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From the Lab The latest hardware reviews and testing straight from Macworld Lab
First Look: Apple Thunderbolt Display
The Apple Thunderbolt Display may just be the cleverest display ever. Macworld Lab received our new display Friday morning, and we immediately set out to test the new features.
The Apple Thunderbolt Display connected to a MacBook Air. A Thunderbolt RAID array (the Promise Pegasus R6, right), and a FireWire 800 RAID array (the Promise SmartStor DS4600, left), are connected to the display.
The $999 Thunderbolt Display’s specifications are impressive, but not much different from Apple’s 27-inch LED Cinema Display () released last year. Both feature LED backlit displays with a resolution of 2560-by-1440 pixels, the same brightness rating of 375 cd/m2, MagSafe power connector for charging a laptop, and three USB 2.0 ports. The Thunderbolt Display has a FaceTime HD camera, while the Cinema Display has an iSight camera.
The Thunderbolt Display (right foreground) has more connectivity options than the Cinema Display (left background).
Thunderbolt: Lion v. Snow Leopard lab results and more
With Speedmark 7 development behind us, Macworld Lab can once again focus on other Mac-related performance stories. On the top of the list of projects is a follow-up on previous Thunderbolt performance stories (Thunderbolt versus FireWire and USB 2.0, Target Disk Mode and more). This time around, we look at Lion versus Snow Leopard performance, MacBook Air performance, and update our eSATA comparison results using a 6Gbps ExpressCard from StarTech.
In our testing, we used the Thunderbolt-equipped Promise Pegasus R6. We also used a Promise SmartStor DS4600. (We don't have access to a non-Thunderbolt to an array that's similar to the R6.)
Snow Leopard versus Lion
Our first few lab reports on Thunderbolt were done before Lion was released. Now that Lion has been released upon the Mac world, we ran tests to see if the operating system affects performance. We tested a Thunderbolt-equipped 17-inch MacBook Pro with a 256GB SSD with Snow Leopard and then with Lion.
Performance wasn't affected much by the new operating system. Each of our six tasks were a megabyte or two per second slower under Lion when testing eSATA speeds. Results were mixed on the Thunderbolt tests, though, with half of the tests (AJA System Test read, 2GB file read and write) speeding up under Lion and the half of the test slowing down a bit.
Macworld's new Speedmark 7 benchmark suite: How fast is your new Mac?
Now that the Mac OS has entered the Lion era, its time to bring Macworld’s overall system performance test suite, Speedmark, up to date. With this latest version, Speedmark 7, we’ve updated all of the applications to their current versions, increased files sizes that some tests use, and changed our 3D game test to a more recent title.
One thing that doesn’t change is 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini from 2010 that serves as Speedmark’s baseline system to which each Mac’s performance is compared. By keeping the same “100” system as the previous version of Speedmark, it should be easier to compare older systems tested with Speedmark 6.5 to the systems tested with the new Speedmark 7.
Speedmark 7 scores
Which system was the best overall performer? Look no further than our Speedmark 7 score, which combines the performance scores from all of the tests and boils them down to one number.
From the Lab: Core i7-powered Mac mini offers iMac-like performance
Want iMac-like performance, without having to buy an iMac? You can get such a machine from Apple if you customize the new Mac mini. Macworld Lab has tested a build-to-order (BTO) Mac mini, and the results in some of our tests are very close to that of a standard configuration 21.5-inch 2.5GHz Core i5 iMac ().
The BTO Mac mini we tested doesn’t come cheap, however. To put together the machine, we took the standard configuration 2.5GHz dual-core Core i5 Mac mini (), and upgraded the processor to a 2.7GHz dual-core Core i7, which adds $100 to the original $799 price. We also replaced the standard 5400-rpm 500GB hard drive with a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD), which costs $600. That brings the total price of the BTO Mac mini to $1499, which is $300 more than the 21.5-inch 2.5GHz Core i5 iMac. (Both the BTO Mac mini and the standard-configuration iMac had 4GB of RAM during our benchmark tests.)
