Crazy Apple Rumors Site Labs has gotten a hold of Apple’s latest hardware offerings – the recently revved PowerBook G4 and the Mac Mini – and conducted a battery of benchmarking tests that detail their relative performance.
Without further ado, let’s go to Chet MacGruder for the results.
PowerBook G4
Apple’s latest PowerBook update provided welcome speed bumps to the company’s professional laptop line. Using Xbench, CARS Labs determined the current top-of-the-line PowerBook does not disappoint. In the Gaussian Blur test, the 1.67 GHz PowerBook smoked nearly all the competition.
The PowerBook resoundingly beat its cheaper cousin the iBook as well as the Dell Latitude. It also totally creamed a PowerBook 520c and an Etch-A-Sketch.
Man, I had cramps in my fingers all afternoon.
Both Gordy and Green Beans put up an admirable performance, but the only unit that bested the PowerBook was that guy from the White Stripes. Frankly, I don’t even know how he did it. He had a bunch of colored pencils and…
Well, let’s move on to the Mac Mini.
Mac Mini
In the standard “Something to do with Unreal Tournament” test, the Mac Mini showed it was no speed demon, but dollar for dollar, it provides a measurable bang for your buck.
Of particular note amongst the competition here is the Creepy Crawlers Thing Maker, as this unit has been out of production since 1974. I understand some lawyers got together and decided that an inverted iron tossed into a box with some bottles of liquid plastic was not a suitable toy for children.
Frickin’ big-shot trial attorneys. Don’t get me started on them.
Meanwhile, table value 43 once again clocked in at 43 seconds. It’s not the best performance, but it’s consistency like that that’s kept it in our suite of tests for three years running.
Finally, the common sea sponge was beat out by its more glamorous relative the uncommon sea sponge. Man, is it going to be uncomfortable at the sea sponge family reunion this year! Whew! Ha-ha!
Heh-heh.
Little… underwater barbecue… with all the… sea sponges there…
Some Calypso music playing…
All of them pulling up on sea horses…
That’s how I like to think of it, anyway.
I would have liked to have seen how Gordy did against the sea sponge (common and uncommon), but you can’t have everything. Then again, perhaps Gordy is part of the sea sponge family?
First. What about my A4 piece of paper? It can really scream through a gaussian blur (when i shake it a bit, at least).
Or second. whatever.
Fourth.
What is with these comments related to the story??
Guess I’d better read the thing to find out what they’re supposed to be about…
Well, all I can say is those sponges better not live in a pineapple under the sea…because sponges like those are nothing but trouble makers. 🙂
6th. w00t! I am going to pull my Newton 2100 out and start a frag fest with that baby!
…Unfortunately, I think I might be the one that gets fragged, but that has nothing to do with the Newton…
You know the graphs lend some…I was going to say credibility…oh why not…credibility to this story. It’s almost like I’m reading PC Magazine or ZDNet. But what gives it away as satire, cynicism or even sarcasm is the Dell beating an Etch-A-Sketch in the gaussian blur test. I mean come on.
That’s only because the Etch-A-Sketch wasn’t plugged in. What I think is bogus is how fast the Dell was in the “Something to Do with Unreal Tournament” test. It must have been modified in some way, like maybe it was unconnected to the Internet. In the real world, a Dell gets infected, zombified, and pantsed in less time than it took in the test.
Ninth? This is my first time in the top ten. Oh, and my common sea sponge is all trick-out with a custom case and a plankton upgrade…
Okay, I gotta hand it to Moltz on these last two — this is what made CARS worth bookmarking. He made me snort my Fanta all over the keyboard twice in two days. You go away to Russia to play a little ultimate and then Boom! Moltz whacks it outa the park. Must be the prototype sexbots he’s beta-testing.
Oh, and Eleventeenth or whatever. Take that, MacStansbury.
As the coolest Psyko here I give all goodness credit of posting to MacStansbury and take any goodness away from Tristrami. It is all about… I don’t know where I was going with that sentence. All I had typed was “It is all about” before the stupid tv took my attention and I got lost. Oh well, I must say that Moltz is a stinking genius and that this article really is funny. Top notch Moltz, top notch.
