macPro speedtest

ok ok – so I gave in and did it

I bought myself a replacement for my 3 yr old powermac G5

it was a dual processor 2.0Ghz with 2.5Gb RAM – it was the mid range from the powerMac machines of the time

the new one is the base model 2.66Ghz, 3Gb RAM

do you remember a couple of years ago I mocked up a testing c4d file – radiosity, glows etc as a real world test for the sorts of things we/you tend to do

we timed it rendering a single still image

for the record these were the results

eMac (G4 1.25Ghz 1.5Gb RAM – we had these originally) – stopped after 24hrs
powerMac (G5 dual processor 1.8Ghz , 1.5Gb RAM) 4hrs
powerMac (G5 dual processor 2Ghz , 2.5Gb RAM) 3hrs 34min
iMac (core duo 1.8Ghz, 1.5Ghz RAM) – 2hrs 30mins  

macbookPro (2.16Ghz core duo, 2Ghz RAM) 2hrs 15mins
andys HP desktop replacement laptop (spec andy?) 2hrs 3mins

macBookPro (2.4GHz core 2 duo 4GB RAM – my current) 1hr 5mins

colins macbook (spec colin?) 1hr 30 mins

well I expected my new machine to be quicker than my macbook pro – twice the speed maybe so 30 mins perhaps? at the outside 20mins – it is the base model after all

well the actual time was not entirely believable so I did it twice to check

1 minute 17 seconds

A M A Z I N G ! ! !

base machine, base configuration = 167 times faster than the machine it is replacing

go spend your money

and if you want to try it on your machines mac or pc – the file is in folder 121 – you just need to change the place you save the resulting file to in the render settings

then send me the screen grab like this

of course it won’t make you into a better designer/artist/animator, it won’t speed up your browsing, it won’t make you type any faster, it won’t make you code any quicker; but if you have ever watched the beachball as you save 20 layer 300dpi photoshop files, or had to leave c4d rendering over night only to find it half way through the first frame the next morning, or struggled with final cut having to render every 10 minutes then it might be for you

lovely lovely lovely