My equipment

I own a Mhackintosh desktop, with 4-core at 3.4Ghz, 8GB RAM, 2×1TB hard-drive in RAID-0 for system, music, photos, 2TB for video storage, GeForce 8800 GTS (CUDA & OpenCL development!), internal Blu-Ray/DVD; I also have a MacBook Pro 17″ dual-core 2.8Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 7200rpm hard-drive with GeForce 9400M and GeForce 9600M GT (also CUDA and OpenCL development!).

These are great computers, and there are tasks that are really heavy for my laptop, such as Full-HD video encoding. I just confy them to my desktop under OS X or Windows 7, so my laptop is mainly used with netBeans (Java), MySQL, PHP, Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, and many many open browser windows with FireFox, Safari or Chrome.

Heavy tasks are not the matter…

This is the point, not what is an heavy task, but what slow me when I want to have things done. Full-HD video encoding doesn’t slow me, albeit it’s the heaviest task I do: I put my desktop computer at work during the night, and forget the task, or even in daytime, using my laptop instead. So it’s not a matter of how heavy is a task, it’s more a matter of slowdown I encounter on my work, or how many time a task takes me to be completed.

What is slowing me down on my laptop?

On my day to day use, there’s many software that are slow, many of them because they are mono-threaded, as FireFox or Adobe Photoshop (main tasks are mono-thread, some rare filters multi-threaded), some other because of physical hard-drive being painfully slow, such as launching my applications on the morning (Mail+FireFox+Safari+NetBeans+…), browsing a huge photo library on Adobe Aperture (that is multi-threaded!), …

So we have 2 categories of slow-down: mono-threaded applications (or essentially mono-thread) and hard-drive bandwidth limited applications.

What could I do to make them faster?

For mono-threaded applications, you could just put a processor with higher frequency (or efficiency at same frequency), but to add core or thread won’t help, they don’t even use correctly a dual-core CPU, they usually are 32bits instead 64bits! Maybe the best is to choose a multi-threaded compatible application, or wait for the application to be optimized or rewritten?

For hard-drive bandwidth limited the solution is simple, put a faster hard-drive, but I have done that with an upgraded 7200rpm instead basic 5400rpm hard-drive. If rich, simply drop an SSD instead, it will do the job really faster. Just I couldn’t do that for my photo libraries, there’s no 512GB SSD available there! (And if it was, I couldn’t afford it)

Why I don’t bother 4-core or 4-thread mobile CPU?

It’s because there’s hard-drive bandwidth limited application where faster CPU won’t help in any way, and the other applications I am already awaiting dual-core support from them. A simple good support of my Core2 Duo mobile CPU will boost them with 60% to 90% faster speed, and it’s enough for me, at least now.

If application like FireFox or Photoshop CS4 were optimized to 64bits, it will offers me a 10% direct boost on performance, as stated by GeekBench. 10% is going from 2.8Ghz to 3.06Ghz equivalent for free!

If they were rewritten to support multi-threading on my simple dual-core dual-thread Core2 Duo, I would expect another boost ranging from 50% to 70% more. With the 64bit-support it will be a total 60% to 90% boost on performance, that will change my life as a Mac user!

I don’t care hyperthreading or 4-core new MacBook Pro, I just need correctly written 64bits multi-threaded applications to have my *ACTUAL* laptop flying high! And having 4-thread on Core i7 or even a 4-core Core i7 QM won’t help, these mono-threaded poorly written applications will just use 1-core, 1-thread, and leave more of what I paid for (Intel CPU) useless!

So, please Mozilla, please Adobe, rewrite your applications, go to 64bits Cocoa, multi-thread your code, make our actual laptop shine and reveal their real power!

The graphic just to have an overview on 32bits (blue) and 64bits (green) :

Core i3 Mobile

The Core i3 mobile cpu is available in 2×2.13Ghz and 2×2.26Ghz, with 2 physical cores and 4 threads (hyper-threading) but only 3MB cache. They offers approximately the performance of Core2 Duo 2×2.53Ghz and 2×2.66 Ghz respectively, that is speed of mainstream actual MacBook Pro in 13″ and 15″, at the entry-level of the new Mobile lineup!

