ABOUT BENCH FORUMS PODCAST LOGIN REGISTER
PC Components▼
Smartphones & tablets▼
Systems▼
ENTERPRISE & IT
GUIDES▼
DEALS

The MacBook Pro Review (13 & 15-inch): 2011 Brings Sandy Bridge

 by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on March 10, 2011 4:17 PM EST
198 Comments | Add A Comment
198 Comments

6Gbps Performance

I installed the Intel SSD 510 in a 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro as well as a 15-inch 2010 MacBook Pro to put together a 3Gbps vs. 6Gbps performance comparison. I turned to Xbench for some quick and dirty performance data:

SATA Performance—XBench 1.3
Intel SSD 510 250GB 3Gbps (2010 15-inch MBP) 6Gbps (2011 15-inch MBP) 6Gbps Advantage
4KB Sequential Write 157.8 MB/s 192.2 MB/s +21.8%
256KB Sequential Write 182.0 MB/s 257.1 MB/s +41.3%
4KB Sequential Read 32.5 MB/s 32.7 MB/s 0.0%
256KB Sequential Read 197.3 MB/s 315.6 MB/s +60.0%
4KB Random Write 47.8 MB/s 49.0 MB/s +2.5%
256KB Random Write 186.4 MB/s 260.9 MB/s +40.0%
4KB Random Read 14.5 MB/s 13.4 MB/s -7.6%
256KB Random Read 149.7 MB/s 207.3 MB/s +38.5%

As you'd expect, there's no real benefit to the new 6Gbps interface for random operations (particularly at low queue depths). Sequential speeds are much improved however. Xbench shows up to a 60% increase in performance in sequential operations.

You'll note that the absolute numbers are pretty low to begin with. A 128KB sequential read of the Intel SSD 510 on our desktop Sandy Bridge SSD testbed pulls nearly 400MB/s. On the new MacBook Pro we can't get more than 320MB/s.

Our sequential Iometer tests are run at a queue depth of 1 so there's no advantage there. The only explanation I can come up with (assuming Xbench's test is accurate) is that Apple may be aggressively implementing SATA controller power management under OS X. Capping the link's performance or aggressively putting it to sleep could reduce performance at the benefit of increasing battery life.

The other thing I noticed was that performance on the 13-inch MBP using Xbench was a bit lower than the 15-inch MBP. Take a look at these numbers:

SATA Performance—XBench 1.3
Intel SSD 510 250GB 13-inch 2011 MBP 15-inch 2011 MBP
4KB Sequential Write 155.3 MB/s 192.2 MB/s
256KB Sequential Write 184.8 MB/s 257.1 MB/s
4KB Sequential Read 30.4 MB/s 32.7 MB/s
256KB Sequential Read 201.8 MB/s 315.6 MB/s
4KB Random Write 49.6 MB/s 49.0 MB/s
256KB Random Write 183.9 MB/s 260.9 MB/s
4KB Random Read 13.9 MB/s 13.4 MB/s
256KB Random Read 144.9 MB/s 207.3 MB/s

I only noticed this with the Intel SSD 510, the Crucial RealSSD C300 and Vertex 3 both performed identically between the 13 and 15-inch MBPs. I'm not sure what's going on here at all, although I suspect that it's somehow related to the issues users have been having with some of these drives (more on this below).

SSD Recommendations

Where does all of this discussion about SSDs leave us? Unfortunately recommending an SSD for the new MacBook Pro today is pretty difficult but I'll try my best.

If you're the conservative type and just wants something that for sure works with little to no concern about absolute performance, the Apple SSDs are probably the safest bet. You'll get a drive that's much faster than a hard drive, fully supported by Apple and with TRIM support. Yes, that's right, OS X finally has TRIM support but Apple only enables it on it's own branded SSDs. To Apple's credit, given the number of problems I've seen with SSDs over the past couple of years it makes sense to lock down and only support drives you've validated. On the flip side however, Apple should be validating and working with controller makers to ensure all drives work under OS X. Making as much money as Apple does, I don't buy the "we didn't have the time/resources" argument.

If you are going down the Apple SSD path, at least the 128GB drive isn't super ridiculously priced, although I'm less comfortable recommending the 256GB version unless you can get it at $500.

Now if you want to get a faster SSD or actually take advantage of the 6Gbps interface, things get more complicated. I've heard reports of users having issues with the Intel SSD 510 and Crucial RealSSD C300. I've tested both drives as well as the OCZ Vertex 3 in three different MacBook Pros, and in all cases the drives worked perfectly. They were all detected as 6Gbps drives and all performed well. I should note that while I couldn't get the Vertex 3 Pro to work in the 2010 MacBook Pro, the Vertex 3 worked just fine in the 2011 MacBook Pro.