Hey! What about Chet?
Throw some love and respect to the man or he’ll go all crazy like Sideshow Bob.
Unless we’re talking about some Smeagle type personality thing going on with Moltz. Even the dog? Man that’s hard to believe.
Apple Newton? OOOOOOOOOHHH now I get it. OH-HO-HO-HO-Ho-Ho-ho-ho-h…
Yeah, good one corporate.
I know I shouldn’t do this, butÂ…exactly what is a “Table value 43”?
Chet for President! Of…something… Something that doesn’t have to do with people. Or money. President of Benchmarking? Yea. Cool. I want to see the Etch-A-Sketch picture before and after the blur though.
Great topic, good usable information. I can’t wait to taut Dell users with these results. I would, however, feel better if Chet wasn’t in charge of the testing. Chet has never been the brightest light in the CARS constellation. In fact Chet has seemed to be on the bottom of the CARS hierarchy. Despite the lack of opposable thumbs, Howard has been more trustworth in the past! Remember Howard’s past memorable photo essays. I thought Chet was just the go-to-guy when John had some meaningless, humiliating, dangerous, and/or boring task.
The Creepy Crawler Thing maker is a good example with what’s wrong with children’s toys today. It use to be many children’s toys came with a decent possibility of injury. Toys like The Creepy Crawler Thing Maker not only entertained, it taught children the danger of hot metal appliances. Cap guns were a great way to get real gunpowder into the hands of kids. Kids could learn how to use explosives in a easy hands-on experience. Advanced learners would figure out how to combine the powder from entire rolls into forms that could actually cause destructive explosions. Though not actually a toy per se, young boys were often given pocket knives. Boy, it usually only took a few good deep cuts to teach a kid proper knive handling. Steel jungle gym have all but disappeared in favor of rubber and plastic “play structures”. Modern kids are being turned into wussies.
Classic CARS. It is kind of embarrassing to be chuckling to myself at my desk at work. I recently used a new Creepy Crawler Thing Maker and it uses a small light bulb for heat. It takes forever and then the door is locked for an extended cool down period. But seriously-kids don’t need much help getting themselves hurt.
And “Table value 43” is … oh never mind.
And what about Jarts! I’ve still luckily got my set, but what fancy schmansy lawyer decided that throwing large lawn darts at each other was dangerous. The new ones are no fun at all. They don’t even have a metal spike on the end.
And what’s with the wimpy spnges these days? they barely hold water! When I was a kid, you could soak up a whole swimming pool with one. Until some damn lawyer got wind of that. And ours had razor-sharp edges, and flaming projectiles, and a free vial of Mr TB Germ. Nowadays they wear cardboard pants and play with snails. Lame. And don’t even get me started on Table Value 43…
Jarts were flat out wicked! The way they sail through the air and then dive into the turf.
Over at slashdot, I saw news that Table Value 43 is being recalled under the authority of the Dept. of Homeland Security. It’s too dangerous for use by terrorists between the ages of 5 and 14.
They’re just sucking all the fun out of this world!
Sea Sponge?! Pushing the ‘Gay’ Agenda are you, John!?! It’s bad enough you mention ‘lesbian ninjas’ constantly. Hmmm, you, umm, wouldn’t happen to have, ummm, (whisper) pictures would you? For research you know…
I concur with Bellidancer’s description of pansy-arse modern toys; most of the ills of modern society would surely evaporate were future muggers and burglars allowed access to high-explosive and/or sharp instruments at an early age in a barely controlled Darwinian environment.
Moreover, although impressed with Moltz’s sudden graphic prowess (ahem), I must protest at the absence from these tests of a benchmarking comparison with the performance of MB’s ‘Mousetrap’ – ideally the earlier models that got stuck somewhere in the region of that shitty little plastic bucket.
Without such a comparison, these tables encourage the accusation of inaccuracy and perhaps even partiality.
I dunno… one of the comments talked about spewing Fanta. Should we really be allowing Fanta drinkers in here?
