Macintosh Performance Comparison

Introduction

We published a detailed Mac performance comparison about a year ago, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses among eMac, iMac G5, PowerBook and Mac Mini systems, running Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther."

Apple is now changing the entire Macintosh computer architecture with its switch to Intel, and the current Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system incorporates substantial changes from "Panther."
With the first Intel Macs available to customers, and the new Universal Binary (or Intel-specific) programs they require, the time seemed right for a new performance comparison with new benchmarks, as we evaluate PowerPC vs. Intel Macs and compare various Mac models, from laptops to power towers.

Evaluation and comparison is an on-going process, of course, and we'll be updating and refining our analyses over time, with a goal of using simple, standardized tests that can be reproduced easily by others without special applications or tricky procedures.

We also want to thank MacInTouch readers who have kindly contributed test results, as it's impossible for us to test every last Mac model and configuration with limited resources.
We hope the information we've generated and gathered will be useful.

Configurations

The following list describes the details of each computer configuration tested, with a short name we use in the results tables below.

Mini G4

Mac Mini PowerPC G4/1.5GHz "stealth edition" [i.e. unannounced upgrade], purchased Dec. 2005, 512MB DDR SDRAM (1 x 512MB), 80GB ST9808211A hard drive, MATSHITACD-RW CW-8124 optical drive, ATI Radeon 9200 graphics w/ 64MB VRAM
[MacInTouch]

Mini Solo

Standard Mac Mini Core Solo 1.5GHz, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM (2 x 256MB); 60GB, 5400RPM Seagate Momentus 5400.2 SATA drive (ST96812AS), MATSHITACD-RW CW-8124 "Combo" optical drive, Intel GMA 950 grapics, Mac OS X 10.4.5 (8H1619)
[MacInTouch]

PowerBook

15" PowerBook G4/1.67GHz (pre-HD model), 1 GB memory (2x512MB PC2700U-25330), Fujitsu MHT2080AH 80GB, 5400RPM hard drive, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics with 64 MB video RAM.
[MacInTouch]

MacBook

MacBook Pro/2.16GHz, ATI Radeon X1600, Toshiba MK1234GSX 5200RPM hard drive, 1GB memory,
[Bajune Espiritu]

iMac Core Duo Maxtor

20" iMac Core Duo/2.0GHz, 1.5GB memory (1MB+512MB), 128 MB video RAM, Maxtor 6L250M0 hard drive.
[MacInTouch]

iMac Core Duo 2GB

20" iMac Core Duo/2.0GHz, 2GB memory (1MB+1MB), WDC WD2500JS-40NGB2 hard drive, Matsushita UJ-846 optical drive, ATI Radeon X1600 w/ 256 MB VRAM,
[Mohns]

iMac G5 Rev. A

20" iMac G5/1.8GHz Rev. A, 1GB of memory (2 x 512MB), Seagate ST3160023AS hard drive, Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics hardware with 64 MBytes of video memory,
[MacInTouch]

iMac G5 iSight

20" iMac (iSight)/2.1GHz, 1.5 GB memory (512MB+1GB), ATI Radeon X600 XT, 128 MB VRAM, Maxtor 6L250M0 hard drive.
[Mohns]

G5 Quad

Power Mac G5 Quad/2.5GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 w/ 256MB VRAM, WDC WD2500JS-41MVB1 drive, 2.5GB RAM (1GBx2 + 256MBx2)
[Rich Cruse]

Power Mac G5/RAID

Power Mac G5/1.8GHz single-processor, 1.25 GB memory (512x2 + 128x2), GeForce FX 5200, 64 MB VRAM, RAID-0 array with dual Seagate ST3160827AS drives. Mac OS X 10.3.9.
[MacInTouch]

PowerBook/7K100

7200RPM Hitachi 7k100 in 1.5GHz 12" PowerBook G4
[TS]

Cinebench

Maxon's Cinebench is a nice benchmark. We've found it consistent, straightforward and easy to use, measuring CPU and graphics performance. MacInTouch readers have already contributed a great collection of test results for various Mac models (and a few PCs, as well).

Note that changes in Apple's operating system graphics routines, or in the firmware of Mac graphics cards, can affect results.

Higher numbers, indicating faster processing rates, are better.

Cinebench 9.5 Processing Rates

	MacBook	PowerBook	Mini G4	Mini Solo	iMac Core Duo	iMac G5 iSight	Power Mac G5 Quad
Rendering	329	170	155	212	308	248	385
Multi-CPU Rendering	608	n/a	n/a	n/a	558	n/a	1180
Multi-CPU Speed-up	1.85	n/a	n/a	n/a	1.81	n/a	3.07
Shading	371	180	163	256	357	260	386
OpenGL Software	831	498	427	869	981	730	1210
OpenGL Hardware	1427	889	530	438	1687	1075	2164

File Duplication

A simple Finder file copy has proven to be a very consistent and useful test of disk performance over the years. We create a folder containing ten copies of a 20MB file and duplicate that folder in the Finder, using a stopwatch to time how long it takes to complete the copy in seconds. (Changes in the Finder may have a small effect on the results; Tiger appears to be a little faster than previous Mac OS X versions.)

