Mac benchmarking site Bare Feats has posted a new comparison which pits three similarly configured dual-processor Mac models against each other: The SDRAM-based Power Mac G4 dual 1GHz, the new DDR-equipped dual 1GHz Power Mac G4, and the Dual 1 GHz Xserve, which uses the same architecture as the new Power Mac. The results show negligible performance differences between the three machines, at least in the tests that Bare Feats performed.
The performance results were established through the use of a Bare Feats reader’s new Power Mac G4 1GHz system — the new dual processor configurations were announced earlier this week. The low-end 867MHz dual and 1GHz dual systems are both available now, with a 1.25GHz system to be available next month.
The tests Bare Feats benchmarked the systems on are “real world” applications — Bryce 5, Photoshop 7 and iTunes, along with a “quick and dirty CPU crunch tester” called AltiVec Fractal Carbon. The test performed with Photoshop 7 purportedly puts the software through its paces on actions that emphasize multiprocessor capabilities. Bryce 5 may not be as well configured for these tests, according to Bare Feats, since it’s apparently not optimized for dual processor configurations or the G4 itself. The iTunes test is for MP3 conversion speed on specific audio files.
“To my surprise and chagrin, the new DDR Power Mac has no apparent performance advantage over the old SDRAM Power Mac running at the same clock speed,” said Bare Feats boss Rob Art Morgan. Morgan suggested that one possible bottleneck is the shared bus the processors use to Apple’s own memory controller. More details are available from the Bare Feats Web site.