New MacBook Pro faster then old MacPro?

[clank72]

Trying to "down-size" my setup. I'm thinking of selling my Mid 2008 MacPro Dual 2.8 Quad-Core Xeon and getting the latest MBP 2.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 with a Solid State drive?.

Will the MBP out perform my big MacPro?

Programs I always have open
Photoshop CS6
Adobe Bridge
Itunes
Word
Skype
Safari
Firefox
Preview app.
I also edit in Adobe Premiere on occasion.

So far I have no complaints how my 2008 MacPro performs. I do have a 2009 MPB intel core 2 duo and it's slow as hell.

 

[bozz2006]

An SSD will make all disk-related activities happen basically instantly. So, for the most part, the new MBP will seem faster than the MP, except maybe when you're working in Premiere. But that has more to do with the SSD than the MBP. I don't think you'd be disappointed making that change.

 

[Xcallibur]

Check out these benchmarks: http://browse.geekbench.ca/mac-benchmark/

The Mac Pro (2008) is considered on par with the 15"/17" Macbook Pro (late 2011).

 

[clank72]

Wow, never seen that page before. Many thanks!

 

[bozz2006]

Take what you see on that page with a grain of salt. It's completely synthetic and definitely does not paint the whole picture on how a computer will perform.

 

[Xcallibur]

Take what you see on that page with a grain of salt. It's completely synthetic and definitely does not paint the whole picture on how a computer will perform.

Nope it doesn't, but it does give a good estimate of performance in CPU intensive serial processes.

 

[Ccrew]

The MBP with the SSD will seem faster, but the same SSD in the MacPro will fly. You have 4 more cores to work with on the MacPro. That said, other than Photoshop most of the other tasks could be performed and seem just as fast on a baseline MBA.

 

[Xcallibur]

You have 4 more cores to work with on the MacPro.

The MacPro has 4 cores.

 

[bozz2006]

The MacPro has 4 cores.

Nope, it has 8. Dual quad-core.

 

[theSeb]

The MacPro has 4 cores.

Each CPU has 4 cores. It has 2 CPUs.

2x4=8

 

[Xcallibur]

Nope, it has 8. Dual quad-core.

Each CPU has 4 cores. It has 2 CPUs.

2x4=8

I stand corrected.

 

[thekev]

Aside from Bridge and possibly Premiere, those applications scale horribly with core count. Because of this the newest macbook pro may feel a little zippier assuming you go with the quad core and load it with ram to the point where it touches the disk very little. This applies whether you use an ssd or not.