What is Digg?199 Comments
- FrostyFire, on 10/12/2007, -10/+54As someone with a MBP running XP, I can CONFIRM THIS. Even though there are still driver issues, I can't believe how lightening fast this thing is running XP. I actually tried 3 other Windows laptops before making the switch to the MPB, and all I can say is there is no comparison.
- Hawk4, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30Dude, seriously, any mac user who cares can easily get a mouse with plenty of buttons. That is so overused and outdated.
- Spookymonster, on 10/12/2007, -19/+442 things to note:
1. They only compared notebooks with identical Intel CPUs
2. They didn't include notebooks with AMD CPUs
I dare say an Athlon 64 FX-60 dual core notebook (like Hypersonic's FX7) would still blow the doors off this baby... - Sottozero, on 10/12/2007, -19/+41I just got a ThinkPad T60p with a Core Duo 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM, FireGL V5200 256 MB and 100 GB 7200 SATA drive. I'd wager my T60p would be a faster Photoshop machine.
- Kazbaeden, on 10/12/2007, -12/+32Facts? What facts? All I see here is a bastardization of the scientific method in an attempt to draw a contrived conclusion. Seriously, there's so much wrong with this "experiment." If you showed it to any grounded scientist he would just laugh in your face and tell you to run along and play with your toys. For serious.
First, the conclusion is drawn from data obtained through two independent tests. Right away, I can throw the conclusion. You simply //cannot// compare data from two experiments like this and hope to draw a conclusion which has some validity.
Second, we don't know how much RAM is in the PC notebooks. They could have 128, they could have 512 they could have 2gig. The PC World test just doesn't mention it.
Third, the CPUs are different. First, they have different clock speeds, and second, we don't know the stepping, the voltage, etc.
Fourth, are these even the same tests in photoshop? Hell, they might be, but I don't think that's readily apparent in the articles. They both don't give ANY detail as to how the tests were conducted. All we know is the Intel mac took 1:10 to do /something/ and the Acer took 1:11 to do /something/. For comparison If it takes me 10 to run up a hill and it takes my friend 11 minutes to run a mile, can we say that I'm faster at running up hill than my friend?
Fifth, I don't see any margin of error. If the mac scores 1:10 +- 1 second and the PC scores 1:11 +- 1 second, we can hardly say that the mac is faster. For all we know, their methods may have compounded so much error that the results simply blur together. Or maybe they just did it once and said that's that, which is in itself a terrible way to conduct an experiment.
But oh well. Hooray for the uneducated consumer whores and how they love to eat up benchmarks. - anonymonk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21What would be really interesting is to see benchmarks comparing the same applications running under XP and OSX on the MBP.
- rk_cr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Excuse me, but if you look at the specs for the computers, the Acer is the only one that is like a MacBook Pro (i.e. same video card). It took one more second but it only has a 2.0 ghz processor?
A good test would've been between two systems with the same specs. - Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Interesting, considering the video drivers aren't 100% working yet. Imagine how fast it would be when they are fully functional.
- Bigfat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Well, yeah, but that doesn't really change the fact that AN APPLE LAPTOP is performing on the same level as laptops made by companies who have been producing WinTels for years and years and years.
- yamla, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17FrostyFire, equivalent price range? Are you kidding? A local retailer lists the Acer Travelmate at $2499.95 Canadian. The Apple MacBook Pro with 2 gigs of RAM, a 2.16 Ghz CPU (as tested, though the Acer only has a 2.00 Ghz CPU), and 120 gig hard drive is $3739.00. That's 50% more expensive. I'd hardly call that an equivalent price range.
- ZachPruckowski, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16This is surprising considering the MBP still doesn't have an XP video driver, if I'm up to date. I mean, that's a huge part of speed in today's computers.
- pt4117, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16I see all these people nitpicking saying that 'the price would be too much, it would be too heavy, it wouldn't last long, etc...'. They are right it wouldn't be a legit comparison, but that's not the issue.
The issue is the sensationalistic headline that it is "the fastest Windows XP Notebook". You shouldn't really use that as a headline and then have a disclaimer that 'by notebook we only meant to include notebooks that were X lbs, X price, and had X battery life. It may be faster than a comparable notebook, but I doubt it is actually the fastest Notebook. - Kazbaeden, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Don't call names if you're not going to read. I said we didn't know the RAM in the PCs. The Apples all have screenshots which show they have 1gig. GG, nice try.
- mikoslav, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18If you want to be productive, you sure as hell aren't going to use the built in trackpad. Get an external mouse with as many buttons as you please.
