2011 MacBook Pro (4-core i7-2720 2.2GHz) vs 2008 Mac Pro (8-Core Xeon E5462 2.8GHz)

[nabiti]

OK,

So I was all set to get a used Mac Pro tower for audio production off ebay thinking it will easily outperform any laptop. I currently have an early 2008 MBP Core 2 Duo (3288) and on Mac Benchmarks a 2.8GHz early 2008 8-core gets almost triple the score (9105). No brainer right?

Well I've just checked Benchmark scores and the latest 17" MBP has a higher score than the old 8 core - 10045. Is i7 really that powerful? A 4-Core is faster than an 8-core Xeon??

Price wise a new MBP straight from Regent Street is not much more than a used Mac Pro, especially when I consider I would have to buy an additional cinema display for use with the tower, the price then is nearly the same.

Having a brand new laptop obviously wins, the only thing that could limit me there is the number of connections. My current MBP has all ports constantly connected plus there's a powered USB hub with three more devices connected on one of them. The other issue is HDD space and speed. I'd be going for 2TB at least with a tower, and would be limited to 750GB and 5400rpm with the laptop....


Hmmm... opinions peeps?

 

[Mackilroy]

Synthetic benchmarks, while nice, don't tell everything. That Mac Pro will trounce the MBP in anything that is heavily multi-threaded, and it also supports much greater expansion.

 

[mulo]

Synthetic benchmarks, while nice, don't tell everything. That Mac Pro will trounce the MBP in anything that is heavily multi-threaded, and it also supports much greater expansion.

where as the MBP will triumph in mobility and battery life

 

[Mackilroy]

As the desktop doesn't have a battery in the sense that the MBP does, that one's obvious.

nabiti was primarily asking about performance though, and neither mobility or battery life directly impact that.

 

[derbothaus]

The processor is only part of the story. I don't like the heat and the fan noise of trying to use a laptop as a "hard working" machine. I wouldn't get the 2.8GHz MP anyway. Get the 3.2GHz Xeon and above. It is faster or at least on par with the laptop proc and all the other case benefits.

 

[nabiti]

Well I got neither of these, but instead a nice unused iMac with an i7 CPU that whoops the old 8-Core on benchmarks... plus it's around the same price as a used MP and there's a sexy LED 27" monitor for Logic Pro to stretch on and short videos to be played on in breaks (church videos).

 

[sbaik]

Macbook pro is much much faster...but

I was in same dilemma i had the mac pro 2.8 2008 and then i decided to buy the new macbook pro 2.2 17"....i've tested so many things on both machines including photoshop, Aperture and final cut (sorry i didn't test any audio software)....and the macbook is really really fast it outperformed the macpro in all tests...the point is there r big differences in the results, sometimes its 10% faster and sometimes its 300% faster!! yeah 300! for example this was in adobe acrobat pro...generally speaking the macbook feels very responsive...I'll keep testing things and update u

 

[beto2k7]

I was in same dilemma i had the mac pro 2.8 2008 and then i decided to buy the new macbook pro 2.2 17"....i've tested so many things on both machines including photoshop, Aperture and final cut (sorry i didn't test any audio software)....and the macbook is really really fast it outperformed the macpro in all tests...the point is there r big differences in the results, sometimes its 10% faster and sometimes its 300% faster!! yeah 300! for example this was in adobe acrobat pro...generally speaking the macbook feels very responsive...I'll keep testing things and update u

you tested apps that don't scale to well among many CPU's. So IMO it's not a fair test.