Apple MacBook Pro 15" with Intel Santa Rosa Review Discussion

We'll be taking a look at Apple's MacBook Pro, to be specific the most recently updated model as of June 5th, 2007. The MacBook Pro line is aimed at the professional market, including those who do heavy amounts of video and photo editing. The MacBook Pro is best described as a mid-size desktop replacement, or performance laptop.

Read the full content of this Article: Apple MacBook Pro 15" with Intel Santa Rosa Review

 

Great work...thx

 

I think you made an error... The laptop that you have configured has the halved 8600M GT, but the benchmarks that you show say 256MB...

Sorry I should have read more carefully. My bad.

 

Very nice scores

 

Very nice review, one of the best I've read Nicholas! Great job, especially enjoyed the detailed readings on the xBench, heat and 3Dmark results.

 

I desperately want to know how the 128mb version performs. My god, that 256mb version FLIES! Can it really be neck n neck with the 7800gtx and 7900gtx or is it purely a benchmarking fluke? I wonder how this thing is going to work out for gaming...

 

Nice review...I enjoyed the pictures and the benchmarks!
This may sound like a dumb question...but with LED screens, are dead pixels still possible?
Interesting benchmarks... I have an iMac C2D 24" with 2.16 Ghz. Here are my XBench test results:
Results 115.42
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.4.9 (8P2137)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model iMac6,1
Drive Type ST3250824AS Q
CPU Test 112.02
GCD Loop 255.34 13.46 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 123.32 2.93 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 89.08 2.94 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 80.28 13.98 Mops/sec
Thread Test 212.16
Computation 194.53 3.94 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 233.30 10.04 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 124.82
System 127.77
Allocate 116.51 427.85 Kalloc/sec
Fill 129.59 6301.04 MB/sec
Copy 139.27 2876.67 MB/sec
Stream 122.00
Copy 117.02 2417.07 MB/sec
Scale 118.53 2448.74 MB/sec
Add 127.06 2706.66 MB/sec
Triad 126.01 2695.75 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 141.83
Line 128.56 8.56 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 165.06 49.28 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 153.91 12.55 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 144.34 3.64 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 125.14 7.83 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 158.57
Spinning Squares 158.57 201.15 frames/sec
User Interface Test 385.48
Elements 385.48 1.77 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 43.39
Sequential 63.96
Uncached Write 32.76 20.11 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 106.90 60.49 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 69.43 20.32 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 121.12 60.87 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 32.84
Uncached Write 10.82 1.15 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 94.27 30.18 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 88.95 0.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 132.81 24.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Howcome the CPU results for the iMac are slightly higher even though the MBP has SR? Or is a lower number better (same goes for overall)?

 

Because your iMac has a desktop CPU which is faster then a Notebook CPU. Also you have a 3.5" hard disk and they are always faster then 2.5" notebook hard disks.

 

Its too bad you couldn't run 3DMarks06 w/ your version of the MBP but very nice review.

 

Nice job on your first review.

 

Yes, they are.

 

Excellent review for an excellent machine. Thank you!

 

very nice review.
but, the 3dmark06 benchmarks are incorrect (not sure about the 3dmark05 ones), all the other systems were benchmarked at 1280x1024 but the 8600m gt benchmarks were done at 1024x768.
there is no way a 8600m gt would be that close to a 7900gtx.

 

Great review! I wonder how stable Vista would run on this laptop...

 

Very nice review!

Yes. The dead pixels occur in the screen, which does not change. What does change, however, is the backlight in the screen. LED backlights offer better brightness, lower size (thickness), and less power consumption than the conventional CCFL backlights. The only downside has been cost, but even that is now going down.

I see no reason to suggest that it wouldn't be completely fine. Add BootCamp or Parallels, and it should run fine. The 8600M GT is (obviously) easily good enough to run Aero and a whole lot more; its just like a really thin and light Asus G1s with one mouse button (hardware-wise; they really are nearly identical).

 

this is a bit off track but is it possible to have a mac and uninstall osx and just have vista or xp? im not saying i dont like osx its just i have many years experience on windows machines and have many programs that arent made for macs, the lack of ease with getting programs is one of the biggest things putting me off osx.

