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- Posted in
- Laptops
- Mac
- Apple
- Intel
- MacBook Pro
- Sandy Bridge
Application Performance in Windows
by Vivek Gowri
In keeping with recent tradition, I'm in charge of evaluating the new MBP under our Windows notebook benchmark suite. Mostly, the MBP works very well as a PC, something I looked at last year with the old 13-inch MacBook Pro. I have the new base 13 in the labs, and I must say, the overall experience is pretty similar...unless you're gaming. But I'll get to that in a minute.
Unlike on the Air I was testing last time around, the Windows install went pretty smoothly thanks to the built-in optical drive. Unfortunately, that's probably going to be the last time I ever use it. And also unlike the Air, there's no problems with storage space here—with the 320GB drive included in the base 13, you have more than enough space for two moderately-sized OS install partitions.
With Windows and Boot Camp drivers out of the way, I fired up our notebook benchmark suite. The new MBP is the first dual core Sandy Bridge notebook we've had in our labs, so I was pretty interested in seeing the performance relative to Arrandale, as well as the old Core 2 Duo-based MBP13. According to CPU-Z, the base spec 13 that I have has the i5-2415M inside, a dual core processor with HyperThreading and clocked at 2.3GHz with max turbo frequency of 2.9GHz. The 2415M is an interesting chip, closely related to the i5-2410M. It's so interesting that Intel doesn't even have a product page for it, which made me curious as to what the difference between the two is. Turns out, the 2415M is the same chip as the 2410M, just in a smaller package. The normal mobile Core i5/i7 processors have a 37.5 x 37.5mm PPGA (plastic pin grid array) package, meant for Socket G2 (also known as rPGA 988B).
The 2415M, on the other hand, has a package size of 31 x 24mm with a micro-FCBGA mounting method. It's the same package size and mounting as the low voltage and ultra-low voltage Sandy Bridge processors, using the same BGA 1023 socket. Apple probably chose the 2415M to make packaging around the processor easier. Smaller is always better in the Apple world.
The other interesting wrinkle here is that Apple has forgone a separate graphics chip for the first time in a very long while. This is the first Apple with Intel graphics since the MacBook's January 2009 refresh brought Nvidia 9400M graphics, and the first MacBook Pro with Intel graphics. Ever.
What does all of this mean for performance? Let's take a look. If you're comparing to the old Core 2 Duo based MBP13, CPU-based performance is almost two times faster across the board. Given the huge jump in power between Core 2 and the further two generations of Core processors, this makes a lot of sense. It was seriously about time that Apple moved on from Core 2 in its smaller notebooks, and this huge performance jump is a direct result. We'll see what happens with the regular MacBook and MacBook Air, but I'd expect a similarly large increase in performance in those models when they're next updated as well.
Looking at the Arrandale-based Core i5-430M, which at 2.26GHz is a logical point of comparison to the i5-2415, we see that performance has improved 15-20%.
This doesn't look as impressive as the gains in performance we saw with our first look at the mobile SNB quad-cores, but Sandy Bridge quads are clocked a lot higher than the preceding Clarksfield chips. Our quad-core SNB mobile testbed had an i7-2820QM, with a 2.3GHz core clock and max turbo frequency of 3.4GHz. The 2820QM replaces the 1.86GHz i7-840QM, so the clock speed is 24% higher. Factor that in, and the increase is more in line with what we saw from the dual-cores.
The big deal here is that now, the lowest end SNB i5 performs roughly on par with the top end Arrandale i7 dual cores. Like Anand said in his Sandy Bridge review, you get yesterday's top of the line performance for a much lower price.
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zhill - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Hmm... so I mostly disagree, but the fact that there is some confusion is problematic as well.I assumed (the need to assume is the problematic part) that the main battery life tests (Web loads, etc) were run with OSX doing whatever it wants. The point of the gfxCardStatus tests was to specifically point out the difference in power consumption with each card being used. The only way to expose that behavior explicitly is to manually enable/disable the dGPU.
So, I think the methodology makes sense, but I agree that Anand should make it clear in the general battery-life section that OSX is managing the GPU in stock form with no gfxCardStatus inferference.
7Enigma - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I ran the numbers. The values (in minutes) that were reported in the 1st and 3rd charts of page 15 which correspond to the light and Flash-based web surfing are dead on the bottom of page 9 numbers where the discrete GPU has been TURNED OFF.It is so bad that after running the numbers if you were to use the data from page 9 the 15" MacBook Pro would be so far in last place on the Flash-based chart (at 177minutes) that the next highest is over an hour and a half LONGER.
zhill - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I believe he's using Safari in the web and flash web tests, and mentions:"Another contributing factor is the new 32nm iGPU which is active full-time under Safari. " When discussing the Flash problem (on pg 9) he specifically mentions Chrome + Flash activating the dGPU.
So, the question is: what is the dGPU behavior for other browsers? Do Firefox and Safari only use the iGPU or is the dGPU activation only in Chrome? It needs to be addressed in the article more fully for no other reason than clarity and so users will know that choice of browser may impact battery life very significantly.
7Enigma - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
That is a good point (missed the Chrome/Safari switch), but it is also puzzling that the numbers from both charts match up perfectly. I would have expected a bit of difference between Chrome and Safari even if the dGPU issue is taken away just due to coding differences, but if you divide the minutes by 60 from the earlier page you'll get the EXACT same number of hours posted in the later battery numbers. The only way to describe this without it being the same number would be if they are comparing numbers from 2 different browsers in the same chart without labeling as such which I find very hard to believe.7Enigma - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Seriously not a single reply from one of the authors?IlllI - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
theres hardly much difference between the 13in model and the 17in. so basically you are paying $1000 more for 4 inches.alent1234 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
i5 to i7, discrete GPU, more hard drive spacealmost same price difference if you went with dell/hp
khimera2000 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Just so you know looking at the recommended configuration of hp envy cost 1932, a maxed out 3D vision dell xps 17 cost about 2480 but has a sell that brings it down to 2244 (dual HDD no SDD) where as the base configuration of the mac cost 2500. so..,. no even if you throw in the discreet, I7 increased harddrive space your still over the mark when you compare to windows notebooks.How did i find these numbers? opened up the web sight for each respective company and looked at what they had as of 5:00 PM 3/11/2011 applicable to US customers (after all they where the US versions of the sight) except for dell no others where offering an automatic discounts.
jed22281 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Should've done the 13" and then jumped up to the 17".Is there some reason you're not interested in the 17" versus the 15"?
Thanks!
jed22281 - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Anand, Brian, or Vivek?Thanks!