July 31st, 2008 (Update) -- Our sources tell us that Western Digital is will soon ship a "bare" Velociraptor (model WD3000GLFS) as well as a version that plugs into the Mac Pro backplane (WD3000HLFS). We will post links once our preferred resellers have them in stock. Good to see WD respond to consumer criticism of their original design.
July 31st, 2008 -- Other World Computing now has the Radeon 3870 Mac & PC Edition in stock.
July 10th, 2008 -- July 9th, 2008 -- CalDigit's RAID card supports up to 16 drives. We are currently testing it with four internal drives. It's a full length card that connects to the built-in mini-SAS connector the same way the Apple Pro RAID card does and offers an optional battery backup. The RAID Shield software allows you to set up RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 0+1, and JBOD arrays. It is significantly faster than the Apple Pro RAID card, however, it currently only supports SATA drives. Stay tuned for a full report.
June 13th, 2008 -- Highpoint RocketRAID 2640x4 sets new price/performance standard for SAS Host Adapters. Not only were we disappointed with the performance of Apple's Pro RAID card, but the prices was stiff at $800. The RR2640x4 is producing 50% faster transfer speeds with four internal SAS drives, thanks to the dual data channel, at one-fourth the price (under $200). It supports both SAS and SATA drives. Stay tuned for a full report.
May 30th, 2008 -- MaxUpgrades offers a SAS/SATA Link. If you want to connect your Mac Pro's internal drives to a third party SATA or SAS RAID host adapter like the HighPoint RR3522 or RR2640x4, then you'll need a data cable to mate them. Visit the MaxUpgrades site to see details on the MaxConnect SAS/SATA Link.
May 1st, 2008 -- Performance Analysis of new iMac. There are some significant improvements that should affects peformance:
1. Faster core speeds (up to 3.06GHz or 9% faster)
2. Faster frontside Bus speed (1066MHz or 33% faster)
3. Faster memory bus (800MHz or 20% faster)
4. Faster graphics processor option with more VRAM (Geforce 8800 GS)
We look forward to testing it and comparing it to the previously fastest iMac as well as to the Mac Pro.
April 25th, 2008 -- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XTs can be run in CrossFire mode on your "early 2008" Mac Pro. We jumpered two 2600s and booted up Vista 64 bit. It ran 3D Games like Prey, ETQW, and Unreal Tournament III twice as fast as a single 2600. However, the GeForce 8800 GT ran the same games 50% faster than the dual 2600s. And Crysis did not respond to CrossFire.
April 25th, 2008 (Update) -- Corsair Low Latency memory for Apple laptops. We completed our testing of Corsair CAS 4 vs CAS 5 memory. See our report to find out if it really makes your Mac go faster and find out who else offers CAS 4 memory.
April 17th, 2008 -- Compressor's virtual clustering now works right thanks to Pro Applications Update 2008-01. Some of you have asked how we got virtual clustering to work in our testing. We hesitated to answer because it would not always work as advertised. This update includes a Compressor 3.03 patch which appears to have fixed our problems. Now when we open the Apple Qmaster preference panel, we are able to select as many instances as we have cores.
April 15th, 2008 --- You can now order the "legacy" version of the GeForce 8800 GT in a kit form for 2006/2007 Mac Pro owners. When you visit the Apple Store USA, click on "Displays" in the left column and look for the Geforce 8800 GT labeled "1st Generation." Let me remind you that our testing has shown this to be a strong 3D OpenGL gaming card but a weak Pro App card (Motion, Aperture, FCP). We believe a Mac OS X compatible Radeon HD 3870 would perform better for Pro Apps. We are urging ATI/AMD to release such a card and will alert you if and when that happens.
February 27th, 2008 -- CRITIQUE of the new MacBook Pro announced yesterday: The new 45 nanometer processor is significant in that it draws less power and has the SSE4 vector engine that handles 128 bit computations in a single clock cycle. It also has a larger L2 cache (6MB vs 4MB). I was hoping to see a CTO option for the 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme.
The increased GDDR3 memory from 256MB to 512MB should come in handy when running apps like Motion and Aperture. Too bad it's still a GeFore 8600M GT instead of being upgraded to an 8800M GTX or dual 8700M GT in SLI mode (a la Alienware Area-51).
The standard hard drive choices are good but I was hoping the new Hitachi 500GB 5400rpm Travelstar would be offered as an option. Even the WD 320GB Scorpio would be nice.
February 5th, 2008 -- Microsoft Word 2008 is a slow spellchecker. We have a 100 page test file with one misspelled word at the end. It takes 21 seconds to find on the Mac Pro 3.2GHz. It took 28 seconds to find on the MacBook Pro 2.4. It only takes 5 seconds to find with MS Word 2004.
When we open the 100 page file, it takes MS Word 2008 13 seconds to "process" it before we can go the last page. With MS Word 2004, we can go there instantly.
January 29th, 2008 (Updated) -- The Radeon X1900 XT works* on the new "2008" Mac Pro! Following a tip from a reader, we installed the X1900 in our 3.2GHz Mac Pro. It works like a charm. (See our updated benchmarks.)
(* One user reported that the Radeon X1900 XT did NOT work in his 2008 Mac Pro. We didn't do anything special to get it to work in our 2008 Mac Pro. However, we do recall running the firmware update back in October 2007 when it was installed in our 2007 8-core Mac Pro.)
January 17th, 2008 -- FireWire 800 on the new "2008" Harpertown Mac Pro is faster than on the 2006/2007 Mac Pro. We did a quick test with the LaCie Little Big Disk (dual 7K notebook drive RAID 0). On the 2006 Mac Pro, we get 55MB/s READ/WRITE. (100MB blocks, QuickBench) With the 2008 Mac Pro we get 75MB/s READ/WRITE!
We understand this gain is due to the fact that the FireWire interface is now on the PCI Express bus.
January 12th, 2008 (Updated) -- The GeForce 8800 GT comes in a kit but will *NOT* work with your old Mac Pro, as we first thought. It only works with the "Early 2008" Mac Pro.
WHY? The ROM only has a 64-bit EFI driver in its ROM. It could be made compatible with the older Mac Pros by putting both a 32-bit and 64-bit EFI driver in the GeForce 8800 GT's ROM -- assuming there's room for both. Otherwise, a special legacy version will have to be created by Apple or a third party.