 

To the best of my knowledge, the iMac uses the "mobile" (i.e. laptop) edition of the c2d...not the desktop one. I believe that is correct about the hard drive. I didn't mean to hijack the thread, but I found the results to be contradictory.

 

hmmm in the benchmarks you state the processor as a T7700 2.4ghz yet in the specs you mention it as a T7500 2.2ghz. did I read it wrong somewhere or is that a typo?

btw thats quite a detailed review there and a stylish notebook! wonder how thin mine is compared to three CD cases.

[Edit] nevermind found out the benches are from another forum member hehe

 

I thought the iMacs were based on notebook hardware? I'm aware that they use 3.5" drives, but the processor and gfx card are notebook stuff...i mean, isn't it using a mobile processor and a go7600gt?

 

The iMac is just a MacBook Pro with a 3.5" Hard drive. Not a desktop CPU at all.

 

I dislike Apple but have to admit they did a good job with this one .

And the price is right too with a LED screen , high specs , powerfull GPU and other perks .

This is one decent Santa Rosa PC .. umm sorry MBP ( couldn't help it ) Enjoy .

 

Well I wouldn't go THAT far. The iMac has different graphics options and a different motherboard. They didn't just stick MBP guts into the iMac.

 

nice review... that thing is sexy... tad bigger that an X61 though

could you send me those nice wallpapers? i want them.. or send me where you got them

 

No. Intel started officially supporting the use of mobile chips in desktop applications with the introduction of the Yonah Core Duo and have actually developed a desktop variant of the mobile chipset. In the case of the iMac it would be the i945GT. It's mainly for home media centre applications, but it's what Apple uses. It is a mobile CPU, and it's still really a mobile chipset although some of the specs have been relaxed a bit since they don't need to be as power efficient and this could lead to be bit of a boost in performance. The important thing though is that desktop GPUs are used, which is where the real performance difference comes from.

 

Great review! I really like especially the picture you took of the backlit keyboard - I have never really seen many pics of this happening. I just bought a T60 but I did consider a MBP also... have fun joining the Apple world We'll miss you here from the PC side! hehe

 

Compared to the Asus G1S-A1 the MBP:

Advantages:
LED Screen (And an option of Glossy or Matte)
Faster Processor (2.2 GHZ vs 2.4 GHZ)
Gorgeous and classy compared to the G1S

Disadvantages:
No HDMI
Lesser Resolution (G1S's 1680*1050 compared to MBP's 1440*900)
No Memory Card reader
2 Lesser USB Ports
No Dial up Modem
No E-Sata
No HD Audio
No Right Click Button (For the windows boys)

$700 Extra for the MBP
PS: How does the HDMI port compare to the DVI? Can DVI display in HD output?

 

DVI can not display Blueray or HD-DVD content because it requires encryption that only HDMI has. DVI can output normal HD or even higher resolutions.

 

That would be a bad idea. Part of what Boot Camp provides is a set of customized Windows drivers, and if you simply nuked the OS X partition (if that's even possible) you'd lose the ability to get those drivers. Boot Camp is controlled through OS X, and it's not until you run the setup utility for it that it lets you create a driver CD.

What would be the point of getting the MacBook Pro, then? It's sleek, but you'd miss out on the custom features (such as Front Row) and have to pay for a copy of Windows on top of what comes with the system.

Besides, you wouldn't be giving OS X a fair shake. You can't say you'd have a hard time getting programs if you haven't figured out which ones you'd need. There are plenty of free apps for the Internet geek's basics (IM, IRC, text editing, and so on).

 

$700 extra? The G1S is $1999, the high-end MBP that you're comparing to is $2499.

If you're comparing the two head to head, you'd probably also want to compare thickness (MBP is only 1" thick) and weight (5.4 pounds for the MBP compared to 6.8 pounds).

Really two different machines, depending on what your needs are.

 

Some prick on engadget already criticized your review.

Thats why I hate engadget.

 

pretty sure the iMac uses laptop components.

 

That's what they call "Biting the hand that feeds you"

 

Great review!

 

That's why I don't post on Engadget...although their articles sometimes have some good info, I don't like how they're delivered- it's hard to explain, but it's just the way I feel.

