[MW Forums]

Speedmark is our primary performance testing tool for all new Mac systems. With the release of Mac OS X 10.5, we've updated our tests -- with your input. Find out which tests now make up Speedmark, and how the current lineup of Macs fares. more

[atowntexas]

Hello,
Thanks, Macworld, for all the valuable articles available at your website.
Would it be possible to obtain some of the content that you use in your tests so that I can run my own test on an older Mac? I know that it is quite impossible for you to test multiple machines over several product iterations. I would like to know how my current machine performs against newer models to help me decide an upgrade patch. I am specifically interested in the iMovie test.
With kind regards,
atowntexas

[MikeyD]

Drats...just about every Mac EXCEPT the one I own (2.8 GHz Extreme iMac 24 inch). Sure wish I could see where that lines up with that Mac Pro hogging all the good news.

[davebarnes]

Jim,
1. Thank you. I bet that was a lot of work. Much appreciated.
2. I also would like to see "my" 2.8 iMac.
3. What is really interesting is how close (ignoring the poor Mini) all these machines are. Where is the machine that is 2x the MacBook?
,dave

[Buffyzdead]

Yes, was there ever a Full Review, including Speedmark tests, done on the 2.8Ghz 24" iMac ?....I don't recall but I would love to see this. Thank you

[Philip Michaels]

Quote:

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Yes, was there ever a Full Review, including Speedmark tests, done on the 2.8Ghz 24" iMac ?....I don't recall but I would love to see this. Thank you

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Benchmarks, yes (under Speedmark 4.5, anyhow). A review, no -- typically, we don't mouse-rate build-to-order products.

[michaelant]

This is fantastic.
Thanks a lot!

[ncj37]

It would be nice to include some PowerPC machines so that people who have older systems could get an idea of the performance improvements they'd see with a new Intel Mac. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if results for a dual-core G5 still looking fairly good in a number of these tests.

[icerabbit]

Thanks for all the hard work and incorporating feedback from the past. Boot times are certainly appreciated.
I hope as well that we may see a few PPC machines tested under the new speedmark, as much as possible.
I'm thinking a last generation PowerBook G4 1.67, PowerMac G5 and iMac G5 would be most useful information in general. It will give extra perspective for those holding on to their older machines and/or saving pennies.
Otherwise great work /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
PS: I actually think the minis are doing pretty good - apart from the core solo.

[danviento]

As a note to PPC, my 1.67Ghz Powerbook actually seems FASTER with the install of leopard. Finder responds better, heavy lifting tasks in rendering, Audio processing, photography adjustments, and a whole slew of pro-end stuff my machine does seems to go better. This may have to do with the fact that I had to back up my drive, wipe it, and install Leopard fresh before bringing all of my stuff back to life, but you know there's got to be something to better coding.
Sadly, I have no way of documenting it, It's up to you, Macworld!

[berlingumi]

I'm sorry but Macworld you are confusing me. Does Speedmark 5 produce different results than Speedmark 4.5? Is yes than how can we track how much faster new machines are compared to our older ones?
For example I made a sticky of my older computers Speedmark scores when I read the Macworld reviews of them:
Powermac G5 Dual 2.5 - 225
12" Powerbook 867 - 114
Powermac G4 Dual 500 - 165
Recently I purchased a Macbook Pro 2.2 Core2Duo and I read in your review posted online the Speedmark 4.5 score was 220:
http://www.macworld....118_detail1.php
However now with Speedmark 5 its 185?
How can I compare my old machines with the new ones?

[Philbert]

I've asked for this before ...
Why not actually LIST the tasks in your Photoshop action? I could skew results in many ways depending on the specific tasks that are run. It'd be nice to know what those tasks are. Better yet, provide the action as a download as well as the actual test file? That way, users could make a direct comparison with their own machine to see how it stacks up - this would beneficial in many ways.
One another note ... good to see that after 15 months, my Mac Pro 2.66 is STILL the champ in the "best-bang-for-the-buck" race. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Martian]

It might also be interesting to see comparisons with representative machines from the dark side, say a middle of the road laptop, middle of the road desktop, and an ultimate desktop.
With that said, I wonder if the almost infinite configuration possibilities wouldn't make this hard to do fairly and meaningfully.

[Unicron]

With AE CS3's new multiprocessing function, is unique in that it spawns a copy of itself for each core the computer has. "Nightflight" is the standard testing project.
Quicktime Player's AppleTV Export preset is an enormously time consuming process. I'd like to see how new Macs improve on it.