It's been mentioned before but you're experiencing a big difference in Hard Drive speeds between desktop and laptop hard drives. Today's top-of-the-line 320gb 7200rpm and 500gb 7200 rpm laptop hard drives are just approaching the performance of 7200rpm desktop hard drives (which is what your imac uses) 2 YEARS AGO lol. Drop an Intel X-25 in your MBP if you want desktop performance.
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does anyone notice there 2.93GHz 17" MBP not running as fast as it should?
- Thread starter stevieapollo
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omg. why didn't i think of that!! lol jk that is the first thing i did when i booted the machine up for the first time. i did not buy a macbook pro to save battery life. i bought it for the speed... major bummer!! i called apple i have been monitoring the cpu usage and its working way to hard then it should be. i think when i call back tomorrow i will be getting a replacement machine.
...My MBP is noticeable slower then my 2.8Ghz imac. this shouldn't be the case considering my macbook pro has a faster front side bus a faster processor and equal HD both @ 320GB 7200RPM...
...this sounds like a major expensive buzz kill...
How much RAM is in your iMac compared to the MBP?
With a 17" laptop, portability wasn't your biggest concern so why not get a faster iMac or Mac Pro (based on the $$ you spent on the MBP)?
lol im sorry but do you know what you are talking about???
the CPU is faster in the MBP (not by much, but enough), the RAM speed is faster, the GPU is better... they use basically the same components (i.e. all mobile components) - apart from the HD which will not make any difference unless you are copying large files..
omg. why didn't i think of that!! lol jk that is the first thing i did when i booted the machine up for the first time. i did not buy a macbook pro to save battery life. i bought it for the speed... major bummer!! i called apple i have been monitoring the cpu usage and its working way to hard then it should be. i think when i call back tomorrow i will be getting a replacement machine.
what the truck does that even mean>??? that doesnt make ANY sense... explain - what - you - mean please...
I already acknowledged that the processor was slightly faster but not by much. 2.8 to 2.93 is not a night and day difference given the same FSB/L2 Cache etc. Also DDR3's latency speed is actually inferior to DDR2 so speed is about the same give or take just more efficient...for now, GPU is better on paper but is significantly underclocked compared to the iMac's GPU and it's drivers aren't as mature
HDD speed makes a difference in both read/write speed i.e. you're not just going to notice a difference when copying large files. Pretty much every HDD action will be faster on the iMac.
CPU, RAM speed.. meh. difference is minimal i agree with you there..
but if you take a look at the GPU (either the 2.93GHz GT120 or the 3.06GHz GT130) they are both SLOWER then the older HD2600 pro.. and i am fairly certain that the MBP's 9600 will be much faster then the HD 2600..
the speed of those HDs are the same but (referring to RPM). its the other things such as the interface blaablaa that make the difference. of course a desktop HD will be faster then a laptop HD, im not sure of the real world difference though.. 45mbps (MBP) to 80mbps (imac) ??
Interesting you say that given that the GT120/130 cards are rebadged 9xxx series cards in other words, the GT120 is probably the 9500m and the 130 9600m
To be honest i don't know what it is that makes them faster but the interfaces should be the same (SATA II/1.5GBs) so i'd guess cache or that notebook drives spin in a more controlled fashion to control heat. I dunno. Real world difference would be a few seconds at most. Its noticeable because the HDD is usually the weakest component in a computer, as a result, the CPU/RAM are usually waiting for it to catch up
yes they are rebadged, when they came out somebody posted what they are. i am fairly certain that the that you are correct, and at a quick google it backs up that.
a review at pcworld.com of the new iMac compared to the old reveals that the GT's are indeed slower at some game benchmarks.
the MBP uses a 9800 (GT150??), which is clocked slower than normal - but the imac is similarly clocked down.. therefore im guessing that the MBP will win on GPU based benchmarks.
im guessing power, laptops need to be portable, have battery life etcetc. cache would most definetely make a major difference (8mb in 2.5' compared to 16mb in some 3.5').
tbh real world differences are so minimal it hardly even matters... yet we still see people paying $500 extra for a ~400MHz increase, wow....
