Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mid-Range 1.2 GHz Retina MacBook CPU Shows Nice Speed Boost Over Low-End Model
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It was a well-intended insider joke, dear friends. Macworld 2009, the Megahertz Myth?
It seems the community has become a bit more hostile, which I guess is inevitable with the growth and polarisation of user groups, which brings with it the need to defend one's truth.
Times change, the community changes, it's all good. Sorry to have upset you if I did, and enjoy your day and the wonders of technology!
I'm really no expert on geekbench reports, am I wrong in thinking that it's the same speed as an 2011 inch air, WHILST still powering 4x as many pixels?...
Or is it it's the same speed, BUT it has to power 4x as many pixels?
Or is it it's the same speed, BUT it has to power 4x as many pixels?
I decided to compare this to my current laptop which is a small 11in Lenovo x121e with 6GB ram, Samsung 840 evo 130 ssd, core i3 2367M processor and integrated graphics.
This laptop is good enough for browsing eg email youtube iPlayer even at HD. It drives my 1080p TV through HDMI perfectly well.
It starts quickly since I out the sata3 ssd in.
I don't edit movies but I do edit photos and it's fine using lightzone (not light room) and gimp. No issues at all.
When I look at the 32bit geekbench3 scores I can see it has single core approx 1150 and multi scores approx 2350.
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?utf8=✓&q=lenovo++3045CTO+2367m
That's much less than the retina macbook! Almost half the scores.
So this means I should notice an increase in performance?
This laptop is good enough for browsing eg email youtube iPlayer even at HD. It drives my 1080p TV through HDMI perfectly well.
It starts quickly since I out the sata3 ssd in.
I don't edit movies but I do edit photos and it's fine using lightzone (not light room) and gimp. No issues at all.
When I look at the 32bit geekbench3 scores I can see it has single core approx 1150 and multi scores approx 2350.
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/search?utf8=✓&q=lenovo++3045CTO+2367m
That's much less than the retina macbook! Almost half the scores.
So this means I should notice an increase in performance?
This has nothing to do with me being upset about the lack of performance (fyi i am not), which is probably just fine for the target audience. Heavy load doesn't necessarily mean Final Cut editing. E.g. Watching netflix for an hour and opening a few tabs in Chrome could generate enough load to throttle this thing a little bit, so it won't use its turbo states anymore. The Core M processor design is very sensitive to temperature.
Look at the Dota Test at http://anandtech.com/show/9117/analyzing-intel-core-m-performance and http://www.golem.de/news/core-m-5y70-im-test-vom-turbo-zur-vollbremsung-1411-110529.html (german, but look at the Luxmark Benchmarks at page 3) and http://www.golem.de/news/macbook-12-teurer-prozessor-kaum-schneller-1504-113366.html.
I think it is only fair to tell potential buyers that the BTO CPU Upgrade is probably not as fast in real life as the geekbench scores and the article suggests. If someone thinks the base model is too slow for his needs the CPU upgrade won't solve his problem.
Sure a boost can help for a short period of time. When the processor reaches its thermal limit before finishing the task then there is no benefit. Intel made several improvements to adjust processor speeds to match the given tasks, but it is still tricky. Sometimes it is faster to ran at a constant speed to finish a 5km run than to start like Usain Bolt and become very slow.
Last edited:
Apple will sooner make it thinner before giving it 18 hours of battery life
Apple's thing is "all-day battery life" which for their laptops is considered 12 hours or so. Whats the point of 18 hours of battery life when you have to charge it in the middle of the second day. Apple expects devices to be charged nightly. I can see a second USBc port, but I don't think they'll concede on the SD card slot (I was kicking myself for a while when I bought a Macbook in 2009 only for them to release a revised version two weeks later with an SD slot and more RAM).
A 14" screen would be cool. I love my 13" Macbook Air and its hard to imagine using a smaller screen, but perhaps with Retina the 12" would be fine. Either way I use my iPhone 6+ far more than my computer, so as long as the Air is alive, there will probably be another iPhone and Watch in my future before a new laptop.
Isn't it a TN panel with low resolution? Excuse me but that's quite the definition of crappy screen.
I know, it's a mac, and maybe you have one, but it's so bad that it's indefensible. I understand who buys the new Macbook because it will perform with no problem any common task and I'm sure the screen will be nice, as it's the macbook pro's. The macbook air, is embarrassing... The screen is the only thing you're consciously using all the time when you're using a computer, and also the only you'll notice so easily.
Most non-geek people will think the Macbook is incredible when they see it at the apple store, because it's beautiful, because it'll have great perceived quality and because the screen looks amazing, and you know what, they are right, because again, the first thing you notice when you use a macbook air is simply its awful screen, and that makes all the difference in the world for everyone.
Last edited:
I never said the architecture were the same, it was a joke indicated through the use of '
' 
Oh I think I can clearly afford Apple, it's not about affordability, it's about value for money. For the amount of money I could spend on Apple, I usually spend about half or less on a Windows product and get a lot more bang for my buck, same with Android.
Though there are Apple products that are good value for money, and when they are I buy them. When you buy the amount of tech I buy, you can't afford to be stupid.
You posted something that was nonsense, but might have confused people. I posted a correction. That's not hostile, that was necessary. A
or in your message would have helped.
