Wanted: Hardcore benchmarks for Mac Pro running XP!

[Bagdad Bob]

Hi ya all.

A friend of mine is about to switch from the dark side to the *Mac Side*. His only concerns is that he develops a lot (and compiles in MS Visual Studio etc) and needs info about the benchmarks of a Mac Pro.

He has asked me to see if there are any benchmarks for the standard setup MacPro (Quad 2,66) that are sold at AppleStore compared to a Dell Precision Workstation 490 with the same setup? He needs accurate figures and since I want him to NOT get disapointed with the Mac Pro we need to see crunched numbers instead of fancy-smancy Apple marketing bullcrap.

His concerns are:

1. Benchmarks for quad 2,66 standard machine sold at Applestore. We need figures compared to an equalient Dell running XP. After installing the SATA tweak/patch on the Mac Pro.

2. Is it quiet? As quiet as the Quad G5?

3. Anyone got Mac Pro benchmarks running XP for Quake4 or similar compared to a Dell?

Benchmark numbers from the same benchmarking application ofcause.

Thanks,

Klaus

 

[risc]

barefeats.com has plenty of information about the new Xeon based quad. You will have to wait for Apple to start shipping the ATI X1900 XT before you can expect some real gaming benchmarks though.

 

[Bagdad Bob]

None which is a comparison test with a PC, just tests against the old G5 Quad??

/K

 

[Bagdad Bob]

Noone that knows where I can find those figures?

I have looked and looked, but nothing..

/Klaus

 

[ug.mac]

Well. I just finished XP installation (32bit), since I don't have Quake 4 in hand so I just give 3DMark 06 a shot. I got 1701 3DMarks score, SM2.0 is 628; HDR/SM3.0 is 559; CPU is 4002.
My Mac Pro is Quad 2.66Ghz with stock 7300 GT and 1G memory.
XP was installed from a customerized copy (to fix SATA issue), with lastest graphic driver installed.

Let me know if you need other infomation.

 

[Bagdad Bob]

Cool, those scores are not too lame for beeing a beta and all.
I guess that the score would be way better with a better graphics card. The stock one sucks. The CPU score is decent. The rest... well.. is OK i guess.. Was this under Bootcamp or Parallels?

Anyone know where to find the figures for... lets say a Dell 690 or 490 Precision Workstation. would be cool to compare.

/K

 

[Mr. Mister]

I'm interested in this as well. Performance isn't going to get greatly better I think, aside from an official Apple SATA patch and a better GPU.

Oh, and filled out memory channels. That's really important.

 

[Bagdad Bob]

The CPU score is decent isn´t it?
The thing that concerns me is if the MacPro is THAT much slower running XP than the Dell @ the same price.

/Klaus

 

[kurick]

Well. I just finished XP installation (32bit), since I don't have Quake 4 in hand so I just give 3DMark 06 a shot. I got 1701 3DMarks score, SM2.0 is 628; HDR/SM3.0 is 559; CPU is 4002.
My Mac Pro is Quad 2.66Ghz with stock 7300 GT and 1G memory.
XP was installed from a customerized copy (to fix SATA issue), with lastest graphic driver installed.

Let me know if you need other infomation.

I was wondering if you can explain what you mean by "customerized' copy of XP to fix the SATA issue, and what you did to install it on the SATA drive. I have had issue with install XP on my PC with a SATA drive, but I was able to load a driver for the SATA controller from floppy. How did you do it on a MAC Pro.

Also, have you since tried running any other games under XP?

 

[7on]

I was wondering if you can explain what you mean by "customerized' copy of XP to fix the SATA issue, and what you did to install it on the SATA drive. I have had issue with install XP on my PC with a SATA drive, but I was able to load a driver for the SATA controller from floppy. How did you do it on a MAC Pro.

Also, have you since tried running any other games under XP?

That's why BC requires SP2 - all intel macs ship with SATA hard disk drives and none ship with Floppy disk drives. Though apple doesn't have SATA drivers for the MP yet - and with the built-in XP ones the r/w is a little slow. I'm guessing that guy replaced the generic SATA drivers on the XP disk with customized ones for the intel board.

 

[BadRambo]

Gents ---
For what measure it is worth, on my Mac Pro, running the limping 7300 card, at 1600x1200,

CPUs at 2.66 GHz, 1 GB ram, the UT2004 game gives me 75 FPS, this older game being more dependent on the CPUs, that is not shabby for the the little 7300.

In comparison, the much more GPU-intense COD2, set at 1152x864, 2xFSAA, Bilinear Filter, gives 22 FPS.

The FPS were measured by FRAPS, an old version.

 

[ug.mac]

I was wondering if you can explain what you mean by "customized' copy of XP to fix the SATA issue, and what you did to install it on the SATA drive. I have had issue with install XP on my PC with a SATA drive, but I was able to load a driver for the SATA controller from floppy. How did you do it on a MAC Pro.

Also, have you since tried running any other games under XP?

I'm not a hardcore gamer, only game I have is Warcraft III if you call it 'old'.

By mean of 'customized' is attaching Intel SATA driver and chipset driver to original installation CD as a solution to fix sluggish SATA problem in XP. You can find more info at here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/227437/