File Decompression, Photoshop and Quicktime Performance

Using MacPAR Deluxe we took an 800MB archive and deleted 5% of it, forcing MacPAR to read the archive, calculate and write the missing bits, then extract the whole archive:

File Decompression

Once more the slightly lower clocked Penryn MacBook Pro manages close to a 5% lead over the 2.6GHz Merom system.

Our CS3 benchmark is the standard Retouch Artists test that we use in our CPU reviews. We're just timing how long it takes to complete a handful of operations on an image in Photoshop:

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Retouch Artists Benchmark

Photoshop performance is nearly identical between the 2.5GHz Penryn and 2.6GHz Merom systems.

Finally we have our Quicktime H.264 encode test. All we're doing here is taking a 500MB MPEG-2 avi file and encoding it using Apple's H.264 codec and Quicktime's default settings:

Quicktime H.264 Encode

It looks like Quicktime isn't optimized for SSE4 yet as Penryn offers no advantage over Merom.

Overall, the performance differential ends up being a wash - there are some cases where Penryn is faster at lower clock speeds, while others where Merom manages a win - much as we expected.

Are They Any Faster? Quantifying Cache Sizes: 6MB vs. 3MB L2
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  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link

    You are correct, the base MacBook only has limited support for gestures on the trackpad. I've updated the article to reflect the correct information :)

    Take care,
    Anand

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