If you ’ve been follow along , you know that the Macworld Lab has been busy test Apple ’s recently updated transmission line of iMacs . We ’ve post benchmarks and psychoanalysis on the 21.5 - column inch 3.06GHz Core i3 iMac and the 21.5 and 27 - inch 3.2GHz Core i3 iMacs . Today , we look at the final piece of the iMac mystifier , the 27 - inch Quad - Core 2.8GHz Core i5 . And while it does grab the title of “ debauched ( stock configuration ) iMac Ever ” from its predecessor , it does so by a narrow-minded leeway .
In our overall performance test suite , Speedmark 6 , the new $ 1999 27 - inch Quad - Core 2.8GHz Core i5 ( with 1 TB hard drive , 4 GB of RAM , and ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1 GB of picture memory ) was just under 4 percent faster than the system of rules it replaces , a 27 - column inch Quad - Core 2.66GHz Core i5 iMac ( ) , with 1 TB hard private road , 4 GB of RAM , and ATI Radeon 4850 HD with 512 MB of video memory .
Results were very alike between the two Quad - Core models , with just a few seconds separate them in most cases . The full-grown divergence were in the iTunes encode test , with the new Quad - Core 2.8GHz Core i5 fashion model finishing 13 percent quicker than the old Quad - Core 2.66GHz Core i5 ; the HandBrake test , with the new mannequin coming in 26 pct faster ; and our Parallels WorldBench tests , with the young model completing the job 21 percent faster . Interestingly , the only test in which the older example dominate was in our Unzip archive test , which it finished just one 2nd quicker than the newfangled iMac .
look at the specs between the two models , the biggest difference would come out to be the graphics card . While both use ATI Radeon HD computer graphic , the unexampled mannequin use a 5750 with 1 GB of GDDR5 retention , while the former model sports a 4850 with 512 megabyte of GDDR3 retentiveness . In our Call of Duty tests , we saw minimal improvement , a little less than 2 percent . For Speedmark , we use a low 1024 by 768 resolution to allow us to compare the functioning of bequest Macs . Unfortunately , this solvent does n’t always show the benefit of higher - terminal computer graphic . When running Call of Duty at the 27 - inch iMac ’s native 2560 by 1440 resolution , the difference between the two card was much more pronounced . Though both systems slowed down when using the in high spirits resolution , new 2.8GHz iMac still managed a respectable 55.1 frames per secondly , 35 percent faster than the 40.9 frames per second the 2.66GHz exemplar was able to display .
compare the unexampled Quad - Core 2.8GHz Congress of Racial Equality i5 iMac to the other uncommitted 27 - inch option , the Dual - Core 3.2GHz Core i3 iMac , the new Quad - Core model was 15 percent faster . As you would have a bun in the oven , the Quad - Core modeling was fastest in the mainframe - intensive job that can apply more than two processors at once , namely MathematicaMark ( 63 percent quicker ) , Cinebench ( 29 per centum faster ) , and Compressor ( 20 percent faster ) .
Though we do n’t yet have the late announced Mac Pros , we compare the Quad - Core iMac to the presently shipping 2.66GHz Quad - Core Mac Pro ( ) with 3 GB of RAM , we see the unexampled iMac was 7 percent quicker than the Mac Pro , overall . Though the Mac Pro did better in a few tests such as Cinebench , MathematicaMark and Aperture , it lagged behind in Compressor , iMovie , iTunes , Parallels , HandBrake and iPhoto . The biggest difference of opinion was in Call of Duty grudge , where the Quad - Core iMac ’s frame rate ( at 1024 - by-768 ) was 79 pct higher than the Mac Pro ’s 49.3 musical score .
assure back soon for full revue of all of the Modern iMacs .
27-inch iMac quad core Core i5/2.8GHz benchmarks
Best results inbold . Reference systems initalics .
How we tested . Speedmark 6 score are proportional to those of a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook , which is assigned a score of 100 ( higher scores are better ) . Call of Duty score is in chassis per 2nd ( higher is better ) . MathematicaMark is a performance score ( higher is better ) . All others are in minutes : second ( miserable is better ) . The Modern Core i5 and i3 iMacs were try out with OS X 10.6.4 and 4 GB of RAM . The 27 - inch 2.66GHz Core i5 iMac was test with OS X 10.6.2 and 4 GB of RAM . The 2.66GHz Mac Pro was test with OS XTC 10.6.1 and 3 GB of RAM . We duplicated a 1 GB file , created a Zip archive in the Finder from the two 1 GB file and then unzipped it . We converted 90 minute of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality scope . In iMovie ’ 09 , we import a camera archive and exported it to iTunes using the Mobile Devices set . We play a Timedemo at 1024 - by-768 with 4X anti - aliasing on in Call of Duty 4 . We imported 150 JPEGs into iPhoto ’ 09 . The Photoshop Suite exam is a set of 14 scripted project using a 50 MB Indian file . Photoshop ’s memory was set to 70 per centum and History was coiffe to Minimum . We used Compressor to encode a .mov data file to the software ’s H.264 for TV podcast setting . We ripped a DVD chapter to the hard drive . We recorded how long it took to return a fit with multiprocessor in Cinebench . We ran the Evaluate Notebook test in MathematicaMark 7 . We ran the WorldBench 6 multitasking test on a Parallels 5 VM running Windows 7 Professional . We timed the meaning and thumbnail / prevue founding time for 150 pic in Aperture.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith , Mckinley Noble , Blair Hanley Frank , and Chris Holt .
[ James Galbraith is Macworld ’s lab director . ]
