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.
While it’s not a major departure from the old design, the new design is much cleaner and fits in with the other Primate Labs websites. Also, the new design lays some important groundwork for some new features and functionality I’m hoping to release later this year.
I’ve switched the comment system on the Primate Labs Blog from WordPress’ built-in comments to Disqus. Disqus is a hosted comment and discussion service that offers a lot of nice features; you can “log in” and leave comments with your Twitter, Facebook, or OpenID account (you can also sign up for a Disqus account).
Disqus also enables threaded discussions instead of a flat list of comments, making it easier to reply to one person instead of an entire comment thread. Disqus also (optionally) notifies you when someone responds to your comments, making it easier to follow discussions.
I really hope Disqus makes it easier to have meaningful discussions on the Primate Labs Blog. If you’ve got any questions or comments, you can let me know by posting a comment!
While it’s not something I talk about a lot, many of you already know that Primate Labs is not my full-time job. I have a full-time job (as a software developer) during the day and I work on Primate Labs during my evenings and weekends. Although I lose much of my leisure time, my day job gives me access to amazing technology and Primate labs constantly forces me to deal with new challenges. It is a “double life” that has made me a better developer.
You might wonder why any of this matters to you, my users. I have been fortunate that the companies that I have worked for in the past, including most recently RapidMind, have been willing to allow me to pursue Primate Labs projects. A few weeks ago RapidMind was acquired by Intel. This acquisition has forced me to question what I should do as the developer of a vendor-neutral cross-platform processor benchmark AND as an employee of the world’s largest semiconductor company. Can I remain neutral when it comes to my Geekbench work?
I have considered many options, including selling or open-sourcing Geekbench. Abandoning Geekbench was not an option since Geekbench has over 10,000 registered users, over 170,000 results submitted to the Geekbench Result Browser, and companies all over the world in different industries use Geekbench.
I have decided to continue to work on Geekbench. I will strive to provide a benchmark that remains vendor-neutral in spite of my daytime employment. It is just another challenge, but one that you as Geekbench users should be aware of and understand.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this please let me know. You can reach me via email at email hidden; JavaScript is required or by posting a comment below.
One thing I’ve wanted for a while is some sort of public support forum for Geekbench. While I certainly don’t mind if people email me with questions, the big problem is that these emails aren’t public, they’re private. The questions (and answers) don’t get archived by Google (the first place I turn when I have a problem) so they can’t help other people.
I’d rather have these conversations out in public so people can find them easily. It takes a lot less effort and it feels a lot less intrusive to look for something on Google than to email someone out of the blue. It’s usually faster, too!
I’ve tried running a couple of forums but I’ve not been happy with any of them. Not only is a forum yet another thing I have to maintain, almost all involve some form of user registration that makes asking and answering questions painful. Plus, no forum software seems to be geared towards support questions.
A few months ago, though, I ran across Get Satisfaction. It’s a pretty nifty web site that lets you ask and answer questions about products. It’s designed from the ground up not as a discussion forum, but as a support forum; asking and answering questions is dead easy! It also has a neat feature where you can vote on other folks’ questions, saying whether or not it affects you too, which helps developers prioritize requests. Finally, Google indexes it, so if you have the same issue as someone else and it’s been asked before, you should be able to find the response quickly.
So I set up Geekbench as a product on Get Satisfaction and I’ve been really pleased! There have been a number of great questions posted that have not only helped the original poster, but other people as well! If you’ve got any questions about Geekbench (and you don’t feel like emailing me!) head on over and ask away.
My only concern about Get Satisfaction is I’ve no idea what their revenue model is or how they make money. It’s a great website and I’d hate to see it disappear due to lack of funds.
Tonight I’ll be migrating the Geekbench Result Browser to a new (dedicated!) host. There’ll be some downtime as I migrate the data from the old server to the new server and wait for the DNS servers to update to the new IP address, but I’m hoping it’ll take less than a couple of hours.
Update: The migration went well and everything’s working perfectly.
The Geekbench Result Browser was down for several hours this morning. I’m not exactly sure what the cause was, but the evidence points to a memory leak (probably in the Browser code itself) that caused Rails to consume all available memory and then fall down go boom.
While the Result Browser is back online and looks like it’s behaving, I haven’t been able to determine what the problem actually is, so there might be more downtime in the near future. If that does happen, let me apologize in advance and assure you that I’m working on the problem.
I’ve given users the ability to edit the description of their results, as well as add a comment describing their results (for example describing, in more detail, their hardware configuration or cooling setup).
I’ve also improved the search user interface so it’s cleaner, provides more feedback, and can display several pages of results. It’s still a simple text search, so you can’t perform complex searches (like, say, searching for all of the AMD-based systems with at least 512MB of RAM).
Give the new features a try and let me know what you think of them!
I’ve updated the 24-inch iMac Performance (August 2007) article to include Geekbench results for the 24-inch iMac with the Core 2 Extreme processor. It looks like the Core 2 Extreme brings noticeable processor performance gains (take a look at the integer and floating point scores below), but is comparable in terms of memory performance with the 2.4GHz 24-inch iMac (unsurprising, since both iMacs use the same speed memory).
For your convenience, I’ve done a “mini comparison” between the two current 24-inch iMac models below.
Just a quick heads up that I’m moving the Geekbench Result Browser to a new server today. There’ll be some downtime as I migrate the data from the old server to the new server and wait for the DNS servers to update to the new IP address, but hopefully it won’t take long!
Update: Finished! If you’re still seeing the “Server Move in Progress” page, your DNS is out of date and you’re still accessing the old server. Try flushing your DNS cache to get the new server’s IP address.
