benchmarks - Gizmodo

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First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
Snow Leopard Beats Windows 7 In Almost Every Count on Mac Hardware
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jpitsch
10/21/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
The $1700 27" iMac looks like an excellent deal. It has the new OS, it is faster, it has a bigger screen, more memory and a dedicated graphics card. Well done I think. #appleimac
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SigmundTheSeaMonster
10/21/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
Where is the 12core MacPro? #appleimac
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jellotime91
10/21/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
I really want to see how the standard core i5 iMac runs... I am thinking about buying it at best buy through a purchase plan so unfortunately I don't have the option to get it with the core i7 processor since they only carry the stock models. #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@jellotime91: If you look at any PC benchmarks for a C2D vs an i5 you should see the same kind of gains. #appleimac
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jellotime91
10/21/09

@UnderLoK: Yeah but because it's not the same OS or hardware it's not really THAT applicable to this. I want to see the specific gain that the $1999 model has over the others and over the previous gen. But thanks anyway :) #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@jellotime91: Actually, yes it is. Honestly, I'm not pulling your leg. Apple makes PCs. #appleimac
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jellotime91
10/21/09

@UnderLoK: I know that. I know it's the same processor. And it may very well deliver the same results even! My point is that I want the direct and specific comparison of this iMac, VS that iMac. Specific iMac machines. The current C2D iMac vs i5 iMac, including all of the specific peripherals and performance in graphics, overall computing task speed, gaming speed and graphics fidelity, etc. etc. #appleimac
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MacAttack7388
10/21/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
Bench marks don't take advantage of Snow Leopard technologies.
How many times must I point that out. No benchmarking suite can accurately compare Leopard to Snow Leopard, or Snow Leopard to Windows 7 because they don't take advantage of Grand Central Dispatch or Open CL. #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@MacAttack7388: What? So Office, CS4, etc all use GCD and OCL? #appleimac
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pencil sharpener
10/21/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
I just can't stand the fact that a 4850 is best you can get on a $2000 machine.
Personally I would like to see Apple put Ati or Nvidia Workstation cards in the top level imacs... or at least make it an option. #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@pencil sharpener: iMacs are laptops though man, there isn't enough room for a full size card... #appleimac
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pencil sharpener
10/21/09

@UnderLoK: I know, I was talking about notebook graphics.

[www.notebookcheck.net]

[www.notebookcheck.net] #appleimac
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protocl
10/21/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
red rooster sauce.
rooster sauce.
green top sauce.
that asian hot sauce.
PHO sauce.

sheesh people.

its: sriracha sauce. #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@protocl: Actually red rooster sauce or rooster sauce is Louisiana Hot Sauce... ;) #appleimac
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Chopes
10/20/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
I scrolled down to the bottom just to comment on the sauce, but apparently others have already noticed this. I am now typing a somewhat lengthy comment about something already noticed by others and the purpose of this comment is now moot... I wonder why the sriracha sauce is full. I eat that stuff by the spoonful... #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@Chopes: I put it on crackers when I'm congested. #appleimac
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ipodrulz
10/20/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
So.... the new iMacs aren't much faster than the old iMacs? #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@ipodrulz: It really depends on what your doing and if the application was made to take advantage of more than 1, 2, or 4 cores.

More often than not you will do something which you will see result in 20% utilization across a couple cores. If your encoding or gaming you will notice them really put to use, but in an average office or home you won't notice much of a difference. #appleimac
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Snes
10/20/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
This would be cool, if the chart numbers had any meaning whatsoever. For xbench, 400 what? For geek bench 7000 what? Labels make your graph you know. Besides no one buys an Apple for benchmarks, they buy them because they think Apple is cool, heh.
(hint: Apple is not cool) #appleimac
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UnderLoK
10/21/09

@Snes: Below each set of bars in the graph it says which test it was from. #appleimac
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92BuickLeSabre
10/20/09

In reply to First New Apple iMac Benchmarks*
All I can focus on is the sriracha.

I don't know why it is there, but it's making me hungry. #appleimac
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Eulatos
10/20/09

@92BuickLeSabre: Who doesnt love the Angry Red Cock Sauce.

(Cause of the Rooster on the front) #appleimac
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Donathius
10/20/09

@92BuickLeSabre: I love Sriracha. That's good hot sauce. #appleimac
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brobot
10/17/09

In reply to Snow Leopard Beats Windows 7 In Almost Every Count on Mac Hardware
This is a slightly arbitrary and useless test in my mind.

