Question about Macbook CPU

My partner is going to be getting my current mac (4GB RAM and a 2.4 Penryn chip) and I'm gettng one of the new MBP 13" with the 2.26 chips in it tomorrow (will upgrade to 4GB of RAM by getting some aftermarket stuff). From the numbers I've looked at, it appears as though the 2.26 is about as fast as the 2.4 - is this accurate?

Have to admit that I'm kind of glad her Dell M1210 is crapping out so I can 'justify' getting myself one of the new MBPs

 

You're glad your partner's Dell m1210 is crapping out so you can justify getting yourself MBPs? How does that work?

Anyways.. if you're doing basic work such as word processing and web browsing, A 0.25Ghz processor will be just as fast as the fastest processor on a Macbook Pro when doing those simple tasks. Even a $250 netbook will be as fast as those high end Macbook Pros for word processing. So yes.. there's not much difference between the slowest processor and the fastest processor if all you're doing is word processing and internet.

Simply put, these days, processors are too fast for what most people need.

 

Don't listen to him. Your dell I believe has an 800MHz FSB, whereas the macbook is 1066MHz. It will be roughly the same, if not a little faster.
@jackluo, maybe he wants to do a little gaming on the side? There are many applications that would benefit from a 2.26GHz processor rather than a 0.25GHz as you put it. Processors are definitely not too fast "these days".

 

I was referring to running basic tasks such as web browsing and word processing. Processors are definetly too fast for these simple tasks.

He he wants to do a little gaming, then that's a different story. 0.25Ghz CPU won't be able to run your games well. A 2.26Ghz processor will definetly do it well. Games will probably be limited by the weak IGP or the graphic card in Macbook/pro compared to today's standards.

 

I've been supporting it for a while, and since it came out of warranty it's been causing nothing but problems. It finally dying means I can retire her Dell, give her my 'old' macbook and get a new pro (I like gadgets )

I'm expecting that it will be fine for most of my needs; I rip and encode a lot, and there just isn't a bench putting the two processors head to head that I've found. I'm fine with them being roughly equivalent at encoding, I just don't want thing to take much longer.

 

LOL.. giving your partner all your unwanted electronics?

Anyways... the fastest and slowest processors in a macbook has only about 25% performance difference So if you're encoding videos, the fastest processor from macbook pro line will finish the job about 25% FASTER.

If you frequently encode video, I'd suggest getting a quadcore desktop or laptop which can or will be up to/more than 100% faster than the Macbook you want to buy.

E.g. I got a quadcore desktop with 4GB of ram, 750GB hdd for $350~USD. The cheapest quadcore laptop cost around $1800 from your local bestbuy.

 

Definitely! Been happening that way for years! *grin*

I travel all the time, so a desktop is of incredibly little value - need to be relatively light, portable, and easy to use on a plane. Anything more than 13" is just too big. It's mostly just encoding stuff for my Touch, so getting a full quadcore desktop seems like a bit of overkill.

Thanks for the comments - I appreciate them!

 

Oh, if that's the case, I'd suggest you get a copy of windows, then install CUDA enabled encoding software. It use the nvidia gpu to encode videos through CUDA API. It can convert videos several times faster than a quadcore desktop computer.

 

I got to agree with the guy above, even in gaming the game is most likely limited by the gpu, so a 2.26 won't play a game much better than a 3.06 if they both use the 9600.

BTW dude the 2.26 is slower.
2.40(P8600) 1066FSB, 3 l2, 25w (your current mac)
2.26(P8400) 1066FSB, 3 l2, 25w (newest mac)
Both are Penryn-3M. Or are you talking about your dell's processor, even with an 800MHz FSB, cpus are rarely limited by their FSB I doubt it would be faster. Not that it would matter the .14Ghz is trivial. So I guess the 2.26 is just about as fast, tiny bit slower tho.

 

The 2.4 macbook is faster than the new 2.26. End of story.

Really encoding vids isn't really that intense. Core 2's are pretty powerful now a days.

Intense would be rendering, whether that be 3D or video.

 

Current Proc is @ 2.4 with DDR 2, not DDR 3. Uses 35W. (It's a T8300).

The one in the MBP 13" is @ 2.25 with 1066FSB, and uses 25W. It's a T8400. My bad on just calling it a Penrym - thought that the newer procs that matched with DDR3 were part of a new name group.

I assume there isn't much of a difference between them; I was just hoping to find some benches that would confirm this.

 

The 2 different laptops should perform about the same in benchmarks.

 

About the same only because 2.26 is very close to 2.4, but at the end of the day the 2.4 IS faster.

DDR3 is nothing but a drop in the bucket when it comes to performance. Processor speed/architecture is #1, then Ram.