UK magazine Digit has posted a look at the new Intel iMac that includes comments from Apple senior director for desktop product marketing Tom Boger. Reporter Ken Mingis leads off his article with the observation that the new iMac seems much faster than its predecessor, although other online reviews have noted that it doesnit achieve the two to three times faster performance that Apple has touted.
In response, Mr. Boger said: "We tested it two ways. We ran industry-standard benchmarks. SPEC has two types of tests -- the integer [test] was three times faster, and floating point was twice as fast. That shows the potential of what the architecture can do."
He added that other reviewers may not have seen the same performance boost because "this was a process, not a point in time. We got our hands on about six different universal apps in some cases the public hasnit. These apps represent all kinds of things. Virtually every day now people are announcing their plans for universal apps. Iim very confident [users are] going to start seeing performance thatis impressive."
For example, Apple tested an unreleased Universal Binary of Doom 3 that boasted a frame rate 2.3 times faster than it was on the previous iMac, according to Mr. Boger.
Mr. Mingis recommends that iMac purchasers add another 512MB or 1GB RAM to the computer when they buy it, which "will make using Appleis Mactel machine even more enjoyable." In conclusion, he recommends the new machine, but users who depend heavily on applications that arenit Universal Binary yet should probably wait.