Macworld Benchmarks Intel-Based iMac

Jason Snell:

Macworld Lab’s tests do show that the new Intel-based iMac is faster than the iMac G5 when running native applications. However, we found that those improvements are generally much less than what Apple claims is a 2× improvement in speed.

These scores are pretty much in line with what I had expected: faster, but not remarkably faster. The G5 is a good processor, so I would have been surprised if the Intel-based iMac had blown the iMac G5 away. The Intel iMac does, however, boot twice as fast. Real-world benchmarks between the MacBook Pro and PowerBook G4 will likely prove much more dramatic.

(Also worth noting: In an aside, Snell suggests that iMovie 6 is buggy.)

★ Wednesday, 18 January 2006