These are the first benchmark results we've done using Mac OS X 10.5
"Leopard" - but they won't be the last. I've had Leopard on my
production machine, a "Mirror
Drive Door Power Mac" G4/1 GHz dual, for some time, but I still use
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger almost exclusively, as I use Classic Mode daily.
I'll make that our
next benchmark project.
This computer is a "Mystic" Power Mac G4/450
dual that's had its CPUs upclocked to 500 MHz by
Operator Headgap, which usually has upclocked 400 MHz to 550 MHz
single G4 modules available at very reasonable prices.
The Mystic was Apple's second generation of AGP Power Mac, and its
claims to fame include gigabit ethernet and dual processors. It's a lot
like the "Sawtooth"
G4 - same Rage 128 Pro AGP 2x video card, same four memory sockets,
same drive support, same case. With Motorola unable to provide CPUs
beyond 500 MHz, adding a second CPU was the only way Apple could offer
more power.
This computer has 768 MB of RAM (three 256 MB PC133-333 modules) and
an 80 GB 7200 rpm Deskstar, which is one of my favorite hard drives.
The drive has been repartitioned since I tested at 450 MHz - it now has
Mac OS X 10.2.8, 10.3.9, 10.4.11, and 10.5.6 installed. The system was
configured with a Kensington mouse, Acer keyboard, and 17" Samsung
700DF monitor at 1024 x 768 resolution and millions of colors for the
500 MHz tests. The Leopard installation was freshly clones to the
internal drive this morning, and I remembered to turn Spotlight off
after running most of the benchmarks - it made a big difference!
Test results compare the overclocked 500 MHz machine against results
at 450 MHz. Based on the difference in CPU speed, we would expect some
results to be 10-11% better.
Let 1000 Windows Bloom
The system was tested at 500 MHz on 19 February 2009.
450 MHz 500 MHz
Mac OS X 10.2.8 56.4 sec. 53.6 sec. 5.2% faster
Mac OS X 10.3.9 41.1 sec. 41.3 sec. 0.5% slower
Mac OS X 10.4.11 32.2 sec. 26.4 sec. 22.0% faster
Mac OS X 10.5.6 35.4 sec.
Apple had definitely been improving graphics performance on older
hardware as Mac OS X has moved forward - until Leopard. This computer's
antiquated Rage 128 video card just can't keep up with Leopard.
This Power Mac was tested on 6 July 2009 with 1.25 GB of RAM
installed, a Radeon 9000 graphics card, and booted from an external
FireWire hard drive. With OS X 10.4.11 it came in at 27.5 sec., and
with 10.5.7 it finished in 36.9 sec. - both surprising slower than with
the original Rage128 Pro video card.
Power Fractal
This program creates a fractal pattern, which can really bog down a
CPU. It does not run under Jaguar. Under Panther, it took 7.0 seconds
and scored 3,662 Mflops. Under Tiger, that dropped to 7.9 seconds and
3,232 Mflops.
450 MHz 500 MHz
Mac OS X 10.3.9 3,662 Mflops 3,788 Mflops 3.4% better
Mac OS X 10.4.11 3,232 Mflops 3,769 Mflops 16.6% better
Mac OS X 10.5.6 3,742 Mflops
This is one benchmark where the results are pretty consistent today
- the difference between Panther and Leopard is just 1.2%.
The system was retested on 6 July 2009 with 1.25 GB of RAM, a Radeon
9000 graphics card, and running from an external FireWire hard drive.
Under OS X 10.4.11 it scored 3,411 Mflops, and under 10.5.7 it achieved
3,322 Mflops. Again results are lower than before.
Xbench
Xbench has been out for some time, and version 1.1.3 runs on all
three versions of OS X installed on the Mystic, and tests a lot of
things. Here are the test results using Xbench 1.3 for 10.3 and 10.4
(100 = 2.0 GHz G5):
--- 450 MHz -- --- 500 MHz --
10.3.9 10.4.11 10.3.9 10.4.11
Overall 22.8 25.7 23.6 26.3 3.5/2.3% better
CPU 29.5 28.9 32.7 29.7 10.8/2.8% better
Threads 34.9 39.4 36.7 41.7 5.2/5.8% better
Memory 20.7 23.2 21.4 23.0 3.4/-0.9% better
Quartz 27.2 25.1 28.0 25.9 2.9/3.2% better
OpenGL 34.0 38.6 34.9 40.8 2.6/5.7% better
User Int. 9.1 12.0 9.3 12.7 2.2/5.8% better
Drive 51.2 49.4 50.8 43.0 0.8/13.0% worse
We can see how OS X has become more efficient over the years.
