MacBook Pro Follow-up

It's been almost two weeks with the new MacBook Pro with the Core 2 Duo so I thought I'd post a brief follow-up to my first post. As of this writing I've not had any problems. I've had a chance to use a few apps that I'd not used at the time of the previous post. Specifically I want to mention QuickTime, VisualHub, and FileMaker Pro Advanced 8.5, all of which are Universal Binaries. The performance, when compared to the 1GHZ G4 PowerBook and the 1.6 GHZ G5 iMac is incredible. Viewing QuickTime files, including HD clips from Apple are a breeze for the MBP. The 12" PB won't play them without constant skips. The iMac plays them but pegs the processor and ramps up the fan to high speed. The MBP plays everything I've thrown at it effortlessly.

Converting DVDs to mp4s using H.264 encoding for playback via iTunes has also seen incredible improvement. Using the iMac to convert Video TS folders with Handbrake or VisualHub requires 9-12 hours for just 1 pass encoding. During that time the processor is pegged at 100% and the fans are running at high speed. The MBP does the same job in 2 hours with both processors at 60-80%. The fan does come on and seems to run at a low to medium speed. The laptop heats up a bit but never seems to get as hot as the 12" PB gets when I push it's processor. In fact, the performance of the MBP has me wondering if there might be something wrong with the G5 iMac!

Here's another comparison. Right now the 12" PB which I've hooked up to a tv and sound system for music and movies is downloading a video podcast. The only open application is iTunes and it's running at 50 - 75% with the fans on. When I watch that videocast or any QuickTime file the processor will run at 60 - 90% depending on the size, bitrate, and encoding of the file. The benefit of this is that my PB functions as a space heater in the winter. Compare that performance to the MBP which currently has the following apps open: Safari, Vienna, iChat, Mail, iCal, Remote Desktop, iTunes, Smultron, Preview, TextEdit, RapidWeaver, and QuickTime. Active tasks include playing a song in iTunes and typing this post. The processors are, combined, hovering at 15 - 40%. I have yet to hear the fans kick on today and the palm rests are only slightly warm to the touch. While Apple does a decent job of keeping new versions of OS X and the various applications functional on older processors it only makes sense that those processors will strain a bit more with each new versions features. A good example would be iTunes 7 and its integration of Cover Flow. Great visuals but there's no doubt it uses more processor and memory resources.

Something else I've noticed is performance at idle. The PB with one or two apps open but nothing actually being done will hover at 5 - 15% and is warm to the touch. The iMac which gets a bit more use by others in the house and may have 4-6 apps open hovers at 10-50% even with no apparent tasks being performed. On both of those Macs the fans kick on occasionally during these times of no/low usage. The MBP, were I to stop iTunes and stop typing drops to 10% or less and will remain cool to the touch with no fan coming on at all. Energy use is worth noting. Computers in use range from 40- 110+ watts of energy consumption. That may not seem like much but the cumulative effect of millions of computers contributes to carbon in our atmosphere and that means a contribution to climate change. Based on what I'm seeing with the MBP can't help but think that the overall energy usage of the Intel Macs must be much lower than the G4 and G5 generations.

After nearly 2 weeks with the MacBook Pro I'm a happy camper with not a single complaint.


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