Done for 2009: The Holiday MacBook Pro Roundup
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 10, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Performance
Benchmarking under OS X is a bit of a pain. There aren't many good standardized real world benchmarks, and unfortunately the synthetic tests are often over used.
General OS usage is a difficult thing to quantify, but one measure of performance has always been the number of bounces an icon in the dock makes before an application loads. I decided to take it to the next level and write a quick script to launch 15 applications in a row, timing how long the entire process takes.
I launched, in order: Mail, Safari, Activity Monitor, iTunes, iCal, DVD Player, iPhoto, Photo Booth, Quicktime Player, Disk Utility, Preview, iMovie, Front Row, Garage Band and Aperture.
The entire process stresses both the disk and CPU, which is why we see a huge improvement when going to an SSD as well as differences between CPU speeds.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro performs the worst here by a large margin, not just because of its lowly 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, but also because it only has 2GB of memory. The 13-inch system takes nearly 30% longer to load all of the apps because of its limited amount of memory.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro uses a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo instead of the 2.80GHz chip in the 17-inch by default. The result is a 7% longer load time on the 15-inch system, not huge, but not insignificant. As always, I recommend getting the fastest CPU you can afford if you're planning on keeping this machine for a while.
The fastest machine here is actually the MacBook Air, because it comes with an SSD. Your best bet to improve overall system responsiveness and launch times is to get a good SSD. Even with only 2GB of memory, the current gen MacBook Air finishes the script faster than the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Paired with an Intel X25-M G2 the 15-inch MacBook Pro can run through our script in 16 seconds.
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Performance
The Retouch Artists Speed Test we use for our CPU testing under Windows also works under OS X. We're running the exact same benchmark here, basically performing a bunch of image manipulations and filters and timing the entire process.
Despite limiting Photoshop to not keeping any history, the 2GB 13-inch MacBook Pro takes around 40% longer to complete the test than the 15-inch MacBook Pro. If you're planning on doing any Photoshop work you'll want to upgrade the 13-inch system to 4GB of memory.
The slower CPU in the 15-inch system penalizes it by around 10% compared to the 17-inch MacBook Pro. For any sort of real performance work, it looks like a 15-inch MacBook Pro with the 2.80GHz upgrade would be a good balance of price/performance.
As I alluded to earlier, there's not much of a performance improvement from the early 2008 MacBook Pro to the current generation. Drive speeds have improved a bit but overall performance hasn't really gone up, it's why Apple had to rely on updated looks and much better battery life to sell systems this time around. Not a bad tradeoff if you ask me, you'll see the performance improvement next year with Arrandale.
Aperture 2 RAW Import
For my Aperture test I simply timed how long it took to import 203 12MP RAW images into the library.
Once again, 2GB isn't enough, the 15-inch and 17-inch are indistinguishable but the 13-inch system takes much longer here.
Cinebench R10
3D rendering performance is mostly CPU bound so the 13-inch system isn't penalized by its memory limitations. Here the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo is around 11% faster than the 2.26GHz in the 13-inch MBP. The 2.80GHz CPU is another 11% faster on top of that.
In the multithreaded bench the performance advantages are about the same, a bit closer to 12% between chips.
Again we see that CPU speed hasn't really improved much since early 2008, the two 15-inch systems are basically equal performers here.
Quicktime H.264 Video Encoding
Our final benchmark is more consumer focused. Here I'm taking an XviD and converting it to an iPhone-supported H.264 format.
We're CPU bound here so the 13-inch system only takes 14% longer to convert our video clip than the 15-inch. The difference between the 15-inch and 17-inch is about another 10%.
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v12v12 - Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - link
Try this: SAGER http://www.sagernotebook.com/category.php">http://www.sagernotebook.com/category.phpMy buddy built a custom laptop for $1500 that DOMINATES any MacPro, with a better to equal screen res, oh plus the caveat of a MATTE screen, thus it's a better screen actually. It's faster, better GFX, BUILT better, completely custom, looks nice and WORKS.
