Um, since when have Apple speed claims been accurate? I always take their claims and multiply it by a third, and then you will generally get a somewhat accurate number. Certainly far more accurate than believing anything that comes unedited from the reality distortion field of Cupertino.

Not if they changed some of the back end does it seem higher.

Whoopsie - someone missed the Magic Marketing words, "up to". I would also guess that Apple is comparing the previous low-end MacBook Pro (that is, the one with the slowest processor) to the current high-end MacBook Pro (the one with the fastest processor), and undoubtedly is using a very VERY specific SPEC test to generate that number.

so is the 2.16 the same speed as the old 2.16 that i have right now?

Yeah. Have you guys actually compared the specs to see if Apple changed anything else? For all we know, the bus speed may have increased or OSX may take better advantage of the performance increase than Windows-based machines could.

I'm sure this is comparing the new Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz to the previous low end (Core Duo 1.83 GHz) before they bumped the specs

From Apple website:
Based on estimated SPECint_rate_base2000 results for the 2.33GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro with Core 2 Duo.

I think I figured out what explains the speed increase (besides, of course, the increase clock speed and different test); The Core 2 Duo has DOUBLE the amount of L2 Cache (4 mb) than the Core Duo. The numbers certainly are still inflated a bit, but not as much as apple haters try to make them out to be.

The answer: OS X has been optimised to take advantage of the Core 2 Duo, along with several key apps - primarily content-creation.

XP hasn't been optimised to take advantageof the Core 2 Duo. Mac OS X has been.

That's the difference between Aple and Microsoft. And Apple and DELL, for that matter.

Haha! Tommo_UK believes everything he hears from Apple! Tool.

How exactly was OSX optimised for a processor 5 years before the processor came out, and before any hint of a business relationship with Intel?

Do you remember how for years Apple had argued that the PowerBooks were just as fast as competing PC laptops, (or faster) then as soon as they switch to Intel chips (like all the computers they competed against), their home page bore a big, proud "4x faster than PowerBooks G4".

You know, you ARE allowed to think for yourself, rather than blindly following the marketing of a company that used to tell you to "Think Different."

So yeah...tool.

Compared to the $2799 MacBook Pro 17" what does the extra $854 you'd spend on the Dell get you? The Dell is the same except it has essentially no software, no firewire 800, only 4 pin fw400, no bluetooth, a smaller hard drive, and it can't run OS X and it's ugly as heck. The Dell does have a nicer video card though. All in all it seems like the Apple machine is a far better deal. If you really want a Dell - buy the Apple computer for $900 less, install XP on it and put a Dell sticker over the Apple logo. You'll have the coolest looking Dell computer ever for about $700 less than the Dell.

I'm pretty sure Tommo_UK is right, Apple built the newest version of OS X to take advantage of both cores of the processor, unlike Windows XP which due to the fact that it's Microsoft ;-) we are still waiting on Vista to achieve the same capability. That was the only reason I was considering upgrading to Vista. Otherwise I've been considering buying a Macbook Pro and dual booting XP.

From Gizmodo:

"...without the marketing bullshit.

Apple: What Took You So God Damn Long?

...we're going to spread the haterage about the iPod."

Lately the commenting is cleaner than the posts.

So refreshing to hear some informed, educated comments Brad.

Some many people here just spout old stereo types, tilt at windmills when they see large corporates with new products, and stoop to personal insults to lamely back their point.

Brad...OS X has been optimised for Core 2 Duo simply because Apple did the work. Mircosoft has not done this work for WIndows yet. Plain and simple.

If you had actually looked at the marketing material Apple had used in the most recent years of the Powerbook line you would see little to no reference to Intel offerings at the time. You would see things like "blazingly fast" but never "way faster then an Intel chip." I know they had done that in past times but I am talking the last 2 years or so with the Powerbook line when it was indeed, factually slower then many Intel offerings.

