1Ghz eMac outperforms DDR iMac

jccbinjccbin
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
"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
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    (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.
  • Reply 2 of 22
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    They use 80GB, 7200, ATA/100, both the iMac and the eMac. Apple declined to give MA the "minutiae" of exactly who manufactured the drives or if they were different. MA did NOT take the machines apart and look at the drives. Perhaps that makes MA half-slackers for thinking of the possible source of the difference, but NOT ripping the Machines apart to find out.

    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.
  • Reply 3 of 22
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    The iMac has a 7200 RPM drive, but you won't find a speed rating on the eMac drive anywhere on Apple's site. Of course, it's not more than 7200.



    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.



    \
  • Reply 4 of 22
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Murbot,



    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')
  • Reply 5 of 22
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    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.
  • Reply 6 of 22
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    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
  • Reply 7 of 22
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    As Eugene stated, the difference can only come from two possible explanations :



    - 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.
  • Reply 8 of 22
    t'hain esh kelcht'hain esh kelch Posts: 1,274member
    Well... DoohH!



    eXtremeMac

    internetMac













    [Edit:] Oh yeah, post number 500!
  • Reply 9 of 22
    chef ramen noodlechef ramen noodle Posts: 42member
    wow, thats pretty funny. i wonder if apple will be making sure the imac gets better performance in the future, eh?
  • Reply 10 of 22
    gizzmonicgizzmonic Posts: 511member
    It really doesn't seem like a large enough margin to call it an "embarrassment." Since the G4s don't support DDR properly, it doesn't surprise me that the iMac and eMac perform almost exactly the same. Of course, the iMac gives you that keen flatpanel, if you're willing to pay the big bucks for that...
  • Reply 11 of 22
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    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.
  • Reply 12 of 22
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    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.
  • Reply 13 of 22
    jante99jante99 Posts: 539member
    Also hardware reviews always use the base amount of RAM shipping in a computer. Reviews try to gage how a computer will perform right out the box. This is especially true for the eMac and iMac since most users won't upgrade their computer.
  • Reply 14 of 22
    37773777 Posts: 7member
    I got my 1 GHZ Superdrive eMac yesterday, from all the eMac bashers out there I wasn't expecting anything spectacular..... well was I wrong. The quality and finish is incredible, the screen looks as large as my PC's 19" NEC Multisync, and OSX flies on it. This thing is everything the crt G3 Imac was supposed to have become, and I am glad I chose it over the LCD iMac. Why anyone has a problem with the emac is beyond me. \



    P.S. The new keyboard that everyone is whining about is awesome too!
  • Reply 15 of 22
    kennethkenneth Posts: 832member
    To my knowledge

    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.
  • Reply 16 of 22
    kecksykecksy Posts: 1,002member
    Could be the iMac's RAM is just higher latency than the eMac's. Since the bus speed is the same, all the iMac's extra bandwidth is wasted.
  • Reply 17 of 22
    cookiescookies Posts: 61member
    Quote:

    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/
  • Reply 18 of 22
    cookiescookies Posts: 61member
    ... or maybe it was something about the way somebody installed it, since we seem to be getting into intangibles.

  • Reply 19 of 22
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    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.



    Code:


    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]







    Code:


    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]



  • Reply 20 of 22
    cookiescookies Posts: 61member
    Thanks for lots of helpful info. I just thought you were saying that Seagate was really bad. Good point that it is quiet. How much was your Barracuda V? BTW, est. price on the WD1200JB is $379 (120 GB). I guess the Seagate looks like $199 (120 GB).



    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.
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