[Macworld]

Post your comments for Benchmarks: New iMacs here

[davebarnes]

While a nice price-performance improvement, I have no incentive to replace my 18-month old 2.8GHz, 24-inch iMac.
Oh well, no economy-boosting purchase for me.

[exnihilo]

According to Apple, the 9400m should be 20% faster than the ATI 2400 in Quake 4, but it is actually 18% faster according to this benchmark. Close enough. But Apple claims that it should be 130% percent faster in Call of Duty, but it is actually only 10% faster according to this result.

[theguyfromtatooine]

Would you consider testing the iMac with an ATI Radeon 4850 card? I would like to see the result very much.

[hillstones]

The previous model 2.8 GHz 24" iMac is a steal at $1,399 in the clearance section, or $1,299 using the education discount, if still available at Apple. If not, Amazon still has them at $1,394.

[trip1ex]

hillstones said:

The previous model 2.8 GHz 24" iMac is a steal at $1,399 in the clearance section, or $1,299 using the education discount, if still available at Apple. If not, Amazon still has them at $1,394.

well maybe. I was thinking I wanted the new one for double the storage and memory and the extra USB port instead of the better gpu.

[wolfjo]

They are still there, and I agree its a great deal, especially with the EDU pricing.

I just can't pull the trigger though - I really want the option of upgrading the RAM later to more the 4Gb. I know 4Gb is usable, but with virtual machines running, etc, the 8Gb I have in my current Mac Pro is really useful.

Hopefully prices will come down on those chips, as they are incredible expensive right now...

[s4mb4]

HAHA, its just as i thought. when i compare my old 2.66 20' imac with the ATI HD 2600 Pro, the scores are either the same or better compared to the NEW 24" 2.66 model with intergrated 9400m. Is that why the old 2.66 20" model is not listed here???

[Macalways]

Could you supple reference re Apple's claim on Call of Duty?

Thank you

[ROWard]

I second the request for audio benchmarks especially for various operations in garageband.
Also, I was just at a user group meeting last night where someone was trying to demonstrate iChat. Be interesting to compare macs trying to do multiple things in iChat Theater - if you can even get the computer to participate.

[WilfredLaurier]

The graphics results aren't surprising. The GT130 is actually a rebranded 8800GS so it's performance would be unchanged from the previous generation BTO iMac. The GT120 is actually a rebranded 9500GT which should perform similarly to the 9600M GT in the MacBook Pro. The GT120 might even be the 9600M GT since Apple tends to use mobile GPUs in the iMac with desktop equivalent product names. Like the previous 8800GS was actually the 8800M GTS and is probably unchanged, just relabeled to GT130 to follow nVidia policy.
nVidia's poor performance against ATI GPUs in Call of Duty 4 is most likely accurate since nVidia's driver quality in OS X hasn't been very reliable as of late compared to ATI drivers. Makes you wonder why Apple is focusing so much support for nVidia when they are just rebranding old GPUs and their OS X drivers aren't up to par. The HD3870 still beats the supposedly faster 8800GT in the old Mac Pro in Apple's own Core Image accelerated apps (http://www.barefeats.com/harper21.html). Previously even the HD2600XT could beat the 8800GT.
And I'd love to see benchmarks of the HD4850 in the iMac. The HD4850 should walk all over the GT130/8800GS and I think the $50 investment over the GT130 should be recommended to all potential 3.06GHz iMac users.

[SouLab]

MacPCJustCreate said:

It is recommended that some kind of audio test be added to the benchmarking suite using Logic, Garageband, and Digital Performer as a minimum test suite. Many would be interested in knowing the number of audio tracks, virtual instruments, and plug-ins that can be run simultaneously in real-time using the test suite applications. Perhaps a set of standard audio projects could be developed for running the test comparisons. This would be very useful information for many readers, especially comparisons of the Mac Pro versus the iMac, MacBook, and MacBook Pro systems.

Thank you for consideration of this idea,

DC

I agree completely. I've been waiting for quite awhile for someone to add some meaningful audio tests to the benchmarks. It's a bit frustrating to continually see the absence of audio tests here (or anywhere), considering that the Mac has such a large presence in the world of audio production.

[exnihilo]

Sure, here ya go:
http://www.apple.com...tml#performance
1.2x translates to 20& faster, 2.3x translates to 130% faster