The Performance Edge: A Dueling, Dual Processor
Shoot Out - A First Look At The Performance Of The New Gigahertz
Tower Compared To The Last Generation Dual Processor Machine
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This is our first look at the performance of
the new Power Mac Dual G4/1 GHz machine. We decided to first
compare it the the previous generation's dual processor machine,
the Dual G4/800. Below are just a few preliminary tests, each
of which stresses both of the machine's processors. All the
tests below are processor intensive tasks. We will be doing
much more extensive testing in the following week and hope
to give you a well rounded look at all the performance facets
of this new machine.
Difference and similarities in processor and
memory systems of each machine
All of the tests below were timed with a stopwatch. The
times are then converted to percentages relative to the Power
Mac Dual G4/800, which is set to 100%. For all scores, higher
numbers are better.
Number Crunching & Rendering Tests
In the test above we are running a Ripple Effects filter
on a exported QuickTime movie. The file size is about 175
MB. In the Gigahertz machine both processors were utilized
but only about 60% of their processing potential was being
used. In other words, 40% of the processing capacity of the
machine was sitting idle. Some bottleneck is preventing data
from reaching the processors fast enough to saturate them.
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 also takes good advantage of dual processors. Both processors
were kept completely saturated with data.
Encoding/Decoding Tests
For the test above we launched two separate copies of QuickTime
and had them each do an encode on individual files. Again
in this test, both processors were kept completely saturated
with data
Converting QuickTime
movies to DV allows you to import them into iMovie. Of all
the tests this was the best result we had for the Gigahertz
machine over the 800 MHz one.
Here we are runing the QuickTime Sorenson encode and iMovie
Ripple effect at the same time. Both processors were completely
saturated when both applications were running. However the
Ripple Effect finished before the Sorenson Encode. When only
the encode was running, processor usage dropped to only a
little over 50%. If I am not mistaken the Sorenson encode
capability that is built into QuickTime is hobbled and does
not utilized dual processors.
The beauty of dual processors and OS X for Power Users is
that even if a program you are running does not itself take
advantage of dual processors, if you plan your work strategy
well, you can always launch another application to soak up
whatever horsepower is being left on the table.
All in all the Gigahertz machine turns in about a 30% speed
improvement over the dual 800 MHz when doing processor intensive
tasks. A 30% speed improvement and a 14% price drop ... not
too bad.
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