Primate Labs Blog

After a lot of nudging (sorry it took so long!) I’ve updated Primate Labs’ Mac Benchmark chart. The updated chart adds the following Macs:

• iMac (Late 2009)
• iMac (27-inch Late 2009)
• MacBook (Late 2009)

The Mac Benchmark chart is generated by gathering results from the Geekbench Result Browser and averaging scores for each Mac model and processor combination. However, not every combination is included; for a combination to be included it has to meet a number of criteria which includes the total number of results for that combination. If the number is below a certain threshold the combination isn’t included.

Which leads me to something surprising; I was hoping to include Apple’s latest Mac Pro update, the single-processor Mac Pro @ 3.33GHz, but there are only two results for it in the Geekbench Result Browser. I was expecting more results for this particular model.

There are, however, a large number of dual-processor Mac Pros @ 3.33GHz in the Geekbench REsult Browser even though Apple doesn’t offer this configuration for sale. Apparently adding a second processor (or replacing both processors) in a Mac Pro is a popular upgrade. It’s a powerful upgrade, too, as one of these upgraded Mac Pros currently has the sixth highest score in the Geekbench Result Browser.

Late last week Geekbench results from what appeared to be a yet-unreleased MacBook Pro appeared on the Geekbench Result Browser. These results generated a lot of excitement, along with a lot of speculation; people wanted to know if these results were legitimate.

I spoke with Wired’s Brian Chen earlier today and shared my thoughts regarding the legitimacy of these results:

Geekbench creator John Poole told Wired.com that Geekbench results can be faked, but he believes the Core i7 MacBook Pro benchmark is real.

“If the system information for this system has been faked, it’s a convincing fake; there aren’t any inconsistencies in the system information, the Mac OS X build number matches Apple’s numbering scheme for new hardware builds, and the processor matches people’s expectations for what will appear in the refreshed MacBook Pro,” Poole said. “In other words, I believe this result is authentic.”

I have a feeling we’ll find out sooner rather than later whether this result is real or not!

Earlier this month Apple announced a lot of new hardware. While not all of it is available yet (in particular the Core i5 and Core i7 iMacs) most of it is and folks have been asking about how the new hardware performs compared to the old hardware. So, I’ve gathered Geekbench results for the new Mac models and compared them with results for the older Mac models (all results were gathered from the Geekbench Result Browser).

Geekbench is Primate Labs’ processor and memory benchmark where a score of 1000 means a system has the same performance as a PowerMac G5 @ 1.6GHz. Higher scores are better.

iMac Benchmarks

MacBook Benchmarks

Mac mini Benchmarks

Conclusions

The results are as expected; faster processors (of the same architecture) mean higher Geekbench scores. This shouldn’t be surprising since Geekbench is predominantly a CPU benchmark. What I’m interested in seeing, though, is how the Core i5 and Core i7 iMacs stack up; not only do they have a new processor architecture they also have double the number of cores. I wonder if the high-end iMac i7 will (finally!) be comparable to a low-end Mac Pro?

Snow Leopard is out today! While I’ve been running the developer versions for a while now, I went out and picked up a retail copy at my friendly neighborhood Apple store and installed it on my MacBook Pro (the laptop where I do most of my Mac development).

Now, what’s interesting about Snow Leopard is that unlike most new versions of operating systems (or most new versions of software in general) Apple didn’t add a lot of new features to Snow Leopard. Instead, Apple focused on making Snow Leopard faster and more stable than Leopard.

While some of the improvements, like Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL, will only benefit new (or rewritten) applications, do the other improvements help existing applications run faster?

To find out just how much faster existing applications run under Snow Leopard, I ran Geekbench on my MacBook Pro under Leopard and Snow Leopard. Geekbench doesn’t take advantage of Grand Central Dispatch or OpenCL so it’s a good way to determine how much of a performance boost existing applications will receive under Snow Leopard.

Setup

Here’s the configuration of the MacBook Pro I used:

• MacBook Pro (Late 2008)
  • Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40GHz
  • 2.00 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
  • Mac OS X 10.5.8 or
  • Mac OS X 10.6

If you’re not familiar with Geekbench, higher scores are better.

Results

Overall Performance

Integer Performance

Floating Point Performance

Memory Performance

Stream Performance

Conclusions

While the performance improvement is small, it is there — Geekbench runs between 2% and 3% faster under Snow Leopard than under Leopard. While this might not seem impressive at first keep in mind that Geekbench was slower under Leopard than Tiger. Having a new operating system improve performance, even if it’s a small improvement, is still something to get excited about.

One thing worth mentioning that isn’t captured in the Geekbench results above is that Snow Leopard feels faster and smoother than Leopard; the increased responsiveness of Snow Leopard makes it a joy to use.

