Apple MacBook Pro Penryn tests: a little more speed, a lot less heat

Sure, more speed is great, but on OS X most bumps don't have an appreciable effect on everyday work (unless all you're doing is video encoding). We were more interested in what Intel's Penryn processors can do for the MBP's heat envelope, so we maxed out both CPU cores in this brand new machine at let 'em crank for a half an hour. Our test machine may or may not compare to a later 3rd-gen MBP in terms of heat efficiency, but here's the quick rundown:

Core Duo (2.16GHz)

• Peak: 195° F, fans over 5000 RPM
• Average: 185° F, fans about 4900 RPM
• Enclosure (bottom): very hot to the touch
• Enclosure (top): fairly hot to the touch

Penryn Core 2 Duo (2.5GHz)

• Peak: 176° F, fans about 3400 RPM
• Average: 173° F, fans about 2500 RPM (much quieter)
  
• Enclosure (bottom): warm to the touch
• Enclosure (top): warm to fairly hot to the touch

The usual Xbench tests are after the break.

• All machines tested with Xbench 1.3. Sorry, we didn't have a Mac Pro around.
  
• All machines tested were using Leopard (except the MBP in the center). MacBook uses 1GB RAM, Penryn MacBook Pro uses 4GB RAM.
  
• You can check the bold Xbench scores to compare the cumulative results for each test.

