Apple’s 45nm Refresh: New MacBook & MacBook Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 29, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
File Decompression, Photoshop and Quicktime Performance
Using MacPAR Deluxe we took an 800MB archive and deleted 5% of it, forcing MacPAR to read the archive, calculate and write the missing bits, then extract the whole archive:
Once more the slightly lower clocked Penryn MacBook Pro manages close to a 5% lead over the 2.6GHz Merom system.
Our CS3 benchmark is the standard Retouch Artists test that we use in our CPU reviews. We're just timing how long it takes to complete a handful of operations on an image in Photoshop:
Photoshop performance is nearly identical between the 2.5GHz Penryn and 2.6GHz Merom systems.
Finally we have our Quicktime H.264 encode test. All we're doing here is taking a 500MB MPEG-2 avi file and encoding it using Apple's H.264 codec and Quicktime's default settings:
It looks like Quicktime isn't optimized for SSE4 yet as Penryn offers no advantage over Merom.
Overall, the performance differential ends up being a wash - there are some cases where Penryn is faster at lower clock speeds, while others where Merom manages a win - much as we expected.
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tayhimself - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
You also called the 2299 version 2199Doormat - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
A quick question - the yonah Core Duos had really really poor battery life in the review. Were those performed recently with new batteries? The MB itself is nearly 2 years old.Still, 4 hours is amazing on the DVD tests. I could stop watching movies on my iPhone and use my laptop on the entire transcon flight... though I think I'll wait for the Montevina platform. Hopefully the SFF chips, 25W CPUs and additional graphics horsepower will be worth the upgrade.
alpaye - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Well it seems that these upgrades you call "tick upgrades" are mostly to keep up with the technology. They don't seem to be a must upgrade for people like me, as I own the last "tock version" of MBP. Nice review, good points.The Unofficial Mac (http://www.unofficialmac.com)">http://www.unofficialmac.com)
TestKing123 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
A comparison with non-Apple notebooks would be nice as well.AMDJunkie - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
This is what I miss! Horribly cornball sex jokes (no point in calling it innuendo), genuine reporting of personal experience (shock at a kernel panic; admitting your exhausted because you've written a review at some godawful morning hour, for example), and snark (iWork is for converting your work into Office). And yet there's a half-decent review in there! It's like reading a blog, but with content!PlasmaBomb - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Tocks happen every two years not once a year...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
woops, that's what I meant :)Yearly tocks and I'm pretty sure we'd be well on our way to skynet by now :-P
Take care,
Anand
InternetGeek - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Apple will introduce a new 'revolutionary' Macbook in every tock, and some improved models on every tick. I wonder if Intel might be interested in having Apple use the 'Intel inside' logo? That'll be interesting.It'll be interesting to see how these MacBooks perform once some PC games are also ported to the Mac (Unreal and so)...
joey2264 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
The Macbook has an absolutely horrible keyboard. You can't possibly, rationally, reasonably, believe that this is not the case, especially with all your experience reviewing computers. The absolute crap Dell keyboards that they used to use in their notebooks are far better.I hope you mention somewhere in your review the ridiculousness of Apple releasing a 5.3 pound notebook with a 13.3 inch screen and integrated graphics.
Dennis Travis - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
I have been using computers and almost every keyboard known to man from the Commodore 64 too todays keyboards find the keyboard on the Macbook and their external keyboard that is like the one in the Macbook two of the best I have ever typed on. I can fly on either of them.Keyboards are more of a personal thing as people are very different, but the Macbook has an excellent keyboard. Sorry I agree with Anand.