MacBook Pro 2.4 better battery life than 2.53?

I am trying to decide between the 2.4 and 2.53 of the new MBPs. Now I have read several reviews that said that the 2.4 has a P8600 vs. the MBP 2.53 with a T9400. So the 2.4 has a 25W TDP whereas the 2.53 has 35, a full 10 watts more.

The logical conclusion would be that the 2.4 runs cooler and has better battery life.

Can anyone confirm that? Most reviews only review one or the other configuration, and in the past there never was a big difference between low and high end configs in terms of battery life.

Circumstantial evidence: AnandTech review gets very good battery life values for the 2.4, other reviews I read got disappointing results for the 2.53.

I was leaning towards the 2.53, but battery life is extremely important for me, much more so than ~5% speed difference. I'd even live with the inconvenience of having to upgrade the RAM ASAP.

If you see any side-by-side battery life tests of the 2.4 vs 2.53 configs, please post the link. Thanks!

 

Yea, there should be a substantial difference when it comes to battery life/temperature.

I don't even know why people go for the 2,53ghz, it's hell of a lot more expensive for unnoticeable performance difference. :/

 

It won't be a SUBSTANTIAL difference. It will probably be a couple tens of minutes more or less.

 

I would go for the 2.4 mbp, one reason is wattage, another is I don't believe a 9600GT (128bit) card is fast enough to use much more vid memory than 256 gddr3....that's what I gathered with my 8600GT 256 gddr3 card in the sig below. I would (or will) upgrade the ram on it and call it GOOD (and cheaper)

 

Yes, the 2.4 GHz should get better battery life, but only quite minimally (similarly, the 2.53 GHz is more powerful as well, but only quite minimally).

 

The 2.53 has 6 MB cache, certain applications can benefit from that up to 10%.

Differences in battery life aren't as big as many people believe. They assume TDP equals battery life, but it doesn't.

2.4Ghz 3MB vs. 2.53 Ghz 6MB cache:
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3246&p=12

 

The higher CPU load you have, the more the battery life will be different between the two mentioned CPUs.

Would be interesting to see the wattage graph as function of clock speed and load, for CPUs in general.

 

Hmm... some people are saying the 2.53 has a P-series processor which is also @ 25W TDP. It would be so much easier if Apple just told us which processor they are using.... come to think of it, gonna write to tech support

 

I think people who've loaded Windows on theirs have confirmed that the 2.53 is the T9400

 

Even with a T series CPU you can get excellent battery life. Just look up the NBR review on the T400.

The difference between P and T is overrated imo. Intel's marketing is very strong. No one has seen exact numbers on battery life differences but almost everyone seems to believe it.

 

Gah the *******s ain't telling what processors their using nor the ssds, last time I talked to an apple rep he told me the SSD is intel but I find that hard to believe since intel only got 2 ssds out (80/160gig) and the 80 goes for around 600bucks? So Apple wouldn't make any profits from it.

 

My main concern between the 2.4 and 2.53 units is the 500 samolians. I just don't see how it's worth it (for me). I would love to see the two of them benchmarked side by side.

 

go 2.4. obvious.

 

The battery life will definitely change noticeably if you run the CPU at 100% continuously. However this is not what average Joe does. Most of the time, the CPU stays in the power savings mode (i.e. while writing on Word, browsing web etc.) and you cannot notice a drastic difference in between 25W vs. 35W in terms of battery life...

 

I don't think Joe the Plumber has a Mac

 

Oh god not the average Joe plumber.. I'm so sick of hearing about him..

 

LOL....a couple of hours ago I saw a rally in Denver on TV and a whole coliseum of people were chanting his name....LOL

 

It's not worth it -- unless you have money to burn...

 

It REALLY depends on how you look at it. As a student, the difference in price is only $400.

So for $400 you get:

320GB vs 250GB
512MB Geforce 9600GT M vs 256MB
2.53Ghz 6MB L2 cache vs 2.4Ghz 3MB L2 cache
4GB DDR3 1067 vs 2GB DDR3 1067

For me, it was an easy choice to go with the 2.53. The difference in LightRoom2 when editing photos is tremendous with the extra L2 cache. And let's not forge to buy 4GB of DDR3 is about $150-175 just by itself.....

 

I wish there was a benchmark test done for the difference in speed of the 3mb cache and the 6mb cache. I've seen the andtech benchmarking of the previous gen with the similar configs and it shows as much as 11% difference in speed at most.

But I'm curious also on the new 9600m gt either 256mb vram or the 512mb vram.

