Apple offers its Macs in a number of standard configurations ; these are the systems you see when perusing the shelves of retail Apple Stores or the virtual shelves of the online Apple Store . But Apple offer rising slope for each organisation that can increase functioning — and the price — of a Mac .
The upgrades admit debauched processor , faster storage devices , and more tup , and these built - to - rules of order ( BTO ) option usually offer up considerably amend performance over the base standard form that you start with . Macworld Lab gravel a few of these BTO Macs , and our new overall system performance test retinue , Speedmark 6.5 , present that four of the five fastest mack we ’ve test are BTO configurations .
More cores, faster cores
As Macworld Lab has experienced with past benchmark test termination , the focal ratio of the individual processing kernel on a mainframe bear on overall performance more that the identification number of processing cores . In fact , the 12 - core 2.66GHz Xeon WestmereMac Prowith 12 GB of RAM and a $ 5449 price tag end ( though our RAM was provided byCrucialnot Apple ) , was not the overall degraded Mac that we ’ve tested . That honor goes to a $ 3699 BTO Mac Pro with a 6 - core 3.33GHz Xeon Westmere mainframe and 3 GB of RAM , which edge out its 12 - burden sibling by one level in Speedmark 6.5 . The 6 - gist 3.33GHz Mac Pro stick the 12 - core 2.66GHz Mac Pro in 12 of the 17individual tasks that make up Speedmark 6.5 .
amazingly , the amount of RAM did n’t matter much with our Mac Pro exam . The resultant from the 12 - core 2.66GHz Xeon Westmere Mac Pro with 6 GB of RAM ( the standard shape ) were nearly identical to the resultant of the same Mac Pro with 12 GB of RAM . Even our multitasking test was n’t quicker on the 2.66GHz 12 - burden Mac Pro with 12 GB of RAM .
In the few Speedmark tests that make use of all 12 - cores ( and with Intel ’s Hyper Threading engineering , all 24 practical core ) , like MathematicaMark , CineBench CPU , and HandBrake , the more processors available , the better the performance . For example , the 12 - core 2.66GHz Xeon Westmere Mac Pro finished the CineBench mainframe test in one - one-fifth of the time it consume the 2.66GHz Core i7MacBook Proto fill in the test and 33 per centum faster than the 6 - core 3.33GHz Xeon Westmere Mac Pro .
How we tested.Speedmark 6.5 scores are relative to those of a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini (Mid 2010) with 2GB of RAM, which is assigned a score of 100. All iMacs were tested with OS X 10.6.4 and standard shipping RAM configuration. We duplicated a 1GB file, created a Zip archive in the Finder from the two 1GB files and then unzipped it. We converted 135 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes’ High Quality setting. In iMovie ’09, we imported a camera archive and exported it to iTunes using the Mobile Devices setting. We ran a Timedemo at 1024-by-768 with 4X anti-aliasing on in Call of Duty 4. We imported 200 JPEGs into iPhoto ’09. The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 23 scripted tasks using a 50MB file. Photoshop’s memory was set to 70 percent and History was set to Minimum. For our multitasking test, we timed the Photoshop test again, but with the iTunes MP3 encoding and file compression tests running in the background. We used Handbrake to encode four chapters from a DVD previously ripped to the hard drive to H.264. We recorded how long it took to render a scene with multiprocessors in Cinebench and ran that application’s OpenGL, frames per second test. We ran the Evaluate Notebook test in MathematicaMark 7. We ran the WorldBench 6 multitasking test on a Parallels 6 VM running Windows 7 Professional. We timed the import and processing time for 200 photos in Aperture.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith, McKinley Noble, Gil Loyola, and William Wang
Impressive iMacs
of late , we ’ve see theiMacand Mac Pro battle it out for the title of Fastest Mac . In fact theiMac overtook the Mac Pro for a little while , until the dismissal of the Westmere - powered Mac Pros .
The fourth fast Mac we ’ve essay is a BTO 27 - inch iMac with the 2.93GHz Core i7 Quad - Core central processor option , a $ 200 rising slope to the standard $ 1999 , 2.8GHz Core i5 Quad - Core iMac ( ) , which came in ninth place in our Mac hurrying trials . The 27 - column inch 2.93GHz Quad - Core iMac even beat the 12 - nitty-gritty Mac Pro in our Photoshop test .
Speedmark 6.5 scores
high account are skillful . Best result inbold .
How we tested . Speedmark 6.5 score are relative to those of a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini ( Mid 2010 ) with 2 GB of RAM , which is assigned a scotch of 100 . All iMacs were tested with OS X 10.6.4 and standard transportation RAM form . We duplicated a 1 GB Indian file , created a Zip archive in the Finder from the two 1 GB files and then unzipped it . We converted 135 moment of AAC audio Indian file to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality stage setting . In iMovie ’ 09 , we imported a tv camera archive and exported it to iTunes using the Mobile Devices setting . We ran a Timedemo at 1024 - by-768 with 4X anti - aliasing on in Call of Duty 4 . We imported 200 JPEGs into iPhoto ’ 09 . The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 23 scripted tasks using a 50 M Indian file . Photoshop ’s memory was specify to 70 percent and History was set to Minimum . For our multitasking test , we time the Photoshop trial again , but with the iTunes MP3 encoding and file compression tests running in the background . We used Handbrake to encode four chapter from a DVD antecedently rip to the hard driving force to H.264 . We recorded how long it took to fork over a scene with multiprocessor in Cinebench and ran that program ’s OpenGL , bod per 2nd mental test . We ran the Evaluate Notebook test in MathematicaMark 7 . We break away the WorldBench 6 multitasking test on a Parallels 6 VM running Windows 7 Professional . We timed the implication and processing time for 200 photo in Aperture.—Macworld research laboratory testing by James Galbraith , McKinley Noble , Gil Loyola , and William Wang
The 5th profligate Mac is another custom 27 - inch iMac with a processor rise : a 3.6GHz Core i5 Dual - Core iMac with a 256 GB satisfying - province drive ( SSD ) . And while fifth plaza is nothing to sneeze at , its posture in the leaning is a petty misleading , thanks to its quick SSD . The 3.6GHz Core i5 Dual - Core iMac with SSD was the libertine Mac we tested in 7 or our 17 tests , beating the Mac Pros in file cabinet duplication , zipping , unzipping , opening Pages , encode iTunes filing cabinet , and importing ikon into both iPhoto and Aperture . An identical iMac system , but with a stock 1 TB backbreaking ride instead of the solid state driving finished eighth in our overall speed mental testing .
To give some perspective , I add the fastest Mac portable , a 15 - inch 2.66GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro , to the list . It get a Speedmark 6.5 score of 151 . By comparison , the standard configuration 27 - in 2.8GHz pith i5 Quad - Core iMac was 30 percent quicker and 9 percentage less expensive .
If you ’re concerned , you could take a aspect at thefull Speedmark 6.5 results(including individual software test results ) of over 30 Mac system .
[ James Galbraith is Macworld ’s lab director . ]
