800MHz eMac smokes 1.42GHz iBook G4 on Leopard!

[TheMacGuy]

I found this a little interesting. I was playing around on the eMac and decided to do a speed test between the iBook G4 (1.42GHz G4, 1.5GB of RAM, 4200rpm HDD, 10.5. 8) VS. eMac (800MHz G4, 1GB of RAM, 5200rpm HDD, unsupported install of 10.5. 8) .

Its pretty obvious the iBook would win. The only thing the eMac has going for it was the hard drive speed. :-/

I was amazed to see that the eMac smoked the iBook G4. 8-o 8-o Unsupported install of Leopard VS. Supported Install of Leopard. What could be causing this?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

What was the "speed test" of which you speak?

 

[uniserver]

xbench?

if you look at the results you can see what single factors are resulting in a better over all number.

 

[mcdermd]

My guess is disk speed. The eMac would eat that little iBook's 4200 RPM drive's lunch.

 

[TheMacGuy]

Really? I was told 42 vs. 52 wasn't that big of a difference.

I just did personal tests like opening Safari, iTunes, searching in Spotlight, the basics someone normally does.

 

[mcdermd]

Are you sure it's not a 7200 rpm?

 

[uniserver]

My bet is there's an Seagate Barracuda 7200 Rpm 80 or 120 gig 2m cache drive in that eMac.

 

[TheMacGuy]

System Profiler reports a Seagate ST360020A, which was an Apple Certified Drive from around 2002 (when this eMac was released). Plus, Sys Pro says it is a 55.9GB drive, because of the whole 1000MB to 1GB thing. It shipped with a 60GB drive.

Same with the iBook, stock hard drive. Toshiba MK6026GAS. 55.89GB recognized.

 

[uniserver]

run xbench on em then post the results

 

[TheMacGuy]

Ok. Ran xbench.

eMac: 22.26

iBook: 39.39

The iBook did outdo the eMac, but for whatever reason, the OS feels snappier on the eMac. I even did a startup and shut down test.

Startup:

eMac: 1 minute 6 seconds

iBook: 1 minute 30 seconds

Shutdown:

eMac: 5 seconds

iBook: 44 seconds

 

[uniserver]

what was the individual scores for just the hard drive?

 

[TheMacGuy]

I didn't check. I have already powered down both machines for the night. I'll have to check in the morning.

 

[TheMacGuy]

Ok, I ran the hard drive test and Xbench gave these results:

eMac: 29.28

iBook: 21.76

 

[Cory5412]

Even if the eMac was running its disk at just 5400 or 5200rpm, it's possible, not even just possible but quite likely that the disk in the iBook is on its last legs and has had its performance degraded since it was new.

Every time I put an honest-to-goodness brand new hard disk into a system, especially one that's used or from several years ago, the system immediately becomes far faster -- not only because of a fresh OS install or the inherent defragging involved in imaging an OS to a new disk, but because the new disk (even if it has the same specs) is just faster -- because of a few years of development in disk technology, and because it's not dying.

Desktops don't move around very often so their disks (again, anecdotal experience) don't degrade as quickly, I've found.