Switching from a Core Duo C.P.U. to the next - generation Core 2 Duo will yield a performance encouragement . Our benchmarks for the recent iMac and MacBook Pro update revealed as much . Like those two product line , the wildly popular MacBook laptop also got a processor upgrade to the Core 2 Duo ; however , clock speed remain unchanged from the previous installment of consumer portables . As a effect , the gain from this update were much more humble than what we ’ve seen from previous Core 2 Duo - power organization .
Last workweek ’s round of drinks of MacBook updates was highlighted by the substitution to the Core 2 Duo processor . Clock speeds remained the same — the MacBook ’s three configurations include a 1.83GHz organisation and two 2GHz role model available in black or white-hot cases . Those latter two organisation included other changes as well , most notably an increase in on - buffalo chip L2 stash to 4 megabyte from 2 mebibyte . Other advance to the 2GHz MacBooks admit higher - capability hard effort , a quicker DVD - burning SuperDrive and more installed memory .
The conclusion result of all these change ? The white 2GHz configuration turned out to be the fastest Core 2 Duo model , with a Speedmark 4.5 musical score of 178 . That ’s a 7 pct improvement on the overall system test retinue account turned in by the fast Core Duo MacBook . ( Interestingly , when we ran benchmarks on the Core Duo MacBooks back in May , it was the black 2GHz model that turned in the best Speedmark score . ) Though it managed to trim off seconds off of every task , standout results for the 2GHz MacBook Core 2 Duo include the 22 percent melioration in iTunes MP3 encryption , 21 percent addition in Photoshop examination and 19 per centum improvement on Compressor video encodes .
MacBook Core 2 Duo Benchmarks
Best event inbold . Reference system initalics .
How We Tested : Speedmark 4.5 scores are proportional to those of a 1.25GHz Mac mini , which is assigned a musical score of 100 . Adobe Photoshop , Cinema 4D XL , iMovie , iTunes , and Zip Archive lashings are in minutes : mo . All systems were head for the hills Mac OS X 10.4.8 with 1 GB of RAM , with central processing unit performance set to Highest in the Energy Saver preference pane when applicable . The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 14 scripted labor using a 50 megabyte file . Photoshop ’s memory was define to 70 per centum and History was set to Minimum . We enter how long it took to render a vista in Cinema4D. We used Compressor to encode a 6 - minute-26 - second DV file using the DVD : Fastest Encode 120 minutes – 4:3 setting . In iMovie , we apply the Aged video effect to a 1 - minute moving-picture show . We import one hundred jpegs into iPhoto from the system ’s internal hard drive . We converted 45 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality setting . We used Unreal Tournament 2004 ’s Antalus Botmatch modal - frames - per - second score ; we test at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels at the Maximum setting with both audio and graphics enable . We create a Zip archive in the Finder from a 1 GB folder . To equate Speedmark 4.5 scores for various Mac systems , visit our Apple Hardware Guide .—MACWORLD LAB TESTING BY JAMES GALBRAITH , BRIAN CHEN , AND JERRY JUNG
If you ’re an iBook or PowerBook drug user looking for a reason to upgrade , take a gander at the results from the last generation of PowerPC - based laptops . The new 2GHz white MacBook Pro was 35 percent faster in our Speedmark retinue than the 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 and 65 percent quicker than a 1.42GHz iBook G4 in those same tests . Even the humble - end Core 2 Duo MacBook beat out those G4s in nearly every exam , including Photoshop tests running under Rosetta .
Comparing the MacBook and the MacBook Pro theoretical account , you ’ll see that the higher price does purchase you more than just a couple of inches of sieve real estate of the realm and an expansion one-armed bandit . The dissipated processor and dedicated graphics card found in the 2.16GHz MacBook Pro serve that Core 2 Duo system beat out the loyal MacBook by 20 percent in Speedmark — a magnanimous part of that disparity can be attributed to the lustreless performance of the MacBook ’s integrated Intel art which shares memory with the system RAM . In Unreal Tournament , for illustration , the MacBook could display about 18 frames per second , compared to near 64 frame per 2d score of the lowly - end MacBook Pro .
One question remains from these solvent : With the two 2GHz MacBooks share so many specifications , why are their test number so different ? The two scheme were cervix and neck in the vast legal age of our trial , but just like the last clip we tested MacBooks , we found that elusive hard - drive difference can affect the final numbers . The white 2GHz MacBook uses a 80 GB Fujitsu thrust while the black MacBook uses a 120 GB Toshiba model . And while both spin at 5,400 rpm , we found the white ’s Fujitsu driving force help that system plow in 5.5 - pct quicker Zip Archive outcome and 10 - percent faster results in the iPhoto file import test .
We ’ll have a full follow-up of these Core 2 Duo MacBooks in short .
[ James Galbraith is Macworld Lab director . ]
