Intel iMac vs. Power PC Mac vs. G4 Powerbook
For anyone interested I did a quick test this weekend on the new Intel iMac vs. the Power PC iMac. What I was hoping for was to add an iMac to my array of Macs to fill in the gap between my G4 Powerbooks and my Dual G5 Powermac.
I was looking for something to bump up my processing times while for jobs where I travel via airline (about 80% of my jobs) but will have access to outlets and power and be able to have the entire system be able to be carried on. My basic problem was that shipping the Powermac was costly and taking a toll on the machine as well as having to ship a monitor. The powerbooks were fine for capturing, ok for editing, and I can carry them on the airplane. The processing times are killing me since I tech alot for catalog with very high capture counts and needing to deliver final TIFF's of edited images.
I went to the Apple store and loaded C1 Pro 3.7.3 onto each of the 20\" machines (power PC and Intel). Keep in mind that the test was only for processing time and wasn't uber scientific. Here are the results:
Software: C1 Pro 3.7.3
Camera FIle: 1DsMII
Processing Paramaters: High Quality TIFF, 300 dpi, 100%, 8 bit, Adobe RGB / Quickproof JPG. 240 dpi, 25%, 8 Bit, Adobe RGB
No other programs were running at the time.
20\" Power PC G5 iMac/2.1ghz/512 RAM/250BG SATA @ 7200 RPM = 1'28\"
20\" Power Intel Duo iMac/2.0ghz/512 RAM/250BG SATA @ 7200 RPM\" = 1'25\"
15\" G4 Powerbook/1.67ghz/2GB RAM/80GB ATA @ 5400 RPM = 1'36\"
Dual Powermac/2.0ghz/2.5GB RAM/74GB SATA RAPTOR @ 10K RPM = 0'37\"
So, the key processing times I was hoping for from either of the iMacs didn't materialize. The Intel iMac running in emulation was still slightly faster than the Power PC but neither offered any significant bump in processing speed from my powerbooks which is dissapointing to say the least. Hope this helps anyone thinking of making an iMac purchase-
Drew
I was looking for something to bump up my processing times while for jobs where I travel via airline (about 80% of my jobs) but will have access to outlets and power and be able to have the entire system be able to be carried on. My basic problem was that shipping the Powermac was costly and taking a toll on the machine as well as having to ship a monitor. The powerbooks were fine for capturing, ok for editing, and I can carry them on the airplane. The processing times are killing me since I tech alot for catalog with very high capture counts and needing to deliver final TIFF's of edited images.
I went to the Apple store and loaded C1 Pro 3.7.3 onto each of the 20\" machines (power PC and Intel). Keep in mind that the test was only for processing time and wasn't uber scientific. Here are the results:
Software: C1 Pro 3.7.3
Camera FIle: 1DsMII
Processing Paramaters: High Quality TIFF, 300 dpi, 100%, 8 bit, Adobe RGB / Quickproof JPG. 240 dpi, 25%, 8 Bit, Adobe RGB
No other programs were running at the time.
20\" Power PC G5 iMac/2.1ghz/512 RAM/250BG SATA @ 7200 RPM = 1'28\"
20\" Power Intel Duo iMac/2.0ghz/512 RAM/250BG SATA @ 7200 RPM\" = 1'25\"
15\" G4 Powerbook/1.67ghz/2GB RAM/80GB ATA @ 5400 RPM = 1'36\"
Dual Powermac/2.0ghz/2.5GB RAM/74GB SATA RAPTOR @ 10K RPM = 0'37\"
So, the key processing times I was hoping for from either of the iMacs didn't materialize. The Intel iMac running in emulation was still slightly faster than the Power PC but neither offered any significant bump in processing speed from my powerbooks which is dissapointing to say the least. Hope this helps anyone thinking of making an iMac purchase-
Drew
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I don't think it is even worth considering, much less testing, until native apps are released. I guess it's like to old adage, which comes first, the chicken or the egg. RAW processing is probably the most demanding thing a personal computer is ever called upon to do, and photographers are probably a small percentage of those users. 0 -
Partially true as far as the Intel Duo goes. Rosetta and all. However it's intersting that the intel iMac still out performs, albeit slightly, the Power PC model even in emulation. Which gives hope for when C1 runs the native universal binary(TBD, however). But even more so, is how little performance gain there is with an iMac (either right now) over a powerbook.
