SHOOTOUT: Dual-Core Macs versus Dual-Core PCs

Originally posted December 31st, 2005, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist We weren't able to match the clock speed exactly, but I'm giving you the results from those Dual-Core Macs and PCs made avaialable to us so far. GRAPH LEGEND QC G5 2.5 = Quad-Core G5/2.5GHz Power Mac DSC G5 2.7 = Dual Single-Core G5/2.7GHz Power Mac DSC G5 2.5 = Dual Single-Core G5/2.5GHz Power Mac DC Pent 2.8 = Dual-Core Pentium 2.8GHz DC Athlon 2.2 = Dual-Core Athlon 2.2GHz 64bit X2 4400+ 64b = Windows 64 bit version of Cinebench 32b = Windows 32 bit version of Cinebench INSIGHTS and COMMENTS 1. The fastest dual processor G5 Power Macs outperform the Dual-Core Pentium running at a faster clock speed in the After Effects and Cinebench Tests. 2. The Athlon 64 X2 4400+ beat the fastest dual processor G5 Power Macs in the Photoshop and Cinebench tests. Impressive when you realize it's running a much lower clock speed (2.2 vs 2.7GHz). 3. Needless to say, the Quad-Core G5 Power Mac was the fastest in the three tests. As you can see, both Cinebench and After Effects use all four processors in the Quad-Core when rendering, giving it a huge advantage over Dual-Core systems. 4. You'll notice the big "kick" the Dual-Core Pentium and Dual-Core Athlon get from running the 64 bit version of CineBench under Windows 64 OS. Not all 64 bit software runs faster but in this case it certainly does. 5. None of the tests above involve the graphics processor. Ideally, we would like to test comparable graphics cards on all systems. But until that opportunity comes, we'll give you some preliminary results: Graph Legend Q4500 = Quadro FX 4500 PCI Express (Mac Edition) 7800G = GeForce 7800 GT PCI Express (Mac Edition) 7800X = GeForce 7800 GTX PCI Express (PC Edition) 6800U = GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI Express (PC Edition) or GeForce 6800 Ultra 8X AGP (Mac Edition) 7800S = GeForce 7800 GTX PCI Express SLI Mode (PC Edition) It's hard to draw conclusions from these 3D game graphs since neither main processor speed nor graphics processor speed match. But I think it's safe to say that the Windows PCs maintain an advantage in 3D gaming, even though the newest Power Macs have at least one 16 lane PCI Express slot for the graphics card. 6. All test units had 4GB of memory. The Athlon and Pentium each had 400MHz DDR memory. The Quad-Core and Dual-Core G5 Power Macs had 533MHz DDR2 memory. The Single-Core Dual G5 Power Macs had 400MHz DDR memory. 7. The boot drives in all cases were 10K 73GB Raptors. 8. Apple posted their own "Mac vs PC" page WHERE TO BUY G5 POWER MACS Buying a Power Mac? Please CLICK OUR APPLE STORE, USA, TEXT LINKS or DISPLAY ADS to help us earn our affiliate commission. WHERE TO BUY WINDOWS PCs There are many places to buy PCs. We want to plug WhisperPC since they provided the Dual-Core Pentium and Athlon systems. Has Bare Feats helped you? How about helping Bare Feats?