Primate Labs Blog - Latest Comments in iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

itjobs1 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:22:45 -0000

don't know how you got your results, the new softwares of Apple are making these new iterations rock. A lot of blogs said the Mac Mini is not up to par in terms of performance, I believe they have not use it before.
www.staffingpower.com

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

cubeover — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:03:28 -0000

Please post the new fall'09 iMac benchmarks!
I got caught in Apple Store trying to run them, and I could not finish the test...

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

modeller miles — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:03:18 -0000

I think it gonna buy Mac Mini 2.0 to use wit Final cut studio and Adobe After effect and for log in to VR world Second life also.
It can handle this ?

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Paul Guy — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:01:39 -0000

I agree with anon about how there really isn't very much difference between the '08 and '09 iMacs, except for the fact that they can take more RAM now!

I own a 2008 2.66GHz 20inch iMac and am perfectly content with its RAM maxed out at 4GB, also the fact that it has dedicated graphics memory to boot, unlike the 2009 20inch model.

However, I do question Apple's decision to equip the 2.66GHz 24inch model with the same nVIDIa Graphics chip, when I think they would have been wiser putting that card in the 20inch model only.

20inch models with Shared graphics/24inch models with Dedicated graphics is what I had in mind!

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Sigivald — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:07:51 -0000

Jason: The 2.2ghz one supports VT, and is still cheaper than an iMac.

(That said, the choice of the P7350 is still disappointing. Would a P7450 have killed them?)

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

williewonka — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:23:47 -0000

I just got my own Mac mini 2.26, 4gb, 320 HD

It scored 3058 on geekbench

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Stefan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:22:47 -0000

Did anyone already test the dual screen capabilities of the new minis? I am considering to use two 24" monitors over DVI and would even like to use the latest 23" 16:9 panels (2048*1152) which goes beyond the specification...

Any reports on dual screen capabilities and stability are very welcome!

Regards
Stefan

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

prognostic — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:15:28 -0000

Just to let everyone know. I got the new MacMini monday and the first thing I did was throw on Windows (using bootcamp). It scores a 5.2 in Windows experience. In comparison, I got a Dell Studio Slim Desktop a week ago that is fully upgraded which scores a 4.1 in Experience. Haven't ran any other benchmarks. I plan on putting an Intel X25M SSD in it soon.

The Mini is seriously a little beast, especially if you're looking for a secondary box. The upgraded ram to 4gb and 256mb nVidia gfx chipset makes all the diff in the world.

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

JDinBigD — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:52:43 -0000

The prev generation Mac Minis are on sale at the online Apple store - under the clearance section. The 1.83 C2D (link below) is listed at $499 for 1G RAM and 120G HD. The 2GHz model is $50 more.

http://store.apple.com/us/p...

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Vr1 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:17:12 -0000

The MAC OS X makes any diference in the benchmark test? I mean is the "New Snow Leopard" probably improving those new iMac and Mac mini any longer???

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Jason Ozolins — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:18:14 -0000

One annoying thing with the new Mac Mini (apart from the base model being MORE expensive in Australia) is that the Core 2 Duo P7350 doesn't support VT virtualization extensions, while the older T7200 in the previous generation Mac Mini did have VT support. It also has less L2 cache than the T7200; frankly, it is positioned lower in Intel's current range of processor offerings than the T7200 was in Intel's range at the time the last Mac Mini revision came out.

Thanks Apple, I was actually going to buy one of these things once Snow Leopard came out (at least the higher cost would be offset by not paying for the OS upgrade that way), but you seem to have decided I need to buy an iMac instead if I want fast virtualization for running a Windows instance. Guess I'll try out Mac OS on a cheaper second hand Mini and run my Windows VM on a Linux box (with an unhobbled processor).

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Cameron — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:09:47 -0000

Jasper think you need to check your facts the 24 inch iMacs have a resolution 1920 by 1200 pixels

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Don — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:24:09 -0000

The new Mac mini shows a 7.2% CPU performance improvement at the same clock rate. Combined with other system improvements (video, FireWire 800, DDR3, etc.), this is a sweet upgrade.

