Barefeats Reviews the Mac Pro

ByMike Moffit

One of my favorite Mac-centric websites is Barefeats.com. Their slogan is “BARE facts on Mac speed FEATS.” Bare Feats is best known for measuring and quantifying the performance of various Apple computers. This can be extremely useful when it’s time to decide to buy a brand-new, current generation Mac, versus an older or previous generation Mac. Barefeats.com also quantifies the performance of various Macs, versus various Windows-based PCs.

Barefeats.com also quantifies the performance of various types and brands of RAM, hard drives, and other Mac peripherals.

Of all the websites that have reviewed the performance and speed claims of the “fastest Mac ever,” the new Mac Pro, I was most interested in what Bare Feats would say. Their report is very interesting. They write:

“There’s no doubt that the Mac Pro is faster running Universal Binary apps like iMovie, Final Cut Pro, etc. As you can see from the four tests we ran in this session, the Mac Pro 2.66GHz was from 16% to 62% faster than the Quad-Core G5/2.5GHz. And we’re sure that those gaps will grow even bigger when we test the Mac Pro 3GHz.”

They find that the Quad 2.5GHz G5 beats the Mac Pro 2.66GHz Xeon in Photoshop CS2 and After Effects 7 – neither of which are optimized for Intel processors. This should dramatically change when Adobe releases Universal versions of their programs.

Barefeats.com also writes:

“SHOULD YOU BUY A MAC PRO?
Should you buy a new Mac Pro or a closeout or refurbished Quad-Core G5? If cost is a factor and you use non-UB pro apps (like Photoshop CS2), then we think the Quad-Core G5 is still a valid choice. After all, you can sell it on eBay when Photoshop CS3 is released and buy next year’s “Octo-Core” Mac Pro.”

You can read the full report, with numbers, at Barefeats.com by clicking here.

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