[foo2]

Originally Posted by betasp

You should know that all of theose banchmarks rely on Rosetta and are not native code. I am impressed they can run emulated so fast.

Erm...huh? iLife 06 is native. QT is native. The tests are accurate, albeit they only take advantage of one core, like most consumer apps for the time being.

[jamil5454]

Originally Posted by mduell

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/whatsinside.html says: Security Kensington cable lock slot

http://www.apple.com/imac/whatsinside.html

Weird how it's not there.

[mduell]

D'oh!

[Simon]

Originally Posted by toddtmw

I was plugging something into the back and noticed the air wafting out of the top is warm, but both cpus are cranked at 100%. No noticable fan noise...

That's very good news.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the new iMac stay much cooler and produce less noise than the iMac G5. I think it's no exaggeration to say that at the same clock a Core Duo performs about as good as a 970FX - some would probably go so far as to compare it with the MP. If you recall Steve's performance per Watt diagram from MWSF, the Core Duo was something like 4-5 times higher than the G5. I guess that gives us an idea of how much less heat gets dissipated from the Core Duo. It's definitely a pretty impressive chip.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Simon

I wouldn't be surprised to see the new iMac stay much cooler and produce less noise than the iMac G5. I think it's no exaggeration to say that at the same clock a Core Duo performs about as good as a 970FX - some would probably go so far as to compare it with the MP. If you recall Steve's performance per Watt diagram from MWSF, the Core Duo was something like 4-5 times higher than the G5. I guess that gives us an idea of how much less heat gets dissipated from the Core Duo. It's definitely a pretty impressive chip.

Looking at performance per watt sort of distorts the heat comparison since as we've seen the performance of Core Duo and the G5 at the same clockrate is not equal.
PPC970FX at 2.0Ghz uses 47W (power optimized parts) to 56W (standard parts), while Core Duo at 2.0Ghz is rated at 31W. In the scheme of the entire system that's only about 10% change.

[Simon]

10% less dissipated power is a great number if you keep in mind that performance has actually increased. People are getting more CPU power and at the same time need less cooling capacity -> less noise. IMHO that's a very good thing.

For obvious reasons, nobody was expecting 4-5x less heat just because the performance per Watt number was 4-5x higher.

[MORT A POTTY]

even a tad bit quieter would be a nice thing to have on the iMac G5. I'm using a Rev. A 1.8Ghz 20" and it's got a steady mid-range hum from the fans. blowing out hot air through the chimney in the top.

If the Core Duo can up the performance by about 100% and maintain even a similar and HOPEFULLY (but probably not realistically) a small reduction in noise, I'm going to love my new iMac

[WOPR]

Originally Posted by ravenz

* I had to beg my kids to get off the computer - PhotoBooth and ComicLife (both installed by default) were very popular with the young ones.

Please ask away if you have any questions or want me to test anything.

Hang on - did the iMac come with Comic Life pre-installed then? Cool if it did, awesome app!

[GregAlex]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Intel on my desktop is going to be later rather than sooner though, because of drivers for peripherals and Virtual PC.

www.macwindows.com says:
"iEmulator to be the first to put x86-native Windows on Intel Macs.
"January 12, 2006 -- Next month iEmulator.com will ship a new version iEmulator that will run Windows on the new Intel-based Macs"

I'd never heard of them before, but it's good to hear. I would be surprised if VMWare didn't have something shortly too... so I think we'll be okay with virtual Windows before long.

[GregAlex]

Originally Posted by ravenz

I attempted to boot the following operating systems all in three ways, boot with C key, boot with Option key, and attempt to select it from Startup Disk system preferences.

All tests FAILED.
Ubuntu 5.04 Install CD
Windows XP 2002 Edition Install CD
(etc)

I know this is probably a stupid question... but I have to ask...

Are you saying that it tried to boot from the CD, but couldn't load.
Or that it simply ignored the CDs entirely?

Thanks

[aorenny]

Originally Posted by toddtmw

I installed the demo, and it seemed to install fine. I don't usually use pgp, what in particular did you want me to test?

