New MacBook Pro

[Andy Tarpinian]

On Mar 1, 2008, at 7:47 AM, Romain Gros wrote:

> nice :)
>

Did a little test

1st gen Macbook Core Duo 2ghz, 2gb RAM, 7200 RPM HDD
VS
2 month old Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz, 2gb RAM, 5400RPM HDD, 8600M  
GT 256mb

Latest version of AfterEffects on both machines, identical project.  
Project was 25 seconds and standard definition - a 3d environment with  
multiple instances of 3D Stroke, Particular, text, glow effects,  
composted HD footage, depth of field enabled etc... This was a RAM  
preview at full quality. "Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously" was  
not enabled, meaning both processors concentrated on a single frame at  
a time.

Macbook Pro took 15 minutes

MacBook took 22 minutes 18 seconds

Pretty nice for the Pro, also on a side note an output render on the  
Pro with "Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously" enabled gave me a 12  
minute render.

Also the MacBook fan was full bore, the Pro was quiet as a clam.

In the small test I did in Logic using software instruments the Pro  
was over all more responsive and took anything you threw at it without  
breaking a sweat. Where the MacBook seems to always give you a vibe of  
the little engine that could :)

And of course the Pro is a much, much better quality machine as far as  
build, the screen brightness along would make me want to upgrade to  
the Pro.

Some of you might say "Duh!" to all of this, and others might say "hey  
KOOL!," or "does it have blu-ray?" But it was useful to see the  
difference. The MacBook is an amazing computer because while it does  
not do everything the best or the fastest, it gives you a consumer  
priced machine that can handle any pro task you throw at it, just a  
little slower. But I think it's time to upgrade to a Pro.