The big difference is the programs you run. Photoshop which is basically a single core program , my new laptop beat my old MacPro 2.66 667 12gb of Ram and 10k drives which has 4 cores but Photoshop does NOT take advantage of the extra cores so my 2.93 1056 mhz 8gb SSD running in Raid 0 actually beats my old desktop and trounced my old 2.4 MBP 667 with 6gb of ram. Now for programs that Do take advantage of the cores my new laptop takes the back seat over the 4 core boxes. Capture One which is a lot like Aperture as a raw processing program is a more core hungry and will take advantage of the 4 cores I had in my desktop But as i was doing my testing with the laptop going from the single 7200 drive to a single SSD and than on to the Raid 0 SSD the performance kept increasing as well as going from 4gb, 6gb and than on to 8gb of Ram. So now with all that extra horsepower going into the laptop my times are pretty much just short of the old desktop. So a lot of speed also depends on the program and if it is core based or not. In my case when it can work on the 2 cores only I get better performance than the desktop but any program that can use 4 or 8 cores than I will take a back seat on the laptop. Now my only other option at this point is go Enterprise SSD instead of the 2 Intel XM 25 i have in here right now. But my issue is fighting more the cores than anything else when I run into programs that are core based. CS4 is not and with all this horsepower you can match or even beat a MacPro depending on configuration of course.
You have to have realistic goals with a MBP as well. Overall it will not beat a MacPro horsepower, you can get it pretty darn close but it also depends what programs you are using and any Adobe product will do well on a MBP. But jump outside that with a heavy core based program than you will be lagging behind.
You have to have realistic goals with a MBP as well. Overall it will not beat a MacPro horsepower, you can get it pretty darn close but it also depends what programs you are using and any Adobe product will do well on a MBP. But jump outside that with a heavy core based program than you will be lagging behind.
Funny you should say that Bare Feats shows a number of real-world tests which have the HD2600 being considerably slower than the GT120 and 130. The 9600 should be roughly comparable to those cards.
Bragging rights. However for some pros...every second counts hence any performance enhancement is welcome...however little
Regarding the 2.8GHz vs. 2.93GHz the clock increase speed is probably not felt in real world usages but if your referring to the mbp at least the 2.93GHz models can go up to 8GB of RAM.
Also, DDR3 latency speed is inferior to DDR2?? I dont think so. Could you show a link to a reputable article/website that shows and explains this?
Regarding the 2.8GHz vs. 2.93GHz the clock increase speed is probably not felt in real world usages but if your referring to the mbp at least the 2.93GHz models can go up to 8GB of RAM.
...which currently costs an arm and leg and then some.
The situation continues to be improved and isn't as bad as when DDR3 first launched (when i read the articles). Basically todays chips tend to hide/compensate for this issue well but its still there and therefore 1066MHz chips aren't all that better than DDR 667/800MHz.
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funny you should mention that also.. because the GT130 IS the 9600... unless im missing something here (mobility vs desktop maybe?)
it depends on the person i guess. i could never justify the cost of having the newest most expensive machine if it is only 3seconds faster at encoding etc. doesnt make sense to me.
Hear hear, its why i'm holding on tight to my MBP Classic. There's no justification for me to upgrade especially after seeing benchmarks
i guess i could use that excuse too, holding me back from upgrading my original CD MBP to a new one.. but alas the actual reason is im a poor uni student. haha.
even if you compare two MBP models ago to the current, the difference is still minimal in CPU efficiency. GPU is basically exactly the same (8600 = 9600 etc).. the only difference is RAM, latency wise (which you have demonstrated) isnt as reliable but performs much better in other tests..
so ideally, the only time when you should upgrade (IMO) is when you notice that your current machine is becoming too slow for you. i think thats a good time to get an upgrade.
i MOST certainly need an upgrade, but im poor.. haha.
probably a good idea that you are staying with your classic MBP, the difference is tiny - unless you want the 'new' look then there is really no need to upgrade. everything is the same basically except for the 'new' technology RAM and new exterior case.
I can see why a Core Duo user would want to upgrade. 64bit support, 45nm CPU, support for 4GB of RAM, LED screens etc. I'm an early 08 Core 2 Duo user on the other hand, which means i'm really not missing much at all. LED screen: check, support for 6GB of RAM: check, 45nm/64bit CPU: Check, Multi-touch trackpad: Check etc...so less incentive
yea its not just 'wants' for me to upgrade. its NEEDS. i literally am limited by this machine because it cannot do what i need from it. 2GB RAM is a massive limit, even the families 4GB RAM iMac with a 2.8GHz processor is WAY to underspeed for my needs.
i dont care for the LED display nor multitouch, im a power user
Just got the latest macworld, they reviewed the new 17" unibody and the speedmark test puts the 2.66ghz version at the performance of the previous 2.53ghz 15" MBP. Meanwhile, the 2.66ghz 15" takes the win by about 5%. Obviously both models using the 2.66 chip should be equal, there must be something wrong with the chipset..... which means your 2.93 chip is stuck with the problem as well. Really wish apple wasn't turning the laptop boards over to Nvidia, they have way too many problems. Anyone remember the fiasco with the first chipset "nforce" they put out? Corrupted hard drives because some timing issue was off... the mainboards needed a new feature put into the bios in order to delay the signal thus "correcting" the problem.