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New MacBook Pro 6,1 on Geekbench!!

Rocketman said:
I think the primary differentiating factor between a Geekbenched MacPro and a Geekbenched iPad will be Apple specific optimizatons in the silicon we have yet to have even a basic understanding of. GB has several different tests all combined to a final figure, so that gives my prediction a leg up since there will be heavy emphasis on video decoding capacity.

Finally I have a card in my pocket for practical speed. The MacPro (and iMac) I referenced use moderately slow busses and HD's. The iPad uses flash which in effect is a RAMDISC, and despite the low CPU Ghz, it will have a speedy bus.

In any case my prediction is on the record. My overall results are pretty damn good.

Rocketman

how they interact with disc.
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I'm not sure how the 2006 and 2007 Mac Pro's have bus speed disadvantage when they have a 1333MHz FSB which is higher than the CPU clock speed of the Apple A4 which is only 1GHz. I don't think video decode ability is very good as a pure performance measure. All that matters for video decode is that there are no dropped frames for high-bandwidth h.264 video which should be the case for a 4 core 2006 Mac Pro or 8 core 2007 Mac Pro even without the dedicated h.264 decode hardware that the Apple A4 presumably has. If you are measuring CPU usage or power consumption on video decode than the Apple A4 would be superior.

Video encoding would be more interesting, but there's no info yet on whether the Apple A4 has dedicate video encoding hardware and with what limitations. Similarly, I haven't seen comparisons on the efficiencies of ARM's new NEON SIMD instruction set compared to up to SSSE3 that 2006 and 2007 Mac Pros support. Even with dedicated video encode hardware, it's hard to see the Apple A4 come even close to the performance of an 8 core 2007 Mac Pro.
 
niuniu said:
Not sure about that, but my early 07 has an X1600.. which is still playing new games smoothly in low to medium settings 3 years on. Not bad for a low end card.
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The first and second generation MacBook Pros hat ATI x1600s (Early 2006/Late 2006 models), every MBP after that (starting with the Mid-2007 "Santa Rosa"-Refresh) had some sort of nVidia chip (8600M, 9600M and/or the integrated 9400M).

BTW: The x1600 wasn't a fast card even back in 2006 and it certainly isn't now. They're about as fast as an integrated 9400M. The fact that you can run games on it doesn't mean that you want to... ;)
 
sth said:
The first and second generation MacBook Pros hat ATI x1600s (Early 2006/Late 2006 models), every MBP after that (starting with the Mid-2007 "Santa Rosa"-Refresh) had some sort of nVidia chip (8600M, 9600M and/or the integrated 9400M).

BTW: The x1600 wasn't a fast card even back in 2006 and it certainly isn't now. They're about as fast as an integrated 9400M. The fact that you can run games on it doesn't mean that you want to... ;)
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Actually, when the X1600 was first introduced in the MacBook Pro it was the latest and greatest mid-range mobile GPU. The Mobility X1600 was announced in December 2005 I believe, and Apple announced the first Intel Mac just a few weeks later in January 2006. Apple's mobile GPU selection are generally pretty much the best mid-range GPU available, when a MacBook Pro refresh is announced. The problem is that Apple usually keeps using a GPU for the subsequent refresh as well by which time the GPU is pretty outdated. This was the case for the X1600, 8600M GT, and now 9600M GT. But I guess Apple might be limited by their lower order volumes compared to say Dell or HP, so Apple is forced to use the same GPU longer to achieve the volumes needed to get better discount pricing.
 
Z1NX said:
I think he means because there's usually only 2 versions for each screen size (eg. 2.26 and 2.55) so your guess which includes 4 different versions of the 15" is a bit wrong!
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Are there not 3 atm for the 15"?
 
hardikkk said:
A+

i7 620m not major update for 2009 line....
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Anyone who thinks that there will be quad cores in the MBPs is a complete moron. You can quote me on that.