In my mind, the main advantage of Macs is that the hardware and software are both designed in the same place, and are designed to work well with one another - ie, software designed with hardware in mind, hardware with software, etc. There's no guesswork about how OSX will work on any given system, since Apple controls both. Obviously, OSX should be able to outperform any other OS on Apple-built hardware. That's the point.

Read my previous posts and you'll know I love me some Apple - but I'm just trying to fight bias here... Win7 shouldn't be set up to look inferior when the deck is obviously stacked in OSX's favor in this test. #snowleopard
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Eulatos
10/16/09

In reply to Snow Leopard Beats Windows 7 In Almost Every Count on Mac Hardware
Ok so let me get this straight. All the rabid "im anti apple fanboy and i dont even know why" people who always say that Macs are the same hardware as windows machines just with an apple tax are now saying that the hardware is magical specially made Apple hardware that is somehow "optimized"?

Which is it? Which lie are you going to believe the next time you say it? #snowleopard
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Nathan Obbards
10/16/09

@Eulatos: I'm rabid in terms of avoiding bias, that's something grad school has drilled into me time and time again. That said, I agree with you for the most part, though there are a few things, on both sides, that I think should be addressed in the tests, for both sides.

On both sides:
- Why didn't they use identical HDDs? Might you see differences between the performances of the two HDDs?

On the Apple front:
- Was the COD4 optimized for Snow Leopard or was it ported over? If it was ported over, it gives real world results, but it doesn't reveal the real capabilities of Snow Leopard in terms of gaming.

On the Windows front:
- They used two different versions of Quicktime, Quicktime 7 and Quicktime X. Why couldn't they use the same version on both? Additionally, why couldn't they use an open source program that is optimized for both OSs (i.e. Handbrake)? What effect did the differences between the versions have and what differences are present from the fact that Quicktime is optimized for Snow Leopard and ported over to Windows?
- iTunes faces the same optimization question as Quicktime does. Anyone who uses iTunes on a Windows PC will tell you how bad it is compared to how well it runs on a Mac.
- What effect does EFI vs. BIOS have? Windows is typically booted from BIOS rather than EFI and is, as such, optimized for BIOS even though EFI is the better of the two systems.
- What effect does the fact that boot camp is necessary to boot the computer have on boot times and shut down times (though this one I would not be surprised if, at least, the shut down times were spot on)?
- The battery times seem really far off to me, what to degree is this due to drivers? Snow Leopard should get a longer battery life due to how it accesses the HDD, but that seems like quite a severe difference.

I'm sorry that most the questions lie on the Windows side, but when most of the software and hardware is Apple based, it makes things harder to avoid doing so. Also, why didn't Giz mention the Cinebench benchmarks? #snowleopard
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something_unique_and_descriptive
10/16/09

@Eulatos: No, the argument would be that Apple has optimized the software to eek out as much as possible from that specific hardware, whereas Microsoft is forced to make an OS that will work with a multitude of hardware configurations.

It's not much of a secret that just doing a basic Windows install is not going to give you the best possible experience, in order to get that you're going to need optimize it for your particular hardware configuration. What you get with a basic install is the best experience across the most hardware. Apple doesn't have this problem, that's the huge advantage of controlling both hardware and software, it's also why they don't offer OSX as a standalone OS like Windows. #snowleopard
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SysRq
10/16/09

In reply to Snow Leopard Beats Windows 7 In Almost Every Count on Mac Hardware
...soo, what you're saying is, these tests are useless? #snowleopard
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macpatrik
10/16/09

In reply to Snow Leopard Beats Windows 7 In Almost Every Count on Mac Hardware
Ahaha.... you windows fanboys. You're just as bad as us. I'd really be interested to see which run's better on a netbook though. From what I've heard 7 runs fan-freaking-tastic on netbooks, but Apple did a lot of refining. Hmm. Battlemodo Giz?
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Edited by macpatrik at 10/16/09 4:09 PM macpatrik was starred macpatrik was unstarred

Monty
10/16/09

In reply to Snow Leopard Beats Windows 7 In Almost Every Count on Mac Hardware
Not only is the test on Apple hardware but two of the four programs are Apple software that we already know are programmed better for the Mac. Could they do the test with Photoshop or Firefox or any of the other countless pieces of software that run on both platforms? Not that it will necessarily make a difference, but it would certainly remove a potential bias in the results.

"... during the tests, the computer had the following software installed: iTunes 9, QuickTime, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, and Cinebench R10 ..." #snowleopard
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