New Quad Core Macbook Pro seems "not so fast"?

[slieu92]

i've noticed that too moving from a 2007 imac to the same mbp. i posted a thread on it and people said that (in my case) final cut express can't use all 4 cores.

 

[some idiot]

Since I do need a considerable amount of space on my hard drive, and I don't have $500 - $1000 to spend on an SSD, I think I will do the only reasonably priced solution. Get a good sized 7200 RPM drive, for under $100. Thanks everyone for the input, and wealth of information. I think under my circumstances this will be the best solution for me right now.

You may wish to consider something like the Seagate Momentus XT, which has a SSD cache on it to speed up some of your most commonly used programs and boot times without the added cost of a full SSD drive.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momen...=UTF8&coliid=ITY5U07VVORL&colid=3A9XWEODRJNF0

I've heard some very mixed reviews on it, though.

 

[lazerbrains]

The Seagate Momentus XT looks interesting thanks for the tip.

However, I am checking in once again, as I am beginning to think something is wrong with my MacBook. I have been experiencing further slow downs, and excruciatingly slow launch time on applications. Even Safari and Mail are slow, and they are made by Apple. I will launch Safari and watch the icon bounce 15 to 20 times before it stops, and then have to wait another 10 seconds or so for the window to appear. Same with Mail. Starting other non Apple Apps is really slow. I am not sure what to do. I recently bought this machine (Quad Core 2 GHz Early 2011 MacBook Pro to replace my 2009 Dual Core 2.8 GHz MacBook pro) The older 2009 Macbook Pro outperforms this one by a long shot! I did buy this as a refurb. It originally had Snow Leopard, and I immediately upgraded to Lion. Should ii have done a Clean Install instead? Should I contact Apple, or are there test I can run on it first? (I already ran Rember, didn't find any problems)

Please help!

 

[angelfire54]

The Seagate Momentus XT looks interesting thanks for the tip.

However, I am checking in once again, as I am beginning to think something is wrong with my MacBook. I have been experiencing further slow downs, and excruciatingly slow launch time on applications. Even Safari and Mail are slow, and they are made by Apple. I will launch Safari and watch the icon bounce 15 to 20 times before it stops, and then have to wait another 10 seconds or so for the window to appear. Same with Mail. Starting other non Apple Apps is really slow. I am not sure what to do. I recently bought this machine (Quad Core 2 GHz Early 2011 MacBook Pro to replace my 2009 Dual Core 2.8 GHz MacBook pro) The older 2009 Macbook Pro outperforms this one by a long shot! I did buy this as a refurb. It originally had Snow Leopard, and I immediately upgraded to Lion. Should ii have done a Clean Install instead? Should I contact Apple, or are there test I can run on it first? (I already ran Rember, didn't find any problems)

Please help!

If it takes 15-20 bounce before Safari opens, then there's something wrong with your Laptop. I have the same Laptop like yours and it only takes 1-2 icon bounce before it opens.

 

[miker2209]

Try doing a clean install, i had a problem opening apps as well when i downgrade my 2010 13' from Lion.

 

[lazerbrains]

Try doing a clean install, i had a problem opening apps as well when i downgrade my 2010 13' from Lion.

Actually, I upgraded to Lion, and am having the stalling. Even if I open a video in Quicktime, it get the beach ball for 20 seconds before it starts playing. I see the beach ball A LOT!

Are you saying you got the slow launching after downgrading back to Snow Leopard from Lion?

I didn't know you could do that without a clean install of Snow Leopard?

 

[Tonewheel]

To the first part of your post, CPUs have multiple cores, some programs are coded in such a way to take advantage of multiple cores, some are not. If you see 50% of the CPU being used in Activity monitor that means that a program is only using two of the four cores that your computer has. It is not that your Mac is slower or not as powerful, it is that the program is not coded in such a way to take advantage of the quad core CPU.

To the second part of your post, yes, it is tremendously noticeable. Take a look at this to see the real world benefits of a SSD.

Much faster, to be sure.

However, for a difference of 40 seconds, I'm not going to spend the ridiculous amount of money charged for an SSD. I'll wait 40 seconds, and frankly, this doesn't affect ANYONE'S real-world productivity. Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to swap out my current drives for SSD when prices come down from outer space.

 

[miker2209]

Actually, I upgraded to Lion, and am having the stalling. Even if I open a video in Quicktime, it get the beach ball for 20 seconds before it starts playing. I see the beach ball A LOT!

Are you saying you got the slow launching after downgrading back to Snow Leopard from Lion?

I didn't know you could do that without a clean install of Snow Leopard?

