Macworld: Core i7 iMacs beat even octo-core Mac Pros

Seth Weintraub
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November 20, 2009
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Woops.  It looks like Apple might have made those new iMacs a little too fast! 

According to Macworld's tests, the Core i7 iMac beat the Octo-core Mac Pro 2.2GHz in a number of Speedmark 6 tests and overall it was 1.5% faster than the fastest base model computer Apple sells.  Sure, you can update that Mac Pro Beast to 2.93GHz Octo, but that is $2600 more, $500 more than the entire Core i7 iMac!  Even the Core i5 iMac did pretty well. Oh, and that iMac has the best display Apple has ever produced.

Our tests of the built-to-order Core i7 iMac (which, other than the processor, has identical specifications as the stock Core i5 iMac) showed even greater performance prowess. With a Speedmark 6 score of 225, the $2199 Core i7 iMac was nearly 8 percent faster than the Core i5 iMac. The Core i7 was nearly 11 percent faster than the $2499 2.66GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro and 9 percent faster than the 2.26GHz 8-Core Mac Pro, which sells for $1100 more. In our tests, there were a few tasks where having eight physical processing cores was beneficial, like our MathematicaMark and Cinebench CPU tests.

Sure, these are just a few specific tests and users real-world milage will vary.  But it does show that the fastest iMac can hang around with the Mac Pros. In fact, unless you need to add internal RAID hard drives and/or extra PCI cards (or hate the hi-shine™ display), it is hard to imagine many cases where the Mac Pro workstation makes more sense than the cheaper, faster iMac Core i7 that also includes the best display that Apple produces.

Comments (14)

RayCon (not verified) | November 20, 2009 - 3:19pm

Just got one last week and EVERYTHING seems speedy.  Apps open with nary a bounce.  I'm in heaven.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 20, 2009 - 5:58pm

so you're loading apps that don't load anything off the hard disk?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 21, 2009 - 3:25am

uhhh, yeah.

 

try loading apps off a solid state drive.

 

burn

Snapper (not verified) | November 20, 2009 - 3:42pm

the odd millisecond here and there doesn't mean much to most of us who use their computer for basics - browsing, email, watching video, writing documents etc.

Sure, to those using Final Cut and other high-end apps, this is news.  For me, my Macbook Pro flies, and with what I do on it, it probably always will.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 21, 2009 - 5:08am

not always mate. i'm starting to struggle on my 1.67 ghz powerbook g4 from days gone by. things will generally move on.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 05, 2009 - 10:34am

Yep ... but why ON EARTH would you even consider buying an 8-core mac pro or an i7 imac if you're just gonna browse the internet?  Completely moot point.

Kind of like saying that Ferrari's are pointless cause all you do is drive your grandma to the shops.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 20, 2009 - 4:53pm

Awesome!!!  :-)

alepro (not verified) | November 20, 2009 - 7:17pm

I'd take this with more then just a grain of salt. These results are Macworld's new Speedmark scores, and to me don't seem representative of a machines actual computing power.

I base that statement on the fact that the Mac Pro is equipped with Nahalem Xeon(s), which are essentially just server versions of the i7. The octo-Mac Pro has of course two of these installed and could not be outperformed by a single CPU that is virtually identical in specs and clock speed. The only unknown here is the graphics card, but to say that an i7 iMac is faster then a '09 Mac Pro is just misleading.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 16, 2009 - 1:25am

They are not identical in clock speed.  The iMac i7 runs at 2.8GHz the 8-core Mac Pro runs at 2.26GHz. That is almost a 25% improvement over the 8-core Mac Pro.  8-core Mac Pro would probably still own the thread tests where multiple cores means a lot. For a lot of software 4 cores at a higher clock speed would be better then 8-cores at a lower clock speed.  

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 20, 2009 - 10:52pm

Anyone else getting a pop-up when loading this article?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 20, 2009 - 11:05pm

Was "waiting".... for new displays/mac pro. Even if these results dont entirely hold up under critical analysis, it will be more than enough for what im after.

Where the hell did that apparant 9to5mac popup come from "hello from 9to5mac"..

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 21, 2009 - 3:06pm

When I phoned apple uk store the guy there was recommending the imac ahead of the mac pro for editing with fcp, i was sort of confused by this until now.

By the time you buy an led screen for the mac pro you could have 2 imacs or the same price !!!!!!!

ECC (not verified) | November 22, 2009 - 10:56am

Unfortunately the iMac doesn't have ECC-RAM, MacPro has it though, but I'd like to have ECC when having 16 GB of RAM.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 04, 2009 - 7:01pm

Do they (i7 iMac and Mac Pro) had all the same "software" condition?

For example, OS?

It's pretty shocking. Mac Pro has the "Pro" mark in its name, but I guess it's all about the super stable (a.k.a. super expensive) "Xeon" CPU.