	MBP (2.5GHz Penryn)	Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo)	MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo)	MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger)	MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo)	iMac (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo)
CPU	169.23	79.98	90.06	112.93	126.66	138.58
GCD Loop	15.33 Mops/s	9.67 Mops/s	14.89 Mops/s	13.17 Mops/s	13.43 Mops/s	14.91 Mops/s
Floating Point Basic	3.37 Gflop/s	2.03 Gflop/s	2.34 Gflop/s	2.96 Gflop/s	2.95 Gflop/s	3.23 Gflop/s
vecLib FFT	3.93 Gflop/s	1.71 Gflop/s	1.68 Gflop/s	2.98 Gflop/s	3.36 Gflop/s	3.66 Gflop/s
Floating Point Library	36.64 Mops/s	12.82 Mops/s	15.78 Mops/s	14.15 Mops/s	17.80 Mops/s	19.43 Mops/s
Thread Test	275.13	148.81	185.75	219.18	186.4	208.77
Computation	6.93 Mops/s	2.77 Mops/s	3.36 Mops/s	4.04 Mops/s	3.58 Mops/s	3.56 Mops/s
Lock Contention	9.90 Mlocks/s	7.04 Mlocks/s	9.07 Mlocks/s	10.47 Mlocks/s	8.48 Mlocks/s	11.06 Mlocks/s
	MBP (2.5GHz Penryn)	Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo)	MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo)	MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger)	MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo)	iMac (2.4GHz)
Memory Test	168.11	140.42	129.56	137.1	150.23	150.82
System	183.01	143.51	139.25	126.92	158.95	151.56
Allocate	922.99 Kalloc/s	718.86 Kalloc/s	731.25 Kalloc/s	401.22 Kalloc/s	856.78 Kalloc/s	657.80 Kalloc/s
Fill	7424.09 MB/se	5770.30 MB/s	5565.31 MB/s	6490.47 MB/s	6480.99 MB/s	6606.88 MB/s
Copy	3522.10 MB/s	2802.78 MB/s	2652.96 MB/s	2954.03 MB/s	2914.92 MB/s	3014.12 MB/s
Stream	155.45	137.46	121.14	149.05	142.41	150.08
Copy	3059.86 MB/s	2621.64 MB/s	2400.99 MB/s	2923.94 MB/s	2799.64 MB/s	2926.68 MB/s
Scale	3008.89 MB/s	2602.03 MB/s	2412.90 MB/s	2918.16 MB/s	2797.66 MB/s	3022.24 MB/s
Add	3525.00 MB/s	3230.58 MB/s	2703.93 MB/s	3359.19 MB/s	3196.17 MB/s	3364.41 MB/s
Triad	3523.21 MB/s	3199.37 MB/s	2681.42 MB/s	3368.41 MB/s	3211.97 MB/s	3328.48 MB/s
	MBP (2.5GHz Penryn)	Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo)	MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo)	MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger)	MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo)	iMac (2.4GHz)
Quartz Graphics Test	198.29	96.89	144.23	141.5	154.32	193.4
Line	12.43 Klines/s	6.94 Klines/s	8.84 Klines/s	9.23 Klines/s	9.69 Klines/s	11.64 Klines/s
Rectangle	70.01 Krects/s	32.23 Krects/s	49.67 Krects/s	51.59 Krects/s	51.66 Krects/s	70.02 Krects/s
Circle	15.29 Kcircles/s	7.22 Kcircles/s	11.31 Kcircles/s	13.30 Kcircles/s	11.54 Kcircles/s	15.29 Kcircles/s
Bezier	4.92 Kbeziers/s	2.49 Kbeziers/s	3.58 Kbeziers/s	3.71 Kbeziers/s	3.79 Kbeziers/s	4.51 Kbeziers/s
Text	12.17 Kchars/s	5.53 Kchars/s	9.12 Kchars/s	6.65 Kchars/s	10.39 Kchars/s	12.66 Kchars/s
OpenGL Graphics Test	165.99	17.26	175.06	129.88	23.36	152.66
Spinning Squares	210.57 frames/s	21.89 frames/s	222.08 frames/s	164.76 frames/s	29.64 frames/s	193.65 frames/s
User Interface Test	326.63	105.81	217.79	303.98	244.28	335.18
Elements	1.50 Krefresh/s	485.60 refresh/s	999.54 refresh/s	1.40 Krefresh/s	1.12 Krefresh/s	1.54 Krefresh/s
	MBP (2.5GHz Penryn)	Air (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo)	MBP (2.16GHz Core Duo)	MBP (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, Tiger)	MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo)	iMac (2.4GHz)
Disk Test	33.08	24.05	27.59	38.13	39.64	80.72
Sequential	60.60	42.21	49.22	59.81	66.07	115.15
Uncached Write	52.17 MB/s [4K blocks]	30.96 MB/s [4K blocks]	31.32 MB/s [4K blocks]	42.60 MB/s [4K blocks]	53.34 MB/s [4K blocks]	72.17 MB/s [4K blocks]
Uncached Write	47.88 MB/s [256K blocks]	31.19 MB/s [256K blocks]	28.37 MB/s [256K blocks]	39.19 MB/s [256K blocks]	47.63 MB/s [256K blocks]	66.51 MB/s [256K blocks]
Uncached Read	9.89 MB/s [4K blocks]	7.27 MB/s [4K blocks]	12.11 MB/s [4K blocks]	11.59 MB/s [4K blocks]	10.83 MB/s [4K blocks]	27.81 MB/s [4K blocks]
Uncached Read	39.17 MB/s [256K blocks]	30.42 MB/s [256K blocks]	28.65 MB/s [256K blocks]	39.37 MB/s [256K blocks]	49.62 MB/s [256K blocks]	69.83 MB/s [256K blocks]
Random	22.75	16.81	19.16	27.99	28.31	62.13
Uncached Write	0.81 MB/s [4K blocks]	0.57 MB/s [4K blocks]	0.65 MB/s [4K blocks]	1.08 MB/s [4K blocks]	1.03 MB/s [4K blocks]	2.67 MB/s [4K blocks]
Uncached Write	18.56 MB/s [256K blocks]	18.35 MB/s [256K blocks]	17.49 MB/s [256K blocks]	19.24 MB/s [256K blocks]	22.73 MB/s [256K blocks]	48.45 MB/s [256K blocks]
Uncached Read	0.41 MB/s [4K blocks]	0.35 MB/s [4K blocks]	0.46 MB/s [4K blocks]	0.41 MB/s [4K blocks]	0.48 MB/s [4K blocks]	0.63 MB/s [4K blocks]
Uncached Read	18.44 MB/s [256K blocks]	13.28 MB/s [256K blocks]	15.08 MB/s [256K blocks]	16.33 MB/s [256K blocks]	19.31 MB/s [256K blocks]	27.08 MB/s [256K blocks]

