Fastest Vista notebook is a Mac

"Fastest Vista Notebook AS TESTED BY PC WORLD"

Clearly there are faster notebooks out there. The T7700 and 8600M GT are not the fastest parts in their respective categories, so it makes no sense for a laptop based upon them to be "the fastest" unless using qualifications like "within a certain price range" or "within a certain form factor" or any number of other items.

No doubt Apple will get the first Penryns too I imagine.


....except that a notebook full of standard x86 bits and running Windows isn't a Mac anymore, it's a PC. Jolly well done to Apple for manufacturing an IBM clone 25 years after everyone else did it!

I can't wait to spend drastically more money on a machine that runs Vista faster than much less-expensive machines that have more than one mouse button and a delete key!

Does anyone else find it a bit ironic that the new Macbook Pro uses a GPU that has hardware features that specific to Vista's DX10, and OS X can't even use?

BTW, It is a fast notebook, but is not the 'fastest'. The 'trick' in the review is that it is the 'fastest' DX10 notebook they have reviewed. Note the GPU consideration and why they 'reference' Vista specifically.

There are several faster notebooks that are considered 'old' with 7950GTX GPUs and even SLI Dual 7900/7950 GPU notebooks in the PC market, but they are not DX10 GPUs, so they don't qualify. 

It appears they also haven't reviewed a high end gaming laptop with the 8700M GPU, which is faster than the 8600M.

Well I'm glad that's settled!

The speed authorities over at PC World have spoken - we can all move on.... 

Except for the fact that the 8600 gt isn't Nvidia's high end notebook video card (as claimed).... It wasn't "top-of-the-line" at the time this review was published either. Details, details....

How do these things get past the editors over at PC World? They should hook up one of those "internet connection thingies" and do some fact checkin' ... 

WorldBench 6 BETA, beta being the key word - who uses WorldBench besides PC World!?

Why would apple not be able to use "DX10" features AnthonySPT? those features named after DX are just features that are compatible with specs set out by MS, and the first demos nvidia showed of the "DX10" features were written in.. OpenGL I could not help notice.
Or are you joking about the lack of gamesupport on macs? that would be a fair point, except they can use some of the features for the fancy 3D effects on the desktop I guess, using their own software routines.

An idiot commented "Does anyone else find it a bit ironic that the new Macbook Pro uses a GPU that has hardware features that specific to Vista's DX10, and OS X can't even use?"

There are no Vista DX10 specific features built into GPUs. It is the other way around.

Mac OS X can use all those features via OpenGL just like Windows XP can and does.

actually we have a toshiba at frys that has dual 8600's and ive seen a couple quad core's with 8800's in sli.... so yeah just fastest theyve reviewed i'm betting ~_~

It's obvious most of these comments come from people w/no experience with a Mac. The lamest PC user trash talk is the right click thing. go to the apple website and look at any new mac and or mouse, guess what? Two buttons! Plus a tack wheel! even the touchpad on a macbook/macbook pro is easier to use. you just click with two fingers on the trackpad to "right click" and you can scroll by moving two fingers across the pad in any direction, instead of two buttons and a scroll pad on one side.

The reason one would spend twice as much for a Mac than for a PC with similar numbers is not just to run XP or Vista better than any PC notebook, but because it runs OSX Leopard, Which is far ahead of Vista in every way, and the iLife software for film, picture, and sound editing not to mention all the other mac software, the kind of things PC users don't even know they're missing included with the machine that you don't have to pay for or delete. It just works, and that can be said about the Macbook Pro and OSX Leopard. It just works, and if you want to deal with Windows, and spyware, and viruses, and registry problems, and on and on and on, you can just boot it right up.

Sure there are ways to fix these things, but that means buying software and doing constant maintenance. not to mention constant security updates for Windows, Spyware blocker, Virus Blocker, on and on and on. Don't people want a machine they can just use?

I am both an A+ certified PC user and A MacBook Pro user.(The one in the review only 15" instead of 17") I can easily say The Macbook Pro in every way blows away the gaming PC I built less than a year ago. It did cost more than the gaming PC though.

One reason apple computers may perform better than other machines with the same or better cpu and gpu it the quality of the Ram, motherboard and chipset and all of the components that go into a computer. From the fit and finish to the hardware to the software, apple computers are extremely high quality compared to the average notebook or desktop.

The MacBook Pro is definitely worth the extra cost.

I have used PC's including IBM, Dell, Compaq, Toshiba, HP, self built over the last 23 years or so. I bought a Mac Mini G4 just to test the waters. The test was successful but not very fast. Since that time I have purchased an Intel MacBook and I must say it behaves much better than any other laptop I have owned. It just works the way you expect it to, every time. I doubt I'll run Vista since it's a client OS but I do run Win2K and Win3k server in VMWare's Fusion and again, it just works, every time. I really can't believe the difference. Maybe it's the components. Maybe since the software and hardware are designed, tested, and released together makes the difference. I really don't care. It just works, every time. Apple is back and better than ever before. 
Next time I will most likely purchase another Mac even if it happens to not be the fastest at running Vista.

lol i like how the last comment just pointed out exactly the slow transition of a mac into an Apple-brand PC

The fastest notebook tested by PCWorld is the Alienware Area-51m 5750 Test Report (Feb06,2007):

http://www.pcworld.com/product/specs/id,29392/alienware_area51m_5750.html
Performance: 98
PCW: 82

MacBook Pro:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135062-page,1-c,notebooks/article.html
Performance: 89
PCW: 81

The fastest notebook is a PC - not a Mac. Even using a slower processor, Alienware trouces MacBook Pro.

I already sent an e-mail to PCWorld showing them their error and I expect they publish the true.