If you still want to order the GeForce 8800 GT, go to the Apple Store USA and search on "MB137Z/A" to find the kit. The price is $349. If you are very unhappy about it not working on your "old" Mac Pro, then sign our petition asking Apple to create a version that will. We also suggest you give feedback to the Mac Pro folks at Apple.
By the way, the Radeon HD 2600 XT works on all Mac Pros. We tried it and can assure you it works in all our Mac Pros. Search on "MB198Z/A" when you visit Apple Store USA ($149).
December 27th, 2007 -- Solid State Disks are fast but pricey. In recent testing, they booted the OS and apps 4 times faster than a 10K Raptor. But a 64GB SSD runs $1500 and 128GB SSD costs $3000!
December 19th, 2007 -- We use the Belkin Laptop Cooling Stand and the Targus Notebook ChillHub under our MacBook Pros. The ChillHub dropped our 17" MacBook Pro's CPU dual core temp by 36 deg F and the GPU temp by 24 deg F. You can get the Belkin for $20 after rebate. The Targus ChillHub costs more but features dual fans and includes a 4 port USB 2.0 hub. We've seen it as low as $25 after discounts.
December 19th, 2007 -- Apple Did A "Silent" Upgrade On The MacBook Pros back on November 1st. You can now specify 2.6GHz instead of 2.4GHz on both 15" and 17" models. You can also specify a 200GB 7200rpm drive (instead of a 160GB 7200rpm drive). Cinebench 10 CPU render runs 8% faster on the 2.6GHz compared to the 2.4GHz which is right in line with the clock speed difference. We're holding out for the rumored Penryn based MacBook Pro.
November 15, 2007 -- Leopard speeds up gaming on the newest iMac! We reran our 3D accelerated game test suite after installing Leopard and iMac Software Update 1.3 on our Aluminum iMac 2.8GHz (24"). We used High Quality at 1920x1200. The frame rates improved as much as 18%, depending on the game.
Yet we're told there is work going on to squeeze even more speed out of the Radeon HD 2xxx GPU used in the newest iMacs. We'll report on that as soon as it happens.
November 1st, 2007 -- Performance Analysis of New 13" MacBooks: Glad to see the Santa Rosa chipset adopted which supports up to 4GB of RAM. The graphics processor has been upgraded to a GMA X3100, which is a dramatic architectural change from previous GMA 950, but it still lacks dedicated video memory. (See our INDEX of latest for GPU intensive test results.)
October 28th, 2007 -- Early Leopard Performance Measurements compared to Tiger: (This posting has been replaced by a "Shootout" article.)
October 27th, 2007 -- Leopard is in the Lab! We are in the process of performance related testing with the final release of Mac OS X "Leopard." If you have any suggestions for performance related tests, feel free to email
with your ideas.
October 27th, 2007 -- The Bare Feats Lab survived the San Diego "Inferno." We are still running on backup generators connected to the lab and to the water well. Electricity restoration is at least two weeks away due to damage to power lines and power poles. At least the roads are now open so we can go get supplies and receive shipments. Our Verizon cell phones and Verizon broadband modems helped keep us in touch with the outside world during this past week. (The AT&T iPhone was useless during the whole ordeal -- no service since the fires started.) Thanks for keeping us in your prayers and thoughts.
October 17th, 2007 -- Have air card, will travel -- and share. If you want to share your Verizon and Sprint broadband modem with your colleague or wife or hotel roommate when on the road, there's a new travel router that gets the job done. It takes up very little space and even runs on batteries. Visit EVDOinfo to read all about it.
September 28th, 2007 (Update) -- Quick Analysis of NEW iPods
This posting has been replaced by our full analysis.
September 25th, 2007 -- FYI LINKS
Lloyd Chambers published a comparision of the Nikon D200 with the D2X
and
There are various utilities to recover songs and videos from your iPod (when they are accidentally deleted from your Mac). We like iPodCopy very much since it gets the name right and has a very friendly interface.
and
AppleMacanix.com has many hard to find Mac compatible graphics cards for sale on eBay
September 25th, 2007 -- My new favorite Mac mouse: the Razer Diamondback 3G (1800 dpi). It is flat black with a choice of green, red, or blue glowing LEDs. Works with the Mac drivers for the Razer Pro Click (1600 dpi) mouse that comes only in white. The Pro Click matches the Mac white keyboard color better but "attracts" finger prints on the grey buttons. (Hey, maybe Apple should release a black keyboard to match the Razer!) It certainly looks "right" with the aluminum clad MacBook Pro or black MacBook.
September 14th, 2007 -- The "Aluminum" iMac Update 1.1 installs a later version of the Radeon HD 2400/2600 driver (1.5.8.9 - build 4903), but it is NOT faster than Update 1.0's driver. See our detailed report called "SHOOTOUT: iMac Update 1.0 versus 1.1."
September 6th, 2007 -- Analysis of new iPod touch:
a) iPhone without the phone (for those unable or unwilling to switch to AT&T?)
b) iPod without the wheel; pinch and swipe is sexier
c) Bigger, wider screen than iPod classic, but one-tenth the storage and one-half the battery life for audio playback
Analysis of iPhone $200 price drop: What? How do you feel about the 33% price drop two months after the intro? Is it because the iPhone isn't selling as well as hoped? Is it because it costs less than $300 to build?
Whatever was Apple thinking? It was clearly a betrayal of the loyal early adopters to drop the price that much so soon after product launch. I'm thankful Steve listened to the overwhelming negative feedback and decided to at least offer a $100 store CREDIT to soothe our bruised feelings. A $100 REFUND would make things more right. A $200 REFUND would be even "righter."
September 3rd, 2007 -- USEFUL UTILITY: iToner enables you to use your tunes to as iPhone ringers. Very simple to use. Apple may start selling ringers on the iTunes Store, but I prefer using my existing tunes -- and supporting third party software developers.
September 1st, 2007 -- AMUG has an excellent review of the RocketRAID 2314MS. If you are interested in RAID 5 storage systems, this is a must read. We will be posting our own review on Monday, September 3rd.
August 9th, 2007 -- Analysis of the new iMac Aluminum: I'm happy to see the aluminum version of the iMac released. I never warmed up to the white plastic version. The CPU bump is welcome. So is the new ceiling of 4GB of RAM. The only concern is the performance of the Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics processor. See our 3D Game Shootout with the new iMac.