Running at 500 MHz, the overall score is about 2.3% higher under Tiger
than Panther. The results are anything but predictable. We only see the
expected 10-11% improvement in the CPU score, and then only under 10.3.
It is nice to see that a faster CPU also gives us faster graphics even
though there has been no change to the video card.
Next we test using Leopard at 500 MHz:
Overall 22.6 14.1% slower
CPU 30.4 2.3% faster
Threads 36.7 12.0% slower
Memory 22.7 1.3% slower
Quartz 26.4 1.9% faster
OpenGL 36.8 9.8% slower
User Int. 8.5 33.1% slower
Drive 43.2 0.5% faster
As always, Apple is tweaking different parts of the Mac OS, and
Leopard is a bit faster on the CPU and Quartz tests, almost unchanged
on Memory and Drive tests, but a fair bit slower on the Threads test
and a lot slower - one-third slower - on the User Interface test.
Overall, Xbench says Leopard is 14% slower than Tiger.
We ran fresh benchmarks on 6 July 2009 with 1.25 GB of RAM, Radeon
9000 graphics, and an external FireWire drive. Here are the results
under Tiger and Leopard:
10.4.11 10.5.7
Overall 24.0 20.0
CPU 30.2 29.9
Threads 39.1 35.1
Memory 21.6 21.5
Quartz 25.3 24.6
OpenGL 34.7 31.4
User Int. 11.0 7.1
Drive 36.8 36.5
Here's solid evidence that running from a FireWire 400 hard drive is
not faster than using an internal hard drive than one on the internal
Ultra ATA66 bus (rated bandwidth for FW 400 is 50 MB/sec., while ATA66
is 66 MB/sec.). This will definitely change my working strategy - I
have been using a FireWire drive because it's so easy to move to
another Power Mac should my main machine have problems.
We're seeing lower scores in most tests, with the CPU score under
10.4.11 being the only exception - and that's just a 1.7% difference.
Once again, we get better graphics scores with the stock Rage 128 Pro
than with the far more modern Radeon 9000.
Geekbench
Geekbench only runs in Tiger and Leopard (which I ran from an
external 2.5" hard drive, the 40 GB 5400 rpm drive that used to reside
in my late TiBook).
TIGER 450 MHz 500 MHz
Overall 439 459 4.6% faster
Integer 529 560 5.9% faster
Floating Point 529 547 3.4% faster
Memory 266 278 4.5% faster
Streams 165 162 1.8% slower
After the 500 MHz upgrade, three of four tests benchmark faster,
giving a 4.6% performance boost overall - but bear in mind that
Geekbench doesn't measure hard drive or video performance.
Here are the Leopard results at 500 MHz:
Overall 450 2.0% slower
Integer 551 1.6% slower
Floating Point 548 insignificant
Memory 244 12.2% slower
Streams 169 4.3% faster
A 2% overall difference in performance is virtually
imperceptible.
The computer was benchmarked on 6 July 2009 with 1.25 GB of RAM,
Radeon 9000 graphics, and an external FireWire hard drive.
10.4.11 10.5.7
Overall 454 460
Integer 524 506
Floating Point 587 632
Memory 250 226
Streams 161 170
Geekbench only tests the processor and memory systems, so we'd
expect the 10.4.11 results to be almost identical, yet the Integer and
Memory scores are significantly lower in the latest test. Perhaps
having more RAM to deal with is a factor.
The overall score for Mac OS X 10.5.7 is a bit higher than under
10.5.6, and that seems to be primarily due to improvements in the
Floating Point test, which is 15% higher. Memory is again a bit slower,
possibly due to more RAM for the computer to manage.
Conclusion
The best news is that OS X keeps getting better, even on old
hardware like the January 2001 Mystic. This machine has been our
testbed for hard drives, memory configurations, CPU upgrades, and AGP
video cards, but now we're turning it into a low-end website server
(not for LEM).