-Todd

Thanks a lot Todd. Can you make a new key and encrypt / decrypt some files. It install contexual menu items to do that also. Second thing I use is the encyrpted disk image, similar to OSX's dmg images. I don't care about Mail.app integration or ichat integration. File operations and disk operations are ctirial for me.

Again thanks a lot, I am so happy so far.

[Johan]

I want to buy a Imac Intel, but the question is, i work with Dreamweaver and Flash MX or 8 is it compatibel with the Imac Intel??

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by Simon

I think it's no exaggeration to say that at the same clock a Core Duo performs about as good as a 970FX - some would probably go so far as to compare it with the MP.

I haven't seen a single benchmark from a REAL program that substantiates this. The ones previously linked to show about a 10% improvement in iLife score.
I thought iMovie, iDVD, et al were designed to use dual processors, but I guess not. If the Intel version isn't, then perhaps we'd see more improvement if the other core was used.

Render 10 Second Ken Burn's Effect
14 seconds, iMac G5 - 1.8 GHz 256 MB RAM
9 seconds, PowerMac G5 dual 2.0 GHz 512 MB RAM
13 seconds, iMac Intel Duo, 2.0 Ghz, 512 MB RAM (5 second delay/stuttor on the "import" of the photo)

Render Six 2 Second Cross Dissolve Simultaneously
31 seconds, iMac G5 - 1.8 GHz 256 MB RAM
20 seconds, PowerMac G5 dual 2.0 GHz 512 MB RAM
24 seconds, iMac Intel Duo, 2.0 Ghz, 512 MB RAM

Export 1 Minute of Video to QuickTime using for CD-ROM Setting (H264)
35 seconds, iMac G5 - 1.8 GHz 256 MB RAM
22 seconds, PowerMac G5 dual 2.0 Ghz 512 MB RAM
94 seconds, iMac Intel Duo, 2.0 Ghz, 512 MB RAM

Create Disc Image in iDVD using Travel Cards theme and 10 Minutes of Video
12 minutes, iMac G5 - 1.8 GHz 256 MB RAM
9 minutes, PowerMac G5 dual 2.0 GHz 512 MB RAM
10 minutes, iMac Intel Duo, 2.0 Ghz, 512 MB RAM

(I removed the other Macs so that we can see iMac to iMac Duo and iMac to 2GHz PowerMac specs.)

Note that the iMac G5 has only 256MB ram. The Duo iMac is not twice as fast. In fact, it's always slower than the Dual G5 2GHz.

I thought I saw some iTunes encoding benchmarks around the 'net, but I don't know where they are.

I had also read somewhere that the video card in the iMac Duo handles the H264 decoding for playback really well, but, again, no proof. We need somebody to start compiling all these comparisons.

[Pierre B.]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

I haven't seen a single benchmark from a REAL program that substantiates this. The ones previously linked to show about a 10% improvement in iLife score.
I thought iMovie, iDVD, et al were designed to use dual processors, but I guess not.

I don't know about iDVD, but I remember the Macworld tests that showed a single CPU iMac G5 scoring the same as a dual Power Mac G5 in iMovie. So, no, iMovie is not multi-processor aware.

Note that the iMac G5 has only 256MB ram. The Duo iMac is not twice as fast. In fact, it's always slower than the Dual G5 2GHz.

I thought I saw some iTunes encoding benchmarks around the 'net, but I don't know where they are.

Look here. Fresh Ars review. In CD ripping through iTunes, the Intel iMac at 1.8 GHz is roughly the equivalent of the dual Power Mac G5 at 2.5 GHz.

So, I don't understand why people complain so much about the new machines. The hardware power is there, we just need the appropriately optimised software to unleash it.

[toddtmw]

Originally Posted by WOPR

Hang on - did the iMac come with Comic Life pre-installed then? Cool if it did, awesome app!

It's there, I noticed it when I was doing get info's to see if anything was not a universal binary. I haven't run it yet.

I didn't get through all the apps and utilities, but everything in the root of the Applications folder is a universal binary. (Didn't look at apps in subfolders yet, including the utilities folder...while I was doing it, I thought of something else I wanted to try and never got back to it...so much fun to have, so little time!)

-Todd

[toddtmw]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

I had also read somewhere that the video card in the iMac Duo handles the H264 decoding for playback really well, but, again, no proof. We need somebody to start compiling all these comparisons.

