“Apple quietly released new MacBooks last week which feature (among other things) the Santa Rosa chipset and, for some models, a slightly faster processor,” reports Primate Labs, developer of Geekbench, a cross-platform benchmark for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
“While the new MacBooks have only modest processor performance gains over the previous MacBooks, the Santa Rosa chipset helps the new MacBooks achieve much more impressive performance gains over the previous MacBooks; memory performance is up almost 15% while stream performance (which relies heavily on memory) is up almost 25%,” Primate Labs reports.
The comparison pits the following systems against each other:
MacBook (Mid 2007)
• Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.00GHz
• 1.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• Mac OS X 10.5 (Build 9A581)
MacBook (Late 2007)
• Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.20GHz
• 1.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• Mac OS X 10.5 (Build 9A3110)
Full article with benchmarks here.
OMG they are NOT significantly faster! At the most slightly faster, MDN can you just stop the overly exaggerated fanboism article titles. The are very misleading!
Mine comes in the mail in 2 days!!! I’m excited, its a nice upgrade over my CD Macbook. Not only for the processor, but for the better graphics and the new keyboard on em too!
I can’t upgrade my chipset, can I? Didn’t think so.
I didn’t know that 1 GB of ram was now 1.00 GB. I thought it was 1024 MB (1.02 GB). Maybe I’ve got it backwards.
@Grigori
It’s easy. All you gotta do is switch the motherboard.
1024MB is still 1.00GB, not 1.02GB.
What a strange coincidence.
My personal stream performance relies heavily on memory as well.
Curious. If I were to tell you your health insurance rates were to increase 25% (heck, how about only 15% as that happens to be the rough medical trend) would you still think that’s hardly worth noticing? I honestly hope so. Because I’ll never waste my time granting rate reductions for anyone ever again because 25% is a modest change and hardly worth noticing accordin to you.
1Gb = 1024 Mb
Meaning 1.024Gb = 1048.6Mb
Hi.
2 girls 1 cup….
I highly doubt any human being will be able to discern a difference in speed between one of these macbooks and a macbook from last month. When your computer’s CPU is already running at 2000MHz, adding another 200MHz does pretty much nothing.
@Loru
I also upgraded from a CD MacBook on the day they were released. The speed difference is AMAZING to me. I also upgraded to the max of 4GB of RAM. I actually had to slow the tracking speed down because the cursor was moving too fast….
I’d call that significant!
Also, the new graphics card is wonderful. I can play Halo with all the graphics parameters set to maximum and it plays smoothly.
Enjoy your when you get it. I am.
While a 10% to 25% boost in performance may not be noticeable, that much of a DROP in performance would hardly be ignored. Just because you can’t “see” it does not mean it isn’t there, isn’t important. What may be more important than the 10% boost in CPU speed is the 15% to 25% boost in over-all speed. This suggests that NO change in CPU speed would still amount to a 5% to 15% boost in system speed. Normally, system speed lags behind boosts in CPU speed.
BTW: if you are used to waiting ten minutes for a CD to rip in iTunes, wouldn’t you be glad to see it rip in only seven or eight minutes instead?
Dave
@DC
As to your MDN complaint, the original article states “Impressive Gains” and MDN’s headline states “Significant Gains”. It doesn’t seem like much of an exaggeration to me.
Real world comparison tests or it doesn´t count.
(For example, Test both using Photoshop to perform a task.)
Anything over 5% is considered statistically significant.
“Anything over 5% is considered statistically significant.”
You haven’t actually studies statistics, have you?
First of all, the numbers represented here are NOT statistics, they are abosolute measurements of one specific Mac compared to another specific Mac. Statistics measures groups of things, not individual things, and those things are usually people, or things that have some sort of life.
Secondly, there is no magical percentage at which numbers become “significant.” In statistics, “significant” merely means that there is an actual real difference, as opposed to a difference that does not go beyond the margin of error, and the margin of error depends entirely on the sample size. The smaller the sample size, the greater the margin of error. 5% means nothings without somekind of sample size reference. But that’s a moot point becuase this is NOT a statistic.
Significant?
What a HYPERBOLE!
I’m thinking that if something of mine were to increase by 15%, my girlfriend would notice pretty quick, and even quicker if it decreased.
HOLD IT, I’m talkin’ bout my income!
ok, that still doesn’t sound right…..
MW:sure
Anyone seen how the video performance compares?
This speed bump doesn’t matter.
Most people will not see a difference in performance.
The processor and GPU will be throttled down if the heat goes up in a laptop anyway.
Now with no heat restrictions, compare the tests of a PowerMac G5 Dual 2 processor at 105 overall score to a Dual Quad Intel Mac Pro at 150 overall score. (with similar hard drives, memory and graphic cards)
You would think with 6 more cores over a Dual 2 processor G5 that the MacPro would be a hell of a lot faster that a mere 45 points right?
Something like 300 points would be more like it, but that’s not happening.
Ever think why?
Can you say hobbled?
1GB = 1000MB
1GiB = 1024MiB
Or something like that…, it’s all very confusing
OMG?!?! How old are you? Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?