A Powerful Performer
In benchmark testing, the new MacBook Pro proved to a powerful performer, solidly in the top tier of its class across a variety of tests. Overall performance ranged from two to eight times as fast as the 1-Ghz G4 PowerBook reference platform, and in many of the tests it came in at roughly 50% as fast as the blazingly-fast high-end dual-3-Ghz processor Mac Pro desktop.
For instance, the MacBook Pro chewed through the MP3 rip/encode test in 5 minutes, 13 seconds as opposed to 7 minutes, 2 seconds for the PowerBook and 3 minutes, 13 seconds for the Mac Pro, while it came through the audio file format conversion test at 1 minute, 55 seconds, versus 9 minutes, 29 seconds for the G4 and 1 minute, 21 seconds for the Mac Pro.
Word processing, file loading, and scrolling tests came in at similar ratios, and the Photoshop filter tests showed the MacBook Pro coming in somewhat ahead of the G4, and about half the speed of the Mac Pro desktop. The obvious reason for the minimal performance gains over the older G4 in Photoshop is that Adobe's products aren't yet available in a Universal version (Intel-native) for Macs, so it ran under Apple's Rosetta enabler. When I put the MacBook Pro through the same tests under Windows XP SP2 using Apple's Boot Camp, speed more than doubled across the board, giving a preview of what can be expected when a Universal version of the Adobe suite is out.
Testing using Apple's Universal versions of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Aperture all showed the MacBook Pro to be a blazing mobile performer, handling just about anything I could throw at it at a speed that was consistently impressive for any laptop. Xbench benchmarks showed the MacBook Pro to be roughly three times as fast overall as our G4 reference platform, and 60% as fast as the Mac Pro, while tests using Cinebench 9.5 generally maintained similar ratios.
Conclusions
The list price for the MacBook Pro as tested (2.33-GHz, 2-Gbytes RAM, 160-Gbyte hard drive) is $2,599, certainly not by any means the cheapest laptop on the market -- but arguably one of the best values, if you need the power and capability this high-performer can offer. For an inexpensive, lightweight travel companion, the 13-inch MacBook (also using the Intel Core 2 Duo) or any of a number of ultra-portable Windows laptops may be worth a look. But for a true full-featured desktop replacement, you can't get much better than this.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
