intel macs not as fast as Apple claims
2006-02-05 by GAmoore@aol.com
from Macworld :
http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/features/imaclabtest1/index.php
First Lab Tests: iMac with Intel Core Duo processor
Intel-based iMacs are fast, but gains don’t match Apple’s claims
By Jason Snell
Since the first rumors of an Apple switch to Intel, everyone has been wondering about the potential speed of Intel-based Macs. Last week’s announcement of the first shipping Intel-based Macs brought with it the promise of a major speed boost: Apple’s Web pages suggest that the new iMac, powered by the Intel Core Duo processor, is twice as fast as its G5 predecessor.
Macworld Lab’s tests do show that the new Intel-based iMac is faster than the iMac G5 when running native applications. However, we found that those improvements are generally much less than what Apple claims is a 2x improvement in speed.
Instead, our tests found the new 2.0GHz Core Duo iMac takes rougly 10 to 25 percent less time than the G5 iMac to perform the same native application tasks, albeit with some notable exceptions. (If you'd prefer, that makes the Core Duo iMac 1.1 to 1.3 times as fast.) And we also found that applications that aren’t yet Intel-native—which must run using Apple’s Rosetta code-translation technology—tend to run half as fast as the same applications running natively on the iMac G5.
Universal applications: Comparing apples to apples
Apple’s much-publicized test scores for the new iMac were made with programs designed specifically to generate test results. So they may give some indication of the overall performance potential of these systems. However, such test results often don’t match up to what regular users see in their everyday work—i.e., the speed of real-world applications.
Several of the programs Macworld Lab uses to judge overall system performance are not yet available in Universal versions. As a result, we added several new tests based on applications that are currently available in Universal form. (And we plan on running even more tests as more Universal applications arrive—we’ll be posting test updates as well as a complete review of the new iMac to Macworld.com in the coming days.)
In tests with two iLife ’06 applications—iMovie and iPhoto—we found remarkably different performance depending on what features of the programs we tried. For example, the act of applying one iMovie effect to a video clip resulted in a remarkable speed improvement of 1.8 times. But a different effect showed only half the improvement, and yet another showed no speed improvement at all.
http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/features/imaclabtest1/index.php
First Lab Tests: iMac with Intel Core Duo processor
Intel-based iMacs are fast, but gains don’t match Apple’s claims
By Jason Snell
Since the first rumors of an Apple switch to Intel, everyone has been wondering about the potential speed of Intel-based Macs. Last week’s announcement of the first shipping Intel-based Macs brought with it the promise of a major speed boost: Apple’s Web pages suggest that the new iMac, powered by the Intel Core Duo processor, is twice as fast as its G5 predecessor.
Macworld Lab’s tests do show that the new Intel-based iMac is faster than the iMac G5 when running native applications. However, we found that those improvements are generally much less than what Apple claims is a 2x improvement in speed.
Instead, our tests found the new 2.0GHz Core Duo iMac takes rougly 10 to 25 percent less time than the G5 iMac to perform the same native application tasks, albeit with some notable exceptions. (If you'd prefer, that makes the Core Duo iMac 1.1 to 1.3 times as fast.) And we also found that applications that aren’t yet Intel-native—which must run using Apple’s Rosetta code-translation technology—tend to run half as fast as the same applications running natively on the iMac G5.
Universal applications: Comparing apples to apples
Apple’s much-publicized test scores for the new iMac were made with programs designed specifically to generate test results. So they may give some indication of the overall performance potential of these systems. However, such test results often don’t match up to what regular users see in their everyday work—i.e., the speed of real-world applications.
Several of the programs Macworld Lab uses to judge overall system performance are not yet available in Universal versions. As a result, we added several new tests based on applications that are currently available in Universal form. (And we plan on running even more tests as more Universal applications arrive—we’ll be posting test updates as well as a complete review of the new iMac to Macworld.com in the coming days.)
In tests with two iLife ’06 applications—iMovie and iPhoto—we found remarkably different performance depending on what features of the programs we tried. For example, the act of applying one iMovie effect to a video clip resulted in a remarkable speed improvement of 1.8 times. But a different effect showed only half the improvement, and yet another showed no speed improvement at all.