Core i5 Mobile

The Core i5 mobile cpu is available in 2×2.26, 2×2.4Ghz and 2×2.53Ghz, with 2 physical cores and 4 threads (hyper-threading) with 3MB cache as Core i3, but they add Intel Turbo-Boost technology, with respectively 2×2.53, 2×2.93 and 2×3.06Ghz. Latest model (Core i5 540M 2×2.53 to 2×3.06Ghz) have not been tested on Geekbench, so there’s no result at this time.

Turbo-boost enable the entry-level Core i5 Mobile processor to largely outperform the Core i3 Mobile of same frequency, offering performance between actual Core2 Duo 2×2.8Ghz and 2×3.06Ghz! First Core i5 Mobile equal the best Core2 Duo Mobile CPU, at only 2×2.26Ghz so needless to say, Core i5 is the way to go, if possible to upgrade your laptop.

2×2.4Ghz with Turbo-boost up to 2×2.93Ghz just outperforms any existing Mobile Mac CPU…

Core i7 Mobile

The Core i7 Mobile CPU will be available on 2×2.66Ghz on Mac laptops with 2×3.33Ghz Turbo-boost, as other Core i mobile cpu, it integrates 2 physical cores and 4 threads with hyper-threading, it have the more impressive Turbo-boost, and sports 4MB cache instead 3MB.

This is a real fast processor with 4900 GeekBench score on 32bits and 5500 on 64bits, offering a 12% boost on 64bits due to it’s larger cache, and 20% faster than 2×3.06Ghz Core2 Duo Mobile.

Which one of these you will find on February 16th, 2010 MacBook Pro?

The early-2010 MacBook Pro lineup is expected this next tuesday, and we won’t be sure of which one will sport which processor, but some choices are obvious:

MacBook Pro 13″ will be offered with Core i3 Mobile processor in 2×1.13 and 2×2.26Ghz, offering same cpu performance-level of actual MacBook Pro 15″ 2.53Ghz and 2.66Ghz. For thermal reason we might not see the Core i5 on 13″ MacBook Pro.

MacBook Pro 15″ will sport the Core i5 processor at 2.26Ghz, 2.4Ghz and 2.53Ghz, offering performance level on a par with 2×3.06Ghz actual customized MacBook Pro, and over! Core i7 maybe offered as a custom option.

MacBook Pro 17″ will probably sports Core i5 2.53Ghz and Core i7 2.66Ghz as custom option, maybe 2.8Ghz if Apple overclock the Core i7 as it did for some previous generations. The 17″ will probably offers 4 DDR3 DIMM support to be upgradeable up to 16GB DDR3 RAM!

Depending on the configuration the CPU performance-level will increase from 10% to 25%, for same price-level… Considering Apple pricing, it’s a gift of $200 to $300! So wait until tuesday to discover the new Mac lineup, and probably new ATI Radeon Mobile GPU too

A last word: with these dual-core 4-threads cpu, the MacBook Pro will reach the performance-level of original Mac Pro, sporting 2 dual-core server-grade CPU! And I find it exciting!

The Geekbench 32bits score associated with this hypothetical MacBook Pro 6,1, equipped woth Core i7-620M Mobile processor is strangely high: it’s 10% over other Geekbench 32bits scores of the same processor under Windows. On other CPU, scores tends to be similar between Mac OS X and Windows, and somewhat even better on Windows computers!

So this might be a prototype of Apple, but it’s more likely an overclocked laptop PC with Mac OS X installed (a hackintosh), as the Mac OS X distro is a current one, and not an internal Mac OS X version, as it is usually the case with new Apple products.

Also notice that the 10.6.2 doesn’t support the GMA HD integrated with new Core ix Mobile CPU, so it’s unlikely that this “MacBook Pro 6,1″ is an Apple product. But Apple will probably unveil new MacBook Pro unibody lineup within Q1′2010 anyway with Core ix CPU.

If you don’t need fast hard-drive in RAID, ability to put more than 16GB RAM (that is plenty of RAM even by today’s standards) or ability to have fastest graphic card (OpenCL oriented, like GeForce 8800, GT120 or GT130), the new 27″ iMac Core i5 is a fantastic performer with the right price tag!

I knew for sure the iMac Core i5 will beat the quad-core Mac Pro, and I am not deceived this time