I think what you're having is just a software issue, i went from SL to Lion via upgrade and then did a downgrade from there and it gave me a few problems like everything would quit unexpectedly and beach balls once awhile. Especially in your case where the 2011 models supposed to have Lion on them not SL, mines a 2010 model.

 

[lazerbrains]

I think what you're having is just a software issue, i went from SL to Lion via upgrade and then did a downgrade from there and it gave me a few problems like everything would quit unexpectedly and beach balls once awhile. Especially in your case where the 2011 models supposed to have Lion on them not SL, mines a 2010 model.

Actually, the 2011 models came out in February, months before Lion was even out. Mine came with Snow Leopard on it. But as I said before, I immediately upgraded to Lion. Mine was a refurb, so Lion came with it, but wasn't pre installed. So I didn't run the machine long enough to know if this problem persisted in Snow Leopard. But I didn't do a clean install, I did an upgrade from Snow Leopard. I am wondering if that had something to do with it? Also you say you did a downgrade to Snow Leopard from Lion? How did you do that?

Are there any tests I can run on this machine to diagnose what the problem might be?

 

[zaxdude]

Actually, the 2011 models came out in February, months before Lion was even out. Mine came with Snow Leopard on it. But as I said before, I immediately upgraded to Lion. Mine was a refurb, so Lion came with it, but wasn't pre installed. So I didn't run the machine long enough to know if this problem persisted in Snow Leopard. But I didn't do a clean install, I did an upgrade from Snow Leopard. I am wondering if that had something to do with it? Also you say you did a downgrade to Snow Leopard from Lion? How did you do that?

Are there any tests I can run on this machine to diagnose what the problem might be?

I can't point to them now, but I have read other reports of noticeable slowness when "upgrading" from Snow Leopard to Lion. This was before I bought my MBP. When I bought mine, I on purpose did a completely clean install of Lion. I haven't experienced any slowness at all.

I also remember reading that many mentioned to not restore data automatically from any backups. It's a pain to do stuff manually I know.

Just some thoughts.... I think I read the info on the apple forums actually.

 

[newdeal]

...

I bet your hard drive is failing. I had random beachballing issues due to a bad drive, replaced it and everything was fine

 

[miker2209]

Actually, the 2011 models came out in February, months before Lion was even out. Mine came with Snow Leopard on it. But as I said before, I immediately upgraded to Lion. Mine was a refurb, so Lion came with it, but wasn't pre installed. So I didn't run the machine long enough to know if this problem persisted in Snow Leopard. But I didn't do a clean install, I did an upgrade from Snow Leopard. I am wondering if that had something to do with it? Also you say you did a downgrade to Snow Leopard from Lion? How did you do that?

Are there any tests I can run on this machine to diagnose what the problem might be?

I used the Mac OS CD that came with my MBP. I think at this point since nothing else worked u should just try a clean install and see what happens. Better than taking it to Apple atleast.

 

[adrian1480]

Simply put, you're not running programs that warranted the CPU upgrade. If you're not running professional apps on a regular basis (AutoCAD, Maya, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc.), gaming, or encoding/transcoding videos or music, you don't need a quad-core CPU.

You don't.

If your computer usage consists of some mixture of: (1) office applications, (2) web browsing, (3) listening to music, (4) watching videos, every computer released after 2009 is overkill for your needs. Simply put an SSD into your older Mac and perhaps a memory upgrade and be amazed at just how capable an older computer can be. It will *fly* with an SSD.

This is just as true for OS X as it is for Windows PCs. Most people buying new computers really just need an SSD.

 

[lazerbrains]

Simply put, you're not running programs that warranted the CPU upgrade. If you're not running professional apps on a regular basis (AutoCAD, Maya, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc.), gaming, or encoding/transcoding videos or music, you don't need a quad-core CPU.

You don't.

If your computer usage consists of some mixture of: (1) office applications, (2) web browsing, (3) listening to music, (4) watching videos, every computer released after 2009 is overkill for your needs. Simply put an SSD into your older Mac and perhaps a memory upgrade and be amazed at just how capable an older computer can be. It will *fly* with an SSD.

This is just as true for OS X as it is for Windows PCs. Most people buying new computers really just need an SSD.

Yes, I know this. I work as a Multi Media developer, and I do use AutoCAD, Maya, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc. everyday, thus the reason why I upgraded. However this upgrade seems like a downgrade, and that is the reason for this post.

 

[lazerbrains]

Now that you mention it, it is the simple everyday tasks that seem slow. Launching a program, loading a web page. Checking my email. But rendering video, or heavy processing task seem totally fine.