[psyclotron Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:00PM]

lol. abuzar, none of us took you seriously to begin with i gotta tell you. i find it mothergrabbing hilarious that you're just egotistical enough to believe that we owe you some defense of why the OS we use is worth our time, especially when it's so completely transparent you're only here to troll in the first place.

but i'll give this much to ya; at least you're not pimpin your daddy's car dealership like you were the other day

[Abuzar Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:16PM]

I was pimpin YOUR car dealership.

lol

[MadMike Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:25PM]

I just got my new 17" MBP. 2.6Ghz, 4GB, 7200 rpm, 17" LED WUXGA and compared to my old MBP 2.33GHz, 2GB, 17" CCFL WSXGA+, 7200 rpm other than the screen and twice the memory isn't much.

The screen though... oh the screen.... The screen makes it baby! Did I mention the screen? It's real nice. 200GB is nicer than my 100GB - although I don't care much about laptop storage.

Don't really notice much in the way of heat either. My 2.33GHz isn't that hot. I've never burnt myself.

Uhm... Battery is better but honestly without a stopwatch - I didn't notice much. Although I only got my new MBP today.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:26PM]

@Shane Lloyd

Another good resource with a ton of reasons on why it's great to switch is http://switchtoamac.com

[psyclotron Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:29PM]

i feel kinda sorry for you -- stay in school kid. however i'll feel even sorrier for everyone else if your daddy gets you that BMW you're begging for as you oh so irrelevantly hijacked yet another post with.

but yeah, pimping is too cool of a word to ascribe to you. i should said whoring. or spamming. sphoring?

i see a career in telemarketing in your future.

[Chris8pie Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:31PM]

I don't get the picture though

[AJerman Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:41PM]

I'd close out of some processes and try again if I were you. If you have a C2D 2.6 getting a 136 on the CPU test, something is using some CPU. I get a 137 on my 2.2 GHz C2D in my Macbook. You should be a decent bit faster than me.

Actually, my 2.2 GHz MB is a little bit faster than a lot of the specs listed for a 2.2 GHz Macbook.

Quick rundown:
CPU Test: 137.35
Thread Test: 212.78
Memory Test: 158.20
Quartz Test: 174.74
OpenGL Test: 23.17
UI Test: 291.01
Disk Test: 38.41

[AJerman Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:42PM]

Whoops, I closed out for a second and when I came back I lost who I replied to. That was to michael.dekmetzian a few posts up the page.

[Abuzar Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:47PM]

Dude chill. I said I wish my dad would get one, nothing wrong with that. You're really defensive and you can get really insulting for no reason. I've been joking with you the whole time.

Experience in tele-marketing? Sounds Exiting!

Seriously though, I actually did the hackintosh thing on my computer and I was wondering why people thought it is so good. Maybe not the best place to ask...

[psyclotron Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:50PM]

haha.. way to play the victim card. next time you might wanna avoid obvious clues. here's a hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

[thousand Posted Feb 28th 2008 9:54PM]

i will say what nobody else will:

thank you for the useful, practical, "what the change really means to regular people" review.

Numbers may be nice, but this is the kind of thing that really matters, especially to somebody thinking about upgrading from a recent gen. (like me)

[Zoesch Posted Feb 29th 2008 12:26AM]

Same here... this looks to be a worthwhile upgrade from my old 2.33 C2D MBP

[Abuzar Posted Feb 28th 2008 10:01PM]

I'm not even going to look at that. How about you grow up?

Here are some tips for that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maturity_%28psychological%29

[CL Posted Feb 28th 2008 10:06PM]

It may be not as efficient because when you move to a new OS, you are going to have to unlearn something that's probably burnt into your memory for years. One of the biology labs in my school is equipped with iMacs and there is this TA that's been around for about a year now, but he still tries to use the machines like he's on Windows which of course will bring a lot of frustration. All I wanted to say is that you need to open yourself up, try to learn something new in stead of fighting it, and you will have a better experience out of it and you may ended up liking it too.

[blakis08 Posted Feb 28th 2008 10:38PM]

Wikipedia burn. OMG!