- livesunkept, on 10/12/2007, -8/+19http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/03/21/8212.aspx
go there.... read the bottom they do mention testing an x2 chip from amd
"The two Mac desktops outran even blazing-fast single core systems, which typically do the Windows Media Encoder test in 10-13 minutes. We haven't tested any other Intel Core Duo desktops, but the iMac competes well against a Polywell machine with a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+, while the Mini and MacBook Pro are held back a little by their slower laptop hard drives. Predictably, all the Macs blow away the Shuttle XPC M1000, which has the previous generation single-core Pentium M processor" - vinny, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14The last time I looked they were $1,999. So, I guess your wish has come true.
- Kazrog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Adobe decided NOT to release a Universal Binary version of Photoshop CS2, but instead to release ALL of the forthcoming CS3 as Universal Binary. The problem with that is, we have to wait for CS3 to get the performance we want. Until then, I welcome ANY company to come out with software that blows Photoshop out of the water. Adobe deserves some real competition, they've become WAY too complacent.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"Yeah true that. What's taking them so long? "
Photoshop's interface is written in Carbon. Carbon is notoriously bad for Endian issues, which means that porting it is a bitch unless you know what you're doing. WoW's interface was written in Cocoa from the beginning, so "porting" it was checking a box in XCode, rebuilding it and running exhaustive tests to insure that nothing blew up on them. Porting Cocoa apps takes no time at all (I've done it, and it really is as easy as checking a box in most cases). Porting Carbon apps takes a lot longer. (If they really wanted to, they could probably recode the whole interface in Cocoa and release it as CS3, which would make a lot of sense for a number of reasons).
Even Apple ran into some of these problems; iTunes was non-native for quite a while because it's written mostly in Carbon (and a lot of non-Apple developers are still scratching their heads on why). - thirdtenor, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16a 2.16 ghz machine beat a 2.0 ghz machine by 1 sec
and oh yeah the acer has 533mhz RAM vs 667 on the MBP
all of this on what may be the same benchmarks yet still done by different groups
sorry but this is *****, no digg - FrostyFire, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15I'm glad you don't have a clue what you're talking about, A) control click works with a simple piece of software, B) use a freaggin' USB mouse like the rest of the world.
You might want to read up @ www.onmac.net before making stupid statements like that. - deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Photoshop users...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -14/+23I, and many others who have made the switch, have had no problem with the one button configuration.
- webXL, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15I knew the fan boys wouldn't appreciate that, and I am a big Apple fan (recent switcher, own a dual G5, owned a mini, 3 iPods, use an imac g5 at work).
I'm using an MS intellimouse on a g5 right now!
But honestly-- how easy would it be for Apple to slap a second button on their portables? Would it really mess up the aesthetics?
The "just use an external USB mouse" comments are so typical and so lame. If it's such a painless solution, why do they even put trackpads on laptops to begin with?
Lap.... top... laptop. You can't use a mouse on your lap!
If you want to win over some more PC users, let them work the way they want to. - Kazrog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10This is awesome news. Now if Adobe would hurry up and bring Photoshop to Universal Binary status on Mac OS X, I would be much happier.
- FrostyFire, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9There's various real reasons why people would want to do this.
1) Gamers
2) Workers who are forced to use XP for work
3) Best of both worlds
4) Because you can. - j_bellone, on 10/12/2007, -15/+23I would agree. The Thinkpad lines are most definately faster. The simple fact that I believe they stock ship with 7200RPM SATAII hard-drive and the MBP has 5400RPM SATAII hard-drive. You can get the cores clocked higher as well as the above person said already.
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Uh yeah, that was pretty clear in the title - Fastest "Core Duo" XP machine
- FrostyFire, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15Yeah and we're also talking about equivalent price range.
- limpidezza, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9It doesn't. $1999.
- dr-steve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Keep in mind: The utility of a benchmark is measured by the distance between the benchmark ['s operations] and the user [activities]. That is, if all you do is Photoshop, this is meaningful. If you never use Photoshop, this benchmark has less relevance.
I've been benchmarking systems for fifteen years, for publication as well as commercial and Governmental clients. When I select benchmark tests, I select them with the end-user in mind. Since different tests measure different aspects of a system's ability, testing with a CPU/disk intensive will have less meaning, for example, for a gamer than a CPU/GPU test. And to someone involved in multimedia, the encoding/decoding pipeline (CPU, memory) becomes of much higher importance.
This report (not the original/quoted article) focuses primarily on Photoshop performance. Photoshop is very heavily weighted towards CPU/memory or CPU/memory/disk (depending on file and disk cache operation). It does very little in the way of GPU operation. It stresses the SIMD pipelines nicely. High bandwidth RAM helps a lot.
Where I'm heading is, if you're a gamer, ignore this benchmark and wait for ATI drivers to be plentiful and optimal. If you're a video editor, your disk speed may be more an issue.
