The team at Bare Feats may never win a Nobel prize for this but if you're a consumer on the market for a new computer, we suggest you check out their findings. The team put the 2.66GHz Mac Pro mano-a-mano with the 2.5GHz G5 Quad-Core Power Mac through a series of CPU intensive tests that include running:

Non-Universal Binary Apps

• PhotoShop CS2
  
• After Effects 7.0

Universal Binary Apps

• iMovie HD6
• Final Cut Pro 5
• FileMaker Pro 8.5
• Cinebench 9.5

And the results are...drumroll please...

Quad-Core G5 Power Mac beats Mac Pro Xeon/2.66GHz when running Photoshop CS2 and After Effects 7. Between the 3.0GHz Mac Pro and the Quad Core G5 Power Mac, Mac Pro is 5% slower on the Photoshop but 8% faster on the After Effects test.

Both versions of the Mac Pro are faster than the G5 Power Mac running iMovie, Final Cut Pro, FileMaker and Cinebench with the Mac Pro 2.66GHz up to 62% faster than the 2.5 GHz Quad-Core G5 Power Mac. The Mac Pro 3.0GHz was even faster by as much as 85%.

The Bottomline: If money is a big issue and the machine will be used for non-UB pro apps (like Photoshop CS2), Quad-Core G5 Power Mac is a good choice. If the machine is destined for heavy Universal Binary apps (like Final Cut Pro 5.1) and cost is not a factor, go for the new Mac Pro plus the expensive memory (the team recommend at least 4GB). However, expect a 5-week wait for the optional Radeon X1900 XT and the scarcity of correct memory from upgrade sources.

This lucky person certainly did get a new Mac Pro. Not only was this brand new Mac Pro owner kind enough to share his experience with the world, he also ran his new machine through a gamut of benchmarks and real world application-based tests to prove its mettle. I think the fact that this guy took the time to provide us with usable information about the new Mac Pro makes his post different than the average all photography and no substance box openings that populate the web.

This particular machine has two 2.Ghz Dual Core processors (2 Xeon woodcrest processors- for a total of 4 logical processors), 1GB of ram, a 7300gt graphics accelerator, and a 250GB Seagate hard disk. As unbelievably powerful as that machine sounds, the specs for the test machine are not anywhere near the top of the line for the Mac Pro. Keep in mind that this test machine has but 1GB of ram. 1GB of ram, inside a machine that has the capacity for an astonishing 16GBs of ram total, is not a whole lot. In fact, 1GB is the minimum amount of ram that you should have when using a dual processor system as powerful as this one.

Geekbench provides an entire page full of test results that indicate the actual performance potential of this particular Mac Pro. The generous new Mac Pro owner also ran a Photoshop test, a timed compressor test, a Rosetta test and an encoding test. Of course, this extremely giving person also blessed us with a variety of near pornographic shots depicting the new machine in intimate detail. I must admit, when I look at the pictures of our lucky Mac Pro owner opening that box, my heart begins to race and my mind wanders off to think of the things that I could do if I had one.


Photoshop Test:
Test 1: 80% memory allocation, 20 history states = 3min 52secs

Test 2: 90% memory allocation, 1 history state = 3min 4secs

Test 3: (more a test of raw CPU) Radial blur 100, best quality on Eagle Image in test
Mac Pro= 29 secs
Quad G5 = 42 secs


Compressor:
source: 5min HDV 1080i60 clip (export from FCP timeline)
output: Compressor default 16:9 120min fast encode
results:
G5 2ghz 2.5gb ram: 34min
Mac Pro: 12min


Handbrake:
h.264 main profile
1000kbps Average Quality
2-pass encoding
128kbps AAC audio
Donnie Darko disc (not image on HD) 65fps average.

Geekbench:
297.9


Rosetta test:
194.8

The team behind [H]Enthusiast tried out three core processors particularly for systems heavy on video editing, music encoding music and manipulating images. The contestants were Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, Intel Core 2 Duo E6700, and AMD Athlon 64 FX-32.

The mission: Determine real-world benchmarks for functions an average person would perform on a home PC with similar specs.

The tests:

• Ripping a full-length motion picture from a DVD
• EncodingFrank Zappa's Packard Goose to an iPod native .mp4 / AAC file using iTunes
• Running Adobe Photoshop v8 and Driver Heaven's testing suite
• Importing a 2.3GB avi file imported from a camcorder
• Importing an 800MB MiniDV video clip from a video camera using Windows Movie Maker to encode it to the 2.1Mbps bitrate

The findings: When it comes to editing video, manipulating images, or encoding music, the Intel Core 2 Duo and Extreme processors at 2.66GHz outclassed AMDÂ?s Athlon FX and Athlon 64 line of processors.

