Evaluating Computer Performance

In my Intro to Information Technology class we had to evaluate our computer's performance. This was a favorite assignment for me because it got me closer to knowing my computers!

Evaluating Computer Performance

I started this exercise by closing all applications then shutting down my late 2013 iMac. I waited ten minutes then cold booted it. I then went to Finder, Utilities, and clicked Activity Monitor. Under the memory tab, I was surprised immediately to find that Adobe Creative Cloud was taking up the most memory from the get go at 174 MB. I attempted to download and use Adobe Photoshop for free via Creative Cloud. However, my FSU sign in information did not work and the program at this point is useless until I have FSU’s IT team add my FSU log in information to the approved list of students allowed free access to Adobe Creative Cloud. I checked under System Preferences, Users and Groups, Login Items to see if the Creative Cloud was listed there; it was not. There were actually six different processes associated with the Creative Cloud, even after I quit the Creative Cloud application itself: Adobe Desktop Service 174.1 MB, CC Library 32 MB, CCX Process 35 MB, Core Sync 19.5 MB, Core Sync Helper 5 MB, and Creative Cloud Helper 9.5 MB. At this point it was clear; I had to uninstall Creative Cloud if I wanted it to stop taking up precious RAM. I decided to use AppCleaner to delete Creative Cloud. I quit Activity Monitor and restarted it to see if the above mentioned processes had disappeared; they did not. Even the Adobe Creative Cloud application icon was still in my task bar.

Perplexed but not deterred I forged forward to rid my RAM of this Creative Cloud. I double clicked the Adobe Desktop Service which opened a new window where I clicked Open Files and Ports. It told me the files were in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Desktop Common. I opened my Finder and saw a folder named Creative Cloud Files under my username. I dragged that to the trash. I checked the Activity Monitor; nothing changed, I wasn’t surprised. I emptied my trash at this point, just in case somehow the processes were running from there. Again, no change. After pointing and clicking around, I finally figured out where to find my Library folder—under my Macintosh HD location. But I still had to be careful not to delete any files or folders associated with my Adobe Creative Suit 4. For some odd reason, I did not see the folder Adobe Desktop Common inside the /Library/Application Support/Adobe folder. More confused, I decided to restart the computer to see if there would be any change in Activity Monitor now that the Adobe Creative Cloud application had been removed.

And that did indeed help; four of the processes failed to start up when the computer did, so now it was just the remaining two, CCX Process and Core Synch Helper, I had to stop. CCX Process was in the folder /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Creative Cloud Experience. There were two folders for Adobe Creative Cloud under Utilities; I sent both to the trash. Once again, the processes did not stop in my Activity Monitor, so I did another restart. This time only Core Sync Helper remained. I found where that was and deleted it as well. Another restart. Now, Creative Cloud was rid from my RAM at least. I only have 8gb of RAM on this older iMac, so every MB is worth saving. After this lengthy process I was interested to know if I could update the RAM myself; according to the Apple help site it is only possible via a technician (2020).

Next, I used the App Store to install Cinebench as suggested. I watched Activity Monitor; CineBench took up a whopping 2.3 GB of RAM! My score was 1191 pts, and my processor ranked ten in a list of twelve on screen. I was not surprised as this CPU is seven years old, and the other CPUs listed seemed to be newer ones. To find out more, I dug around on the internet finally coming upon a bit better explanation of what I was seeing from CG Director (Glawion, 2020). Evidently, the score is merely a way to compare your pts against other CPU’s pts (Glawion, 2020). Glawion’s graph did not go as low as my computer’s measly 1191 pts, meaning my CPU is unable to stand up to current processors (2020). Again, no surprise there.

But I wanted to test my new 2020 MacBook Air against my old 2013 iMac so I jumped into the App Store and downloaded Cinebench on the MacBook Air. This time I also watched Activity Monitor to compare how much RAM it required versus on the iMac; the outcome was similar at 2.4 GB. The difference being though, this MacBook air has a four core processor with 16 GB of RAM. Despite this, my pts score was lower at only 1061 pts! At this point I went back to the Glawion article to see if my CPU was listed on their graph, and it was not (2020). I was surprised they scored so similarly, however this CineBench test is only a test of how well the CPU can render a 3D Model.

Considering that the iMac, even in 2013, was meant to be a powerful beast whereas MacBook Airs have always been slim and efficient, my surprise waned. I wished to find out the pts score of a 2013 MacBook Air or a 2020 iMac, so I used Google to do a search and it found for me GeekBench (2020), another tester like CineBench. Without downloading and running the program, I could deduce from their chart that my thought about MacBook Air and iMac was correct. For their test, a late 2013 iMac scores 3263 whereas a 2020 MacBook Air scores 3118; again, very similar results (GeekBench, 2020). These tests taught me a lot more about computers in that they truly are designed to only handle certain levels of work. I am in marvel at the scores of the Mac Pros with ten plus cores ranking with scores in the tens of thousands. I felt jealous of these powerful computers, but I reminded myself they are too powerful for my simple needs.

References

Apple. (2020, September 2). Install memory in an iMac. Apple. 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201191#note

GeekBench. (2020, September 30). Mac benchmarks. Geek Bench. 

https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks

Glawion, A. (2020, May 19). CineBench R20 scores (updated results). CG Director.             

https://www.cgdirector.com/cinebench-r20-scores-updated-results/



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