Benchmarks Archive

PopularMechanics has performed three types of benchmarks on Apple and 'ordinary' PC machines, with the former running Mac OS X Leopard, and the latter Windows Vista. The first type of benchmark consisted of users giving ratings to things like design, ergonomics, web browsing experience, and so on. The second benchmark focused on real-world performance (launching applications, boot/shutdown times, and so on), while the third and final benchmark consisted of Geekbench and Cinebench runs. PM concludes: "The results gave us a clear winner in the performance categories, but the big surprise was how little difference we found in user preferences. Turns out, both platforms are capable and easy to use, but only one was the victor." Even before I got to the results, I noticed a whole set of problems with the benchmarks performed in this article, that would seriously skew the results.

"Earlier this week Apple released updated Mac Pros that use Intel's new Penryn processors. Also new is the fact that the standard Mac Pro configuration now comes with eight (instead of four) cores. Of course, what I've been wondering (as I sit here and think about getting a new Mac Pro) is how does the new standard eight-core Mac Pro perform compared to the old high-end Mac Pro? I've gathered Geekbench 2 results for both Mac Pros to find out."

"'What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away'. Such has been the conventional wisdom surrounding the Windows/Intel duopoly since the early days of Windows 95. In practical terms, it means that performance advancements on the hardware side are quickly consumed by the ever-increasing complexity of the Windows/Office code base. Case in point: Microsoft Office 2007 which, when deployed on Windows Vista, consumes over 12x as much memory and nearly 3x as much processing power as the version that graced PCs just 7 short years ago (Office 2000). But despite years of real-world experience with both sides of the duopoly, few organizations have taken the time to directly quantify what my colleagues and I at Intel used to call 'The Great Moore's Law Compensator'. In fact, the hard numbers below represent what is perhaps the first ever attempt to accurately measure the evolution of the Windows/Office platform in terms of real-world hardware system requirements and resource consumption."

"Linux has an abundance of excellent terminal applications. Interestingly, I could not find any decent comparison of their text display performance. Since I use the command line a lot, I want text output that is as fast as possible. When you compile a large project, you don’t want the console output to be the limiting factor. I took the burden on me to do a comprehensive comparison of the text through of all possible terminals."

Tom's Hardware has benchmarked Windows Vista, but somehow we missed it (we're a month late). Our apologies. "We are sure that mainstream users will appreciate the improved usability of Windows Vista, and the average office/multimedia user will likely never notice the lack of OpenGL. However, a chapter on the overall performance of Windows Vista requires more dedication."

Most current Intel and AMD CPUs, as well as almost every Macintosh model from the last few years, geekbenched and compared. Interesting results if you just want to have an overall generic idea of how fast is what. Interesting to see that my 12" 867 Mhz Powerbook G4 is at least 6 times slower than a new MacBook Pro or that new Core2Duo CPUs at 2 GHz are way faster than my pretty recent 3 GHz P4 (which came with hyperthreading and 64bit support nonetheless). Technology flies fast past you!