1Ghz eMac outperforms DDR iMac
"The eMac consistently embarrassed the iMac."
---- August, 2003 MacAddict review.
In a recent thread, I complained that the eMac was overpriced given its slower mobo, etc.... er, I guess I'm taking that back.
MacAddict tested the 1 gig eMac v. the DDR iMac, and the eMac kicked the iMac's tail.
They didn't know why, so they asked Apple. Apple didn't know why. They reformatted the drives, reinstalled the OSes, did the tests over and over, and the eMac won again and again. It even got better UT2003 framerates than the iMac (56.4 v55.3 fps)
The $1,299 G4 eMac kicked the $1,799 iMac all around the room like so:
(smaller number is better)
Gaussian blur 1 px radius:
eMac.......iMac
20...........27 sec
Gaussian blur 25 px radius:
eMac.......iMac
28...........30 sec
Rotate 90 degrees:
eMac.......iMac
26...........38 sec
Unsharp Mask (200 %,5px, 0 levels):
eMac.......iMac
28...........36 sec
(PS Elements v. 2, 115MB PSD File, 256 MB RAM, OS X 10.2.6 on both machines)
Visit www.macaddict.com
---- August, 2003 MacAddict review.
In a recent thread, I complained that the eMac was overpriced given its slower mobo, etc.... er, I guess I'm taking that back.
MacAddict tested the 1 gig eMac v. the DDR iMac, and the eMac kicked the iMac's tail.
They didn't know why, so they asked Apple. Apple didn't know why. They reformatted the drives, reinstalled the OSes, did the tests over and over, and the eMac won again and again. It even got better UT2003 framerates than the iMac (56.4 v55.3 fps)
The $1,299 G4 eMac kicked the $1,799 iMac all around the room like so:
(smaller number is better)
Gaussian blur 1 px radius:
eMac.......iMac
20...........27 sec
Gaussian blur 25 px radius:
eMac.......iMac
28...........30 sec
Rotate 90 degrees:
eMac.......iMac
26...........38 sec
Unsharp Mask (200 %,5px, 0 levels):
eMac.......iMac
28...........36 sec
(PS Elements v. 2, 115MB PSD File, 256 MB RAM, OS X 10.2.6 on both machines)
Visit www.macaddict.com
Comments
(PS Elements v. 2, 115MB PSD File, 256 MB RAM, OS X 10.2.6 on both machines)
OS X + Photoshop Elements manipulating a 115 MB file within only 256 MB of RAM means swap... My guess is the iMac had a slightly slower HDD, but I doubt they bothered to check. Too bad they didn't just add 256 MB of RAM to both machines and retest. That would have actually been a helpful tip to readers.
MacAddict and every other Mac print publication have gone waaaay downhill.
They should have at least checked out System Profiler to see if it offered the details.
Still, the fact that the eMac outperforms the iMac in these limited tests is interesting.
Strange, although I do recall telling many people that I thought the eMac felt faster than my iMac. Too bad the display looked like ass.
\
I think the eMac monitor is lots better than the iMac 17 LCD - the eMac's screen has better contrast in my opinion. Of course it weights 35 lbs more....
It appears that MA also thought the eMac had a better monitor from the review.
The interesting thing here, I think, is that the lowest-end desktop that Apple makes is apparently performing at a level that I, for one, did not expect, especially with smaller amounts of RAM (something that cost-conscious folks might not add at purchase - 'cause those Macs are Sooooo expensive you know')
Originally posted by jccbin
They should have at least checked out System Profiler to see if it offered the details.
System Profiler and Disk Utility will both tell you what kind of HDD you have. It would have taken the reviewer 15 seconds extra.
My two internal HDDs are listed as...
Device Model: WDC WD1200JB-75CRA0
Device Model: ST380021A
- failure of the benchmarking, or problem of configurations of the I mac
- difference in HD.
Many others benchmarks have proved that the DDR mobo is slighty faster than the old one.
I have also see benchmarkings between the tibook and the lapzilla with strange results : great difference for Macworld France, almost no difference for Macworld US. There must be a problem of configuration or fragmentation of the HD.
eXtremeMac
internetMac
[Edit:] Oh yeah, post number 500!
the most they (or anyone else) will do is nuke-and-pave the software to get an level playing field, but when you start swapping hard drives ESPECIALLY in the emacs and imacs, you are going counter to the whole reason someone would be buying a consumer-level all-in-one from apple to begin with.