There are people who buy because or their value for money ratios, whatever, and there are people who buy just because of quality, simply.
Value for money is a Casio G-Shock. Pure quality is ceramic Rolex Sub. You know what kind of person you are. I'm the one who's not mean and who cares more about making more money than about spending less money and fabricating excuses for that. So you can keep your lagdroid and windows and I'll keep my apple products, and happiness everywhere.
I wouldn't call it crap, but once you get used to the retina display of iPhones, iPads and MBPs you are really disappointed when you get back to the Air.
I'd say display is the only weak point of the MBA, a great product with an average display.
Still, is cheaper than the new Macbook and I agree with the guy who told this is the new plastic macbook: an entry level.
You posted something that was nonsense, but might have confused people. I posted a correction. That's not hostile, that was necessary. A
True!
There's a lot more to speed than just clock speed. My 2007 iMac is 2.4 GHz, but it scores 1377 and 2430 to this MacBook's 2593 and 5319. So despite my iMac's clock speed being twice as fast, it scores only half as much.
Having said that, I'm waiting for the new 15" MBP. Why go twice as fast when you can go 3 - 6 times as fast?
It is for people like me, who love the portability of their iPad air but hate the limits of iOS or 128 Gb. I will get one as a successor to my iPad. Finally I can work and read/browse/etc. at the same time on one very portable device.
And it can connect to whatever I want. Which my iPad can not.
Sure, two USB-C ports would have been a bit nicer, and 512 Gb max is somewhat mean. But I will get used to that.
In my country there is a say that goes: the more you spend, the less you spend.
Since I moved to Apple for laptops I've spent less money every year because they are expensive but I manage to keep them for a long time. And when I'm done with an Apple product I can still sell it for a good price.
So in general I don't label Apple products as 'expensive', but as you say I carefully look for a good value for the money I spend.
Having said that I find the new Macbook to be too expensive for the value it provides to me, hence I'm not going to buy it.
It is a cool laptop and I'm sure this is the future of laptops, but now it misses power and battery life to be my only Mac. So I'd rather stick with my iPad Air 2 for extreme portability and my MBA when I really need OS X.
If I needed a new laptop today I'd buy the MBP 13 with the new trackpad, great battery life and all the ports I still need. It is light enough and has a retina display, so today this is the best buy Mac in my opinion
Yeah, ok... you got me, too.
However, I thought it would be interesting to see how the 2 architectures actually compare...
https://cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1076&cmp[]=2382
^^ You have to copy and paste the whole URL. The bbcode doesn't like the use of square brackets.
Last edited:
Lagrdoid, that's funny coming from someone who probably thinks buying a 1.1ghz MacBook for $1500 is a good purchasing decision.
----------
Well at least you've got more sense than some on here.In my country there is a say that goes: the more you spend, the less you spend.
Since I moved to Apple for laptops I've spent less money every year because they are expensive but I manage to keep them for a long time. And when I'm done with an Apple product I can still sell it for a good price.
So in general I don't label Apple products as 'expensive', but as you say I carefully look for a good value for the money I spend.
Having said that I find the new Macbook to be too expensive for the value it provides to me, hence I'm not going to buy it.
It is a cool laptop and I'm sure this is the future of laptops, but now it misses power and battery life to be my only Mac. So I'd rather stick with my iPad Air 2 for extreme portability and my MBA when I really need OS X.
If I needed a new laptop today I'd buy the MBP 13 with the new trackpad, great battery life and all the ports I still need. It is light enough and has a retina display, so today this is the best buy Mac in my opinion
Lagrdoid, that's funny coming from someone who probably thinks buying a 1.1ghz MacBook for $1500 is a good purchasing decision.
----------
But why do you care about its architecture or clock frequency, in the end it's the user experience what matters. It makes no sense to compare it to other laptops since it has a proprietary OS
Surely you don't think the Air and new Macbook will coexist forever, do you?
This new Macbook exists to cannibalize the Air laptops.
Perhaps Mr. Cook and his people will still build new Air notebooks, at least through 2015, but you can believe that this new model exists to extinct the existing Airs.
I am sure the future Macbook Pros will get thinner and reengineered as well...that might be the model that has two USB-C ports, or a USB-C and a Thunderbolt 2 or 3.
That is probably why there were only mild bumps (Force Touch Trackpad in the 13", some CPU speed increase) in the Pros, there is a wait for the next chipsets and tech updates to accommodate what Apple wants to do with their next round of Pro notebooks.
This new Macbook exists to cannibalize the Air laptops.
Perhaps Mr. Cook and his people will still build new Air notebooks, at least through 2015, but you can believe that this new model exists to extinct the existing Airs.
I am sure the future Macbook Pros will get thinner and reengineered as well...that might be the model that has two USB-C ports, or a USB-C and a Thunderbolt 2 or 3.
That is probably why there were only mild bumps (Force Touch Trackpad in the 13", some CPU speed increase) in the Pros, there is a wait for the next chipsets and tech updates to accommodate what Apple wants to do with their next round of Pro notebooks.
Why does this article keep calling it the "Retina Macbook" when the name is just "Macbook". Have you not visited apple.com?
You don't call the iPhone 6 the Retina iPhone 6, right?
You don't call the iPhone 6 the Retina iPhone 6, right?