The new Dual GHz Tower clocks in about 15% faster
than the 867 MHz one, and the Dual 1.25 GHz machine clocks
in about 44% faster.
It would follow then that in basic processing
prowess the respective machines should be about 15% and 44%
faster, on these kind of tasks.
And that is exactly what we found. In most of
the tests we ran that emphasized the processing system of
each machine (as opposed to drive or graphics systems), the
GHz machine showed a performance improvement in the high teens
over the 867, and the 1.25 GHz machine showed a performance
improvement between the 40 to 50 percent..
These ratios extended to game performance as
well.
However in basic hard drive performance all
three machines were pretty evenly matched. The exception being
when large quantities of smaller files were being copied (
as opposed to single large files). In this case there is more
processing overhead, and faster clocked machines do better.
Most of the test results below don't show any
particular advantage to the 1.25 GHz's additional 1 MB of
L3 cache. Only in our search test did it seem to be a factor.
While some amount of L3 cache seems to be an advantage, it
appears that there is diminishing returns with higher amounts
... at least for the type of work that our test suite is emulating.
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 G4/867, which is set to 100%. For all
scores, higher numbers are better.
Desktop Tests
The Faster processor is probably the prime
factor in the 1.25 GHz machine's better showing
In basic drive performance all three machines
are pretty evenly matched
A QuickTime export is imported into iMovie.
Drive performance is an important factor
Combo drive trumps SuperDrive in basic CD
burning (16x vs 8x)
With it's faster processors the top of the line
machine pulls ahead of the others in this on-screen graphics
tes. Let
1K Windows Bloom is a simple carbon application that opens
and closes 1,000 windows.
Two folders with many items are searched using
OS X new search function. The faster processors are no advantage
here. To carry out this function only 10% of the processing
power of each machine was utilized. So the bottleneck is not
at the processor level.. We can only conclude that the extra
L3 cache is what pushes the 1.25 GHz Tower ahead.
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A Macro
(series of complex actions) was run in Microsoft's Word
program, which is part of Office
X
A Macro (series of complex actions) was
run in Microsoft's Excel program, which is part of Office
X
Stresses the processing & memory systems
of the machine. This test takes place in a large AppleWorks
document. This is a raw processing power test.
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.
A Ripple Effect is applied to an iMovie
Encoding/Decoding Tests
A Sorenson
encode compresses a QuickTime movie for streaming on the
Web
Preps QuickTime Movie for import into iMovie
The results above would indicate that the bottleneck
here is at the CD drive level. The SuperDrive of the top machine
is not supplying data fast enough to the processors. The 867
reads CDs at 32X and the other two machine's drives read CDs
at 24X. All the machines were only using 65-75% of their processing
capability.
Multitasking
A Sorenson encode and fractal render are performed
at the same time. The QuickTime encode only soaks up 50% of
the processing power of each machine, leaving plenty of capability
left over for work to be done on the Fractal.
MP3 Encode, AppleWorks search & replace
and folder copy are all carried out at the same time
Gaming
Aside from the graphics card, Giants
is also tuned to take advantage of the processor as well.
Indeed, when run on a dual processor machine, you will see
Giants fly
ahead of the same game running on a single processor machine.
Frame rates here are 38 fps for the 867 MHz machine, 45 fps
for the GHz machine and 55 fps for the top of the line Tower.
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