Also, just FYI...Apple always had an an idea that they might be switching to Intel from the very inception of Mac OS X. Just because we didn't know it then doesn't mean they didn't.

lot's of partisan blah-blah, not much facts.
i don't feel like i know anything more than some minutes ago.
thanks guy, you've been a great help.

Let's not forget that some of the current OSX is 64-bit and none of XP is. I bought my G5 Mac specifically because it is 64-bit like the new Core 2 Duo. So Apple has been working with a 64-bit system for quite some time. So there is a good chance that Windows XP based tests won't show the speed improvements over something run natively on OSX taking advantage of the 64-bit API.

Regardless of what the specs say... what Brad says, or Tommo... or Steve Jobs for that matter, this is the hottest laptop on the market today. I wouldn't be caught dead w/ a Dell, HP ew. If you can show me a laptop that can run as many software titles as my power....ahem... macbook pro, I'll gladly eat it.

As both a Mac and PC user both, I would have to assume that the "designed from the ground up" would have to mean that the shell (I have a hard time calling OSX an OS when its framework is BSD) is capable of running optimized for dual core processors.

That being said, I don't think that a pound for pound upgrade from CoreDuo to Core2Duo is going to warrant radically different performance gains from Dell to Apple.

I'm also sure that there is some sort of fine print that says that the 39% gain has to do with video transcoding or something else people rarely need all that extra "power" for.

On a final note, Brad's commentary about Apple's marketing is spot on. I thought the same thing myself when the Intel announcement happened and all you heard was how much faster everything would be on Intel chips.

Don't believe the hype.

So you guys say that a larger L2 cahce will really give a performance increase, I beg to differ, and as always, I have benchmarks to prove it:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p...

So there you go, at most, it nets a 10% increase, but nothing spectacular on average.

Please get your facts straight before ya'll post... it really bugs me.

Also, the FSB may also make a difference, but nothing spectacular either:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2808&p...

Also from the same article [quote] For Apple users this means that early adopters of the new MacBook or MacBook Pro won't be too pressured to upgrade again by the end of this year. Of course Apple has this way of making incremental changes irresistible. [end quote]

Lastly, I doubt OS X is anymore optimized for x86 processors than XP is, especially since Microsoft has mainly been running Intel for the last 20 years or so. Anymore of you Mac fan-boys want to spout nonsense in my face about how OS X is faster, I'll gladly use my Windows based machine and beat you on any benchmark you name. Say what you want now, but until you have hard proof, all you say is total B.S.

The 39% increase listed is SPEC benchmark tests. Gizmodo, would it really have been so hard to have looked at the footnote on the product page on Apple's site? I love you guys, but it would have taken all of about 10 seconds to find the answer to your question about what they tested.

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

>>
Based on estimated SPECint_rate_base2000 results for the 2.33GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro with Core 2 Duo. Testing conducted by Apple in October 2006 using preproduction MacBook Pro units with Core 2 Duo; MacBook Pro systems with Core Duo and PowerBook G4 systems were shipping units. SPEC® and SPECint are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.spec.org for more information.<<

Okay, I looked at the site, however god-awful it was, and I clicked on the SPEC.org site. First off, even if it might seem reputable, I have never seen any of those benchmarks before in my life. I don't know if its because most mainstream benchmarks are for windows machine, but none of the big ones are on there. 3D Mark, PC Mark, Mobile Mark (all made by futuremark, one of the biggest benchmark maker).

They also don't seem as big as Sysmark, but they may be around the same as Sisoft, which gives them some credibility. I was looking at their benchmarks, and it pretty much showed most apple machines beat by Windows based, so you guys might want to take a look at that. But thats not an apple to apple (irony anyone?) comparison so I would take it with a grain of salt and not rub it in apple's faces.