July 17th, 2007 -- Quick Take on 250GB 5400rpm notebook drive. We finally got our hands on the Western Digital WD2500BEVS notebook drive. We will post full results soon but wanted you to know that the 200GB 7200rpm Hitachi notebook drive is 22% faster on large sustained transfers and 35% faster on small random transfers.
By the way, both Firewire 800 and SATA interfaces squeezed as much as 71MB/s out of the 200G 7K drive. But connected to the USB 2.0 interface on the MacBook Pro, it never achieved higher than 21MB/s.
July 17th, 2007 -- TransIntl announced today they are shipping their miniXpress825s "quad" interface enclosure for notebook drives. It can be connected to FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and SATA ports. The FireWire 800 and SATA connection is the fastest -- achieving up to 71MB/s with the newest 7200rpm notebook drives. Though FW800 and FW400 run off bus power, the SATA and USB2 interfaces require an external A/C adapter, which is included. You can purchase the miniXpress825s empty or with a notebook drive pre-installed.
Wiebetech has a similar enclosure called the ToughTech XE mini.
July 5th, 2007 -- Adobe After Effects CS3 is shipping -- but it seems Adobe has taken out OpenGL from Mac version altogether. That means things like motion blur and shadows will NOT run under OpenGL on Mac.
June 29th, 2007 -- iPhone's EDGE Mobile Broadband really has no edge. Read our rebuttals to the 3 lame excuses given by Apple and AT&T for not supporting 3G.
June 20th, 2007 -- 4 Gigabyte FB-DIMMs for the Mac Pro are now available from Trans International. Now you can bump your Mac Pro's total memory to 32 Gigabytes! We tested these modules in our 8-core Mac Pro. Read our full report.
June 20th, 2007 -- MaxUpgrades has a new product called "max_flow" that keeps your Mac Pro memory cool. Tests show it lowers the temperature of your FM-DIMMs significantly without raising the noise level of your Mac Pro. Read more about it in our report.
June 11th, 2007 -- We were pleasantly surprised by the 17" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz "Santa Rosa." It ran 3D accelerated games as much as 11% faster than the 15" 2.4GHz model. That tells us that the GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor is clocking up higher in the 17" than in the 15" model, a phenom we observed in the late 2006 MacBook Pros. See our updated 3D gaming shootout.
June 8th, 2007 -- 13" MacBook benefits from matching 2GB pairs. Not only can you configure your MacBook up to 3GB of main memory, but if you use two 2GB SODIMMs, you get a slight speed advantage over unmatched 1GB + 2GB module configuration. Other World Computing has done extensive testing to demonstrate this.
June 7th, 2007 (Updated) -- The NEW MacBook Pro 2.4GHz: This is the "Santa Rosa" model we speed freaks have been expecting. The key performance enhancements include:
a) faster frontside bus (increased from 667MHz to 800MHz)
b) faster GPU (from Mobility Radeon X1600 to GeForce 8600M GT)
c) greater memory expansion (from 3GB to 4GB)
d) bigger 7200rpm hard drive (from 100GB to 160GB option)
See our 3D GAME page and CPU CRUNCHING page.
May 21st, 2007 -- HighPoint Technology has launched a "Mac only" website for their Mac Pro and Power Mac compatible SATA RAID host adapters. You might recall they are the first (and only) company shipping Mac compatible SATA host adapters with RAID 5 support at the card level.
May 16th, 2007 -- New MacBook 13" Performance Analysis
GOOD NEWS: Faster CPU cores, faster/bigger hard drive, more standard memory, and 802.11n support.
BAD NEWS: Still hamstrung with the slow Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics chip, no FireWire 800 support
May 5th, 2007 -- EV-DO Rev A update. For those of you following mobile broadband developments, we're very excited about the latest ones. Not only were we able to obtain the V740 Rev A ExpressCard/34 from Verizon for our MacBook Pro, but we just found out that the router we were using (Kyocera KR1) with our KPC650 now supports Rev A PC cards and USB modems -- thanks to the latest firmware update. Once we do the upgrade, we will move our USB based U720 Rev A modem from the Mac Pro to the KR1 router.
The big deal with "Rev A" is the increase of upload speed from 50Kbps to 400Kbps. We've recorded bursts as high as 800Kbps.
April 28th, 2007 -- The Quadro FX 4500 messes up in Maya 8.5. According to the Alias engineering support "qualified hardware" page, the FX 4500 (and GeForce 7300 GT) fails to render shadows properly in the Hardware Renderer and in the High Quality Viewport. However, there are no problems with the Radeon X1900 XT. The same is true for the Quad-Core G5 Power Mac. The only card without limitations is the Radeon X1900 XT "G5 Edition."
That's ironic when you consider that Apple promotes the FX 4500 as the "ideal choice for high-end scientific visualization."
April 23rd, 2007 -- Blu-ray optical drives are springing up from various sources. Other World Computing has a tray load external FireWire Blu-ray drive. MCE Technologies offers a tray load model that installs in the second optical bay of the Mac Pro. FastMac is offering a slot load model for various Mac laptops and desktops. One feature missing in all cases: the ability to play commercial Blu-ray HD movie discs. That support will not come until either OS X "Leopard" is released or Apple releases a special update of DVD Player that supports it.
April 12th, 2007 -- PC World published a review of the 1 Terabyte Hitachi Hard Drive. It tested fastest in 3 out of 5 tests they ran. Seagate promised to send us early samples of their 1 Terabyte drive, too. We hope to post a 1 Terabyte shootout between both drives in the near future.
April 3rd, 2007 -- HighPoint has added Port Multiplication support to their new RocketRAID 2314 SATA II RAID Host Adapter. Stay tuned for a report on it using a 10 drive RAID 5 set, which we expect to exceed 400MB/s even when the volume is full.
March 30th, 2007 -- Still have an original G3 iMac in operation? Give it a bargain boost with the $99 G4 upgrade from Daystar.
March 28, 2007 (Updated) -- Adobe Creative Suite 3 -- All or partly Universal Binary? Adobe's FAQ on CS3 states, "Many of the CS3 applications are universal binary..." That implies that not ALL of them are UB.
