Table of Contents
New Old Mac Benchmarking
This page focuses on presenting benchmark results of G-series PPC macs from the early 00s until the intel switch.
Methodology
The focus of these tests is to compare CPU results. Some of these tests (e.g. Geekbench and MathematicaMark) have multiple tests baked into them, while others (e.g. PowerFractal or Cinebench) are more singular. These tests were also performed on desktops and laptops of the “performance” and “personal” variety with various bus speeds, RAM (& RAM speeds), disk space (& disk speeds)
Two important things that were controlled for are OS versions: all systems were benched on 10.4.11 with all updates applied, and the versions of the tools used to benchmark were consistent.
Software Used
Mathematica 5.2
In Mathematica 5, a benchmarking suite called “MathematicaMark” was added. This suite is made of 15 different tests. You can read more about it here: https://reference.wolfram.com/language/Benchmarking/tutorial/Benchmark.html
Xbench 1.3
Only the “CPU” checkbox of Xbench is set when this bench is run for this particular set of results.
GeekBench 2.2.0
2.2.0 is the final version of GeekBench to support 10.4. The results from GeekBench 2.x are still visible here: https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2/top
- Put a Geekbench2.2.0.zip link here
PowerFractal
Per the PowerFractal web page: “A numerically-intensive parallel graphics application that uses the vector hardware, multiple processors or Cores (MP), and cluster computing (via MPI) for its computations.” Version 1.4.1 can be downloaded from the developer's web page.
1k Windows
This tool's usefulness as a CPU benchmark is dubious, but it's quick and easy to run, so I have included it. It simply opens and closes 1,000 windows as fast as possible, and returns the results in seconds.
- Link to download 1k windows
Skidmarks Gt 4.0.1
Skidmarks GT is a curious little tool that Apple included with their CHUD tools. Also of dubious usefulness, but it's quick and easy to run. More of a sanity check than a benchmark.
Photoshop 7.0.1
No macintosh benchmark suite would be complete without Photoshop. In this benchmark, we perform a 100% radial blur at “best” quality. The file used is a large TIFF, linked below.
Results
Results Table Here
| MathematicaMark 5.2 | XBench 1.3 CPU | CineBench 2003 | Geekbench 2.2.0 | PowerFractal | 1k Windows | Skidmarks GT 4.0.1 | Photoshop 7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QS'02 665MHz | ||||||||
| QS'02 933MHz | ||||||||
| QS'02 2x1GHz | ||||||||
| QS'02 1.87GHz | ||||||||
| iBook G4/1.33GHz | ||||||||
| PowerBook G4/1.67GHz |