Originally posted by rok
in defense of macaddict (and , no, i don't know why i am doing this... they've gone downhill so badly in the last year or so), the difference above was noted in a REVIEW, which is always done with out-of-the-box hardware, NOT an in-depth article.
the most they (or anyone else) will do is nuke-and-pave the software to get an level playing field, but when you start swapping hard drives ESPECIALLY in the emacs and imacs, you are going counter to the whole reason someone would be buying a consumer-level all-in-one from apple to begin with.
But at any point in time, Apple could have sent them the same computers with different HDDs. It's random chance that this iMac was slower than that particular eMac. To be fair, you have to be as thorough as possible. Hardware reviews *should* offer and explanation of the speed difference.
P.S. The new keyboard that everyone is whining about is awesome too!
The 1Ghz eMac (M8951LL/A) has either an 80GB
Seagate ST380023A or IBM Hitachi IC35L090AVV207-0
Both as cable select setting.
On the $1799 iMac (M8935LL/A)..
80GB Seagate ST380024A or IBM Hitachi IC35L090AVV207-0
Cable select setting as default as well.
These drives are found on PowerMac G4(FW800) as well.
Originally posted by Eugene
It doesn't matter what the general specs of the HDDs are. The specifc models matter. A Seagate Barracuda ATA V is going to be slower than a Hitachi Desktar 180GXP for pretty much anything as an example.
This is misinformation. Seagate drives process instructions in a manner that makes random access (reads and writes) better than almost everything. For example, on an iMac tray-loading (333 Mhz), a Barracuda IV gives performance which is 50-80% of a dual 1+ GHz G4 with standard drives. Larger buffers are similarly excellent. The Barracuda V should be even better, and remember, Fibre Channel and Serial ATA were heavily designed by Seagate.
This information is from xBench. I don't have the url, but ... I'll look for it.
http://www.spiny.com/xbench/
Originally posted by cookies
This is misinformation. Seagate drives process instructions in a manner that makes random access (reads and writes) better than almost everything. For example, on an iMac tray-loading (333 Mhz), a Barracuda IV gives performance which is 50-80% of a dual 1+ GHz G4 with standard drives. Larger buffers are similarly excellent. The Barracuda V should be even better, and remember, Fibre Channel and Serial ATA were heavily designed by Seagate.
This information is from xBench. I don't have the url, but ... I'll look for it.
http://www.spiny.com/xbench/
*Sigh*...I own a Barracuda IV and a S-ATA Barracuda V. Neither holds a candle to my WD1200JB even in random access. Yes, that's uncached random access so the extra 6 MB in the WDC drive mean nothing. I can't test my Serial-ATA drive in XBench since it's in my PC, but it's definitely not a speed demon. I buy Seagates because they're quiet...not because they're fast. Sure, their SCSI and FC-AL drives are fast, but those are totally different.
Results99.23
System Info
Xbench Version1.0
System Version10.2.6
Physical RAM1536 MB
ModelPowerMac3,5
ProcessorPowerPC G4x2 @ 1.00 GHz
Version7455 (Apollo) v2.1
L1 Cache32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache256K @ 1000 MHz
L3 Cache2048K @ 250 MHz
Bus Frequency134 MHz
Video CardATY,R200
Drive TypeWDC WD1200JB-75CRA0
Disk Test99.23
Sequential95.90
Uncached Write95.9341.86 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write97.8539.81 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read96.4415.19 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read93.4940.33 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random102.79
Uncached Write102.731.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write100.0922.96 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read102.390.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read106.1420.80 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Results86.58
System Info
Xbench Version1.0
System Version10.2.6
Physical RAM1536 MB
ModelPowerMac3,5
ProcessorPowerPC G4x2 @ 1.00 GHz
Version7455 (Apollo) v2.1
L1 Cache32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache256K @ 1000 MHz
L3 Cache2048K @ 250 MHz
Bus Frequency134 MHz
Video CardATY,R200
Drive TypeST380021A
Disk Test86.58
Sequential86.44
Uncached Write81.2935.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write84.8734.53 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read101.6616.01 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read80.9434.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random86.73
Uncached Write85.671.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write76.8817.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read91.980.60 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read94.6218.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
http://www.storagereview.com/article...20023AS_1.html
"Despite its contemporary areal density, the drive lags significantly behind the competition from IBM and Western Digital." (on the second page of it)
Yeah, I guess that Seagate wants people to get Cheetahs or something.
Sorry for bothering you.