We've done some digging and confirmed that Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3, InDesign CS3, DreamWeaver CS3, Lightroom 1.0, Acrobat 8 Pro, Contribute CS3, Flash CS3 Pro, FireWorks CS3, Premiere Pro CS3, After Effects CS3 Pro, Encore CS3, and Soundbooth CS3 are either Universal Binary (run on both Intel and PPC Macs) or "Mac-Intel Native"(run only on Intel Macs). That latter term applies to CS3 apps (like Premiere and Soundbooth) that may be labeled "Universal" on the Adobe website but I can assure you they only run on Intel Macs.
March 28, 2007 -- Need an 802.11n Upgrade for your iMac or Mac mini? QuickerTEK has 801.11n upgrades for the Intel Mac mini, Intel iMac, and MacBook.
March 16th, 2007 -- If you have a MacBook Pro and plan to use Verizon's mobile broadband data network, you will want the V740 Rev A ExpressCard/34 being released on March 30th. Verizon is in the process of upgrading their 3G data network to "Rev A" which will increase upload speeds from 100Kbps to 400Kbps. The V740 takes advantage of this whereas the currently shipping V640 ExpressCard does not. (EVDOinfo.com gave us a heads up on this. Their 3GStore is offering it for $109.99, or $70 less than Verizon Wireless direct.)
If you have a 13" MacBook (with no ExpressCard slot), Verizon has a USB modem (U720) which is 3G Rev A rated. If you have a PowerBook with a PCMCIA (Cardbus) slot, the Verizon PC 5750 card is 3G Rev A rated.
March 14th, 2007 (Update) -- New 160GB 7200rpm Notebook Drives: Fujitsu has announced they will start shipping their new higher capacity 7200rpm 2.5" drive in second quarter 2007. Seagate announced on March 12th that their 7200rpm 160GB Serial ATA 3Gbps Momentus 7200.2 notebook drive (ST9160823AS) is available in the distribution channel. Expect the price of the 100GB version (ST910021AS) to drop like a rock.
Up until now, the biggest capacity 7200rpm notebook drive was 100GB. This new SATA drive should be of great interest to MacBook Pro owners as well as Mac mini owners. It will also sizzle in a SATA to FireWire 800 enclosure. We will be testing both drives in the near future.
March 2nd, 2007 -- iPhone can access internet via Wi-Fi, not just through Cingular's sluggish EDGE data network. The initial iPhone's mobile wireless internet protocol will be EDGE (2.5G). According to Cingular, that tops out at 135Kbits/s download speed. You won't be able to have the 700Kbps download speed of Cingular's broadband mobile UMTS/HSDPA (3G) data network.
When questioned about the lack of 3G support on February 28th, 2007, Apple's COO, Tim Cook, defended the decision to initially go with EDGE because "it's widely deployed." Cingular supports EDGE in 13,000 cities while their latest earnings report states they have UMTS/HSDPA (3G) in "165 (US) cities, including 73 of the top 100 markets." He went on to stress that if you are near a Hotspot, you can indeed use the built-in Wi-Fi 802.11b/g to connect to internet.
Yet don't be surprised, if Apple adds 3G support as early as January 2008. So you have to ask yourself, "Do I want to be locked into a 2 year contract with a 'non-3G' iPhone or a few months for the 3G iPhone?" For more on this, read our update to the iPhone analysis.
February 28th, 2007 (Update) -- Will the USB Mobile Broadband Modem (EV-DO Rev A) from Verizon and Sprint work on every Mac? Read our special report.
February 23rd, 2007 -- Lexar FireWire 800 CF Reader and 300X CF card beats the SanDisk Extreme IV combo, according to Rob Galbraith. You might recall we tested the SanDisk Extreme FireWire 800 Reader and Extreme IV CF card back in December 2006. We plan to do our own shootout between the newest Lexar combo and the SanDisk combo.
February 21st, 2007 -- NEW SLEEVE FOR MACBOOKS and MACBOOK PROS: MaxUpgrades has released the MaxProtect, an impact resistant sleeve.ÊIt is made of Visco-Elastic Memory Foam, which is designed to resist impact and shock.
If you need side pockets, our favorite is the Tucano Italian leather sleeve sold at your local Apple Retail Store as well as online. It's also available in nylon.
February 1st, 2007 -- Want to enable 802.11n? Apple is selling a piece of software for $1.99 that enables the 5X faster wireless protocol in Core 2 Duo Macs and Mac Pros with the AirPort Extreme option. The enabler is included when you purchase the new 802.11n rated AirPort Extreme Base Station.
January 5th, 2007 -- How about a twenty drive SATA RAID set on a Mac Pro? Read AMUG's article.
December 23rd, 2006 (Corrected) -- ExpressCard SATA bandwidth woes -- A reader wrote me about his frustration when connecting a four drive Port-Multiplication (PM) enclosure to an ExpressCard/34 SATA adapter installed on his MacBook Pro. Four drive RAID 0 benchmarked at 120MB/s. That was only slightly faster than two drives (90MB/s).
Though the theoretical bandwidth of an ExpressCard is 256MB/s, the current speed limit of all ExpressCards is about HALF of that when used with a RAID set no matter how many drives are connected. This is due to the fact that all current ExpressCard products use the Silicon Image 3132 chip set and, for some reason, that's as fast as it can go. Actually, the same is true of when the 3132 chipset is used in a PCIe SATA host adapter for the Mac Pro.
We ran a five bay PM enclosure (filled with Hitachi 7K500s) on our Mac Pro with a using the Sonnet E4P host adapter (based on a Marvell chipset). We got 240MB/s READ, 216MB/s WRITE. We moved the same enclosure to a MacBook Pro with an ExpressCard SATA host adapter (based on the Silicon Image 3132 chipset): 125MB/s READ, 111MB/s WRITE. Hopefully future improvements in the chipset and/or firmware will overcome this speed limit and MacBook Pro owners can experience true joy when they connect a four or five drive array to their ExpressCard.
December 21st, 2006 -- HOW ABOUT 8 DRIVES in a MAC PRO? MaxUpgrades has a MaxConnect kit that enables you to mount drives in the second optical bay of the Mac Pro. Now, instead of four internal drives, you can have up to EIGHT internal drives! Their testing shows the Mac Pro's power supply can handle the extra wattage. At the very least, you could move your boot drive to the optical bay and stripe four fast, matching drives in the factory "sleds." Or how about dual Raptors in the optical bay as a RAID 0 boot set?
