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MacBook Pro Benchmarks
jfpoole writes "Geek Patrol has benchmarked a MacBook Pro and a PowerBook G4 using Geekbench, their benchmarking utility. It's impressive to see how well the MacBook Pro performs compared to the PowerBook G4 (at least when it comes to Universal Binary performance)." Their benchmarks aren't particularly surprising, and they lack the most important benchmark: Frames Per Second during Molten Core Combat (or as it is more commonly referred to since I made it up 5 seconds ago, the FPSDMCCMark, which is the only number I'm waiting for).
A new product that's an improvement over the model it replaces. Wow! That's news!
Before the aricle even went live, the site was slashdotted. I guess the geek patrol got ambushed.
Maybe they should benchmark web servers next.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Apparently Geekpatrol is hosted on a G4 Powerbook. Were it hosted on a Intellitosh it would have survived a bit longer.
Given that many of the same apps run on both Mac and PC platforms, why don't more people bench Mac vs. PC? I mean we are even talking about virtually the same architecture, the mac is now just another OS running on x86 hardware like Linux et al. I know it's interesting to see how the latest Mac stacks up against last years model, but how bout someone bench the latest Mac against it's contemporaries? The reason this isn't often done is because they usually get thrashed pretty bad, and feathers get ruffled (see: Adobe "PC Preferred" ad campaign, or Apple's SPEC processor benchmarks that were rejected because they were not completely legit). Windows always gets put against Linux, but Mac never seems to get benched against other platforms, and it is much, much closer to PC, as both platforms run many of the same apps. Just my two pennies...
No altivec. Less space than a Dell. Lame.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I had a PowerBook G4 1Ghz, 1Gig RAM (all graphics set to lowest setting) and would get insane lag in Ironforge around the AH. I couldn't run my epic horse through that area without ending up in the ditch. I now have a MacBookPro, 2.0 Ghz, 2 Gigs RAM and can run around in IF with 0, none, NADA lag and 30-35 FPS. I have all options turned on and the highest resolution the laptop screen can handle. Crusing around WSG is fun as I don't get lagged to death
The MacBookPro is insanely fast. I'm not a big fan of the magnetic power cord, it seems to fall out too often with just a switch in body position. It is quite a bit hotter on my lap and I have had some random crashes while in WoW. Complete computer lock up, power down, restart to get it working again. (CTRL-ALT+Power)
I haven't gone into MC yet but will hopefully go tonight, we are killing domo so that should be some tasty lag.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with my MacBookPro
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
Yeah, yeah.
;)
You're not fooling anyone. We all know that every time you boot your antiquated G4, you think about selling one of your kidneys to buy a new MacBook.
Rationalization is a beatiful thing.
Damn! I thought the MacBook Pro was going to be slower than the PowerBook G4...
Dear Apple: Slashdot needs to review 5 of these indefinitely. Thank you XOXO ;) Seriously, i'm waiting for someone to give good benchmarks on these- especially testing for Warcraft. Now that it has a new Universal Binary I can't wait to see how it holds up against a modern windows machine.
'Not only did the new iMac wipe the floor with the old model in their tests, but using MacWorld's own test methodology would allow MacSpeedZone to conclude that the new Intel iMac is almost as fast as a PowerMac Quad G5.' I see only one way to solve this: Give me one. I'll run WoW on it, and decide.
I'm still waiting for the most important benchmark: frames per second in molten core combat.
We get it. You use your Mac for WoW.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
There is something that some of you forget about FW800. FireWire 800 was a mistake to begin with. There is no FireWire chipset that I know of that sits on the PCIe bus. That means, that if FW800 is on the PCI bus, it almost completely saturates the entire bus ITSELF. It was pointless. Until someone comes out with a FW controller that sits on the PCIe bus, FW800 is best left to something like ExressCard 54.
In theory, a FW 800 Express Card should be superior to FW800 built onto the PCI bus.
When the next generation of FW controllers come out that sit on the PCIe bus, then it will make sense. FW800 is just a little to early. Soon.
You're only proving plasmacutter's point about Apple zealots and DRM. DRM does matter. It matters because DRM tells us what we can and cannot do with the software/media that we bought. It matters because we, as in the user, have to give up control of our computers and files when we accept DRM. It matters because if nothing changes within the next few years, we're all going to be using locked down computers. I have lusted for Macs since OS X was released years ago, but since the Intel switch and Apple's stance with DRM, I have lost much of my enthusiasm with Macs and Apple in general. I don't want to buy a machine with TPM chips that may be used for much more evil purposes (such as locking down my media). I want to buy a machine that does what I, the customer wants, not what Apple or Microsoft or the **AA wants. Thankfully I can still buy and build some computers that aren't DRM-encumbered.
