Apple's Mac Pro - A True PowerMac Successor
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 16, 2006 12:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Rosetta Performance (or lack thereof)
With no Universal Binary versions of Adobe or Microsoft applications, you're bound to run into something that isn't native on the Mac Pro. Of course if there's performance to be lost, we're there to benchmark it.
First off, let's look at our Word HTML conversion test. Note that this test used to crash on earlier builds of OS X, but Apple has thankfully fixed the problem so it now completes. The only other problem is that it takes a long time to complete:
The fastest Mac Pro configuration we tested took about three times as long to complete this test as the PowerMac G5, and that's about how things feel when you're running a Rosetta application. The application is always bearable, but it feels like everything takes 2 - 3x as long as it would if it were native.
Next up we ran PSBench under Photoshop CS2 and came away with some more interesting results:
Apple Mac Pro 2.66GHz (Quad) | Apple Mac Pro 2.66GHz (Dual) | Apple PowerMac G5 2.5GHz (Dual) | |
Rotate Clockwise - 90 degrees |
0.6
|
0.5
|
0.5
|
Rotate Clockwise - 9 degrees |
2.2
|
3
|
1.2
|
Rotate Clockwise - 0.9 degrees |
4
|
4.1
|
3.6
|
1 pixel Gaussian Blur |
2.2
|
2.3
|
2.1
|
3.7 pixel Gaussian Blur |
2.5
|
3.4
|
2.8
|
85 pixel Gaussian Blur |
3
|
4.2
|
3.1
|
50%, 1 pixel, 0 level unsharp mask |
2.3
|
3
|
2.2
|
50%, 3.7 pixel, 0 lever unsharp mask |
3.4
|
4.3
|
3.6
|
50%, 10 pixel, 5 level unsharp mask |
3.2
|
4.6
|
4
|
Despeckle filter |
2.2
|
2.4
|
2.5
|
RGB to CMYK |
3.8
|
5.2
|
3.4
|
60% Reduction |
1.4
|
1.6
|
1.4
|
Lens Flare |
5.3
|
5.3
|
4.9
|
Color Halftone Filter |
21.5
|
23.1
|
9.2
|
NTSC Colors Filter |
5.9
|
5.9
|
4.1
|
Accented Edges Brush Strokes |
13.3
|
13.7
|
10.7
|
Pointillize Filter |
31
|
36.9
|
15.8
|
Watercolor Filter |
28.8
|
31.2
|
20.8
|
Polar Coordinates |
2.1
|
2.9
|
1.6
|
Radial Blur Filter |
7.3
|
11.3
|
17.1
|
Lighting Effects Filter |
3.5
|
4
|
2.9
|
Total |
149.5
|
172.9
|
117.5
|
The PowerMac G5 is still faster, overall it completed all of the tasks about 32% faster than the dual core Mac Pro 2.66GHz but comparing it to the shipping quad core configuration closed that gap even more. There were even some tests that the non-native Mac Pro could complete quicker than the PowerMac G5, which bodes well for how fast the Mac Pro will be when Photoshop CS3 eventually comes out.
Overall, Rosetta has gotten better in terms of stability, but performance is still no where near native G5 performance on average (nor did anyone expect it to be). You can get by using Rosetta, but it will irritate you especially if you're using any Universal Binary applications on a regular basis as the difference in performance is fairly apparent.
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plinden - Saturday, August 19, 2006 - link
No point in arguing with this guy - he's shown just how much he knows about the subject. How could someone regularly read AnandTech and not know about EFI? And then profess to have confused it with some obscure mobo manufacturer?Oddly enough, I can't find any motherboards for sale manufactured by a company called EFI - either it's very obscure or he's making it up. I wonder which one it is?
michael2k - Friday, August 18, 2006 - link
EFI isn't a manufacturer, it stands for "Extensible Firmware Interface", see the link in the other post.Lian Li had an aluminum case first, but Apple's design was COPIED by Lian Li. Read the Anandtech article in which half the comments for the case review claim "G5 ripoff".
plinden - Friday, August 18, 2006 - link
I laughed out loud at this. You're absolutely right, EFI is no DFI or ASUS, not even close.
You've just proved you know fuck all about this. I suggest you read up on EFI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_I...">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_I... before posting about this in the future.
I'm not going to tell you makes the Mac motherboards. I'll leave that up to you to research.
Petoschka - Wednesday, April 1, 2020 - link
Well, my Junk Pro from early 2008 is still running.pervisanathema - Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - link
I want one. :otakeshi7 - Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - link
Just a small correction on page 2: The Power Mac G5 PCI-E also has 3 USB 2.0 ports on the rear panel.