Well, I was going to post something about this, so I'll use a reply to your message to do it. This morning, I took six h.264-encoded movies (from the best of Tom Hanks on SNL) and ran them on my 20" iNtel iMac. Six was pretty much the limit. After that, things started to skip. I have a screen shot, but it's HUGE and I don't think I should post it like this. When I get home tonight, I'll scale it down and then post a link to it. I had the movie info window open and you can see that at least one of them is running at about 24 fps. I also showed activity monitor showing Quicktime using about 160% of the cpu. All six of these movies were encoded using HandBrake at 1000 kbps bit rate.

For comparison, a single mp4 movie jumps around between 30 and 60% of cpu while playing back.

-Todd

[Fdanna]

Limewire on the intel macs doesn't work under Rosetta. It installs but will not launch.

I also found that iSync, which worked fine with my V600 on my old iMac, crashes before finishing the sync on the Intel Mac. I haven't had a chance to try any trouble shooting.

ISPQ works


Anyone try Roxio Popcorn or Mactheripper?

[starman]

Can someone with an Intel iMac do me a HUGE favor?

Go into the Terminal (Application->Utilities) and just type the command 'set' and post the line that says "MACTYPE="? I'm still using a beta OS with this developer machine and I desperately need to know what the final settings of "MACHTYPE" are. On my beta OS, it still says "powerpc-apple-darwin8.0".

Thanks.

Mike

[macintologist]

Originally Posted by mduell

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/whatsinside.html says: Security Kensington cable lock slot

I'm not speaking of the MacBook my friend

Go to the iMac specs page and it's not mentioned.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by starman

Can someone with an Intel iMac do me a HUGE favor?

Go into the Terminal (Application->Utilities) and just type the command 'set' and post the line that says "MACTYPE="? I'm still using a beta OS with this developer machine and I desperately need to know what the final settings of "MACHTYPE" are. On my beta OS, it still says "powerpc-apple-darwin8.0".

Thanks.

Mike

Sure, I'll do it as soon as I get home tonight.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by Fdanna

Limewire on the intel macs doesn't work under Rosetta. It installs but will not launch.

I also found that iSync, which worked fine with my V600 on my old iMac, crashes before finishing the sync on the Intel Mac. I haven't had a chance to try any trouble shooting.

ISPQ works


Anyone try Roxio Popcorn or Mactheripper?

Limewire is a Java application.

Java and Cocoa Java applications have to be recompiled using Eclipse (the Java code, that is). I went through this process with a friend who was testing his Intel applicartion build.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by WOPR

Hang on - did the iMac come with Comic Life pre-installed then? Cool if it did, awesome app!

Yes! My kids are loving it.

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by macintologist

I'm not speaking of the MacBook my friend

Go to the iMac specs page and it's not mentioned.

There's a pic of the actual slot on the Ars Technica Review Page.


Look through the hole.

[aorenny]

Hi, has anyone tried Growl? It is a propular utility, I hope it works.

[JHromadka]

If you're brave enough, WinTel 2.0 is a PC emulator claims to support Intel Macs.

[Mafoo]

Can someone post a picture of the new iMac disk selector (hold down alt at startup), and what happens when you hold down Apple - Alt - O - F as it doent use open firmware but the new EFI so its going to be interesting whats lurking there.

[harrisjamieh]

WinTel Looks VERY promising

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by JHromadka

If you're brave enough, WinTel 2.0 is a PC emulator claims to support Intel Macs.

I'll try it tonight and post my results!

[sensate]

Ars Technica gives the 17" 9/10. The only cons listed are:

# Lack of user-serviceability
# Short list of Intel-native applications available at launch
# No support for shared iTunes playlists in Front Row

The only question now is whether I go to the Apple Store or save ~$150 in sales tax by going with Small Dog...

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by sensate

# No support for shared iTunes playlists in Front Row

...and no support for iTunes radio stations in Front Row. ACK! This was a bummer for me.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by JHromadka

If you're brave enough, WinTel 2.0 is a PC emulator claims to support Intel Macs.