Looks like I might be down to the last resort. Maybe I will have to try the clean install and see if that helps.

 

[escogido]

The Seagate Momentus XT looks interesting thanks for the tip.

However, I am checking in once again, as I am beginning to think something is wrong with my MacBook. I have been experiencing further slow downs, and excruciatingly slow launch time on applications. Even Safari and Mail are slow, and they are made by Apple. I will launch Safari and watch the icon bounce 15 to 20 times before it stops, and then have to wait another 10 seconds or so for the window to appear. Same with Mail. Starting other non Apple Apps is really slow. I am not sure what to do. I recently bought this machine (Quad Core 2 GHz Early 2011 MacBook Pro to replace my 2009 Dual Core 2.8 GHz MacBook pro) The older 2009 Macbook Pro outperforms this one by a long shot! I did buy this as a refurb. It originally had Snow Leopard, and I immediately upgraded to Lion. Should ii have done a Clean Install instead? Should I contact Apple, or are there test I can run on it first? (I already ran Rember, didn't find any problems)

Please help!

There's def something wrong with your MBP. I clicked several icons at the same time, safari, mail, ical, itunes - everything opened within 1-3 bounces.

 

[thekev]

I am doing a lot of Motion Design using After Effects, Flash, Final Cut Pro, and even some 3D. I was using a 13 inch Macbook Pro at work for a bit, and I was Maxing out that processor regularly. It was showing 90% usage on the CPU in Activity monitor very regularly. I am just surprised doing the same things with this newer 15 inch Quad Core, aren't showing any significant power increase, and the CPUs are sitting idle a lot. Seems like they should be working harder, and things should be rendering quicker.

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I have not. Is it that noticable?

Everyone seems to suggest an SSD as the answer to everything. It makes me laugh. The guys saying that are clueless whether they realize it or not. Ok it helps with really super general stuff, and your hard drive sounds like it might be one bottleneck, but why do you have only 4GB of ram when you're running AE, FCP, Motion, etc? Check activity monitor. Look at the stats on ram and paging statistics. For the adobe products check what it's doing in terms of scratch file sizes. Are the documents being stored on the internal hard drive or an external?

Anyway as a complete answer, going to 8GB of ram is the cheapest possible upgrade if you're hitting the scratch disks or the system is paging out. It's cheap as hell from third parties ($50-60 to double your ram) and it's pointless getting an SSD with sub par ram. The ssd just allows the system to page faster. If you're still seeing a lot of scratch disk use, or page outs in activity monitor, it would help significantly. Keep your boot drive as clean as possible. If you're dealing with a nearly full SSD, you won't see the speed advantage from it. If you have a copy of disk warrior, use it. It'll help keep things from hanging when it has to look at the disk.

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Yes, I know this. I work as a Multi Media developer, and I do use AutoCAD, Maya, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc. everyday, thus the reason why I upgraded. However this upgrade seems like a downgrade, and that is the reason for this post.

See I feel your pain here. Check out my advice. If you're on recent versions of these programs, they're all 64 bit programs at this point. If you're experiencing a lot of disk page outs it will compromise cpu cycle use. Things always run smoother when they're held in ram. I just think many of these guys are giving you suggestions without ever having used the kind of programs you use. Maya or Mudbox on a laptop is brutal in my opinion, but identifying the primary bottleneck source should help.

 

[Prodo123]

I bet your hard drive is failing. I had random beachballing issues due to a bad drive, replaced it and everything was fine

Much faster, to be sure.

However, for a difference of 40 seconds, I'm not going to spend the ridiculous amount of money charged for an SSD. I'll wait 40 seconds, and frankly, this doesn't affect ANYONE'S real-world productivity. Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to swap out my current drives for SSD when prices come down from outer space.

You may wish to consider something like the Seagate Momentus XT, which has a SSD cache on it to speed up some of your most commonly used programs and boot times without the added cost of a full SSD drive.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momen...=UTF8&coliid=ITY5U07VVORL&colid=3A9XWEODRJNF0

I've heard some very mixed reviews on it, though.

Well, the main bottleneck in today's computers(not just laptops) is the hard drive. Upgrade to SSD and you will most certainly see a performance boost.

And you are not seeing CPU jump above 50, because you are not using enough CPU cycles to make it go over 50%. Try some CPU intensive programs, like write a multithreaded java program with infinite loops and you will most certainly see 100% utilization.

Have you used a computer with a solid state drive for more than a few days? It seems from your comment that you have not. A solid state drive is the most noticeable computer upgrade that you can make, it is something that you will notice every time you open a file or an application or start your computer.

To the first part of your post, CPUs have multiple cores, some programs are coded in such a way to take advantage of multiple cores, some are not. If you see 50% of the CPU being used in Activity monitor that means that a program is only using two of the four cores that your computer has. It is not that your Mac is slower or not as powerful, it is that the program is not coded in such a way to take advantage of the quad core CPU.

To the second part of your post, yes, it is tremendously noticeable. Take a look at this to see the real world benefits of a SSD.

The 7200 RPM hard drive would provide a small improvement, although most likely would not be noticeable in day to day tasks. Do you use the Superdrive in the computer? If you don't, you could get an optibay which would allow you to replace the Superdrive with your current hard drive and place the SSD in the hard drive spot. You could put your OS and applications on the SSD and any media or large projects on the hard drive, that way you get the best of both worlds. And you could get an external DVD burner for the cases where you do need the ability to use DVDs or CDs.

pffft

A nice 7200rpm drive (see > Scorpio Black) is probably the best bang for buck upgrade you can get at the moment. You can always swap out for an SSD when they get cheaper later.

Do a SSD in primary and move your current HDD to the optibay. Best solution for MBPs and make the most of it because I doubt the same thing will be available when they change the chassis at some point

You people are giving him misinformation and wrong suggestions.
Like I said before, SSDs only speed up read/write speeds. They DO NOT SPEED UP ENCODING TIMES! That's all CPU, and suggesting a SSD for such a problem is plain ridiculous.

I am doing a lot of Motion Design using After Effects, Flash, Final Cut Pro, and even some 3D. I was using a 13 inch Macbook Pro at work for a bit, and I was Maxing out that processor regularly. It was showing 90% usage on the CPU in Activity monitor very regularly. I am just surprised doing the same things with this newer 15 inch Quad Core, aren't showing any significant power increase, and the CPUs are sitting idle a lot. Seems like they should be working harder, and things should be rendering quicker.

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I have not. Is it that noticable?

Please download Big Buck Bunny in 1080p MKV. It's a free 10-minute movie short. Also download Handbrake. Open Big Buck Bunny in Handbrake, select Apple TV2 under presets. Start the conversion and tell us how long it takes for it to finish.
I feel like your computer is not using all 8 threads and 4 cores...

 

[thekev]

You people are giving him misinformation and wrong suggestions.
Like I said before, SSDs only speed up read/write speeds. They DO NOT SPEED UP ENCODING TIMES! That's all CPU, and suggesting a SSD for such a problem is plain ridiculous.

Finally someone computer literate found this thread!

 

[thekev]

To the first part of your post, CPUs have multiple cores, some programs are coded in such a way to take advantage of multiple cores, some are not. If you see 50% of the CPU being used in Activity monitor that means that a program is only using two of the four cores that your computer has. It is not that your Mac is slower or not as powerful, it is that the program is not coded in such a way to take advantage of the quad core CPU.

To the second part of your post, yes, it is tremendously noticeable. Take a look at this to see the real world benefits of a SSD.

I forgot to mention earlier if you're to link graphs, why not show how the ones on the same site that display how the more ram you put in the machine, the lower the SSD contribution becomes. The reason for this is that the nice pretty graphs are leveraged by leveraging disk paging against a faster drive. There's a bit more to it but not much. If they were running simulations which ran within available ram and required minimal disk activity, you'd see very little performance difference with the ssd.

 

[lazerbrains]

Please download Big Buck Bunny in 1080p MKV. It's a free 10-minute movie short. Also download Handbrake. Open Big Buck Bunny in Handbrake, select Apple TV2 under presets. Start the conversion and tell us how long it takes for it to finish.
I feel like your computer is not using all 8 threads and 4 cores...

Prodo123,

I did what you suggested and the encoded the big buck bunny video. It took only a minute to a minute and a half to encode, and all 8 threads, and 4 cores were active according to Activity Monitor. However the weird part is, HandBrake said the encode finished successfully, but when I check the file, it only encode the first minute and 59 seconds of the clip. The original was almost 10 minutes. Not sure what happened there.

But is does seem as though all eight cores do work when doing processor intensive tasks such as encoding video, but I was just using DVD Studio Pro, and was doing a "Build & Format" of a DVD. While it was building the Menus my CPUs were 92% idle, but if I tried to do anything else, like open Firefox, or Safari, it was excruciatingly slow. As if the system was bogged down, but accruing to activity monitor, my CPU graphs were nearly flat, and it was registering as 92% idle.

Also, much of the time the whole system is sluggish opening Programs or files, and even right clicking on a file to go to Get Info, or Open With will stall with the beach ball for 10 - 20 seconds (no exaggeration of time here).

I am really stumped, and need to figure this out. Do you or anyone else have any other input? Do you feel that this is a software issue, maybe with the OS itself? Or do you think this is definitely a hardware issue. If so, what do you think it is?

 

[Prodo123]

Prodo123,

I did what you suggested and the encoded the big buck bunny video. It took only a minute to a minute and a half to encode, and all 8 threads, and 4 cores were active according to Activity Monitor. However the weird part is, HandBrake said the encode finished successfully, but when I check the file, it only encode the first minute and 59 seconds of the clip. The original was almost 10 minutes. Not sure what happened there.

But is does seem as though all eight cores do work when doing processor intensive tasks such as encoding video, but I was just using DVD Studio Pro, and was doing a "Build & Format" of a DVD. While it was building the Menus my CPUs were 92% idle, but if I tried to do anything else, like open Firefox, or Safari, it was excruciatingly slow. As if the system was bogged down, but accruing to activity monitor, my CPU graphs were nearly flat, and it was registering as 92% idle.

Also, much of the time the whole system is sluggish opening Programs or files, and even right clicking on a file to go to Get Info, or Open With will stall with the beach ball for 10 - 20 seconds (no exaggeration of time here).

I am really stumped, and need to figure this out. Do you or anyone else have any other input? Do you feel that this is a software issue, maybe with the OS itself? Or do you think this is definitely a hardware issue. If so, what do you think it is?

According to that encode should take you 6 minutes and 7 seconds. Most likely an issue with the OS itself or the hardware, something deep down.
My theory is that your computer is recognizing one core (and its hyperthread) as all 4 cores, which should exactly explain the performance drop. As seen here and in your Geekbench score, your computer is getting exactly 1/4 of the horsepower that it should be getting.

Because one core is handling the workload of 4 cores, your multitasking abilities are greatly hindered. Also, because Handbrake is a multicore process, when it gave portions of the video to other cores, those portions were never processed, hence the encode fail.

You may have a burnt out processor with only one core surviving, which would require a full logic board replacement.

This is best left in the hands of the Genius Bar. Back up your computer (if it can handle it) and take it to an Apple Store. They'll probably give you a free replacement.
Good luck

 

[lazerbrains]

Ok. I am here to post back my results. I finally had the time to get my machine backed up and did an absolutely clean install of Lion. I repartitioned and reformatted the drive, installed Lion, and reinstalled all my apps, and moved all my files back over. (I didn't use any restore option to automatically move files, as I didn't want to recreate the problem.) After 2 days of using the machine, my report is. IT WORKED!!! My machine is running much better than before, I still get an occasional hang up when I launch and app or something, but nothing major. And I have a feeling it is because I have a 5400 RPM drive. But it seems to have fixed all the other problems I was having.

I would still like to see better performance, so I have decided to get the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB 7200 RPM SSD Hybrid hard drive that was suggested earlier. I am hoping this drive will boost the performance to a decent level. I would have gotten a straight SSD, but it's too rich for my blood right now, and I do work will media, and I can use all the space I can get.

Prodo123, I hear you have one of these drives. What has been your experience with it? Please let me know.

Thanks to everyone on this thread that attempted to help me out!! I appreciate the advice.

 

[yly3]

I want to reinstall Lion clean etc. Will I lose my Bootcamp partition ?

 

[miker2209]

Ok. I am here to post back my results. I finally had the time to get my machine backed up and did an absolutely clean install of Lion. I repartitioned and reformatted the drive, installed Lion, and reinstalled all my apps, and moved all my files back over. (I didn't use any restore option to automatically move files, as I didn't want to recreate the problem.) After 2 days of using the machine, my report is. IT WORKED!!! My machine is running much better than before, I still get an occasional hang up when I launch and app or something, but nothing major. And I have a feeling it is because I have a 5400 RPM drive. But it seems to have fixed all the other problems I was having.

I would still like to see better performance, so I have decided to get the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB 7200 RPM SSD Hybrid hard drive that was suggested earlier. I am hoping this drive will boost the performance to a decent level. I would have gotten a straight SSD, but it's too rich for my blood right now, and I do work will media, and I can use all the space I can get.

Prodo123, I hear you have one of these drives. What has been your experience with it? Please let me know.

Thanks to everyone on this thread that attempted to help me out!! I appreciate the advice.

Told ya now i think u should get a normal SSD don't get those hybrids. If you're worried about memory then u should do what everyone else is doing, HDD in optibay and buy a case for the DVD since i doubt u'll be needing it most of the time