Then there were none. Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 COPIED FROM MACNN FORUMS I have had a MacBook Pro for a couple months now and I enjoy it very much. My wife needed a new 'Book to replace her aging TiBook so I bought her a MacBook and on a whim, just made it two... thinking I would sell my Pro if I liked my own MacBook better as the size for travel was appealing. Well, now here I am with a MacBook and MacBook Pro and having to decide which one of these guys gets put on the market. Anyway, I thought a good tie-breaker for me would be some performance numbers. With the integrated graphics of the MacBook I figured the Pro would trounce it. Surprisingly, the Pro lagged in pretty much every single test... with a HUGE difference in Open GL which is where I expected the opposite. To add insult to injury, the Pro is running 2GB or memory whereas the MacBook is running the stock 512MB. I ran XBench several times and the numbers were fairly consistent each time on both machines. Needless to say, I am quite surprised at this and now more at odds over which machine I like best! Just a brief summary is below. Wondering if anyone else has been in a similar position and what your opinions of these benchmarks mean in real-world use. Can a mere 170MHz make this much difference? Even with the rather large memory difference? I would think that the dedicated 128MB memory in the Pro plus 1.5GB more memory would offset the processor speed easily. MacBook 2.0/512MB/60 MacBook Pro 1.83/2GB/80 Both running OS X.4.6, all software updates applied. MacBook Results Results - 49.63 CPU Test - 72.59 Thread Test - 190.16 Memory Test - 116.84 Quartz Graphics Test - 54.46 OpenGL Graphics Test - 215.06 / 272.82 frames/sec !!!!!!! User Interface Test - 15.48 Disk test - Sequential - 53.14 / Random 30.44 MacBook Pro Results Results - 47.33 CPU Test - 59.45 Thread Test - 180.12 Memory Test - 111.63 Quartz Graphics Test - 50.78 OpenGL Graphics Test - 123.11 / 156.17 frames/sec User Interface Test - 21.95 Disk test - Sequential - 20.48 / Random 26.63 Copied from mac nn, these resuts are not amusing. THIS IS CINEBENCH BELOW: MacBook Results Cinebench v.9.5 CPU Benchmark Rendering (1 CPU) - 305 CB-CPU Rendering (x CPU) - 573 CB-CPU Multiprocessor speedup: 1.88x Graphics Benchmark C4D Shading 352 CB-GFX OpenGL SW-L - 1178 CB-GFX OpenGL HW-L - 1066 CB-GFX OpenGL speedup 3.35x MacBook Pro Results Cinebench v.9.5 CPU Benchmark Rendering (1 CPU) - 281 CB-CPU Rendering (x CPU) - 531 CB-CPU Multiprocessor speedup: 1.89x Graphics Benchmark C4D Shading 328 CB-GFX OpenGL SW-L - 1263 CB-GFX OpenGL HW-L - 2485 CB-GFX OpenGL speedup 7.58x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asstastic Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 For any new operating system 512mb just doesn't cut it anymore. I wouldn't build or buy a new computer without at least 1gb of ddr. With only a single stick of memory the pro doesn't get the benefits of dual channel operation. The main issue is swap file usage though. Laptop hard drives run at slower speeds than desktop drives for a number of reasons. With only 512mb memory you're going to have lots of swapping between ram and the hard drive, which will really slow your system down. In addition, all the hard drive activity will eat up battery life a lot faster than another stick of DDR. You might want to try switching out a stick of memory and retesting the pro laptop and see how it runs. you could even keep it in that configuration and sell the macbook with 512mb. The graphics on the pro are also seriously underclocked in order to keep the heat on the unit down. In any 3d application the x1600 will seriously whomp the intel gma 900. Go back over the OpenGL benches and remember xbench isn't the best indication of real world performance. It might also take till 10.5 for ATI to optimize their driver to the new intel platform. On the other hand, if you don’t need a faster computer ant can’t tell the difference between the two, save yourself some money and sell the pro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chiark Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 If you're doing anything with 3D graphics, keep the Pro. If you're worried about colour accuracy, keep the pro I find the colours are more true to life on the pro's anti-reflective screen than on the glossy screen. if those things don't bother you, go with the Macbook. I am amazed that Apple released the macbook with a core duo processor - the macbook really does make the pro look expensive. I believe that the Merom will be put into the new Pro ASAP... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Then there were none. Posted July 21, 2006 Author Share Posted July 21, 2006 its not my laptop i got it from macnn forums, just wanted to compare xbench against the 1.83ghz macbook and the 2.0ghz macbook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
INFNITE Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 Comparing a MacBook with a MBP w/ a lower clockspeed is a pretty poor comparison. At least find a MacBook and a MBP with identical RAM configuration and clockspeed. In real life applications, a MacBook performs identically to MBP when it comes to processor intensive application. When you play games however, a MBP is definitely a better performer than a MacBook. Also, MacBook Pro's run at a higher resolution, so that may cause a slight performance hit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 I'd rather trust MacWorld's Speedmark scores, thank you very much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbetts Posted July 26, 2006 Share Posted July 26, 2006 =[ It's not even fair to compare the X1600 to the GMA900. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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