December 15th, 2006 -- Photoshop CS3 SPEED TESTS -- We have now posted our results comparing Photoshop CS2 and CS3 beta running on both a Mac Pro and Quad-Core G5 Power Mac.
December 13th, 2006 -- What are the performance bottlenecks in your Mac? As we approach the new year, it's time to review the state of the Mac. Overall, the Mac computer lineup is the best ever. However, it's our duty to inform you of the missing features and performance limitations of each model so you can be an informed consumer. We also hope Apple engineering and product design is paying attention, too. Check out the latest update on our MISSING PIECES page.
November 15th, 2006 (update) -- More on 3GB Memory Limit on MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo): Apple states on their memory expansion page that "If you install a 2 GB SO-DIMM in both the bottom and top memory slots of the computer, the 'About This Mac' window and Apple System Profiler will both show that you have 4 GB of SDRAM installed. However, Activity Monitor and other similar applications will reveal that only 3 GB of SDRAM has been addressed for use by the computer." (This also applies to the iMac Core 2 Duo.)
Although the Intel 945PM chipset can physically handle 4GB of DDR2 RAM, there is the potential for "memory overlap" when more than 3GB of RAM is installed. Power PC users aren't used to these kind of limitations. Just say to yourself, "It's an Intel thing."
Of more concern to "speed freaks" is the potential loss of interleaving when you install unmatched pairs (as in the Apple factory's 1GB + 2GB config). Based on our testing, the MacBook Pro goes just as fast with unmatched memory as it does with matched. And apps like Aperture and Photoshop can certainly use the extra memory afforded by the 3GB config.
November 1st, 2006 -- Power Usage of Mac Pro
FYI, we connected a watt meter to our Mac Pro. It requires 410 watts to start up, idles at 300 watts, and peaks at 430 watts when running Doom 3, the most demanding power wise of the ten apps we tried. The Mac Pro had 16GB of RAM, four internal hard drives, and a Radeon X1900 XT. We're confident the Mac Pro's 980 watt power supply can handle just about everything you can do to upgrade or expand a Mac Pro including adding a second high end graphics card.
October 31st, 2006 -- The Radeon X1900 for G5 Power Macs (PCIe only) has appeared on the ATI website, though not yet on their online store. It's not a "GT" with 512MB of DDR3 like the Mac Pro's card, but it should give the GeForce 7800 GT a run for the money and will certainly be a big improvement over the GeForce 6600. We plan to publish a shootout soon.
October 27th, 2006 (Update) -- CalDigit Cracks the 2GB "Crash Barrier."
We spoke with our engineer friends at ProMax about the kernel panics that were occurring when more than one drive enclosure was connected to a SATA host adapter in a Mac Pro with more than 2GB of RAM.
ProMax has confirmed with rigorous testing using multiple enclosures along with various video capture cards that CalDigit's newest driver fixes the problem. If you have a CalDigit PCIe SATA host adapter in your Mac Pro, you can update it by downloading the driver from CalDigit's support page.
We plan to do our own testing of the new CalDigit driver, as well as new Mac Pro compatible drivers FirmTek and HighPoint which address the same issue.
October 25th, 2006 -- Comments on the new MacBook Pros
Good to see the Core 2 Duo version released, though this "Merom" chipset has a frontside bus that's limited to 667MHz.
The 15" model gets its FireWire 800 port back. However, the 7200RPM drive is no longer available for the 15" MacBook Pro. And its SuperDrive is rated at 6X while the 17" MacBook Pro's SuperDrive is rated at 8X. The 15" model is reportedly the most popular. It's too bad it can't be the full equal of the 17" except in screen size.
October 3rd, 2006 -- Some Applications Go Faster Under The Latest OS X Build. We tested some key apps just before and right after the 10.4.7 to 10.4.8 upgrade. Here's some interesting gains we saw:
DOOM 3: Low resolutions (640x480 High) ran 26% faster. We saw a 13% gains with 1024x768 Medium (no Shadows). Reason? Multi-threaded OpenGL is supported by Doom 3 in combination with the newest Tiger release. Doom 3 is currently the only app we know that takes advantage of this but don't be surprised to see patches for other OpenGL apps to appear shortly.
PHOTOSHOP CS2: Our MP2 action file ran 11% faster. We assume there are some improvements to Rosetta.
The tests above were performed on a 17" MacBook Pro 2.16GHz. We plan to test other systems in our lab and post an expanded report early next week.
September 28th, 2006 -- All you World of Warcraft players with PowerPC Macs will want to know about a patch that smooths out frame rates.
September 28th, 2006 -- If you are an experienced Aperture user, we covet your input on the best way to construct an Aperture benchmark. We want a test that will stress the graphics card so we can measure the gains achieved when you upgrade from the GeForce 7300 GT to the Radeon X1900 XT, for example. We also want to test the effect of main memory capacity (2GB vs 4GB vs 8GB, for example. Email
with your suggestions.
September 25th, 2006 -- MaxUpgrades is offering the 4GB (2x2GB) for the Mac Pro for $799, which is the lowest price we've seen for a 4GB kit. We've tested their memory kit with its "Apple approved" heat sink design called MaxSink. Their two clip design allows more fin area to be exposed to the air flow. Based on our testing, it works very well. You can also buy the heat sinks themselves.
September 22nd, 2006 -- Radeon X1900 XT is "detuned"! Though the Radeon X1900 XT "whups" the GeForce 7300 GT, we were surprised to find out that Apple "detuned" the X1900 XT to run at 600 core clock speed and 650 memory clock speed (confirmed by Graphiccelerator). In the Windows PC world, a Radeon X1900 XT typically runs at 625MHz core clock speed and 725MHz memory clock speed. And it does NOT dynamically "up-clock" when you run OpenGL 3D games as in the case of the MacBook Pro 17". (Verified that, too.)
But there is some good news. You can use Graphiccelerator 1.3.2 to change the ROM code so it runs at "normal" speeds or even better. (The memory clock is rated up to 900MHz.) For example, one user has his X1900 XT running at 650MHz core clock and 775MHz memory clock speed -- which turns it into an XTX. Of course, that may cause the X1900's fan to run more often.
