Apple enthusiasts and PC enthusiasts have argued for years over which computer type is "better" or "faster," subjective terms that vary based on the kind of computing performed by a machine. Respected computer-oriented magazines have published benchmark comparisons between different model iMacs and PCs. You can benchmark your own PC against the iMac series by downloading a benchmark program and comparing the results to published results for iMacs with varying configurations.
Switch to Intel Processors
In 2006, Apple announced that the iMac would use the same Intel processors used by most Windows-based computers. This made it possible to directly compare and score iMac and PC computers with identical processors against one another. Typical benchmark comparisons rate the speed of iMac and PC computers on computational and graphics-intensive processes. They also score each computer's performance on user-experience tasks such as starting up, shutting down and launching programs.
Popular Mechanics Benchmarks
In 2009, Popular Mechanics benchmarked an iMac with a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor running the Leopard operating system against a Gateway, with a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processor running Windows Vista. The iMac beat the Gateway in most tests, as Windows Vista proved to be a much slower operating system than Apple's Leopard operating system. The iMac was faster overall and in individual tests of critical tasks including booting up, shutting down and launching programs.
PC Magazine Benchmarks
PC Magazine benchmarked the Apple iMac 27-inch system with an Intel Core i7 processor against PC-based multimedia systems, but included PC systems running only an Intel Core i5 or Intel Core 2 Duo processor, rather than a comparable Intel Core i7 processor. The iMac beat the PCs in most tests except for the overall benchmark computation test and the Photoshop test. Overall, iMac performance rated comparable to Windows-based PCs, however the iMac has limited support for 3-D graphics.
Primate Labs Geekbench
Benchmark your own PC against the iMac series using the Geekbench benchmark tool from Primate Labs. Download Geekbench from the Primate Labs website. Run it on your own Core i5 or Core i7 Windows system and compare your scores to Primate Labs' iMac benchmark scores. When comparing iMac models to one another, the benchmarking company found that the Intel Sandy Bridge architecture, which combines the Central Processing Unit and the Graphics Processing Unit on a single chip, increased performance by about 25 percent over the same processor without integrated graphics.
Tags: Core processor, Intel Core, Primate Labs, Intel Core processor, operating system, against iMac, against iMac series