[OS X TeX] some Intel iMac "benchmarks"

[George Gratzer]

Gary,

Do you have some Textures numbers?

GG

On Feb 10, 2006, at 11:17 PM, Gary L. Gray wrote:

> I was able to get my hands on a 1.83 GHz Intel iMac for the  
> weekend, so I thought I would install TeX and do a few comparisons  
> with my 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 that also has 2GB of RAM (this machine  
> is about 18 months old). The iMac has a 7200 RPM drive and 2GB of RAM.
>
> The numbers I present are for typesetting a textbook I am writing.  
> It has hundreds of figures and a rather complex layout. Typesetting  
> everything yields 481 pages. My PowerBook had not been restarted  
> for more than a month, so I restarted and logged in with the shift  
> key down so that no login items loaded. I did the same thing on the  
> iMac, though it is right out of the box, so there isn't much on it.  
> In each case, I immediately ran TeXShop and typeset the entire  
> book. I measured the time between hitting the typeset button and  
> when the preview window came to the fore. Here are the results:
>
> PowerBook: first typeset = 119 s
>            second typeset = 97.0 s
>            third typeset = 101 s
>
> Intel iMac: first typeset = 39.3 s
>             second typeset = 25.3 s
>             third typeset = 27.1 s
>
> On each machine, I then commented out all chapters except one  
> (chapter 4, not that that matters) and typeset three more times.  
> Here are those numbers:
>
> PowerBook: first typeset = 34.5 s
>            second typeset = 17.1 s
>            third typeset = 17.0 s
>
> Intel iMac: first typeset = 5.6 s
>             second typeset = 5.5 s
>             third typeset = 5.5 s
>
> I am *amazed* at these numbers! I never expected the increase in  
> speed to be so substantial. On a day I work on this book, I may  
> typeset 60-100 times (not the entire book, but one or more  
> chapters), so this speedup would make a huge difference in my  
> workflow.
>
> I also installed Adobe Illustrator CS2 and updated it to the latest  
> version. It works under Rosetta without any issues and it certainly  
> feels as fast as it does on my PowerBook, though I have no idea how  
> to benchmark Illustrator (suggestions are welcome).
>
> I think I will be getting a MacBook Pro.
>
> I am interested in hearing people's comments. In addition, let me  
> know if there is anything other benchmarking you would like me to  
> do on one or both of the machines. Like I said, I have the iMac  
> until Monday afternoon.
>
> -- Gary
> ------------------------- Info --------------------------
> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
>          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
>

------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/