We have to warn you that overclocking your X1900 XT can potentially "hurt" it or "kill" it. As for dealing with a noisy fan, one of our readers replaced his heatsink/fan assembly with the ARCTIC COOLING Accelero X2 selling for $22 at NewEgg.
September 21st, 2006 -- We're still baffled by the 3GB limit on the iMac Core Duo. WHY ONLY 3GB of RAM?
Why is the Core 2 Duo, a true 64 bit processor, limited to 3GB? According to Intel's description of the 945PM Express Chipset on which the iMac is based, it supports "up to 4GB memory addressability." Many of you have expressed strong interest in and high hopes for the 24 iMac Core 2 Duo until you learned that the practical limit is 2GB -- since few of you are willing to pay big bucks for a 2GB SODIMM and give up interleaving just to get 3GB. I guess that's good for Apple. They will sell more high profit Mac Pros with it's eight memory slots.
September 20th, 2006 -- Wiebetech is now shipping their "triple interface" ToughTech mini which uses the "Toughtech" enclosure design similar to what their 3.5" drive enclosures use. It accepts notebook size SATA drives and features the Oxford 924 chipset. You'll notice a similarity to the TransIntl miniXpress we reviewed.
September 20th, 2006 -- CalDigit's FASTA-2e two port PCIe 3G SATA host adapter is now compatible with the Mac Pro. You can download the updated driver from their website.
September 15th, 2006 -- YOU CAN NOW HAVE A 3 TERABYTE RAID INSIDE YOUR MAC PRO! Other World Computing has informed us that they tested a firmware update for Seagate 7200.10 drives that fixes the "can't stripe four 750G drives" problem. They got 240+MB/s READ and 350+MB/s WRITE (a new speed record). The fix must be applied to the drives using a Windows PC, however, and only fixes certain serial numbers. We will share more when we know more.
This firmware update does NOT fix the other problems we encountered on the Seagate 7200.10 drives (all sizes):
a) Slow sustained write speeds for single 7200.10 inside the Mac Pro or Power Mac.
b) Slow random read speeds for one drive or RAID 0 sets using the 7200.10.
September 15th, 2006 (Update) -- Calling for Radeon X1900 XT Testers. Apple shipped our Radeon X1900 XT kit only a day late -- we received it the afternoon of September 15th. We've posted TEST RESULTS for the Mac Pro 3.0GHz but still would like to see some results for the Mac Pro 2.66GHz and 2.0GHz running the X1900. Email
for test procedures.
September 14th, 2006 -- Could the iMac Core 2 Duo's advantage be more than just hardware? We were checking to see if the iMac Core 2 Duo had a newer version of OS X compared to the iMac Core Duo. They both are running 10.4.7, but we noticed that the Core 2 Duo had a later build (8K1106 vs 8J2135a). We also happened to do a "Get Info" on the Radeon X1600 driver (ATIRadeonX1000.kext) and noticed it was a different build, too.
That causes us to wonder if the iMac Core 2 Duo's advantage is strictly due to the processor change or if there are also a few performance enhancements to the system software as well. Maybe when Apple releases the next iteration of OS X and we have identical builds on both the iMac Core 2 Duo and Core Duo, we'll know the answer.
September 14th, 2006 (Update) -- Calling for iMac Core 2 Duo Testers
We've been able to test the 20" iMac Core 2 Duo (2.16GHz) and have found two remote mad scientists willing to send us results from their 24" iMac Core 2 Duo (2.33GHz, GeForce 7600). Now we need to find remote mad scientists with 20" iMac Core 2 Duos running at 2.33GHz and 24" iMac Core 2 Duos running at 2.16GHz.
Contact
and he will send you the testing procedures, links, and test files.
September 12th, 2006 --- Because you keep asking, we'll say it again: The PCIe graphics card in your Windows PC will NOT work in the Mac Pro. That's because Apple uses the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). Get the whole scoop in THIS ARTICLE. Nor will the G5 Power Mac PCIe cards work in your Mac Pro -- for the same reason.
September 8th, 2006 (update) -- MAC PRO MEMORY TEMPERATURE TESTS -- (See our SPECIAL REPORT on this.)
September 6th, 2006 -- New Core 2 Duo iMac can be ordered now. We can't wait to test one of the new 64 bit Core 2 Duo iMacs running at 2.0GHz against the "old" 32 bit Core Duo iMac running at 2.0GHz -- especially since they both have the same 667MHz frontside bus. (We'll have to wait until summer of 2007 to get a faster frontside bus for the Core 2 Duo based systems.)
The top end model with 2.33GHz processor, GeForce 7600GT GPU (256M), FireWire 800 (finally!), and 24" LCD display nicely bridges the gap between the dual core iMacs and the quad core Mac Pros.
August 30th, 2006 -- The price of the Radeon X1900 XT kit has dropped from $499 to $399. As you know, we ordered the X1900 separately from our Mac Pro so it would not delay the ship date. Apple emailed us today that the price of the kit had dropped and that they had adjusted our invoice accordingly -- estimated shipping date is still September 13th. Use THIS LINK to go directly to the X1900 XT page to see the new price and/or order the kit.
If you are ordering your Mac Pro system, the CTO option for the X1900 XT kit has also dropped in price from $350 to $250.
August 30th, 2006 -- New Fast Jump Drive. We just tested the Patriot Xporter XT 4GB Flash Drive (PEF4G200USB -- $82.99 at NewEgg) on the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro. We didn't get the 32MB/s rated speed but it did beat our previous jump drive champ, the Lexar Lightning. More details to come...
August 29th, 2006 (Update) -- New Photoshop Test Embarrasses the Mac Pro. (We've expanded this entry to a full article.)
August 25th, 2006 -- As of August 24th, TransIntl.com is shipping Mac Pro memory that complies with Apple's specs. They took great care to engineer it for maximum thermal efficiency including drawing heat off the Advanced Memory Buffer chip.
August 19th, 2006 -- Anandtech has an interesting table comparing the specs of the Core Duo to the Core 2 Duo. On other pages they have performance and power consumption info. This article should be of interest to those of you anticipating the release of the Core 2 Duo version of the MacBook Pro. One conclusion I reached after reading it. I'm waiting until mid 2007 to buy a Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro. (Read the two paragraphs at the end of the page with the table.)
