Have you ever wanted to benchmark a Power Mac G4 MDD versus a 2018 Mac mini, directly? Well, now you actually can*! This is actually a Universal app, which works all the way up to macOS Mojave since it’s a 32-Bit app.
- See: Download – Power Fractal v1.4.1 (160 kB – External Link)
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What is Power Fractal?
The team over at Dauger Research explain the details best: “A numerically-intensive parallel graphics application that uses the vector hardware, multiple processors or Cores (MP), and cluster computing (via MPI) for its computations. Power Fractal takes simultaneously advantage of both the Velocity Engine, a.k.a. AltiVec, and SSE, when available.”
You can basically compare vastly different Macs head to head, in terms of raw computational power. This in and of itself is an artificial benchmark, but is a bit different than how a traditional benchmarking app such as Geekbench would work.
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Requirements
- Standard App: This code uses the MacMPI_XUB.c library for communcations and and requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later and Pooch (to run in parallel).
. - To run this app on a single Intel- or PowerPC-based Mac, no additional software needed.
. - Carbon CFM: version of Power Fractal that requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later
. - With CarbonLib 1.2 or later: Mac OS 8.5 or later (See website)
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Performance benchmark achievements
According to their website, they have a set of benchmark scores that wee able to be achieved using different arrangements of PowerPC Macs.
- 1.5 GigaFlops on a G4/450MHz
. - 13.5 GigaFlops on a DPG5/2GHz
. - 22 GigaFlops on 16 G4/400’s,
. - 217 GigaFlops on 33 XServe DPG4/1GHz’s,
. - 233 GigaFlops on 56 DPG4/533’s + 20 DPG4/450’s
. - 1.21 TeraFlops on 128 Xserve DPG5/2GHz’s.
Disclaimer from their website: “Your results may vary. Click on the above links for benchmark information.”
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Benching a Mac Pro 3,1 8-Core 3.2 in Mojave
Mentioned on their website: “New in version 1.4.1: Newly reoptimized SSE code and fractal presets for the new 8-Core Mac Pro, where it can achieve over 80 GigaFlops.”