Either way, architecture wise, you might see a 39% increase on some apps, but you will rarely see that in real world performance. Remember, they are comparing the old Macbook to the new one, so no need to bring Windows arguments in here, we're talking about architectual differens between the old Macbook and new one. If the previous version used the Yonah core, while the new one uses the Merom, then like I posted above, no way will you see 39% unless in very specific circumstances. If you wish to correct me, post some actual factual data with links. Otherwise stfu and keep on being a fanboy.

Do I detect an extreme case of penis envy here?

Having now read several of the anti-Apple stories here, it seems there is well above the average bigotry driving it all.

I do detect the character types though. The suits, and their dwarfish minions, who savage every innovation, simply because it is different and goes beyond their limited imagination, then later belatedly adopt them claiming them as their own.

This was a real comment?

"Even though the XPS M1710 and MacBook Pros are different monsters (the Dell packs a ton of bells and whistles the Macs don't.) "

I just went and checked the specs, The Mac has a bigger hard drive, more connectivity, a brighter screen and is $500 cheaper. The ONLY spec the Dell exceeded the Mac was 512MB video and the Mac 256MB.

apature? Hmmm....didn't know Apple made software with that name. Now I wonder how much faster "Aperture" runs?

spelling errors....profanity....

You're a journalist?

C'mon, Gizmodo, get some pros to work for you. How'd this get on Google news?

Doughbuy:

Large cache has never paid off with current applications. Go back and look at older benchmarks comparing the move from 256k cache. You'll see the same results. Moving to 4MB cache may not pay off now, but it will just a few years down the road when applications start expecting it. Is it worth it to buy a 4MB cache CPU today? That depends on the person and the expected life of the computer.

Futuremark, Sysmark, and SiSoftware are just little babies in the benchmarking world. If you, Doughbuy, actually looked into SPEC then you should know this. SPEC is one of the oldest, most respected and cross-platform benchmark companies in the world (also one of the most expensive :/). Benchmarking the CPU doesn't mean using 3DMark, it means using SPEC CPU.

Apple is using a real and well-known benchmark. Can they claim 39% better performance with a CPU upgrade? Sure they can. Does anyone ever really experience this? Hell no. Apples and oranges, or in this case, Dells :P.

Hold it, Doughbuy--are you saying you've never heard of SPEC? That's odd, and a bit of a credibility killer if you're positioning yourself as a benchmark expert.

I was using them in the lab back as early as 1992 as part of a performance comparison suite, and many performance analysts still at least use them as a reference point, even if they aren't the final benchmark.

Frankly, I could care less about Apple's speed claims because that stuff is all relative. Anyone with sense knows there are too many environmental variables, such as which apps you're running and how the system is configured, to make an absolute, across-the-board claim of performance increase. Apple could have said 10% or 90% and probably been just as accurate...in some highly controlled and isolated situations.

In 20 years of testing, reporting on, and managing desktop and mobile systems I've yet to see a computer manufacturer (outside of some small high performance shops) come out with any meaningful performance claims that translated well into day-to-day operations. And that includes Apple, Dell, IBM...etc. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

What most customers care about about is how the fully configured system, not just the processor, its level of caching or FSB, will perform in comparison with the competition when running the specialized applications they need. Trying to reason your way through a generalized performance claim is pretty naive and mostly useless noise.

"Mainstream" is probably a relative thing. Various versions of SPEC's CPU benchmarks have been around since ca 1989, used most often in "workstation" and "server" spaces (more relative terms) and only in recent years being used by some folks in the "desktop" business.

It doesn't matter by how much faster it is, a little bit or huge amount. It'll always be faster than what it was before!

To anybody saying 39% is ridiculous:

I'm no fanboy, and I don't really care...but just to piece things together:

Doughboy has pointed out that:
1) More L2 cache in Merom could yield up to a 10% performance increase
2) There will be some benefit from a faster FSB.

Now, add this to the fact that, at the very least:
3) apple was comparing the new 2.33 GHz Merom to the 2.16GHz Merom -- an 8% increase in clockspeed.

