The 13 - column inch MacBook unveil by Apple Tuesday outperformed the dissipated iBook G4 in all but one of our tests and also matched up well against a PowerBook with a 1.67GHz G4 processor , concord to Macworld science lab test .

We test two of the a la mode Intel - based laptop computer : a white MacBook with a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo crisp and a contraband - matte laptop power by a 2GHz dual - core group processor . These laptop computer supercede the G4 - based 12 - inch PowerBook as well as the total iBook line .

Those MacBook central processing unit speeds are the same 1 that originally appear in the MacBook Pro line . ( Apple boosted the clock speeds in its higher - conclusion laptop computer to 2GHz and 2.16GHz to co-occur with Tuesday ’s MacBook launch . ) So it ’s no surprise that the MacBooks held their own against the MacBook Pros on most processor - intensive tasks like Compressor , Photoshop , and Cinema 4D. The MacBooks also outstrip the G4 - based laptops in these test , with one elision — the Photoshop suite mental testing . Adobe Photoshop CS2 has yet to come along in a Universal Binary form , so it requires Apple ’s Rosetta emulation technology to draw on Intel - based computer hardware . That creates a performance dispatch as the chart below indicate .

MacBook Benchmarks

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Speedmark 4.5 scores are relative to those of a 1.25GHz Mac mini , which is assigned a score of 100 . Adobe Photoshop , Cinema 4D XL , iMovie , iTunes , and Zip Archive sexual conquest are in mo : seconds . All systems were running Mac OS X 10.4.6 with 1 GB of RAM , with processor performance set to Highest in the Energy Saver preference pane when applicable . The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 14 scripted task using a 50 MB file . Photoshop ’s memory was set to 70 percent and History was lay out to Minimum . We commemorate how long it take to render a scene in Cinema4D. We used Compressor to encode a 6minute:26second DV file using the videodisc : Fastest Encode 120 minutes – 4:3 mise en scene . In iMovie , we applied the of age picture impression to a 1 - minute movie . We converted 45 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes ’ High Quality setting . We used Unreal Tournament 2004 ’s Antalus Botmatch average - frame of reference - per - second score ; we test at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 picture element at the Maximum setting with both audio recording and graphics enable . We created a Zip archive in the Finder from a 1 GB leaflet . To liken Speedmark 4.5 scores for various Mac systems , visit our Apple Hardware Guide.—Macworld science lab testing by James Galbraith and Jerry Jung

Also worth observe is the MacBook ’s graphics system . These Modern portables use mix Intel graphics that divvy up the main memory , as fight down to the ATI Mobility Radeon graphics with dedicated storage found in the MacBook Pro models . you’re able to see the advantage of own dedicated graphics computer memory in our artificial Tournament test . The MacBook Pro tallies 63 frames per secondly , compare to a little less than 18 for the MacBook . The 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 tallied a score of 21.4 frames per second in that trial . So if you ’re a serious gamer , the MacBook is probably not the right system for you . Nevertheless , its functioning in other processor - intensive covering is telling , specially equate to the laptop it replace .

We ’ll keep examination , so check back for Macworld ’s full reassessment with update test results include more denotation systems and game scores .

[ James Galbraith is Macworld research laboratory director . ]