Speed Test: iMac vs. PC

[vinke]

I just tested the iMac 1.25 ghz, 512 ram, os x, with a sample image. i was comparing the speed to my PC 2 ghz, 512 ram, pentium 4.

the same image was used, PS 7.0 on both machines. i applied the artistic, watercolor brush detail 9, shadow intensity 1, texture 1.

after applying the effect here's how long the machines took:

PC= about 13 seconds

iMac = about 20 seconds.

i was surprised. i thought the iMac was supposed to be faster, despite, the lower ghz.

was my test flawed?

 

[Bradley79664]

you should try running psbench or some other benchmarking app that runs a series of filters and gives specific times. then again, the imacs arent primarily built for speed... more for convenience. that said, they still hold their own in the speed game.

best,
b.

 

[nufferkay]

Yes, no , and maybe. certain operations in Photoshop are optimized for the G4, others aren't. I believe Gaussian Blur and bicubic interpolation are among the optimized ones, but don't quote me on that.

Basically, for almost any operation, a G4 should be able to beat out a P4 of equal clock speed or just a bit faster. For optimized operations, it should match a P4 with nearly twice the clock speed (although that also requires a fast bus and cache, which means the iMacs may be at a disadvantage where the PowerMacs have the upper hand).

You also have to make sure that nothing else is running on either machine, they've both been booted freshly, etc.

If you really want a blazing fast machine that will beat out anything else on the market, get a G5 =)

cheers,
-N

I just tested the iMac 1.25 ghz, 512 ram, os x, with a sample
image. i was comparing the speed to my PC 2 ghz, 512 ram, pentium 4.

the same image was used, PS 7.0 on both machines. i applied the
artistic, watercolor brush detail 9, shadow intensity 1, texture 1.

after applying the effect here's how long the machines took:

PC= about 13 seconds

iMac = about 20 seconds.

i was surprised. i thought the iMac was supposed to be faster,
despite, the lower ghz.

was my test flawed?

 

[Markantony]

I just tested the iMac 1.25 ghz, 512 ram, os x, with a sample
image. i was comparing the speed to my PC 2 ghz, 512 ram, pentium 4.

the same image was used, PS 7.0 on both machines. i applied the
artistic, watercolor brush detail 9, shadow intensity 1, texture 1.

after applying the effect here's how long the machines took:

PC= about 13 seconds

iMac = about 20 seconds.

i was surprised. i thought the iMac was supposed to be faster,
despite, the lower ghz.

was my test flawed?

No The result is correct, but the watercolor filter is one that is better optomised for Intel chips. Try PS7 bench (this tests lots of filters)

On the other hand if you want the Mac to win try RGB-CMYK on a 50mb file as this is G4 optomised.
Regards
Mark

 

[Dale300]

I think vinke's point is that on both machines with the same app and filters, the P4 machine was faster than the G4 for this test.

iMac is the slowest machine Apple makes. I think its even slower than the iBook, but these 2 are very close. iMac is slower than an eMac. My 1.1ghz Celeron Toshiba Laptop is faster at many PSE2 chores than my 800 mhz G4 iMac, and even rips MP3's faster.

Now if I switch my PS scratch disk over to an external firewire drive, my iMac is faster than the Toshiba by quite a bit. I am getting in line for a G5 as soon as Panther ships with it.

I just tested the iMac 1.25 ghz, 512 ram, os x, with a sample
image. i was comparing the speed to my PC 2 ghz, 512 ram, pentium 4.

the same image was used, PS 7.0 on both machines. i applied the
artistic, watercolor brush detail 9, shadow intensity 1, texture 1.

after applying the effect here's how long the machines took:

PC= about 13 seconds

iMac = about 20 seconds.

i was surprised. i thought the iMac was supposed to be faster,
despite, the lower ghz.

was my test flawed?

 

[Derekasaurus Rex]

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=6206948

I just tested the iMac 1.25 ghz, 512 ram, os x, with a sample
image. i was comparing the speed to my PC 2 ghz, 512 ram, pentium 4.

the same image was used, PS 7.0 on both machines. i applied the
artistic, watercolor brush detail 9, shadow intensity 1, texture 1.

after applying the effect here's how long the machines took:

PC= about 13 seconds

iMac = about 20 seconds.

i was surprised. i thought the iMac was supposed to be faster,
despite, the lower ghz.

was my test flawed?

 

[Jurjen]

i was surprised. i thought the iMac was supposed to be faster,
despite, the lower ghz.

was my test flawed?

No it was not...

As happy with my Imac as I am and as Apple shovinist in general, there is no way around it; equally priced pc's simply win at raw speed from Apple... when they are new or for pc's newly installed.

BUT, the lack of performance is easily compensated by the very fact that Apple's simply work. Taken the amount of downtime, reinstallation, fighting cyber wars with virussus, defragmentation etc you get on a pc it is easy to choose for Apple like we all did...

Jurjen

--
http://www.pbase.com/jurjen

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man. -G.B. Shaw