AppleMac performance

[KeesW]

I had a look at a colleague's new Mac desktop last week. Its a top of the line workstation with a 30" mac screen. It has two 2.6GHz dual core Intel Xenon processors, with a 4MB cache per processor, 3GB RAM. Graphics card is NVidea GeForce 7300GT , 256MB. He's using it with a second screen, a 19" CRT monitor. He's running Archicad 10 and Adobe's creative suite.

Performance is phenomenal. Complex site contours and building model can be manipulated in 3D instantly and completely smoothly - no rebuilding or stuttering! Google Earth just flies!

Is there an equivalent performing version for PC users? I am about to upgrade or replace two work computers and am very tempted to switch to a Mac if I can't get equivalent performance from a PC. Does having two processors help? When I last looked, no one had yet benchmarked this latest mac.

[Anonymous]

In addition to the workstation considerations, I just installed Parallels
Desktop on my MBP 17" --the performance is exceptional. Have been having to run ACAD as well as AC 10 - (no comment on the ACAD) with really good results. My point is that if the performance on the laptop is this good, the workstation has to be a lot better.

Lew Bishop
Jon Worden Architects
MBP 17" 1GB mem 256 Vid et al
OS X 10.4.7, WinXP home - AC 10US

[__archiben]

KeesW wrote:
When I last looked, no one had yet benchmarked this latest mac.

it's been tested against the mac line up:

http://www.graphisoft.com/support/IntelMac/performance/


the red (longest) bars are your friends machine. however: it looks like the testing was carried out with all machines carrying only 1GB as a comparison control.

the thread is here:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=12065&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=20

we'd like to see GS compare apples against pears too

~/archiben

[KeesW]

Come on, alll you high end PC users! How about a proper comparison. The only PC that might come close is a dual processor Dell workstation (not available in Aus yet) which uses the same Xenon processors as the Mac.

[Eduardo Rolon]

and is more expensive…

[Anonymous]

From all I've been seeing the Dells (etc.) are slower and more expensive than the Macs (even after you add the cost of a retail copy of XP).

[Chazz]

I can't believe this conversation is even taking place.....

Apple faster than Wintel? For a long time now using a Mac was something you did for the elegance and maybe the better security and possibly the comfort of it. Speed and compatibility was the reason you got a Windows box.

The times, they are a changin'.