Hands-On Report--Mac OS X 10.5.3, How Fast Is It?

This article is a continuation of my series testing the speed of Mac OS X that stretches back to version 10.0. When I got my Dual Quad-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.5.2 with the upgraded graphics card, an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, I was disappointed in its graphics performance relative to my former MacBook Pro with slower graphics, an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT. But I was hopeful that the subsequent update of Mac OS X would improve the Mac Pro's graphics performance.

Apple released Mac OS X 10.5.3 on May 28 and I have been using it since, experiencing no problems. So, I ran my full set of speed tests on my dual quad-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro with 2GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.5.3. As an aside, I have found that 2GB of RAM is plenty for what I do except when running Windows with Parallels Desktop for Mac so I have ordered a 4GB kit from my sponsor, Trans International. Here are the results:

Speed of Mac OS X 10.5.3 vs 10.5.2

Test	Mac Pro	Mac Pro	MacBook Pro 2.4GHz C2D
BENCHMARKS/Mac OS X Version	10.5.3	10.5.2	10.5.2
Altivec Fractal 1.3 (GFLOPS)	48.4	49.2	9.8
Cinebench R10 Rendering (8x)	18964	18460	n/a
-OpenGL Hardware Lighting	5994	5919	n/a
Let1kWindowsBloom 1.0+	8	8	11
Xbench 1.3 - CPU	184	190	150
- Threading	801	811	188
- Memory	182	182	158
- Quartz Graphics	227	228	192
- OpenGL Graphics	176	191	161
-User Interface Graphics	420	403	326
"REAL WORLD" TESTS
Startup (sec)	28	25	52
Shutdown (sec)	9	12	7
Dup. 500 MB Folder (sec)	26	28	63
Quake III Arena (frames/sec)	980	999	686
Halo 2.0.2 (frames/sec)	99	98	115

The mixed results show that Mac OS X 10.5.3 is overall no faster nor no slower than 10.5.2. However, my generally vastly faster Mac Pro still runs Halo 2.0.2 (Intel version) some 14 percent slower than my former MacBook Pro.

Over the years, my experience has been that ATI's top graphics cards have out-performed Nvidia's on the Mac for 3D games with only an occasional exception. Hopefully, ATI will release a fast after-market graphics card for the latest Mac Pro. [Bill Fox]