Old MBP vs new MB speed Q

[Reginald Perrin]

Hi,

This is a very basic question.

I've just got a new midrange MB as a backup for my 6 month old MBP. As it happens, they both have the same processor (2.16) and 2GB RAM.

The new machine is really quite a lot faster when it comes to opening apps etc. (eg. opens Word in about half the time)

My question is, if filled the MB HD (also same size at 120GB, MBP = Hitachi, MB = Fujitsu) to the same extent as the MBP and put on the additional applications (Virex, Corel suite, and something called systems biology workbench), would they then run at the same speed or is there something slowing my MBP down that I can do something about?

Thanks

 

[Sopranino]

Hi,

This is a very basic question.

I've just got a new midrange MB as a backup for my 6 month old MBP. As it happens, they both have the same processor (2.16) and 2GB RAM.

The new machine is really quite a lot faster when it comes to opening apps etc. (eg. opens Word in about half the time)

My question is, if filled the MB HD (also same size at 120GB, MBP = Hitachi, MB = Fujitsu) to the same extent as the MBP and put on the additional applications (Virex, Corel suite, and something called systems biology workbench), would they then run at the same speed or is there something slowing my MBP down that I can do something about?

Thanks

Errr, Virex??, Why are you running a virus scanner in OSX? Are you possibly connected to a Windows intranet and having a scanner is required? If not then there should not be any reason to use a virus scanner on a UNIX box.

As well Virex is a McAfee product and their scanners, while being okay at what they do, are nasty in terms of hogging system resources. McAfee scanners intercept every single read/write to a file and scans before allowing the file to activate. If you are currently running McAfee in your MBP and not your MB that would probably explain the performance difference.

Sopranino

 

[Reginald Perrin]

Thanks for that.

I don't know why I'm running virex, my IT guy put it on there when I got the computer. The MB will get it on Monday. I do connect to a University network which I would have thought might be a 'windows intranet' but as you can tell, I'm not really up on these things.

Sopranino, is it the case that when using broadband at home I don't need Virex and if so, do you know if i can turn it off so that I can stop it hogging system resources?


Thanks

 

[Jestered]

Sopranino, is it the case that when using broadband at home I don't need Virex and if so, do you know if i can turn it off so that I can stop it hogging system resources?


Thanks

I don't use any virus software in OS X (most people in the know don't) so I cannot tell you for certain that you can turn it off, but every virus app I have ever seen can be turned on/off. You need to launch the app and have a look around to disable it.

As far as the difference in the MB and MBP, there may not be a huge dif, but the MB has to share RAM with the GPU and the MBP does not. There are obviously more difs than that, but that is probably the biggest one. The MBP should be faster than the MB. You may not notice it in everyday use, but...

 

[Igantius]

As far as the difference in the MB and MBP, there may not be a huge dif, but the MB has to share RAM with the GPU and the MBP does not. There are obviously more difs than that, but that is probably the biggest one. The MBP should be faster than the MB. You may not notice it in everyday use, but...

The only time the MBP would be faster is when GPU intensive apps are used.

If you're comparing an 6 month old MBP with a new MB, with both the same RAM, processor speed, FSB and L2 cache, then they're going to have basically the same processing power when using CPU-intensive tasks.

As way of illustration:
http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=43717

A 2.16GHz MBP compared to a 2.0GHz MB - their FCP performance is basically identical, but with Motion you can see the benefit of a dedicated video card.

In the OP's case, I would expect the MB to be nippier because the HD is fairly empty and possibly because Virex is on the MBP.