So, by Doughboy's own numbers, we should be seeing an 18% increase in some circumstances. However, add that to the fact that Merom features better memory access than Yonay (mentioned in the anandtech article doughboy linked), and that Apple "has enhanced Mac OS X to take advantage of the technology advances from Intel's Core 2 Duo processors" -- honestly, who knows what that means, but they MUST have changed something in the OS - maybe coding to take even more advantage of the L2 cache, or the better memory access capabilities of Merom. But they did SOMETHING...actually customizing the OS SOMEHOW.

So, at the very least, Doughboy must admit that there should be at least a 20% increase in performance in certain circumstances (if you'll lend a measly 2% increase to the faster FSB, better memory access, and Apple OS customizations). Honestly, I'd probably give it a bit more than 2% even in general circumstances.

Now, we're looking at a number that is certainly over 20% in many "general" circumstances...as an Engineer, a factor of less than 2 to reach the 39% doesn't sound too unheard of in a few highly specific applications. Honestly, nobody quotes "real world" numbers in any industry.

EPA gas mileage estimates are off by 20-40% in many cases...0-60 times quoted for various cars are the best possible by a professional driver and probably off by a factor of 2 from what average joe might do by dumbly just mashing on the gas. Can your LCD monitor really reproduce 12 billion colors like the manufacturer says? Of course not...

...and if you're willing to admit that there is surely a 20+% benefit to the new MBPro's...then how can anybody think the manufacturer saying "39%...with some fine print" is so terrible?

As far as optimization goes, OS X is better optomized than Windows in atleast one respect. OS X requires SSE3 were as Windows XP does not.

So wait a second EQC, you're saying that maybe just possibly other marketing departments/manufacturers use statistics/numbers to their advantage too?
No WAY!!!
According to almost everyone else here Apple lies, and everyone else producing computers R teh h4x0rz.
And thanks for putting together doughboy's own stats, and everyone elses input... I was wondering if anyone would actually piece that together and use it against them, good work, I guess it takes an engineer.

Doughbuy: Spec is a very well-known and popular benchmarking tool, but less so on the consumer PC end. Because it's a synthetic CPU/memory measure, it's generally more relevant to high-powered scientific and server apps, which is why you see a lot of Itaniums and Suns in the mix.

As for the 39% increase, quite likely it's 1 part truth and 1 part Apple cherry-picking system configs and benchmarking suites. Nothing really new here. You're really not going to see much of a difference going in SpecINT going from Core Duo to Core 2, and if it really is based on a synthetic test like Spec, that is guaranteed to translate into a much smaller gain in the real-world.

i cant believe no one has said this... but core duos in the macbook pros were 32 bit, and the core 2 duos are 64 bit. theres got to be a little but of a speed increase there as well. i work at an apple retailer and we were telling everyone to wait for the announcement because of the upgrade to the 64 bit processors.

OK.

So, isn't the Core 2 Duo a 64 bit processor?

And, isn't the Core Duo a 32 bit processor?

And, isn't Mac OS X Tiger optimized for a 64 bit processor, unlike Windows XP?

Hmmm.

You have to admit that 39% seems unlikely but given the facts...

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/64bit/

Not to mention the fact that you can't get 7200rpm hard drives in the new Macbook Pros - and that can actually make a pretty big difference in the real world (although obviously not on a CPU speed benchmark).
The 39% increase could be between the lowest-end "old" Macbook and the fastest Macbook Pro. Then I might believe it.

I'm not counting the optimizations for OS X because we are comparing hardware here, and when doing so, everything else should be considered equal, i.e. software. Either way, we all know 39% if marketing bullshit, but I will give them 20% or so improvements in certain applications and maybe one part of a synthetic benchmark, although I don't even want to know why Apple uses SPEC benchmark since no one will run a Macbook as a server...