I'm curious about the P8400 CPU in the 2.26 GHz version: Will it have better-than-linear improvements? One thing to note is that, unlike to 2.0 GHz version's P7350 CPU, the P8400 supports both Intel VT and Intel Dynamic Acceleration.

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

luckyfish — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:39:37 -0000

I have the cash ready to spend and was hanging out hoping the iMac would come with a quadcore this time... but instead a disappointing upgrade with a little speedbump. There's really very little performance increase between the 2008 and 2009 model.
I'm going to hang on to my 3 yr old iMac until I see 4 cores or at least 3 ghz as the low end.

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

ambanmba — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:11:47 -0000

The old mac mini with a Merom Hack is still faster than the latest one...

http://www.ambor.com/public...

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Johan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:37:00 -0000

I really would love to see a benchmark of the new 3.06Ghz version. I am still very much doubting between getting the new iMac and a Sony Vaio LV. I have been holding off buying the iMac because of the rumours about this new model, but it has been a bit of a disappointment for me.

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Anon — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:48:22 -0000

Wow. First, thank you for posting these tests.

Everyone, calm down. They were clear that these tests are of the memory and chip only. They specifically note that the video card isn't taken in to account.

In terms of raw processing power (say I was using it as a headless server, which I would be) the new devices aren't much of an improvement. It's good to know.

Seriously Mac fans, most of your comments are indistinguishable from astro-turf.

You've got a company here trying to improve the entire mac ecosystem and you jump up and down because they aren't saying effusively positive things.

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Jasper de Werk — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:21:56 -0000

About my previous comment:
Turns out the resolution thing was a type on the Apple website. It has now been corrected and i can tell people to buy iMacs again :-)

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Jasper de Werk — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:16:24 -0000

1: Not mentioning the VGA upgrade or even the platform update, this review is really terrible. Someone that talks about hardware changes should KNOW what the hardware is before making useless decisions!

2: The reason CUDA isnt that popular is because it only works on certain hardware. OpenCL is written so that it works everywhere. This will make it a lot easier to adopt.

3: Snow Leopard will have OpenCL built into its core. Even applications NOT written with openCL in mind will be able to use OpenCL since the OS (Snow Leopard) will interface the OpenCL for the application.

Seriously, releasing a review like this and posting stuff like an older mac may be a better choice is incredible $%*&^%$!

The one thing i haven't heard anyone about:
The new 24" iMacs have a resolution of 1680x1050. This is the first screen i have seen with such a low resolution on this screen size.
Most screens use 1920x1200 at 24"

This is the only reason why I won't advise people to buy a 24" iMac, and it's the the only downside that you don't mention!

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Andreas — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:09:44 -0000

@Pat: Look this older Post for comparison to G4 Minis:
http://www.primatelabs.ca/b...

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

rob — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:10:44 -0000

Hi,

I would love to see another mac mini mark:
the one for the latest G4!
because I'm about to upgrade from the G4 (1,42 single core PPC!) to the new 2009 version.
Would love to see the boost I will make...

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Justin Stoddart — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:20:04 -0000

I went out yesterday and bought a 2.8Ghz iMac as it seemed much better value for money than the 2.93Ghz iMac model. Apple should really rethink its pricing structures.

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Erik — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:04:12 -0000

7% higher score and $200 less(2.0 Ghz mini). This is disappointing?

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Jesse — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:03:05 -0000

@Anon, yeah, easy.. Every dedicated videochip in a recent Mac kan play 1080p and 1080i just fine.. So can this baby..

Too bad the price is a bit steep, cause now the mini is really ready to rock as a media center with software like EyeTV, Plex or Boxee (whatever you want)..

Re: iMac and Mac mini Benchmarks (Early 2009)

Anon — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:40:54 -0000

I own the old Mac Mini - and it's great... except you CAN'T replay 1080i HD AVIs on it. Yes, if you have a HD Tuner, you can replay using that custom hardware - but anything NOT encoded using the custom codec fails.

Considering that many people, like myself, use the Mini as a Home Theatre device, playback of HD would be a real bonus. I assume from the new specs - ie. DDR3 RAM, far more recent GPU etc. that the new version would be capable?