How to Make a Mac Killer

2D Performance

With our PC’s CPU clocked at 4GHz, outpacing the iMac’s by more than 1GHz, we were confident about the pace of our iMac killer. In order to benchmark the Mac head to head against the Mac Killer, we had to install Windows Vista and the usual CPC media benchmarks.

In the image editing test, the iMac produced a respectable score of 1,059, whereas our Mac Killer was just shy of being 50 per cent faster, hitting 1,515. The situation was similar in the HandBrake H.264 video encoding test, with our PC achieving a score of 1,541 compared to the iMac’s 1,138.

Multitasking was a more closely matched race, but the Mac Killer still had the edge over its more attractive adversary, with 921 points compared to the iMac’s 797. There’s a considerable difference in computing power between the two machines, and if you want to edit lots of images and video, the £1,500 iMac is not the best choice.

Gaming

You don’t need the intellect of a Nobel prize-winning author or a professor of quantum mechanics to figure out which computer will be the best at gaming. In comparative terms, the GPU inside the Mac is only slightly more powerful than a Twix, and nowhere near as tasty with a cup of tea. At the 1,920 x 1,200 native resolution of its screen, the iMac’s GeForce GT 120 isn’t capable of lifting any of our test games beyond a single digit fps, a speed setting that’s more appropriate for play-by-mail gaming than modern computer gaming.

Gaming is now a part of Apple’s pitch for the iMac, and at the time of writing, the iMac page of Apple’s website included the claim that ‘High-performance Nvidia graphics bring all the speed you need to the latest 3D games and graphics-intensive applications’ (see image below). To give the machine a fighting chance, we opted to test it at 1,280 x 800 (our regular test resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 looked silly with the 4:3 aspect ratio stretched over a 16:10 aspect ratio).


The iMac was able to play Race Driver: GRID smoothly at 1,280 x 800 with 2x AA, managing a consistent frame rate of 29fps for both the minimum and average. This was still sedate compared with the Mac Killer; at the same settings, it ran the game at a minimum 59fps. When we increased the resolution to 1,920 x 1,200 and cranked up the AA to 4x, the PC’s minimum was a touch faster than the rate we consider playable at a smooth 29fps.

Fallout 3 might be a more modern game, but it was developed with the Xbox 360 in mind and isn’t very demanding for most PC graphics cards. The iMac ran the game smoothly at 1,280 x 800 when we turned off the AA and AF, and dropped the main graphics preset and texture settings to medium. While Fallout 3 was playable at these settings, its looks took a bashing and it wasn’t a patch on the experience our self-built Mac Killer offered. This machine smoothly powered the game along at 1,920 x 1,200 with 8x AA and 16x AF, posting a minimum frame rate of 26fps and an average of 55fps.

The same pattern was repeated in Far Cry 2. The iMac managed to run the game at 1,280 x 800 with medium detail settings, but it looked much better on our PC at 1,920 x 1,200. Then, of course, there’s Crysis, one of the most demanding games ever made. It’s also one of the most incredible-looking games, in which great graphics, realising the destruction that’s at the heart of the experience, are the point. Playing it at 1,280 x 800 was enough to make the iMac break out in a cold sweat; it managed a minimum frame rate of just 1fps and an average of 3fps.

Only by dropping the resolution to 800 x 600 with all the sauce off and no AA could we achieve a minimum frame rate even close to playable. This fact is almost academic, though, as the game was merely a shadow of its former glory at these settings. You’d have more fun playing the original Wolfenstein on your iPhone. While Crysis massacred the Mac, it was also tough on the PC. Our Mac Killer managed a smooth frame rate at 1,650 x 1,080, although we had to turn the detail settings to medium and turn off the AA to push the minimum above 25fps.

The iMac performed better than we expected in game testing – it could actually play games, but only at a very low resolution of 1,280 x 800, which is 56 per cent less detailed than the 1,920 x 1,200 resolution of its display. In comparison, the PC was able to power most games at 1,920 x 1,200 and they looked fantastic on the HP screen.