Early 2013 13" rMBP UI Performance

[vatter69]

Inspired by this thread i ran my own tests.

I'm now a registered Apple Developer (was needed to get the necessary tools - check the other thread linked above) and ran various tests.

This was all done on 10.8.2, using a Core i7 with 3.0 Ghz. Everything closed but Textwrangler, Quartz Debug and Safari, Webkit, Mail etc for the respective test.

Take note that to get an average i scrolled up and down a lot. The initial scroll down of a website or PDF was lower than the scores you see here.

Most surprising for me was to see that the "Best for Retina, 1280x800" wasn't giving me the best results but the 2nd highest scaled resolution, 1440x900. Logic dictates that this shouldn't be the case so i repeated the first tests to make sure I'm not running into some strange things.

Conclusion is obvious as in the other thread - there is lots of room for improvement to the render engines as the Webkit development shows a 50% or more improvement. I truly believe that the HD4000 is fast enough to drive that many pixels and with software updates to the necessary applications and libraries all the scrolling threads will become a thing of the past.

p.s. LOL@Microsofts render Engine in Office/Excel.

Anyways - here goes

NYTimes WebKit
1280x800 41 FPS
1440x900 58 FPS
1680x1050 55 FPS

NYTimes Safari
1280x800 34 FPS
1440x900 52 FPS
1680x1050 55 FPS

The Verge Webkit
1280x800 30 FPS
1440x900 50 FPS
1680x1050 48 FPS

The Verge Safari
1280x800 24 FPS
1440x900 34 FPS
1680x1050 28 FPS

Youtube Webkit - open a random Video stop it and scroll up and down
1280x800 20 FPS
1440x900 22 FPS
1680x1050 18 FPS

Youtube Safari
1280x800 18 FPS
1440x900 20 FPS
1680x1050 18 FPS

PDF
1280x800 52 FPS
1440x900 58 FPS
1680x1050 40 FPS

iTunes Cover Browsing
1280x800 35 FPS
1440x900 35 FPS
1680x1050 30 FPS

Mail Overviews
1280x800 40 FPS
1440x900 52 FPS
1680x1050 50 FPS

Mail Mail-Thread
1280x800 24 FPS
1440x900 30 FPS
1680x1050 24 FPS

Dock Scrolling
1280x800 30 FPS
1440x900 54 FPS
1680x1050 54 FPS

Excel (Office 365) - scrolling down an empty Workbook
1280x800 14 FPS
1440x900 18 FPS
1680x1050 16 FPS

 

[lankox]

The 1280x800 numbers have me puzzled? What resolution do you run day to day?

 

[vatter69]

Yea, me too. Makes no sense to me. Daily resolution is usually 1280x800 for web surfing/mail etc.

 

[DiscardedPacket]

Nice work. I think, yes it is evident from the safari webkit that software improvements can be made (especially office 2011) for retina to optimise the performance.

I dont think the solution is to throw more processing power at it (hawell) as I don't think it will be enough on its own to create the experience that users want when 100% mobile.