SATA Performance—XBench 1.3
13-inch 2011 MBP Crucial C300 256GB Intel SSD 510 250GB OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
4KB Sequential Write 239.0 MB/s 155.3 MB/s 319.9 MB/s
256KB Sequential Write 217.2 MB/s 184.8 MB/s 257.8 MB/s
4KB Sequential Read 35.1 MB/s 30.4 MB/s 33.3 MB/s
256KB Sequential Read 248.3 MB/s 201.8 MB/s 311.8 MB/s
4KB Random Write 175.0 MB/s 49.6 MB/s 247.8 MB/s
256KB Random Write 226.6 MB/s 183.9 MB/s 290.0 MB/s
4KB Random Read 19.1 MB/s 13.9 MB/s 21.1 MB/s
256KB Random Read 239.0 MB/s 144.9 MB/s 304.0 MB/s

SATA Performance—XBench 1.3
15-inch 2011 MBP Crucial C300 256GB Intel SSD 510 250GB OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
4KB Sequential Write 239.3 MB/s 192.2 MB/s 316.5 MB/s
256KB Sequential Write 218.8 MB/s 257.1 MB/s 282.0 MB/s
4KB Sequential Read 34.8 MB/s 32.7 MB/s 34.2 MB/s
256KB Sequential Read 245.1 MB/s 315.6 MB/s 306.7 MB/s
4KB Random Write 160.5 MB/s 49.0 MB/s 240.5 MB/s
256KB Random Write 227.5 MB/s 260.9 MB/s 311.3 MB/s
4KB Random Read 18.7 MB/s 13.4 MB/s 20.9 MB/s
256KB Random Read 238.2 MB/s 207.3 MB/s 303 MB/s

The Vertex 3 is the fastest drive out of the aforementioned three, but its availability and firmware maturity are both unknowns at this point. If you have to buy today and are ok with the chance that the drive may not work (given other experiences online, although I haven't seen problems), Intel's SSD 510 is likely a good runner up (at least for the 15-inch, the C300 seems to perform better on the 13).

As far as the reports of incompatibilities with these drives are concerned, I'm not really sure what's going on. I've been hammering on all of the drives, putting the system to sleep/waking it up, and haven't encountered any failures or high latency IO operations (stuttering) yet. That's not to say that these problems won't appear over time (I'm currently doing long term testing to figure that out now), but just that I haven't seen them yet.

If you are having issues with the Intel SSD 510, Crucial RealSSD C300 or anything else please email me (link at the top of the page) the following information:

1) What are the full specs of your MBP? Any upgrades?

2) Tell me about your SSD. Is it new out of box? Have you done anything to the drive? What model, firmware revision, etc...

3) Describe the symptoms of the issue—beachballs, data corruption, etc...? What do you have to do create the issue?

4) Is the drive detected as a 6Gbps drive or a 3Gbps drive?

5) Take me through your drive installation procedure, did you just pop it in, partition and install OS X?

6) Any visible damage to the SATA flex cable when you installed the drive?

7) Have you tried exchanging the SSD or MBP? Any difference in behavior?

We haven't seen any issues on three different 2011 models that we've been testing here extensively with the Intel SSD 510, Crucial RealSSD C300, OCZ Vertex 3 and OCZ Vertex 2. I realize a number of you are having issues so the more details I can get the better.

Apple's SSD Strategy The GPU Comparison
PRINT THIS ARTICLE
Comments Locked

198 Comments

View All Comments

  • zhill - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    Good article. I was thinking about your issue with the high cpu utilization, and could it simply be a reporting issue? Could the cpu performance counters or OSX be reporting QuickSync as part of the cpu rather than the GPU? This would certainly be strange and not accurate, but given that intel seems to list QuickSync and HD3000 separately, maybe the reporting stats aren't accurate. Presumably this would be an issue in both Windows and OSX, but at the driver level there could be differences. Just a thought.

    Have you, or anyone else, noticed heat issues with the MBP lid closed versus open? Aren't the vent ports along the back next to the hinge such that when open they can vent, but when closed airflow could be inhibited?

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    I thought about that too, but there seems to be a genuine increase in thermal output from the CPU - higher than I'd expect from idle cores and the quick sync engine active.

    I haven't personally noticed any heat issues with the lid open vs. closed, seems to behave similarly (although now that you mention it I feel like open I do get temperatures a couple of degrees cooler than when it's closed - that could just be psychological though as the comparison is completely unscientific).

    Take care,
    Anand

  • Omid.M - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    Anand,

    So do the 15-17" MBPs have hardware acceleration support for Flash? I didn't see that explicitly in the review; sorry if I missed it, but I tweeted you asking for this.

    The last MBP update, Anand said the 13" he could highly recommend, but the 15" got way too hot under load.

    This update, Anand said the 13" he could highly recommend, but the 15" gets way too hot under load.