And to add fuel to the fire, my 2 year old, non-raid, Pentium 4 Gateway with 1.5GB RAM, stock machine from Best Buy equals my raided, dual 2.0ghz, g5 Powermac with 2.5GB RAM on the same file same output paramaters.
All of the above makes me think the C1 Pro for Mac does not take advantage of the power of macintosh.0 -
Maybe you can add more RAM to the iMacs to get faster processing time? 0 -
I doubt just adding RAM alone would bump the processing times a great deal. For instance my:
1.67ghz 15\" powerbook/2gbRAM = 1'36\"
and my
1.5ghz 15\" powerbook/1gbRAM = 1'39\"
for the same file (1DsMII) with the same output parameters
Similarly my dual 2.0ghz G5 Powermac w/2.5gb RAM brings in the same time as my dual 2.0ghz G5 Powermac with 4GB RAM.
The only real unknown is whether C1 Pro will take advantage of the Intel Duo's processing power when it runs native. I hope so!
There seems to be a disconnect somewhere in C1 Pro in processing speed and specs of a computer. For example, in theory, my RAID'd dual 2.0ghz G5 Powermac should be really out performing my powerbooks, not just roughly twice as fast. The PPC Imac should, in theory, fall somewhere in between the two, not be so close to the powerbook. In theory that is. And in general, C1 Pro processes out very slow to most other RAW conversion (subjective quality comparrisons aside).0 -
I'm curious about those numbers. For those times, how many photos were you converting? 0 -
Those were for individual files. But it remains almost dead consistant with batch as well. 0 -
Wow, they must be doing something very different in the mac version.
The PC version did the same thing in around 35 seconds.
One difference, the file was from my 20D (So lower res). I have a 1.83Ghz Pentium-M laptop. (Single core)0 -
I agree. I'd love to hear from Phase One why exactly the Mac app is slower processing than Windows. I am almost tempted to get a PC laptop just for processing but I hate the idea of a cross platform workflow. Anyone out there use C1 Pro like that? 0 -
Just for comparison, this is how a 4 years old self-made PC is handing this job.
The setup here:
Contax 645 with Phase One P 20 Back and C1 DB 3.73, file sizes Raw from 13 to 18 MB. TIFF files in PhotoShop are 97 MB.
Computer: PC Windows 2000 Home-built year 2002, Dual 1.4 GHz Intel P3 Tualatin (think, they are stopped in production) CPU on a Super Micro P3TDL3 mother board. Hard Disk Western Digital SATA WD740 at 10000rpm (new).
Memory of 2.5 GB running on front side bus at 133 MHz. Dual processor and 2.5 GB was considered for PhotoShop, This I think it helps much for processing the Raw files.
Here are the results of processing one Raw file:
Dual processors 2X1.4 GHz 100% 16bit 50 sec
Single processor 1.4 GHz 100% 16bit 1' 17\"
(You can switch dual/single, see\"Preferences Process settings)
Dual processors 2X1.4 GHz 100% 8bit 41\"
Single processor 1.4 GHz 100% 8bit 1\" 08\"
JEPG file alone 18% 8bit 40\"
Processing dual output: Image 1 and Image 2
TIFF and JEPG thogether dual CPU 50\"
All this was checked with stop watch starting at clicking the develop button and stopping at the start of PhotoShop. So there still is included the Color-Conversion for the TIFF file from camera to destination (PSP). That takes about 5 sec of the processing time.
(I just hope, that's the way everybody checked processing time. Never read anything about the means how it's done otherwise.)0 -
There was an error in the line:
Memory of 2.5 GB running on front side bus at 133 MHz. Dual processor and 2.5 GB was considered for PhotoShop, This I think it helps much for processing the Raw files.
It should say:
\"this I think is NOT of very much help for processing the Raw files.\"[/u][/b]0
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