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MacBook Pro Q&A - Revised November 19, 2006
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How fast is the MacBook Pro "Core Duo" 15-Inch compared to the PowerBook G4?
Please note that all systems mentioned in this Q&A have been discontinued. The MacBook Pro "Core Duo" models were replaced by the "Late 2006" MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" series.
Much like the Intel-based iMac "Core Duo", the "real-world" performance of the MacBook Pro "Core Duo" can be substantially different depending on whether the system is running a "Universal" application written for use specifically on an Intel-based Mac or an older application under the "Rosetta" environment.
For readers who are not already familiar with the "Rosetta" translator that allows programs written for a PowerPC-based Mac to run on an Intel-based Mac, it may be worthwhile first to read the answer to "What is Rosetta? What does it support?" from the "Macintel" Q&A.
MacWorld has posted an excellent review of the MacBook Pro "Core Duo" 2.0 15-Inch that should be read in its entirety, but regarding the speed of the system, the author states that:
The MacBook Pro is generally faster than the PowerBook G4[/1.67 15-Inch (DLSD/HR)] at running Universal applications. How much faster depends on several factors, including how well-optimized for Intel processors the applications are, how much the applications take advantage of the MacBook Pro's fast video card, and how well the software supports multiple processors.
Some of our tests show major MacBook Pro speed boosts when compared with the PowerBook G4. The 3-D rendering program Cinema 4D XL was 3.3 times as fast at rendering a scene; the graphics-intensive game Unreal Tournament 2004 had a frame rate of 2.2 times better; and an iTunes encode was 1.3 times as fast. Other tests of less processor-intensive tasks, such as creating a 1 GB Zip archive in the Finder, showed more modest gains.
The other major application that many MacBook Pro users will want to run is Adobe Photoshop CS2, and it may be a while before a Universal version arrives. In the interim, the MacBook Pro will run Photoshop via Rosetta. We found Photoshop to be quite usable on the MacBook Pro, but it doesn't run nearly as fast as it does on the most recent top-of-the-line PowerBook. The 1.67 GHz PowerBook G4 performed our suite of 14 scripted Photoshop tasks 1.7 times faster than the 2 GHz MacBook Pro.
In a nutshell, the MacBook Pro "Core Duo" 2.0 15-Inch is faster than its immediate predecessor, the PowerBook G4/1.67 15-Inch (DLSD/HR) when running Universal applications, but slower when running older applications optimized for the PowerPC processor under the "Rosetta" environment.
MacWorld concludes that "if you're upgrading from a two- or three-year-old PowerBook G4, you'll notice a massive speed boost in Universal applications, while Rosetta applications will run at the speed you're used to."
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