I’ve updated the Mac Benchmark chart with Geekbench results for the new MacBook Pros announced at WWDC earlier this month. I’ve included the results for these new MacBook Pros below, along with results for the previous generation of MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

Results were collected from the Geekbench Result Browser for Macs with standard processors (i.e., no processor upgrades or overclocked processors). I’ve reported the average overall score for each model and processor combination. A score of 1000 is the score a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz would receive, and higher scores are better.

Results

Apple released a lot of new hardware this month, and while I was able to post Geekbench results for the new iMac and Mac mini fairly quickly, it took a little while longer to get Geekbench results for the new Mac Pro.

While other folks, such as Rob-ART over at BareFeats, have done an excellent job compiling benchmark results for the latest Mac Pros, I still wanted to post Geekbench results for not just the latest Mac Pros, but all of the Mac Pros that Apple has produced.

Setup

I’ve gathered Geekbench scores for the all of the Mac Pros that Apple has released. Scores were collected from the Geekbench Result Browser for Mac Pros with standard processors (i.e., no processor upgrades, overclocked processors, or Hackintoshes).

I’ve reported the average overall score for each model and processor combination.

If you haven’t used Geekbench before here’s how it measures performance. Geekbench compares a computer’s performance against a “baseline system” (currently a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz in Geekbench 2). A computer that has the same performance as the baseline system scores 1000 in Geekbench. A computer that’s twice as fast as the baseline scores 2000 while a computer that’s twice as slow scores 500.

Finally, Geekbench 2 only measures processor and memory performance which is why models with the same processors but different video cards have roughly the same score.

Mac Pro Benchmarks

Conclusions

What’s interesting is the performance of the 2008 and 2009 entry-level Mac Pro; both Macs have roughly the same performance, but the newer Mac Pro has a lower processor frequency and fewer cores. The new Nehalem architecture is clearly better than the older Core architecture. While it would be nice if the new entry-level Mac Pro was faster than the old entry-level Mac Pro, the new Mac Pro is cheaper, a change that makes more sense given the state of the economy.

The new mid- and high-end Mac Pros, on the other hand, are insanely fast (and insanely expensive). Currently it’s these models that are dominating most of the top spots in the Geekbench Result Browser. The only computer that can beat the Mac Pros’ score is a 32-core server from IBM.

Yesterday, Apple updated its entire desktop lineup. This update had been a long time coming, especially since the Mac Pro hadn’t been updated since January 2008 and the Mac mini hadn’t been updated since August 2007!

However, a lot of people were disappointed with the updates, since it felt like an incremental update rather than a substantial upgrade. Now that Geekbench results are coming in for the new iMac and Mac mini, we can look at one aspect of the updated hardware — processor performance — and see if the upgrade is incremental or substantial.

Setup

I’ve gathered results for the latest iMacs and Mac minis and compared them against previous generations (note that results for some hardware configurations aren’t available yet; I’ll update the post when they are available). Results were collected from the Geekbench Result Browser for Macs with standard processors (i.e., no processor upgrades or overclocked processors). I’ve reported the average overall score for each model and processor combination.

If you’re unfamiliar with Geekbench and how it measures performance, a score of 1000 is the score a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz would receive. Higher scores are better. Also, Geekbench 2 only measures processor and memory performance which is why models with the same processors but different video cards have roughly the same score.

iMac Benchmarks

Mac mini Benchmarks

Conclusions

Processor performance hasn’t increased substantially in the latest hardware; the performance increase seems to scale with processor speed. This isn’t surprising, since neither the iMac nor the Mac mini moved to a new processor architecture.

You might want to keep this in mind if you’re looking for a new Mac; you might be better off getting a discontinued (or refurbished) previous-generation Mac rather than one of the new Mac models.

Welcome to the most recent installment of Primate Labs‘ Mac Performance chart, a carefully crafted compilation of Mac performance that’s generated from the user-submitted results in the Geekbench Result Browser.

Like other updates, this update includes the latest Apple hardware (in this case the MacBook, the MacBook Air, and the MacBook Pro Apple released in November). Unlike other updates, this update doesn’t just present all of the Macs together in one large chart; it also splits the Macs into four different categories making the results easier to view and understand:

• Pro Laptops (MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and PowerBooks)
• Pro Desktops (Mac Pros and PowerMacs)
• Consumer Laptops (iBooks and MacBooks)
• Consumer Desktops (eMacs, iMacs, and Mac minis)

Setup

Results were collected from the Geekbench Result Browser for Macs with standard processors (i.e., no processor upgrades, overclocked processors, or Hackintoshes) with at least 512MB of RAM.

I’ve reported the average overall score for each model and processor combination. If you’re unfamiliar with Geekbench and how it measures performance, a score of 1000 is the score a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz would receive. Higher scores are better.

Also, keep in mind that Geekbench 2 only measures processor and memory performance which is why, for example, MacBook and MacBook Pro scores are so similar, despite both having radically different graphics adapters.

