How is this Mac Book beating this IBM ThinkPad?

[Saga]

Short and sweet explanation, I needed to determine through numerous benchmarks (Prime, Sandra, etc) what would be more beneficial. A $2300 MacBook Pro that can run XP/Vista via Parallels and/or Boot Camp, or a $2800 IBM Lenovo T60p for developer level applications.

During the course of my testing, the single most shocking thing about these two machines was the following:

IBM T60p vs. Mac Book Pro

Given the fact that the T60p has 1GB more RAM (and it's faster - DDR2 800mhz vs the Mac Book Pro's 667mhz DDR2) what could be causing such a huge disparity in these numbers?

Both machines were brought up side by side on drivers, and all updates/software.

Guess I'm a little boggled by this one.

 

[airhd823]

CPU?

 

[Saga]

Same processor, as listed in the images.

 

[airhd823]

o

 

[Saga]

Is the FireGL causing the bottleneck, or something else?

 

[ribbon13]

Perhaps a chipset bottleneck of some kind?

lol, your doing 3DMark (gaming) benchmark and comparing a FireGL card to a gaming Radeon..

Where are the SPECapc benches?

 

[rivan]

The IBM in power saving mode or something? The "Internal Clock" shows 418 mhz for the T60, and 2.13 Ghz for the Mac.

More telling, I think, than the 3DMark difference, is the CPUMark difference.

 

[Saga]

It's using the standard default throttling. When it needs full power it cranks it up, when it idles it reduces the FSB. This works great to conserve battery life. Both were tested on full power.

 

[dorion]

It could easily be the drivers, no reason to optimize the FireGL for 3DMark tests, you have much better choices like what ribbon13 suggested.

 

[bob4432]

have you done a comparison with other running the same cards? you make it sound like you are comparing like items, but you are not, so this is not a fair bechmark....

i wonder how it would be if i compared my x1800xt to a agp 4x 64MB mx440....

 

[firebyyrd]

i gotta update my T40p to that baby >.<

but.. it costs as much as a bike, now that's harsh

 

[Oyeve]

Well, your running a 3d benchmark. I bet if you ran a GL bencmark the outcome would be different. Do some photoshop tests.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Originally posted by: rivan
The IBM in power saving mode or something? The "Internal Clock" shows 418 mhz for the T60, and 2.13 Ghz for the Mac.

More telling, I think, than the 3DMark difference, is the CPUMark difference.

That's the problem. My dad has a T60, and I had to manually set the power saving features (maybe even make a new profile?) so they only turned on when it wasn't plugged in.

 

[SparkyJJO]

It is a mac, its teh bestest, thats why!! Haven't you seen teh mac commercials? mac is eleventybillion times better than a pc!!!!11one!!

/sarcasm

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Zaitsev

Originally posted by: rivan
The IBM in power saving mode or something? The "Internal Clock" shows 418 mhz for the T60, and 2.13 Ghz for the Mac.

More telling, I think, than the 3DMark difference, is the CPUMark difference.

That's the problem. My dad has a T60, and I had to manually set the power saving features (maybe even make a new profile?) so they only turned on when it wasn't plugged in.

recently i updated my t42 w/ the new lenovo update and it changed all kinds of stuff in the power settings - had to manually change it all back. kind of a pita as it didn't tell me it was going to change it...

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Zaitsev

Originally posted by: rivan
The IBM in power saving mode or something? The "Internal Clock" shows 418 mhz for the T60, and 2.13 Ghz for the Mac.


recently i updated my t42 w/ the new lenovo update and it changed all kinds of stuff in the power settings - had to manually change it all back. kind of a pita as it didn't tell me it was going to change it...

Yeah, I did the same to my T42 and it even changed the onscreen Intel logo!

 

[thirdlegstump]

Macintosh tends to be more optimized especially for hardware intensive applications and benchmarks are no different. The PC hardware was probably underclocked a bit as they tend to crash easily. You're just seeing one of the many reasons why Mac hardware (and software) is better built.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Macintosh tends to be more optimized especially for hardware intensive applications and benchmarks are no different. The PC hardware was probably underclocked a bit as they tend to crash easily. You're just seeing one of the many reasons why Mac hardware (and software) is better built.

WTF are you talking about?

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Macintosh tends to be more optimized especially for hardware intensive applications and benchmarks are no different. The PC hardware was probably underclocked a bit as they tend to crash easily. You're just seeing one of the many reasons why Mac hardware (and software) is better built.

