Retired: Friday, July 11, 2003
Current iMac/eMac Performance

Have questions? Comments? Give us your feedback on these performance numbers
Below you will find performance results for the currently shipping iMacs and eMacs and some from previous generations. This will, hopefully, give you an feel for the relative performances of these machines. We will be adding new machines on an on-going basis ... so check back once in a while.

New machines added to the list below include the new  G4/1GHz and 800 MHz eMacs

It should be noted that, although all the machines below were running a version of OS X, not all were running 10.2, or Jaguar. However the scores below are relative ones, so we are fairly confident that most of the performance relationships should hold up despite the change in OS system version. There may be some variations that we have not completely considered ... so travel with care. See our testing philosophy for more info

Additional Resources Power Mac Performance iMac Performance PowerBook Performance iBook Performance eMac Performance In-depth Performance Power Mac Buyer's Guide iMac Buyer's Guide G4 PowerBook Buyer's Guide iBook Buyer's Guide Power Mac InfoZone iMac InfoZone eMac InfoZone PowerBook InfoZone iBook InfoZone G4 iMac Information Page Power Mac Specifications and Reviews Page iMac Specifications and Reviews Page eMac Specifications and Reviews Page PowerBook Specifications and Reviews Page iBook Specifications and Reviews Page Resutls for previous machines Check prices at: .... Clubmac MacConnection MacMall Macwarehouse MacZone Small Dog

The tests below are from our suite of real world application tests. These tests feature a diverse selection of applications commonly used by the Mac community. The test suite was designed to render an accurate and well rounded picture of a machine's performance. All of the tests below, except for the game tests, were timed with a stopwatch. The times were then converted to percentages, relative to the Power Mac Dual G4/1GHz, which is set to 100%. For all scores, higher numbers are better.

**Note we mistakenly labeled the iMac G4/800 as being introduced in 'July, 03. In reality this iMac is from July, 02 ... sorry for the confusion.

Time from the spinning wheel to the appearance of the Desktop is recorded (Stock machine actual score: 45 sec. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 52.54 seconds )

(Stock machine actual score: 19.87 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 17.27 seconds )

The copy folder test not only stresses drive performance but also takes advantage of faster processing capability & caching schemes. In this test we are searching the file names of thousands of items, contained in two folders (Stock machine actual score: 181.70 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 185.29 seconds )

In the single file test the the processor & caching capability of the machine is less of a factor. (Stock machine actual score: 73.95 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 76.32 seconds )

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We imported a 175 MB DV file into iMovie 3. Drive performance and processing power are important here (Stock machine actual score: 23.81 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 24.92 seconds )

A single 45 MB file is burned onto a CD-R at the fastest burn setting. (Stock machine actual score: 112.09 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 66.32 seconds )

Let 1K Windows Bloom is a simple carbon application that opens and closes 1,000 windows. This gauges how fast screen redraws are taking place. You can download the small program to run on your machine and compare your scores, to the ones here. (Stock machine actual score: 33.77 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 40.16 seconds )

We used a 21 MB files to open Photoshop 7 by dropping it on the Photoshop icon. A trial version of Photoshop 7 can be downloaded if you want to run your own test. (Stock machine actual score: 14.89 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 18.47 seconds )

In this test we are searching the files names of thousands of items, contained in two folders. OS X's new File Search function relies on both processor and drive performance (Stock machine actual score: 32.49 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 45.55 seconds )

Large Document & Database Type Tests

A Macro (series of complex actions) was run in Microsoft's Word on a 500 page document. Word is part of Office X (Stock machine actual score: 72 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 90.77 seconds )

A Macro (series of complex actions) was run in Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet program on a 8 MB file. Excel is part of Office X (Stock machine actual score: 44 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 54.38 seconds )

This test takes place in a 3 MB AppleWorks document. Machines with larger chip caches usually do better in this test . (Stock machine actual score: 104.93 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 222.67 seconds

Number Crunching & Rendering Tests

The Fractal program has been highly tuned to take advantage of the G4 and is precisely the type of work that the G4 was made for. It will also gobble up whatever processing capability is present. This is a good test for assessing the fundamental processing potential of each machine. Really highlights the processing advantage of a dual processor machines, and the G4 processor, when applications are tuned to take advantage of these features. You can download the Fractal program and run it on your own machine to compare scores. You will need to set the fractal to maximum count of 65536, to be consistent with our testing (Stock machine actual score: 26.53 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 53.06 seconds )

Certain of the functions of Photoshop can take special performance advantage of the G4 processor. This suite of filters was run on a 21 MB file (Stock machine actual score: 44.36 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 78.50 seconds )

The test above consists of Photoshop filters and functions that do not take any particular advantage of the G4. Again we used the 21 MB file (Stock machine actual score: 103.65 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 118.76 seconds )

BareFeats Photoshop Test Suite - mimics a production type workflow in Photoshop. If you would like to run this test on your machine, and you don't have a copy of Photoshop, download it from Adobe. Then download the action file and drop it on the Photoshop icon (Stock machine actual score: 40 sec. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 57.84 seconds )

In this test, an Aged Effect is run on the 175 MB DV file with the Effect left at its default setting This is a processor intensive task (Stock machine actual score: 201.53 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 305.25 seconds )

Encoding/Decoding Tests

CD-ROM drive speed and CPU processing power are the factors influencing the scores above. . Four songs totaling 16.5 minutes in length were converted. (Stock machine actual score: 76.20 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 88.02 seconds )

This is straight processor intensive work and does not take any advantage of the G4 processor... faster clock speed means faster performance. This test was performed on a 23 MB StuffIt file that contained thousands of individual files (Stock machine actual score: 53.07 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 63.61 seconds )

A 5MB movie is converted to a QuickTime movie (Stock machine actual score: 28.02 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 39.09 seconds )

The 5 MB Movie is converted to a DV Stream ready for import into iMovie (Stock machine actual score: 124.81 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 156.46 seconds )

Multitasking

MP3 Encode, AppleWorks search & replace and folder copy are all carried out at the same time. If you need to have your computer carry out multiple activities at the same time, a dual processor machine will definitely get you there faster (Stock machine actual score: 52 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 89.12 seconds )

QuickTime DV Stream & iMovie Encode are carried out at the same time. (Stock machine actual score: 352.52 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 633.21 seconds )

QuickTime Encode and Fractal test carried out at the same time. (Stock machine actual score: 44 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 92 seconds )

The MP3 Encode, Photoshop Normal and Word Macro tests are all run at the same time. . (Stock machine actual score: 160.74 seconds. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 352.32 seconds )

Gaming

Giants is tuned to take advantage of the processor(s). Indeed, when run on a dual processor machine, you will see Giants fly ahead of the same game running on a single processor machine. It  also helps to have a better graphics card. (Stock machine actual score: 45 fps. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 21.2 fps)

4x4 EVO2 is a demanding racing game. (Stock machine actual score: 18 fps. eMac 1 GHz with SuperDrive: 11 fps)

Resutls for previous machines