite Mac on this inclination , do n’t worry , we ’re not finished testing — though , hopefully , these results will trend down the figure of day-to-day e - ring armour I ’ve been receiving expect for benchmark of the 2.8GHz iMac .
[ James Galbraith is Macworld Lab director . ]
