Craig Wood posted some early benchmarks from MacBook Pro's that were on display at Macworld SF. Readers should note that these are pre-production MacBooks so performance may not be reflective of production models due in mid February.
- MacBook Pro Core Duo 1.83 GHz, 2 GB DDR2, ATI X1600 Mobility 128 MB @ 1440x900 - January 2006 Preproduction
- PowerBook G4 15" 1.67 GHz, 1.5 GB DDR, ATI 9700 Mobility 64 MB @ 1280x854 - January 2005
- PowerMac G5 Dual 2 GHz, 2.5 GB DDR, ATI 9800 Pro 128 MB @ 1680x1050 - July 2003
- PowerBook G4 Titanium 500 MHz, 768 MB SDRAM, ATI Rage 128 Mobile 8 MB @ 1152x768 - January 2001
The overall results of this analysis indicate that Apple's new MacBook Pro is an improved machine in many ways. While some areas are yet to be examined, it is safe to say that the new MacBook is Apple's fastest laptop yet.
Areas tested include iTunes encoding, Quicktime Encoding, and Quicktime Playback (1080p, 720p).