I think your review hits all the plusses/minuses of the mbp quite objectively.

And about the benchmarks, I guess my explanation would be the hard drive.

 

i already have the copy of windows and i mean programs like autocad, archicad, photoshop, other architecture programs, and already have the windows versions of them.
also how much hdd space does having osx, bootcamp and vista installed take up, thats my main concern because with only a 120gb hdd, space is vital. how easy is it to replace the hdd in the mbp's?
i want the mbp because in form its great for me, its the weight and size of a 14.1" that has a decent graphics but with a 15.4" screen, and has much better battery life.
how does bootcamp work as well? does it just allow you to choose which os you want when booting up?

 

Thanks everybody, but I can't take credit for everything in the review. The 3dMark scores, and a few of the pictures are contributed from other forum members. I'll continue updating my Mac experience with you guys in the Apple forum, my next project is getting the MBP set to double as a desktop.

 

@Sheldon77, In that case, you could get a copy of Parallels and be able to run just about all your Windows based programs within OS X without a problem considering you have a copy of Windows. Plus you could always get Gimp for your PhotoShop needs, its a free PhotoShop alternative. In general Parallels shoud do you just fine when it comes to using Windows apps on a Mac, plus they will have Direct X gaming soon enough.

I really liked this review also, I'm literally dying for a Mac (old G5 is hanging in there and my PC is slowly dying).

 

My kitchen table made it onto Engadget

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/07/...ewed-turns-mac-newbie-into-switcher/#comments



Didn't expect that.

 

@13th, i have heard parallels because its an emulation software losses about 10-20% of power though. if i do have windows will it run at 100% or will there be a speed difference?

 

@Sheldon77, I have not used Parallels personally, but from what I have seen and read, is that the speed difference is pretty much unnoticeable and on par with running Windows natively (via boot camp..ect). As long as you have the Ram it shouldn't be much of an issue, esp. considering this new laptop comes with 2Gb of DDR2...so it should run just fine. Not trying to hijack this thread, but head over to the Mac forums here and I'm sure you'll find user experiences with Parallels you can read up on before weighing on this new MBP.

 

sorry not trying to hijack the thread one last question though. being a uni student one of my preferences is that expensive pc software can be acquired for free, if you know what i mean. this free software is difficult to find for the osx platform. so would this software work alright through bootcamp/parallels or would there be issues?

 

If you're asking about pirated software, take it somewhere else.

To more generally answer your question though, Windows inside of Boot Camp or Parallels is full Windows. Software you legally purchase should work fine. As for software you pirate, there isn't any difference, but you shouldn't pirate.

 

I think he was talking about how many schools have deals with certain software companies to provide software at subsidized or free of cost.

I know Waterloo does with several large software companies.

Bootcamp will allow you to run those applications fine.

 

Possibly, but the whole "if you know what I mean" thing made it sound more like he was talking about pirated software, which some people euphemistically refer to as "free". I think the point he was making was that it is very easy to find pirated PC software, but not so easy to find pirated Mac software.

If he did mean just subsidized or free software provided by a university, I apologize for misconstruing his meaning. I just strongly suspect that wasn't what he was getting at.

 

Excellent review, and great representation of the MBP. Glad I could contribute a few of the benchmarks.

 

Not to divert too much from this discussion, but slashdot just had a long thread about this issue, and (sadly), the consensus was that Gimp is really not an adequate substitute for PhotoShop for serious / professional use.

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/05/0136220

Re-purchasing Photo$hop (and CAD programs!) might reasonably not be worth the price for non-osX-obsessed mortals.

 

Thanks, Nicholie,

This is a wonderful review, especially for someone like me want to switch to Mac for a long time.

Just a quick question, does this latest MBP come with any turbo memory, for example, lastest Lenovo T61 comes with 1GB Intel Turbo Memory. Just wondering if this is only for Windows machines or both. Thank!

 

Some gaming benchmarks in Vista under Bootcamp would be nice.

 

No, Apple currently isn't using Intel Turbo Memory (not that they're alone in this; HP has recently said they won't be using it either).

 

Thanks, Zadillo,

and why is it? why do they not use turbo memory? Although the only thing may be improved is the booting time, are there any specific disadvantages using turbo memory? cost??