August 18th, 2006 -- New Apple 23" Cinema impresses. We ordered a new 23" Cinema display for our Mac Pro 3GHz. This new model (numbers starting with 2A6260 or higher) is brighter with better contrast than the previous model. Best of all, the pink hue on grey screens is gone. (Read our review of it compared to the Dell 24" Ultrasharp LCD.)
August 11th, 2006 (Update) -- REPORT ON FOUR SEAGATE 750GB drives inside Mac Pro. We had strange results. Weird results. Read our "SPECIAL REPORT" for more details. Also find out if you can BOOT from a RAID 0 inside the Mac Pro.
August 8th, 2006 (Update) -- I'm sure you've heard by now about the hot new dual-dual-core Xeon based Mac Pro towers from Apple. We cancelled our order for the 3GHz model with X1900 XT (3 to 5 weeks) and reordered it with the stock GeForce 7300 GT (3 to 5 days). That way we can get the CPU test results to you faster (compared to the Quad-Core G5). Meanwhile, SEE OUR "ARM CHAIR ANALYSIS" OF THE MAC PRO.
August 3rd, 2006 -- Our testing of the SanDisk Extreme IV CompactFlash card and Extreme FireWire 800 CF reader confirms their boast of 40MB/s. (See our full review.)
August 3rd, 2006 -- We've been using Apple's Wireless BlueTooth Mighty Mouse for almost a week now. The AA batteries make it heavier than the wired Mighty Mouse (114 grams vs 74 grams), but not too much heavier than our favorite mouse, the 95 gram Razer Diamondback. The higher resolution Razer covers more screen area with a given wrist movement. The newest Mighty Mouse is the best wireless Bluetooth mouse we've tested to date and we plan to take it on the road with our MacBook Pro.
July 22nd, 2006 -- CONSUMER ALERT: We must alert you to something before you run out and buy the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA drive. Though it scored well in our 3G drive and host adapter tests, the write speed was unacceptable when installed inside a G5 Power Mac using the factory SATA controller. Also, we've had reports from expert sources that there can be problems with booting and mounting. Plus, Seagate has reportedly made changes to the hardware and firmware on the drive for their most recent manufacturing run -- which may or may not address the issues mentioned above. If you plan to buy one or more of these drives, we recommend you use a reputable dealer who takes returns without charging restocking fees in case it doesn't perform to your satisfaction.
July 10th, 2006 -- CONSUMER ALERT: The current crop of two port PCIe SATA host adapters: Most of them use the generic Silicon Image driver. I'm concerned about Silicon Image's ability to provide ongoing support for this driver. They are new to the driver game. They have a history of being slow to release updates. This could come back to bite you at some point.
We'll soon be posting a review of the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E which has custom firmware (and does not require a driver). It features the ability to boot OS X. It's pricier than most two port PCIe SATA cards at $99, but FirmTek has a very good track record when it comes to updates and customer support.
July 7th, 2006 -- Dan Silber sent me some interesting Final Cut Pro 5.1.1 test results comparing a Dual G5/1.8 Power Mac to the 17" MacBook Pro 2.16GHz Core Duo. We plan to duplicate his tests on some of our lab systems and publish those results along with his.
July 6th, 2006 -- New Education version of Intel iMac has the same integrated GPU as the Intel Mac mini and 13" MacBook: The Intel GMA950. Though the price is "right," be aware that OpenGL and Core Image functions will be much slower than the standard Intel iMac with the Radeon X1600 GPU, as our tests show.
June 29th, 2006 -- TransIntl.com now has an excellent SATA notebook drive enclosure, the miniXpress, with two FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port, and one USB 2.0 port. The rugged, good looking aluminum case resists scratches and has excellent heat dissipation characteristics. The FireWire 800 ports enable you to squeeze maximum performance from the 7200prm SATA notebook drives from Hitachi and Seagate. (Or use it for your factory MacBook or MacBook Pro drive if you upgrade.)
May 29th, 2006 -- Verizon Wireless Broadband "Trick" for MacBook Pro Users -- We rely heavily on the Verizon AirCard for our PowerBooks. It gives us the most flexible access to broadband internet than anything else we've found. Our frustration lately is that there are no ExpressCard/34 AirCards for MacBook Pros, though Verizon admits they are "working on one." However, one of our readers pointed out that we could use a 3G capable cell phone as an interim solution.
So we contacted Verizon and added unlimited broadband service to our RAZR cell phone. We connected it to the MacBook Pro using an USB cable. After choosing the "Verizon Support (PC 5200)" modem script we were able to "rock and roll" on the Internet at 1100Kbps download speed. We also tried the Bluetooth method. It worked but the download speed dropped to 550Kbps. This not the perfect solution since it ties up the use of the cell phone but it's an interim solution until Verizon releases a MacBook Pro compatible 3G/1xEVDO ExpressCard/34.
May 19th, 2006 -- 17" MacBook Pro has variable speed GPU! We were pleased with but puzzled by the dramatic speed jump in 3D gaming compared to the 15" MacBook Pro. But after receiving a tip from Michael Bean of AMUG, we rechecked the 17" MacBook Pro's X1600 GPU's core and memory speeds before, during and after running 3D Games using Graphiccelerator's "Show ATI Frequencies" function. Before starting a series of runs, the core measured 311MHz frequency. When we ran 3D games, it jumped to 423MHz. After sitting idle a few minutes, it fell back to 311MHz. We measured a similar jump in the GPU's memory clock from 297MHz to 450MHz. Now we know why the 17" MacBook Pro performed as well as the Intel iMac on the 3D Game tests.
May 17th, 2006 -- Some thoughts on the MacBook 13" -- It provides impressive performance for the money except in one area: the GPU -- same integrated Intel GMA950 that's in the Intel Mac mini. It supports Core Image and OpenGL graphics but a lot slower than the Radeon X1600 in the iMac and MacBook Pro. It not only borrows its 64MB of video memory from the system memory, but it does not support vertex shaders or transform and lighting effects.
I wish Apple would upgrade the MacBook Pro 15" and 17" to use the GeForce Go 7800 and use the Radeon X1600 in the MacBook 13".