And another said Chet does “dangerous and/or boring” stuff. Can something be dangerous AND boring? I don’t think so, toots. Just ask G.I. Joe or Optimus Prime. Or one of the Olsen twins.
I don’t care! Either one!
Yeah. Yeah. You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout.
Geez, I need to get back to Trantor for a while.
Whoa, a post. When did that happen?
Well, who’s going to tell Mr. Curious what “Table Value 43” is?
Hmmm?!?
Nobody?
Ok, here it comes…
Table Value 43 is the precise vallkjagaaahahahah…………….
Kaboem!
(Dangerous stuff, Table Value 43)
But listen, when it rains you get wet. When it snows you get wet…if you lie in the snow. And when it’s sunny well you don’t get wet unless you fall in the ocean or a swimming pool or some other body of open water.
And if we really did go to The Moon then where’s all the cheese? Would we really need gorgonzola if we had all that moon cheese? Of course not.
I bet Spirograph could do a mean Gaussian Blur…assuming you could figure out which little wheel to use and your pen doesn’t leak.
I thgink I’ll run downstairs now and play with my Kenner’s Girder & Panel SkyRail set. After milk and cookies, of course.
Meaningless and unrelated post that’s more than one word guy, Much better than “zinc”. What can you do with “zinc”?
1st: Sunny =sweat=wet
2nd: The last time NASA sent astronauts on a cheese run was back in the early 70’s! You think any of it would be left now? Cheese doesn’t age well, it gets stinky and disgusting and expensive. Besides, NASA still doesn’t have a decent cargo hauler. The most cheese they could bring back in one of those old Apollo spaceships fit into the back of a small pickup. I heard it only took one friday mixer to go through ALL the cheese brought back on Apollo 14. (Great party though, even if John Glen did make an ass of himself signing up girls from the office pool to be stewardresses for the next mission. The country is just damn lucky none of those girls had even heard of sexual harrassment back in 1971.)
Actually, my understanding is that the real reason we haven’t returned to the moon has to do with the growing power of the California Milk Advisory Board. The Milk board wasn’t very powerful back in the sixty’s and seventy’s, but since the eighty’s they’ve had the advertising and political power to discourage importation of extraterrestial cheese. Janice and Diane show up at NASA hearings when new lunar plans surface.
California Cheese It does a body good.
http://www.realcaliforniacheese.com
It all comes back to cheese doesn’t it?
That site was downright spooky, but it gave me a good idea for Valentines Day. Cheese, yeah, she’ll like that.
*looks to the side and pulls “yeah right” face*
And maybe I’ll get a necktie. What a happy day. No massacres just cheese.
Ok Streetrabbit, I will give some more credit to some other people. So, I give credit to all of the people that deserve it. That means, if you think I would give you credit, I do, but if you even have the slightest doubt that I would give you credit, then I don’t. Or something like that.
Another thing I must add. I did the blurry thingy in in negative 5 seconds. I am sure Moltz didn’t put that on there because it would cut into my name on the left side of the bar, always looking out for us Moltz master is. As for the UT thing, my scores were really bad. The something test for how long it took me to get to 1 kill took days and the test for how long it took me to lose on the easiest setting was done in about .000000000000000000000000000001 seconds. Both of those scores are very embarrasing to me, but I figured I had to come clean if you guys are going to trust me as a leader. Just don’t ask me to play games for you and I am perfect. 🙂
*cou… liar …gh*
*GASP* YOU! YOU! HORRIBLE! ARGH! NO MENTION OF SHILLER?
How else am I supposed to get off in the shower without mention of him?
You bastards. I like my Powerbook 520c just fine, and I don’t CARE how fast it does gaussian blurs. And my Newton 2100 is perfectly good at doing something having to do with Unreal Tournament. Cancel my fucking subscription.
La puissance de fromage!
(Apologies to the french)
Table Value 43 is currently being probed at Area 51. Don’t let the lawyers fool you, the Thing Maker was eliminated because it was an alien mind-control scheme. Everybody knows the aliens are using iPods now, which is why the RIAA is on the frontlines, fighting for Homeland Security.
The truth is out there!