And yes, right now, I have two systems in front of me. A MacBook Pro Intel Dual Core (OS X), and an HP/Compaq Centrino (XP Pro). With a decent mouse, I could live in either. - CrzyMke, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I may be buried for this, but I prefer the one button setup on my iBook. Granted, I've always been a keyboard junky, but working w/ the track pad, one button and keyboard is where its at. It's been a lot easier than it used to be with any of my windows laptops. My wrists hurt a lot less, and and mac shortcuts just feel more ergonomic (and sidetrack is key..). This coming from a productivity geek....
Granted - my argument totally falls apart for a one-button mouse. - _skin_, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Thanks to Apple for making Minesweeper blindingly fast!!! WOOT!
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14Actually, not yet since apps like Photoshop still have to run under Rosetta. Once Adobe starts shipping universal binaries for OS X, then it will be interesting indeed.
- Jimzip, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Yeah but that's the point of doing comparisons right? Comparing the same specs?
I think comparing the same CPU's is the best way to get an idea of the differences.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Jimzip :D - j_bellone, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13The Acer laptop is also 160MHZ slower, and has slower RAM. Not to mention costs probably $1,000 less. MBP only beats the Acer laptop by 1ms. I wouldn't call that impressive.
- jk_baller23, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Interesting read. Hopefully someone finds a driver that works with XP on macs.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12"Athlon 64 FX-60 dual core notebook"
That has /got/ to be an oxymoron. My only questions are how heavy is it and how long does the battery last? (read: 95W battery, 8 or more lbs, less than 2 hrs battery life) (facts: 12.7 LBS, 2 Optical Drives, RAID HDs... Okay I know you're joking). - rauz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Get with the times...that prejudice must be ten years old.
- Braxo, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13I never thought of looking at benchmarks of XP on an Apple compared to other PCs. Hmmm
- FrostyFire, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10Yeah and those "insane" laptops would weigh 10 lbs and be 3 inches thick.
- Tezkah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@panique by panique 1 minute ago
You're dumb, from the link:
"The ***iMac*** comparison is ***apposite*** because all the laptops tested had 2GHz Core Duo CPUs, just like the ***iMac***. So did the Acer, which came in a nose of beating the 2.16GHz MacBook Pro. However, while the Acer has the same ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 GPU as the MacBook Pro, the GPU isn't fully enabled on the Apple machine under Windows XP."
Emphasis mine.
I can read, the register cant write worth ***** though. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Because you can't read.
- Vst_kills, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Hey,Hey look at me I don't like this story so I'm gonna come here and write "No Digg" because I'm cool and I can do that. Please people if your gonna do that at least explain why your going "No Digg" or " digg".
Anyways I think this is what every windows user wants. A computer that looks GOOD and runs Windows. Even if it is only a second faster its a mac it was built to run OS X not XP so I think this proves that apple has got the right software and hardware. - SuperSunny, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's called getting the best of both worlds, and dual-booting, dumbass. My video and film class has used OS X for some projects, and windows for others. Combine them into one system, you have a god. Plus it boots Linux :P
- organic, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9_I dare say an Athlon 64 FX-60 dual core notebook (like Hypersonic's FX7) would still blow the doors off this baby..._
Yeah, but is it less than an inch thick? - Kazbaeden, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6No frostyfire. If we're expected to take this seriously, which many people are, you simply /cannot/ assume. Anyone remember when Apple published benchmarks on the G5 being the fastest desktop in the world, but there are a slew of caveats which gave it a clear advantage? People, wake up and realize that not everything you read is a god damn fact.
- ohnnyj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There is an extra benefit to many people out there that everyone seems to be overlooking. I think all of Adobe's products are sold in either Window form or Mac compatible form. Therefore, if I wanted to have Photoshop on my PC based desktop and on my Mac based notebook (cause let's face it they just look better than anything else in the PC market) I would have to purchase two CDs (as Adobe does allow you to load their apps on two machines). So if I can run XP on a Mac, then I can still run Photoshop on both, and use OS X for daily tasks (cause in my opinion it looks nicer and feels more fluid then XP).
I am neither a PC nor Mac fanboy so please don't flame me. I am simply stating my opinions. - mugatu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think it's pretty clearly a sales tactic to sell more copies of CS3. Want to run Photoshop fast on your shiny new MBP? Buy CS3!
- Houdini91, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Do you guys even use a laptop? Maybe for those who use one as a "second desktop" using a USB mouse works great, but for those of us who travel a lot an external mouse just doesn't cut it. There's no room on a plane to use a mouse. And I certainly can't use one when I'm on my laptop in bed at night.
As for ctrl-click, that's better than nothing. However, I use many programs where I hold in the ctrl and left-click and drag... if this software interprets that as a right click then it's useless to me. -
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