 

Yep, there's really about a 250 buck difference if you take out the ram and HD....not too bad I guess I'd probably still go for the 2.4

 

Here's why I was considering the 2.53:
- Don't need to upgrade HD, 320GB is adequate
- Don't need to upgrade RAM, 4GB is ok
- Slightly faster processor, never hurts

Graphics RAM is irrelevant for me.

But with the higher TDP in the 2.53, the pendulum swings back to 2.4. I'll have to upgrade HD and RAM which will cost perhaps $250, halfway to the price of the 2.53.

 

It would be nice to see some cold, hard numbers to back up that claim. TDP is a processor's maximum heat dissipation, so if you run at 100% CPU, the processors are 25 vs 35 - a huge difference. Of course, during a normal work day, you wouldn't run the CPU on 100% very often.

So the interesting question would be, how much do these use relative to each other when the CPU is on 10%. I have yet to see any testing of this sort of thing though.

 

We're thinking the same now then. I guess one could suppose with the 2.4 unit you've a pretty darn good performing MBP at a more reasonable price. FWiW

 

No that's not what I understand TDP to mean. TDP means the cooling system needs to be able to dissipate 25 watt or (35 watt).

No where did Intel say that the T9400 uses 35 watt at 100% load. They say the TDP is 35 watt.

If that were true all 35 watt TDP would use the same power (which ofcourse isn't true.)

 

It's the same thing. The system needs to be able to dissipate X amounts of watts because the "worst case" scenario is that the processor is using X amounts of watts.

These CPUs have lots of power saving measures built in, and you are not running them on full load very often or for a very long time, so average power usage in a "wireless productivity" setting will be well below the maximum. The TDP rating doesn't say anything about power usage at, say, 10% CPU usage, and that's where it gets interesting.

I assume that under a normal use scenario, the 35W TDP processor doesn't actually use much more power than the 25W TDP one. I don't know though - a test would be nice.

 

Hi guys. I'm in the same boat as the OP, still deciding between the 2.4 and 2.53 models.

I don't know if this is exactly what you are looking for but the links below to MacWorld's benchmarks should give you some idea of the difference between these two models.

http://www.macworld.com/article/136279/2008/10/macbookpro_benchmarks.html?t=204
http://www.macworld.com/article/136251/2008/10/macbookgraphics.html?t=204

 

It's not the same thing. If it was the same thing then all 35 watt TDP CPU's would be using the same power at 100% load, which is not true.

TDP is an arbitrary rating. It's not synonymous for power use.

 

And it's a pretty nice boat to be in, if I might say so

The do have a battery test comparing 2.4 vs 2.53 - only watching DVD movies but it's better than nothing. There is barely a difference between the two. Good.

http://www.macworld.com/article/136281/2008/10/macbookbattery.html

It's 2:29 vs 2:31 minutes - a difference that is surely smaller than the margin of error in this test. My interpretation is that the 2.53 is just as energy efficient under low usage conditions as the 2.4.

@ PhilFlow I don't think we can agree on this one. TDP is not an "arbitrary number" - rather, it's a number that case manufacturers use in order to design their cooling systems. It is, however, a worst case number. It means "in the worst case, this CPU will use 35W". Both cores running at 100% would come pretty close to that. If you know of any CPU under full load tests that show differently, I'd be interested in a link.

 

Yeah let's agree to disagree or this is going to be one of those endless debates.

By the way I said arbitrary rating, not number. I'll show it: Intel makes chips of 25 watt TDP and 35 watt TDP. There are only fixed categories, there are no in between categories like 26 watt, 27, 28 etc.

So the T9500 may actually have an TDP of 26 watt but it will be labeled as 35 watt.

For links check Notebookjournal.de who do battery life testing on fixed loads.

TDP equals power draw? Nah. TDP is in an indicator of power draw but it can not be taken as a direct measure. Many people will continue to do so though.

 

Forgive me for being ignorant. The more I read, the more confused I am. What I would like to know then is what exactly is the difference between the Intel T9400 and P9500 (both 2.53Ghz)? :confused2:

 

The only difference I am aware of is that Intel states the TDP of the P9500 to be 25 watt, while the T9400 has a 35 watt TDP.

Edit: the package type also differs.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLB4E
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL3BX

 

I ordered the 2.4 Ghz because:
1. Don't need more than 250GB (the MBP is my second machine after my desktop)
2. Don't need 512MB VRAM
3. Battery life is very important for me. And if there is a 20 min difference, that's gonna be on some days the weight difference between a power adapter left home or not.