[CS-FSLUG] [Mac-Min] Intel Announces Radical New Chip Design - Your Next Mac Will Scream- MacLife

[Timothy Butler]

>
> 	FWIW, a friend of mine with a MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz (but not  
> Core 2 Duo) ran CineBench for me. You said you got 206 from  
> Rendering, he got 303. But, of course, he has a second cpu, which  
> for rendering gave a 1.86x speedup to 564.
>
> 	For shading, C4D reported 348 to your 206, OpenGL SW was 1141 to  
> your 888 and HW was 1031 vs. 940.
>


OK, so here's the full comparison, including my PowerMac G5 Dual  
Processor @ 2.7 GHz, my Dell Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz (Windows XP  
SP 2), my Mac mini PowerPC G4 @ 1.44 GHz and the previous results.  
The PowerMac has a ATI Radeon X850 XT with 256 megs of ram; the Dell  
has an ATI Radeon 9700 with 128 megs of ram.
	
Rendering Single CPU
	My Mac mini (PowerPC G4):		138
	Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo):		206
	My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz:		259
	MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz:		303
	My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz: 		410

Rendering Two CPUs/Cores
	My Mac mini (PowerPC G4):		--
	Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo):		--
	My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz:		--
	MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz:		564	
	My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz:		744


Shading (CINEMA 4D)
	My Mac mini (PowerPC G4):		152
	Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo):		206
	My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz:		267
	MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz:		348
	My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz:		405

Shading (OpenGL S/W)
	My Mac mini (PowerPC G4):		463
	Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo):		888
	My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz:		1097
	MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz:		1141
	My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz:		1279

Shading (OpenGL H/W)
	My Mac mini (PowerPC G4):		475
	Nathan's Mac mini (Core Solo):		940
	MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz:		1031
	My Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz:		2336
	My PowerMac G5 @ 2.7 GHz:		2902

First note: this isn't terribly scientific. Not all the systems are  
configured as closely as possible, but it'll provide an idea. My Mac  
mini has 256 megs of ram; my PowerMac has 1.5 GB; my Dell has 768.   
My mini is running Mac OS X 10.4.8 Server. The Mini and the Windows  
system are on a KVM switch hooked to an LCD panel doing 1280x1024, as  
is the MacBook (well, it is wide screen, so the resolution is a bit  
different), I believe, whereas your system was driving a higher  
resolution 1440x900, which ought to slow it down a bit, and my  
PowerMac is driving a 1920x1200 screen, which should slow it down  
even farther.

Big point:   the Core Solo performs substantially better in every  
test over the PowerPC G4 Mac mini -- even in the hardware OpenGL test  
-- despite the PowerPC Mac mini's discrete video card with 32 megs of  
video ram.

There's a number of things that could be going on: first, not all  
apps are optimized for Intel yet. Your best bet is still to use the  
apps optimized for the job. Safari should best Camino, GarageBand  
should do better than Audacity (Audacity isn't even a native Aqua  
app, and as I've said, I'm not sure how well Apple's X11 is optimized  
-- it is OK, but still...).

But, given that the Core Solo outperforms my Mac mini, I'm scratching  
my head a bit. I'm not sure why yours isn't performing acceptably,  
because mine is quite usable even though it is quite a bit slower.

The other thing I can offer from this is that at least in terms of  
rendering power, you can see that the PowerMac is still a monster  
compared to the other systems. This might indicate that you should  
consider buying one. They are getting cheaper on eBay and it still  
has some good life in it. Or, given that the Mac Pros are showing up  
as even faster, if you spring for the extra expensive system, it  
should give you a LOT more performance.

Nevertheless, I think the Core architecture really shines here, once  
you go to a multi-core system. If you look at the MacBook, it  
performs significantly better than the Mini, especially when you have  
two cores going. Part of that is purely a clock difference, but the  
second core helps a lot. The MacBook @ 2.0 GHz bests the faster clock  
speed Pentium 4 @ 2.66 GHz on every test, even when using just one  
core, save for when the test is primarily based on video card  
performance (the last test), where the Radeon 9700 with 128 MB of ram  
still shines fairly well.

I think that means that you would see a substantial performance  
increase with a Core Duo Mac mini,  but whether it would be enough  
for you is hard to say. Waiting for a Core 2 Duo Mac mini might be  
the best thing. It will give an additional speed boost, but still  
would be cheaper than a used G5 or a Mac Pro.

	-Tim


---
Timothy R. Butler | "Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher
tbutler at ofb.biz   | is bound in  his  way to  be a lover of myths  and
www.uninet.info   | poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in
timothybutler.us  | being big with wonder."
                                                      -- Thomas Aquinas