    Hmm. (not insinuating anything, Anand and crew)

    I find that odd. But, maybe it's a good thing: I'm not comfortable buying an MBP until Apple build TRIM support for 3rd party SSDs into OSX. I would not want the Apple SSDs.

    My early 2008 MBP is still running fine, although I'm tempted by the QC models. Maybe waiting until Ivy Bridge, in hopes of a cooler laptop, will be enough time to see if Apple brings TRIM for after-market SSDs.

    I'm disappointed, but I guess this review saved me some money until next year.

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    Sorry I think I missed your tweet! I measured around 40 - 60% CPU utilization of a single core when viewing a 1080p HD video in YouTube on the new 15-inch MBP (same CPU usage for both the iGPU and dGPU).

    The frame rate was perfectly smooth, but it's unclear to me how much lifting is being done by the GPU here.

    Last year's 15 was pretty warm, but this year's model definitely didn't take a step back in that department - transistor count nearly doubled after all!

    The move to 22nm should bring about marginal updates to architecture so I'm hoping for lower power consumption at similar performance levels.

    Take care,
    Anand

  • Omid.M - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    Anand,

    You mentioned in the last MBP refresh/review that the 13" showed support for TRIM in OSX (evidenced in System Profiler, I believe).

    You also said in this refresh/review that Apple supports TRIM for its own SSDs only.

    To my knowledge, the last MBP generation had the SSD option for both 13" and 15-17" models, meaning the same SSD was offered across all models.

    If TRIM is only supported for Apple SSDs, why did we see an evidence of TRIM in last year's 13" model but no evidence for the 15/17, assuming the same SSD was offered across the entire line and assuming the version of OSX shipped with the last models was the same across the line?

    Was that due to different chipset drivers because the 13" had the Core 2 Duo/Nvidia combo, and the older 15/17 had Core i5/i7 (thus, newer chipset) ?

    Does it make sense what I'm asking?

  • tno - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    Apple ships different versions (small tweaks) of OSX with different laptops, and there is the key. If you recall, the field in System Profiler was populated indicating that at some level the chipset (Nvidia sourced) supported the instruction, but SSDs that supported the instruction did not.

    So you're correct, Nvidia chipset driver supported TRIM, but the OS did not implement the instruction. The Core i5/i7 integrated chipset driver had no support for TRIM.

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3762/apples-13inch-m...

  • name99 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    "I saw a number of different MCS (modulation coding scheme) values with the 2011 MBP in the exact same place. Link rates from just below 300 Mbps all the way up to the expected 450. It seems to settle out at the expected 450 Mbps in the same room as the AP, it just takes a while, whereas other 2x2 stacks I've seen always lock onto 300 Mbps and stay there in the same room and position."

    Is the state of the art any better than this?
    The reason I ask is that the simple WiFi problem (1x1 antenna, what is the best modulation + puncturing I should use for this SINR?) is well understood.
    But once MIMO enters the picture there are so many more options available --- for example: should we try to use all receive antennas for different streams, and run those three streams at "robust" modulation, or should we transmit a single "fragile" (64-QAM, 5/6) stream, and rely on receive diversity to be able to detect it without error? If we send a "fragile" stream, should we use the transmit antennas to perform beam shaping to target more power at the target?

    As I understand it, optimal methods for handling the juggling between all the different types of diversity available in the MIMO space still do not really exist (if anyone has a reference stating otherwise, please provide it).
    If this is the case, it would not surprise if, on either the base station end, the laptop end, or both, you have a huge amount of bouncing around between different possibilities (of course with 3x3:3 the space is larger than with 2x2:2 or 2x3:2) because what is being used to make the choices are simply heuristics, not engineered algorithms, and the heuristics are extremely sensitive to the slightest changes in the SINR covariance matrix).

  • Brian Klug - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    I haven't really played around enough with other 3x3 WiFi stacks enough to say for certain. I agree with you that a lot of this is it making some decisions based on whether to prioritize connection robustness or throughput rate. At close ranges, it certainly selects MCS that gives most throughput, but I'm still shocked to not see more 450 Mbps when in the exact same room as the AP.

    Moving away, you'll quickly fall back to single stream rates (but obviously still get MIMO range extension). You're exactly right that everyone has their own heuristics for how to do this based on SINR. I still haven't figured out how to actually grab SINR out on here, all I can see for the moment is just RSSI. Completely agreed though.

    -Brian

  • MrCromulent - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    Once again a very detailed, comprehensive and yet easy to understand article!

    I'd like to inquire once more about the C300: In the initial test, the C300 was criticized for poor garbage collection. Now it's considered an option for Apple notebooks. Has the GC been improved by Marvell in the last few firmware updates?

  • Griswold - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link

    Interesting revenue information right at the start. Apple went from a computer- to a music&player- to a phone company. :P
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.
BENCH
TOPICS
FOLLOW
ABOUT

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now