[demonicpascal Posted Feb 28th 2008 11:06PM]

For some reason that picture made me laugh uncontrollably. Most likely due to the fact that, after all the crazy speculation, thats probably the most significant change to the MBP refresh

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 29th 2008 3:57PM]

The independent, dependent, and the control for this test is all wrong.. they should all be running the same OS at least.. anyone agree with me on this one??

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 29th 2008 3:04AM]

Wow, that's terrible!

176F for the CPU is 81C, which is probably within the thermal spec for a Core 2, but it's still way too hot.

My ThinkPad T61 under full load (two instances of Prime95's stress test), with the older, hotter 65nm Core 2 Duo, peaks out at 68C, 13 degrees cooler than the 'newer, cooler' MacBook pro. It's quiet, too.

I wish I had results with the new T61 models that have the 45nm Penryn CPUs.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 29th 2008 3:28AM]

Fahrenheit, engadget??? I guess you people don't give a sh*t about the readers in the rest of the world.

[aard Posted Feb 29th 2008 6:09AM]

Agreed, is it so hard to use SI units?

[j3oomerang Posted Feb 29th 2008 5:32AM]

lol@blake

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 29th 2008 5:53AM]

My "Santa Rosa" Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro (Late 2007) has a 2.2 GHz processor, it's the 15" base model, and it doesn't really get hot at all. I'd say it's in-line with what is being said about the new "Penryn" MacBook Pro, if not slightly cooler (YMMV).

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 29th 2008 8:05AM]

Wow my macbook pro get hot when i run crysis :p (cpu melter)

Little rant.

Engadget and EVERYONE OUT THERE stop using Fahrenheit or Celsius its not an SI standard, KELVIN is the way to go.

The SI standards arent ther for you too wave at. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix

[xValentine Posted Feb 29th 2008 9:00AM]

Stupid Temperature you used there Engadget.

You should have just used Celcius so we don't have to go to Google and look for a converter..

[SSUK Posted Feb 29th 2008 10:08AM]

james c: Well, that's not exactly OSX though, is it? Moron.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 29th 2008 12:15PM]

NEED CELSIUS... NOT CRAPTARD SYSTEM PROOF... SYSTEM FAILURE... METERS LITERS CELSIUS GRAMS 230V. I'm saved. Rejoice! OOOh it's only a 10 degree celsius difference (90->80) wow fahrenheit does suck
(PS release the hounds)

[Wwhat Posted Feb 29th 2008 12:43PM]

hehe, yeah blog-commenting has replaced video editing as the new #1 (of the two things done on a mac).

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 29th 2008 3:26PM]

Retired (U.S.) physics teacher here. Kelvin forever. Let's be absolute in our temperature units.
My 2006 2.16 GHZx MBP never gets too hot to use on lap. CPU temp is not an issue, but bottom case temp is something to watch. No problems here, though.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 10th 2008 5:03PM]

that said it all 'kelvin forever' mr.dinosaur, try to keep up with world's standard.

[shoorty0690 Posted Mar 1st 2008 3:15PM]

I'm a little upset that a little more than 6 months went by and already my computer is outdated...
I bought the 1999$ macbook pro in the middle of august...and already theres a faster one that wont give my legs 1st degree burns.

[ran Posted Mar 1st 2008 4:57PM]

You should try the bottom of my Peryn. It will cook eggs.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 13th 2008 2:48AM]

eh my macbook is decked out with 4 gigs of ram and 250gig hdd. Average temps acheived as stated above @ 185 degrees. Thats with Parallels / itunes / Quake4 (mac)/ Adium / Wifi / and Opera. With cooling pad unit it operates at 160 degrees at load.

The real idea here is how cool can you get the hardware at load. All PC power users tend to over clock and cool it down with forced air, liquid, or phase change.

Now when do you expect to upgrade your burnt up macbook/mbp/ma ? Keep your investment cool! No not your status symbol$. Engineers tend to not really think about you and your lap on the couch or bed, bean bag. In the Tent in Yosemite park sleeping bag. They think about the cute lil chick in the college commons, libruary. :p

Good luck see you at the airport.