WinTel is just OpenOSX's marketing name for Bochs. Bochs will run on almost anything (that's the point of the project, basically), but last I checked, it's kind of a dog for running anything besides DOS inside it.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by starman

Can someone with an Intel iMac do me a HUGE favor?

Go into the Terminal (Application->Utilities) and just type the command 'set' and post the line that says "MACTYPE="? I'm still using a beta OS with this developer machine and I desperately need to know what the final settings of "MACHTYPE" are. On my beta OS, it still says "powerpc-apple-darwin8.0".

Thanks.

Mike

I did this on my new Intel iMac and received the following result...

MACHTYPE=powerpc-apple-darwin8.0

[Chuckit]

Hehe, that's a bit deceptive.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by JHromadka

If you're brave enough, WinTel 2.0 is a PC emulator claims to support Intel Macs.

Ok - I purchased their version of Bochs - no download link, no email confirmation of the order, and no response yet to two emails to the company.

Let's hope my exerpience improves.

As soon as I can actually get a copy of this, I'll load some x86 operating systems and test performance (and post screenshots / video, I hope).

[Todd Madson]

I got to try both the 20" and the 17" Core Duo iMacs at the Apple store in
Edina, Minnesota today.

I actually ran Xbench on both machines and e-mailed the results to my home
e-mail account (I'm not there now, so perhaps I can make those available on
my webserver later for those interested).

My subjective impressions: definetely fast enough for anyone to use. We won't
hear any more complaints about sluggish user interfaces very often anymore.

All of the iApps, Safari, etc. launched quickly and nicely. Good looking screens,
sharp, bright and clear and I guarantee if you transported one of these back in
time eight or nine months nobody would have had a clue that it was an intel chip
in there. The form factor is essentially identical. No "Intel Inside" stickers either.

However, the dual 1.83 was next to a single 20" iMac G5 2.10 ghz model and
that felt slightly faster in its user interface operation than the core duo 1.83.
I figured the second core would edge it out despite the speed variance but..

I checked the speed versus the 20" faster core duo and it was a toss-up but
I guarantee having that extra core is going to help with some things. I was
able to bring up the processor utility to verify both CPUs were chugging away
happily.

Interestingly, I attempted to download Cinebench and sure enough that app
is compressed with Stuffit and these machines apparently don't have stuffit
installed - in fact, I'm not even sure there IS an x86 stuffit for Mac OS X.

So, that's my impression. Congrats on the new machine btw and keep posting
your impressions. I'll be really interested to see how it works for the long run.

[ciparis]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Interestingly, I attempted to download Cinebench and sure enough that app
is compressed with Stuffit and these machines apparently don't have stuffit
installed - in fact, I'm not even sure there IS an x86 stuffit for Mac OS X.

That's just a 10.4 thing: 10.4 doesn't come with Stuffit Expander anymore. It works fine, though -- installed it on my 20" Core Duo without trouble, and it does what it's supposed to.

[HouseSold]

If you had stuffit on a previous Mac, wouldn't it transfer over with all your stuff via Firewire?

[Todd Madson]

HouseSold: Mine did when I got my G5 tower - it copied it over from my older G4.

I'd like to see how well the new machines can suffer running Garageband with a large
number of tracks, effects and virtual instruments.

[Drakino]

Originally Posted by ravenz

...and no support for iTunes radio stations in Front Row. ACK! This was a bummer for me.

Create a new playlist and drag and drop the radio stations you like into it. It's a cludge, but it works to get the radio stations playable via Front Row.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by Drakino

Create a new playlist and drag and drop the radio stations you like into it. It's a cludge, but it works to get the radio stations playable via Front Row.

Awesome, thanks!

[badnewsblair]

I heard mention of World of Warcraft earlier when this post first hit the screens.

Can someone tell me their experience with it? I know Blizzard is hard at work on recompiling the Universal Binary for the next point release (1.9.3).

I run World of Warcraft on my 1st Revision Powerbook 17-inch with 1 Gig of RAM. I average around 20 FPS, but often drop below. A battle with more than two enemies is not bearable. I am sure a new iMac regardless of Rosetta performance will destroy what I have now, but I was curious about actual data.

I read 100+ FPS on the Blizzard forums with the Universal!