Are you familiar with these supposed Mas OS X 10.5 Leopard screens?

Three days ago we featured these screens here at QJ to submit to the scrutinizing eyes of Mac users. There were skeptics and there were believers. Finally, the blogger who was the source of the screens, under the name of Trinity Rubicon, has come out with the truth to set the records straight. They are all nothing more but fakes.

In his defense, I could vouch that he did keep us entertained at the very least and that this could probably be the most earnest blog entry I have seen in a very, very long time. He tells us in depth what inspired him to make these fake screens and how he did it. After reading the post it turned out to be a very good Photoshop tutorial.

Here's an excerpt from his public apology/confession:

I'm going to be honest here: When I posted those Leopard screenshots on Blogger, I was never expecting quite the popularity it ended up achieving. For it to get on the front page of Digg is one thing, but to have it get commented on 200 times is pretty surprising to me. I had no idea it would cause such a debate, and I really enjoyed reading all of your comments, whether you thought it was real or not (mostly the latter, though). But, seeing as my third screenshot didn't fool anybody, I think it's about time I just give it up.

Maybe inspired by the comments of people that frequent the site, he decided to continue posting fake screens for the Leopard. His future plans include Finder, Desktop Switching and Virtualization. But this time we are no longer being fooled. We are just being treated to a faux fur extravaganza.

It has been quite some time since we last heard from Bibble Labs, and now you might consider yourselves lucky because finally, Bibble Labs has returned again to release its latest version of Bibble Pro.

Bibble Pro 4.8 is a free update to its professional workflow solution. This application offers an integrated browser, powerful batch processing, hotkeys assigned by the user, one-click image correction, a Photoshop plug-in, a flexible renaming system, and a advanced lens correction. With this 4.8 update though, the Lens correction tool will be more powerful.

There will also be an additional application that will allow robust Black and White conversion and a Spot Color feature. Bibble Pro 4.8 also has added support for additional digital cameras and comes in two versions: the Universal Binary that costs $70 and the Pro version with added copy/paste functions, multithread operation, digital noise correction/suppression, work queues and tethered shooting for $130. This application is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux systems.

After a long time of waiting, Chad Siegel, Adobe's InDesign product manager, finally offered a glimpse of what the company had in store for Mac users. During a demo using a MacBook Pro, he showed new InDesign features that are only part of a bigger selection of Creative Suite 3 features.

One of those shown was several time-saving features directed to designers as part of InDesign's "investment in workflow." New editing and image import features which will be available for the next iteration of Photoshop were also shown.

There are still some problems though with the new Creative Suite 3 as the MacBook Pro crashed while being used to demonstrate the new application's power. Adobe InDesign will continue to work on this to make its compatibility with Macs flawless. So I guess we'll still have to wait some more.

The MacMini came out over a year ago as an answer for those whose needs did not require, or whose budgets didn't allow, the purchase of a Dual Processor G5. A compact little machine about the size of a jewelry box, the Mac Mini was good for everything but the most extreme, high-end video processing, and could be had for under $600.

Now, a Mac user in Taiwan has reportedly replaced the stock CPU in his MacMini with a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo Merom. The souped-up Mini beat  1.8 GHz and 2.5 GHz Dual Processor G5s when it came to an iTunes .mp3 to AAC conversion, despite the fact that the Mini had a slower hard drive. In Photoshop v7 - a notoriously large and cumbersome application - the results for the Mini were also quite promising. This is especially significant when one takes into consideration the fact that Photoshop requires Rosetta to translate PPC instructions for the Intel chip.

As for the upgrade itself, it was a fairly simple procedure - and actually a good thing for the machine, since the Intel chip runs cooler than the previous one.

Macworld tested the new Intel-based laptops, both the 1.83GHz white and the 2.0GHz black models, set to replace the G4 based Powerbook and the G4 based iBooks. The processor speeds of these new non-pro MacBooks are the same as the first generation of MacBook Pros so they hold up pretty well in processor-heavy tasks and they beat the G4 based laptops except for the Photoshop test.

Note: Because Adobe has yet to release a universal binary for the CS2 suite they were ran through Rosetta.

The results look as good as the new MacBook color, I've always been a fan of black electronics (in fact all I carry is a black cell, a black PSP, and a black iPod) but until Adobe get the universal binary of CS2 out I'm afraid I'll have to stick to my iBook G4. What do you think of the benchmark results? What do you think of the new MacBook Color? We want to hear from you in the comments!