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Apple Makes the Switch: iMac G5 vs. iMac Core Duo

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 30, 2006 11:26 PM EST
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  • Mac
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Media Encoding Performance with iTunes and Quicktime

The encoding tests here are identical to the ones that we run in our CPU tests, except obviously run under Mac OS X 10.4.4 instead of Windows XP.  It's important to note that iTunes, Quicktime as well as the iLife and iWork suites are all Universal applications, meaning that they run natively on both PowerPC and x86 architectures.  The performance comparisons on these next few pages is done without any binary translation.

MP3 Encoding Performance - iTunes 6.0.2

The iMac G5 is pretty strong at floating point performance as we've already seen, so the fact that the Core Duo completed the 304MB encoding task in 3/4 of the time set off some alarms.  The 1.9GHz iMac G5 is a single core, single processor machine, while the Core Duo based iMac has two cores running at 1.83GHz.  The iTunes encoding test, like many operations in Mac OS X applications, is multithreaded, meaning that it takes advantage of multi-core or multi-processor systems.  So the question we need to be asking is how much of this performance advantage is due to the Core Duo's dual cores?

Luckily, OS X's processor panel provides a quick and easy way to disable one of the cores in the Core Duo machine, so we have a way of finding out.  With one core disabled, I added the non-existant iMac Core Solo 1.83GHz to the graph:

MP3 Encoding Performance Take 2 - iTunes 6.0.2

With an encoding time of 73 seconds, the Core Solo 1.83GHz is actually slower than the G5 1.9GHz.  Intel doesn't win because of a faster single core. They win because they have two cores where Apple could previously only put one. 

Let's take a look at Quicktime next; once again, this is the same test that's run in our CPU reviews.  This time around, I've included the Core Solo from the start:

H.264 Encoding Performance - Quicktime Pro 7.0.4

While the Core Duo wins the test, the Core Solo is actually slower than the single core G5.  We can cut Intel a little slack here, as it seems that Quicktime isn't very well optimized for their processors and Apple is reportedly working on fixing that, but the point is that we have now seen two cases where the G5 doesn't lose because it's a slower chip. It loses because there is only one of them in the iMac. 

Boot Time iLife '06 Performance with iMovie HD
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  • Illissius - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    Compared to native applications, obviously, it's less than ideal; on the other hand, compared to, say, PearPC, it's pretty amazing. (I don't have any data and haven't tried it myself, but from what I've heard I'd suspect it runs at 5%-ish performance; compared to that, 30-70% is a minor miracle.)
    I know it won't interest the end user any whether it could've been even worse, but wanted to point it out, nonetheless ;).

  • yacoub - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    I wonder how it compares in game- oh, right, Mac. Hehehe ;)

  • DrZoidberg - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    there is one very popular game on mac.

    World of warcraft....could anandtech pls include a benchie comparing mac with intel core duo vs g5 in wow? It would be interesting to see if apple switching to intel means macs are better at games (or not).

  • fitten - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    Is the Universal Binary out for WoW yet?

  • Cusqueno - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    I have a 20" iMac Core Duo and with the default 512 RAM it was bad performance. About 5-10 fps in IronForge and 20-25 elsewhere. When I upgraded to 2 GB RAM it has improved greatly, maybe 10 - 20 in IF and 30 - 40 on the road. I guess this is due to Rosetta using lots of RAM.

    As of last night, there was no Universal binary. But today is patch/reboot day so might be pushed when I get off work. It is supposed to be included with version 1.9.3 according to the WoW forums.

  • fitten - Thursday, February 2, 2006 - link

    That's pretty awesome considering that you're running WoW in emulation (Rosetta).

  • vortmax - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    Seeing that Rosetta is needed for all MS and Adobe apps. and since using Rosetta seems to take lots of memory, it would be nice to see how it runs with 1gb. Also, some benchmarks from Photoshop would be nice :)

    Thanks Anand!

  • Lifted - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    "... but those are the ones we want to measure anyways so they have to be there."

  • Eug - Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - link

    Does turning off one core turn off half the cache?

    ie. Is it really Yonah Core Solo, or is it Yonah Celeron M?

  • maconlysource - Wednesday, February 1, 2006 - link

    Where did you get the toolbar single proc- dual proc utility.
    I installed the developer pkg on my Intel iMac but can't find it?
    Can you email me it?

    Thanks.

    Pete.
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