I am getting closer and closer to pressing the Buy Now button sitting in the far right tab of Safari.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by badnewsblair

I heard mention of World of Warcraft earlier when this post first hit the screens.

Can someone tell me their experience with it? I know Blizzard is hard at work on recompiling the Universal Binary for the next point release (1.9.3).

I run World of Warcraft on my 1st Revision Powerbook 17-inch with 1 Gig of RAM. I average around 20 FPS, but often drop below. A battle with more than two enemies is not bearable. I am sure a new iMac regardless of Rosetta performance will destroy what I have now, but I was curious about actual data.

I read 100+ FPS on the Blizzard forums with the Universal!

I am getting closer and closer to pressing the Buy Now button sitting in the far right tab of Safari.

World of Warcraft on my Intel iMac (with only 512MB of RAM, a known problem for this type of game) runs a bit faster than World of Warcraft on my PowerBook G4 1.25GHz with 1.5GB of RAM. While that doesn't sound very impressive, the fact that it's running through Rosetta makes this pretty darn impressive to me. The Universal binary should dramatically increase performance.

[HouseSold]

Originally Posted by ravenz

World of Warcraft on my Intel iMac (with only 512MB of RAM, a known problem for this type of game) runs a bit faster than World of Warcraft on my PowerBook G4 1.25GHz with 1.5GB of RAM. While that doesn't sound very impressive, the fact that it's running through Rosetta makes this pretty darn impressive to me. The Universal binary should dramatically increase performance.

This looks like a job for Superman errr SuperRam.

http://www.datamem.com/parts_that_fi...E_Apple_A_C_E_

[toddtmw]

Originally Posted by toddtmw

Well, I was going to post something about this, so I'll use a reply to your message to do it. This morning, I took six h.264-encoded movies (from the best of Tom Hanks on SNL) and ran them on my 20" iNtel iMac. Six was pretty much the limit. After that, things started to skip. I have a screen shot, but it's HUGE and I don't think I should post it like this. When I get home tonight, I'll scale it down and then post a link to it. I had the movie info window open and you can see that at least one of them is running at about 24 fps. I also showed activity monitor showing Quicktime using about 160% of the cpu. All six of these movies were encoded using HandBrake at 1000 kbps bit rate.

For comparison, a single mp4 movie jumps around between 30 and 60% of cpu while playing back.

-Todd

Here is the screen shot (scaled down somewhat):

http://www.tbml.org/qttest.jpg

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by HouseSold

This looks like a job for Superman errr SuperRam.

http://www.datamem.com/parts_that_fi...E_Apple_A_C_E_

Already ordered, and coincidentally from www.datamem.com!

[Psikotic]

Anyone else with new iMac Intel able to get Flip4Mac working? Mine says it needs Quicktime 6.4 or better or something... which makes no sense it came with 7 something...

[toddtmw]

Originally Posted by JHromadka

If you're brave enough, WinTel 2.0 is a PC emulator claims to support Intel Macs.

Yeah, I'm thinking this was a bad idea. I gave them my credit card info and got a confirmation screen, but no download. They kind of implied they would e-mail me the link, but, I haven't gotten anything. Admittedly, it hasn't been that long since I placed my order, but when you choose a download distribution for a purchase, you expect an instant download link. Or at least within 5 or 10 minutes.

I wouldn't recommend anyone else commit their money until someone actually sees the product that they claim to have.

-Todd

[Chuckit]

They probably haven't updated it yet. Plugins have to be for the same architecture as the thing they're plugging into. If Flip4Mac is not yet a universal binary, it won't work with the native QuickTime.

[ravenz]

Originally Posted by toddtmw

Yeah, I'm thinking this was a bad idea. I gave them my credit card info and got a confirmation screen, but no download. They kind of implied they would e-mail me the link, but, I haven't gotten anything. Admittedly, it hasn't been that long since I placed my order, but when you choose a download distribution for a purchase, you expect an instant download link. Or at least within 5 or 10 minutes.

I wouldn't recommend anyone else commit their money until someone actually sees the product that they claim to have.

-Todd

Still nothing, over five hours later...I am going to call them tomorrow if I don't hear back.

[ravenz]

By the way, it only took my kids three days to lose the remote control for the iMac! Aargh.