File Duplication Time (seconds)

	PowerBook 7K100	PowerBook 15-inch	MacBook	Mini G4	Mini Solo	iMac Core Duo	iMac G5 iSight	Power Mac G5 RAID
Internal Drive	12	19	20	14	12.5	9	12	6.5
USB 2.0		27				22		35
FireWire 400		11				12		16
FireWire 800		8	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a		12

The eSATA RAID-0 system was lightning-fast, equivalent to an internal RAID-0. A single-drive eSATA system was as fast as an internal drive, too.
(We used a 70GB Raptor boot drive inside the dual-core Power Mac, a Hitachi 250GB drive in the quad-port enclosure, and two 250GB Hitachis in the external eSATA RAID enclosure.)
We have no idea why USB 2 performance was even worse on the dual-core G5, although it's awful across the board - worse than the speed of a slow laptop drive. (We double-checked the USB2 folder copy against other disk benchmarks, which confirmed the bad USB 2 results.)

MPEG-4 Conversion

Video compression is a good test of a computer's real throughput, and we use Apple's standard QuickTime features (in the $29.95 "Pro" version) to convert a high-quality DV file to an MPEG-4 file, using default settings.

(The 50-second, 182MB video is in DV format, NTSC at 720 x 480, 29.97 fps, 48KHz stereo.)

MPEG Encoding Time

	PowerBook	iMac Core Duo	iMac G5 iSight	Mini G4	Mini Solo
Time (sec.)	58	66	37	63	96

Geekbench

Geekbench is a new benchmarking program that's still in development, as we're compiling this comparison. We're using it primarily because we really like the approach taken by its developers; it's exactly the sort of sensible, standard test suite we'd write ourselves if we had any spare time to do that. It currently tests memory and CPU performance. (Perhaps a future version will tackle other subsystems.)

Results shown below are performance rates calibrated against a Power Mac G5/1.6GHz uniprocessor system, which scores 100 for each test, so higher numbers are better.

Geekbench Preview 2 Processing Rates

		MacBook	PowerBook	Mini G4	Mini Solo	iMac G5 iSight	iMac Core Duo	G5 Quad
Integer	Emulate6502	192	82	80	132	151	183	202
	Emulate6502 4 threads	376	87	81	127	151	355	745
	Blowfish	314	258	214	259	132	351	179
	Blowfish 4 threads	589	216	197	226	127	608	600
	bzip2Compress	138	83	86	99	126	140	168
	bzip2Compress 4 threads	275	92	87	99	119	262	615
	bzip2Decompress	141	82	76	92	141	139	181
	bzip2Decompress 4 threads	279	80	74	85	138	267	678
Floating Point	Mandelbrot 1 thread	153	79	72	108	131	148	165
	Mandelbrot 4 thread	302	78	71	102	124	269	625
Memory	Latency	537	85	83	547	164	495	304
	ReadSequential	313	48	42	256	189	363	282
	WriteSequential	143	91	90	131	141	145	251
	StdlibAllocate	148	205	184	106	126	142	139
	StdlibAllocate 4 threads	168	205	186	102	122	157	152
	StdlibWrite	146	44	43	125	63	156	170
	StdlibCopy	174	46	43	149	80	180	171
Stream	StreamCopy	108	36	32	107	115	107	181
	StreamScale	109	35	32	106	113	107	180
	StreamAdd	162	23	20	159	117	157	189
	StreamTriad	158	22	20	157	112	154	187

Java SciMark 2

Another new benchmark is Java SciMark 2 from NIST. There are a number of issues involved in benchmarking Java, and it's a little trickier to run this than some other tests, but we like its tests.

We find the simplest way to run SciMark 2.0 is by typing:

appletviewer http://math.nist.gov/scimark2/run.html

into Apple's Terminal application, then expand the window it creates before clicking the Execute Benchmark button, so you'll be able to see all six result numbers.

After it runs, select Show Table from the pop-up menu at the top, and use Command-Shift-4 to capture the six values shown for ">>Your Computer<<."

Results are shown in Mflops (Millions of floating point operations per second), so higher numbers are better than lower ones.

(The iMac G5/2.1 GHz iSight results for this test were provided by John Gerwing.)

SciMark Processing Rates (Mflops)

	iMac G5 Rev. A	15" PowerBook	MacBook	iMac Core Duo	iMac G5 iSight	G5 Quad
SciMark Composite	201	127	234	228	233	281
FFT	142	78	124	121	167	204
Jacobi	283	259	-	545	328	402
Monte Carlo	19	25	-	25	22	11
Sparse Matrix Multiply	283	125	-	194	325	396
LU Factorization	277	149	-	259	321	394

Xbench 1.2

Xbench has been the standard for Mac benchmarking in recent years. This shareware application is nicely packaged and easy to run, producing detailed results for many different performance parameters, as well as some helpful information about the test configuration. The new 1.2 version is a Universal Binary.

Unfortunately, Xbench results can vary widely from run to run and can be overly sensitive to small configuration details. The Overall Result and the User Interface Test have been particularly inconsistent. You also have to be careful not to compare results for different versions, which are calibrated differently (to a "standard" Mac system that changes from time to time).

We find MacBench helpful as a quick sanity check and overall performance test, as well as an indicator of potential problem areas. We use a special procedure, trying to tame its variability, rebooting immediately before running the program and averaging results for multiple runs. It's also important to run other benchmarks for perspective on Xbench numbers.

Results shown are processing rates, calibrated against a 2GHz Power Mac G5 running Tiger that scores 100 on each test, so higher numbers are better.

(The Power Mac G5 Quad results for this test were provided by Rich Cruse.)

Xbench 1.2 Processing Rates

	MacBook	PowerBook	Mini G4	Mini Solo	iMac Duo Maxtor	iMac G5 iSight	Power Mac G5 Quad
CPU	71	67	63	52	77	103	125
Thread	211	74	67	83	198	59	247
Memory	102	29	29	88	103	88	135
Quartz	54	73	59	53	68	94	138
OpenGL	140	85	77	160	138	132	131
Disk	30	35	30	37	91	93	64

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