Macworld Lab tested the BTO Mac mini using a subset of our Speedmark 7 benchmark suite, which is currently in development as we adjust our testing to account for Mac OS X Lion. While we don’t have an overall Speedmark 7 score yet, we see in the individual application results that the BTO Mac mini beat the 21.5-inch 2.5GHz Core i5 iMac in five of our 12 tests. Not surprisingly, the BTO Mac mini with its SSD blazed past the iMac in disk-intensive tests such as the 2GB folder duplication (31 percent faster) and 4GB file unzip (42 percent faster). The BTO Mac mini also beat the iMac in our 4GB zip test (5 percent faster), our Pages import Word doc test (20 percent faster), and our Parallels WorldBench multitask test (4 percent faster).
Review: Canon Pixma MG5320 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-In-One Printer
The ability to print on specially coated CDs or DVDs is still pretty rare. The Pixma MG5320 comes with a caddy that inserts into a slot above the output area; also included is an adapter for 3.15-inch discs. Canon offers no on-machine storage for the caddy, which is inconvenient. And the disc-printing process involves a specific sequence of steps that is confusingly covered in two places: under the loading/unloading media discussion in the Printing section of the documentation, and under the layout and printing explanation in the documentation for the bundled Easy-PhotoPrint EX software. The printer also takes a few minutes to prepare itself to print on a disc.
Paper handling is generous for an MFP in this price range. The MG5320 has a bottom drawer for holding up to 150 sheets of letter-size plain paper; a rear, 150-sheet vertical tray takes everything else. Duplex (two-sided) printing is automatic. The 50-sheet output tray is adequately sized, and it opens automatically when you send a print job. Other features include both USB and wireless connectivity, a USB/PictBridge port, and slots for MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick, and SD Card.
The scanner lid incorporates the control panel, which includes a 3-inch, tiltable color LCD. Navigation is a little more complicated than usual: A scrollwheel moves through menus, and an OK button chooses an item. Canon also adds three function buttons for selecting items that show at the bottom of the display. The overall setup feels like a few too many buttons—but as with many things, once you get used to the arrangement, it’s workable.
Review: WD My Passport Essential portable hard drive
Western Digital’s My Passport Essential is a portable hard drive that fits easily into your jeans pocket. It’s simple to use, really quiet, and offers read speeds that closely rival other drives in its category.
Shaped like an iPod classic and with rounded corners for a clean look, the device measures 4.3 by 3.3 by 0.5 inches and weighs just 0.4 pounds. Only three clues let you know you’re dealing with an external drive: the Western Digital logo on the bottom right corner, a pinhole-sized activity light on the left, and the USB 3.0 port on the bottom.
While I like the shiny plastic casing that houses the drive inside, it’s unfortunately prone to smudges and scratches. A variety of cases are available for the drive, including the WD Nomad Rugged Case. Western Digital offers the drive in five colors (black, blue, red, silver, and white), but only in a 500GB capacity. Western Digital also includes a USB 3.0 cable (which you can plug into a Mac’s USB 2.0 port), a two-year limited warranty, and technical support and warranty information.
Lab tests: Build-to-order Core i7 MacBook Airs
How fast is a MacBook Air when it's powered by an Intel Core i7 processor? Now that we've posted performance reports for the standard-configuration MacBook Airs, it was time to turn our attention to testing the optional, build-to-order (BTO) configurations of Apple’s latest line of ultra-portable computers.
The brains of the mid-2011 MacBook Airs are ultra-low-voltage Intel Core i5 processors: in the 11-inch model it runs at 1.6GHz, and in the 13-inch model it's 1.7GHz. Macworld Lab ordered both an 11-inch and a 13-inch MacBook Air with faster 1.8GHz Core i7 processors. Upgrading the 11-inch 128GB model to use the Core i7 processor will cost you $150. Upgrading the 13-inch will set you back $100. So what does the extra money buy you in terms of performance? (Keep in mind that the stock Core i5 processors in the Airs already include Hyperthreading and Turbo Boost, two performance-enhancing features, so the difference between the original and upgraded processors is mostly slightly greater clock speed and 1MB more L3 cache.)
The 11-inch upgrade
As you might expect, the slower processor on the base 11-inch model provided more room for overall performance gains than the slightly faster 13-inch model. So here's what happens when you spend $150 to upgrade the 11-inch MacBook Air to the Core i7 processor: Our Cinebench CPU and file compression tests ran 21 percent faster, our iTunes encode went 19 percent faster, and our HandBrake test went 14 percent faster. (It's even more impressive when you compare these speeds to the 2010-model 11-inch Air with its 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor: The Core i7 11-inch was about 2.8 times as fast as that model in our HandBrake and Cinebench CPU tests, 2.5 times as fast in our iTunes encode, 2.4 times as fast in our 4GB Zip test and 2.2 times as fast in our Pages test.)