Pro Laptop Performance

What strikes me every time I look at this chart is how stable (or stagnant, depending on how charitable you’re feeling) PowerBook performance was after the introduction of the aluminum PowerBooks; it’s a reminder of how out-of-date the PowerPC G4 was then. When Apple switched to Intel processors, Pro laptop performance almost tripled overnight. Even the slowest MacBook Air, which many people regard as “too slow” to do “real work” on, is over twice as fast as the fastest PowerBook.

Pro Desktop Performance

Pro desktops weren’t held back by the PowerPC G4 because they were able to take advantage of IBM’s PowerPC G5. While the PowerPC G5 never reached the 3GHz promised by Steve Jobs in 2003, they did provide better performance than the PowerPC G4 and served the PowerMac well until Apple switched to Intel.

Now, with the switch to Intel, the latest Mac Pro is the fastest Mac available (and one of the fastest computers available) thanks to its two quad-core processors.

Consumer Laptop Performance

Much like Apple’s pro laptops, Apple’s consumer laptops were held back by the out-of-date PowerPC G4; switching to Intel almost tripled MacBook performance overnight.

Consumer Desktop Performance

While the switch to Intel brought performance benefits to consumer desktops thanks to faster processors, they also brought performance benefits thanks to multi-core processors. Think about it; none of Apple’s PowerPC-based consumer desktops are multi-core, while almost all of Apple’s Intel-based consumer desktops are multi-core. With so much multi-core aware software available today for Mac OS X, running a single-core Mac seems almost quaint.

Mac Performance

Final Thoughts

I’m always amazed at the performance drought the PowerPC G4 inflicted on Apple in general and on Apple laptops in particular before the switch to Intel; laptop performance is generally unchanged between 2003 and 2006 (desktops were at least able to use the PowerPC G5).

Once Apple switched to Intel, performance has increased (and increased significantly) with almost every update. Apple shouldn’t have to worry about getting stuck in another performance drought again.

When Apple released the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros last month, Apple also updated the MacBook Air. While the changes for the MacBook Air weren’t as radical, there were still a number of improvements made such as a new chipset, faster RAM, better graphics cards, and faster processors (at least for the high-end model).

What do these improvements mean for processor performance? My initial guess is that, like the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, it doesn’t mean much, but let’s look at some Geekbench results to see if that’s the case.

Setup

I used Geekbench 2, our cross-platform benchmark, to measure the processor and memory performance of the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Here is the configuration of the four test machines.

• MacBook Air (Late 2008)

  • Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.86GHz or
  • Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.60GHz
  • 2.00 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
  • Mac OS X 10.5.5 (Build 9F2523)

• MacBook Air

  • Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.80GHz or
  • Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.60GHz
  • 2.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
  • Mac OS X 10.5.5 (Build 9F33)

Geekbench 2 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000 (which is the score a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz would receive). Higher scores are better.

Results

Overall Performance

Integer Performance

Floating Point Performance

Memory Performance

Stream Performance

Conclusions

I thought the new MacBook Air wouldn’t be that much faster than the old MacBook Air, and it turns out I’m partly right (or partly wrong, depending on how you look at it). While the high-end MacBook Air is only slightly faster, the low-end MacBook Air is almost 10% faster (a dramatic improvement).

Keep in mind, too, these benchmarks ignore one of the big improvements to the MacBook Air — the new graphics chipset. While Geekbench isn’t able to measure graphics performance (an unfortunate limitation) benchmarks elsewhere show the huge gains NVIDIA’s integrated graphics have over Intel’s integrated graphics.

So if you’re thinking about buying a MacBook Air, don’t be too concerned that processor performance hasn’t improved for the high-end MacBook Air; the new graphics cards will certainly make up for it. Plus, while many complain about the low performance of the MacBook Air, remember it’s faster than the first round of Intel-based laptops and all of the dual-processor PowerMac G5s.

Last week when I looked at the performance of Apple’s latest MacBook Pros I didn’t have results for the high-end CTO MacBook Pro (with the 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo processor).

Now that I’ve got results for the high-end MacBook Pro I thought I’d revisit MacBook Pro performance to see how the high-end MacBook Pro compares against the last two generations of MacBook Pros. Sure, it’s the fastest laptop Apple’s ever produced, but just how much faster is it?

Setup

Like last time, I used Geekbench 2, Primate Labs’ cross-platform benchmark, to measure the processor and memory performance of the new MacBook Pros. Here’s the configuration of the test machines:

• MacBook Pro (Late 2008)

  • Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.80GHz or
  • Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53GHz or
  • Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40GHz
  • 4.00 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
  • Mac OS X 10.5.5 (Build 9F2114)

• MacBook Pro (Early 2008)

  • Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 @ 2.60GHz or
  • Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.40GHz
  • 4.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
  • Mac OS X 10.5.5 (Build 9F33)

Geekbench 2 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000 (which is the score a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz would receive). Higher scores are better.

Results

Overall Performance

Integer Performance

Floating Point Performance

Memory Performance

Stream Performance