If all the money and time Apple put into batteries for their laptops doesn't tell you they hold battery life above performance, well, you're just not paying attention. They have had lots of options and chances to increase performance, and they haven't taken any of them even though the price premiums haven't been that large, instead they opt in favor of better battery life.

More on Optimus from Xbitlabs - its set to launch Feb 9, maybe we see MBPs Wednesday? One of the things mentioned is a reference to having two different drivers (Intel+Nvidia) in Windows 7, which seems to imply that it will work just fine when combined with Intel's Arrandale GPU (on W7 at least, presumably Apple can do the same thing in 10.6). I had heard a lot of OEM griping about making sure the Intel GPU in the Arrandale was switchable because they didn't believe in Intel's ability to create a quality GPU.

absolutely wrong !
Current C2D's tdp is 25W ....
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True, but only technically true. The 35W TDP rating for the Core i7/i5 chips includes the Intel Integrated GPU. The 25W rating for the CPU for the Core 2 Duo chips did not include a GPU.
 
sth said:
The first and second generation MacBook Pros hat ATI x1600s (Early 2006/Late 2006 models), every MBP after that (starting with the Mid-2007 "Santa Rosa"-Refresh) had some sort of nVidia chip (8600M, 9600M and/or the integrated 9400M).

BTW: The x1600 wasn't a fast card even back in 2006 and it certainly isn't now. They're about as fast as an integrated 9400M. The fact that you can run games on it doesn't mean that you want to... ;)
Click to expand...

Oh, well I seem to want to run games on my gf's 9400M.. It's a great card. I think a lot of guy spend too many hours reading specs and benchmarks and get lost in them. The reality is even mid range cards are excellent gaming cards, beyond the needs of most gamers. My Ati X1600 has served me well, in fact I loved it when I first got the machine, I didn't expect it to make games look so great.
 
My reasonable dream MBP based on this rumor:


15" antiglare 1920x1200 IPS display (hah, it'd be a miracle)
Core i7 620 @ 2.76ghz, boost to 3.33ghz
4GB DDR3
ATI 5830 GPU




If we don't get a reasonable res bump on the 15" i guess I'll buy the 17". 1440x900 is way too low.
 
Z1NX said:
I think he means because there's usually only 2 versions for each screen size (eg. 2.26 and 2.55) so your guess which includes 4 different versions of the 15" is a bit wrong!
Click to expand...

Spandexman said:
Are there not 3 atm for the 15"?
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Currently, there are four configurations:

$1700 - 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated, 256MB DDR3

$2000 - 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated + 9600M GT Discrete, 256MB DDR3

$2300 - 2.80GHz Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated + 9600M GT Discrete, 512MB DDR3

$2600 - 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated + 9600M GT Discrete, 512MB DDR3
 
Z1NX said:
Yeah, true say, but there's also only 1 for the 17" which balances it out. So, overall there are still only 6 versions.
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And two for the 17".

$2500 - 2.80GHz Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated + 9600M GT Discrete, 512MB DDR3

$2800 - 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Integrated + 9600M GT Discrete, 512MB DDR3
 
Z1NX said:
Yeah, true say, but there's also only 1 for the 17" which balances it out. So, overall there are still only 6 versions.
Click to expand...

Well, you can BTO a higher speed processor in the 17", so that could count as 2 versions. Not that it matters, he still had too many options. I'm just arguing for the sake of it really, bad day, sorry.
 
niuniu said:
Oh, well I seem to want to run games on my gf's 9400M.. It's a great card.
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The 9400M is a great card, given that it's a low-power integrated chipset. It took Intel two years to match it's performance with their IGPs.

niuniu said:
I think a lot of guy spend too many hours reading specs and benchmarks and get lost in them.
Click to expand...
I don't read spec-sheets, I actually own a MBP with a X1600. ;)

niuniu said:
The reality is even mid range cards are excellent gaming cards, beyond the needs of most gamers.
Click to expand...
Depends... While most first-person-shooters built on modern engines like UE3 are basically a no-go, it actually does run WoW quite nicely (at very low settings). ;)

Basically: Everything that doesn't need loads of raw graphics performance runs quite well since the CPU power of these "old" MBPs is more than sufficient even for most modern games.


