Penryn MacBook Pros: Performance Comparable, Battery Life Greater

[MacRumors]

Anandtech posts a lengthy review of the new Penryn-based MacBook Pros. Their review provides some objective data on the new laptops, as compared to the previous generation.

As described before, the biggest change in the new MacBook Pros is the use of a 45-nm Penryn CPU as opposed to the older 65-nm Merom CPU. Despite some differences in L2 cache, Anandtech found benchmark performance to be neck and neck:

Overall, the performance differential ends up being a wash - there are some cases where Penryn is faster at lower clock speeds, while others where Merom manages a win - much as we expected.

One measurable advantage of the new processors, however, is an extension of battery life, with improvements ranging from 7-15% of its predecessor, with an absolute increase in battery life of 37-67 minutes in their web browsing test.

It looks like Penryn is good for a 7 - 15% increase in battery life over similarly configured Merom systems. The improvement alone isn't enough to warrant an upgrade but it's a nice improvement over the previous systems given that you get it at no additional cost. Ah, the beauty of innovation.

Article Link

[hasah]

was it really worth the wait?

[Spider.Jm]

Originally Posted by hasah

was it really worth the wait?

for a decently longer battery, I think so!

[profiteor]

More and more this feels like an update to smooth over Intel's Merom phaseout (it's not massively difficult to spin a modified motherboard and the old and new ones are fairly similar), and an all new design in the not-too-distant future (which does take longer). It really feels like the last-generation Powerbook G4 update.

[Tosser]

Originally Posted by Spider.Jm

for a decently longer battery, I think so!

Ah, yes. 7-15% percent is 17-36 minutes – assuming a batteri life of four hours. And who can honestly say they're getting 4 hours on a MBP pro? More realistically, you get 2-2,50 and with the latter, it's a mere 10-22 minutes.

Now, don't get me wrong, _any_ enhancement is great. But worth the wait?

Nah …

[matthewlesh]

YAY, This makes me less sad that i had to buy mine a month before this upgrade..

[abrooks]

Originally Posted by Tosser

Ah, yes. 7-15% percent is 17-36 minutes – assuming a batteri life of four hours. And who can honestly say they're getting 4 hours on a MBP pro? More realistically, you get 2-2,50 and with the latter, it's a mere 10-22 minutes.

Now, don't get me wrong, _any_ enhancement is great. But worth the wait?

Nah …

It shuts up the moaners for a month or so...

[MTrebbin]

I'm still happy with my 2.16 MBP

I have a xbench score of 136.15 hehe

[MrT8064]

so the 'real' point of the upgrade is multitouch

and they didnt even think to make the trackpad bigger!

[aswitcher]

This was an interim step for the MB/Ps.

Come June/July when we get the next Intel chips with possibly wimax, I think we will see a revolutionary jump not an evolutionary bump.

[abrooks]

Originally Posted by aswitcher

This was an interim step for the MB/Ps.

Come June/July when we get the next Intel chips with possibly wimax, I think we will see a revolutionary jump not an evolutionary bump.

Bingo! In fact I find it quite likely that Apple had no intention of pushing this update out but was forced to by Intel wishing to cut down production of Merom.

[Kilamite]

Originally Posted by Tosser

Ah, yes. 7-15% percent is 17-36 minutes – assuming a batteri life of four hours. And who can honestly say they're getting 4 hours on a MBP pro? More realistically, you get 2-2,50 and with the latter, it's a mere 10-22 minutes.

10-22 minutes? Hardly.

I can get up to 3 hours on my 6 month old MBP.

[porky]

correct me if i'm wrong, but on the 15" model, the videcard is still the same right? (Too bad they didn't put a faster inside, for that price. ) So should I buy the 15" old model at a discount price (1499€) or the new one for 1799€ ? I don't think i really need multitouch. Double tap is ofcourse easy, i use it on my pc laptop.

[garethlewis2]

Revolutionary jump. You've been on the happy pills again haven't you? It's a chipset upgrade.

Now here is a thought for you. What if Apple had released the current Penryn machines but in a case like the Air. Would you mark that as Revolutionary, or as I would see it, Evolutionary?

[sindrefj]

Originally Posted by porky

correct me if i'm wrong, but on the 15" model, the videcard is still the same right? (Too bad they didn't put a faster inside, for that price. ) So should I buy the 15" old model at a discount price (1499€) or the new one for 1799€ ? I don't think i really need multitouch. Double tap is ofcourse easy, i use it on my pc laptop.

