I'll wait until the new barefeats comes out before I even consider it but here's what they say so far.
October 15th, 2008 -- Performance Analysis of the new 13" MacBook:
1. The integrated GeForce 9400M graphics processor should be a big improvement over the integrated Intel GMA X1300 from the previous model. Apple claims up to 5 times faster.
2. Up to 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo with big improvement in frontside and memory bus speeds. Nice storage options including SSD.
3. It's the closest Apple has come to a MacBook with MacBook Pro performance. But, for some reason, they omitted the FireWire port. Pro users who prefer a small Apple laptop for video field work are mourning its loss.
October 14th, 2008 -- Performance Analysis of the :
1. The GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor runs 3DMark 43% faster than the 8600M GT used in the "early 2008" MacBook Pro. As soon as our test unit arrives we'll run our whole suite of graphics tests and post results.
2. The Core 2 Duo processor (available in up to 2.8GHz) has a frontside bus that's faster than the previous model (1066MHz vs 800MHz) and a faster memory bus (1066MHz vs 667MHz). With those specs and a fast hard drive, it should match or beat the top-of-the-line iMac. (We have the iMac 2.8GHz in our lab so we'll be testing that hypothesis.)
3. It's nice to have the Solid State Disk Drive (SSD) option but, though our tests showed it to be faster than a 7200rpm Notebook Drive for small random reads, it was slower for small random writes and large sustained reads/writes. Plus it's $450 more and holds much less than the 320GB 7K HDD we ordered for our test unit.
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