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Performance

Macworld Lab tested the new MacBooks with version 5 of Speedmark, the latest incarnation of our standard performance benchmark test. The results showed moderate yet impressive gains--for example, the black 2.4GHz MacBook scored more than nine percent higher overall than its 2.2GHz predecessor. The 2.1GHz MacBook showed an almost eight percent improvement over the 2GHz MacBook it replaces. Perhaps most interesting, the 2.1GHz MacBook scored one point higher overall than the older 2.2GHz black MacBook, even with a slightly slower processor speed.

In our other tests, the 2.4GHz MacBooks consistently outperformed the old 2.2GHz MacBooks (except for a one-second lag in our Photoshop test) by as much as 12 percent, although sometimes by just a single second. Some of the better results came with processor-intensive multimedia programs. Compressor and Cinema 4D XL performed very well, and HandBrake testing showed the 2.1GHz MacBook besting the previous high-end MacBook by nearly seven percent. The 2.1GHz MacBook beat or tied the older 2.2GHz MacBook in five of the eight additional tests.

Unreal Tournament 2004 frame rates for all new MacBooks improved negligibly and still lingered under 30 frames per second--not the kind of thing that will cause gamers to pick up a new MacBook. By contrast, the new 2.4GHz MacBook Pro pumped out more than 2.5 times as many frames per second as the 2.4GHz MacBooks, benefited by a much heftier graphics processor that includes 256MB of dedicated video RAM (and a heftier, $1,999 price tag, I might add).

In my hands-on testing, launching programs took slightly longer on the slower, 2.1GHz MacBook than on the 2.4GHz MacBook, especially with lots of applications running. Part of this can be attributed to the 1GB RAM that ships with the $1,099 model.