DRM matters. That's the bottom line. And I, for one, am not going to give up my freedoms, even for "ease of use" and other minor benefits. Nobody should tell me what I can do with my media, or with a certain OS (points at Apple and OS X), but that's why I don't use that stuff anyway; I prefer to be free instead.
I'm glad I futureproofed it though.
You can't totally future-proof something. I think a better term would be future-resistant.
I also performed some MacBook Pro benchmarks on the MacBook Pros introduced at Macworld and my results may be of interest. While the report only includes a 1.83 GHz MacBook Pro, it does include comparisons to G4 PowerBooks and a Dual G5 PowerMac.
MacBook Pro Performance Analysis
Check out BARTsmart BART Widget, the best BART schedule widget for Mac OS X.
WOW plays poorly on G4 Macs because they have outdated graphics cards compared to gamer PCs.
A 2003 Dual 2 GHz G5 will play WOW poorly if you have a vanilla video card, but not because of the G5. In fact, if you watch processor use while the game is "challenged," you'll notice that with dual G5s, the CPUs are running about 60%. Turn one off and the processor redlines, but the gameplay doesn't change drastically. Put in a higher end PCI card, and it plays like a totally different machine.
The last revision of G5 Macs have PCIe, and better video cards. The Intel Macs have the same stuff or better. It's no surprise that WOW plays better with a much better video card.
The G5/Core Duo are not being compared when you pit them against each other playing WOW; it's pretty much just the video card difference.
The ignorance of the drm really scares me. It makes clear that the silent tactic of introducing socalled trusted computing step by step actually works. I really would like to love Apple and get one of the MacBookPros but no way I spend money on this. People, take care, but maybe its to late already. What do you need to wake up? How about 'trusted' harddisk? https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/groups/stora ge/Storage_Use_Case_Whitepaper_v07.pdf
And even though it pains me to admit it here in public, this being
So what do I do with that iBook ? Well I run Firefox (no, it doesn't look like the other Mac OS apps, what do I care?), CopyWrite (The *only* thing that would keep me using that machine; it exports to RTF though so I'd go back to OOo without trouble) and ssh. All that (mostly) on a WiFi link. Of course (apart from CopyWrite, which is an app I've been thinking of writing for years) I could do all of that on a random laptop without trouble. So why an Apple?
Because
On the other hand, the Unix software often feels out of place, there is little "free" (as in libre) native software (for a Unix user, maybe it feels like heaven for a Windowe person), the interface isn't all that great, the bundled software isn't all that great either (iPhoto is probably the worst offender there, or maybe despite the few hours I spent trying to "get" it, I just didn't), in other words, don't listen to the hype, sliced bread is good, Apple is too, but that's it.
Anyway to get back to the subject at hand, a lot of Linux people (those people who write Debian books, who admin hundreds of Linux machines, who have been running Linux for 6 to 10 years, whop have all their workstations running it at work and at home) have Apple laptops. Just because they are sick of the elusive driver search, of the great parameter poking game.
I talked to a lot of them. Most of them aren't overly fond of the Apple interface. They all grew up with the Unix way of doing things. Things like sloppy focus. Or like virtual desktops. Yet they all got i/PowerBooks. Because that was better than spending ages getting Linux running on whatever hardware was available.
So yes, poke fun at those people who (in your opinion) bought some overpriced hardware, but when I got a *very nice* Vaio laptop, the C1XD PictureBook (you can look it up if you like), you would have been astounded at the number of subsystems that weren't supported in Linux. Still, that machine never had anything but EXT2 partitions. Same with the IBM notebook before it.
So my iBook, at 1200 € might seem overpriced to you (at the time I added a few options, the same machine is about 950 now), however it *works*. It comes with most of the Unix stuff, it sleeps on demand, setting it up took all of five minutes, if I had to choose between it an the *same* machine running Linux (whatever the CPU), I'd pick Linux without a second thought, however Linux isn't there yet. A
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Made from the freshest electrons.
Benchmarks are useless, and this one doubly so. One great thing about the Mac is that it does lots of stuff OUTSIDE the processor. My 1.42Ghz PPC iBook is dog slow compared to new PCs, if all you're measuring is CPU speed, and it's video card is an embarrassing "mobility" chipset. Yet it's smooth and responsive even in the middle of a lengthy compile with multiple applications open and running.
Benchmarks measure the edges of the envelope where users rarely visit. If you're not doing serious number crunching or running last week's must-have video game, you don't need to worry about benchmarks. It's like worrying about the top speed of an Italian Sports car, when you're never going to drive it faster than 100 Kph. In other words, if you're content with the size of your penis you can safely ignore benchmarks.
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