There's no comparison when the elitism and snobbery of blindly knowing you got ripped off for a fluffed up Intel machine in satin and lace gloves. I have a MacPro, and other PC laptops... Guess what machine gets WORK done in the corp environment more so than the Mac needing to run silly emulations of Windows in order to get things done. But why so? If these overpriced luxo-pads really ARE "superior" then ask yourself why again hasn't Mac broken into the working world of business and corps if they are user-friendly and problem free?
You'd think a smart corp would take note and thus spend a little extra capital for these machines, as it’s part of my job to support them... Guess what, Mac's aren't going to be adopted nor switched over b/c they are mere flash and dash for the foo-foo to keep fluffing their yaps about how great it is to get SUB-PAR performance at premium prices... Oh and don’t forget Apples RIDICULOUS (strike) LAUGHABLE service requirements…
Applecare Technician cert required to work on these toys? HAHA Anyone with ½ an A+ cert can take this BS machine apart just like a PC and then some. But with Apple at the helm, you’ve gotta agree to their pricing schemes and wanna-be island in the sky certs to do work that a teenage can do. Again more hidden costs and fees associated with the wanna-be Elite crowd. Do you know why they have to charge these exuberant fees out of sight? To long bait you into their way of things, to where there’s no point of turning back once committed. The fees also help keep them afloat; remember for it not for Creative’s ideas they stole, Intels hardware, and the stupidity or nativity of it’s fan(boy) user base… “Apple” would be rancid and a DECAYING company haha… and you all know it… Botching performance specs can only keep you “competitive” for so long, until your own flock began noticing how ailing those junk G-series were haha… What a joke.
Sorta like a hopping up Civic with "euro" lights and smooth lines and then getting dogged by an American competitor that's near 30% less = interior and those "build quality" upgrades that everyone's hollering about added to surpass you.
You can get a Porsche 911 C4S for near $90K... Vs a Base vette C6 (which is still faster lol) for $60K and CUSTOMIZE it way beyond what Porsche could dream of at such a price; yes that’s BETTER; performance in every category, interior upgrades also... Apple is all fluff when it comes down to it. IT's NOT a hardware brand, it's borrowed technology from INTEL; it's master, then some BS ideology slapped onto it to appease the easily swayed/coerced. Sorry but I'm sick of the people who pay MORE for > less and have the nerve to claim superiority.
But like OMG, it’s sOOOOOO PRETTY – YAAAAAYYyyyy! That subject to OPINION and thus a forever MOOT POINT.
Who knows... Apple has been found GUILTY more than once for stealing other's innovations and pawning/spinning them off as their own. Google that FYI...
Hype and flash; smoke and mirrors... Case dismissed.
mashi - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
people never own a mac never understand. I have few ibm/lenovo thinkpad. but i always use my mac. osx is clean and fast OS. i think their kernel is more optimized than windows. if you using snow leopard and parallels 5 with windows xp. basically you don't even know it is VM. the response and everything is fast. Once you used to OSX. you don't want PC. that's my opinion.aucl - Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - link
I think blaming Apple for the bad performance is not totally fair.Long before the release of Snow Leopard Apple tried to drill all partners, driver vendors and so to deliver new 64bit builds for their plugins and extensions.
The flash plugin is provided by Adobe and only distributed by Apple. Probably cause most users would complain if flash content won't work any more.
so lets look what we got:
host-20i:~ aucl$ file /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386
/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
host-20i:~ aucl$ file /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/Flash\ Player.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Flash\ Player
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Flash Player: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Flash Player (for architecture ppc): Mach-O bundle ppc
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Flash Player (for architecture i386): Mach-O bundle i386
Looks like Adobe Flash is not 64bit ready.
So i am not sure about the details in current Intel architecture, but switching between 32 and 64bit was always an expensive operation as i remember???
