How Fast is It? MacBook Pro Software Update 1.0

Last week Apple released the MacBook Pro Software Update 1.0 for the new Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pros with Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics. We noted that it included new drivers for the Nvidia graphics with our hope that the update would improve the relatively poor performance on OpenGL benchmarks and several 3D games that we obtained in our review when comparing the new MacBook Pro with its predecessor containing ATI Radeon X1600 graphics.

After installing the MacBook Pro Software Update 1.0, we re-ran several of the graphics benchmarks from our suite of speed tests. Our test Mac is a new 15" 2.4GHz MacBook Pro C2D-LED. Here are the results compared with those from the prior 15" 2.33GHz MacBook Pro C2D with ATI graphics:

Test*	New MBP Before	New MBP After	Prior MBP
Benchmarks (scores)
Cinebench v9.6 - Rendering (2X)	738	746	724
- OpenGL Hardware Lighting	3903	4042	4321
Xbench v1.3 - Quartz graphics	175	177	143
- OpenGL graphics	137	138	207
- User interface	432	439	377
3D Game Tests (framerate)
Quake III Arena v1.32UB	407	406	626
Call of Duty v1.5**	43	44	46
Call of Duty 2 v1.3	~25	~30	~75
Halo v2.0.1	85	89	69
Doom 3 v1.3.1	85	87	90
Quake 4 v1.2	66	69	67

The graphics performance of the new 15" 2.4GHz MacBook Pro with Nvidia graphics (third column--New MBP After) is improved slightly in all tests except for Quake III Arena. However, the improvement is so small that it could be just random chance except that it is consistent and Call of Duty 2 is no longer too choppy, if still too slow.

The Prior 15" 2.33GHz MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with ATI graphics turned in the best scores by far for the OpenGL benchmarks (Cinebench 9.6 OpenGL Hardware Lighting and Xbench OpenGL graphics) and two OpenGL-based games (Quake III Arena and Call of Duty 2).

With regard to the 3D games, we use the settings that we use in actually playing the games. The settings are tweaked to achieve as high a speed (framerate) as possible while preserving a reasonably decent graphics experience during play. Resolution has a major influence on framerate so our tests are at lower resolutions that most other Web sites use. The results from testing with higher resolutions may more strongly favor the new Nvidia graphics since they have more dedicated graphics RAM (256 vs 128MB) but the tests are unrealistic since the framerate would be too low, especially for online multiplayer gaming. The framerate of 70-90fps for Halo, Doom3 and Quake 4 that our settings achieve is already fairly marginal for actual play.

In Summary

The MacBook Pro Software Update 1.0 provided the new Santa Rosa-based 2.4GHz MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with Nvidia graphics a small boost in performance according to our tests but the previous Merom-based 2.33GHz MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with ATI graphics still reins in OpenGL graphics performance.

One may argue that gaming on a MacBook Pro is questionable. That is a fair point. After all, our 24" 2.33GHz iMac Core 2 Duo with Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT graphics gets excellent framerates and a MacPro with ATI Radeon X1900 does even better. But we believe that a newer MacBook Pro should out-perform its predecessor in all major measures. That is just not the case--yet. [Bill Fox]