All ads are misleading anyways, I laugh equally at AMD's or Intel's ad's, Dell, MS, and all other large companies spout so much nonsense that I would gladly enjoy picking apart their marketing department, so it's not just limited to Apple. I just want to say that real world performance wise, people will see a small increase in performance, and a small increase in battery life as of now. Don't go expecting to convert mp3's in half the time or think your computers superman just because of the new Core 2 Duo chip. Remember, the Merom is based off the Yonah core, so the differences between these 2 are a lot different than the Prescott and Netburst age processors for Desktops where the Conroe shines.

So, doughboy, if someone offered you a 10% raise, you'd turn it down?

I'd happily wager that if you had a legit apples-to-apples comparison of a MacBook running OS X to its twin running XP, each with up to date drivers, etc., that OS X would be marginally faster in a given benchmark.

However, I doubt you'll get that, since each OS uses a different kernel, a different driver model, and has a different RAM footprint.

That said, why do I think that OS X would be faster on the same hardware, on a sheer instruction-per-clock level?

One: Apple's had Mac OS running on Intel chips for years, back to at least the old Rhapsody developer previews. They always knew that the code would run on an Intel system, they just didn't see an advantage to it back in the early PPC days. As a result, they've got just as much 32-bit x86 OS experience as Microsoft, without all the hassle of Microsoft's driver problems.

Two: The latest release of OS X is newer. At the very least, it's been optimized for the Core Solo, as that's the lowest-end Intel system that can run OS X. XP, by comparison, is optimized for what, a PII/PIII? XP won't natively take advantage of SSE3, there's no Core Image, no Quartz Extreme, no major offloading to the auxiliary processing power on the graphics card at all.

I would expect, of course, that Vista will level the playing field a bit, but Apple's more rapid OS release cycles will still give them an advantage in the long run, which is exactly why Microsoft's gunning for R2 releases and the like.

As for Apple's claims, they had dropped much of their "G4 is better" rhetoric at the very least by the time the G5 was out, if not earlier. It was fairly evident that Motorola and IBM simply weren't investing the necessary resources to improve the PPC architecture for a true general purpose CPU. As a result, yeah, the G4 was stagnant for at least two or three years, while Apple scrambled to find a superior laptop CPU.

This, of course, says nothing against the G5/PPC970, and just about anyone with a next-gen console will see what I mean, as they're all using a PPC970 variant at some point, even if it's just as a glorified traffic cop for a handful of Cell processors.

First I think none of you apple fanboys can argue with me that Windows based PCS are still Intel's main cash cow in the Mac OS X vs Windows debate. Now taking that into account and their ongoing processor battles with AMD. If there could have been that much of a performance jumped (39% give me a break) between what is mearly a glorified refresh of a processsor. Wouldn't Intel do everything possible to make sure all the Windows users could see that much jump too?

...this is supposed to be a funny response:

Like maybe Intel should re-write XP to take advantage of all the features of Core2? Heck, while they're at it, they could rewrite Windows 98 and Windows 2000 since a good portion of the world is still using those. Or maybe Intel should just re-structure their processors to run XP (and 98 and 2000) in the most optimized way, and forget about all the other ways the processor might be used?

...and now my not so funny ramblings:
Of course, with Intel using their unified architecture (very few changes between laptop, desktop, and server chips using Core2), everybody using a Mac, Linux, or running a server would be out in the cold. I'm probably mistaken, but I'd imagine all the businesses running intel-based servers and paying several thousand per processor represent a bigger cash cow than the "home" purchases of $100-$200 processors (most people do still buy cheap Dell or HP systems, eh?).

The way I see it, the Mac business, while smaller than the windows business for intel, does represent an area where they have a sort of monopoly -- as long as Intel keeps making good processors that work well for the Macs, Apple will be happy optimizing their OS for Intel processors. But if intel slips up, Apple may be more willing to look to AMD, and maybe start optimizing their code to run on AMD chips instead. Look how quickly Apple dumped IBM...even if it's only 10% of intel's business, that's a 10% they don't want taken away and thrown to AMD.