WTF are you talking about?

Hes half right. Mac SW works right because its programed right. Most mac software runs from one executable, unlike windows software which throws crap all over the place. The HW is all the same. Only difference is the firmware geared to only be used by Mac because the OS is programmged that way. Its actually very efficient.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Macintosh tends to be more optimized especially for hardware intensive applications and benchmarks are no different. The PC hardware was probably underclocked a bit as they tend to crash easily. You're just seeing one of the many reasons why Mac hardware (and software) is better built.

were you saying that when they were using the powepcs? it is easy to build software when you know all the variables, just like console gaming - easy to build a 360 because they are pretty much standardized vs thousands if not more pc configs...

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Macintosh tends to be more optimized especially for hardware intensive applications and benchmarks are no different. The PC hardware was probably underclocked a bit as they tend to crash easily. You're just seeing one of the many reasons why Mac hardware (and software) is better built.

were you saying that when they were using the powepcs? it is easy to build software when you know all the variables, just like console gaming - easy to build a 360 because they are pretty much standardized vs thousands if not more pc configs...

PowerPC is not really a factor, the OS is. In Tiger, the drivers are already there for thousands of HW and SW devices. You dont see it unless you have the SW and/or HW. Mac has done a phenominal job in their OS. Especially in 10.4 and higher. 95% of all Mac os 10.4.x problems are associated with the user ID. It is RARELY the OS or SW. Unlike in Windows were anything can get corrupt, its nearly imposible to hose 10.4.x unless its intentional.

 

[piasabird]

A better operating system.

Windows is probably a giant resource hog. Windows is designed to have confuscated code that programmers and system software designers do not understand because Microsoft goes out of their way to hide what is going on. This makes it hard for people to build networking and server software that will work with a Microsoft operating system.

It is my guess that MAC software is not designed in this manner.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Oyeve

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Macintosh tends to be more optimized especially for hardware intensive applications and benchmarks are no different. The PC hardware was probably underclocked a bit as they tend to crash easily. You're just seeing one of the many reasons why Mac hardware (and software) is better built.

were you saying that when they were using the powepcs? it is easy to build software when you know all the variables, just like console gaming - easy to build a 360 because they are pretty much standardized vs thousands if not more pc configs...

PowerPC is not really a factor, the OS is. In Tiger, the drivers are already there for thousands of HW and SW devices. You dont see it unless you have the SW and/or HW. Mac has done a phenominal job in their OS. Especially in 10.4 and higher. 95% of all Mac os 10.4.x problems are associated with the user ID. It is RARELY the OS or SW. Unlike in Windows were anything can get corrupt, its nearly imposible to hose 10.4.x unless its intentional.

what i am saying is that when apple started to use the intel cpus, the they beat their powerpc speeds, but when they were using the powerpc they claimed it superior to intel, which in fact it was not and that was clearly illustrated by apple themselves

and to say pc hardware is underclocked is just an ignorant statement. the benchmark was over so the pc throttled back down to it power saving speed.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Oyeve

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Macintosh tends to be more optimized especially for hardware intensive applications and benchmarks are no different. The PC hardware was probably underclocked a bit as they tend to crash easily. You're just seeing one of the many reasons why Mac hardware (and software) is better built.

were you saying that when they were using the powepcs? it is easy to build software when you know all the variables, just like console gaming - easy to build a 360 because they are pretty much standardized vs thousands if not more pc configs...

PowerPC is not really a factor, the OS is. In Tiger, the drivers are already there for thousands of HW and SW devices. You dont see it unless you have the SW and/or HW. Mac has done a phenominal job in their OS. Especially in 10.4 and higher. 95% of all Mac os 10.4.x problems are associated with the user ID. It is RARELY the OS or SW. Unlike in Windows were anything can get corrupt, its nearly imposible to hose 10.4.x unless its intentional.

what i am saying is that when apple started to use the intel cpus, the they beat their powerpc speeds, but when they were using the powerpc they claimed it superior to intel, which in fact it was not and that was clearly illustrated by apple themselves

and to say pc hardware is underclocked is just an ignorant statement. the benchmark was over so the pc throttled back down to it power saving speed.

Getting too technical there. Macs are simply better built. That's all there is to it. Done.

 

[ForumMaster]

cause the graphic cards aren't the same? also, since you are obviously using bootcamp, apple wrote the drivers for their hardware. since they have full control of the hardware, they can optimize the drivers.