Review and Benchmarks: Apple 13-Inch MacBook

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Hardware Review

Review and Benchmarks: Apple 13-Inch MacBook

7/9/2007

By David Nagel

Test 1: A 4,000 x 4,000-pixel document was created, and on this document I applied 47 commands, including 28 individual filters and 19 image adjustments, layer and canvas transformations, and various other actions.
Test 2: A 2,000 x 1,500-pixel document was created, with a variety of commands applied, including several canvas- and layer-based transformations in succession.
Test 3: An 800 x 600-pixel document was created, and to that document every filter that ships with Photoshop was applied, with the exception of Reduce Noise and Displace. The test also included transformations, selections, fills, and the manipulation of text.

The story was similar with Adobe Illustrator. The MacBook fared well against other systems except in the case of the second test.

For the first test, I ran a series of transformations on an object that had a gradient applied to it. This included duplicating, rotating, and moving the object so that, in the end, I wound up with 3,721 gradient-filled objects spiraling out from the center of my canvas. Almost needless to say, this is an extremely taxing sequence of operations.
Test 2 involved 3D objects with complex shading. The objects were transformed, aligned, rotated, and duplicated multiple times.
For the final test, I created and duplicated more simple objects, then aligned and transformed them several times, rasterized them, and finally applied some Photoshop filters to them.

With After Effects, I ran the latest Intel-native version of Adobe's motion graphics suite on the latest MacBook and compared it with performance on other systems running After Effects 7 in their native environments (Windows on Intel-based Macs and on the quad Opteron system and Mac OS X on PowerPC-based systems). All tests gauge rendering and encoding (QuickTime) performance only, not GPU performance.

Test 1 was a cel-style animation that involved a PICT file and tracing paths.
Test 2 was a composite scene using several effects. Some systems could not complete this test, and I have indicated that in the results with an "NA."
Test 3 used Photoshop and Illustrator images in an animation and used 3D effects and random sequencing of numbers across the screen.
Test 4 is a 2D composite from an Adobe Illustrator document rendered out at 720 x 486.
Test 5 used a 3D composite comprising various 2D shapes undergoing transformations over time.
Test 6 used a 3D environment created entirely in After Effects from 2D images, animated and rendered to the QuickTime format.

Apple Final Cut Studio
Now, before I get started with Final Cut Studio benchmarks, I have to put in my standard disclaimer. Apple does not officially support Final Cut Studio on 13-inch MacBooks. Yes, Final Cut Studio can be installed and run on a MacBook, despite hat some reseller will tell you, and, yes, it runs it pretty well compared with some older systems. My advice, however, is that if you intend to use Final Cut Studio on a regular basis, you ought to invest in a MacBook Pro or a desktop/workstation system--something, at least, that Apple supports.