Anyway, it's time for an upgrade.
 
Sorry for the silly (for some) questions and my level of English. Will the new Arrandale processors benefit programs like parallels or VM ware fusion?

A real quad-core processor definately improves multitasking. A dual-core with hyperthreading does improve multitasking or it only improves performance in multithreaded applications?
 
andreaseto said:
Sorry for the silly (for some) questions and my level of English. Will the new Arrandale processors benefit programs like parallels or VM ware fusion?

A real quad-core processor definately improves multitasking. A dual-core with hyperthreading does improve multitasking or it only improves performance in multithreaded applications?
Click to expand...

Good question. I'd like to know that as well.
 
tungah said:
Good question. I'd like to know that as well.
Click to expand...

Yes, it definitely does help. The more raw speed and processing power, the merrier.

You can expect to see improvements up to 25% based on the current top of the line MBP (from C2D to i7), once the guys at Parallels and VMWare get their acts together and released updates to take advantage of the new processors (which they usually are really fast at doing).

Also, the amount of RAM and the number of cores that you allocate to the VM dictates the speed at which they run.

The new Intel processors have specific instructions built-in to get more speed out of virtual machines.

So basically you need really good hardware and specially a little bit of fine-tunning your VM to achieved a decent amount of speed, without compromising the speed and stability of the host OS (in this case OS X).

Hope that helps
 
VMware employees have stated on the VMware community forums that they are working to bring the speed of their products in-line with those of their competitors. Everyone should see improvements in the next version of VMware Fusion, and hopefully there will be optimizations specifically geared towards the new processors as well.
 
Picho said:
Yes, it definitely does help. The more raw speed and processing power, the merrier.

You can expect to see improvements up to 25% based on the current top of the line MBP (from C2D to i7), once the guys at Parallels and VMWare get their acts together and released updates to take advantage of the new processors (which they usually are really fast at doing).

Also, the amount of RAM and the number of cores that you allocate to the VM dictates the speed at which they run.

The new Intel processors have specific instructions built-in to get more speed out of virtual machines.

So basically you need really good hardware and specially a little bit of fine-tunning your VM to achieved a decent amount of speed, without compromising the speed and stability of the host OS (in this case OS X).

Hope that helps
Click to expand...

Yes it helps. I want to upgrade from my mid 2007 MBP (Merom 2,4Ghz) and I have multitasking and Parallels 5 in mind! Thank you!
 
SirOmega said:
Anyone who thinks that there will be quad cores in the MBPs is a complete moron. You can quote me on that.

If all the money and time Apple put into batteries for their laptops doesn't tell you they hold battery life above performance, well, you're just not paying attention. They have had lots of options and chances to increase performance, and they haven't taken any of them even though the price premiums haven't been that large, instead they opt in favor of better battery life.

More on Optimus from Xbitlabs - its set to launch Feb 9, maybe we see MBPs Wednesday? One of the things mentioned is a reference to having two different drivers (Intel+Nvidia) in Windows 7, which seems to imply that it will work just fine when combined with Intel's Arrandale GPU (on W7 at least, presumably Apple can do the same thing in 10.6). I had heard a lot of OEM griping about making sure the Intel GPU in the Arrandale was switchable because they didn't believe in Intel's ability to create a quality GPU.


True, but only technically true. The 35W TDP rating for the Core i7/i5 chips includes the Intel Integrated GPU. The 25W rating for the CPU for the Core 2 Duo chips did not include a GPU.
Click to expand...

The chips have been able to switch between IGP and discrete for a while but Snow Leopard doesn't support it- crazy really. very un-Apple. Hopefully they will sort in this next update. Especially seeing as though the IGP in these chips is a bit controversial.
 
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