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Thanx, Guys! Just what I was waiting for. Impressive.

That was quick, well done Macworld!

Interesting to see the effect of the graphics cards on Frame Rate in gaming, given Apple's trumpeting of "Up to 3 times faster" graphics on their site. Of course, what you get out of the GPU depends on what you are doing with it, but I wonder if that will provide some anti Apple fodder for the PC crowd.

Nonetheless, I am getting a 15" just as soon as I see some reviews of the HiRes display option.

Couple of things,

Some of the math is off - Handbrake scores - your comparison

15" MacBook Pro 2.0GHz Core i7 quad-core = 238

15" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Core i5 dual core (2010) = 484

You say...
"The new MacBook Pro’s Handbrake time was 51 percent faster than the older system..."

NOPE

It does the same encode in 49.17% (1/2) of the time it takes the older model or written more clearly

It does the same encode 2.03 times as fast as the old model

or

103% faster than the older model

Also you guys have some odd numbers in the itunes encode of the old MBP 13" Core2Duo

13" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo = 226

13" MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo = 132

That's a huge difference in time for a small boost of processor speed? Is this hard drive or Ram related?

Also, since all Macs listed have 64 bit processor and can run Snow Leopard, why are you using the old version of Handbrake? I understand that you don't have all of the old Macs but is anyone really going to run old Handbrake on the new Macs. Could you at least put in an additional column for tests with the current version.

Thanks for the tests

PS
Hate the chart design

Wish you included the 2.3ghz i7 BTO in there. There's plenty of people who seem to be able to pick them up at their local retail outlets, but not me I am trying to figure out whether or not it's worth the wait of a few days and the cost of a couple fancy dinners for two.

Ditto Spacepower's comment about the "chart design." I should not be forced to horizontally scroll to see everything. Or is there a better chart waiting for us when we upgrade to "Macworld Insider" status?

I also would have liked to see the QuadCore i7 iMac on the chart too (even if it is a BTO system -- it's still popular and should be on the chart).

This is a nice speed bump processor wise. Sandy Bridge is a nice update. The graphics results from the 13" models aren't unexpected. I'm still a little annoyed that Apple expects users to drop $2200 on a laptop to get decent gaming performance. I wonder when the new updates will filter down to the consumer models...

The original review of the previous generation 13" MBP is here:
http://www.macworld....spring2010.html

There are significant differences between the numbers reported then and now. AAC to MP3 was 9s (~10%) longer for the 2.4, but now it's 94s (~71%) longer. HandBrake encoding went from 9s (~5%) to 265s (~54%) difference.

Have the tests changed so drastically, or are the new versions of the software that much worse? It's hard to get a good sense of how much better the new systems are when the data is so inconsistent.

I just received on Wednesday my brand new 17" MBP I ordered last week....got off the phone a few hours ago and setup the return and ordered my new one! Can't wait!

Would be useful if the results showed comparison against the previous two generations of Macbook Pro's. I have the 15" pre-unibody and it's difficult to judge as the speedmark tests were different.

I know it's going to be faster, but I would imagine the majority of people upgrading will be doing so from a 3 to 5 year old machine, not a 12 month old one so there would be more relevance to the majority of your readers.

Agree with Maxer and Spacepower: the charts are difficult to read. There is simply too much data of different types being compared in each table. Having some columns where the lowest score is fastest right next to columns where the highest number is fastest compounds the problem.

It would be helpful to put these scores into context. Many of us have two and three year old machines and it would be nice to see what value we would be getting by upgrading.

I concur with the suggestion that you test the BTO quad-core i7 iMacs. The improvements in the quad-core i7 MBPs suggest that the difference between the quad-core i5 and i7 iMacs is significant enough to be worth your time and trouble. Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm just glad to see the Core i3 iMac I just bought is still a strong performer in the group. It's a big improvement over my 2 year old unibody aluminum MacBook 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo.