Apple released updated MacBook Pros yesterday. Unlike the MacBook update last month, this update is somewhat more substantial, adding major improvements like Intel’s Santa Rosa chipset and new displays. As always, I thought it’d be interesting to compare the performance of the latest generation MacBook Pros against the previous generation of MacBook Pros using Geekbench 2.
Setup
Here’s the configuration of the four MacBook Pros used in this performance comparison:
- MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
- Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz
- 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.9 (Build 8Q1058)
- MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
- Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.20GHz
- 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.9 (Build 8Q1058)
- MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo)
- Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz
- 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.9 (Build 8P2137)
- MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo)
- Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz
- 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.9 (Build 8P2137)
Correction: There was an error in the system configuration for two of the MacBook Pro laptops; both have 2GB of RAM (like the other two laptops) instead of 1GB of RAM as originally specified. This has been corrected.
I’m reporting the baseline score, rather than the raw score, for each benchmark (where a score of 1000 is the score a Power Mac G5 1.6GHz would receive). Higher is better.
Results
Overall Performance
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz |
3236 | |
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.20GHz |
2996 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz | 3017 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz | 2854 |
Integer Performance
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz |
2816 | |
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.20GHz |
2554 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz | 2663 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz | 2503 |
Floating Point Performance
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz |
4513 | |
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.20GHz |
4136 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz | 4313 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz | 4043 |
Memory Performance
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz |
2387 | |
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.20GHz |
2321 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz | 2096 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz | 2031 |
Stream Performance
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz |
1938 | |
| MacBook Pro (Mid 2007) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.20GHz |
1907 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz | 1568 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz | 1574 |
Conclusions
While the scores for the integer and floating point benchmarks didn’t increase that much (both scaled linearly with processor frequency), the scores for the memory and stream benchmarks did increase by 10 to 20 percent, thanks to the new Santa Rosa chipset and its faster front-side bus. If you’re running memory-intensive applications (like, say, Photoshop) you’ll certainly see a boost in performance with the new MacBook Pros.
Plus, once you throw in all of the new features (like LED-backlit displays in the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and higher-resolution displays in the 17-inch MacBook Pro), Apple’s latest update to the MacBook Pro line is a very compelling update indeed.