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
At medium settings, it's a bit worse, but L4D2, Mass Effect, STALKER, and SC2 remain almost playable. Battlefield and DiRT, not so much. Overall, we see performance goes down from the 320M by just under 20% on average (not counting StarCraft, which is again marginally faster due to the reliance on CPU performance).
We see a similar result in the Cinebench 11.5 OpenGL test—a 24% decrease in performance relative to the old MBP.
Given the huge leap in CPU performance, I'd have been okay if the graphics stayed on par with the previous MBP 13, but I was a little disappointed to see it that much slower. This is a weird one, since the same GPU gave us significantly better performance in the SNB test system. The only explanation we have has to do with turbo. The max turbo supported by the HD 3000 in the Core i5 2415M is 1.2GHz, down from 1.3GHz in the 2820QM. Now max clock speed isn't enough to explain this performance difference, but perhaps under Windows the 2415M's GPU doesn't turbo up quite as aggressively as the 2820QM's.
Anand consistently saw 10-15% faster results during the first run of a benchmark than the next four or five runs of the same test. This is probably due to thermal limitations—heat soak and overheating are pretty time-honored MBP traditions. However, my system shouldn't have been affected by thermal stress over time—I let it sit for some time between each benchmark run to let it cool, just to eliminate residual heat as a factor.
Based on CPU-Z, Apple isn't underclocking the GPU—it's running at the same 1.2GHz that's on the Intel spec sheets. The difference in performance is a little odd. The MacBook Pro, especially in 13-inch form, does have the potential to be thermally limited due to the size of the enclosure, but I'm not sure why a supposedly low-power graphics solution would be so thermally limited, even when testing to avoid the effects of heat build up as much as possible.
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Bewareofthewolves - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
Hello all, I just wanted a bit of advice. I am planning on buying one of the new Macbook Pro's, and wondered which one would best suit my needs. I am mainly making the purchase to use Logic Pro, which i will use extensively, i will also be using the internet regularly, should i go for a high end 13'' or the 15'' model. Advice would be appreciated, thankyou.abhic - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
Hey Guys,I had to decide what to upgrade to this year and I kept on going back and forth between the 13" & the 15" MBP. You guys single-handedly made up my mind! Kudos on an insanely well researched post.
I ended up noting down a few points on how I analyzed the choices as well - http://vritti.net/2011/03/2011-15-macbook-pro-i7-2...
Keep up the great work.
Mezoxin - Thursday, March 31, 2011 - link
Does switching between SNB HD3000 and the discrete graphics work in windows 7 ?tno - Wednesday, May 4, 2011 - link
Nope. As they stated, in Win 7 it's dGPU only.Steve Katz - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - link
Anand states that the Thunderbolt port is not even visible under Device Manager.Does this mean that the 2011 MBPs cannot use an external monitor under Windows 7? Or did the author mean that the Thunderbolt port is limited to mini-DisplayPort functionality under Windows 7?
Lack of support for external monitors under Windows 7 would be a deal breaker for me.
BTW: I had to create a new log on to post this comment. Anyone care to explain why it's "apparently spam?"
linked.account - Saturday, May 7, 2011 - link
Well I think the subject of my question was enough to explain my question :D!linked.account - Saturday, May 7, 2011 - link
And what about Airport Express 802.11n ?JCrichton - Monday, May 9, 2011 - link
Would you happen to have a comparison or stats for the DGPU difference for the 6490M?cagecurrent - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link
Got my first Mac ever yesterday: a Macbook Pro 13" with the slower CPU. As I had a X25-M G2 160 GB SSD lying around I had planned from the start to install it. It was super-smooth, and everything works perfect.Love Mac/OSX, really sold on it... probably getting a second Mac before the end of the summer.
Per, Sweden
@cagecurrent
angad - Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - link
I was kind of hoping for a better look at Windows 7 (and specifically gaming) performance on the 15-inch Pro, given that the 13-inch's anemic GPU should have been enough of a 'don't bother'.I want a Macbook but I want to game. I'm ok with 4-odd hours of battery life under Windows and I might get used to the funky fn+backspace to delete but I really don't want a rude shock when it comes to gaming.
Can anybody tell me whether the base 15-inch model will handle games under Win7 without killing itself?