Lab tests: New MacBook Airs zoom past predecessors
Macworld Lab has received and benchmarked every standard configuration of the new Core i5 MacBook Airs released last week. We’ve found that the new processors push the Airs to new performance heights.
While we continue to work on Speedmark, our overall system performance benchmarking suite, to take advantage of Lion, we’ve been running a preliminary set of tests on all of the new Macs and a set of older Macs to use as baseline results.
The results for the new $999 entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air with a 1.6GHz Core i5 processor, 2GB of RAM, 64GB flash storage, and the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 (which is found across the new MacBook Air lineup), show the system to be more than twice as fast at many processing tasks than the previous entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor. The new entry-level Air was 2.4 times faster in Cinebench CPU, 2.3 times faster in HandBrake, and took exactly half as long to convert files from AAC to MP3 in iTunes. Duplicating a 2GB folder was 18 percent faster, zipping a 4GB folder was 46 percent faster, and unzipping the same file was 29 percent faster. While iMovie export on the new entry-level Air was 32 percent faster, importing the footage from a camera archive was 7 percent faster on the older model. Also faster on the older model was Call of Duty and Cinebench OpenGL frame rates, due to the 2010 model’s faster Nvidia GeForce 320M integrated graphics.
Comparing the new entry-level Air to the next step up the product line, an $1199 11-inch MacBook Air with the same 1.6GHz Core i5 processor, but with twice the RAM and twice the flash storage capacity, we see very subtle performance differences—most tests were just a few seconds faster on $1199 system. HandBrake was 4 percent faster on the $1199 Air, while Cinebench CPU and Call of Duty scores were identical between the two.
Lab Report: Huge speed gains for new Mac mini
Based on Macworld Lab's benchmark results, the new Mac mini models provide a great leap in processor performance over the previous generation. The new Mac mini was unveiled on Wednesday, and Macworld Lab has been testing the new machines that come with Lion and Core i5 processors.
The new Mac mini is available in two standard configurations: a $599 model with a 2.3GHz Core i5 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor; and a $799 model with a 2.5GHz Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and discrete AMD Radeon HD 6630 graphics. These two models replace a single $699 Mid-2010 Mac mini () model that had a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and Nvidia GeForce 320M integrated graphics.
We’re busy putting together a new version of our Mac system performance suite, Speedmark, but its not quite ready yet. The current version, Speedmark 6.5, was created using Snow Leopard and uses older versions of applications. New Macs ship with Lion, so instead of downgrading the new Macs to try and run Snow Leopard (if that’s even possible), we have updated 10 of our tests to run on Lion using the latest versions of the applications that make up Speedmark.
It should come as no surprise that the new Core i5 Mac minis beat the pants off the 2010 Core 2 Duo Mac mini in processor tests. With Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost in the Core i5, the new 2.5GHz Core i5 Mac mini was more than twice as fast the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini in our Cinebench CPU test and HandBrake MP4 encode. The new 2.3GHz Core i5 Mac mini was 46 percent faster than the older 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini on our Cinebench CPU and 45 percent faster in our HandBrake encode test.
Lab Report: More Thunderbolt speed results
Thunderbolt is quite fast, as our lab has experienced first hand. In our ongoing look at Thunderbolt performance, we tested two more configurations, as requested by Macworld readers. The first involves the new Promise Pegasus R6 Thunderbolt array configured as a RAID 0; the second is with Target Disk Mode using Thunderbolt. (Previously, we compared Thunderbolt and FireWire 800 speed. We also looked at Thunderbolt and eSATA.)
RAID 0 vs. RAID 5
When we first looked at how Thunderbolt performance compares to FireWire 800, we used a new Promise Pegasus R6 Thunderbolt array configured as a RAID 5. The results were impressive, but readers wanted to know what the performance would be like if the Pegasus R6 was configured as a RAID 0.
The Pegasus R6 is pre-formatted as a RAID 5 array, which offers speed as well as the security of knowing that any one drive in the array can fail and data will not be lost. RAID 0 (also known as a striped array) can be faster, especially when writing, but if any of the drives bite the dust, you lose all of your data.
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