2011 MBP is either inefficient, or the iMac is overly efficient.

To test processing efficiency - speaking strictly of the CPU, I decided to compare my 2011 MBP against the 2010 i7 iMac, just to see what the real difference would be when pushed to the limit. I ran a 25 minute encode through Adobe Premiere Pro - 1080p, 24fps, AVCHD. The results were rather interesting.

First, CPU utilization. The MBP went to 100% utilization right after beginning and finished an hour later. The iMac never went past 65% utilization and finished 40 minutes later.

Second, heat. The MBP got to 85C easily. The iMac never went past 65C. I'm wondering if the increased space, or the general design of the iMac - where heat can rise out of the top and away from the machine instead of downward like the MBP - helps on that.

Question is why the MBP wants to use all cores to encode when the iMac doesn't, and why the MBP takes longer with more cores than the iMac with less. Curious outcome...not a negative, I'm actually intrigued by it.

simsaladimbamba said:

The i7 iMac has four cores and can have up to 8 threads.
The i7 2011 MBP has four cores and can have up to 8 threads.
The i7 iMac's CPU is faster than the i7 2011 MBP's CPU.

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Which is interesting, because under the same circumstances using Final Cut Pro, for example, the MBP will muscle it out faster than the iMac. FCP of course does not use all cores. So in other words, if the MBP is not being pushed, it ends up faster than the iMac. If the iMac is not being pushed, it ends up being faster than the MBP. Almost like running max cores actually slows it down, if that makes sense.

superericla said:

One good question is what macbook pro you're doing this testing with.

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2011 17" MacBook Pro 2.2. Which based on everything I read is actually supposed to be using a stronger CPU than Mac Pro, which I assume should be a stronger CPU than the iMac. Unless I misread the specs. That's why it was so intriguing.