PS: On my mac quite everything is 64bit, and flash is "disabled" with the Click4Flash plugin.
fokka - Monday, November 16, 2009 - link
come on anand, i know apple articles create a lot of clicks, but this macbook/apple- fanboyism is getting ridiculous.yes, everyone knows that the unibodies are good computers and the battery-life is better than on most other pcs, but the price-aspect especially on the 17"-machine is just too big, that a normal person could honestly overlook it...
do you know what you get in the non-apple-world for 2500$+? other dimansion, just other dimension.
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot - Monday, November 23, 2009 - link
Oh for cryin' out loud! The bloke writes an article relating to a tech issue that just happens to be on a Mac and suddenly he's a "fanboy"????!!!You Win-Nut trolls remind me of primary school kids - someone talks about something you're not into and suddenly you all start calling him names. If you're only interested in bashing Apple (and if Apple's so crap why do they threaten you so much?) go to the green grocer's, buy a box of granny smiths, and go hit them with a cricket bat. Get some of your frustration out that way. If you're interested in discussing the content of the article (ie. how to maximise battery charge) with some practical suggestions (other than "just buy a cheap windows brick and keep it plugged into the wall") then by all means post.
... why do I even bother reading Win-Nut posts??? .....
marraco - Sunday, November 15, 2009 - link
[I've been a staunch advocate of Apple's hardware and software for years now, but ......Apple is making the mistake of stating that non-Apple hardware isn't supported]
Big fail.
you pay 2,5X more than an i7 PC (not accounting the Windows license needed to run 99% of the software), gets obsolete hardware, and ZERO support.
If I pay extra for a computer, I want to get any luxe, including the expandability.
geok1ng - Sunday, November 15, 2009 - link
It is a PITA that i couldnt buy a decent notebook over the last two years: a decent CPU with good screen resolution and STATE-OF-ART integrated graphics; AMD had excelent integrated graphics paired with hot and 2 generatiosn older CPUs, Intel had decent CPUs paired with crap integrated graphis. And when NVDIA finally put a decent integrated graphics on the C2D platform, it is sold as MacBook- an expensive piece of good looks paired with all manner of junkware using an OS that simply cant game!Battery life is a mix of good hardware project and good OS drives. For that you need 45nm CPUs with at least 55nm chipstes with the OS installed in a SDD. And the OS cant suck!
I would be fine with a 2Ghz dual core (or an atom for a netbook), 9400m/4200 level graphics, 4GB RAM, 60GB SSD and at least 720p resolution together in a 11"-13" chassis. But every single netbook/subnotebook/notebook that comes close to this requirements costs an arm and a leg and fails to deliver one or more of these hardware requirements.
batmanuel - Sunday, November 15, 2009 - link
My wife picked up the new unibody plastic Macbook recently, and it is really a good deal compared to the 13" MacBook Pro. You get the same processor, multitouch trackpad, LED backlit screen, 7 hour battery, and RAM as in the Pro version, plus a bigger hard drive. If you don't need FW800, the SD reader, and the backlit keyboard, the plastic unibody Macbook is a great machine for $1000.Hrel - Friday, November 13, 2009 - link
I'd really love it if Asus could would make a 15-16" laptop with the specs on the 15" macbook except with a 1600x900 screen, a 320GB 7200rpm hard drive and the option to add a dedicated GPU to the integrated one. With a price ranging from 700-1000. I'm thinking MR HD4530/210M, HD4670, and the HD4850 as dedicated graphics options.Most importantly though; let's not forget that the screen needs to be at least 500:1 contrast ratio, preferably 1000:1 with very high color accuracy.
MonicaS - Thursday, November 12, 2009 - link
I can understand why Apple did it, but again, their reasons all but ignore the end user. Seriously, how hung up are people about the look of the underside of their laptop, that it needs to be made sleeker. Take a look at a Mac Pro and you'll see a beautiful and very accessible interior that even the most novice can access. Not the same here and its a shame.Monica S
Los Angeles Computer Repair
http://www.sebecomputercare.com/?p=1178">http://www.sebecomputercare.com/?p=1178