MacBook Pro Performance (February 2008)

Yesterday Apple released updated MacBooks and MacBook Pros both of which feature (among other things) new processors. While I don't have Geekbench results for the new MacBooks, I wanted to compare Geekbench results for some of the new MacBook Pros against results for older MacBook Pros.

Setup

Here is the configuration of the test machines:

  • MacBook Pro (Early 2008)

    • Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50GHz
    • 2.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
    • Mac OS X 10.5.2 (Build 9C2018)
  • MacBook Pro (Early 2008)

    • Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.40GHz
    • 2.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
    • Mac OS X 10.5.2 (Build 9C2018)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)

    • Intel Core 2 Duo T7800 @ 2.60GHz
    • 2.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
    • Mac OS X 10.5.2 (Build 9C31)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)

    • Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 @ 2.40GHz
    • 2.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
    • Mac OS X 10.5.2 (Build 9C31)

If you’re not familiar with Geekbench 2, benchmarks are scored against a baseline, where a score of 1000 represents the performance of a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz. Higher is better.

Results

Overall Performance

MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50GHz
3228
 
MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.40GHz
3047
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7800 @ 2.60GHz
3245
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 @ 2.40GHz
3107
 

Integer Performance

MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50GHz
2727
 
MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.40GHz
2631
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7800 @ 2.60GHz
2887
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 @ 2.40GHz
2693
 

Floating Point Performance

MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50GHz
4579
 
MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.40GHz
4278
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7800 @ 2.60GHz
4459
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 @ 2.40GHz
4380
 

Memory Performance

MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50GHz
2412
 
MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.40GHz
2279
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7800 @ 2.60GHz
2387
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 @ 2.40GHz
2253
 

Stream Performance

MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50GHz
1889
 
MacBook Pro (Early 2008)
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 @ 2.40GHz
1739
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7800 @ 2.60GHz
1971
 
MacBook Pro (Mid 2007)
Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 @ 2.40GHz
1818
 

Conclusions

At first glance the results seems counter-intuitive; shouldn't the new MacBook Pro @ 2.4GHz be faster than the old MacBook Pro @ 2.4GHz? Isn't the Penryn better than the Merom? It turns out the answer is, "not necessarily".

The processor in the new MacBook Pro @ 2.4GHz (T8300) has less L2 cache than processor in the old MacBook Pro @ 2.4GHz (T7700) which explains the slight drop in performance.

However, when you consider the new MacBook Pro 2.4GHz is the base model, while the old MacBook Pro 2.4GHz was the mid-range model, the small drop in performance comes with a significant reduction in price. Plus, the new Penryn processor uses less energy than the old Merom processor, which means a cooler laptop with increased battery life.


 
John Poole is the founder of Primate Labs and lives in Toronto, Ontario with his wife Deborah. You can find John on Twitter or .