May 9th, 2006 (update) -- Quake 4 patch adds dual core support. The gain varies depending on the quality and resolution. At 640x480 "Low" with Shadows OFF, we saw a 61% gain in frame rates on an Intel iMac 2.0 with "SMP" enabled. However, at 1024x768 "High" with Shadows ON, the advantage dropped to 2%.
We forgot to mention yesterday that the patch also provides gains on the PPC Macs. Our Quad-Core with the GeForce 7800 saw a gain of 50% at 640x480 "Low" dropping to 7% at 1280x1024 "High."
Another way to get a jump in frame rates is to turn OFF shadows. Doing so produced a 68% gain on the Intel iMac running at 1024x768 "High." Stay tuned to a full report comparing various Intel and PPC Macs running Quake 4.
April 27th, 2006 -- The Lexar FireWire CompactFlash Card Reader is twice as fast as the famous SanDisk Ultra ImageMate FireWire CompactFlash Card Reader. For years we have been singing the praises of the SanDisk FW reader. In fact, we recently ordered a second one for the lab since they were out of production and becoming scarce. The Flash Memory Store sent us a Lexar FW RW019-001 reader instead, claiming it was just as fast.
We were upset and about to send it back when we decided to try it. Guess what? It reads our Extreme III 1GB CF card more than TWICE as fast as the SanDisk FW reader. (15MB/s versus 7MB/s) We're not only keeping the "mistake" but ordering another. (Don't confuse it with the Lexar LX RW011-001 Purple FW CF Reader -- which is slow and unreliable.)
April 24th, 2006 -- Now we get a 17" MacBook Pro. It offers a bigger screen, slightly faster cores (2.16GHz), FireWire 800 port, faster DVD burner, and weighs 1.2 pounds more than the 15" model -- which we expect to remain the most popular.
April 24th, 2006 -- FirmTek Is Showing Their 2 Port PCI Express SATA II host adapter at NAB. Don't miss our review of their SATA ExpressCard/34 for the MacBook Pro.
April 20th, 2006 -- Matched Memory Pairs make your Intel Mac Faster. Some of you were asking whether you would gain any speed using matched memory pairs on your Macbook Pro, Intel Mac or Intel mini. In our testing, iMovie renders were 3% faster with matched pairs. Our Photoshop CS2 MP actions ran 6% faster with matched pairs.
April 19th, 2006 -- Seagate's new Cheetah 15,000 RPM drive is the first to crack the 100MB/s mark. The newest incarnation of the Cheetah, designated "15K.5" is rated at 125MB/s. It's available with 3Gb/s SAS (Serial Attached SCSI), Ultra320 SCSI and 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel interfaces. This flagship enterprise drive features 10 times the error protection and data reliability of the previous model. And it's the first 15K drive to use perpendicular technology, doubling capacity to 300GB.
April 14th, 2006 -- How fast does the Universal Binary version of Final Cut Pro and Motion run on the Mac Book Pro compared to a Dual G5/2.0 Power Mac? We hope to find out soon when our upgrade arrives but Creative Mac has the answer already.
April 13th, 2006 -- Back on March 21, 2006 we reported that HighPoint's driver update to the RocketRAID 2320 SATA II PCI Express host adapter fixed the SLOW RAID 5 WRITE SPEED and the SLEEP ISSUE. The speed issue was truly fixed but the sleep issue has NOT been resolved as we hoped. When you select sleep, the screen goes black and the internal drives spin down but the fans continue to run. HighPoint is continuing to work the issue.
April 11th, 2006 -- PCI Express 8 Lane Slot (3) does produce a real world speed drop compared to the 16 Lane Slot (1). We finally got around to installing the GeForce 7800 GT in slot 3 of our Quad-Core. We ran various apps to see if there was any speed penalty to using the 8 lane PCI Express slot compared to the 16 lane slot (1) factory default. In other words, if you add a second graphics card in the 8 lane slot, will it actually run slower than the one in the 16 lane slot?
The answer is, "Yes, but not always by much." Of course, CPU intensive tasks won't be affected but when we ran Motion and iMaginator -- which hand off Core Image functions to the graphics card, the 16 lane slot was 3% and 7% faster repectively. With OpenGL 3D games at 1600x1200 High Quality, the advantage of the 16 lane slot varied from 2% with Doom 3 to 45% with Unreal Tournament 2004's Flyby. Most other game scenarios were 13% faster with the 16 lane slot in use.
April 7th, 2006 -- Sonnet SATA II PCIe Host Adapter Review by AMUG -- If you want the scoop of the Tempo E4P (four external ports) host adapter for Dual-Core and Quad-Core G5 Power Macs, the gang at AMUG has "plumbed the depths."
April 6th, 2006 -- Boot Camp Benchmarks (Update) -- See our results HERE.
April 5th, 2006 -- MacBook Pro Problems have been reported by various 'early adopters' (blinking screens, whining fans, speaker problems, etc.). Apple has been addressing these problems with 'silent' revisions of the main logic board. It's up to Rev D (serial numbers of W8611xxxxxx or higher). If you are experiencing any problems with your MacBook Pro, I suggest you back it up and take it in to your Apple dealer. It's very likely you will have a revised main logic board when it comes back.
March 18th, 2006 -- Mad Scientists have created some "mutant" graphics cards for older Macs. I was recently sent two interesting "creations" from one of the StrangeDogs.com forum members. The first card was a GeForce 6200 (AGP) that's designed specifically for the G4 Cube. It really sizzles in our "asymetrical" dual processor G4/1.4/1.7GHz Cube. Fits the original case, doesn't require the VRM/DC board to be moved, runs quiet, and doesn't require external power source.
The other card was a GeForce 6600 GT (AGP) we tested it in on our "FW800" G4/1.42MP Power Mac and two of our Dual Single-Core G5 Power Macs (AGP 8X). It's equal to or faster than a Radeon 9800 Pro. My favorite feature is the blue LED that glows in the heatsink fan. (See our test results.)
March 11th, 2006 -- USB 2.0 is faster on the MacBook Pro. We were doing some testing with a Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 inside a FireWire 800 / USB 2.0 enclosure. To our surprise, it ran much faster on the MacBook Pro's USB 2.0 port than it did on the newest PowerBook and Power Mac. We suspect the same is true of the Intel iMac and Intel Mac mini.