The videocard is now 256-512MB. Previously 128-256.

[michaelsviews]

Originally Posted by aswitcher

This was an interim step for the MB/Ps.

Come June/July when we get the next Intel chips with possibly wimax, I think we will see a revolutionary jump not an evolutionary bump.

I took that into mind also with the new chip sets in the summer, but decided to get a new MBP now. Had one previously Kicked myself for letting it go and since the Apple store took care of trading in a macbook that was sealed in the box with no restocking fee but had to do something in the 14 day window I went for it and have not looked back, the new displays are something else though, really nice.

[Tosser]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

10-22 minutes? Hardly.

I can get up to 3 hours on my 6 month old MBP.

Hmm, it's obvious you don't tax your computer very much.

Even if I do find your time a bit optimistic, I realize mileages may vary. Hence I calculated it from 2,5 hours as well as 4.

But at three hours, you get 12,6 minutes if it's 7% increase (as opposed to 10 if you only get 2,5 hours now) , and if it's 15 percent, you get a "whopping" 27 minutes (as oppesed to 22, if you only get 2,5 hours now). So your "hardly 10-22 minutes" really is a funny and weird statement.

[DaveTheGrey]

What I'd really like to know is:
How hot is the Penryn MBP compared to the SR MBP and what is the idle fan speed?

Anyone?

Dave

[kaiwai]

Originally Posted by Dave187

What I'd really like to know is:
How hot is the Penryn MBP compared to the SR MBP and what is the idle fan speed?

Anyone?

Dave

Not too sure, all I know is that my MacBook (pre-SR) is very quite when idle.

[vanwas]

For what it's worth, I do have one of the newer MBP's, and I have used it for 4h 15m doing web browsing (not all at once mind you, and slept the computer in between) and the battery was still showing 21%. This computer is still under a week old, so the battery is really fresh, but it does seem to last a bit longer.

Also, while playing WOW I have noticed that the case doesn't get as hot as my SR 2.4 did (I returned it at 14 days old to get this one) and the fans aren't as loud. Sadly, I didn't have the widget installed to tell me temps and fan speeds when I was last able to play.

[akadmon]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Overall, the performance differential ends up being a wash - there are some cases where Penryn is faster at lower clock speeds, while others where Merom manages a win - much as we expected.

This is a misleading statement because:

1. The previous gen machine that was tested was fitted with a 7200 RPM hdd (as oppsed to 5400 rpm)
2. It had a 2.6 GHz processor (compared with 2.5 GHz).

At the same clock speed and with an identical hdd the previous generation MBPs are clearly slower than the new Penryn MBPs.

[VicMacs]

and you get the video card update...

but no remote?

[^squirrel^]

Originally Posted by aswitcher

This was an interim step for the MB/Ps.

Come June/July when we get the next Intel chips with possibly wimax, I think we will see a revolutionary jump not an evolutionary bump.

I think this statement is absolutely right! Come this June/July we'll see a completely new MBP. I purchased the MP to see me through until a redesign of the MBP. I will either add a MBP to my collection or if the MBP has better capacity i will sell the MP and just have the one Mac.

[MadDog31]

"Was it worth it?"

Of course it was, particularly if you've never had a Mac before. I think I jumped in right around the best time for me...I needed a new system and didn't want to wait at least another 5-6 months at least. It might not be worth it if I already had one, but for those that didn't, this is great.

I'm happy with the small performance updates. It's allowed me to join the Apple realm!

[NKA]

Originally Posted by akadmon

This is a misleading statement because:

1. The previous gen machine that was tested was fitted with a 7200 RPM hdd (as oppsed to 5400 rpm)
2. It had a 2.6 GHz processor (compared with 2.5 GHz).

At the same clock speed and with an identical hdd the previous generation MBPs are clearly slower than the new Penryn MBPs.

I agree, also one of the biggest gains in battery life will be in the 17" Hi-Res models with the new LED screens. It would be interesting to see a battery comparision between the 17" low res and the Hi res versions. According to the Apple the Hi-res LED screen gains an extra 30mins of battery life over the low res option and the last gen model. Add to that, the better brightness and yes the wait was worth it.

Neal