May 05, 2010, 9:44 PM — Apple's latest 17-inch MacBook Pro--released as part of last month's laptop overhaul--offers an impressive mix of price savings and performance gains over the 17-inch model it replaces.
To recap the recent changes to Apple's MacBook Pro line--which also included new versions of the 13-inch MacBook Pro as well as revamped 15-inch models--the new 17-inch looks identical to the $2499 17-inch MacBook Pro released last year. But that's only the outside--inside the new laptop, a 2.53GHz Intel Core i5 replaces the 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo used previously. Also new to the 17-inch model are updates to the dual graphics processors and the way you switch between them. The Nvidia GeForce GT 330M takes the place of the Nvidia GeForce GT 9600M processor as the higher-powered discrete graphics option. Intel HD graphics are now used as the lower-powered, energy-saving integrated graphics option, replacing the Nvidia GeForce 4200M used in the late 2009 17-inch MacBook Pro. As with the latest 15-inch MacBook Pros, a new automatic graphics switching technology seamlessly switches between the graphics processors depending on the needs of the applications currently running.
The number, type, and placement of ports remains the same on the latest 17-inch MacBook Pro, as does the model's 1400-by-900 resolution glossy screen with LED backlighting, 4GB of RAM, the 500GB 5400RPM hard drive, and its captive battery.
Performing artist
Given that the most significant changes to the 17-inch configuration take place under the hood, let's focus on performance. Using our Speedmark 6 system performance benchmarking suite to compare the new $2299 2.53GHz Core i5 model to the $2499 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo model it replaces, we found the i5 model to be nearly 12 percent faster than the more expensive Core 2 Duo model.
The new system made its biggest gains in processor-intensive tasks like Cinebench, which showed the new model to be 22 percent faster than the previous 17-inch offering, and MathematicaMark 7, where the new model beat the older system by 30 percent. The new MacBook Pro imported photos and built thumbnails and previews in Aperture 21 percent faster than the older model. Other tests, however, like Photoshop, zipping and unzipping files in the Finder, and iMovie exports showed little or no difference between the new and previous 17-inch MacBook Pro models.
Aside from the screen size and an extra 256MB of graphics memory, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro shares nearly all of the same specifications of the $1999 15-inch MacBook Pro, right down to the 2.53GHz Core i5 processor that powers each laptop. It's no surprise, then, to see that the two models performed very similarly--in fact, results were within one to two seconds of each other in more than half of the individual tests that make up Speedmark 6, including Photoshop, Cinebench, Mathematica, iMovie import, iTunes, iPhoto, Pages, and Handbrake. We found the biggest difference in our Compressor test, in which the 17-inch 2.53GHz Core i5 model was 10 percent faster than the 2.53GHz Core i5 15-inch MacBook Pro. (That 15-inch model hasn't fared well in the Compressor test for whatever reason; you may remember that it was also out-performed by the new 2.4GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro in that same test.)
But the 17-inch MacBook Pro couldn't top another 15-inch configuration--the $2199 model that runs on a Core i7 processor. That 2.66GHz Core i7 chip bested the 17-inch MacBook Pro and its 2.53GHz Core i5 processor by about 5 percent in our Speedmark 6 tests, with Cinebench and MathematicaMark showing the biggest differences. The two systems were neck and neck in our Handbrake, Finder unzip, iMovie, and iPhoto tests.
